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The Current Transcript for February 11, 2025

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: We'll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is. In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future.

MATT GALLOWAY: Donald Trump says the future of Gaza is American. He thinks it could be a Riviera of the Middle East. Palestinians, their neighbours, and their supporters fiercely disagree with the president's plans. In 30 minutes, what it would take to rebuild that smashed territory, and whether that's actually possible as people scramble for shelter and Hamas remains in charge. Also this morning, the prime minister is in Paris, and his focus is on technology many have high hopes for and doomsday scenarios around artificial intelligence.

SOUNDCLIP

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: We must put AI to the service of everyone, and not just for an increasingly small group of ultra rich oligarchs whose only concern is the value of their stock portfolios.

MG: Coming up, the CBC's Nora Young on how companies like Google are using AI to fuel the military and surveillance, and what the role of Canada can be in regulating this emerging superintelligence. But we begin in what has become familiar territory, with decrees from south of the border rattling industry here in Canada. It could be a long four years. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

TARIFFS

Guests: Matthew Shoemaker, John Veroneau

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: It’s a big deal. It's a big deal. This is the beginning of making America rich again.

MG: You can be forgiven if you're starting to develop tariff whiplash. Less than a week after Donald Trump agreed to delay across the board tariffs on Canadian goods for a month, as you heard from the sound of the Sharpie there, he is putting other tariffs on. Last night, he signed an executive order putting 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States, including Canadian products. His commerce secretary and tariff chief, Howard Lutnick, was standing beside him.

SOUNDCLIP

HOWARD LUTNICK: Remember, these aren't just general jobs. These are steel workers in America. And now, you're going to bring them back. You're going to bring those 120,000 jobs back to America. You are the president who's standing up for the American steel worker.

MG: Steelworkers in Hamilton, Ontario, home to some of Canada's largest steel manufacturers, responded.

SOUNDCLIP

SPEAKER: It'll be bad for everybody because we have Mexican parts that come in and we sell to the United States.

SPEAKER: Everybody's worried about it. It's going to cost a lot for us. It's going to hurt the steel industry.

MG: Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, on the eastern end of Lake Superior, is home to another steel giant. Algoma Steel is the largest employer in that city. Matthew Shoemaker is the mayor of Sault Ste Marie. Mayor Shoemaker, good morning.

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: Good morning.

MG: How big of an economic engine is Algoma Steel to the Sault’s economy?

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: Oh, it can trace its impact to about 50% of the economy, whether directly or indirectly. So it is a major, you know, issue when anything happens that affects Algoma Steel's bottom line, as is currently happening.

MG: 50% of the city's economy is in some ways connected to that industry.

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: That's right.

MG: So when you hear…

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: Not only Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, but Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, across the border as well relies heavily on people spending their retail dollars across there.

MG: So when you hear Donald Trump applying his signature to an executive order bringing tariffs in on steel and aluminum exports from Canada and other places into the United States, what kind of sleepless nights do you have?

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: Yeah, very sleepless. You heard him say it’s the beginning of Making America Great Again. The reality is it's the beginning of making America more expensive again, because this Trump tax increase is going to hit American consumers when they're buying things like Teslas and when they're buying hot water tanks for their first home and when they're buying beer cans with the aluminum tariffs. So this is going to directly increase the price of American goods and make life more affordable, make America more expensive for American consumers.

MG: I mean, that's important, an important message, presumably, for the Americans to hear. But what about for people in your town? I mean, how worried are you about what this will mean for jobs and for the overall economy in Sault Ste Marie?

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: Yeah, worried. We are reliving the past in Sault Ste Marie. We had these 25% steel tariffs in 2018 when Trump was in his first term. And it had a real economic impact to hundreds of millions of dollars out of the steel plant’s bottom line. And that was hundreds of millions that wasn't being spent on, you know, local contractors, local goods, donating to local causes, which the steel plant does quite frequently. So it is a real big blow to the community. We're bracing for it. Of course, we've got a month until they are implemented. And the hope is that the federal government will implement retaliatory tariffs right away to counter it because that seemed to break the logjam in 2018, 19, when these were last implemented.

MG: Can you just tell me a bit more about what happened in 2018? The steel imports to the United States from Canada, when those tariffs were imposed back then, those imports dropped by almost 40%. What did that mean practically for people who work in that industry? But also, as you mentioned, you know, the spin off industries and everything that’s around where the people who work in the plant go to spend their money, at the cafe or at the grocery store or what have you. What did that mean in Sault Ste Marie?

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: Yeah, it meant a real dollar economic, you know, withdrawal of money from our community. So it was retailers felt it. Businesses felt it. The steel plant, of course, felt it. The difference I think between last time and this time, and it’s a difference that gives us a lot of concern, is that last time, there was no hint of broad-based tariffs. It was just steel and aluminum tariffs. So the Federal Government was able to target relief to the communities that needed it. And that's when you saw Algoma in the Sault and Stelco and Dofasco in Hamilton get these major investments, 4 or $500 million investments from the federal government to transition their operations from a coal-based steelmaking to electric steelmaking, which they're now in the process of doing. We're about halfway there. But the reality is, you know, if every community, you know, a month from now when this so-called reprieve that we were supposed to get is impacted by tariffs, the federal government’s simply not going to have the fiscal capacity to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into every community. So it's a greater risk that the industries will have to simply, you know, eat that burden and face the economic consequences of it. So it's uncertain times for sure.

MG: I mean, it would mean a lot of people out of work.

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: You know, that's I think a possibility. I'd let the steel plant, you know, comment on that specifically.

MG: And not even so much just with the steel plant. But again, if people aren't making money, they aren't spending money, and that has a knock on effect.

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: It would have a direct impact on restaurants, on, as you said, cafes, grocery stores, retailers that rely on steel plant wages or indirect steel plant income to, you know, buy the things and go the places that their family needs. So that is one impact that will definitely come out of the economy here, and also, as I noted, the economy in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, where, you know, a three-minute drive across the bridge has a lot of Canadians filling up their gas tanks and spending at the grocery store. Well, what we are saying as a community now is where you can, spend your money in Canada, because, you know, the friendship that has survived 212 years of peace is now at loggerheads.

MG: You heard Howard Lutnick there talk about how 120,000 jobs in that industry could come back to the United States, he believes. You've said that these tariffs are a senseless act of aggression. Is there any part of you that can begin to understand where they're coming from?

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: No. No, because when a car part, for example, is produced, it will go across the border, and a steel car part, like a door, for example, will go across the border three to four times. So right now, what that part is, what's happening to that part is every time it's getting back into the US, it's being tariffed again. So it's only going to make, and the supply chain is so integrated that it would take, you know, a generation to de-integrate or disintegrate that supply chain. So while he may think that the short term benefits of this are what he's looking for from an economic standpoint, the reality is that having good trade relationships, our reciprocal trade is 700 million, sorry, 700 billion, sorry, I think, between the two countries. So it is not like we are not buying from them. It's that they're buying more from us, mostly in the energy sector. So what they cut back on, we are going to similarly cut back on and hurt their bottom line of the corporations that benefit from us buying their products.

