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The Current Transcript for October 26, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

You don't want to believe any of this until you get to the stage where you're actually hearing it on the radio, you know? We trust so much in the system.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Her name is Susan and when she called in to CFPL, her local London, Ontario radio station yesterday, she was clearly still absorbing the news that her father, Arpad Horvath, was listed as the most recent of eight elderly victims allegedly murdered by a nurse in his long term care home. Nothing has yet been proven in the case against Elizabeth Wettlaufer, but the very accusation that frail vulnerable people may have been killed by someone entrusted with their care has triggered concerns far beyond the communities involved. We're talking about those concerns in a moment. Also today it's called the Responder, a rescue ship searching for those adrift on the Mediterranean.

SOUNDCLIP

Every day, its rescue workers patrol off the coast of Libya, searching for asylum seekers put to sea by smugglers that are otherwise doomed to die.

AMT: For nine days, the CBC's Nahlah Ayed joined the crew of that ship, chronicling the desperation of asylum seekers and the efforts of rescue workers, filming it all for a documentary for The Fifth Estate. In just over an hour, she shares the stories of what she saw and who she met. And Werner Herzog has spent close to five decades making films and just as long breaking the rules.

SOUNDCLIP

I shoot what I need for the screen and everybody gets nervous. At least in the—let's say in the United States. “You didn't shoot enough coverage.” I didn't even know what coverage meant.

AMT: In half an hour, the celebrated filmmaker Werner Herzog joins me to talk about how he works and the vision he follows. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Long-term care homes need better inspections, says seniors' advocate

Guests: Amanda Margison, Jane Meadus, Dr. Samir Sinha

SOUNDCLIP

On September 29^th, 2016, the Woodstock Police Service received information that a nurse had involvement in the murder of eight elderly patients while she worked in several long term care facilities in Woodstock and London.

AMT: Well, some of society's most vulnerable allegedly murdered by someone trusted to care for and protect them—that is the scenario police outlined yesterday when they announced that a registered nurse, Elizabeth Tracey Mae Wettlaufer, had been charged with eight counts of first degree murder. All the victims were elderly at nursing homes in London and Woodstock, Ontario where she had worked. So far police are offering only sparse information on the ongoing investigation. The CBC's Amanda Margison has been covering this story and she's in London, Ontario. Hi, Amanda.

AMANDA MARGISON: Good morning.

AMT: I'm guessing that close family and friends of those victims named yesterday were taken by surprise that the person they had been grieving and mourning was murdered.

AMANDA MARGISON: You're absolutely right. We definitely saw genuine sadness. I don't know a reporter who enjoys going up to a door and knocking on it when a family is grieving, especially when a family is grieving twice. People had just learned the news when I knocked on some of the families’ doors, saying that they were still contacting extended family. You know I'm sitting here looking at the press release, the news release from the OPP that they handed out yesterday at their news conference. And there are a list of eight names here and the date of death. And one of the privileges, I suppose, of this job is that we can take those names that are just really words on a page and we really can bring them to life. And by talking to family yesterday, we really got a sense of who some of these eight victims, alleged victims, were.

AMT: And you went to a cemetery and found friends of one of the victims. I mean what kinds of things are you hearing?

AMANDA MARGISON: I’ll tell you about Helen Matheson. She really was a mainstay in a small community outside of Woodstock, Innerkip, about 15 minutes up the road. She was a member of the church and I think if you were of a certain vintage, you would have known her. She was the school teacher in the town. She was one of those people who was known for being out in her garden in her rubber boots, well into her eighties and nineties, ripping out dandelions. And I met some of her friends and we went to the cemetery, an appropriate place they felt to remember her. And standing there looking at the dates on the tombstone, we noticed that she actually passed away five years ago tomorrow. So that hit home. But just some lovely stories about Helen Matheson, who was 96 when she died at Caressant Care home in Woodstock. Somebody told me that she was driving into her nineties and she would only drive on Tuesday into town and she'd figured out a route that allowed her to get through, get her groceries and get home by only making right turns. So some lovely little anecdotes about this fine lady.

AMT: And what do we know so far about the accused, Elizabeth Wettlaufer?

AMANDA MARGISON: Well, we know what police have told us. First of all, she was 49 years old. She arrived at court, short hair, glasses, wearing a black rock and roll t-shirt, almost. She had been nursing for 20 years. We know that she resigned from the Ontario College of Nurses at the end of September and that was when the investigation started. But of course as we take a closer look at who she was, we see her human side. We went to her house, met some of her neighbours and she was described as bubbly, friendly. I talked to one of her friends who you know chat with her every day and he told me something I thought was insightful. She had a little dog that she cared very deeply about. He said a little dog named Nashville. And he was confused because she was rehoming that little dog at the end of September, again about the time this investigation started. So whether or not she knew she'd be going away for a long time, she was looking for a home for her pet.

AMT: News reports say that the day after police got a tip that they say that led to their accusations and their charges, she actually resigned from the nursing college as well.

AMANDA MARGISON: And that's correct. And of course the nursing college is also conducting an investigation into her actions.

AMT: And so the first death was in 2007. What have police been saying about the timing of these charges?

AMANDA MARGISON: They're saying very little, I have to tell you. They really are tight lipped about this. What we learned yesterday in terms of the charges, who the victims were, is the extent of it. They really aren't saying why or who tipped them off or what the motives may have been. The timeline itself, we know that Elizabeth Wettlaufer was working as of the end of September. She had a part-time job at a nursing home facility between Toronto and Woodstock in the Brantford area. And in fact, she'd been talking about this job to a friend of hers, how she was quite pleased. It was stability, she was enjoying herself. So in terms of the timeline, that 2007, the first death August 17^th, 2007, to the last alleged death August 31^st, 2014, we really don't know anything about how or why it occurred.

AMT: Okay. Amanda Margison, thank you very much.

AMANDA MARGISON: You're welcome.

AMT: Amanda Margison, CBC News reporter. She joined us from London, Ontario. This story must have come to a shock with anyone with a loved one in long term care. It also raises important questions about oversight in long term care homes. Jane Meadus is a staff lawyer and institutional advocate with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly and she's with me in our Toronto studio. Good morning.

JANE MEADUS: Good morning.

AMT: What did you think when you first heard the news of what police say are eight murders in long term care homes?

JANE MEADUS: Well, I turned on my television yesterday morning like everyone else and saw the headline and was absolutely shocked. This is not what we expect to see. And certainly in my job, I've never seen this in 20 years, where you had a nurse who has been accused of multiple murders in a long term care home.

