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The AIH Transcript for March 10, 2017

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening, I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight:

CO: Trying his patients. They voted for Trump and they hate Obamacare. But according to a West Virginia doctor, his red state patients will be left in a sorry state by the Republican's proposed health care plan.

JD: A story that may have more than one big payoff. An investigative reporter says Sweden’s arrest of a Bombardier employee for suspected bribery may only be the beginning of the company's legal problems.

CO: An outside chance. An Egyptian-born Canadian has been imprisoned in Egypt for a decade, on what many consider to be sham charges. A former CIA agent is fighting to get him released.

JD: Some families have skeletons in their closet. They had one on their property. Not only that, it was inside the wreckage of a German Messerschmidt that had gone undiscovered since the Second World War.

CO: It's a high-octane high-energy workout. And a high powered owner of a new gym highly recommended that you embrace its concept: that being high on weed while you exercise will be highly beneficial.

JD: And… he is incapable of feeling insulted but he has definitely been belittled. After weeks of research, our guest reveals that Waldo of “Where's Waldo?” has become a lot more difficult to find because he has become a lot smaller. As It Happens the Friday edition, radio that never shrinks from the truth.

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Part 1: West Virginia doctor, El Attar: CSIS, WWII German plane

West Virginia doctor

Guest: Mitch Jacques

JD: If the GOP was hoping for universal praise, it certainly did not get it this week by unveiling its American Health Care Act. The Democrats, predictably, loathe it and conservatives within the Republican Party complain the proposal is too much like the old so-called Obamacare. While it has passed some major hurdles in the House of Representatives, its full passage in Congress is no guarantee just yet. Outside of Capitol Hill, some family doctors are not so sure about the proposal either. Mitch Jacques is a family physician in rural West Virginia, a place where U.S. President Donald Trump had major support at the polls. We reached Dr. Jacques in Charleston.

CO: Dr. Jacques. Republicans are saying that this health care proposal — there's — is a is a better deal for Americans than Obamacare. Is it better for your patients?

MITCH JACQUES: Well, I think for some of them maybe. We don't have all that all the details yet, but I think for the vast majority of them it will jeopardize the health care they're currently receiving.

CO: And the health care they're currently receiving, how much better has it been under the Affordable Care Act or under Obamacare?

MJ: Well again, you have to understand the population I care for in southern West Virginia. We're in a quite an economic decline. The coal industry is had declined in this part of the state and most of the patients that I care for are either working for minimum wage or have lost their jobs or are struggling. So for most of those individuals, they depend on either insurance they pay for themselves with premiums they can barely afford or many are eligible under the Affordable Care Act for Medicaid.

CO: So are there more people covered since the Affordable Care Act came into effect?

MJ: Oh yes. West Virginia has a population of about 1.7 million people. The last estimate I saw suggested that 200 to 220,000 individuals in the state were covered by the Affordable Care Act that were not covered prior to the act.

CO: It sounds like a considerable number of people were getting health insurance who weren't getting it before in West Virginia?

MJ: You know we've not kept perfect statistics, but in our clinic, which is a rural clinic and a community health center, probably about 20 per cent of our population of the patients we see are getting care through the Affordable Care Act they were not getting before.

CO: We don't have what you have in the states the same obviously the same system. But there's also a great number of people in West Virginia who have what's called Medicaid. Can you tell us about that population? A lot of your patients who are on Medicaid is that right?

MJ: A number of our patients — about a third of our patients — are on Medicaid. Medicaid is a government program that provides insurance to populations at risk, so it was for pregnant women for people with very special health conditions. And again that varies state by state, but when the Affordable Care Act came into being I guess the eligibility for Medicaid it to people at very low incomes, so many of the people that I care for have minimum paying jobs or part-time jobs without health insurance. They're now eligible for Medicaid they were not previously eligible for that government program.

CO: Tell us a bit more about the kinds of health issues and the income issues that your patients have?

MJ: Of the 50 states the United States, West Virginia and Mississippi have historically been those states with the lowest incomes. The largest industry historically for the last 100 years has been coal, but coal jobs have been declining for many years. And in the last five years have rapidly declined. So I think the state is suffering from historically underemployed populations that now with the collapse of the coal industry are really in some dire straits.

CO: are there health issues in among your patients that are associated with working in the coal industry?

MJ: We see I mean coal miners, it's a terribly difficult job after working in the coal mines for many years. Their bodies are broken. So we're seeing more lung disease, we see more cancers, we see much more diabetes, we see heart disease. We see all the diseases that affect adults in a much higher proportion than in most other populations in other parts of the United States.

CO: West Virginia supported Donald Trump in the past election and considerably had support in your region. What do people understand about the Affordable Care Act? Did they did they understand when Donald Trump said that he was going to take that apart — that he was going to get rid of Obamacare. Did they understand what effect it would have on them?

MJ: Donald Trump said several things. He also promised that everyone would have health care and health care would be better. More importantly I think for West Verginia, he said he was going to bring coal back and bring jobs back. Most of the people in West Virginia, particularly those who lost their jobs or threatening to lose their job, that that's the most important thing to them and I don't think many people that much understand exactly what the Affordable Care Act was or what is commonly called which is Obamacare.

CO: And what have they said to you about it? What were their opinions of Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act?

MJ: Well, no one likes the word Obamacare. Obamacare has been stigmatized where every issue on health care is blamed on the public. If you ask the average patient of mine whether threy like Obamacare? Many would say no. If you'd asked the same patient if they were thankful that they have health care insurance they didn't have, almost all would be very thankful. I think people don't understand what the Affordable Care Act provides. Patients that I see who have health care and didn't have it are very appreciative they have it now and don’t want to lose it.

CO: That's consistent with polls that show that large numbers of Americans hate Obamacare, but they really like the Affordable Care Act not realizing that that same thing.