MG: You mentioned that Sault Ste Marie shares that bridge with Sault Ste Marie, Michigan. Do you think the people on the other side of that bridge understand what's going on?

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: Oh, absolutely. We are in a very unique situation here in the Sault because the Canadian city is about five times larger than the American city, which is very uncommon on Canada-US borders. Usually or typically, the American city is larger. So the American Sault Michigan economy relies significantly on Canadian dollars being spent over there. And I'm not joking. I mean, it's a way of life for people to go over there, buy groceries, buy gas, especially when the dollar is, you know, a little stronger. But even when the dollar's not as strong, the exchange still makes the gas and grocery purchases often worth the trip. But people are cutting that off completely. They are saying, we are not going into the US. We are not spending our tourist dollars at, you know, 45 minutes away in Mackinaw Island or a couple of hours away in Traverse City. Those are Canadians that are going to patriot their dollars to Canadian tourism attractions, Canadian retailers. And it certainly won't offset the industrial economic impacts that the steel plant is going to face as a result of this change, but it will have an effect on American businesses. And that's really what we need. We need Americans to be telling their government that this is silly.

MG: I'll let you go, but you said that, you know, there's that friendship across the bridge. We had the same conversation when we were down in Windsor at the edge of Detroit just last week, talking to people who live in two places, as we were saying, at the same time in some ways. Do you worry about, this is the beginning of his term. Do you worry about that friendship across that bridge?

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: I do. During the last Trump presidency, I mean, it was largely as a result of COVID, but for decades and decades, the Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, and Michigan city councils had met together and discussed economic development opportunities or tourism opportunities together. And that all came to a halt in 2020. And it wasn't until the beginning of this municipal term in 2022 that we were able to rekindle that friendship. And it has been really strong. I mean, we have a great colleague in Sault Michigan with Mayor Jerry, and we rely on them for their friendship, their, you know, joint economic and tourism developments. But the reality is this is going to affect the willingness of community members to go one way or the other.

MG: Matthew Shoemaker, good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

MATTHEW SHOEMAKER: Thanks very much.

MG: Matthew Shoemaker is the mayor of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. Tariffs on steel and aluminum will hurt, especially in places like the Sault. Canada will likely respond with tariffs of its own. Here is what the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, had to say about that on CNBC.

SOUNDCLIP

DOUG FORD: Well, that's the last thing we want to do, but we will retaliate. And, you know, Canada will feel the pain, there's no doubt. But I can assure you when we retaliate, the Americans will feel the pain. And for what reason?

MG: That's a good question. To dig into that, we're joined by former US trade negotiator John Veroneau. He is now an international trade lawyer based in Washington, DC. John, good morning to you.

JOHN VERONEAU: Good morning.

MG: Help us in this country understand, if you can. Why is US President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum now?

JOHN VERONEAU: Well, he believes that tariffs will help reindustrialize the US economy. I don't share his views on that, to be clear. But I think he is a man who loves tariffs, thinks they are good for America, has self described himself as a tariff man, and has said that tariffs is one of the most beautiful words in the dictionary. So he is someone who campaigned on raising tariffs. And much to my chagrin, he is following through on those promises.

MG: Tell me a bit more about that, because I think, I mean, to a lot of people here in this country, they're trying to figure out why the United States would kind of economically cripple its next door neighbour and closest trading ally. You hear Howard Lutnick talk about how 120,000 jobs he believes could come back into the country. We’ve spoken with Oren Cass from American Compass, the think tank, who talks about tariffs, you know, resetting the trade balance and trade relationship that the United States has with other countries. How far will tariffs go to bring back those jobs to the United States?

JOHN VERONEAU: Well, if you block imports or severely, you know, limit imports, you can create domestic jobs. Any country can do that. The question is on balance, is that a good thing for your country? And the costs of those tariffs and those border restrictions, import restrictions have been proven time and time again to exceed the benefits. So you can always create some jobs, but the cost of that on US consumers, on US exporters, not to mention the goodwill that is being destroyed right now with our friends like Canada, our friends in Canada and other countries. It is a very costly approach. But and I suspect those costs will be appreciated over time. But as of this week at least, we have a president who is committed to his belief that tariffs are good for America.

MG: When this happened in 2018 and these tariffs were imposed on this same sector, who were the winners and losers back then?

JOHN VERONEAU: Well, in the short term, you know, you know, US steel makers were and aluminum makers, you know, benefited, although those benefits declined over time. But, you know, they do provide a short term benefit. They provided a political benefit short term to the president. But the costs were borne out, as every study, including studies by the Federal Reserve Bank and many economists and universities, have shown that the cost for every job created was in the order of, you know, 5 to $800,000 per job. That's a lot of cost on American households.

MG: And those are in sectors, I mean, we heard about the car sector and the fact that vehicles go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. What else automatically becomes more expensive in the United States when these tariffs are imposed?

JOHN VERONEAU: Well, I think you, I think it's too soon to know. But I think at a minimum, you know, because it depends on how countries respond. And I think countries will respond as you would expect. They will retaliate. That's the history of trade wars, is, you know, country A raises tariffs and country B responds in kind, and it ends up being a lose lose proposition. But unfortunately, it typically takes a little bit of time for those costs to be fully appreciated by people. And right now, the president, I suspect, is enjoying some political support. But to be clear, there's many, many people in America who oppose these tariffs, including downstream manufacturers, who are now going to be, you know, at a disadvantage to their competitors in other parts of the world where ironically, if you make products, you manufacture products here using steel or aluminum, you face a 25% tariff on your input that your competitors don't. So it makes it cheaper to bring in finished goods from Europe or Asia because they don't face the tariffs that we impose on our own downstream manufacturers. So it does, these interventions create a lot of uncertainty and a lot of costs for American consumers and downstream manufacturers, as well as exporters who will face the brunt of the market closings that you can expect other countries to have in response to our market closings.

MG: I'm not asking you to put the president on the couch, but do you think that chaos is kind of the point here? Does he enjoy the chaos that's been created?

JOHN VERONEAU: Well, I think he enjoys being at the centre of attention. And when you have a president at the centre of attention solving problems, it necessarily creates chaos. And I would use as an example, you know, two weeks ago, the drama of the day was the repatriation of Colombian nationals. There was a, you know, kerfuffle in that process we don't need to get into, but it's a problem that would have been solved by a deputy assistant secretary of state in normal times, and it would not have been front page news. But we have a president who likes to be the centre of attention, and as a result, its processes and problem solving are much more chaotic and dramatic than they need to be.