AMT: And of course these are all charges right now. We don't have a lot of detail. Nothing has been proven in court. And so we have to remember that. But police are saying they were homicides and the Ontario coroner's office released an annual report, what was it, just last week, into homicides in long term care facilities. What were the findings? First of all, how common is it? What were the findings?

JANE MEADUS: They released what’s called the Ontario Geriatric and Long Term Care Review Committee Report. It's an annual report and they track certain deaths. Now these are only a portion of the deaths that make it to them. All homicides do get into the report. But there are many other. They looked at about 35 deaths related to elderly people in institutional care. Nine of them were homicides and most of those, if not all of them, have been people, it’s resident on resident issues. So we don't see staff on resident issues causing death in long term care. It's not something that happens very frequently.

AMT: And you make the point that the inspections, they look, they review things. How much oversight is in place for long term care homes in Ontario?

JANE MEADUS: So there's a process for oversight. So the home of course has to have policies and procedures within the home as to how things are happening. It's mandatory to report certain things like any kind of abuse or suspicions of abuse to the Ministry of Health and that's by anyone, not just by staff in the home. The only people who don't have to report it are the residents themselves. If you make a complaint to the home, we always tell you to do it in writing because those written reports have to go to the ministry and the ministry can then decide whether they're going to inspect if it's a critical incident or something. The ministry does come in and inspect the homes. They can inspect them on a complaints basis, so if somebody complains they can come in and inspect a critical incident. And then they do annual inspections. Now up until from about 2013 to 2016, we had full what they called the resident quality inspections, the RQIs. They did the whole home, front to back, everything. They've now decided to pull back. They are doing lighter, less intrusive inspections, two out of the three years for most homes. So they will now only get one of the major inspections and homes that are identified as being problematic will be doing the full one.

AMT: When someone elderly and frail dies in a long term care home, is there usually an autopsy? Is it usually—what happens usually?

JANE MEADUS: It would be very unusual to have an autopsy. So what happens is that the information goes to the coroner's office. So it's self-reporting actually. So the home is actually reporting the death. It would be a nurse or staff in the home. So you know if a nurse, for example, this nurse was on shift and the person died, she would be giving all of the information about what happened to maybe a doctor and the report would go in with that information to the coroner. The coroners then decide whether or not they're going to come and investigate. So they would investigate something suspicious, something unusual, homicides obviously. And what they do is generally interview people, look at the charts. Rarely are autopsies ever done. It would be very unusual in any case to do an autopsy. So most of the reviews are more paper and the committee that does the report, they're only doing paper reviews.

AMT: So in other words, when cases are—they're just looking at the file so whatever is in the files either raises an alarm or raises a concern for someone to review. But obviously that wouldn't be in a file. Again, a lot we don't know. Nothing proven, innocent until proven guilty. But what I'm asking essentially is there's no easy way to monitor when you're dealing with people who are elderly and frail. Could there be a better way to monitor that kind of thing?

JANE MEADUS: Well, I think there could. I think that we need maybe a system where there's more checking. It sounds like from what we're hearing today is that this medication may have come out of the home’s medication.

AMT: That’s right. The police are saying there was a drug involved.

JANE MEADUS: And they definitely suggested, I don't know if they came quite out and said it, but it sounds like they were getting it from the home’s medication inventory. So you know, is there enough checks and balances with that? Big problems in long term care with medication though, where people get the wrong medication, they don't get it at the right time. We certainly—it is not uncommon to see medication, just general medication errors in long term care, partially because of the timing. You know people are run ragged but I think because there's not enough checks and balances on that system and when something goes wrong, they're not always reported even though it should be.

AMT: So what questions are you asking yourself in the wake of this news?

JANE MEADUS: Well, you know I start to think well, how—you know you’re trying to think of how this could be prevented in the future. So that's certainly one of the things that I think of. I think that one of the things that I'm going to be doing is asking the coroner to have an inquest into the deaths because that is really a good way of looking at the whole system. What happened, how it could be prevented. The criminal charges are going to be very focused on a criminal system whereas I think this is a broader problem. How did she get there? How was she able to do this? And those could be answered much better in a coroner's inquest.

AMT: Okay. Well, Jane Meadus, thank you for coming in.

JANE MEADUS: Thank you for having me.

AMT: Jane Meadus, staff lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly and also institutional advocate. We get that right. Thank you very much for coming in, Jane. We have another guest standing by to share his perspective. Dr. Samir Sinha is the director of geriatrics at Toronto's Sinai Health Network and the University Health Network. He's at his office in Toronto. Hello.

DOCTOR SAMIR SINHA: Good morning. How are you?

AMT: I'm well and you've been listening in. What's your reaction to what you just heard from Jane Meadus?

DOCTOR SAMIR SINHA: You know anytime we hear news like this, it's—I mean it's extremely distressing you know for those who work in the health care system. You know I spend my life caring for frail, vulnerable older patients and I'm sure for the families and for people across the country, you know we start worrying you know how safe are our loved ones, especially those who are frail and vulnerable living in long term care homes.

AMT: Now the charges have yet to be proven. I want you to help me understand though, what many of us might be struggling with. Why did it take so long for authorities to be alerted to suspicious deaths, you think?

DOCTOR SAMIR SINHA: You know I think the care you know of frail and vulnerable people, I mean when you think about the people who live in our long term care homes in Ontario, you know we have 77,000 residents across 630 homes and over 100,000 people who are in the long term care system, just in Ontario alone. These are folks who are quite frail and vulnerable, many whom have dementia, and caring for them is a challenge but it's also an honour and a privilege. And you know I think the key is that we try and make sure that we have an incredible number of safeguards and regulations. I think actually the long term care systems in general across the country are some of the most heavily regulated and we have systems in place. Jane went through you know a lot of the details about reporting systems and aspects like that. But I think even you know the systems we have in place and the thousands, the tens of thousands of dedicated professionals working in them, sometimes you know our systems can fail us and sometimes you know individuals may fail us. And the question is you know are there things that could have been done differently?

AMT: And you know she makes the point that some inspections of long term care homes have been scaled back but would an inspection necessarily have caught anything?

DOCTOR SAMIR SINHA: Well, you know that's hard to say. I mean you know again, you know with the amount of regulations that occur, there's so many safeguards that are actually in place that you know I think the key that we want to do from a situation like this is take a good hard look and say, just as Jane was mentioning, you know were there things that if we could have done them differently, we could prevent something you know negative from happening? And I think that's where an incident like this at least helps us try and focus and say with all the safeguards and the level of care that are being provided for these frail, vulnerable patients, are there things that we can do better moving forward?

