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The Current Transcript for November 30, 2016

Host: Kelly Crowe

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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I will come out here to the pipeline where it crosses our land and I will lay down in front of excavators and they can arrest me, they can take me away, I'll come back, I'll do it all over again.

KELLY CROWE: There's anger and elation as Justin Trudeau approves two major new oil pipelines. Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline and Enbridge’s Line 3 have both gotten the green light and that has environmental activists and Indigenous leaders seeing red. We'll hear several views coming right up. Then..

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Cancer is the disease of the century. Cancer is the emperor of maladies.

KC: Cancer is complicated and it's personal. But a leading cancer researcher says those are also the keys to a cure. That's in half an hour. And finally today..

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I've had diabetes for 12 years and it's been rough. But to finally have something that's going to make it all easier, it's really great. And who doesn't want a little puppy?

KC: They help us see, they calm us down and they can catch dangerous blood sugar levels by scent alone. Service animals do life changing work for humans every day but who’s looking out for them? In Sweden, a push to improve the working conditions of animals with jobs. I'm Kelly Crowe, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and this is The Current.

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Kinder Morgan decision a black day for Canada, say West Coast environmentalists

Guests: Rueben George, Jessica Clogg, Tim McMillan

SOUNDCLIP

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: If I thought this project was unsafe for the BC coast, I would reject it. This is a decision based on rigorous debate on science and on evidence. We have not been and will not be swayed by political arguments. We have made this decision because we are convinced it is safe for BC and it is the right one for Canada.

KELLY CROWE: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, defending his government's decision to green light two major pipelines, Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain and Enbridge’s Line 3, while he announced the rejection of another pipeline, Northern Gateway. The Trans Mountain project would triple the capacity of an existing pipeline that runs from Edmonton to Burnaby. Already, opponents are vowing to stop it. Rueben George is head of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation's Sacred Trust Initiative. And Jessica Clogg is the Executive director and Senior Counsel with West Coast Environmental Law. They're both in Vancouver. Hello.

JESSICA CLOGG: Good morning.

RUEBEN GEORGE: Hey, good morning Vancouver.

KC: Rueben George, what did you think when you heard the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline was approved?

RUEBEN GEORGE: I wasn't too surprised at his decision but what I was surprised at his conviction of what he’s saying about the lives that he was talking about. That’s what bothered me, like, the clip that you just shared about it being safe. Kinder Morgan has had 82 spills since 1961, they haven't gone four years without a spill. Our studies that we have done, we did a pretty comprehensive environmental assessment with six world renowned scientists that help us to create a 1,200 page document. And, you know, everything that he said was just so surprising. He’s going against everything that we did, research and we did studies and that was based on true facts.

KC: Jessica Clogg, what's your main concern with this pipeline?

JESSICA CLOGG: It’d be hard to know where to start. I mean, today is that a real concern is the extent to which the decision that the federal government, that this pipeline is not likely to cause significant environmental effects, simply flies in the face of the evidence. And I think the thing that I'm holding in my heart, as someone who has worked on the Enbridge tankers and pipeline project, and remembering that that was rejected yesterday is really just the extent to which the power of Indigenous rights and steadfast community opposition can stop a risky pipeline and tanker project and will stop Kinder Morgan. Problems with this pipeline, infringements of constitutional rights, the likely risk of an oil spill that could devastate the Vancouver economy and our health. Climate change impact--

KC: [interposing] Are you reassured at all by the National Energy Board's 157 conditions that must be met, does that give you any comfort?

JESSICA CLOGG: Absolutely not. The National Energy Board report that was issued in May is fundamentally unreliable. We have to remember that federal environmental laws changed in 2012 to weaken federal environmental assessment and that's the process that this project was put through. It was controversial, it was riddled scandal, it is fundamentally unreliable.

KC: Now, Rueben George, you mentioned the Kinder Morgan history of spills but the existing pipeline in Canada has been operating since 1953. Does that give you any comfort?

RUEBEN GEORGE: No, that's what I'm talking about. That's the pipeline I’m talking about, that’s the one I’m talking that has spills, 82 recorded spills. Anybody can look that up.

KC: Right.

RUEBEN GEORGE: Anybody can find that information. It's the fact that there’s been 82 spills.

KC: Now, the prime minister said if he thought the project was unsafe for the BC coast, he would reject it. So what do you say to that?

RUEBEN GEORGE: I think he should be honest about and talk about economics of who it’s serving. It’s safe for investors that put in their money into the Kinder Morgan, and it’s safe for Richard Kinder and it's not safe for British Columbians or people from Vancouver, let alone Canada. I think that right there was one of the bigger things that upset me because again, he’s not looking at the true facts, he’s looking at who this services and that's the oil company.

KC: Now, Jessica Clogg, the prime minister said he wants to find the right balance between environmental protection and responsible economic growth, insisting that Canada as a whole will benefit from the pipeline. What do you say to that?

JESSICA CLOGG: I think that just flies in the face of the evidence. This pipeline is not needed unless Canada plans to blow past it's climate commitments. The likelihood of an oil spill, a tanker spill could be as high as 97.5 per cent. This is not about balance, this decision was about politics. And I think--

KC: [interposing] Sorry, Rueben George, how far are you prepared to go to stop the pipeline? I mean, should Canadians be bracing for a Standing Rock-like situation here in Canada?

RUEBEN GEORGE: Well, I’ll that in a couple of ways. The federal government approved Enbridge and they, and my hands up to those people up there that worked so hard and so diligently in stopping it. So he come out and made the announcement but the truth of the fact is that they can come out and make a challenge against the BC Supreme Court and their decision. But Standing Rock, that was a horrible, that’s a horrible thing that's going on there. That's blood on the government's hands there, they're shooting people. One lady, she got her arm blown up.

KC: Do you think that kind of violence is likely here in Canada?

RUEBEN GEORGE: Oh everything and anything that Tsleil-Waututh does is peaceful and I abide by what our elders say and what our Chief and council say. But, you know, my son’s 20, he’s been to Standing Rock, he’s been down in Central America working with the Indigenous people, he’s been to Australia and New Zealand and he’s seen the devastating effects of those things that happen. He goes, those people are dying and he goes Dad, I love where I live so much that I would do the same. I said no son, I said I just like that he told me in Standing Rock. The Chief, when people came to him and he said where's this, you know, I'd die for this and he goes no I don't want that to happen, we’re doing this peaceful. So what it is it’s the government inflicting those people that are trying to protect what they love, it's the government that's coming out with the violence. I don't think Trudeau would want the blood on his hands if something came to it like that. And I'm not to say that it should or shouldn’t be Standing Rock because there's a lot of other citizens, the clip that you showed from Mary Corrigan, Vancouver mayor, but multiple unions. Why--

KC: [crosstalk] So, sorry Rueben, I just have to I had to cut you off there, I'm sorry. But I appreciate both of you being here. Thank you very much.