MG: As you mentioned, there are many Americans who don't support this, and they go through industry, labour unions, economists and what have you. If he is determined to bring in tariffs, who's going to stand in his way, do you think, or who could stand in his way?

JOHN VERONEAU: Well, under our Constitution, Congress has clear primary authority over tariffs and trade policy. My hope is that Congress will assert itself in its constitutional prerogatives to determine tariff levels. They did not assert themselves in the first Trump administration for the most part, but we'll see if they will. The courts have been, could be another source. There will be challenges to these actions, and we'll see if the courts can. But courts have been, I think, reluctant to second guess presidential determinations, especially if they regard national security, however thinly supported those claims are. But hopefully, Congress will certainly be hearing from many of its constituents about the negative impacts of these tariffs. But that takes a little bit of time. So hopefully at some point, Congress will assert its constitutional role to set tariff policy.

MG: I have to let you go, but just very briefly, how does it feel to be a proponent of free trade in the United States in 2025?

JOHN VERONEAU: It feels a little bit lonely sometimes, but it's, you know, sometimes, you know, lessons of history have to be relearned. And I feel like we're in the classroom right now.

MG: This is a tough lesson. John Veroneau, it's good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

JOHN VERONEAU: Great. Thank you.

MG: John Veroneau was deputy US trade representative under George W. Bush. He was in Washington, DC. Your CBC news is coming up next, and then.

SOUNDCLIP

SPEAKER: I met one grandmother today who's in one room in the basement of what's left of the house, and she said, I'm staying here. This is my home. It was my parents’ home and my grandparents’ home, and we will rebuild.

MG: The United Nations estimates that rebuilding Gaza will cost something like $50 billion and take decades. In the meantime, the US president is now saying that Palestinians would not have a right to return to the Gaza Strip under his proposed plan to own and rebuild Gaza. Coming up, the political and reconstruction challenges faced by Gaza. How do you go about trying to rebuild this territory? And is it possible with people still there living in the territory given the scale of the destruction? We'll talk about that and more coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. Stay with us.

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REBUILDING GAZA

Guests: Samir Hulileh, Mark Jarzombek

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current. Since the Israel-Hamas war began 16 months ago, the bombardment of Gaza has left much of the strip in rubble. Now, weeks into the ceasefire agreement, discussions on how to rebuild the territory have begun. US President Donald Trump has repeated several times his vision for Gaza's future.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: Trump was also asked on Fox News if Palestinians would have a right to return to Gaza.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: No, they wouldn't, because they're going to have much better housing. Much better. In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it'll be years before you could ever. It's not habitable.

MG: Many US allies and Palestinian officials have condemned this plan. The reality, though, is that the territory is indeed in rubble. In a moment, we'll hear about the logistics of a project like rebuilding Gaza. But first, we're joined by Samir Hulileh, who chairs the Palestine Stock Exchange, along with two real estate companies with holdings in Gaza. And he hopes to be part of the rebuilding process in the strip. We've reached him in Ramallah in the West Bank. Samir, hello.

SAMIR HULILEH: Hello. Hi, how are you?

MG: I'm well, thanks. What was your reaction when you heard Donald Trump's vision for Gaza?

SAMIR HULILEH: To be frank, I was stunned because I didn't hear the businessman talking about businesses in Gaza. It was more a political statement, and which we have heard really a lot from Israelis. You know that half of the Palestinians do live outside Palestine. We have seven million Palestinians living within Palestine, Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, and the other half outside Palestine, Palestine, who were deported anyway during the 1948 war and the 1967 war and other wars. So this is a repeated experience which we have had with the Israelis, and it's only now repeated by the American president. I do appreciate his interest in doing business in Gaza, rebuilding Gaza to be part of it, although I have a comment that, you know, most of the destruction in Gaza was basically out of the American money and Israeli weapons and American weapons. However, we have really contracted since a year American companies, Egyptian companies and others, trying to find partnerships in order to help in rebuilding Gaza. This is our interest. We were there since 1994 and will continue to be there. And we are very much interested in being part of rebuilding Gaza.

MG: Can I just ask you one more thing just about Donald Trump's plan? He's very insistent on this. He has said that Jordan and Egypt would take Palestinians that would be moved out of Gaza. He's going to be speaking with the Jordanian king about that today. What do you think is at stake if Palestinians are forced to leave Gaza in the process of rebuilding at the very least?

SAMIR HULILEH: Look, it's not the process of rebuilding. It has nothing to do with the process. Basically, this was an Israeli dream since long, and they have succeeded in implementing it. Like half of the population is out, and they would like to continue this. So from my perspective as a business man and somebody who is interested and eager to help in rebuild in Gaza, there is no need to end the presence of one or one and a half million Palestinians in Gaza. From my experience as a businessman, I like to see crowded markets. I like to see Singapore and Hong Kong. Like Gaza is similar to Hong Kong and Singapore. So the number of population is an asset. It's not a burden. And I'd like to see that in rebuilding Gaza or even in consuming our goods and products in Gaza. So the whole approach is highly political, and it has nothing to do with business or even with humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

MG: You have, as I mentioned, two real estate companies that have holdings in Gaza. What do you know about those properties?

SAMIR HULILEH: Look, we have the first, the only big resort in Gaza. It's a five stars hotel. We have chalets on the beach, around 162 chalets. And both were destroyed fully in the last, I mean, almost a year ago. And we have also an investment, a major one in the only industrial zone at the border with Israel. Also, it was destroyed fully. We have, we are partnering in the power generation station in Gaza, the only one also in Gaza. We are partners in it. We are shareholders. In addition, we have a lot of land next to the beaches of Gaza. And although everything was destroyed, which we have photos of it and we’re trying, we have established a lot of plans for the land and for the hotel and for others. I mean, this is our life. We’re there since 30 years, and we think that we can easily rebuild it in the coming Gaza, Gaza after. And that's why we were looking for American companies and Egyptian companies. And even, we looked for Turkish and Chinese technologies to do that properly and fast. So from our perspective, we are ready. We have the money and we have the interest. The question is what's happening in Gaza? What's the plan for Gaza?

MG: What would happen to those plans if Donald Trump were to be able to move forward on his idea?

SAMIR HULILEH: Look, I don't think he can move forward.

MG: You think it's a non-starter? You think what he's talking about is simply not going to happen?

SAMIR HULILEH: Yeah, yeah. No, no. Of course. Look, if I'm going to invest in Gaza, I have nothing to do with people leaving or people not allowed to come back. This is highly political. He if he is occupying Gaza, I mean, even the Israelis, they are occupying Gaza for 30 years now and more since 1967. And they didn't dare to speak about it as blunt and as vocal as Mr. Trump have done. I don't think it's tenable and it's possible, no matter the pressures that will be done on the Sisi and on the King Abdullah. However, again, I'm not a politician to speak about it. I'm the business part. And all what I'm saying is that we are open and ready to do business with American business community to help in rebuilding Gaza or investing in Gaza and after.