AMT: And what are the practical challenges to detecting then, a problem in a long term care population?

DOCTOR SAMIR SINHA: Well, I think again, you know the first part is you know long term care homes and nursing homes across the country are heavily regulated. So as you heard that you know if there are any critical incidents, these have to be reported. You know whenever anybody dies, we have to report that to the coroner and they have their systems in place to try and investigate you know deaths that sounds suspicious. But this relies on the reporting of that individual and that all health professionals are regulated folks who have to work to a strict code of ethics and we have obligations to our patients but also to each other. So that if we think that someone is not working you know to the highest standards, you know there are procedures and policies in place through our regulatory colleges. So you know so it's quite clear that you know we have to work to certain standards and when we don't work to certain standards, there are means in place to try and remedy that. So I think the key is though that in caring for frail older adults, especially in environments like these, we try and rely on those systems and to make them as best—but not as intrusive—as possible but also by making these environments supportive enough for the dedicated professionals who work in these environments. These are tough—these are tough environments to work in. These are some of the most challenging patients to care for. But I don't want anybody listening to think, to start immediately worrying: is the care you know in your local long term care home—you know are your loved ones at risk. I think the key is we have to remember that you know there are tens of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people, being cared for in homes and they do operate to incredibly high standards. But when systems or an individual fails us, it gives us an opportunity to take a very good hard look and say can we do things better?

AMT: And what will you be looking for then, as this unfolds in terms of how and sort of overall maybe things can be done even better?

DOCTOR SAMIR SINHA: I think you know there's always—there is an opportunity to always say that you know how do we actually—you know are there opportunities that actually can be can be focused on? So you know Jane mentioned, you know as things unfold, you know we may learn about things that could have been done better that—could we have strengthen a regulation or a method of practicing in a certain way that could prevent something like this from happening? So I think whenever anything like this happens, it's always distressing to everybody involved.

AMT: Right. And your job I guess is also just to allay fears of people who then start worrying about other things, right, about their own loved ones.

DOCTOR SAMIR SINHA: Absolutely because you know I've worked in long term care homes. You know many people who work you know who are tireless advocates and work very hard in these homes and you know this is very challenging work. But there is exceptional care happening every single day in our homes and we have to remember that.

AMT: And that’s good for us to remember.

DOCTOR SAMIR SINHA: But I think we also have to remember that when things like this happen, we have to take them seriously. And this is you know this is a chance to take a good hard look and say is there anything else that we could have done better? And if we do identify something that could have been done better, then how do we move forward with that?

AMT: Samir Sinha, thanks for your time.

DOCTOR SAMIR SINHA: Thank you very much, Anna Maria.

AMT: That is Dr. Samir Sinha, director of geriatrics at Toronto's Sinai Health System and the University Health Network. He's in Toronto. We asked for an interview with Eric Hoskins, Ontario's minister of health and long term care. We didn't hear back. We did request interviews with the Caressant Care home in Woodstock and the Meadow Park home in London. Both companies declined interviews and said that they are—they don't want to compromise the police investigation. Stay with us. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Werner Herzog's new documentary pays homage to the volcano

Guests: Werner Herzog

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

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, the CBC's Nahlah Ayed spent more than a week on the Responder, a ship in the Mediterranean with a mission to rescue asylum seekers off the coast of Libya. She will join me in half an hour to talk about life on that boat and the lives that boat saved. But first, into the inferno.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Crackling and snapping]

AMT: That is not the surf. That is what it sounds like close to an exploding volcano. And it is not an experience many of us will have in our lives, but it is precisely the kind of event filmmaker Werner Herzog seeks out with his camera for his new film, Into the Inferno. The documentary takes Werner Herzog and volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer around the world to active volcanoes in Vanuatu, Indonesia, Iceland and even North Korea. We meet the people who still live in the shadow of those awe- inspiring forces of nature. And as is the case in all of his films, we are also in the presence of a filmmaking force of nature. Werner Herzog is a celebrated screenwriter, author, actor, opera director and filmmaker. He is 74 years old and he is prolific. He has three films being released this year including Into the Inferno which will be available on Netflix this Friday. Werner Herzog joins me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

WERNER HERZOG: Hello. Thank you. Yes.

AMT: I was mesmerized by that footage. It is spectacular.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes. Of course, it’s incredible spectacle out there that we normally do not see. Some of it, of course, was archival footage, some of the most spectacular comes from a French couple, Katia and Maurice Krafft, who in the seventies, eighties mostly made spectacular approaches to volcanoes, too close in fact, and it became some sort of a challenge that cost them their lives. They were both instantly killed by a so-called pyroclastic flow. It's this kind of like dust avalanche coming at you at a 100 miles an hour but it has something like 450 degrees Celsius heat inside. It would kill you instantly. So of course the question was always lingering: how close do we get? How far do we expose ourselves? And of course volcanologists always do some sort of dangerous work when they are close to a very active volcano. Predictions are not as precise, as for example predictions for bad weather.

AMT: So what is it like to stand on the edge of a volcano?

WERNER HERZOG: It's just very awesome, awesome to see what's boiling under us and it's just not—when you look into the boiling magma and lava of a volcano, it is literally everywhere under us on all continents. I mean you take a drill deep enough under the sea bed, it's everywhere. The entire interior of our planet is molten, extremely hot magma and nothing is really permanent here. The tectonic plates are drifting and shifting and creating friction sounds and that in fact actually creates volcanoes. But we shouldn't be panicky about it because volcanoes in fact created the atmosphere that we are breathing before there was methane.

AMT: So we need them. But again, when you were looking into the mouth of a volcano.

WERNER HERZOG: We filmed a volcano in Indonesia which was kind of quiet, a quasi-quiet for a couple of years. Even farmers were working where they shouldn't have been. And the volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer actually kept an eye on the volcano and saw that there was some something not right. Huge boulders, I mean the size of a whole building came tumbling down fast. In the distance they looked like small pebbles and he knew there was something not right. And all of a sudden it exploded. We filmed it. It didn't do any harm. But 60 seconds later, we were out. You turn your car facing “the exit” and you just don't hesitate a second and you flee. And we learned only days later that on the very same spot in another eruption, seven farmers were killed.

AMT: It just comes spewing out with heat. And I mean you've got a shot at one point where like the rim is so thin that somebody is actually straddling it. They’re sitting on it with a leg on each side taking measurements.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes. You have to—and our camera of course has to be cautious. You don't make a false step because it's vertically down into the crater itself.

