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The Current Transcript for November 27, 2017

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

ROBOT: [Indistinct speech] Hello. Hi Anna Maria. Woah.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Did you catch that? That is Cosmo, a robot, a toy and it knows my name. It can play games, appear to be sad, throw a tantrum, be happy to see me. AI toys are increasingly sophisticated and engaging; Their makers say your kids might think of them as a pet and electronic companion. Others worry they'll encourage emotional bonds that are false. On this Cyber Monday, we're asking are they fun or fraud? And then:

SOUNDCLIP

Very simply, how many people in this situation have come in over the last two years and how many are under 24 hour surveillance?

AMT: Conservative critic Michelle Rempel on the question of who and how many are back in Canada after actively supporting ISIS abroad. As the power and territory of the so-called Islamic State evaporates, Canadian fighters and their supporters have and are returning, maybe with kids. So how does Canada deal with those who chose to travel abroad for the specific purpose of supporting a violent and unforgiving ideology? In half an hour three big thinkers on this issue weigh in. And:

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The patients that I saw down the hallway was sexually assaulting me from the back. I said “stop” the patient in front of me that I was treating proceeded to comment said “boy if I were you would do the same thing.”

AMT: A few weeks ago that physiotherapy assistant sat across from me and detailed ongoing abuse from patients, an example of the level of violence and health work. A new study tries to understand the underlying reasons and what to do about it. We'll hear about that in an hour. We're also talking coffee today, Colombian coffee, because although it is among the world's best Colombians couldn't buy it for a long time. Instead they got substandard beans from elsewhere and horrors they developed a taste for instant coffee. I know we're all over that today. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

THE CURRENT | Would you let your kids play with AI robots?

Guests: Mark Humphrey, Stefania Druga, Sherry Turkle

SOUNDCLIP

[Robot sounds]

ROBOT: Hey, Human. What are you doing here? Oh I guess I am not dreaming anymore. Want to hear what I was dreaming about?

VOICE: Oh I was just thinking about how the toilet paper roll is so perfectly designed.

AMT: Well they can appear to have dreams and thoughts much like you and I. They are also watching movies with your family, reading to your children even taking naps with them. Robotic toys with artificial intelligence are in high demand these days, especially as the holiday season ramps up as they become more sophisticated. However, questions are emerging about the consequences both good and bad of children interacting and bonding with them. Mark Humphrey is the Canadian spokesperson and director of sales for Anki robotics the Silicon Valley robotics company that invented Cosmo the robot. He joins me in our Toronto studio. And of course he is with Cosmo. Hello to you both.

COSMO: [Robot sounds] Hello. Hi Anna Maria.

MARK HUMPHREY: Good morning.

AMT: So Cosmo is speaking to me?

MARK HUMPHREY: He is yes he is. He's saying your name which I've programmed into it. But Cosmo will actually learn your name through facial recognition and recognize you every time you play with him. So he will greet you by name when he sees you from now on.

AMT: And Cosmo is a male?

MARK HUMPHREY: Yes. Cosmo's a male.

AMT: Can I make Cosmo a female?

MARK HUMPHREY: If you would like. Yes.

AMT: So I expected you to come in here with this giant robot and you have this tiny little mechanical device. Can you describe this robot to me?

MARK HUMPHREY: Yes. I mean really he's sort of the size of an adult first and that's for a specific reason. That reason is to make sure that he is not seen as too big for a child. So we want him to be a small size where the child feels comfortable playing with Cosmo and not intimidated by size.

AMT: So this is a toy that is the size of - it looks like a miniature bulldozer really. It's got tracks to move around and then you have what would be the cab of the bulldozer is actually a tiny screen, with what looked like two squares but they look that they're looking at me. They look like eyes.

MARK HUMPHREY: That's exactly it. So really the key to Cosmo is the personality. So Cosmo's personality is really one of a kind. And it continues to evolve. The more you hang out and play with them as a key to bringing out that personality is obviously is physical actions but also his eyes. The way that he communicates through his noises and especially his eyes is key. And so what we did is actually hire some experts from Pixar to really bring out that animation and bring out the character and personality through his eyes.

AMT: So this is kind of like almost trying to bring to life a character like WALL-E in a Pixar movie?

MARK HUMPHREY: That is exactly it. Yes.

AMT: Okay, and so how is this little robot created?

MARK HUMPHREY: Yes so it's really a mixture of a physical toy. So Cosmo itself the physical toy but you interact in play with Cosmo through the free app on your mobile device. So I've got my iPad here with me and I'm interacting through the iPad and through the Cosmo app to play with Cosmo. So it's a really interesting mixture of both the mobile device, which obviously kids are incredibly interested in, but more so you know the older physical toy and really the main interaction is with Cosmo itself the physical toy.

AMT: And how does that work? So I can talk to it. I can say hello Cosmo.

MARK HUMPHREY: Yes you can say hello Cosmo.

AMT: I'm looking at it and kind of [unintelligible].

COSMO: [Robot sounds] Hi Anna Maria.

MARK HUMPHREY: [Chuckles]

AMT: Cosmo, you know my name. So what else would Cosmo learn about me? If I have this and I'm going to play with it, would it be able to interact with me more?

MARK HUMPHREY: Yes really the more you play with it and hang out with it the more it evolves and the more personality comes out. So the more it understands what you like to do, what games you like to play. You know when you play games against it, it'll learn how you play those games and it'll actually get better at playing those games, the more it plays with you.

AMT: So that's all it's all collecting the data and it's basically then goes forward from there. But this is said to have a mind of its own. It has a personality. It can have a tantrum. It can…

MARK HUMPHREY: Yes that's the AI coming out. And so the more it evolves it's almost like it's feeling more comfortable with you and it is showing you more and more of its personality.

AMT: Do you have kids?

MARK HUMPHREY: Yes two boys seven to nine and they absolutely love Cosmo.

AMT: So what do they do with Cosmo?

MARK HUMPHREY: Well you know it's interesting because I find it's actually kind of replacing screen time a little bit. You know instead of playing on the iPad or Xbox, you know they come home and they ask about Cosmo. So they're wondering what Cosmo was up to today and really that's the personality speaking.

AMT: Do you worry at all about your kids sort of bonding with a robot?

MARK HUMPHREY: No I don't. I mean certainly there has become more of a bond between my kids and Cosmo. But it's a fun playful relationship just like it is with you know the dog that we have. So I don't worry about that at all because I see the joy that they get from it and how it's grown, but also how they can just shut it off at any time and go outside and play like they do every day.

AMT: And what draws people to AI toys like this?

MARK HUMPHREY: Well it's different than a toy where a physical toy where it's not going to change over time. And it's different than other electronic toys because of the personalities. So we really wanted to bring the personality out so people could feel a connection with it and not feel intimidated by electronics and tech but really have a comfort level with tech.

AMT: I'm sitting here looking at this it really does look like little eyes.

COSMO: [Robot sounds]

MARK HUMPHREY: [Chuckles] So right now he's a little sad because I'm not playing with him.

AMT: Okay. Let me see that. The little head tilts down, the arms fall. Okay. Well we have other people waiting to talk to us about this so we'll let Cosmo go for now. Cosmo is about to fall off the table [laughs]. Mark Humphrey thank you for coming in.