MG: It is going to take an extraordinary amount of money to begin a rebuilding process. And we're going to speak in a moment about the practicalities of that, how you go about clearing out the rubble, how you go about thinking about rebuilding, but who would pay for something like this? As a businessperson, who are you turning to to look for investors?

SAMIR HULILEH: The question is first, can you make the rubble issue a business by itself? Because in the previous wars, in 14, 12, nine and 2008, it was a business. So people were reusing it for pavement of roads and so on. I mean, they managed to reuse it. However, it wasn't mechanized, and it wasn't as big as it is now. So the problem is there. Now, doing the infrastructure and clearing the rubble is, of course, something that donors usually come in and they put their money in it. However, the question is, is it open for investors like us who have the land, who have the knowledge, who know the people, who have their own employees in Gaza? Is it possible, would it be possible that we partner in this and do our own projects? That's the question now. Our projects are well, I would say they are well in the direct need of the people there. We would not start maybe with the five stars hotel, but for sure, we have other plans to do in particular in housing and in food processing and in others in the industrial zone.

MG: But is your sense that people want to invest in this, that there are investors that would be willing to put money up for this?

SAMIR HULILEH: A lot. A lot. Remember, I'm talking about a consumer market. It's a big consumer market and a very small, a small size of land. Gaza was always profitable for people because it's too small and it has two and a half million. So getting rid of the consumers was never a business idea, and there is nothing clever about it. It's exactly the opposite. And I think we need to make sure that we use and will do proper planning for Gaza. You know, in 2016, we as the business community, we have recruited an American company to do a master plan for Gaza after the war. And this plan is extremely, of course, it's ready. However, at that time, I remember the major experts of this company told us that you are fortunate to have something similar to Hong Kong and Singapore because that's where money will come. That's where consumers will be available, and it will be very short, very small.

MG: Who would be in charge of this new Gaza?

SAMIR HULILEH: My perspective is that, of course, the Palestinian Authority is still the one responsible.

MG: Do you believe that it has the legitimacy and the trust of Palestinians to run Gaza?

SAMIR HULILEH: There is no other option at this point. However, I have to tell you that we need and the Palestinian Authority need to be tolerant and flexible in listening to what the needs of donors. For example, I didn't hear anything about Trump or the Americans putting money in Gaza. They were talking about investing in Gaza maybe using the Saudi money, maybe keeping the security of Gaza using the Egyptian army, but not the Americans. So my perspective is that we need to be sensitive to the needs of the international community on security issues like Israel, of course, on financial issues and transparency, for sure. But the legitimacy is equally important. What are the laws that will be prevailing in Gaza? I mean, what we have is we have a system, we have laws, regulations, we have cultures. I mean, it's an integral part of the Palestinian areas, and it cannot be just taken out from it and given to another and then bring in American or other cultures and laws and regulations and so on.

MG: So if you're talking about being sensitive to, for example, Israeli security concerns, one of the concerns is that Hamas is still in control on the ground in Gaza. They have recruited many people in the wake of this war as the war has continued, and Israeli officials have said that the presence of Hamas going forward is unacceptable. So what do you do about that?

SAMIR HULILEH: Of course. No, no, I agree. I agree with that. And the second phase of the truce, of this agreement that is now under implementation is basically negotiating the arms of Hamas and the presence of Hamas and the leaders of Hamas. This is an integral part of the negotiation. It's not us who will be doing it. It's the Israelis with Egypt and Qatar will be negotiating this in the presence of the Americans, of course, with Hamas. And for sure, I understand very well that Hamas should, as an armed group, should disappear from Gaza. However, Hamas can continue always to be a political group, but nothing more. And this has to be handled and dealt with in this second phase next month.

MG: What role do you think Israel should play in rebuilding Gaza? Should funds come, for example, from Israel to help with the rebuild?

SAMIR HULILEH: It's a hard question for us to answer because they always prefer to destroy. And the destruction was not because they wanted to uproot Hamas from Gaza, but just basically to punish the people and to make sure that it's not livable anymore. However, we always cooperated with Israeli firms in rebuilding or in doing business. I mean, the relationship between Palestine and Israel is connected with almost $5.5 billion of imports from Israel and around $1.3 billion of exports to Israel. So this is a lot. So for sure, nothing we will do, nothing we can do is without the presence and participation and contribution from Israeli firms. Now, if you're talking about the government of Israel, I don't think this is required. I think what's required from the government of Israel is just to lift the siege on Gaza, open the doors for goods to go in and out and make sure that again, they fulfil the agreements that they have signed with Hamas recently through the second and third phase. If this is done, I think we are building confidence with the donors, confidence with the investors. And for sure, I have to say that ending this conflict between Israel and Palestine is a prerequisite. It's a must.

MG: Just finally, if you were to look 10 years ahead, what do you think Gaza will look like in a decade?

SAMIR HULILEH: Prosperous. But remember, again, I'm just reminding myself, with a top urban architect who was doing the master planning of Gaza, he said in 2015, Gaza and Tel Aviv will be connected. He's talking about the human factors, workers going in, working in Israel, goods coming from Israel into Gaza and vice versa. From my perspective, Gaza has a lot of potential. I see it positive. 10 years will be enough if the political issue is solved and if all the parties, including the Israelis, are inclusive and included in any arrangement to rebuild Gaza.

MG: Samir, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

SAMIR HULILEH: Always. Thank you.

MG: Samir Hulileh chairs the Palestine Stock Exchange, along with two real estate companies with holdings in Gaza. We reached him in Ramallah in the West Bank. The political challenges to rebuilding Gaza are enormous, so are the logistics. Mark Jarzombek is a professor of History and Theory of Architecture at MIT. He's in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mark, good morning to you.

MARK JARZOMBEK: Good morning.

MG: I had read somewhere that 60%, the United Nations believes that 60% of the buildings in Gaza are destroyed. There could be as much as 42 million tons of debris. This would be enough to fill dump trucks that would stretch all the way from New York City to Singapore. When you are facing that, where do you start?

MARK JARZOMBEK: Well, you're right. I mean, this is going to be an unprecedented situation of removal, and in an area that is extremely tight. And now that the many Gaza residents are worried that if they leave, they're not going to come back, they're not going to be leaving. So they will be there, right, you know, where all the demolition is taking place in nearby shelters or tents or wherever because of this anxiety. And so this removal process is going to take years. My estimation is going to even probably last well into a decade.

MG: There is the belief of a lot of unexploded weaponry as well. Experts are saying that this could take decades just to get that weaponry out. Is that, I mean, walk us through some of the practicalities of this. Is that where you begin this process?