AMT: You begin in Vanuatu. Can you describe what that part of the world is like?

WERNER HERZOG: It's very primordial. It’s volcanic islands covered in jungle. And you know you’re far out. The next significant land would be Northern Australia, but you’re a thousand miles away from it, east of it. So you have a feeling of the isolation of these places and of course, a native population there that is still in belief systems of their forefathers. And very interesting because I was interested in the people who live in the shadow of volcanoes, at the foot of volcanoes in their belief system, their demons, their new gods, their fears, their way of life of course was more interesting for my film than technical scientific data.

AMT: And in fact, you speak to a man named Chief Moses on the island of Ambrym in Vanuatu and he tells you what it's like to look into that island's active crater. We have a clip from your film. Let's listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

I feel very frightened to look at the fire. I feel that I was not in the island of Ambrym. I thought I was somewhere else. I feel that how powerful that fire is. That’s how we believe the spirit are in the fire. The fire is burning through the spirit. We believe that the fire is burning through the spirit.

AMT: We believe the fire is burning through the spirit. Werner Herzog, talk to me more about the connection he makes between the fire and the spirit.

WERNER HERZOG: Well, in their belief system, it is actually a new god that they created, a mythical GI named John Frum, and they expect his return with a copious cargo of consumer goods. They hope that John Frum is going to bring chewing gum and fridges and jukeboxes and maybe even a Cadillac. And he's venerated like a god and it's very peculiar for us to see this, but I really earnestly look into their belief system and am very fascinated about it. That’s not looking down at them.

AMT: No, it’s understanding them. And in fact, he tells Clive Oppenheimer at one point that the volcano doesn't like—might not like foreigners. If you go up and you're a foreigner and you look in it, it will say who are you? You don't belong on my island.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes. You’re not of this world and the Chief, in fact, when he looks into the fire, doesn't believe that he's on this planet anymore. He says I'm not like I'm on my island anymore and it's like being somewhere on a foreign planet.

AMT: It's very real to them though.

WERNER HERZOG: Of course.

AMT: It’s their reality.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes because they have had frequent eruptions and also frequent tropical cyclones that a year ago destroyed their entire village. So it's punctuated by catastrophes what their daily life is. There is no—well, there is some daily life but it's constantly somehow overshadowed by volcanoes and by cyclones, by hurricanes.

AMT: You make the point that of all the volcanoes in Indonesia, there's not a single one that is not connected to a belief system.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes. You have to look into this mythology and for a Clive Oppenheimer, the volcanologist, it is important to understand how the local population is functioning, how they are believing, how they are speaking about the volcano because in one case six years ago, his expertise with his scarce emission measurements triggered a crisis management, meaning from one day to the next, 500,000 people were evacuated. They wouldn't have left if he and the Indonesians hadn't spoken to the locals in the right language with the right mythology. And it is estimated that this rapid evacuation saved at least, at least 20,000 lives.

AMT: That’s fascinating. You were also able to enter North Korea to observe the sacred Mount Paektu. What were your first impressions of North Korea?

WERNER HERZOG: Well, everything is different. Everything is unexpected. Of course I read a little bit about North Korea, but it's a very fascinating country and it is so isolated that inevitably, of course it has its own ways of life of communicating, of living in complete isolation.

AMT: You talked to a government guide. He was assigned to show you around the mountain area, the volcanic area. Let's listen to that clip.

SOUNDCLIP

All the Korean people frequently climb up this mountain but every time they climb up this mountain, they have a new feeling, a solemn feeling. And at the same time, they make up a new determination to work harder for the country with patriotism. And all the Korean people are now singing the song which title is, “Let Us Go to Mount Paektu.” And it clearly reflects the spirit of the Korean people.

[Sound: Piano, children singing]

AMT: How does the government of North Korea use that volcanic area to shape its own legacy?

WERNER HERZOG: That's a very interesting side of the volcano because traditionally and for millennia, for almost 5,000 years, this volcano was considered as a mythical birthplace of the Korean people. Now in the forties when Korea fought against the Japanese occupation, the war of liberation, the communist leader Kim Il-Sung appropriated the myth and declared the volcano is ground zero of the dynamics of the revolution, of the socialist communist revolution. And deliberately, I think, he built his secret hidden headquarters in some log cabins at the very foot of the mountain. So today, wherever you go, even in the city of Pyongyang, in the subway, you have propaganda posters or murals, mosaics of the leaders. Always the background would be the volcano. That's the mythical connection that the Korean revolution now has to them. So through the volcano, you can somehow explore almost all of Korean, North Korean public life and everything of course is a presentation to our cameras. High school students, I thought they were military because they wear uniforms. They sing and chant the same song about the wonders of Mount Paektu.

AMT: You caught them—actually you have this beautiful scene. You're on a wide shot and they're literally marching through the mist toward you.

WERNER HERZOG: They come out of the mist. Yes. I sensed something. I saw them going up and I knew they were still up and I quickly alerted the cinematographer. I said to Peter, turn it on, turn it on. And he said I don't see anything, I don't see anything. I said listen, they come from up there. And he pointed at it and out of nowhere, out of the mist, there was this formation of seemingly soldiers us with a red flag and they rejoice in the meeting, the volcanic crater and toss their hats and sing.

AMT: And sing, yeah.

WERNER HERZOG: The samg song. The same glory of Mount Paektu.

AMT: You know the other thing I noticed about them? They were all so thin.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes.

AMT: Their belts were literally like around their hips. We know you know that—we know what kind of lives that they—we think they do.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes. You see a lot between the lines and behind the images. It's interesting that Kim Il-Sung, the founding father of North Korean nation, has become president and then president for life and after his death, president for eternity. So this is the reason why his successor, his son, and now his grandson will never become president. There’s a president for eternity. And they have different titles. Of course they themselves have refused to accept the title of president. But there’s some sort of emergence, you can watch it, how a person with an aura of sanctity emerges right in front of your eyes and the entire population seems to be in the same ideology. We filmed in a stadium in Pyongyang, the largest stadium. More than 100,000 people are doing this, what I call the human pixels. They flip coloured cards and all of a sudden, it's a portrait of Kim Il-Sung. All of a sudden it's Mount Paektu with a rising sun. And it looks like some sort of the entire population, but it's an image seemingly in step with an ideology.

AMT: You have so many spectacular and riveting pictures of volcanoes and what's happening when you go to Iceland and you show us some of the footage from 2010 and when that big cloud basically paralyzed European and some North American air traffic. Do we forget that we are at the mercy of nature?