MJ: Right. And that's politics. You know politics is single sentences in today's world not deep understanding of issues. I think the people in West Virginia, I mean at least the patients I care for, they did not have health insurance and this made a huge difference in their health. They don’t want to lose it.

CO: But Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act was troubled. There was a lot of problems with how it had rolled out for various reasons as you know, so it did need some changes. Is there a chance do you think the Republicans will get this right?

MJ: Well, I guess there's always a chance. What I've seen that they're proposing at this point in time doesn't seem to offer much hope that it's going to help those people in the fridge. As many as 20 to 25 per cent of our patients could lose their health coverage.

CO: You know Donald Trump has said recently that this is a quote, “Despite what you hear in the press. Health care is coming along great. We're talking to many groups and it will end in a beautiful picture.” Do you see a beautiful picture on the horizon?

MJ: Some will be helped. They've saved a number of provisions. They're allowing individuals to keep their children their insurance until 26. The new proposal keeps the elements of Obamacare that did not allow you to be declined care because of preexisting conditions. But I think the people that will suffer the most are those that receive care through Medicaid and that care is withdrawn.

CO: Dr. Jacques, I appreciate you giving us some of your time.

MJ: OK. Thank you very much.

CO: Bye bye.

JD: Dr. Mitch Jacques is a family physician with Cabin Creek Healthcare in rural West Virginia. We reached him in Charleston. And we have posted that interview to our website if you'd like to share it or listen again: www.cbc.ca/aih

[Music: Folk]

El Attar: CSIS

Guest: Andy Ellis

JD: In 2007, Mohamed el Attar’s case was a big and troubling story. The Egyptian-born Canadian was accused of spying on his home country on behalf of Israel. His case was based solely on what is believed to have been a false confession. His trial was short. One of the last things he said publicly he said from his courtroom cell that he had been electrocuted and forced to drink his own urine. Now, a decade later, Mr. el Attar’s case has faded from view. But still he sits in prison. This week the call to free Mohammed el Attar was renewed by an unlikely voice: a former assistant director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS. We reached Andy Ellis in Toronto.

CO: Mr. Ellis, when did Mohamed el Attar first come to your attention?

ANDY ELLIS: Well, it's back in 2007. He was arrested on allegations that he was an Israeli spy spying against Egypt. And it was the Canadian s=Security Intelligence Service’s responsibility to get to the bottom of that to determine whether or not there was any truth to the allegations. At the time, I was responsible for operations of CSIS in Ontario and Toronto specifically. And we looked into it.

CO: OK so I guess that because this man was living in Toronto and he is accused of spying on a foreign country, that's going to cross your desk?

AE: Yes. CSIS is responsible for investigating allegations of espionage in this country and yes it came across my desk. And as the person responsible, I assigned people to look at to see if we could confirm or refute it.

CO: And what did you learn about Mohammed el Attar?

AE: Well, I can't get into a lot of details given restrictions of the Security of Information Act, but what I can say is it refuted it. He was a bank teller. He was just a hard working young man trying to make his way. We got support from his friends and those with whom he was in a relationship and we were given access to you know the information that we needed. And I can say with some certainty from my assessment of everything I saw then and what I’ve seen since that it is not true.

CO: Well what did the Egyptian authorities offer as evidence that he was a spy?

AE: Well, they claimed to have confession frankly. A confession that I would argue was probably acquired under some extreme circumstances. And he allegedly admitted to it, but then refuted those statements later on after he was no longer in the military court.

CO: You believe he was tortured?

AE: I can't make that statement, but I can you know if you search for references to Amnesty International and other non-governmental organization I think you'll see certainly the Egyptian government, at the time when he was arrested, certainly had allegations of improper activities against those people who were incarcerated under their control.

CO: There are tensions between Egypt and Israel at that time, as there often are. So was he just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time or was there anything about his own life that maybe made him a target?

AE: Well, I think it was wrong place wrong time and opportunity. He was on the fringe of Egyptian society I suppose. He didn't follow all of the edicts that were in place at the time. He was an easy target. He was somewhat estranged from his family in Egypt and they knew that he could be picked up and incarcerated. They suspected that there would be little response.

CO: I think what you're referring to and I think is a matter of public record that he's gay and that he converted to Christianity?

AE: That's correct. A conver is guilty of apostasy and in some places that's punishable by death. So you could imagine where a gay apostate alleged Israeli spy is on the Egyptian prison scale. Not unlike what you hear in Canada about you know child molesters being at risk in certain institutions I would suggest that Mr. el Attar’s situation is absolutely untenable in that country.

CO: So how do you think he's been treated in prison?

AE: I don't think he’s been treated well. Certainly the public reports have not been positive. Not with standing that, I understand the government reports that bit more positive of late.

CO: You first brought to the attention of Canadian authorities that this man was almost certainly not a spy and he was a bank teller who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was 10 years ago. What's happened since? Why is he still incarcerated?

AE: I can't speak to that. To be honest with you, it's always been very important to me. I've always felt for some reason that something should be done about it. So over the years I've mentioned it to different people — I've tried to get people engaged in it. You know these things ebb and flow from a consular and diplomatic situation it seems like you know news is good and then it fades away and news is good and it fades away. I know this happened as recently as December of this past year. That was when we were originally going to have the news conference that we had yesterday because there was a feeling that there was going to be some positive momentum early in the new year. And as we've seen amongst this pattern it disappeared. And some people will suggest waiting the long game, which I think is obviously prudent advice sometimes. But I think 10 years is long enough.

CO: We've often heard that from the Canadian government no matter who's in power that well you know don't make waves we have diplomatic back channels that we're working with. And so you kind of went along with that, but 10 years seems excessive?

AE: It's absolutely excessive and there reaches a point in time I think we need to have a creative and innovative response to these horrible situations and try to do something else.

CO: You’ve became quite involved with this when you were even still with SCIS as deputy director of operations, which is quite extraordinary actually. You went so far as to write a letter for Amnesty International saying he was wrongfully imprisoned.