MARK HUMPHREY: Thanks for having me, appreciate it.

AMT: Mark Humphrey the Canadian spokesperson and director of sales for Anki Robotics. He and Cosmo are in Toronto. My next guest has studied how children perceive and interact with AI devices. Stefania Druga is a research affiliate in the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab. She's also the founder of HacKIDemia global organization that encourages kids to become passionate about STEM subjects. And we reached her in Tallin, Estonia. Hello.

STEFANIA DRUGA: Hi. How are you doing?

AMT: I'm well. First of all as you were listening to Cosmo, what were you thinking?

STEFANIA DRUGA: Oh it was familiar because I used it during my studies.

AMT: So let's talk about your study. How did you conduct it?

STEFANIA DRUGA: Yes so we had 26 participants, children from three to 10 years old together with their parents that came to our lab at MIT. And we had them interact with various intelligent agents and toys like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, Cosmo, also Chatbots. The most surprising finding of the study was that older children from six to 10 predominantly say that these devices are more intelligent than they are even, if they could ask questions very fast that would block these agents. And younger children from three to six were not so sure how intelligent these devices are.

AMT: So tell me more about how they interacted with the devices.

STEFANIA DRUGA: Yes so we had different islands and the children were distributed randomly to all these different islands. Each island had a different device and then they spend on average like 15 to 20 minutes asking questions, playing games. They would ask their devices all sorts of questions like: How old are you? Can you eat? Can you help me find my favorite store in the city? Or playing games with Cosmo, playing games with Julie Chatbot. It was interesting to see how different it was for children to engage in conversations with devices that were talking in a more informal way. So Julie Chatbot was one of their favorite devices because it would speak like a normal person speaks. With the other devices it was more difficult because every single time they had to say the key word like to wake up the device which is not something that comes naturally in a conversation. So another thing that we observed is that a lot of times children wanted to teach things to these devices. They wanted to teach their name or their favorite color. So they felt the need to have like a real conversation with these agents. And unfortunately the way these devices are designed for now it's very transactional. So sometimes children get frustrated because of that.

AMT: Interesting. And did they want to be their friends? Did they see them as a machine?

STEFANIA DRUGA: Yes so most of the participants saw them as friendly and even when we asked them like “is it a friend? Is it more like a teacher or like a parent?” They were actually asking the same question to the device. So they were asking “Hey Google who was your best friend?” and then Google said “Oh it's hard to pick but if I had to I would pick you,” and then all the kids were like “Aw.” So it shows. What are the you know the danger and also the potential for engagement with these devices for young people, and it also shows how important it is for families to be involved because a lot of the times children would mirror the way parents to this device or parents ask questions. So it's not just engaging with children but actually engaging families.

AMT: So talk to me a little bit more you say the potential and the dangers. Let's first talk about the potential. What did you see as the potential?

STEFANIA DRUGA: What I saw is the potential is the fact that children were really excited by the possibility of having an imaginary friend. They could tell stories to. They could ask questions. They told us they don't want these devices to replace their friends or their family but that they would really like to have this imaginary friend. In terms of dangers I think it's a big danger is like to have misconceptions and trust too much when the device is saying. How can we raise more awareness among children and parents around where the results are coming from, or when should we trust them or not. And I think that's like a big questions for the device manufacturers and for policymakers. This question of how do we take these black boxes and transform them in transparent bandboxes. That can explain their reasoning too to their users. In a way that promotes critical thinking.

AMT: And children become attached to all sorts of toys; dolls and different things like that with you know faces and personalities that they can put on them. Is this different?

STEFANIA DRUGA: Yes so it's interesting because I thought about this a lot and there are multiple studies that show people even anthropomorphize computers or if you think about Alexa or Google home is just sitting down with a speaker. But it is part of our way of making sense of the world, to attribute agency. And I think no matter what shape or form factor these devices will have, if they have a voice for example, we will attribute a lot of agency to them.

AMT: Well thank you for your time and your work.

STEFANIA DRUGA: Yes thank you.

AMT: Bye bye.

STEFANIA DRUGA: Bye bye.

AMT: Stefania Druga is a research affiliate in the Personal Robots Group at MIT Media Lab and she's also the founder of HacKIDemia. We reached her in Tallin, Estonia.

SOUNDCLIP

Hi. I'm nervous. I mean I'm Debo. I am your first robot. I woke up for the very first time just 33000 milliseconds ago and already I can't wait to know everyone.

AMT: Well that is Jibo billed as the world's first family robot and one of Time magazine's top 25 inventions of 2017. Cynthia Breazeal created Jibo. She's director of the personal robots group at the MIT Media Lab.

SOUNDCLIP

CYNTHIA BREAZEAL: So when you think about how do you make something humanized, there's many many different layers of it. So there's the engagement, the mechanics of the interaction which is the voice, what you say but it's also how it moves and responds, that's how it proceeds your social cues and how it responds. And we know a lot from human social psychology this is where this engagement and the sense of reciprocity comes in. So you feel like you're actually talking to someone than a something.

AMT: And that for some is exactly the problem. Sherry Turkle is professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT and she is the director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. She's in Boston. Hello.

SHERRY TURKLE: Hello. Lots to ask you. I'm just going to pick up on the last thing that we heard in that clip though, that you feel that you're talking to ‘someone’ rather than a ‘something’. What do you think of that?

SHERRY TURKLE: Well I think it's that deception that I think we need to look very carefully at because simulated feeling is not feeling and simulated love is never love. It never gives real empathy. And what these robots are really tapping into is simulated feeling and simulated empathy. And I think we're playing with fire as we offer them to our children because it's as though we're embarking our children onto a giant experiment in which they are the human subjects. And I think we're on dangerous terrain. I've been studying this from Furbies and Tamagotchis and really the kind of the first sociable robots out and I do see dangers.

AMT: Well talk to me a little bit more about that because I was thinking of the - how do you say that - the Tamagotchi? That was the little egg, right?

SHERRY TURKLE: Tamagotchi is a little egg. And I learned that from the Tamagotchi you could learn so much about what the problems are with these much more sophisticated robots. Because the Tamagotchi asked you to care for it. That was its essential thing. You had to take care of it all day and so much so when children are attached so much to it that they would leave the Tamagotchi with their parents, so the parents could care for it during the day. And that was the essential that if a robot asks you to take care of it. If a robot asks you to teach it. And that's what all of these robots do. They ask you question. They make it seem that there's a [unintelligible] there, that there's a self there and they ask the child to engage with that. Because when a child meets a robot that asks the child to take care of it or nurture it, and the child will connect to that robot - and I think that's what you've been hearing from your past two guests - the child will connect to that robot as though it were a person. And that's dangerous because you've essentially fooled the child into thinking that this object has other emotional characteristics that a person has. And it doesn't. What these robots do is tap into our human vulnerability to take something that's inanimate and not just see it as smart but see it as sociable and caring about us. And the way it does that is by saying things like ‘I've been dreaming about you. I know your name’ or ‘I'm hurt’ or ‘I have feelings’ or ‘tell me a story’ or ‘I understand hurt’ or ‘I understand pain’ or ‘I'm sad’ or ‘I'm...’ These are things that children recognize as human things. They're not animals things.