RUEBEN GEORGE: So my point is that, OK go ahead. Thank you.

JESSICA CLOGG: I also think it's critical to remember that this is likely to be resolved through the courts.

KC: Right.

JESSICA CLOGG: That’s what we saw in Enbridge, the federal government failed to live up to its constitutional international legal obligations. I think we'll see a court decision that ends this.

KC: OK. Well, thank you both. Rueben George is head of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nations Sacred Trust Initiative. Jessica Clogg is the Executive Director and Senior Counsel with West Coast Environmental Law. They were both in Vancouver. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is the umbrella group that represents the majority of oil and gas producers in Canada. Tim McMillan is the President and CEO of CAPP. He joins us from Calgary. Hello.

TIM MCMILLAN: Good morning.

KC: What do you say in response to the opponents of the project we just heard?

TIM MCMILLAN: You know, I think that there are Canadians that have different visions and different beliefs when it comes to energy projects. But I think that the prime minister's comments yesterday, about this project will benefit all Canadians, is what resonates with the majority of Canadians. And after a long and thorough analysis by the National Energy Board and an enhanced process that the new government put in place to ensure that they could with confidence say that this benefits all Canadians, I think it leaves the project in pretty good stead.

KC: What does it mean for the oil sands that the Trans Mountain pipeline is now approved?

TIM MCMILLAN: You know, I think it's good for the oil and gas industry in general, both the oil sands and the conventional site. We, you know, we know our growth profile over the next 15 years will add another million and a half barrels a day. I think Canada was getting a reputation as a country that was being challenged to get big projects approved to move forward. And yesterday's announcement reaffirmed that no, Canada is a good place to invest, it's a good partner to look to and I think it positions us well.

KC: Now, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said yesterday that she will increase the provincial carbon tax to 50 dollars over the next seven years to bring it into line with the federal plan. What impact will that have on oil and gas producers and the pipeline companies?

TIM MCMILLAN: You know, this has been an ongoing discussion and I think it follows on the plan that Premier Notley put forward just over a year ago. Canada has some of the, not some of the, probably the highest standards for environmental performance and that the evolving climate change plans really puts us in a league of our own compared to other oil and gas producers. We'll certainly be working with governments as they're evolving their climate plans and the price on carbon to ensure that it's getting the outcomes that are looking to be achieved by governments and Canadians. And we will want to ensure that it allows us to continue to compete against the countries that don't have these strong regulations and climate plans.

KC: Now, Rueben George has said the pipeline has had 82 spills. What do you say to that?

TIM MCMILLAN: You know, I can't speak to details about Kinder Morgan, but I know in our industry we measure everything. We measure every incident, we, safety is paramount to how we operate and that the Kinder Morgan pipeline has had an exceptional safety record. They are a company that works very hard to keep their impacts to a minimum and to work very closely with the communities where they operate. So their safety record, I think, speaks for itself and is one of the best in the world.

KC: Now, what's your reaction to the rejection of the Northern Gateway project?

TIM MCMILLAN: We’re obviously disappointed in that announcement. We thought that was an important project for Canada. I think that it is consistent with what the government has been saying and talking about over the past year and even before that. So disappointed but we’re glad that we yesterday got announced access to the coast and increased access to our American partners we've worked with for a long time.

KC: Are you concerned that this new pipeline will have the same fate, ultimately, after the protests and court cases, et cetera?

TIM MCMILLAN: You know, I as I said earlier, the prime minister, I think, was very strong in his words about. And he had put a regulatory system in place that he was comfortable with being very strong with, that was why he wanted an enhanced process that looked at the upstream carbon emissions, that sent a panel out to re-engage with Canadians another time. So at the end of that, I think some people can disagree with the outcome but no one can agree that they haven't been heard, that it isn't a scientific, engineering based assessment. And it positions it very well to have the support of governments and Canadians going forward and that's what it really needs.

KC: OK, well, thank you Tim McMillan.

TIM MCMILLAN: Great. Thank you very much.

KC: Tim McMillan is the President and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. We reached him in Calgary. Dominic LeBlanc is the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard and he's a Liberal MP for Beauséjour, New Brunswick. Hello.

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Hey good morning.

KC: This decision on Kinder Morgan is being called a betrayal to BC. What's your response to that?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: We understand that people in British Columbia and in other parts of the country as well, will feel very strongly on both sides of this issue. I think the prime minister said in the news conference yesterday, that he's not immune to or unaware of the depth of feeling. At the end of the day, the cabinet looked at what we thought was exhaustive scientific advice. We had information from extensive consultations with Indigenous groups. We had a report from the National Energy Board, and we came to a decision that we thought was in the best interest of the country, of Canada. But we don't minimize or we're not naive as to the reaction that some people will express on both sides of the issue. There are a great number of Canadians who will probably conclude that this was the right decision for the country as well.

KC: Now, opponents are saying there’ll be protests and court challenges, they're saying this is going to be a messy fight. How difficult do you think it will be for your government to actually get this pipeline operating?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: One of the great things about Canada is that people are entitled to express themselves freely and organize peaceful demonstrations. So we're not worried about that, we we're not surprised by that either. People can also go and ask courts to review various decisions and various processes. The Minister of Justice said at the news conference with the prime minister yesterday in Ottawa, that she believes that we have done what is necessary to avoid some of the circumstances, for example, that the Federal Court of Appeal found in the Northern Gateway application, the previous government's process around consultation with Indigenous groups. So we believe that should somebody take this to court, we have a strong argument as to why this process was done well. But we don't pretend to be in a position to discourage people from going to court if that's a path they take.

KC: Now what about some questions about the safety. The proposal will triple the capacity of the existing pipeline and that means instead of five oil tankers a month in Burrard Inlet, there will be about 34 a month. How can you assure people that there won't be a spill?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: And Kelly, that has been and is one of the key issues that certainly, as the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Coast Guard, I've worked on with my colleague Marc Garneau, who is the Transport Minister. But the whole government has been concerned and been working to try and really improve the government's ability, the Coast Guard's ability, Transport Canada's ability to prevent these kind of horrible Marine incidents. The prime minister was in British Columbia a few weeks ago, announced one and a half billion dollar Oceans Protection Plan which gives the Coast Guard assets like tugboats, towing capacity, pollution response equipment, gives a whole bunch of new radar capacities to better manage traffic all up and down the coast, but particularly in Burrard Inlet. There'll be a whole bunch of marine charts that are upgraded. So we're making a huge investment in the prevention and of course, in the event of an accident, a spill response capacity that's never existed before. We think that's an important thing that the government should do regardless of whether these energy projects get approved, there was need to do that. One of the concerns we have and the National Energy Board identified it, was around the risk of increased Marine noise, noise in the water and what it does to certain fish or marine mammal species. So again, Marc Garneau and I have an unprecedented plan to come forward where we would regulate the amount of noise that can be left in the water, in order to better protect iconic species like the southern resident killer whales for example.