AE: I was and assistant director and the letter to Amnesty. We went to the Amnesty International officially and said you know maybe this is something that you pursue. And they asked us for a letter to suggest that he wasn't guilty, which is you know are hard to do. You could be sending 30,000 letters saying people are guilty. But we did it anyway because we felt people in CSIS are good people. They are well-meaning people and we thought it was the right human thing to do to try and get other people engaged in trying to secure his release. I think that this is a poor young man. He's in a difficult situation. He doesn't have the celebrity for example in their legal team that other people have had. And thus the you know the coverage and the news has been very limited too.

CO: What do you think needs to be done at this point to try and help Mohamed el Attar?

AE: Public pressure always has an impact. I think Canadians are you know we're just trying to do the right thing. Canadians recognize another Canadian in need and I think if we if we make enough noise and do it politely and properly and reasonably. I think the Egyptian government, certainly this Egyptian government, may look at the decisions made by their predecessors and take a different position and show this young man it's a mercy.

CO: Is there anything more you can do?

AE: I would do everything I can to bring him home.

CO: Mr. Ellis, thank you.

AE: Thank you very much.

JD: Andy Ellis is a former assistant director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or SCIS. We reached Mr. Ellis in Toronto.

[Music: World music]

German plane

Guest: Klaus Kristiansen

JD: Klaus Kristiansen remembers his grandfather telling him the story when he was a kid about a German plane that crashed on the family's farm in the 1940s. But that mysterious tale was never proven true until now. Recently, Mr. Kristiansen and his teenage son found a World War Two warplane on their property along with another surprising discovery: bones. We reach Klaus Kristiansen at his home in Birkelse, Denmark.

CO: Klaus, what made you and your son go looking for this German plane years after your grandfather told you about it?

KLAUS KRISTIANSEN: Yeah, he told me the story many years ago and I have been up on the field many times since. I have never found anything out there, not a single middle piece or something. And it is just a normal field for grass and cattle, nothing to see.

CO: Did you have doubts that your grandfather's story was even correct?

KK: he told the story many times, so I know that something had happened up there. But when we went up there was nothing to see. So I thought maybe that the Germans had you know been cleaning up. So we all thought that they had removed everything because they had been working up there for more than a week after the crash.

CO: Why was you son so interested in finding it?

KK: He had a school project and one evening when we were having dinner, we were talking about it. And I said we can go up and find the plane on the field just for fun because I didn't really expect to find anything. So we went up there with a metal detector and find small fragments of aluminum up in the grass layer and then we know that it had really been a crash up here and maybe we could find just a little things if we dig a little deeper. And the week after we had a machine for digging helping us. And we went down one or two meters and we found little pieces of a plane, but nothing big.

CO: When did you finally get down to actually finding the plane itself?

KK: This Saturday, we had hired a big machine and we went down in seven-eight meters down in the ground and we found, more or less, a full plane down there. We didn't find a plane with a pilot sitting in the cockpit. But we find a plane torn into thousands of pieces, but it was lying very very deep. And it was completely crashed.

CO: What else did you find in the plane?

KK: After we finished digging up, the last thing we found in seven-eight meters was the motor block of the plane. A V12 Mercedes engine and after we had finished digging, we looked at the big pile we had been digging up and suddenly, we saw you know bones and pieces of clothes in the material we had been digging up. And then it suddenly changed from you know just some plane to yeah, it completely changed you know at that point. We stopped at the stop actually working at the place because…

CO: Because you had found human remains?

KK: Yeah, we found bones and all his clothes and then we start looking in the pockets of his pilot dress. He had a pilot's jacket and his trousers. And we found amazing things in his pockets: we found a wallet from the Luftwaffe with the Nazi symbols on it. And we found money, food stamps, cigarette paper, condoms…

CO: Condoms?

KK: Yeah. He had three condoms with him. And we found Nazi emblems in his pockets and he had a map over the area. He had a little book for German soldiers like a handbook for being a soldier in the German army at that time. So it was amazing. And now a museum is taking care of it and they can read the papers like it was yesterday. And I know what I have found his name in the papers, but they're not ready to make it public yet.

CO: Who's now in charge of this site? Who have you passed this on to?

KK: All of the remains of the plane and you know his personal belongings and it's in custody of the museum not right now. So we have to find out after that what was going to happen.

CO: This is such a story there isn't there? I mean you must be really curious and your son to know so much more about who the man is? What happened to the others who possibly were on part of that crew? How the plane crashed?

KK: It’s a mystery because in Denmark, a lot of German planes crash during the war. But exactly on my field in this spot, there is no crash reported. So it's a big mystery for the historians. I really look forward to hearing the story about this because you know everybody is kind of wanting to understand what happened, so yeah.

CO: And maybe you can meet the family of the dead man?

KK: Maybe, we don't know yet, but yeah it will be like the perfect ending going to a funeral in Germany.

CO: We should point out that Denmark was under German occupation at the time. So they would have had access to that site. It's unusual that they couldn't find the plane.

KK: They found it. My grandfather told me that one hour after the crash, the Germans were at the place and they had been cleaning up at the place for a week. Apparently the plane was lying so deep in the ground that they couldn't get the plane, so why it is not recorded? No one knows.

CO: Are you going to trust the stories your grandfather told you a little bit more now?

KK: Yeah, but unfortunately he died 15 years ago. But yeah, I should have listened to him when he was alive.

CO: Klaus, it's a fascinating story. I appreciate you telling it to us. Thank you.

KK: OK. Thank you.

CO: Bye bye.