WERNER HERZOG: No, not completely at the mercy of nature. We’re kind of an adaptive species, maybe over adaptive, and we are somehow jeopardizing the health of our environment. So not completely, but we may have a real problem if there's an impact of a big asteroid on our planet or a gigantic volcanic explosion because it would darken the skies. It's not a regional event anymore. And some of these events that we are documenting in our film would darken the sky for a decade maybe. And that's really serious. I mean around the globe all the way to North and South Pole and Greenland and everywhere. And that's where there would be real trouble.

AMT: Nature's an important theme in many of your films. What are you trying to understand?

WERNER HERZOG: I like to look at it and I like—it's a certain form of awe. And looking at a volcano is something completely awe-inspiring. And it's, in a way, gives you the right proportions, the size of yourself and the importance of yourself and the fact that all these magma boiling under us everywhere couldn't care less about what we are doing.

AMT: That's a really important point that you make and it's interesting because it's such on a large scale and then I look at something like Grizzly Man, where nature in the form of the grizzly bear has the power over two people, one man essentially, and two people it ends up. That inability of humans to control what happens, even when we think we can.

WERNER HERZOG: No. I think we should not start to control grizzly bears by stepping five feet away from them and trying to protect them against the bad guys, the poachers, which only existed in the imagination of the protagonist of the film. And no, but more so, I think what tragically cost him his life and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard, was the fact that for him wild nature was some sort of thing out of a Walt Disney film, the Disneyization of wild nature. And that's a misunderstanding that you find very often in public opinion. We better should take a hard look at what it is and what the universe out there is. And everybody found it extremely strange and funny when I speak about the universe out there and the stars. They’re a mess. There is chaos and there's hostility and there is murder in nature and everybody finds it completely and utterly funny. And when you look at protuberances of the sun, solar flares which we see now in very, very clear images, you can access it in YouTube. It's a very, very hostile sort of star out there. You just don't want to land, get close to this one, although at the same time the sun is a creator and giver and maintainer of life.

AMT: And it is that—that juxtaposition that we forget, again as you say, that like the molten lava does not care about us.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes. I say it very beautifully in my commentary. They love to repeat it here. Couldn't care—monumental indifference about scurrying roaches, retarded reptiles and vapid humans alike. The audience gets a real jolt when they hear that one.

AMT: You did say it very beautifully and it's—

WERNER HERZOG: I love to do these things.

AMT: [laughs]

WERNER HERZOG: It's not what you would normally hear in a say, National Geographic film that you see on TV.

AMT: And when you are making a film, how much do you think about the audience who will watch that?

WERNER HERZOG: Well, I never made a film for myself. I'm not the one who would circle around his own navel. I always make films for audiences. However, I do not know who they are. It's very amorphous and very strange and I have learned that a film that I made in the late sixties, Even Dwarfs Started Small, a very rebellious, wild film. It was shown to inmates in a very large prison population in the United States and they went completely wild for it. All of a sudden, 40 years later or so, inmates in the prison and how is it seen in Brazil, for example, with young people. Films shift. They find new different audiences and with them, the film becomes a different perspective and different outlook and completes itself differently with an audience.

AMT: That must be very fulfilling for you.

WERNER HERZOG: [Sighs] I am cautious about that, about looking back too much. I am actually hardly ever watching my own films. I'm looking forward. I am plowing ahead and in a way, I follow. I've never followed a career. I do what comes with the most vehemence at me and then I try to cope with it quickly and effectively. In a way the distribution systems, traditionally as we have had it, haven't been flexible and fast enough for my output. This year, I've got three films out and now one we are talking about, Into the Inferno, is going to be released through Netflix. And they press a button on, I say it metaphorically, they press a button on the 28^th of October, I think. In 190 countries at the same time, the film is going to be out. It's a great achievement of the Internet.

AMT: Werner Herzog, we're pausing right there. Do not go away. My guest is Werner Herzog. His new documentary is Into the Inferno and as he says, it'll be available on Netflix, actually this Friday. We will link to the trailer on our website so you can see some of the incredible images that he has captured for Into the Inferno. That's on our website www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. We're going to pause for about 90 seconds. But in our next half hour, we'll hear more from Werner Herzog. And then after that, the CBC's Nahlah Ayed will join me. She's just returned from the Mediterranean where she was aboard a ship that was rescuing asylum seekers.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Every day, its rescue workers patrol off the coast of Libya, searching for asylum seekers put to sea by smugglers that are otherwise doomed to die.

[Men yelling]

VOICE 1: They saved thousands in a staggering crisis, usually measured in the millions.

VOICE 2: We’re here to preserve life and that’s really it. I don’t think anyone thinks that this is the solution. It can’t be.

AMT: Nahlah Ayed will be here to talk about her documentary, Saved at Sea. But when we come back, Werner Herzog will be here first. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM and online on www.cbc.ca/thecurrent.

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current. If you're just joining us, filmmaker Werner Herzog is my guest in our Toronto studio. We've been discussing his new film Into the Inferno, about active volcanoes around the world. And if you missed the first part of our conversation, you can find it on our www.cbc.ca/thecurrent or you can download it and listen on CBC Radio app. Werner Herzog, Into the Inferno is being released on Netflix on Friday. Now before the break, you said you have three films this year and I'm interested in this new one called Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World.

WERNER HERZOG: It's kind of back to back. No, that was—sorry. That was about three weeks ago.

AMT: Still very new, but keep going.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes, I have Salt and Fire, a feature film, a narrative feature film about a mysterious hostage taking in Bolivia, where the leader of a scientific, small scientific delegation is taken prisoner and she’s deliberately stranded in the middle of the largest salt flats on our planet, together with two almost blind boys. It's very mysterious. Only at the end of the film you learn what happened and why it happened. So Into the Inferno, and now Salt and Fire. I’m getting films confused now. I still have yet another big epic feature film, Queen of the Desert, that hasn't been released in North America yet.

AMT: I'm waiting for that. Gertrude Bell. It’s the story of Gertrude Bell.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes, but it's not a biopic. People thought it was a biopic but it's more about poetry and space and loneliness and about tragic love stories of her. A biopic would be 10 and a half hours long and it probably would be boring as a movie.

AMT: I'm going to be really anxious to see that. Nicole Kidman stars in that, am I right?

WERNER HERZOG: Nicole Kidman, yes.