KC: Now, you bring up the whales. Yesterday, the Raincoast Conservation Foundation said this could mean the extinction of that population. How do you respond to that?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Yeah, we don't share that view. We have reliable and we think, credible scientific advice that we can put a series of mitigation measures in place. But to be honest Kelly, the southern resident killer whale population has been at risk and been on the endangered species list for a number of years. This project, three years from now, when the first tankers might arrive, would represent, you know less, than 1 per cent increase, for example, in the marine traffic and in the noise. But that is a critical piece of getting the project right, is to ensure that there's no net increase in this noise. But also, the southern resident killer whales population, I think there are about 80 of them, are under pressure from other contaminants, including biological contaminants that come into the water, accidents, coming into contact with various ships and their ability to find prey to get Chinook salmon. So my department came out with in this past summer, a few months ago, an action plan under the Species at Risk Act--

KC: [interposing] So I'm just going to interrupt you there, I’m just running out of time. You're saying there are other issues around the whale population.

DOMINIC LEBLANC: And we're going to do a lot more to protect that whale population. And in fact, you'll have a very comprehensive action plan, Kelly, in the new year, based on 11,000 public suggestions.

KC: OK, we'll wait for that. OK. Well, thank you very much for being with me this morning.

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Thanks for inviting me on the call.

KC: Dominic Leblanc is the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard. He's a Liberal MP for Beauséjour, New Brunswick. So far we've been focusing on the approval of Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline. But at the same time, another long contested project was scrapped. Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline was first studied in 1998. Then it went through years of planning, hearings and protests until it finally died yesterday November 29th, 2016.

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[Music: Somber orchestra music]

VOICE 1: I hope they get the message today that there’s nothing they can offer, put on the table for us to consider, because our children’s future is at stake.

VOICE 2: And we know they're never going to build these pipelines and they're never going to bring these tankers in. So let’s hear it one more time, yeah.

[Sound: crowd cheering]

VOICE 3: They also think in Ottawa, that they can jam this thing over the backs of British Columbians. What are you willing to do to stop them? Are you willing to lay down in front of the bulldozers?

VOICE 4: Enbridge, go home. The risk to our water and our fish and our animals is too great.

KC: I'm Kelly Crowe, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and this is The Current.

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When will we cure cancer? Dr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi says 'we are doing it every day'

Guests: Dr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi

KELLY CROWE: Hello, I'm Kelly Crowe, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

KC: Still to come, protecting the rights of working animals. I'll speak with a Swedish union leader pushing to create labour rights for service animals. That's in half an hour. But first, a prominent cancer researcher says instead of being at war with cancer, we should understand it better and maybe then we'd have a better chance at beating it.

[Music: Theme]

KC: Cancer. Not a word that inspires much hope. And yet, my next guest says there is much to be hopeful about in our growing understanding of the complexity and diversity of cancer. Dr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi is a Director of the Cancer Center and Cancer Research Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the George C. Reisman Professor of Medicine and Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. He joins me now in Toronto to tell us why he's hopeful about the state of new cancer treatments and research. Hello.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Hi, thank you for having me.

KC: Oh, thank you for being here. I’d like to start with a really basic question and ask you what is cancer?

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Cancer is the disease of the century. Cancer is the emperor of maladies, as you all know, as we all know unfortunately. Cancer is still a deadly disease.

KC: But essentially, it's a disease of cells is that right?

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: It's a disease of cells, it's a disease of genes. But in essence, is a disease whereby cells in our body grow in an unrestricted manner. Either they grow too much, they proliferate or they die too little and this causes these expansion of cells which is uncontrolled and invasive, it spreads. And so we have to fix the problem. And for many many years, as we all know, the only way into this was to remove the lesion, to kill the cancer cell. This was a philosophy of war. In fact, we even launch a war on cancer. And the reason why we were doing that is that we were fundamentally ignorant on the reason why cells would proliferate too much. And so it made sense that we would go after them with the tools, with drugs, with therapies that would be after the proliferative process in its own right. The problem here is that many cells in our body proliferate normally. We have plenty of cells that need to be replenished, blood cells, cells in our skin, our hair follicle. And so if you go after cells that proliferate, you inevitably have serious collateral damages and toxicities. So now this approach has changed tremendously, dramatically. It has changed because we, first of all, we now understand a bit more on the reason why cancer cells proliferate. We have understood the logic and we have understood that cancer is a disease due to faulty genes. The genes are the elements that control the behaviour of our cells in our body. The mutation in those genes cause the cells to proliferate and this knowledge is changing the game. It is changing the game because instead of going after the only, and one and only things we knew, which was that the cells were proliferating. Now we can fix the molecular problem. And this fixing is extremely specific because the problem is only in the cancer cells, so the drugs that we are using now are drugs that fix the problem, are not drugs that kill and suppress. And so I--

KC: [interposing] But we're still using the old drugs though.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: we are and we will discuss why we need to because at the end of the day, you still want to reduce the mass, you want to reduce, you want to get rid of the mass. But then we can go in with smarter drugs and smarter drugs are fundamentally different. And so, what I always like to say is that we've moved from a philosophy of war, we were at war with cancer, and I always tend to think that war is established when people don't understand each other. War is usually launched when people don't get to know each other. If you get to know the logic, then you establish a negotiation. You move from the war on cancer to negotiation. And the reason why you negotiate is because you understand how cancer cells behave. And so you can fix their behaviour.

KC: So where are we in this negotiation?

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: We are quite advanced. We are excited because we have a number of new drugs, its unprecedented how many drugs we have. You know, because we understand the molecular defects of cancer, so we can fix the problem. And again, if I haven't been clear, you can fix the car. You don't need to throw it away.

KC: [crosstalk] But how? I mean, I don’t want to give away a mistaken impression that we're actually fixing because we're not fixing everything at this point, we're fixing a small fraction of cancer, isn’t that right?

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: We are fixing a small fraction but we will have the knowledge, in due course, a detailed knowledge of all the molecular defects of cancer and we can--

KC: [interposing] So moving in a new direction and actually getting in there and understanding what's going wrong in trying to repair at a genetic level.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: For fixing, I want to be specific, I'm not saying curing, although we can cure cancer and we can discuss that.