AMT: Kids speak to their stuffed animals. They name them they develop emotional ties. They have imaginary friends.

SHERRY TURKLE: Yes. Well I've studied this at length because I've compared children's relationships with that whole world of inanimate toys with how they relate to sociable robots. And here's the difference: When a child takes a Barbie and give it a personality or a stuffed animal and give it a personality, what the child is doing is projecting onto the toy his or her emotional conflicts, his or her emotional issues. So for example if a girl has just broken her mother's china she will put her Barbies in detention. [Laughs] You know, the Barbies are lined up in detention. The Barbies have been bad. These toys are different because these toys come to the party which personalities of their own.

AMT: So what advice do you have for those parents whose children want these AI toys or for those parents who are introducing these AI toys to their children?

SHERRY TURKLE: If you feel compelled to have one of these in your life, talking to your child, being with your child when you're playing with it, talking about how you know trying to make it an educational experience about how it doesn't - when it says it loves you - it does not. Really we're going to be surrounded by things are going to be telling us they love us, they care about us. They want to be our friend and they don't have the capacity.

AMT: Sherry to what we have to leave it there.

SHERRY TURKLE: Okay.

AMT: Thank you for your insights.

SHERRY TURKLE: My pleasure.

AMT: Sherry Turkle professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT and the director of MIT's Initiative on Technology and Self. She joined us from Boston.

SOUNDCLIP

[Robot sounds]

AMT: Cosmo your time is up. That is Cosmo again. We want to hear what you think about toys such as Cosmo. Would you consider getting one for your child? Have you? You can see Cosmo on my Instagram AMTremonti. How comfortable are you with the idea of your children developing a bond with a robot? Is there a value to playing with AI toys? Weigh in on this. Tweet us. We are @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Send us an email from our site cbc.ca/thecurrent. The CBC News is next. And then there is a former ISIS recruit living in the Toronto area. This de-radicalization expert met him and says there is nothing to worry about.

SOUNDCLIP

He's not a public safety threat. I believe he's largely self de-radicalized.

AMT: The government says there are dozens of fighters who have returned to Canada from foreign battlefields. In our next half hour we will hear concerns that the government's not doing enough to track them or to keep us safe. We're asking about that. I'm Anna Maria from Auntie. This is The Current on CBC Radio 1, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca/thecurrent, on podcast and on your radio app.

[Music: Theme]

What should Canada do with foreign fighters who return home?

Guests: Lorne Dawson, Phil Gurski, Craig Forcese

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come. Two out of three health care workers in Ontario say they've been insulted by the people for whom they care. We'll hear the call to better protect nurses and other workers from their own patients. But first they've laid down their arms abroad and come back to Canada. The question is what to do with former ISIS fighters and supporters who live in our midst. It's an urgent one and Canadians want answers.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: So very simply how many people in this situation have come in over the last two years and how many are under 24 hour surveillance?

[Cheering and applauding]

VOICE 2: The fact of the matter is the number released by CSIS two years ago, was in the order of 60 and they have confirmed that that number remains essentially the same today. [Chatter] Whenever the security and police forces of our country recognize a threat, they take all the appropriate measures to deal with that threat, Mr. Speaker. It would have been helpful in these circumstances if the previous government had not cut a billion dollars from those services.

AMT: That is the Minister of Public Safety, Ralph Goodale, speaking in the House of Commons last week trying to calm mounting fears about the presence of foreign fighters in Canada. Mr. Goodale was answering a question about people who traveled abroad - Canadians who traveled abroad to join ISIS or other terror groups and are now back and living among us. As you heard, the official estimate is that there are about 60 people who fit that bill living in Canada today. The question is what we do with them? What do we do about them? To those of you yelling at the radio right now that we should put them behind bars and throw away the key. Apparently it is not that simple to help us understand why and what our options are, I am joined by Phil Gursky. He is a former strategic analyst at CSIS. He is also the author of Western Foreign Fighters: The Threat to Homeland and International Security. Phil Gursky is in our Ottawa studio. Hello.

PHIL GURSKY: Morning Ana Maria.

AMT: Ralph Goodale says there about 60 foreign fighters have returned to Canada. What do you make of that number?

PHIL GURSKY: Well it's interesting the number hasn't changed in about a year and a half to two years. Now The Minister did say that CSIS had provided the most recent estimate. And I guess it's probably as best as we can get right now. The problem is that there certainly were individuals who left the country of whom we were not aware. They hadn't crossed any radar or any tripwire. And so if they left the country without our knowledge it's next to impossible to determine if and when they come back. So you know the number is what the number is. It's probably a little larger than 60. You know you try and gather intelligence of either yourself or through your partners to determine who's over there. In some cases we're lucky these guys actually boast on Facebook or on Twitter that they're there fighting with Islamic state. So the number is what the number is. Other countries have bigger problems than we do. So it's only 60 but it's a dangerous 60.

AMT: And we are talking solely ISIS fighters here or we're talking other kinds of fighters? What about al Shabaab?

PHIL GURSKY: Well that's a great question and this is something I've never really known. I left CSIS two and a half years ago and clearly Canadians have gone to fight with you know al Qaeda. They've gone to fight with Al Shabaab. And so the number was never really specific that it was it was only ISIS. I got the impression you know when the number was first published a couple of years ago, that it was all Canadians would join any terrorist group. So it hasn't been broken down in the best of my knowledge.

AMT: Now Phil I have to ask you when I travel abroad I got stamps in my passport. I go through Canadian customs they know exactly which countries I was in. So even if they didn't know I was in Syria they would know that I was in Turkey or Jordan, like to get there.

PHIL GURSKY: Well they were but there's a couple problems is that may know that you were in Turkey but when you crossed the border into Syria or Iraq to join Islamic state no one was stamping your passport. Secondly we know that they use false passports. There's documentation that they can acquire or create so that when they come back to Canada those stamps aren't there.

AMT: So can authorities arrest anyone who returns to Canada if they're suspected of fighting for a terrorist organization?

PHIL GURSKY: Well it is more than suspect. You have to have evidence and this is the problem. So you know theoretically, I absolutely agree that if you left the country to join Islamic State or Al Shabaab or al Qaeda or whomever as an offense under the Criminal Code. The problem is that do you have enough evidence to lay charges? And in my experience working for the government, the public prosecution service the crown will only laid charges where there's an almost like an absolute guarantee you're going to get a guilty verdict or a guilty plea. They don't want to run cases that aren't going to pass. So it's not do you have that critical mass of evidence that the Crown can use to actually take these cases to court. In a lot of cases the answer's no.

AMT: What about the fact that Canadian authorities do know the names of some individuals whose parents like [unintelligible] go over CSIS was tracking them here. Wouldn't they, if they came back in the country with those passports, wouldn’t that set off some kind of notice?

PHIL GURSKY: Well absolutely. I mean there's no question that if you know, today an example here in Ottawa. You know John McGuire left the country. He was from Campfield just south of Ottawa. He fought with Islamic state. He made a famous video bragging about his fight with Islamic state. If he were to come back. I think he's dead. And I think there's some indication that he is dead. But if he were to return to the country, there's no question that that would be flagged and he would be taken aside at a minimum to be interrogated and questioned and in a best case scenario, given that he made a video, would probably be charged with joining a terrorist group. If Canada was to track the people that it believes are here what exactly what that entails to keep them under surveillance?