MARK JARZOMBEK: Well, the process would be first in an engineering assessment, the properties. You have to bring an engineer. You can't just have people with dump trucks and wheelbarrows taking the stuff away. It's heavy. It's dangerous. It’s reinforced Concrete. Needs an expert to understand how to remove these things and how to demolish them. You’ll need, you know, hundreds of experts, and they have to be brought in from all parts of the world. You’ll need translators. They have to go property by property. They have to figure out which one, which properties need to be removed down to the ground, which properties nominally can be salvaged in some way. And, you know, it has to be registered and some sort of massive managerial project to sort of organize this in some way.

MG: Where do you take all of that rubble? If 60% of the buildings have been destroyed, where does the concrete and the rebar and everything else go?

MARK JARZOMBEK: Well, that's, you know, a billion dollar question right there. Certainly, it’s not going to be brought over the border to Israel. And certainly, there will be difficulties saying bring it out into the Mediterranean and dump it because it contains toxic elements. And so the only possibility at the moment is bringing it out through Egypt. But that has difficulties because before the war, 500 trucks entered Gaza daily with humanitarian goods. Now, after the war, I'm sure that'll be more. And if you add daily another 500 trucks filled with rubble trying to get through the checkpoint, you have a bottleneck situation of unprecedented proportions. New roads and infrastructure have to be built to handle all of this. And then once it's let’s say out into Egypt, are they going to put it into the desert? They’re going to have to go somewhere.

MG: Can you do all of that with a population still there? That is, I mean, this is their home. They, we've heard from people who they don't want to leave. And yet, there is an extraordinary effort that's going to need to take place to remove all that rubble and debris that you've talked about. How do you do that if the population is right there?

MARK JARZOMBEK: Yeah, that's going to slow up the process considerably because people will be doing their daily lives. And people, you know, will be wanting to go shopping and go to the market and go to this. And those same streets will be filled with dump trucks filled with rubble. So there have to be, these things have to be separated out. You can't have people walking across the street and, you know, 500 dump trucks being held up. So this is really an infrastructural problem of how to manage all this coming and going.

MG: And you need to rebuild that infrastructure as well, right? Things like those roads, but also sanitation and electrical grid, what have you.

MARK JARZOMBEK: That's right. I mean, the word that is being used is reconstruction, but what we're dealing with here is not reconstruction. It's really construction. And I don't think anything's going to be reconstructed, right? We're starting pretty much from all over again. And so yeah, you might get these hotels and some office buildings and some hospitals, the area cleared out, and those might be built first as a way to jumpstart the economy. But the housing for the regular people, you know, that's going to be sort of second rung in terms of all of this. And that's going to be prefabricated elements are probably going to be brought in. And these housing units may or may not last the test of time. And some will be temporary and temporary things become permanent. And next thing you know, you have a sort of a checkerboard of reality.

MG: Put on your professor of history of architecture hat for a moment. Is there anything in history, people have made comparisons, for example, to the Second World War. Is there anything in history that compares or would give us a bit of a road map to what we're seeing in Gaza?

MARK JARZOMBEK: Well, sort of not because in the Second World War, after the war, you still had functioning nation states. You still had banking systems that worked and that were and have been in place for hundreds and hundreds of years. Here, a sort of a new banking system is going to have to be created to manage the billions of dollars. It's one thing to manage the funding for a resort or hotel, it's another thing to manage the billions of dollars that are going to be pumped into the system and make sure that they're spent, you know, appropriately. So not really. I would say the other closest analogy is Iraq, the rebuilding of Iraq. I think that was estimated at 50 billion. The United States put in I think something in the order of 20 billion. And I think people should look at that and see how successful or not that rebuilding was as a model for this.

MG: The United Nations has said that to rebuild Gaza to its pre-war state could cost upwards of $80 billion. You have said that the cost, whatever it is, will be prohibitive. What are you looking at and what sort of international agreement would need to be in place in order to get to that rebuilding?

MARK JARZOMBEK: Well, yeah, I mean, 80 billion is a good starting figure. And unfortunately, I think one has to sort of add in the basic law or rule about this is that people promise more than they deliver. So, you know, at the moment, you know, everybody is enthusiastic, and they’ll say, okay, we'll do this. But five years down the line, there'll be other crises, other problems. All of a sudden, money will become less and less sparse, and there will be issues and the problems will amount. So will the money be there, you know, 10 years from now, 15 years from now when the rebuilding is still happening?

MG: Can I just go back to something that you said earlier which was really interesting, that rebuilding is perhaps the wrong word to use. That suggests that you're making something new in some ways.

MARK JARZOMBEK: Yes. I mean, I think, you know, in 10 years from now, Gaza will be unrecognizable to the older people who lived in Gaza. You know, if they were, you know, blindfolded and brought back, they won't recognize it, right? It'll be a completely new place. It just will have to be because you'll have to have different type of street layouts. You'll have to have different type of housing arrangements. You'll have different types of shopping and infrastructure. So yeah, it's going to be a task to try to figure that out and know when some of that infrastructure has to be made just for the removal. And the impact of that removal infrastructure will impact the design that will be put into play.

MG: What is the timeline here? I mean, again, we heard from Samir Hulieh, who is a businessperson who wants to, you know, marshal investment for that rebuild. And his hope was that in 10 years, he believed Gaza would be prosperous. How long is this going to take, do you think?

MARK JARZOMBEK: Well, there's difference between prosperous and having an area that looks like an urban area and not, you know, filled with piles of demolition here and there. So yeah, it has every possibility of being prosperous. You can be prosperous and still live in ruins. And that's sort of what I think is going to be the solution for at least the next 10, 15 years, is to develop a prosperity in the shadow of ruins.

MG: But the timeline for it to not look like, I mean, you see the images that have come out thus far of a smashed territory in many ways. You're looking at decades.

MARK JARZOMBEK: Yes. Yeah. You know, I think it's always good for developers to give us a rosy picture because that sort of helps us understand the future. But the reality from a construction point of view is we're talking decades.

MG: Decades.

MARK JARZOMBEK: Yeah. Yeah.

MG: Mark, thank you very much. It's good to talk to you about this.

MARK JARZOMBEK: Yep. All the best. Thank you.

MG: Mark Jarzombek is a professor of History and the Theory of Architecture at MIT. Well, coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: We cannot let AI pollute social media with empty slop and cunning disinformation. We cannot let it grow even more the rifts within us, rifts that are already so deep between the haves, the have nots and the have yachts.

MG: The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, spoke at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris yesterday, calling for guardrails and accountability so that AI is not just controlled by the ultra rich. Coming up, how Canada can be a global leader in artificial intelligence in the future. And we'll be joined by the CBC's Nora Young to talk about how some of the big players, including Google, are changing how they think and operate when it comes to artificial intelligence. That's coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

AI SUMMIT

Guests: Nora Young, Sinead Bovell

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current. World leaders, including the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, are gathered in Paris to talk about the future of artificial intelligence. The AI Action Summit is focusing on responsible AI development, which is timely given that AI technology is advancing incredibly quickly and policy is struggling to keep up. Just last week, Google broke a long-held promise that it would never use its AI systems for warfare or surveillance. Nora Young has been tracking these developments. She is with the CBC's Visual Investigations Unit and is with me in studio. Nora, good morning.