KC: Some cancers.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Some cancer. But for fixing, I'm saying that we have the knowledge and the technology to, in due course, to develop drugs which are very specific. And this is ongoing and I will come back to the fact that we also discover that there was, and this has been a very recent discovery, we discover that we had a profound lack of knowledge, in spite of the fact that now we know much more about cancer. And the lack of knowledge comes from the realization that we had interrogated only a very small fraction of our book of life, our genome, you know, the genes that control. We were focusing all our attention on genes that encode for proteins. This is one of the dogma. While the dogma is a fundamental rule in biology, whereby a gene makes a blueprint called RNA and these messenger RNA creates and encodes for a protein and the protein then exerts a certain function. So we paid attention and we focused all our attention on this fraction of the genome. Surprise though, is that this fraction of the genome is only 2 per cent of the whole genome. And in the last five years, and I'm really talking about, you know, current research, we discovered that the rest of the genome, the rest of the volumes of the book of life, the 98 per cent of the book of life that we have not read and studied is extremely important. Very important for fundamental processes for development and they are very very important when they’re regulated for cancer. So there is still a lack of knowledge but this knowledge that we will accrue in the years to come will fill the gap. And the logic of going after the faulty gene will not change. So we already know that the non-coding RNAs these RNAs that don’t code for protein are also deregulated in cancer and we know that we can go after them with smart drugs. So we will, in the next five years or 10 years, gain ground on a daily basis, on the disease. And this is paving the way to the development of many many more drugs and we should discuss the issue now is not to have new drugs, but paradoxically to understand how these drugs work in which cancer and how they work and why they don't work in each and every cancer.

KC: And this is what you're doing with mice at this point?

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Exactly, because they had a discovery and this is probably common knowledge by now, is that there is no such a thing as prostate cancer or breast cancer. We already know that cancer are many, they are diverse, we have many types of prostate cancer. There are people that go around saying that cancer is an or one many--

KC: [interposing] In other words, every individual has a particular disease.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: [crosstalk] Every individual has a different cancer. And so this led to the notion of precision medicine and personalized medicine. The idea is that you have to be private, you have to go after your own cancer. So we know that the hope is that we will gain a complete knowledge of cancer. And at that point, we will be able to sequence the book of life, sequence the genome of cancer. And as you know, we can sequence it very rapidly now and very cost effectively. And so this will allow us to sequence the cancer genome, not only when the patient comes to the hospital but over time because as you know, when cancer is subjected to therapy it tends to evolve. So we will sequence and resequence and as soon as we know what genes are emitted or what are the molecular features, we will be able to say these patients will be treated effectively with a combination, a b c of drugs, while another patient will be treated with another cocktail of drugs.

KC: So you’re building a catalog, basically, of all of the mutations and you'll be able to just refer to it.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: The mutation or the molecular features because the mutations are, you know, one of the--

KC: [interposing] But how can you imagine that size of that catalog because of the incredible, almost infinite combinations of mutations?

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Yeah. I mean, the real hurdle is in a sense, on the drug developers. But technologically and from a pure academic perspective, there is no reason why this couldn't be done. We will be able to say to Mr. Smith, your cancer NO1 has certain features and you will benefit of certain drugs.

KC: Some of this is happening now in a small way.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Absolutely, it did happen. [chuckles] Actually, it's happening every day and I am here and I have been recruited at Harvard because I participated in a fantastic story which pertains to a form of leukemia, which simply put, 20 years ago was a fatal killer. It was a disease where you would die in a few months. Even though this form of leukemia was very responsive to chemotherapy, which was and still is a standard of care for many form of leukemia. And simply put, 20 years down the road, this disease is a disease of the past. We have eradicated it, we have to cured it. And this disease is exactly what we have discussed until now. It's a disease which is characterized by different genetic makeup.

KC: How much of leukemia falls into that?

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: It's basically five to ten per cent of all acute myeloid leukemia. So it's a reasonably rare form of leukemia but if you think about the fact that disease, cancer is genetically diverse, each cancer is very rare in its own right. So APL or acute promyelocytic leukemia was recognizable under the microscope. Then we discovered that there are at least six different subtypes of acute promyelocytic leukemia genetically. And what we could do, we could recreate six different mouse models, six different little mice which would be engineered to express the faulty genes in these six subtypes of acute promyelocytic leukemia. Once we made these mice, mice develop leukemia, and at that point we reason, and this was a few years earlier, that we could use these mice to test drugs. So we did. And the drugs and combination of drugs that we found effective were then tested in human being, in clinical trials. So we did. And the disease is now curable. So the idea is that we want to replicate the success.

KC: Are those drugs on the market now?

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Yeah, they are actually approved, as we say in jargon, which means that we can use them, in APL. And since they are now approved, we are testing this concept also in other form of cancer and leukemias. And the drugs are not expensive at all.

KC: Now, whenever people hear stories about cancer in drugs, they want to try it for themselves or for a family member. Can you put some of this in context? You're talking about a very specific type of cancer, a subset, a rare form of cancer. Can you help people understand sort of why these discoveries, while exciting for knowledge, it might not necessarily translate into major changes for the average person?

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Because the issue is that cancers are diverse and so we need to learn which drugs to use in each and every subtype of cancer. So we cannot assume that since a combination of drugs work in acute promyelocytic leukemia, this combination will end up working in breast cancer or in prostate cancer. We will need to find that combination for each and every given cancer. But the good news is that we have the knowledge, we have a number of drugs that are being tested. So, you know, many of my colleagues don't like the classic question, which is relevant in my opinion, which is when are we going to cure cancer? You know, when are we going to cure cancer? This is a mantra. But I think it's a legitimate mantra because people are suffering and this a horrible disease. So we really need to push, we need to address this question.

KC: Why do your colleagues challenge this concept of being able to cure cancer?

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: It is challenging because we know that cancer is complex. And so the complexity is such that it will take time to understand which drugs to give to each and every cancer. But I will, by the way, come back to another element which makes us very excited, which is two more immune therapies. We should discuss this because this is another revolution that is taking place which gives us hope. But it will take time. But the answer to the question when are we doing, when are we curing cancer, is that we are doing it every day. Every day we find new drugs, new combinations, new effective therapies for a given type of cancer. So this should give and transmit tremendous hope to people because even if the cancer people are experiencing today is considered fatal, tomorrow we could have the right combination that cracks the code. And we are gain--

KC: [interposing] But are you worried about giving people, perhaps, false hope? Because a lot of the new cancer drugs are not extending life, they're measured in sort of surrogate measures like tumor, you know, shrinkage or progression free survival. But when you look at the overall life extending potential of these drugs, so far it's a year or less.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Yeah. The issue of the overall survival is a very important point that should be discussed. People tend to assess overall survival in the old fashion, which is that you take thousands of people who are treated with a certain drug, which you have very little knowledge of their NO1. And then you find that in this court, you have the super responders that were by extension of life is substantial success, and then the non-responder. So the whole game is to understand and tease apart the super responder from the non-responder. What I'm saying is that I am convinced that, immeasurably, we will gain ground to the disease because we are understanding more and more and we will be able to catalogue more and more. And so, if you were to tease apart the super responder and five years from now you will give the drug or the drug combination only to the super responder, that will be considered a success. At the moment we are averaging and the average is 1.2 months extension of survival and this is disheartening. But the truth is that the doctors in the clinic know that some patients are extremely responsive. So the question is why? What is their genetic makeup that dictates this extremely good response and why other patients don’t respond at all?