PHIL GURSKY: Tremendous amount of resources, Anna Maria. Most Canadians when I ask them you know how many people does it take to fall somebody. They say well you know maybe five or six or seven. In fact the numbers are much greater than that. The estimates that I've been given by my RCMP friends is that to do a full investigation on a one person, that includes surveillance, that includes monitoring their communications and includes running human agents, resources is between 20 and 40 officers per person. So if all 60 came back tomorrow, you're looking at between twelve hundred and twenty four hundred officers just to monitor the returning foreign fighter threat. And that's you know well beside the threat of other Canadians who may be radicalized to violence here.

AMT: So in other words we just don't have the manpower or the money.

PHIL GURSKY: Well we could. And certainly I know that the RCMP a few years ago, when Islamic state was at its height, say 2014 or so, was taking resources from other investigations and those investigations included major drug investigations, maybe major crime investigation. So you're robbing Peter to pay Paul. So the resources are probably there but it means that we're not doing other things that are maybe equally or perhaps more important in this country.

AMT: Okay well Phil Gursky Let's bring two other people into this discussion. Lorne Dawson is the director of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism Security and Society at the University of Waterloo. Lorne Dawson joins us from Waterloo. Craig Forcese is a law professor at the University of Ottawa and that's where we've reached him. Hello to you both welcome.

CRAIG FORCESE: Good morning.

LORNE DAWSON: Good morning.

AMT: Lorne Dawson, what do you make of that number 60? What do you think of that estimate?

LORNE DAWSON: Well I think it's a really unusual number and one we need to question further. When originally it was introduced to the parliament by the director of CSIS, it's part of 180 Canadians that have gone abroad to have some kind of involvement with any kind of terrorist organization. It's unclear what kind of involvement. It's unclear what the timelines are. Is that over the last 10 years? Two years? And the 60 was the number out of the 180 that have returned. So we really don't know what the nature of this 60 either is. We know that the government has said, and I would say it's fairly accurate, about a hundred individuals, Canadians, have actually gone to Syria to fight with ISIS or Jabhat Al Nusra or other jihadist groups. And given the history of what we know of these situations, probably only about a third would ever likely try to return. So if we have a hundred and a third come back that certainly doesn't constitute 60. So it's just a strange number and we really don't know. My estimate would be that probably we're only dealing with about a dozen individuals that have returned to Canada from actually fighting in Syria and Iraq.

AMT: Craig Forcese, would you agree?

CRAIG FORCESE: That's certainly consistent with my information and the 60 number was tied to extremist travellers which is a broader category. I understand we're likely to see some clarification of that in the future.

AMT: I should just mention, we're talking we are using the word fighters. We know that young women went over specifically to be wives of these fighters, some of them had children. Do we know if they're Canadian women among them who are coming home with children, anybody?

LORNE DAWSON: When we know there are course Canadian women there for sure. And we have good reason to believe that they've had children there, some of them had children but I've never heard of any reports of anyone actually returning yet.

AMT: Okay, so Lorne Dawson you have interviewed Westerners who were foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq what did you learn from those conversations? Who were you talking to?

LORNE DAWSON: Well we were talking to a variety of people from Canada, the United States, U.K., across Europe, some from Africa and the Middle East as well. So, I think the main thing we learn that we're trying to stress to people is that most of these individuals are radicalized at a very young age. They start to radicalize about age 16. And there really is good reason from their own comments to suggest that it was all about a really severe adolescent identity crisis and a series of factors that draw them into the wrong circles, whereby they try and resolve their identity crisis by working with this kind of heroic defender of the Muslim faith. I'm simplifying but I mean the point to drive home is that when they leave they're not hardened individuals. They're really I think would be more accurately classified as you know seriously confused and challenged individuals. But also you know bright and capable guys who really want to do something. They want to change the world. They want to have a transformative impact on the world.

AMT: And so were you left feeling that we need to hug them and welcome them home. And we need to lock them up.

LORNE DAWSON: No I definitely don't say hug them and welcome them home. But my position is really pretty clear and that is that some are going to get killed, a lot are going to get killed, more than in any previous conflict. However some will be coming home and when they come home, as we've already indicated, it's going to be almost impossible to have been able to acquire enough evidence to adequately prosecute most of them. So we can't prosecute them. The cost of monitoring all of them is prohibited and probably exceeds our capacity. And even if you do moderate and the question is how long do you monitor them for. In Europe individuals have been monitored for some time for years and then eventually the services decide ‘well we have to move our resources elsewhere.’ And then those individuals have committed acts after the monitoring is stopped. So if you can't arrest them, you can't monitor them forever then really we need to develop a logical alternative. We need to develop, as other countries are, programmes by which we can seek to disengage them start to rehabilitate them. And that's a more effective way of even trying to monitor them, is get them into some kind of program.

AMT: And that has to be voluntary though, correct?

LORNE DAWSON: It has to be voluntary. But of course you've got to recognize of individuals that are willing to return to Canada. They know they stand a really good chance that they're going to be arrested and prosecuted. They could spend the rest of their lives in jail. That's why I think that anyone that returned there could be a few hardened terrorists in there trying to sneak back into the country. But I think again the record shows from past conflicts that most to return will be in the disillusioned category. They'll be wanting to cooperate with officials. They'll be wanting to demonstrate that they've done wrong but they are now you know wish to get back into Canadian society and lead a normal life. And that doesn't mean that of course you can't prosecute them if evidence comes out while you're rehabilitating them. You still have always the option of prosecuting them.

SMT: Craig Forcese, how effective is the radicalization in your view?

CRAIG FORCESE: Well I think it's certainly it's an area where everyone is exploring the possibilities. There's a fair amount of research underway. I think, as Lorne may have suggested, it's a frontier issue. It's an area in which we're now engaged in a wide scale effort at the federal level in support of local efforts to make the system work. There's going to be a lot of research. I think I am of the school that suggests that where possible, prosecute. And so I I'm of the view that there are substantial criminal provisions that extend overseas. There are individuals who have engaged in terrorist activity overseas and that there should be a focus on collecting evidence to meet the standards for prosecution. So the question I have is, if there are people who have returned who we believe engaged in conduct that amounts to violence, potentially even a war crime and certainly participation with a terrorist group, what is it that stands in the way of prosecution? If it's a question of not being able to acquire sufficient information, then I would want to know why that is. Are we having trouble converting intelligence into evidence? Is it supplied by foreign agencies who haven't agreed to allow us to use it in court? So these are broader policy issues that I think we have to address.

AMT: So Craig Forcese, in your view do we have the laws in place that can do it if we could get the evidence?

CRAIG FORCESE: Well absolutely. So it's not just terrorism provisions. So keep in mind that our terrorism provisions are quite sweeping. Most of them actually capture conduct falls far short of violence. And so it's about conduct involving participation with a terrorist group that enhances its capacity to gauge terrorist activity. It's traveling for the purpose of participating with a terrorist group. And once you get to the point of violence, especially in the context of the Syrian conflict, there's also the prospect of war crimes and crimes against humanity. So I don't see this as a substantial criminal law issue. I agree with Phil that the issue really may well be the evidentiary question. I would also add that if we don't have sufficient evidence for the purpose of an outright prosecution, there's also the prospect of employing what are known as peace bonds which are limitations on Liberty short of outright incarceration. And there's the prospect in both the peace bond context and then subsequently in relation to prosecution to focus on rehabilitation as well. And so these are not necessarily mutually exclusive alternatives.