NORA YOUNG: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What is the purpose of this AI summit? I said it's an AI action summit, suggesting things are going to come out of it.

NORA YOUNG: Well, you know, they always do with these summits, right?

MG: Not just talking.

NORA YOUNG: Yes. So the supposed purpose is to look at balancing support for innovation and the financial engine that AI could be, while acknowledging the need for guardrails and protection from harm. So they’ll be tackling issues like governance, trust, concerns about environmental sustainability, which is important with AI, and to bring together not just technologists, but also politicians, including Trudeau, Macron and J.D. Vance. And the thing is, you know, we're clearly at this moment where the technology is obviously advancing very quickly, but also becoming like a foundational technology. So not just a technology, but the basis for how a lot of work and communication, leisure culture happens. So I think it's part of a recognition that we need to think about where we're headed, what this means for our economy, and this move by Google to position itself vis a vis national security and democracy, I think is part of that.

MG: What is Google saying about what it wants to do exactly?

NORA YOUNG: Well, they're not really saying it, which is interesting, right? What they did was they took out these specific provisions in their public facing AI policy used to state applications that Google wouldn't pursue specifically, including weapons and tools for information gathering for surveillance purposes that violate international norms, which is itself a bit vague. So CNN found out that they did this by going back into its 2018 policies on the internet archive. So they take out this whole section that indicates avenues they won't pursue, and they now have this language around responsible development and deployment.

MG: There's a lot of air quotations going on there.

NORA YOUNG: I know. You want the video here. I'm doing a lot of air quotes here. Now, none of this means that they have a specific plan to develop AI for weaponry or surveillance, but certainly, it's indicative of a general change of perspective.

MG: Why did Google make this promise originally not to have promise such as it is, to have its AI systems used in surveillance or in war?

NORA YOUNG: Yeah, I mean, the politics and ethics of tech has long been this very fraught issue in Google and its parent company, Alphabet, going back to the sort of don't be evil origins. When it comes to surveillance, I mean, AI applications like facial recognition, as you know, have long been concerns, whether that's about bias in the training data or the potential intrusions on people's privacy.

MG: This is something that Google has been wrestling with for a while, right?

NORA YOUNG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, these things are controversial in society more broadly, but also within Google, the company where employees have this history of kind of pushing back against work that might have military applications or surveillance applications. So last year, you may remember a number of Google employees protested Google accepting a contract with the Israeli government, which they argued might be used for their military applications. And the company responded by firing 50 employees. So I think we can argue that Google has sort of been moving in this general direction for a while.

MG: Has Google said anything about why it wants to open up its use of AI for weapons and surveillance?

NORA YOUNG: Yeah, they sort of did a little bit. I mean, you can certainly argue that these technologies are going to be developed all over the world, much as we've seen China make rapid advances in generative AI. Demis Hassabis, who's the head of Google's AI team, he argues that democracies should lead in developing AI guided by democratic values, values like freedom, equality and respect for human rights.

MG: So if somebody is going to do it, it might as well be us.

NORA YOUNG: That's basically the argument, right? So Google's updated AI principles say that the company will use human oversight and make sure its technology mitigates unintended or harmful outcomes with the goal of supporting national security. But the thing is, Matt, it's not like democracy, there's those air quotes again, per se has clear rules about the use of technology. Countries can and do disagree about the appropriate limits on technology.

MG: What has been the reaction to Google's move, particularly from the world of defence?

NORA YOUNG: Yeah, I mean, one of the people I talked to is a guy named Michael Horowitz. He's worked at the US Defence Department working on emerging technologies, and he's now a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And he's basically saying it's about time.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHAEL HOROWITZ: My concern has actually been, at least in the context of the United States, that there's a greater risk of going too slowly rather than too quickly. The United States has not always been the fastest when it comes to adopting military innovation. And there are concerns raised all the time about the US military potentially resting on its laurels. I think there's actually a larger risk that the US is too slow on the draw when it comes to AI integration than too fast.

NORA YOUNG: So Mike Horowitz is saying that the US is at risk of lagging behind. But different countries have different views about AI right now. The EU, for example, is much more stringent about regulating the technology in general.

MG: And in the United States, I mean, we saw this at the inauguration of President Trump. You had gazillionaires lining up behind him, actually seated right around the president. These are all people who run the major technology firms in this country. What would that mean for AI and for the military?

NORA YOUNG: Yeah. And we now have Elon Musk playing an active role in the US government. Among the many companies that he runs, Musk owns X AI. In the past, he said he believes that AI is the future of warfare. He's argued that drones are going to be critical for future battles, calling Ukraine a drone war, and you need AI assistance in order to coordinate these large clouds of drones called drone swarms. And Musk also wants military procurement to be made simpler, which fits in with how he's approached other US agencies in the last few weeks. Other tech companies like Google and Amazon are offering up their services to the federal government. But of course, we're in early days, so it's hard to say exactly what they want to do.

MG: What are the risks here, do you think?

NORA YOUNG: I mean, in part, it's the same risks that come from any type of data driven machine learning, which is that these systems can be wrong, right? They work on pattern recognition and probability, and there can be flaws in the training data, for example. So of course, there needs to be obviously a lot of rigorous testing, and accountability is an issue. In our conversation, Michael Horowitz made the point that you always need a human responsible for the use of force, meaning not necessarily in the specific tactical operation, but in the decision to use force.

MG: This is so that the robots don't decide to go to war.

NORA YOUNG: Exactly. Yeah. So clearly, in the conversation about AI and automating war and national security, there are still a lot of ethical worries.

MG: But it is happening already, this conversation.

NORA YOUNG: It is happening already.

MG: It's not like it's something of the future, right?

NORA YOUNG: Absolutely. And I think that gets back to where we started from, which is that people are seeing AI as a foundational technology which is going to touch all areas of our economy, all areas of our society.

MG: Nora, thank you.

NORA YOUNG: My pleasure. Thanks, Matt.

MG: Nora Young is with the CBC's Visual Investigations Unit. As she mentioned, the Global AI Summit is underway to address some of these issues. The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, spoke there yesterday and made the case for a future that includes regulation.

SOUNDCLIP

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: We cannot stop progress. We shouldn't want to. But we need to have guardrails, transparency, accountability. We must put AI to the service of everyone in both high and low income countries, and not just for an increasingly small group of ultra rich oligarchs whose only concern is the value of their stock portfolios.

MG: But just as Trudeau talked about guardrails, he also pitched Canada as a strong, trustworthy partner for the AI industry. Sinead Bovell is a strategic foresight adviser and founder of the tech education company WAYE, just back from Paris, where she took part in a pre-summit event on AI safety and ethics. Sinead, good morning to you.