KC: So you're changing the idea that there's going to be a magic bullet.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Absolutely. There will be no such a thing as a blockbuster drug. There might be, and now let's go back to tumor immune therapies, there might be in the context of tumor immune therapies. So for many years, and I witnessed it because I've been in this field for 20 years or so, tumor immunologists, people who are studying why on Earth the immune system wouldn't see the cancer. You know, we have cells that are specialized to go after foreign intruders, our immune system. We are very good at getting rid of bacteria or viral invaders, why on Earth we wouldn't see the cancer cell as a foreign entity in our body? And the cancer cell is different because it's full of mutation and it's misbehaving. And so for many years, people were very skeptical that you could understand why and the skepticism was based on the simple assumption that if cancer grew and is growing in your body, by definition the immune system has failed, so how can you hope to use the immune system for therapy? But to make a long story short, the people have realized that cancer is very very smart and it’s able to create a shield, it's able to create a protective shield, whereby the immune system is either paralyzed or simply doesn't see the cancer, it's below the radar screen so to speak. And by understanding how cancer would evade the immune recognition, now we have drugs which are breaking the shield. So all of a sudden the cancer is seen. And the power of the immune system is such that when cancer is seen, it's wiped out and the responses in the clinic are really really remarkable. And the beauty is that you can do yet another thing, if this is doable, if we can instigate the immune system to go after the cancer. What we can do is to vaccinate people, we can create vaccines which are the ultimate personalized treatment because the vaccine is against your own cancer. So the idea is that you train yourselves to go after the cancer and you put them back in the game and they go after the cancer. Why this is also very intriguing as a concept? Because first of all it’s working in leukemia by the way, in very very aggressive form of leukemia, with cures with extensional of life of years not months. So if we can develop vaccine and that what is important to remember is the vaccine are by definition not only curative but protective. The immune system will remember the intruder. So if the cancer comes back, the immune system--

KC: [interposing] As long as it doesn’t change.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: As long as it doesn't change. But--

KC: But that is one of the eternal challenges, isn't it? That cancer’s always been figuring out a way around.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: This is the eternal challenge. But the good news is that in the last five years, immune therapies came of age and we have yet to explore the power of combining immune therapies with targeted therapies, with smart drugs. These markets go after the cancer cells, they don't go after the immune system. The power of combining immune therapies and targeted therapies, plus the advantage of having the [unintelligible] and chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery will really impact tremendously on survival. The issue of complexity will still be daunting but there is nothing that prevents us from gaining ground. The only thing that can defeat us, so to speak, is if the game is unsustainable from an economic standpoint. But I'm still hopeful, that on the contrary, we do not need, you know, thousands of drugs, we will need hundreds of drugs well developed and importantly, utilizing--

KC: [interposing] You mean like a, kind of like a paint box, where you have primary colours and you mix them.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Exactly. I am hopeful that we will understand that for each and every cancer or group of cancer what are the vulnerabilities and combining those vulnerabilities with immune therapies and with standard of cares that we have used and we’ve got to learn and we will really defeat the cancer. So I don't think we can say in ten years we have taken each and every form of cancer out of business. But the for sure in ten years we would have taken many more form cancer out of business.

KC: It is an incremental step.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Incremental step.

KC: Day by day.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Day by day.

KC: Discovery by discovery. Thank you very much for talking with me.

DR. PIER PAOLO PANDOLFI: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

KC: Dr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi is the George C. Reisman Professor of Medicine and Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. He was in Toronto to speak to an event at the University of Toronto. You're listening to The Current,I'm Kelly Crowe sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. Yesterday on the program, we talked about the joys, politics and mythology of butter with Elaine Khosrova. The former food editor has written a book called Butter: A Rich History, and she traveled across three continents chasing and tasting its many forms.

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On the highlands of Bhutan, there's no barns, there's no fences, no corrals. The animals just roam free. But they come back to the herders, there's a relationship they have with these nomadic people. They come back for the milking, which happens every morning. They take the whole milk and they ferment it slightly. They put in these branches that have a particular bacteria that helps culture the milk a little bit. I watched as they put the milk, this woman, put the milk into the churn and then by hand, just moving the plunger up and down up and down, it took about 40 minutes and then we had this beautiful, rich butter.

KC: It got many of you sharing some of your own butter field memories, some of them not so delicious. Friederike Knabe of Ottawa shared this, “the yak butter in the high Himalayan region of Nepal didn't taste anything as lovely as your guest described. A dirty grey colour and unpleasant taste. My second experience was with a group of Bedouin women in the Algerian Sahara. It was fermented camel butter, slightly rancid smelling and tasting but very precious to the women. I managed to eat it and keep it down, my travel companion did not.” Owen Murray shared these thoughts, “I'm sitting here listening to your wonderful piece about butter while drinking my bulletproof coffee — coffee with a dollop of butter blended in. I'm using an Irish butter called Kerrygold, smuggled through Canadian customs by a relative as it’s not available here yet. I'm not so comfortable asking family members to smuggle butter through customs, so I'm keenly watching the progress of the EU-Canada trade deal, hoping that this will liberalize the trade barriers.” Diane Walton of Toronto was worried about the toll of all that butter making. “I can't believe you have a program about butter and not once was it mentioned where that butter comes from and the politics of that — the animals. It was interesting to listen to both of you speak without a concern or mention of how the animals are sacrificed to give us butter.” If you missed our butter segment, you can find it on our website at cbc.ca/thecurrent or download the CBC Radio app and listen to it there. Coming up in our next half hour, a push by a union to improve the quality of life for the four legged friends that work for humans every day. I'm Kelly Crowe, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, you're listening to The Current.

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Should Canadian unions take up the cause for working animals?

Guests: Kendra Coulter, Devon MacPherson

KELLY CROWE: Hello, I'm Kelly Crowe, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and this is The Current.

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VOICE 1: Yeah, take it nice, very very very nice.

[Sound: popping noise]

VOICE 2: Oh. [laughs] Didn’t licks on your fingers?

VOICE 3: I think that’s a little smile you got going, are you happy?

VOICE 4: Colonel is the coolest dog ever, I tell you. You got to give him a hug with your leg too.