AMT: Because Gertrude Bell is the great unknown of the—she was the—

WERNER HERZOG: The Lawrence of Arabia. The female Lawrence of Arabia.

AMT: She was his mentor.

WERNER HERZOG: In a way, yes. He stole a lot of information and intelligence but of course, Lawrence himself was a very knowledgeable man and was deeply rooted in the world of the Arabs and in the world of Bedouins. But she was probably the one who understood the Bedouins better than any Western person, probably ever.

AMT: Do you ever sleep? How do you do all that work?

WERNER HERZOG: Oh, I'm not a workaholic. I'm totally relaxed. I do read a lot. My shooting days are normally over by 2:30, 3:30, 4, because I shoot what I need for the screen and everybody gets nervous. At least in the—let's say in the United States. “You didn't shoot enough coverage.” I didn't even know what coverage meant. But they need a shot from a helicopter from high above and ultra close-up of your eyes and from left from right, whatever. That was a significant moment when I did Bad Lieutenant with Nicolas Cage in New Orleans. Everybody was nervous. “You didn't shoot coverage and it's only 3:30 and we never go into overtime.” And I had to ask my assistant director what do they mean by overtime? And I was explained by coverage.

AMT: Why is that then, because obviously other actors working with other directors obviously have to do all that stuff with them. So what is it about your vision of a film even as you're shooting it that you’re—

WERNER HERZOG: I have such a clear vision what I see on a screen and that's why I write a screenplay very fast. I write a screenplay hardly ever longer than a week, five days because I see it and it's like copying it almost. And on the second day of shooting, Nicolas Cage, when everybody was even more nervous, it’s an apple box. He says something. He steps up on one end, he says crew, team, come here. Actors, come here. And he only said finally, I’m working with a director who knows what he's doing. And he steps off and goes to his car and his hotel. So from that moment on, the question of shooting coverage had disappeared. But what I'm trying to say is I’m not hectic. I do not work extremely long hours. I've never done that. I read. I sleep well. Even under harsh conditions and catastrophes that sometimes have happened, I sleep at night.

AMT: Was it always like that in this business for you?

WERNER HERZOG: Yes.

AMT: So how were you able to take your vision and for all of the work you want to do over time and work through a system where so many other people seemed to run up against different things? What makes—I don’t know what I'm asking you here but—

WERNER HERZOG: I think it's a sense of self-reliance. I believe it's at the bottom is self-reliance, a sense of not independence, it doesn't really exist. That's a myth. But self-reliance and it started very early when I was 15, 16, 17. Nobody wanted to produce the films I submitted. Of course when they saw me I was a school child and I was ridiculed. Kindergarten, hahaha is trying to make movies nowadays. And I knew I had to become independent or self-reliant. I worked while I was in high school, I worked the night shift as a welder in a steel factory and I earned enough money to immediately then produce my first featurette, 35 millimeter celluloid at the time. And this is an attitude that I have until today and it has carried me a far way. But that's not the real survival. The real survival is you have to have a clear vision and you have to be intrepid to follow it, no matter what is going on left and right and what the trends are and where the money goes and whatever. That's always my advice to the young ones. Just follow your business. Don't be afraid.

AMT: It's a wonderful piece of advice and you have all of these films coming out at around the same time. Are you already planning the next one, the next project?

WERNER HERZOG: Well, there's always things coming at me. I'm dealing with a burglar that has broken into my home in the middle of the night. And there are four or five of them and I deal with the one that comes with the most vehemence at me. So yes, the next burglar is already right there and it's mostly feature films that are on my radar right now. They’re already in the kitchen. They already have broken in.

AMT: Why do you call them burglars?

WERNER HERZOG: Because I didn't invite them.

AMT: Ahh.

WERNER HERZOG: You see, I have never planned a career.

AMT: And so these ideas come to you and you just know you must follow them or are they—

WERNER HERZOG: Yes. It's not easy to explain. Sometimes films stumble in to me. And it's not in an aggressive form like the film on Timothy Treadwell, Grizzly Man. I was in the office of a producer who has been very kind and helpful to me. And when I left, and he had a glass table with a lot of things on it, papers, FedExes, and so. And I swear to god, I was not looking for a film project. I was looking for my car keys that I had misplaced on the table. And I take a very sharp look in some area and he believing that I spotted something, shoves an article across to me and he says read this. We are planning a very interesting project. And normally I don't read that. I took it home but I read it. Fifteen minutes later, I was back. I asked about the status of the film. Yes, I had to start very quickly and I had a hunch and I said who is going to direct the film? And the producer has done some fine films but he was not secure at all. I think he's said now, listen very well. He said I’m kind of directing the film and I heard it: “well, kind of directing the film,” and I knew he was not completely sure how to tackle it. And I pumped my hand towards him and mustered my wildest Bavarian accent and I said no, I will direct this movie now. And he shook my hand and said it would be an honour. So it's—sometimes it happens like that.

AMT: That is fascinating. It's good to know that about you.

WERNER HERZOG: Yeah. I will direct this movie now. And if something comes along, I am a storyteller and I immediately know this is big.

AMT: That was a very important film on so many levels.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes. And I really love the fact that I understood it instantly and I responded instantly. But it's not responding to something that is trendy. I knew—

AMT: No, it was the character too, huh? It was the man.

WERNER HERZOG: Yes, and the fundamental understanding of nature and fundamental tragedy. And some big, big things that I knew it would touch a chord in the hearts of audiences.

AMT: Werner Herzog, it is a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for coming in.

WERNER HERZOG: Thank you very much for having me.

AMT: Werner Herzog. His new film Into the Inferno premieres on Netflix Friday. He's in our Toronto studio. Look out for his other new releases as well. He listed them all off there. For a peek at some of the stunning images of Into the Inferno, go to our website, we linked to the trailer: www.cbc.ca/thecurrent.

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CBC documentary captures life of asylum seekers on rescue boat

Guests: Nahlah Ayed

AMT: This is The Current on CBC Radio One and on Sirius XM. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This week, a grim milestone was reached on the Mediterranean Sea: the number of asylum seekers who have died trying to reach Europe's shores has already surpassed last year's total, meaning the already perilous voyage is even more deadly. There is some hope out there in the form of rescue boats. One of them is called the Responder. It is run by the Red Cross and the Migrant Offshore Aid Station, a privately funded NGO also known as MOAS. Earlier this month, the CBC's Nahlah Ayed was on that ship. She spent nine days on the Responder. What she saw and who she met has featured in a new episode of The Fifth Estate this Friday on CBC Television. Nahlah Ayed joins me in our Toronto studio. Hi.