JD: We reached Klaus Kristiansen in Birkelse, Denmark. If you'd like to see photographs of the discovery he made on his property visit our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Pop]

JD: Usually in a dog sled race, the lead dog crosses the finish line and the human on the sled crosses right behind. However yesterday, during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Linwood Fielder's dog arrived at a checkpoint in Ruby, Alaska around 3:00 a.m. Linwood arrived about 3,000 seconds later at 4:09 a.m., on foot. This was unusual not just for the Iditarod, but for Mr. Fielder. He has been mushing since 1977, and he has almost never fallen off his sled. Has certainly never fallen asleep and then fallen off his sled, but that indeed is what happened in the wee hours of Thursday morning. And apparently, his dog team didn't notice. Linwood Fielder told the Anchorage, Alaska TV station what happened.

SOUNDCLIP

LINWOOD FIELDER: I was just fighting fighting fighting staying awake. And I was doing a pretty good job and then I lost. I'll tell you one thing, from the minute my body left the sled until my face smashed into the snow, I was still asleep. I was totally asleep until the second my face just went smack right into the river. And I couldn't figure out what was it. And then I realized that I’m all balled up in the snow and obviously this wasn't good. I've only fallen off my sled only a couple of times in my whole stint of running dogs. And the last time I did, about five years ago. I fell off and I was awake and I fell off. But I said whoa and they actually stopped. I was like you know praise the Lord. And I was really hoping for a repeat of that last night. You feel all alone and naked walking down the Yukon River all by yourself in the middle of the night looking at wolf tracks.

JD: Veteran musher Linwood Fielder explaining how he got separated from his dogs after he fell asleep and then fell off his sled. Mr. Fielder and his team are back on track today. As we go to air they are in 30th position, which is impressive considering how far they could have fallen behind after he literally fell behind.

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Part 2: Bombardier investigation, small Waldo

Bombardier investigation

Guest: Gino Harel

JD: Today, Swedish prosecutors announced that they are holding one Bombardier employee and that they detained two others before letting them go. Their investigation centers around a railroad deal that Bombardier did in Azerbaijan. The Swedes suspect it was secured with millions of dollars in bribes. Gino Harel has spent weeks looking into this story. He is a reporter with Radio-Canada's flagship investigative program “Enquete”. We reached Mr. Harel in Montreal.

CO: Gino, what this Swedish prosecutors accusing this Bombardier employee of having done?

GINO HAREL: They are actually right now suspecting them rather than accusing them. What's happening is that they've arrested some Bombardier employees in Sweden for interrogation and they released some of them. But one has been kept detained. He is a Russian national and they fear that he might want to flee Sweden so that he wouldn't face justice. It concerns a 340 million dollar contract that Bombardier affiliates and subsidiaries have been awarded for a project in Azerbaijan. We're talking about the upgrade of rail roads over there in Azerbaijan. It's a project that's financed by the World Bank. So now what we're being told is that those people are suspected of having participating in bribe schemes where some officials in Azerbaijan would have gotten money to make sure nobody would have gotten a contract.

CO: Now let's just take this apart a bit, so this was a contract in Azerbaijan that Bombardier was bidding on. What was the contract?

GH: The contract was for rail control systems — signals — an upgrade of that element of the railroad. And so what we know because we've been working on this for a few weeks already here at “Enquete” with Radio-Canada and with colleagues from Sweden and Russia. And what's interesting here is we're dealing with a particular aspect of things which is the equipment that was sent from Bombardier Sweden to Bombardier in Azerbaijan through a Russian subsidiary of Bombardier. But the thing is they went through a an intermediary called Multiserv Overseas Limited, which is a British company registered in U.K. But when you go there you don't find any office or employees, so it looks a lot like a shell company basically.

CO: So just because this is quite complex. Tell us a bit more about Multiserv Overseas? It’s a shell company. What was its purpose or what are they suggesting is its purpose in this scam?

GH: What the prosecutors are suspecting is that Multiserv actually served as a way of collecting money through the chain of supply from Sweden to Azerbaijan with the Bombardier Russia affiliate. I'll explain to you how it went. You had a contract for around $20 billion leaving Sweden through the Bombardier subsidiary in Sweden. And they in Sweden signed a contract with this Multiserv Overseas company in Britain and this Multiserv Overseas sent back the equipment to bombardier Russia’s subsidiary for the Azerbaijan project. But at that time, the contract was now $104 million. So that means that there is an $85 billion gap in between that stays with Multiserv and what now prosecutors in Sweden are saying is that they suspect that some of that money was used to pay bribes in Azerbaijan. Multiserv has been described by bombardier to us and to others in the past as a company that's totally legit and that that is real services around the logistics of delivering the stuff over there. But really it still needs to be shown I guess according to what prosecutors in Sweden are saying.

CO: So Bombardier — this one employee — was working with the Azerbaijanis to figure out how to write the pitch for getting the contract, so there this collusion is that the suggestion is?

GH: They produced a lot of documentation today detailing emails and things like that to illustrate how things was rigged from the beginning. Now this employee — the Russian employee really — I don't know that he is necessarily the main suspect in all of this. He is just detained this one because they were afraid he'd leave the country. But what we're told by the prosecutor over there, his name is Thomas Forsberg, is that other people suspected were involved in the tendering process. So the tendering team. So right at the beginning they feel something was happening in a doubtful manner, I guess. So they're simply describing with a lot of documentation the links the companies involved. Because there is obviously those two subsidiaries we talked about Bombardier, but there's also another company in Azerbaijan involved in that. They're talking about certain individuals, I’m not going to go into too many details with that today because it’d be very lengthy and I'd have to explain who is who. So it's a very complex allegation at this time. But what is easy to understand is this contract change that I explained to you, which is it comes in one price goes out at another price. And in between we don't know what happened with the money.

CO: OK, so now you say that it would take us all day to go through all the organogram of who is involved. So does that suggest that there are a lot of people that the Swedes suspect are involved with this?