VOICE 5: Oh, that’s good.

KC: They might be the cutest therapists to grace hospital hallways. Therapy dogs like this one, encouraging a young patient going through physiotherapy after an accident. From hospitals to homes and courthouses, service animals like dogs have important jobs to help humans with therapeutic treatments, help them get around safely and keep an eye or a nose on their blood sugar levels. And now a Swedish labour union is exploring whether these animals require legal protections in their workplaces, similar to what human workers have under the Labour Code. Sofia Berglund is a Policy Developer at the Swedish union Kommunal. Her union represents over half a million people, from childcare workers to emergency responders, and they just held a seminar to discuss the issue. We've reached Sofia Berglund in Stockholm. Hello.

SOFIA BERGLUND: Hello.

KC: So why is a labour union interested in the rights of animals?

SOFIA BERGLUND: Well, this is important to us because the work situation, the health and safety situation for the animals is a great part of the health and safety, the work environment for our members.

KC: What are you proposing?

SOFIA BERGLUND: We propose that we explore this fairly new activity in Sweden, where it's getting more and more common to use both, for example, horses and dogs in different therapeutic activities. We want to explore and make sure that the aspect of their work situation is taken into account in the current legislation.

KC: Well give us an example of the kind of work they do.

SOFIA BERGLUND: Well, for example, it could be a dog helping children in school to concentrate while reading, it can be a dog that takes part in a therapeutic session. It can be horses that are used in therapeutic riding lessons.

KC: So what kinds of union protection do you think they need?

SOFIA BERGLUND: We need to make sure that in these jobs, they create relationships, relations to the people that they relate to and that's actually an important part of their contribution, to relate and to help those people to relate back. This can be a stressful job if you do it all the time, you are very aware, you're very attentive, so you can be sort of getting tired of giving so much. It may sound a little bit far out but even dogs, according to one of the experts that we asked during this seminar, she, or they all confirmed that this can be tiring and exhausting. So we want to explore these issues to make sure we're not missing out on something that in a long term or for some animals will be unsustainable. We most of all want to just raise the issue, explore it and contribute to better awareness.

KC: So this reflects the growing use of animals in a workplace situation and you're trying to anticipate some of the problems.

SOFIA BERGLUND: Yes. Knowing that different parts of, different branches, different schools, so to say, have different opinions on what is acceptable to have dogs doing and well, what is not acceptable. For example, rolling over the dog's tail with a wheelchair. That can happen, that can be an accident. But if it is done by intention then it's abuse and that is not legal. So then do you need to the learn the dog to accept having your tail rolled over by a wheelchair?

KC: I wanted to ask you, are you are you talking about all animals who work? I mean, are you talking about dairy cows, for example, or work horses?

SOFIA BERGLUND: No. During this seminar that we held, we had a very clear focus on animals in what we call welfare sector. That is care, child care, elderly care, school and health care.

KC: Is there any evidence that animals are not being treated well in the workplace?

SOFIA BERGLUND: Well, what we have is that this split in perception or these differences in what these animals should perform. I have understood that some educators suggest that the animals should accept being hugged against their own will, to accept being hugged when they don't want to be hugged. Some others think that that's really destructive for all parts. Who can profit from a hug if it's not mutual? Also, these things I tried to explain with a wheelchair, some suggest that the dog should be tested to accept pain without reacting, and others think that you cannot intentionally hurt the animal just to find out whether it will react or not.

KC: Right. In the end, what do you hope will come out of this initiative?

SOFIA BERGLUND: I hope to find out whether it's relevant or not. [chuckles] I hope that we will be assured that current regulation is taken into account, all necessary aspect of animals work situation. Many of the more physical aspects of work for animals, they are already covered. But this fairly new aspect, where animals relate to people and create relationships, is not covered, we learned during a seminar by current regulations. So that's what I want to find out.

KC: OK. Well, thank you very much for talking with us.

SOFIA BERGLUND: Thank you.

KC: Sofia Berglund is a Policy Developer at Swedish Municipal Workers Union Kommunal. She was in Stockholm. The Swedish proposal to extend labour rights to working animals is getting enthusiastic support from my next guest Kendra Coulter. She's an Associate Professor of Labour Studies at Brock University and the author of Animals, Work and the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity. She's with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

KENDRA COULTER: Good morning.

KC: So what do you think of the union looking to extend labour rights to some working animals?

KENDRA COULTER: It was a really historic and important event. And it was unique in that it brought together researchers, some policymakers, frontline workers to have these conversations and I was really delighted to see that the union was asking these questions, given as Sofia explained, who some of their members are working. These therapeutic workplaces are much more developed across northern Europe in particular and so there are many different programs and services in Sweden where animals are being involved to different degrees. So it was really encouraging to see them asking these questions. What is needed for the animals to feel well and whose responsibility is it?

KC: Is this the sort of thing you could see happening in Canada?

KENDRA COULTER: I think these questions should be asked everywhere. And there's a lot of things that we can learn about the relationships between social wellbeing, social solidarity and human-animal relations from the Swedish context. So they have quite strong legislation at the national level to governing all animals, they have strong protections for human workers, so those humans who work with animals will enjoy benefits that many people here would dream of, you know, paid sick days, five weeks of paid vacation, et cetera. And then they're beginning to ask these questions as well, in terms of what specific regulations might need to be developed. They have quite robust regulations already but what else needs to be done and what could be the role of labour unions. And I think that that's quite exciting.

KC: Now, I'd like to introduce one more guest into this discussion. Well, make that two guests, I got a four-legged guest here. Devon MacPherson uses a service dog to manage her anxiety. She's also on the advisory committee with the Canadian General Standards Board, where she's working on developing regulations for service dogs. And she's here with her dog Barkley. Hello.

DEVON MACPHERSON: Good morning.

KC: Now, Devon, introduce us to Barkley.

DEVON MACPHERSON: Barkey’s a white standard poodle and I've been working with him for approximately five years and he assists me with my anxiety. He's technically trained as psychiatric service dog. So basically, he can warn me prior to my anxiety rising through nudging me and then I can take actions to reduce my anxiety before it becomes debilitating.

KC: Now, what's he doing right now? I see--

DEVON MACPHERSON: I must be pretty calm because he's just taken a nap right now, so. [laughs]

KC: [crosstalk] Wearing his sporty green Snoopy scarf and his worker vest. Now, is he with you 24/7?

DEVON MACPHERSON: Yes. For the large majority of the time yeah. I just finished my master's degree and he was with me every day, he was part of the class, for sure. [laughs]

KC: Now, do you give him breaks?

DEVON MACPHERSON: Yes, I do for sure. I think that just like human workers, service dogs should be afforded breaks as well. We often forget, or a lot of people forget sometimes, that being a service dog is quite a taxing job. So we need to build in structure, in terms of breaks and whatnot.