SINEAD BOVELL: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MG: Thanks for being here. What was the mood like in Paris as this summit got underway, given all of the talk about artificial intelligence, good and bad?

SINEAD BOVELL: The mood, it's interesting. So there's kind of many layers that are emerging right now. So on the one hand, and in the meetings that I was in, you do have this concern for the speed AI is moving at, the safety that may or may not be prioritized as countries kind of rein in influence over this technology. You have the broader purpose of the event, which is to address how countries can harness all of the benefits, mitigate the risks. But then there's also this shift towards national sovereignty in AI as countries recognize this is a technology for, you want technological sovereignty over this technology, especially as we see these geoeconomic fragmentation and geopolitical tensions are rising. AI is becoming a critical component of economic power and national security. So there's all of these layers to the mood in Paris at this moment.

MG: I was reading something suggesting that perhaps, you know, the doom and gloom, people thinking that this is going to make us obsolete, that the machines will take over, that that in some ways is taking a bit of a backseat now. Is that the case?

SINEAD BOVELL: It's taking a backseat when it comes to national priorities. There are researchers that are still just as dedicated to that cause and believe now it's not getting nearly as much attention as it was before. But when it comes to leadership at a state level, AI safety and kind of existential risk has certainly taken a backseat.

MG: Can I just ask you? We heard about how Google is doing some things. How broadly, how would you explain how AI is being used right now? People hear about its promise and perhaps don't understand where it is surfacing. So just practically, how is it being, how is it being employed right now?

SINEAD BOVELL: Yeah. So I mean, in many ways, we've been using AI for years, whether you are on social media or you're in, you know, watching a streaming platform, in terms of this newer wave, this generative AI boom. We're still in the early days of this technology being diffused and deployed in businesses and in companies, but it is playing a role. I mean, whether workers are open and honest about using it, the numbers are very high in terms of how many people have subscribed and use systems like ChatGPT every single day. So now, I think we're in this stage where companies are figuring out their AI strategy, figuring out how to adopt this technology. But eventually, it's going to be probably bigger than the impact of the internet and more akin to something like electricity going forward in business models and in everyday society.

MG: That it is going to be that foundational technology that Nora talked about.

SINEAD BOVELL: It is going to be, yes, a general purpose technology. So the way we stream electricity, we will soon be streaming AI on that scale.

MG: And so as companies compete for a piece of what sounds like a very lucrative market, how well is Canada positioned?

SINEAD BOVELL: So we have a lot of potential because there are non-negotiable, indispensable ingredients to power the AI age and to power the emerging technology age. And that is critical minerals, that is cold temperatures for data centres that's a strong research environment. So Canada theoretically has all of the components, and we have been really strong on the research stage. But it is time for us now to move a little bit more quickly on building our industrial strategy around artificial intelligence. We don't just want to export minerals and energy for other countries to build out the AI ecosystem. We want to insert ourselves as an indispensable part of the AI supply chain. So we have to talk about how are we refining and processing our critical, critical minerals? How are we exporting AI efficient energy systems and smart grids? So really crafting our competitive advantage in the AI age.

MG: Because to your point, power, I mean, that can mean a number of things. But one of the things is that artificial intelligence requires an enormous consumption of power to make it go, right?

SINEAD BOVELL: It requires an enormous amount of power. And right now, we're just talking about training these massive AI models. We haven't even got to the distributed power that's going to be needed for businesses and citizens to actually leverage this technology themselves. But I will preface and say energy, it does also need to be stable and low cost. And that's why renewable energy has really taken kind of front and centre for these tech companies because you don't want a volatile energy supply chain that's unpredictable, that changes the prices of AI. So on the one hand, energy is a really big deal, but it also has this economic requirement for stable, renewable and cheap sources.

MG: And is that something, I mean, if you think of the advantages that Canada has, aside from the critical minerals, is that something that we might be able to corner, not corner the market on, but certainly have an advantage over?

SINEAD BOVELL: Yes, because we still are a leader in renewable energy. We do have some unmatched advantages at this point in time. So yes, we can position ourselves as an irreplaceable AI enabler when it comes to energy, when it comes to renewable energy in the AI driven supply chain.

MG: How worried are you that, I mean, we saw that image at the inauguration of Donald Trump being surrounded by tech leaders, the people who control many of the platforms that are working hard to develop and push the AI envelope. How worried are you that this technology will only benefit them?

SINEAD BOVELL: I think it's a legitimate concern. The US is engaged in an AI technological race against China, and now, they're going to take more of a deregulation, innovate at all cost approach. And more capital will likely flow into the US as a result of that. But at the same time, there are those critical components that are needed to power the AI age. So you can have all of this technology, but if you can't actually power it, you can't actually move forward. So I do think if Canada needs to insert itself in this moment, we do need to flex our muscles that we do have. We have a lot of leverage in this age. We just need to step into the game. But yes, I don't think a world in which you have to choose between US AI or China, China's AI system, and you don't really have control over your own AI sovereignty. I do think that that's a challenge because the US is deprioritizing safety for the sake of innovation and for the sake of winning what they see as this race against China. I don't think AI is a race that can be won, and I think that there will be some casualties if that is the only frame countries are looking at AI through.

MG: What do you mean that it's not a race that can be won? I mean, you have the vice president speaking at the summit today, pushing back, to your point, against what he calls excessive regulation. There are a lot of people who are shocked by that appearance of a Chinese chat bot that suggested that the race is not between big companies, but between nation states. So why is this a race that can't be won?

SINEAD BOVELL: It can't be won because we will all suffer if AI moves at a pace that we have no control over and we really deprioritize safety. And at the same time, what Deepseek and these innovations that are coming out of China have shown us is that you really can't put a border on software. So you can attempt to go really quickly, but this technology is going to diffuse throughout the globe regardless. So I do think we're better off taking a more collaborative approach. That said, of course, there are some challenges of AI coming out of a country like China that has a bit more of an authoritarian approach to this technology. There are some cybersecurity challenges. But at the end of the day, you really can't put a border on this software. It's going to go where whichever country wants to adopt it.

MG: Do you think there's any real appetite for regulation? Again, J.D. Vance talked about how AI systems built in the United States would, in his words, be free from ideological bias and not restrict free speech. If you are trying to move as fast as possible, is there any appetite for regulation that some people might believe would slow down that lightning fast development?

SINEAD BOVELL: I think there is still appetite for regulation because you need societal adoption and societal buy-in for this technology to really move markets and to have that economic benefit. So I don't think people will feel safe moving forward with the technology if there are absolutely no strings attached to it. Businesses do like some guidelines to know what are the kind of guardrails or the frameworks that they have to play within when it comes to adopting this technology. So there is some appetite for it. I don't think there's as much appetite as, for example, Europe has put forward with their AI regulation. I think that they went a little bit heavy handed with it, but I don't think it should be a technology that isn't regulated. I don't think that that's going to be helpful. And I think for societies to adopt it and want to buy into it, they do need to feel somewhat safe and that this technology has been regulated or there are checks and balances before countries just go live to bear with it.