GH: I'm sure there are because first of all, they did interrogate more than one person. They did arrest people and let them go. Some of them you know could go. There are several people they're talking to that have been interrogated on this. But they're saying to us that they expect that the interrogation will lead to other doors that they can open. And remember this project involves a lot of companies or a lot of individuals as well in Sweden, in Russia, in Azerbaijan there's this Multiserv in Brittan, this company has people linked to it as well. They're referring to Russian business people as well in this documentation. So there's a lot of stuff in there that that can lead them to open other doors. And remember this is a project financed by the World Bank, so there's certainly going to be an interest on that front as well. So yeah, it certainly is going to be a lengthy process. This is what we hear from Sweden today that it's going to take some time. But they obviously are very eager to get this thing moving because this is very public.

CO: And what’s Bombardier saying about all this?

GH: We asked for an interview from them over a week ago now, on the elements that we already had in this case. We still didn't hear back from them on this interview request, but today, as they did for every media that asked them about this. They sent in a communication basically saying that they had been cooperating for a while obviously with the Swedish authorities and that they respect all of the applicable rules that need to be respected. That's you know the statement that they have today.

CO: We will be following your reports Gino. Thank you so much.

GH: It's a pleasure.

CO: Bye bye.

GH: Bye bye.

JD: Gino Harel is a reporter with Radio-Canada’s investigative show “Enquete”. We reached him in Montreal.

[Music: Ambient]

From Our Archives: Mother Devine obit

JD: Mother Divine died last weekend. It is believed she was about 91-years-old, although chronological age never mattered much in her cult. She was born Edna Rose Ritchings in Vancouver. She became known as Mother divine, when, at the age of 21, she moved to the U.S. to marry God… or at least a man who claimed he was God. She was tall, blond, the daughter of a florist and white and was therefore considered a quote, “Spotless Virgin Bride”. He — Father Divine — was black in his 60s and the founder of a religious movement called the International Peace Mission. He had a large following, particularly in the 1930s, devoted to his message of racial equality, communal living, sobriety and celibacy. And they wed where interracial couples were allowed to back then: in Washington, D.C. and then they settled in a Pennsylvania mansion just outside Philadelphia. Their wedding day, April 29th of 1946, became a sacred day. And when her husband died, although whether he really did die is disputed by the International Peace Mission. Mother divine became the de facto leader of the organization and she also inherited the $10,000,000 the cult had amassed. Well here is Mother Divine in a 1993 CBC report from the show “Sunday morning”, this is from our archives

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER: the cafeteria in the Divine Tracy Hotel in downtown Philadelphia serves good food cheap. It also serves up a subtle helping of cult religion. This is one of the last remaining properties of what was once a huge religious empire presided over by Father Divine from the turn of the century until his death in 1965. But Father’s presence still felt in certain yearly rituals.

MOTHER DEVINE: On the 29th and 30th of this month. We are celebrating the anniversary of Father Devine’s marriage to his Spotless Virgin Bride, Mother Divine. And I am Mother Divine.

REPORTEER: Mother Devine was previously Edna Rose Ritchings of Vancouver. She and the other ageing followers are living proof that cult religion is nothing new. The second coming has allegedly arrived many times in the last 1993 years.

MD: I have the conviction that Father Divine is God, that He is the second coming of Christ in this dispensation.

REPORTER: How do you know that that…

MD: Father Divine is God?

REPORTER: Yes.

MD: Well, it's something that is revealed to each one. We do not proselytize because it is something that has to be revealed. Father didn't go around saying he was God.

REPORTER: Did he correct people who called him God?

MD: No, he did not.

JD: From our archives, that is a report from CBC's “Sunday Morning” from 1993 featuring Mother Divine, a Canadian woman who married a cult leader. And she died Saturday, March 4th.

[Music: Ambient]

Small Waldo

Guest: Ben Blatt

JD: He's always been a tricky guy to pin down, which is somewhat surprising considering his ridiculous outfit. But lately, when we have looked for him, he has proven especially elusive — more elusive than before. What's happening to him? What's happening to us? Well, it's not you it is him: Waldo. The striped-shirt and hat-wearing bespectacled star of Martin Handford’s “Where's Waldo?” picture books is indeed harder to find than he used to be. Waldo investigator and data journalist Ben Blatt has proof. And we reached Mr. Blatt in Los Angeles.

CO: Ben, why is it so hard to find Waldo these days?

BEN BLATT: Well, I did a you know a little mini Waldo investigation a few years ago where I looked where the illustrator, Martin Hanford had been hiding Waldo. And I realized he wasn't hiding Waldo in the center of the page or on the edges. Kind of in the in-between gray area that may be hard to find. And I kind of had a gut instinct that he was doing it to make Waldo as hard to find is possible. And then more recently, I had the realization that if he actually was trying to make Waldo harder and harder to find. It be pretty easy to tell maybe the size of Waldo on that page is actually getting smaller.

CO: The size of Waldo? How big he is in the actual illustration?

BB: Right, so the Waldo books are all kind of 12 spreads long each. There's seven books and Waldo is hidden somewhere and you know there's nothing to say that Waldo can't be half the page or just you know a pinpoint on the page. And there's nothing to say that you have to be able to see his whole body and the striped-shirt or maybe just his eyes, his glasses and the the tip of his red-stripe hat. And in the later books, in the seventh book compared to the first book, he's actually 20 per cent the size that he is in the first book. So Martin Handford, the illustrator either to trick the reader or as a treat for the readers, has made although incredibly hard to find compared to the early days of 1987.

CO: So he's 80 per cent smaller than he used to be?

BB: Yes, he used occupy space that if you were to translate to you know mathematical terms would be one square centimeter. And at the end he was .2 square centimetres. So he both got smaller in terms of just the kind of the raw size he was taking on the page. And you can kind of see just looking at the new hiding spots that a lot of times it really is just his head poking out behind something, which makes it incredibly hard to find without that red-striped shirt.

CO: For anyone who's not seen the “Where's Waldo?” series, just describe what they're like?