KC: Now, can you tell if he's getting stressed or if he's tired?

DEVON MACPHERSON: I definitely can. I guess it's something similar to when you have a child, you understand their certain signs of stress or distress. And once you have that bond with a service dog, you definitely know them inside and out like they know you inside and out. So I can tell when he's getting tired, when something is distressing to him, very easily.

KC: Now, we heard about an issue. One thing that might stress out a dog, for example, would be being hugged if they didn't want to be. Well, what do you think of that, would it be hard to enforce?

DEVON MACPHERSON: I haven't looked at the literature completely but there was an article that came out, I think, by Stanley Coren, who's quite well recognized in the canine science field, about hugging and being distressing towards dogs. Personally Barkley, as far as I know, he doesn't try to walk away from it like some other dogs I know. So yes, I think that can be. But there's also much bigger things, bigger concepts that need to be taken into account.

KC: Like what?

DEVON MACPHERSON: I think the big thing about breaks and actually regulating a time for breaks. When I did my major research paper, I found out that amongst, not only service dogs, but police dogs, sled dogs, other working dogs, that there wasn't a set break time, that after five hours you should get a half hour a break or you should be able to eat this many times a day. And I think that's a problem, it’s something that needs to be addressed.

DEVON MACPHERSON: Now, Kendra Coulter, are there any laws or regulations covering working conditions for service animals right now?

KENDRA COULTER: We have very limited, minimal legislation and policy and it's important that we're having this conversation because we're really, as you mentioned at the outset, increasing the ways that we're using animals in care. And there's a real patchwork of things going on, so there's a huge umbrella where in some context you have these one on one relationships, like Devon and Barkley, and there's a range of those sorts of interactive service dogs. We're also seeing more part time positions for different animals, where they might go into a hospital or a long term care facility, a library on a shorter term basis and more farm based programs, equine assisted therapy, et cetera. So the more that we're using animals in these ways — and they can be incredible benefits for the humans who are involved — we want to also be asking are the animals doing well and what is needed? And so there's a bit of a patchwork and I think many organizations and individuals are well-intentioned but the more that we're using this, the more we're going to need in our ministries of health, perhaps at our federal level, to ask these questions and create the standards that are in place. Both for the specifics of the workplace, what would be needed, that might vary, but also how can we create a full legal system and framework for protecting all of the animals. So that it's not just about what do they do for us, but what do we owe to them, what are what are we protecting them from but also what positive things are we guaranteeing to them?

KC: Right. OK, well, Kendra Coulter and Devon MacPherson and Barkley, everybody stay put, we'll come back. I'd like you to hear a conversation I had yesterday with Dominique Pelletier. She has been a caleche driver in Montreal for 14 years. She takes visitors through the streets of old Montreal in a horse-drawn a carriage. Now, I asked her what she thinks of the idea of a union looking into protecting the rights of working animals.

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DOMINIQUE PELLETIER: I think that it's very interesting perspective and it's taking into account the fact that animals can be well and can have the right conditions for them to work and help humans. And that's a really great perspective to have when thinking about regulating these animals working conditions and rights.

KC: What is it like for your horses right now? What are the rules around how many hours they can work?

DOMINIQUE PELLETIER: Our horses do have heavily regulated environments already. They have several working conditions that are enforced, like, they can't work more than nine hours a day and of course, it's not nine hours working, like, walking around nonstop. They have breaks in between the rides and everything and they have time to eat and drink water. And of course, there's veterinarians tending to these animals to make sure that they have everything they need. If there's anything, veterinarians can tell us to go bring our horses back to the stables. But generally, when our horse doesn't feel well, we know as a driver right away because we work with that animal every day, so we know our animals really well. And it's in our interest as drivers to take the best care possible, to look after these animals because they are our partners. We work with them as a team. Horse and driver are usually paired together for the summer. You know, you can get to work with other horses occasionally when your horse has a day off or things like that.

KC: The horses get days off?

DOMINIQUE PELLETIER: Yes, of course they get days off. Like most people do.

KC: Who enforces the rules around the horses? Are there inspectors that go around and see what you're doing?

DOMINIQUE PELLETIER: Yes, definitely. It’s the inspectors of the city of Montreal. And there are special inspectors that are trained specifically to look after the wellness of the horses. So to look for if the horses have wounds underneath the harness, if they look like they're hurting somewhere, if they're lame and they're usually accompanied by veterinarians.

KC: And what happens if they find something like that, what are the penalties like?

DOMINIQUE PELLETIER: They can send you back to the stables and they can fine the owners. And after two fines, the owner of the horse loses its carriage operating license for about a year. So it's a huge economic monetary loss to lose a license for a year. So these things don't happen in general.

KC: How do the rules governing the horses compare to the workplace rules for you?

DOMINIQUE PELLETIER: Oh, actually our horses have a lot more benefits in the workplace than we do because our working conditions are not regulated. We are precarious workers, so we get hired by carriage owners. But at the end of the day, we get paid a percentage of the rides that we make plus tips and we have no working, unionized working conditions for example, the number of hours that we work per day or per week are not regulated workday.

KC: So the horses have more protection than you do?

DOMINIQUE PELLETIER: Yes, yes they do.

KC: Do you think it's time to change how we think about working animals?

DOMINIQUE PELLETIER: Definitely, definitely. And I think that this whole positive, proactive attitude towards working animals is really good because it gives us a perspective on these working animals that is helpful, like, we want to help these working animals conditions rather than saying the animals should be wild and free and have this rhetoric where we're kind of dismissing all these years of domestication and all the history that we have with these animals.

KC: Is there an argument that it’s going too far that working animals might be in danger of having more rights than working people, including people like yourself, as you say, who are in precarious jobs?

DOMINIQUE PELLETIER: No, I think that in our case they're very regulated as it is. So even if they became unionized, it wouldn’t really change anything. What's dangerous is this kind of rhetoric that extremist animal rights activists use to say that what we're doing is wrong and to say that what we're doing is inhumane and this kind of, like, misinformed and misinforming attitude towards that. I think that's what's dangerous. The fact that we don't have good working conditions as individuals, it's something that needs to be looked upon. Our work can be very difficult because we have to deal with misinformed people's rhetoric and it hurts us and it's abuse and that's abuse towards humans. We need to protect our rights as working individuals and I think this goes hand-in-hand with making people aware of the welfare of our animals.

KC: That was Dominique Pelletier, a caleche driver in Montreal. My guests here in Toronto are Kendra Coulter, who teaches Labour Studies at Brock University and Devon McPherson is here with her therapy dog, her service dog Barkley, who's lying quietly on the floor. Dominique Pelletier says there are already good regulations covering her horses, even better she says, than her own working conditions. Kendra Coulter, how do you respond to the suggestion that, you know, we have some big problems with human workers in precarious jobs and maybe reserve energy and space for this conversation.