AMT: And what about things like: Can their passports be confiscated?

CRAIG FORCESE: So far our principal tool in relation to foreign terrorist fighters has been to stop them before they go overseas. And so there are a number of people who are in imprisoned for purposes of trying to travel. But short of that, there's the prospect of passport revocation. There is of course the no fly list. And so deterring persons from going overseas is probably the most effective tool because once they return we're into this dilemma we're discussing today.

AMT: And let's talk just a minute. Let me ask about if women return with children, who have gone over there for the purpose of joining - I'm not talking about women who were sex slaves who were taken from those areas who might end up in Canada with their children, but women who chose to go over there. What about social services in different provinces monitoring those children? Is that possible? Is there a way to work that way with provincial authorities? Craig Forcese or Phil Gursky What do you think?

LORNE DAWSON: I don't know Anna Maria. I don't know the provinces I've never faced this kind of situation before. And again the women who you know who weren't co-opted as sex slaves like the Yazidis in northern Iraq, they're also guilty of an offense. They deliberately and consciously left the country to join a terrorist group. So as Craig said, they could in fact be charged. The children are a different issue. I mean you know if they're born there. They certainly didn't go there of their own accord. But we do have cases and I've seen the videos of some children who've also taken part in what Craig calls war crimes or crimes against humanity. What do you do with those? They are children?

AMT: But I'm not even asking, I'm asking what about if they come with those children. I mean you talk to Indigenous communities and people who are non-white and they will tell you that their children are confiscated at a regular basis by social services. So if a woman who has gone over there to support ISIS comes back with children, does she have the freedom to raise those children or is she going to be monitored as she raises those children, given the ideology that sent her there? I'm just wondering if anyone's looking at that.

LORNE DAWSON: Well I don't know that there are but you can certainly question someone's judgment for having you know traveled to Iraq or Syria, join Islamic state, bought into the ideology and then had a family. I don't see it's any different from you know families or women and men who raise children in a really really bad environment.

AMT: Well, we know ISIS wanted women to come over so that they could proliferate. We know that.

LORNE DAWSON: Absolutely. They wanted to create the caliphate. They want to create this great social experiment where their version of Islam would rule supreme. But the fact is that you know these kids - and some will be heavily traumatized by what they saw - so I don't think we're anywhere near trying to deal with what to do when these kids come back.

AMT: And do you think the Canadian government should be thinking of this?

LORNE DAWSON: Absolutely because they are children who will have seen some horrific situations. There will be those who from malnutrition, there will be those ws suffering from all kinds of things and we have to start worrying about the fact or the possibility or the possibility that some of these Canadian women in fact had kids over there.

AMT: If CSIS knows they have been overseas, Phil Gursky, and some of them have been monitored, is there a problem with CSIS is sharing its intel with Canadian authorities?

PHIL GURSKY: None whatsoever. The problem is nothing. And I think Craig can ask this better than I can. But you know CSIS’s intelligence is not evidence. And there's two things that I understand. First of all it's not [unintelligible] every entry is standard and therefore it can't be used in a Canadian court, at least not under the current provisions of the legislation, which I think we're looking at. Secondly CSIS often doesn't want its information to be used in court because it's gained under certain sensitive collection methods, or a CSIS source doesn't want to appear in or stand as a witness. So the information is great and it is used in government assessments. The role CS's do is to advise government but the information that ceases collects and uses normally doesn't appear in a public sphere. Unlike the evidence the RCMP collects which is collected to a standard which can be used in a court of law.

AMT: Now it's different in other countries is it not, Phil Gursky? The British Intelligence Service for example now gather evidence so that it can be used, do they not?

PHIL GURSKY: Different intelligent services, I believe the Australians for example, the ASIO which is the ASIO, the clone of CSIS in Australia, collects intelligence and everything to standard which means it can use an Australian court. That is currently not the case here in Canada, but my understanding is that those discussions are ongoing so that CSIS intelligence can in fact be connected to that standard and thereby using it in a canadian court.

AMT: Lorne Dawson last month U.S. coalition envoy Brett McGurk said his mission is to make sure every foreign ISIS fighter in Syria, meaning American ISIS fighter in Syria, dies in Syria. Britain has also said that's their policy. They want their fighters to be killed there. What do you think of that approach in relation to Canada?

LORNE DAWSON: Well we've already heard of course Ralph Goodale says Canada is not interested in supporting death squads to use his term to take out Canadian foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. If they die in the process of combat then I guess you know no one's going to be sorry about that fact. And so to some extent that is going to happen but it's a different matter to suggest that they are purposely going to go out and target individuals for assassination. I don't think that's something that the majority of Canadians, or some Canadians favor, it but I don't think the majority of Canadians favor adopting that attitude. And even if we do of course is not going to stop some from returning. So that it's a measure but it's not going to be a conclusive measure. Well you know on the issue of the children returning to the families this is part of the reason why talking about some kind of a rehabilitative program is important. The model country in this regard is Denmark and Denmark is a very small country but proportionately they've had the second highest level of foreign fighters in Europe. And so they've really seen this as a significant problem they need to tackle. And so they've utilized their whole social welfare system and adapted it to deal with this issue. And they are dealing with returnees right now. And so far successfully meaning no one can claim they've successfully rehabilitated anyone but they've not had any returnees engage in any further terrorist activity. So there are an unknown number but something in the order of a dozen or more, could be as high as 20 or 30, individuals that are being dealt with in Denmark at the moment. But they do everything they engage in family therapy. They engage in helping them with occupational therapy, with education. They have special programs for the children to try and get the children reintegrated as well. So the government has really made a significant commitment there. Where in Canada we've sort of partially moved in that direction but we've started way too late.

AMT: So Craig Forcese what kind of danger do these returning fighters or supporters realistically pose to Canadians and their safety.

GRAIG FORCESE: I think we have to circle back and ask the question well who are these 60 and so if the 60 includes persons who have gone overseas for any number of different reasons, then we need to engage in a tree ash and decide amongst those 60 who are more likely to gravitate towards violence. I know the RCMP for example has a hierarchy in which it tries to triage these individuals for purposes of then engaging in further surveillance and possibly peace bonds and the like of course. We're talking about consuming huge amounts of resources as Phi suggested. So in terms of absolute danger again depending on who you're talking about amongst the 60s, the database we have is the best data that I'm aware of stems from actual foreign fighters. So, those who have engaged in an acts of violence overseas between 1990 and 2010, so well before the implosion of Syria. There the statistics suggested a roughly 11 percent would gravitate towards subsequently a domestic act of violence. And so again those statistics are partial and it's difficult to extrapolate from them but certainly we need to contemplate risk management.

AMT: Phil Gursky, what do you think?