NAHLAH AYED: Good morning.

AMT: Welcome back to this side of the pond.

NAHLAH AYED: Thank you very much.

AMT: So the Responder sets out from where?

NAHLAH AYED: It leaves from Malta normally.

AMT: Okay. And it literally like trolls the waters looking for people in trauma?

NAHLAH AYED: Yes. Yes, that's exactly what it does. that's its purpose in being. They travel—well, sometimes from Italy but the head takes about a day to get to the Libyan coast and they spend as long as it takes there to fill the main deck with people who have been saved and then bring them back to Italy for safe passage and for processing.

AMT: So what's it like to be on that ship?

NAHLAH AYED: Well, for one in our case, it was a lot longer than we expected. It was supposed to be just a few days. But within a day of actually arriving or near the Libyan coast, I should say—18 nautical miles or so outside of there—bad weather came in and there was a lot of hand-wringing about whether do you go back to land and wait there or stay out? And they decided to stay out until it calmed because as you know, when the weather is that choppy, there are no boats coming from the Libyan coast because it's just not safe. It's not possible to get them on there. So for eight days, the Responder sat there and we did too, with a lot of rocking back and forth—not very comfortable. Otherwise, it's a very regimented life. It’s all about the meals. People go to sleep early. And it totally revolves around the morning search which starts at 5:00 a.m., using binoculars, watching the coast, waiting to see if any boats show up.

AMT: Really? They get out on deck and they just start looking, huh?

NAHLAH AYED: Yep.

AMT: So what's the crew like? How many are on there?

NAHLAH AYED: It's a very tight ship as you might say, 25 people, some of those are just the actual meat and potatoes of running a ship. The rest as you mentioned are Red Cross. There are a couple of nurses, a doctor and then of course the rescuers from MOAS. And they are really international. A Canadian, who we spoke to. But American, British, Swiss, Sweden—all kinds of countries represented and for extra measure, the captain is Russian. So very varied group of people and very able and multi-skilled—rescuers, medics—they can do a lot of things in a very small space.

AMT: And how many people have they rescued?

NAHLAH AYED: They estimate that they have rescued about 16,000 in the period between June and September and 30,000 for the whole year. So that's a lot.

AMT: One ship?

NAHLAH AYED: For one ship.

AMT: Wow. Wow. They must have seen terrible things.

NAHLAH AYED: Well, it's amazing when you speak to some of those people, the kinds of stories that come out if you spend more than five minutes talking to them because they have seen a lot. One guy we spoke to said that it was a blur of orange because you know of course the lifejackets that they all wear.

AMT: Oh yeah.

NAHLAH AYED: But he has literally saved thousands reaching his hand down to the water and pulling people up, if not jumping in to get them, and those people stay in his memory.

NAHLAH AYED: Hmm. Okay. Well, we have some clips and one is of the rescuers. This is Nick Romaniuk. He's a Canadian rescue diver and a medic. Let's listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

We're here to preserve life. And that's really it. I don’t think anyone thinks that this is the solution. It can’t be. You’ll have a knot in your stomach and you can be looking at a boat. We did one a couple of weeks ago. People were holding tiny babies up. There's not a lot of room for error, really.

AMT: Okay. Well, Nahlah, you say sometimes they’re reaching out their hands. How do they actually rescue people?

NAHLAH AYED: Well, depends on the situation, of course. First they actually go out on these two smaller rescue boats that are actually parked right on the main deck in the back and by the way, they're named after the two boys who were killed last year. Alan Kurdi. One is named Alan, the other one's named Ghaleb, those two boats sitting on the back. And so they're lowered into the water, the rescuers get on and approach the boat or the dinghy that is in question. And first they start handing out lifejackets. If there's a medical case, they evacuate them first. If there are women or children, they evacuate them first. And then, if they're able to, they actually sidle right up to those dinghies. One for example, that we saw, it had 170 people on board. A hundred and seventy people on one dinghy crammed together. First they removed the women and brought them to the ship and then the ship actually sidled right up to the dinghy and all of them are wearing life jackets. And then one by one and very carefully picking who moves because of course you don't want to upset the balance of that dinghy. And one by one lifting them up. It must have taken a couple of hours.

AMT: Is that orderly? Because these people are desperate too, but they don't just rush the other boat. They wait.

NAHLAH AYED: That's the part I left out is after they give out the lifejackets and during, there's constant instruction telling people to stay calm because you can imagine of course that after eight hours in this particular case on the sea, wondering where you are and whether you're going to be safe, that people are desperate to get off. And so there have been instances. Nick told us of a situation where people were essentially trampled and crushed right in the boat. And so they made it to you know to the hands of people who are going to help them but died because people panicked. So that's the primary job of the rescuers is to ensure people stay calm.

AMT: Hmm. Okay. So tell us about some of the people who were rescued.

NAHLAH AYED: What really struck me is the number of countries represented in what was eventually about 300 people who came back with us to Italy. So we saw people from Bangladesh, from Nigeria, from Morocco, from Eritrea, from Syria. We met a Gazan. Egyptians. It's a huge mix of people with quite a large variety of reasons obviously, for coming along. People from Nigeria we spoke to. Some said they wanted work. Others said they have medical conditions. They wanted those treated. Many—a couple of men from Eritrea—obviously an authoritarian country—people are imprisoned at will there. And one man we met was in prison four times and he'd had enough so he walked through the Sahara to get away and to get to Libya and to get himself in a boat and to get to Paris where he has family.

AMT: So the perilous journey that we see is the final of a series of perilous journeys that so many of them are making.

NAHLAH AYED: In fact, some of them would argue that it's—despite the risk that you and I are talking about, they still think it was the easier part of their journey and that is something that I definitely open my eyes to on this trip, is listening to the stories of the people and what they went through. Even if they hadn't been through a lot getting to Libya, what they went through in Libya because of the trouble there and the chaos and the way the smugglers work, very unscrupulous way that the smugglers work, the sea journey was the easier part.

AMT: Mhm. You met a man named Lockey… How do I say his last name?

NAHLAH AYED: Ugogji.

AMT: Uh huh. And his wife was in another smuggling boat. We've got a bit of him talking to one of the rescuers.

SOUNDCLIP

RESCUER: Okay. Your wife is inside one.

LOCKEY UGOGJI: Yes.

RESCUER: With child or without child?

LOCKEY UGOGJI: Without child.