KENDRA COULTER: It's a slightly complex issue, so I hope you'll indulge me, perhaps a little bit longer of an answer. So the bylaws in Montreal governing the carriage horses are not elaborate. They say things like no more than nine hours of work a day, you can't work them in in 30 degree Celsius weather or hotter and that during the winter they need to wear a blanket. There are some specifics around their stables and their stalls where they will sleep. But above and beyond that there is no requirement that they have a day rest or weeks off in the year or anything like that. So if in Dominique's case, the horses are required to have a day off, that's her employer making that decision not the governing legislation or the bylaws of Montreal. And if she would like additional protections and better conditions, I mean, this is a very clear example where she could advocate for herself with her employer or unite with fellow human workers and unionize. But this of course, is a really controversial issue, it’s a hotspot, right? You see the animal advocates, who themselves have very diverse views, they're not a uniform group. You see labour folks, the Teamsters in Central Park, for example, are unionized, having a particular view. And then the equestrian world has mixed views on these issues overall. And, you know, there have been a range of debates about these conditions, whether we want to have horses working on cement for long periods of time at this moment in history. And it may be that due to profitability or public opinion, in the coming years we decide that this doesn't meet our ethical standards for what's acceptable. And so what's really key is that we don't give into the zero sum game polarization. Where it’s one group of workers has to lose in order for another to win or where we see people being envious or jealous of the conditions of others, whether those are other humans or animals. But what we do is we say we actually want to have well-being for humans and animals. And so I propose the concept of humane jobs, which is that we're building and creating work that is about reciprocity, that benefits both humans and animals. So there are certain existing types of work that can be improved to better human and or the animals conditions. There are some kinds of work that we can't defend and ethically justify if we’re recognizing animals as sentient beings who think and feel, who have their own interests and that what we want to be doing instead is creating new positive areas of work that are about helping others rather than harming them. And that's something of a win-win-win situation, which I would like to see us focusing on in the future.

KC: OK. Devon MacPherson, you're working with the Canadian General Standards Board to come up with some new regulations for service dogs like Barkley. What kinds of issues are you looking to regulate?

DEVON MACPHERSON: Well, one of the issues that we're currently having is that some provinces and territories, I guess mostly provinces in this case, do have legislation about service animals. But the problem is that it’s not national, which is a big problem, especially when service dogs are traveling in between provinces and territories. The standard is going to look at both the training standards, humane standards and those sorts of things. I can't disclose exact details as it's currently in process and will be up for review in February 2017 for the public. But those are some of the issues that we're discussing. And we're discussing, you know, there's a problem with fake service dogs right now, where people can buy a vest and put it on their pet and call them service dog. And that's a big problem for people like me, after going into a store where a non-service dog has bitten somebody and then I come in and--

KC: [interposing] You mean a non-service dog who's pretending to be--

DEVON MACPHERSON: To be a service dog.

KC: I see, OK.

DEVON MACPHERSON: I've had the issue where that dog has bitten someone and then I go in following and I--

KC: [interposing] So you want standards for even training the dogs. And making sure they meet a certain threshold.

DEVON MACPHERSON: Yes, yes. I think there needs to be a certain threshold and different considerations regarding their treatment, that needs to be there. And the Canadian General Standards Board and veteran affairs has really taken this up and made it a priority and I'm glad that they have and there's lots of really key players in the meeting who have worked with service dogs or guide dogs or work in the industry for many years. So it's great to have that roundtable discussion, really get something concrete. There's nothing concrete. It's all loosey goosey right now and that's what we need to fix.

KC: So just, we're running out of time, but just quickly, what for you are the biggest issues? I mean, when you go into stores or try to fly, I mean, are there are other issues in taking Barkley?

DEVON MACPHERSON: Yes for sure. Some people don't know the rules, don't know that it's a service dog, don't know that there are service dogs for different uses. I'm not someone who's visually impaired, so it's not easy to see that I have a disability, that I require a service dog, which can be a problem. So it's all about education and letting people know what they're for and that it’s extended past the historical view of just guide dogs for vision. It's deeper than that and they're coming up with more uses for them and that needs to be addressed and people need to be educated about these things.

KC: OK. Well, thank you both very much for coming and talking with me.

DEVON MACPHERSON: Thank you.

KENDRA COULTER: This is such an important issue and there are so many animals whose lives and deaths get ignored. And so I'm really delighted and pleased that you've brought this issue and hope that this is just the beginning of more conversations.

KC: OK and goodbye to Barkley, who hasn't made a sound the entire time. Devon MacPherson is a service dog handler and part of an advisory committee to create new standards for service dogs. Kendra Coulter is an Associate Professor of Labour Studies at Brock University and she's also the author of Animals, Work and the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity. They were in Toronto. Over to you. Should Canadian unions take up the cause of working animals? Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC, find us on Facebook or email us from our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. That's our program for today. And remember, you can always take The Current with you on the free CBC Radio app. It lets you browse through past episodes of our show and start listening in just a few seconds. You can search for stories you missed or want to hear again or listen live to your local CBC station right from your smartphone or tablet. Hear the day's top stories, even make your own playlist of your favorite stories to listen to later. Before we go, you'll want to listen to The Current next week, as Anna Maria Tremonti talks to Trevor Noah about US politics and his new book Born a Crime. Prior to taking over hosting duties at the late night Daily Show from Jon Stewart, Trevor Noah lived in his home country of South Africa. And as the son of a black mother and white father, living there was hard. Our last word today goes to Trevor Noah. I'm Kelly Crowe, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, thanks for listening to The Current.

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TREVOR NOAH: My mother’s a black woman, Xhosa woman born in South Africa. That's one of the languages with the clicks, Xhosa, Xhosa, so a black woman. And then my father's Swiss, but they didn't care, you know, they were mavericks fighting the system. My mom was arrested for being with my dad, she would get fined, she would get thrown into prison for the weekend but still she'd come back and she's like woo, I don’t care, I don’t care, can’t tell you who to love, I want a white man, woo.

[Sound: crowd laughter]

TREVOR NOAH: Just crazy my mom. Just crazy, you know. And my dad was also, like, well you know how the Swiss love chocolate, so he was

[Sound: crowd laughter and applause]

TREVOR NOAH: And so they got together and they had me, which was illegal. So I was born a crime.

[Sound: crowd laughter]

TREVOR NOAH: Which is something I don't think they ever thought through because as a family we couldn't live together, you know. Like, in the streets we couldn't even be seen together. My father would have to walk on the other side of the road.

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November 30, 2016 full episode transcript

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