BB: So you know they're books obviously meant for young children and there's no words in them at all. So there's really kind of a universal experience and you're just trying to find Waldo in a sea of people. And a lot of times there’s kind of visual gags. In one of them it is a “Wild West” theme and there is a buffalo stampede, which is literally postage stamps with buffaloes on them. So in there later books not only does Waldo get smaller, but kind of the scene gets bigger and all of the characters within it get smaller. And as a result not only is Waldo kind of hard to find, but there's way more kind of visual jokes implanted within the book.

CO: And they're really very busy pictures as you say. They’re all kinds of different scenes and visual jokes and stuff. How long have you been looking for Waldo yourself?

BB: Well growing up, I don't remember exactly when I would have gotten my first book. Probably even before I could even remember, but as a young child I remember having Waldo. I had I think maybe the first three books and I think if you went to my childhood bedroom, you'd still find those books somewhere. So I'd always kind of you know love Waldo and then kind of returning to it a few years ago definitely did have a nostalgic experience. Which I think is true for a lot of kids who grew up on it and probably a lot of parents who didn't have it during their own childhood. But you know showed them in the books for their own kids.

CO: Why did you go back to Waldo?

BB: For the last year, I've been working on a book called “Nabokov's Favorite Word is Mauve” and that's all about finding patterns within kind of our favorite novels any author from Hemingway to Rowling, the Faulkner and whatnot. And that’s about searching for real, but kind of hidden patterns within a text using objective analysis. And Waldo is kind of a welcome break from that because the” Where's Waldo?” books are the kind of the opposite where there's absolutely no words and you might think there's you know no information and nothing hidden within the scenery. But as a result, there actually is kind of a lot that you can learn about with Martin Handford was thinking as he was illustrating these books.

CO: Did Martin Handford ever explain his methodology for hiding Waldo?

BB: Unfortunately he didn't. And I reached out to him for the previous article where I was kind of mapping the areas of the page where that Waldo was more likely or less likely to be found. He was unwilling to talk about his hiding location. And I think maybe it's a bit of a secret sauce of how he prefers to keep Waldo hidden.

CO: Has he been challenged on this idea that Waldo is smaller by 80 per cent than he used to be?

BB: I have not heard back from him. And as I said, it is a bit of a trick on readers because it does get harder and harder, but it's also a reward because in the later books, if you love Waldo and want to spend a lot of time doing it. You know you could get a book with more pages in it or you could just get bigger scenes with more kind of you know spaceships and aliens and movie sets and directors and all these kind of crazy things happening in the background.

CO: Do you think the kids are actually finding Waldo a lot more easily than they used to? Is that maybe why he decided to make this more difficult?

BB: That could definitely be one reason. If you look at the early books, I would say the very first book Waldo is maybe criminally easy to find where it shouldn’t take more than 20 seconds or so. But once you get past that first book, Waldo is hidden in a lot more illustrations that kind of feature you know barbershop poles anything that has red and white stripes naturally to kind of throw your eyes off the scent of the real Waldo. You know as the books go on, he becomes harder and harder to find. Even though I think after the first one it's a pretty tricky endeavor.

CO: I think anyone is listening to this, if they've got Waldo books in their kid’s room or the kids listening. They're going to be scrambling to find them to test your theory. Ben, it's good to talk to you. Thanks.

BB: Great to talk to you as well.

CO: Bye

JD: Ben Blatt as a data journalist in Los Angeles. He found that not only is Waldo harder to find, there is less of Waldo to look for. Mr. Blatt uses data to answer all sorts of other quirky questions in his upcoming book “Nabokov's Favorite Word is Mauve”, which comes out on March 14th. And if you would like to see just how much tinier Waldo has gotten or to that interview again or share it. It’s on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Ambient]

Cannabis gym

JD: At first glance, Jim McAlpine’s concept for a fitness center appears to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors — and it is both. But the 46-year-old entrepreneur promises real results. According to Mr. McAlpine, the secret to finally getting rid of your pot might be to introduce pot into your workout. And he has worked out a plan to open Power Plant Fitness, the world's first cannabis gym. The first center is set to open in May in the Mission District of San Francisco and he hopes very soon thereafter to expand the franchise to five other cities. And he outlined the idea behind his premier gym in an interview last year with The Cannabist Magazine explaining quote, “When you sign up for our gym, every member will go through a CPA or a Cannabis Performance Assessment. Your first workout with a trainer is sober and without cannabis in your system. On your next workout, you can consume cannabis and you'll be asked about how it affects you. Does it make you faster and better or slower and not as strong? Because everybody is affected differently. We're going to take data on how your first and second workouts went and compare the two. There's a questionnaire and our trainers will give you a plan. Either you shouldn't use it to work out or you should.” Mr. McAlpine says he consumes weed every day and incorporates it into his regular workout routine. In fact, he says many athletes stay fit and fight the fat by rolling fatties. Like former NFL running back Ricky Williams, a partner in the Power Plant venture. Mr. McAlpine says quote, “If you use it right, cannabis takes the things you love and lets you love them more. With fitness that can help you get into the zone, into eye of the tiger mode.”

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Part 3: Trans boy scout, class action detainee lawsuit

Meredith denounced

JD: As we went to air, Don Meredith had not yet responded to the Senate Ethics Officer’s report on his relationship with a teenage girl. Some of his colleagues however have clearly heard enough. The Ethics Officer found that the Harper appointee had abused Senate resources, had abused the authority of his office and his position as an adult to lure the unidentified girl into repeated sexual acts. The findings now go to the Senate’s Ethics Committee for consideration. But Conservative Senator David Wells wants Mr. Meredith to save them the trouble. Senator Wells spoke to reporters shortly after the government's representative in the Senate made a similar appeal.

SOUNDCLIP

DAVID WELLS: I would also encourage Senator Meredith to do the right thing, for once, and resign. I don't think he has any place in our chamber. If people feel uncomfortable sitting on committees I can absolutely understand that and I would sympathize with them.

REPORTER: What sanction do you think would be be appropriate for Senator Meredith?