PHIL GURSKY: I agree with Craig that you know he cites research by Thomas [unintelligible] who this brilliant Norwegian scholar who looked at the book One in Nine That Return to Do Things. The problem is Anna Maria, is that one is too many. And if you work for CSIS and the RCMP that's what you go to work every morning trying to prevent. Kou know look at what happened with you know Craig mentioned peace bonds. Well Erin Drivers for Ontario was on was on a peace bond in last August, August of 2016. He built a bomb and made a martyrdom video. So the problem is that the IRA used to say years ago to the British government “you have to get lucky 100 percent of the time. We have to get lucky once.” And you know Kenyans aren't going to want to hear “well we triaged,” as Craig said, “and we didn't think it was a threat” and now people are dead in Toronto or Ottawa. So when you work for the security services or the RCMP, your record has to be pristine. It has to be 100 percent. So the threat is there. It's not existential. It's a serious threat and it's not an easy game to figure out who poses a real threat and why.

AMT: Okay so just briefly because we're almost out of time. Phil Gursky what questions do we need to continue asking our government then?

PHIL GURSKY: We need to keep asking is the number 60 still relevant. We need to ask the question about which theaters of combat are coming back from, which groups did they join. We have to figure out who's coming back and when. And I agree with Lorne we have to start putting into place programs to deal with the vast majority who will not pose an immediate threat and maybe are eligible for rehabilitation. I say may because it's not an exact science but a lot more information has been made public by the Canadian government.

AMT: Okay we have to leave it there. Thank you all three of you for weighing in on this one.

GUESTS: [Cross talking]Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.

AMT: I've been speaking with Phil Gursky former strategic analyst at CCS author of Western foreign fighters the threat to homeland and International Security. He's in Ottawa. Craig Forcese is in Ottawa as well he's a law professor at the University of Ottawa and Lorne Dawson is the director of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism Security and Society at the University of Waterloo. He joined us from Waterloo. Let us know what you think as you listen to this you can tweet us we are @TheCurrentCBC, find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and stay with us. In our next half hour research shows that nurses face more violence on the job than police officers or prison guards and female nurses are most at risk. We are asking what needs to be done to prevent those who take care of the most vulnerable from becoming vulnerable themselves. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Health-care workplace violence under-reported, suggests Ontario study

Guest: Jim Brophy

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. In a moment we're going to Colombia were the perfect blend of a booming economy and the end of a civil war means Colombians can finally enjoy their own coffee, for the first time in years. But before we get there, we're talking about the ugly underbelly of Canada's health care system where nurses and other health care workers bear the brunt of unprovoked violence, aggression and sexual assaults by patients for whom they are carrying. You may remember a few weeks ago a poll released by the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions found that more than two out of three healthcare workers had been physically assaulted at least once in the past year. At the time we spoke to Scott Sharp a personal support worker at General Hospital, at least that's where he was until January of 2015. That's when he was assaulted by an aggressive patient.

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Our group got together and were restraining the individual he was quite violent. As I'm trying to put the magnetic restraint on them, he got loose and he struck me under the jaw and gave me an upper cut. Because my hands are up above, my feet went underneath the gurney, my back at the floor, my head was still rock and into the wall. And my bodily functions are shutting down. They gave me a CT realized that I had spinal damage done. So now I'm left with chronic pain, neurogenic bladder, I average sleep maybe three to four hours - that's not a good night, on a ton of medication and it totally turned my family upside down.

AMT: Because of that assault Scott Sharp spent a year in a wheelchair. He still needs a walker to get around almost three years later. Jim Brophy has heard many similar stories. He is an occupational health researcher and he's the co-author of a new study being released today entitled Assaulted and Unheard: Violence against Health Care Staff. He joins me in our Toronto studio. Welcome.

JIM BROPHY: Good morning.

AMT: So we listened to Scott Sharp. How many health care workers have you heard stories like this from?

JIM BROPHY: Well when Margaret Keith and I launched this study on behalf of CUPE and OCHU, we interviewed over 54 hospital workers from across the province in seven different communities, and heard stories very similar to what Scott was talking about, not necessarily has dramatically and substantially injured as he has been which has been unbelievably tragic. But people who go to work literally every day worried that they will be beat up or assaulted. The level of physical violence as you know from the poll is almost 67 percent of the health care workers. Particularly the nurses and the personal support workers have experienced one incident of physical violence in the last year.

AMT: Now they were polling to find out how often this kind of stuff happened. You weren't polling you were doing something else. What were you trying to figure out in your study?

JIM BROPHY: We were trying to figure out first of all, what their experience has been. What was happening? We wanted to know what they thought needed to be done. We wanted to know what they thought the causes were and how prevalent in their experience it was. And they told us dramatic stories. I mean Margaret and I have been an occupational health for over 35 years and I don't think I've ever been as disturbed as what I heard in focus group after focus group of people's lives literally ruined, where people had been so badly injured raped, daily physical and verbal or verbal abuse. And going home, sitting in their cars on the before after work crying, crying because they couldn't cope any longer with what was happening.

AMT: And you heard these over and over again you were doing focus groups and this why the kind of stories that were telling you inside these groups.

JIM BROPHY: Yes.

AMT: How many different groups of kinds of health care workers did you talk to?

JIM BROPHY: Well we had 13 focus groups. We saw a wide spectrum of health care workers from nurses to personal support workers to kitchen staff to cleaners to security to maintenance people. I mean we saw the whole spectrum which I think is rather unique in terms of the literature on this. which is very robust. I should say that since you know certainly since 2000 more and more journal articles are focusing on it including I just saw waiting here for the interview an article in The Toronto Star about home care workers and violence. So this is becoming so prevalent and as the New England Journal of Medicine says it's ubiquitous it's persistent and it's largely under reported and tolerated.

AMT: When I interviewed Scott Sharp I also spoke with a physiotherapy assistant who said she was sexually assaulted in a Toronto area health care facility. She was putting a brace on a patient in a wheelchair when another patient came up behind her, listen to her.

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As Ia m placing the brace on this gentleman, I felt one hand on my hip in the other hand on my hand. And the patient was sexually assaulting me from the back. In which I got up and I said “stop. That's not appropriate.” And he proceeded and I had to tell him to stop. Furthermore the patient in front of me that I was treating proceeded to comment and said “boy if I were you I'd do the same thing.”

AMT: So total disregard for what that person was doing to that woman on that floor. How common are these stories?

JIM BROPHY: Very common. I mean in some of the facilities it's a daily occurrence. Women being grabbed, verbal, harassment. It is hard to imagine having done this study that one could ignore the role of gender in this story, in this research. Health care is overwhelmingly a profession dominated by women. It's very hard to imagine other occupations where men were more dominant that this kind of behaviors and risk would be tolerated. And beyond just you know the numeric dominance of women, the aspects of this and the context in which it takes place is so reminiscent of how we see violence against women in our society.

AMT: Including their fear to speak up their fear of illusion in the workforce which is why our guest – we never used her full name because we she was afraid that there would be consequences at work.

JIM BROPHY: Every single focus group we did that we started off talking about confidentiality and protecting their privacy and so on. Every single group raised this issue of fear of reprisal. It is so prevalent. It's one of the reasons that this issue has been kept out of the public view, because the victims are not allowed to speak which is another parallel I think to violence against women. And they're being blamed as soon as an incident happens and I'm not sure if this happened to your guest or not. But as soon as these incidents happened then they would be told “what did you do? How did you approach the person?”