RESCUER: Okay. No, we have not seen them. Sit down. Sit down. We have not seen them yet, but if we see them we’ll try and get them. Understand? I will try and talk to the people and see, maybe they see something around. But if there is any information, I'll let you know. Okay?

AMT: So that sounds just like, “We'll check. We'll see if there’s any information.” But you're on—he's on a little boat and he doesn't know where she is.

NAHLAH AYED: By the way, throughout this nine days, they do make everything look very easy but that's exactly the situation, is that they started the morning together and the smugglers had three boats to fill and they decided to separate husband and wife into two different boats. So there they are in the Mediterranean, with no information about where the other is and no means of finding out where the other is. So the very first boat that we saw being rescued at four in the morning, one Sunday morning, had Lockey on there. And the first thing he told us when we asked him you know what's going on, where are you from, he said he'd been separated from his wife. So very distressed, very upset and not sure if he’ll ever see her again.

AMT: So they don't get to pick.

NAHLAH AYED: They don’t get to pick.

AMT: They get literally shoved on whatever's there.

NAHLAH AYED: Absolutely. And just a side note on that is that not only did they get shoved on but some at gunpoint, some with bags over their heads. I mean some of these people are—they do want to be smuggled, they want to go. They pay, they try to pay it off with work, but they don't get to choose the means and often they're misled about the conditions under which they will be traveling.

AMT: So even if they have misgivings about what they're about to step onto, it's too late.

NAHLAH AYED: Absolutely.

AMT: Tell us a little bit more about Lockey.

NAHLAH AYED: He is 22, from Nigeria, from Abuja state in Eastern Nigeria where there was violence earlier this year, which is the first reason he provided for leaving. Married obviously. Nineteen-year-old Ayesha is his wife. They don't have children. But he said the main reason he wanted to get to Italy is that he could not get medical care for his condition. He has sickle cell anemia. And he feels that Nigeria does not have the capability of dealing with his medical condition. So he wants to go to Italy and get attention for that.

AMT: His wife was found. Let's listen to a bit of Ayesha here.

SOUNDCLIP

I'm so shocked. I didn't believe that I would still be alive up to now. I just thank God because when the dinghy fell aside and the boat tried to turn upside down, God did something.

AMT: The boat tried to turn upside down.

NAHLAH AYED: And God did something.

AMT: Wow. How rare would that be then? You’d get the wife rescued on the same boat.

NAHLAH AYED: Well, I talked to the Red Cross cultural coordinator, Nabi, and asked him exactly that question and he said first of all, it's very common for families to be separated because of the chaos on the coast. They're just trying to get these people off. But it's extremely unlikely for families to find each other that quickly and that it takes months, if not years, through the Red Cross which provides that service to actually bring families back together. Don't forget: most of these people have no phones. They have no means of communication. They arrive in Italy with only the Red Cross or MOAS as an organization to connect to. So that is their only means of finding people. So it’s quiterare.

AMT: The number of women on the boats? Are there a lot of women?

NAHLAH AYED: Well, on the dinghy, I mentioned there were 39 women. Two of them were pregnant. Obviously the majority are men but those women, most of them were from Nigeria. There were a couple from Morocco. And it was an interesting group of people because the one thing that struck me at the very end of all our conversations and all the time we spent together was that they were all out. Every single woman who had arrived on that boat was out and I was talking to the doctor onboard and we were discussing why that might be and he said it's probably the first time in months that they felt that safe.

AMT: Hmm.

NAHLAH AYED: There are reports of rape along the way. There are reports of human smuggling, abuse. And so they have been through a harrowing experience just to get to that boat.

AMT: So what stays with you? What can't you forget from that trip?

NAHLAH AYED: I think it's the—you hear a lot, you see a lot on the news. I report some of this stuff as well. When you see these faraway pictures of these incidents and people being picked up from the water, when you are actually sitting up close and watching these people sitting on these boats, you realize just how risky that situation is, that in fact even if they didn't know, they find out on the sea. People are trembling. They're crying. They're really shocked that it takes as long as it does. They're not told that it takes as long as it does. Some of them are told it takes two or three hours. And so I was struck by just how stunned people are when they get on the ship. They can't believe they survived.

AMT: Where did the Responder take them?

NAHLAH AYED: Ultimately it was instructed to take the 300 people to Italy to the port town of Pozzallo. That's where they were met by Red Cross people and processed. And they'll be claiming asylum. A lot of them will be rejected and sent back because they're looking for work or are looking for economic opportunity. Some of them will stay. Others will just melt into Europe.

AMT: I can't wait to see your documentary. You're still editing, aren’t you? You’re like taking a break to the wire. But this is going to be on The Fifth Estate on Friday, correct?

NAHLAH AYED: Correct.

AMT: Okay. Well, Nahlah Ayed, thank you for coming in.

NAHLAH AYED: Pleasure.

AMT: Thank you for all your work.

NAHLAH AYED: Thank you.

AMT: Nahlah Ayed is a foreign correspondent for CBC News. She's based in London. She's in our Toronto studio. She's working on it. You're going to see it Friday, The Fifth Estate's special documentary, Saved at Sea. That's Friday at nine o'clock in every time zone. 9:30 in Newfoundland and parts of Labrador on CBC Television. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for q and Tom Power. He is joined today by artist Marina Abramovic. Now, if you haven't already checked out The Current’s new virtual reality documentary, The Highway of Tears, be sure to visit our website www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. You can find out there how to experience it. We first presented that documentary at our public forum in Prince George, BC two weeks ago. Yesterday in Ottawa, CBC Radio-Canada President Hubert Lacroix brought it to a meeting of the parliamentary Heritage Committee. So we're going to leave you with part of his presentation. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Many of you know about the leadership role that CBC Radio-Canada has taken on the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women. CBC Radio's The Current is actually hosting a series of town halls on this subject. And to help people better understand this issue, when they walk into the town hall, they first experience the story in virtual reality. It puts them on the side of Highway 16, the infamous Highway of Tears in northern British Columbia. The place where a number of Indigenous women have been murdered or gone missing. This virtual reality documentary—a first for CBC—can be downloaded from our website. The reaction to this presentation has been nothing short of incredible. In Prince George earlier this month, 200 people came out to experience it. Their town hall was then broadcast on The Current. Here's a bit of what they thought about it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's a new way to present the material. And you know I'm from Smithers and to sit in there and to look at my hometown and to swivel around in the chair, it makes it real. And you're there. You're in her living room. You're on the highway. It's a highway that I’ve walked before. And I think it's a great use of this virtual reality technology.

[Music: Ending theme]

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October 26, 2016 full episode transcript

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