MG: Just finally, I mean, the technology moves so quickly. And this summit was meant to, as I said, be about action. Something is supposed to come out of it that will lead to some sort of consensus. At the same time, you have Elon Musk putting in a bid to buy OpenAI, which creates ChatGPT. Do you think that the meeting of the minds in Paris is actually going to lead to any action that would make people who are nervous about the power of this technology feel better?

SINEAD BOVELL: I do think that these conversations, leaders coming together to figure out some sort of global architecture for this technology still has a lot of merit. It still has a lot of purpose. For a country like Canada, for instance, aligning itself with Europe to kind of create more blocks and more opportunities so its not just dominated by two countries. But at the end of the day, I do still think there's this unilateral advantage that countries are trying to seek, trying to sell AI in their country. Come to our country. This is why we are a good, a good platform for AI development. But I think it's a technology that does require diplomacy. You can't really put borders on it. So we still need to have these international conversations regardless if people are signing off on pledges. We are still better off in a world where leaders are meeting and at least trying to collaborate versus one where everybody is going full speed ahead in their own lane with no coordination whatsoever.

MG: Sinead, good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

SINEAD BOVELL: Thanks for having me.

MG: Sinead Bovell is the founder of the tech education company WAYE, just back from that summit in Paris. This is The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. My name is Matt Galloway. Yesterday on this program, we talked about the importance of exercise for seniors. A study recommends that doctors prescribe exercise to elderly patients to help them stay healthy and live longer. We asked for your fitness routines. What are you doing to stay active as you get older? And many of you wrote to us with your own experiences of staying fit as you age. Karin Marley, our senior producer, is here with some of your mail. Karin, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning, Matt. We'll start with an email from Brian Sharpe. He writes from Aylmer, Quebec. Compared to your 93-year-old guest, I'm still a spring chicken at 69. How did I celebrate my 69th birthday, you ask? I, along with my now adult children, took part in a snowy 5K road race. As I was a dedicated and highly accomplished couch potato for most of my adult life, I marvel at the feeling of my body responding to the demands that training for a race puts on it. I ran my first 5K in 2009 and rapidly moved up to 10Ks, half marathons and short course triathlons. I bike and row for cross training, and I try to do strength training a few times a week. I dread the idea of becoming one of those frail old men who can barely walk. While I can't control genetics, I will try to control what I can. With any luck, I'll be running for a couple more decades.

MG: He is who I want to be. Well done, Brian. This letter is from Eva Durance. He writes from Penticton, British Columbia. At 82, I am still out and about every day. The last backcountry trip with my one friend in her 70s still up for such adventures was the Berg Lake Trail in BC in 2018. We had at least one more trip in mind, but then both broke a leg bone in 2019 so had to back off. We both still hike regularly. I ride my horse in the hills two or three times a week, spring through early winter, as well as bike on local trails. We and most of our other friends, all in their 70s and 80s, are also active in other ways such as yoga, tai chi, walking groups and gardening. It is certainly a way to live until one dies rather than rust away.

KARIN MARLEY: Well, that sounds like a pretty good life as well.

MG: Yes, indeed.

KARIN MARLEY: This one is from Patricia Morden. I will be 83 next week and I'm still working. I own a gift shop in a small Ontario village. Some might say, why doesn't she just relax and watch TV or talk on the phone? Every day, my mind is busy deciding what I will purchase, where will I hang up this picture? Where will this antique lamp accent the display? I have great conversations with my customers. Exercise, I walk to get my mail. I walk around the block sometimes. I walk up and down the back staircase several times a day. I garden. I shovel my sidewalk. I do my own cooking and housework. Exercise, I'm concentrating on picking up my feet so that I can continue doing what I love.

MG: Ted Ostrowski from Medicine Hat, Alberta, writes, technically, I'm a senior citizen, a pensioner, an old fart now. I'm 65. In my mind, I'm decades younger. My body, not so much. However, I'm doing quite well for a guy that had a heart attack last spring. Before that was a pulmonary embolism, and prior to that was a full hip replacement. It was the cardiac issue that I had in the spring that put me back on the road of physical fitness with the Alberta Healthy Living Program, a 12-week program with a team of nurses, dieticians, physical fitness instructors and even mental health professionals. They introduced me to physical activity that anyone can do, and now I feel better or as good as I have ever felt.

KARIN MARLEY: Rosemary Lowe writes, I'm 80 years old, but I've been going regularly to a gym for 42 years. Most people think that I'm in my mid-60s despite my grey and white hair. I do classes that target balance, flexibility and also strength building. My bone scans have shown an increase of bone density after doing weight bearing exercises for a number of years. Exercise has been my go to when stressed and feeling depressed. It is also sociable and gets me out of the house. My husband died two years ago, and I lost him as my gym partner. So now, I go alone.

MG: Anne Guilar, I hope I'm saying your name right, Anne, writes, I listened to your segment on seniors and exercise with my two old friends as we got ready for our fifth day in a row of cross-country skiing near Baie Saint Paul in Quebec. At 66, I’m the youngster with my 72 and 76-year-old pals. We are from Toronto and make our annual trek here each winter to enjoy good company with wonderful cross-country skiing. I noticed today, we don't really start as early as usual or ski quite until dark, but still, we put in a good day on the trails. Old, don't mention it. We are booking our accommodation for next year.

KARIN MARLEY: Lovely. We also got a bunch of letters from listeners pointing out free options for gym and fitness programs. For example, Marel Eager, a ballet instructor in her 70s, says, the Halifax Public Library has Nordic walking poles and other exercise equipment available to check out. June Welsted wrote to say that the YMCA in Brandon, Manitoba, gives free memberships to anyone 85 or older. And Carmelita Allen says the city of Yellowknife is letting anyone walk at the Fieldhouse at any time at no cost. And she challenges other jurisdictions in Canada to come up with a plan to invest in the well-being of their citizens. And I have one last letter. This is from Judith Jones. My husband, 79, and I, 77, love to walk daily. But during the winter, we put on music and dance around the house. Our favourite is Cliff Richard and The Shadows. Makes us feel young again.

MG: Thanks to everybody who wrote in. And thank you, Karin Marley, for reading your mail.

KARIN MARLEY: You are welcome.

MG: Karin Marley, senior producer at The Current. That's The Current for this Tuesday, the 11th of February. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. Judith, grab your husband. This is for you. It's Cliff Richard and The Shadows and “The Young Ones.” I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

[Song: “The Young Ones” by Cliff Richard & The Shadows]

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Tuesday, February 11, 2025 Episode Transcript

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