AMT: So here's the other question why is this even happening? Why are they facing such physical assault and sexual assaults on the job and verbal assault like what's going on?

JIM BROPHY: Well the World Health Organization in 2002 said you could not address the issue of violence and health care in an under-resourced health care system. We've had decades of underfunding. Every single focus group raised with us the need for additional staff.

AMT: But wait a minute. Okay so there's not enough staff so I as a patient have the right to do that? I mean why are people as patients abusing these people? Why do they think they have the right to do that? Regardless of how much money is being spent at the hospital.

JIM BROPHY: Well I think it sets the context. If you are not able to meet the needs of the patients which is a constant issue that the health care workers raised and their concern about that, then you have this frustrated population that's there. I mean I think that's one of the things that the public needs to take away from these stories about violence, is that it's having it's really a prism to look at our whole health care system. What is happening? We don't have the facilities and the programs any longer to deal with the special needs patients whether it's in forensic or detox or in emergency departments.

AMT: So you're talking about patients who might have violent tendencies who can't be dealt with properly, but that's not solely the issue here.

JIM BROPHY: No it is not.

JIM BROPHY: They also feel that they have the right to do this and they can do it with impunity. Correct.

JIM BROPHY: Pretty much.

AMT: And that's what like have you been able to figure out in talking to these people why someone going into the hospital who's injured or needs help thinks that they should be able to treat other people like that, or the family members.

JIM BROPHY: Right. I mean yes the family members are very much in the in this picture. One of the things that they said to us is the lack of respect. They've noticed this change in the lack of respect of the public toward them and even their supervisors toward them that they feel that this atmosphere is allowing this type of behavior to go on. So I think that contributes to it. I think as we all know now this issue of violence against women is far more prevalent in our society. It's taking place in workplaces you know throughout the country and internationally.

AMT: Right. And there's an accountability question and it's worth noting that we have asked Ontario's health and Labor ministers to respond to your study. We've asked them to respond to the earlier study when neither was available. We asked the Ontario Hospital Association for an interview. It declined it sent a statement that notes it is working with the government to make its workplaces safer. None of these people want to come on and talk about this. They don't want to go on the record. None of them we are going to call them out right now on the air for that because they won't do it. What's that about?

JIM BROPHY: Well this is part of the under-reporting. I mean this is part of what the health care workers told us. I mean the regulatory system has collapsed. The Ministry of Labor was considered like non-existent. I'll just give you one very quick example. We were talking to a woman who was the co-chair of the health and safety committee. She showed us minutes of meetings over a two year period every month nine, 10, 12 incidents of violence were reported. The next month same thing, same thing, same thing. Nothing being resolved and she said I hear more incidents of violence in the lunchroom at any given day than what I see as a toll for the month.

AMT: And nobody at the ministry responded?

JIM BROPHY: Nobody responds to that. The compensation board literally terrorizes health and safety - I mean victims of sexual assault and physical violence. When we did our focus groups, really the organisation that people were most upset about was the WSIB.

AMT: We have to leave it there. Jim Brophy but lots of questions still unanswered. Thanks for coming in.

JIM BROPHY: Thank you very much.

AMT: Jim Brophy an occupational health researcher with the University of Windsor and University of Stirling. He is the co-author of a new study Assaulted and Unheard: Violence against Health Care Staff. He joined us in Toronto.

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Colombians finally taste their own brewed coffee

Guests: Camila Pena, Mark Pendergrast

AMT: This is The Current on CBC radio 1 and Sirius XM I'm Anna Maria Tremonti.

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[Music]

Throughout Colombia, South America, for centuries, the people have gone to the marketplace. It is here that they trade. It is here that they buy their coffee, coffee grown by men like Juan Valdez. He washes the coffee by hand, and then dries it carefully in the sun. The coffee is prepared for market as it has been for centuries, because for Colombians, their coffee is more than just the richest coffee in the world. It is a national heritage.

AMT: Okay, admit it. You remember that. That's from one of the many Juan Valdez commercials of the 80s and 90s. Juan Valdez‘s diligences a grower made him almost as much of a pillar of the Colombian heritage as the coffee. His character along with the mule Conchita would introduce Colombian coffee to the world and that is where Colombian coffee went, around the world, not to Colombians. And so having new cafes springing up in Colombia now is a treat in that country.

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A few years ago people used to get Colombian coffee in place like Juan Valdez. But now you can find a Colombian coffee in your neighbourhood.

AMT: Customers savoring the fact now that they can finally drink their country's biggest export at the local coffee shop. It is one of hundreds of cafes opening up in Bogota and around Colombia and consumption of coffee has skyrocketed. Journalist Camila Pena has been out in local cafes speaking with owners and customers and she joins us from Bogota. Hello.

CAMILA PENA: Hi. How are you?

AMT: I'm well. Tell me a little bit more about these cafes. What are you seeing around Bogota?

CAMILA PENA: Well the cafes in Bogota have become the focal point for coffee lovers. Bogota now is home to hundreds location. Whether you're looking for an espresso, Frappuccino, latte, or what we call tinto, you will be really really satisfied and happy.

AMT: And you know I know about Colombian coffee here in Canada. How come they seem to be discovering it now?

CAMILA PENA: Well until now it was really impossible to get a good coffee in Bogata. At the beginning nearly 90 percent of Colombian beans were being exported and the ones left behind were the poorest quality. Happily for us, the Colombians, things are changing now and we can find the beans, the really good beans in our coffees, the newer Cafes. I think one of the reasons is because some of the coffee regions where like FARC territory. The cafes owners [unintelligible] to get the product right. But now you actually can. It is an option for you for the good coffee.

AMT: Right okay, so what did you drink before?

CAMILA PENA: Oh we're still drinking like Arabic coffee, [Chuckles] which is crazy because we are in the land of the coffee and sometimes Brazilian coffee as well. And as I told you before like really a bad Colombian coffee.

AMT: Hmm, okay. And so what do you think of the Colombian coffee now? What does it taste like to you?

CAMILA PENA: It is delicious. It's I have been a coffee lover for ever and I've been traveling to Canada and the U.S. and the coffee there is good. Right. When you try Colombian coffee there you're like “oh my god! Is this my coffee?” You can’t believe it sometimes. And now I love it. I think it's great; the quality, the taste, everything. It smells so good when you walk into these cafes.

AMT: The first Starbucks opened in Colombia, Colombia's first Starbucks. What was it? Three years ago 2014. What were people's reactions to that?

CAMILA PENA: I actually was really bad. People were fighting and they were saying why we need to bring Starbucks here in Colombia when we have our own brands. But now it's funny because after complaining if you walk into a Starbucks the place is full of people as well.

AMT: So who owns most of the new cafes that are popping up in Bogota?

CAMILA PENA: Well it depends. we're talking about. Like big companies we can say Juan Valdez, for sure. And then it comes Oma and then Tostao. This is a new company. They open up like I think a year ago and they are everywhere everywhere. And the reason of their success, it is because the prices are really good and the coffee is excellent. And they have a different kind of products like yogurts and desserts, sandwiches. It is like a Starbucks concept as well but with better prices and really good coffee.

AMT: What about individual coffee owners like independents. Do you have a lot of that?