DW: What sanction? Well first of all, I think he should resign. Secondly, I'd be very disappointed if he walked through the doors of the Senate again. So I'll be assessing this based on the facts and if I accept the report from the Ethics Commission or that I do then the most severe sanction that hopefully would be recommended from the Senate Ethics Committee.

REPORTER: Do you if think he was suspended with pay it would be sufficient for you?

DW: I don't think he should walk through the doors again.

REPORTER TWO: Senator, the report talked about how he had used his Senate cellphone and he had used Senate resources as part of some of these actions that are quite disturbing. Do you believe that the Internal Economy Committee needs to act in some way to look over his use of resources to make sure that they are appropriate and within the code of conduct?

DW: What I’d prefer to do is let's let it go through its process with the Senate Ethics Committee. I don't think the Internal Economy Committee should pre-empt that or prejudge what the Ethics Committee and we've got a system set up to deal with that. They'll address it and then we'll address it on the floor of the Senate and if that includes a recommendation of a suspension with pay or without resources then well I mean from my point of view, I would be in favor of the strongest sanction that is available to us.

REPORTER TWO: What does this case say about the quality of people who serve in this chamber?

DW: I can only speak about this case with the quality of Senator Meredith and I would say that is not high quality.

JD: That was Conservative Senator David Wells speaking to reporters in Ottawa this afternoon.

[Music: Ambient]

Dateline: India washing machine

[sc]

SPEAKER: My son’s band uniform had an orange cummerbund that fell right in the middle of Four Mile Post Road. And it lay there overnight with cars and trucks running all over it.

[Sound: Traffic noises]

JD: That is a commercial for Tide from 1990 and it deals with the vexing problem of how to get your son's orange cummerbund clean after he drops it on a busy road during a parade and it stays out all night. But really that's not a common laundry problem is it? Driven over cummerbands… bunds. Not here and not in India. Oh, which reminds me, Dateline: India.

[Music: Dateline theme]

JD: Almost forgot to say that! In India, like everywhere else on the planet. Laundry problems don't usually involve parades and tire marks. They usually involve people spilling food all over themselves, which doesn't just require a powerful detergent it also requires a powerful washing machine. Panasonic India's latest model is called the “StainMaster”. It is designed to be the master of many stains. Including, specifically curry. I mean there is actually a “Curry” setting right there on the machine below “Sweat”, “Sauces” and “Oil”. Apparently it took two years for the Panasonic's scientists to determine the proper temperature and the length of time required for the machine to truly master a curry stain. All that research means the StainMaster is a little more expensive than most washing machines in India, but a lot less expensive than a washing machine in Canada. It goes for the equivalent of about 440 dollars. Panasonic apparently plans to roll out washing machines in other countries that target regionally specific stains. And that may mean that that woman will eventually get the soiled cummerbund setting she has been longing for the past 27 years. But for now the StainMaster is getting a lot of attention for the precision of its stain mastery, which shows that the company knew it would curry favor by favoring curry.

[Music: Hip-hop]

Trans boy scout

Guest: Kristie Maldonado

JD: 8-year-old Joe Maldonado had been a Boy Scout for about a month when he was kicked out of his pack. He was no longer welcome, the organization said, because Joe had been born a girl. His mother filed a discrimination complaint with the state's Division on Civil Rights. And last week, the Boy Scouts of America agreed to pay the family $18,000 and to apologize. The organization has also agreed to allow transgender boys to join. Joe has since turned nine, and joined a new pack. We reached his mom Kristie Maldonado and Secaucus, New Jersey.

CO: Kristie, how did you react when you heard that the Boy Scouts would give your son Joe an official apology all these months after he was kicked out of Cub Scouts?

KRISTIE MALDONADO: It feels really good. I actually asked them to apologize to my child. They mentioned like do you want an apology? I said, “No I don't want an apology. I want an apology from my son”. And they're going to they're going to write an apology letter to my kid.

CO: What did your son, Joe say when he heard that news?

KM: He seemed thrilled just knowing that they did wrong.

CO: Can you just take us back and tell us what happened? And what they said when your son Joe was kicked out of the Boy Scouts?

KM: Well, he got kicked out in the beginning of November. He was in Cub Scouts for about four weeks. They took my application, they took my fee, it seemed fine and then about four or five weeks later, I got a call from the northern regional saying that my son can no longer be in the Cub Scouts because he was born a girl and some of the parents had issues.

CO: And what was the policy? What did the Boy Scouts cite as their legal basis for kicking Joe out?

KM: Because it was an all-boys club.

CO: But Joe was a boy?

KM: They didn’t see it that way because he wasn’t born a boy.

CO: Originally when Joe learned that he was not going to be able to be in the Cub Scouts there was also these other parents who apparently complained?

KM: That's right.

CO: Do you know what problems the parents had with Joe?

KM: Actually to this day, I never found out why? Why they had an issue, I'm not sure? All I know is that all 19 of them don’t even talk to me to this day.

CO: All 19 other parents?

KM: Well, I pass a few in school yard every day and they don’t even look at me or acknowledge me. I don't know if they are ashamed or whatever that it backfired on them. They opened this can of worms and I fixed it.

CO: How is Joe being treated by the other kids?

KM: The kids are fine, they're all accepting. Some of these kids are from his school and they didn't have an issue.

CO: What happens now?

KM: Well, he went into a new scout. He goes to Maplewood and he joined about three weeks ago and he's been having a ball. They went camping already. They had the Pine Brook Derby. It's been wonderful for him. He's accepted at this new place there. They all welcomed him with love and it's just been amazing for him at the new Cub Scouts.

CO: What about the policy itself for the Boy Scouts of America? Have they issued as a national organization any statement about this?

KM: Yes. A couple weeks ago, they had mentioned I had received the first quote that they were changing the policy. And that they were accepting all Trans genders.

CO: And this has all come about because of the legal action that you took?

KM: I believe so.

CO: So basically you've probably done this for more kids than just Joe?