CAMILA PENA: Oh yes. Yesterday actually I was talking with one of the owners. Her name was Anita and she opened the cafe a few years ago and she was telling me like a few bad years came, and now she was talking like the place is great again. The business is great because she said dealing with coffee makers from [unintelligible]. So she's doing the deal directly with them and she can sell the coffee. It's a good place if you want to go after work, before work, just to sit your friends, your family. It's really nice and those cafes are everywhere in Bogota too.

AMT: And so do you see a changing coffee culture?

CAMILA PENA: Oh yes definitely. I feel like Colombians are coffee lovers but now it's more and more. They love coffee and they love the fact to have a place to go to and enjoy a great Colombian coffee. Finally we can do that.

AMT: So there's some pride in there too, uh?

CAMILA PENA: Oh yeah for sure. Everywhere I was talking to they say “Colombian coffee is the best. Of course I love my coffee I'm so happy finally I'm trying it.” Everybody loves Colombian coffee. And everywhere where we go, if we go to another country, we are proud to say we are Colombian and we have the best coffee in the world.

AMT: And now you actually know that [Laughs].

CAMILA PENA: Exactly.

AMT: because you've tasted it. Okay well thank you. Thanks for speaking with me today.

CAMILA PENA: Thank you for having me.

AMT: Bye bye.

CAMILA PENA: Bye bye.

AMT: Camila Pena is a freelance journalist and coffee drinker who lives in Bogota Colombia.

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Surrounded by majestic mountains and rain forests, lies Colombia. Families small farmers embrace coffee as a way to conquer the mountains. And then fascinating the whole world. In order to obtain access to the international markets they created a social organization of all the coffee farmers: La Federation National de Cafeteros - The National Federation of coffee growers of Colombia.

AMT: Well, the Federation of growers has been the backbone of Colombia's coffee industry and culture. It represents about 500,000 producers mostly on small family run farms. My next guest visited Colombia to hear some of their stories. Mark Pendergrast is the author of Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and how it Transformed our World. He has tracked the evolution of Colombia's coffee trade.

MARK PENDERGRAST: Colombia forms the Federation National de Cafeteros, known as the FNC, or in English the Colombian coffee Federation. And it's become almost a state within a state. It's a very powerful and well-financed research and marketing organization. And in 1960 they created the Juan Valadez campaign which has been wildly successful in the United States and in other consuming countries in Europe and Japan, in promoting this image of the rural rugged farmer who brings his coffee beans out of the mountains on a donkey. Unlike many campaigns this one actually has a lot of substance in reality and it still does. I went to some of these tiny little farms in the mountains and department of Caldas. I went to a little tiny village called Samana. And indeed they have to bring their coffee down on mules to the main town. Now of course you know then they get on trucks and railroads and etc. and it's a highly commercialized venture. I went to a huge freeze drying plant in Caldas, as well. But it's a pretty incredible place. And let me just say that the consumption of coffee in the rural areas in the coffee growing regions is quite high. I interviewed some fourth and fifth graders while I was there and all of them drank coffee except for one kid. So they're quite proud of their coffee. So I think that the fact that in Bogota they are suddenly discovering specialty coffee is a wonderful thing. And most coffee growing countries they export their best beans. And it's ironic that often they would drink instant Nescafe mixed with you know instant cream and sugar in little packets. That has begun to change in Brazil, in Colombia, in Costa Rica and in some of the other coffee growing regions. So, I think it's a good thing that they're discovering the joys of their own coffee.

AMT: And we heard our last guest mentioned that some of the growers were in areas that were either controlled by or affected by the long-time civil war with FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Since that peace treaty, what has changed for coffee producers?

MARK PENDERGRAST: Well they're no longer getting their limbs blown off, most of the time although mines do remain landmines are a problem. When I was in Samana I interviewed one armed coffee farmer who is still farming with the help of his sons. I interviewed an elderly woman who had lost two sons to the FARC, who had killed them. And then the Army had blamed her that her sons were somehow involved. So the coffee farmers were caught between the paramilitaries and the government. It was a terrible situation. And fortunately that's better although there are simmering problems in Colombia to this day.

AMT: They've been very vulnerable for years then, those growers.

MARK PENDERGRAST: That's right for a very long time. You know and this is not unusual in coffee growing regions. Unfortunately there was a Colombian coffee gore who said “when we aren't in a revolution we are waiting for one.” [Laughs] So I'm hoping that that is permanently better now. I certainly did not feel any fear when I was there.

AMT: And so what difference does it make for those producers that more of the product is staying at home?

MARK PENDERGRAST: Well it means that they are going to have a larger domestic market which is good and hopefully, you know, worldwide coffee consumption is going up and there is some fear that there will be not enough really good beans because of climate change problems and other issues. Coffee traditionally he has been in something called the boom bust cycle, where coffee prices will go up, more and more people will plant coffee. It takes four or five years for a tree to produce coffee. And by that time there is too much of it and the prices tank and then people don't know what to do. And they have the rip trees out or they just don't provide them or care for them. And eventually the prices go up again. I am not convinced that stops - some people think that you know it's over because there is a higher demand for coffee and certainly there is a larger consumption within the traditional growing countries which is a good thing.

AMT: And how does its industry now compare with the Latin American coffee nations of Brazil and Costa Rica?

MARK PENDERGRAST: Well coffee is generally better when it's grown very high up in mountains and when it's processed immediately and most of the Colombians farms are very small. They are family operations and they do process their own beans right there on the farm initially and then it's taken to a large mill for further processing. So I would say that it compares very favorably with Brazil, in general, and also with places like Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua which have much higher quality profile than Brazil in general. Coffee used to be a huge huge product for both Colombia and Brazil. Their primary product. As both countries have industrialized you know the percentage that it's contributed to the economy has been lower but it's still very important.

AMT: You made the point that in the areas where it's grown there's always been pride in those beans and in the taste of them. Now that it seems to be growing in the city, is it significant that there seems to be more pride in people enjoying their own coffee?

MARK PENDERGRAST: Sure it's a good thing when people not only know that their country produces good coffee but they appreciate it themselves and take pride in their own product. Hopefully it will also introduce them to specific areas within their own country that they can then go and visit as tourists. It's just beautiful.

AMT: Are you a coffee drinker.

MARK PENDERGRAST: I am – not a huge amount but I have very good coffee every morning.

AMT: I am wondering what is your pronouncement on Colombian coffee.

MARK PENDERGRAST: It is great.

AMT: Is it the best in the world?

MARK PENDERGRAST: No. You know nobody would claim that their wine was the best in the world would they? Coffee is like wine. It has different characteristics depending on how high it's grown, the type of tree it's grown on, the way it's processed etc etc. So Colombia has some of the best coffee in the world. I will certainly say that.

AMT: Well Mark Pendergrast, thanks for speaking with me today.

MARK PENDERGRAST: Thank you.

AMT: Mark Pendergrast author of Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and how it Transformed our World. That's our program for today stay with Radio 1 for Q. Tom Power’s guest is Rupi Kaur. Twenty five year old superstar of the publishing world. She's got two million followers on Instagram. She's with Tom today. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti thank you for listening to The Current.

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Monday November 27, 2017 Full Episode Transcript

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