KM: Oh for many! It's a wonderful feeling just knowing that I didn't back away the day he got kicked out. I didn't walk away. I fought for my kid. I felt he had every right to be in there. And I'm so glad that I just that I called my advocate up and he gave me a number to the USA Today journalists and I told them you know what happened and my story and that was it. And he put it in the paper and that was it. Then all the other newspapers got a hold of it.

CO: Kristie, I appreciate speaking with you.

KM: Thank you.

CO: And give our best to Joe.

KM: I will.

CO: Thank you. Bye bye.

KM: Bye.

JD: Kristie Maldonado’s son Joe was kicked out of his Boy Scout pack for being transgender. And then last week,l the organization agreed to pay the family a settlement, to apologize and change its policy on admitting transgendered children. We reached Ms. Maldonado in Secaucus, New Jersey.

[Music: Ambient]

From Our Archives: Margret Mitchell

JD: In 1982, she stood in the House of Commons to speak on behalf of the one in ten Canadian women who were victims of domestic abuse. When she stood, her fellow Members of Parliament heckled her and laughed at her. Former NDP Member of Parliament Margaret Mitchell died on Wednesday, on International Women's Day, at the age of 91. Ms. Mitchell devoted her life to working for women's rights. And that day in the house, she told her colleagues that domestic abuse was no laughing matter. And throughout her career, she worked to ensure that so-called “women's issues” were taken seriously. In 1987, Margaret Mitchell appeared on As It Happens as part of a debate panel discussing women's issues. Here's an excerpt from that conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

MARGRET MITCHELL: Thank you. Over the past four years, women have become more politically aware. We have always known that our values as homemakers and wage earners and parents are important, but now we expect governments to act on our concerns and recognize our value as equal partners in this country. This is what the Conservative government has not really done for women. Many women, of course, no longer support traditional parties and are looking for the candidate in the party that will best represent your interests and those of your families. Ed Broadband and the New Democratic candidates in your writing offer you this choice. No longer are women consent to be paid in 60 cent dollars. Many women who are sole supporters of their kids are very poor and they deserve improved incomes. Many older women, who have raised this generation of Canadians, continue to be poor. And yet the Mulroney government tried to do de-index your pensions and has increased the price of drugs.

MICHAEL ENRIGHT: Ms. Mitchell, thank you.

JD: Former NDP Member of Parliament Margaret Mitchell speaking with former As It Happens host Michael Enright. That was from our archives. Margaret Mitchell died this past Wednesday. She was 91 years old.

[Music: Ambient]

Manitoba blizzard

JD: 60 hours is a substantial amount of time no matter what you're doing. But for half a dozen people stranded on a Manitoba road this week during a blizzard, 60 hours probably seemed like an eternity. The whole ordeal began on Monday night, John Linklater and a couple of his family members were driving, and came across some friends whose car was stuck. Here's what Mr. Linklater told the CBC's Jill Coubrough yesterday about what happened next.

SOUNDCLIP

JOHN LINKLATER: By the time we dug them out, the road was already covered with snow right across the highway. So we had to keep digging for about maybe about 200 yards to get out of that open area.

JILL COUBROUGH: Wow!

JL: And then we managed to plow through the snow for about another 20 kilometers and after that, that was it. The highway was snowed right over. Some places snow drifts were about eight feet to ten feet high.

JC: So what did you guys do for all that time? How did you stay warm? What did you eat?

JL: We ate candies for the first while and maybe some chips. And my mom gave my brother and I sandwich to eat. And we decided I don't think anybody's coming on the third day. And that's when we went for a three mile walk to the MTS tower. Maybe three or four miles, it took us seven hours to walk there and way through waist-deep snow.

JC: And did you have to break in or how did that work?

JL We broke in. We had to go through four doors before we found the phone. And then the phone that we dialed wouldn't dial zero or 911. And we tried a whole bunch of different numbers and it kept on saying that this phone you're using is… I don't know what the message is, but it didn't work. And then I remembered 6 11. I tried that and that worked then we got hold of a live person and we talked to him for maybe about 15-20 minutes and he didn't know what to do. And that's when I asked you should talk to your supervisor. So he put us on hold for about 10-15 minutes and came back on the line and the supervisor spoke to my brother. They put us in contact with RCMP in Leaf Rapids and they said that they were they were trying to come and get us since Monday.

JD: That was John Linklater speaking with the CBC's Jill COUBROUGH about being stranded on a Manitoba highway this week. After calling the RCMP on Wednesday, from the Manitoba Telecom Services or the MTS tower. Mr. Linklater and his brother made the hours long trek back to their car. They were able to grab some supplies from the tower including food, water and candles. And then the group was rescued the next day on Thursday, and then taken to a health care center.

[Music: Rock]

Class action detainees

Guest: Nina DiSalvo

JD: They have been fighting for three years. And now, they have scored a legal victory back in 2014, a group of immigrants filed a lawsuit against one of the largest private prison companies in the United States. They claimed that they had been forced to work for a miniscule wage — or for no wage at all — while they were detained at an immigration detention center in Aurora, Colorado. Now, a federal judge has granted that lawsuit class action status. And the ensuing case could involve up to 60,000 current and former detainees. Nina DiSalvo is the executive director of Towards Justice. Her organization has been offering legal counsel to the plaintiffs and we reach Ms. DiSalvo in Denver.

CO: Ms DiSalvo, what can you tell us about the conditions that your clients were dealing with in that center?

NINA DISALVO: Our clients have brought claims against the Geo Group based on both forced labor and unjust enrichment related to the work that they were forced to do while detained at Geo’s Aurora facility. And those claims are related to two policies: one Geo calls the Housing Unit Sanitation Policy. And under that policy they require all the detainees to work cleaning large areas within the facility. Whether or not they want to work, they provide no compensation for this janitorial work and if people don't want to work, they threaten them with or place them in solitary confinement.

CO: What kind of work were your clients being required to do?

ND: So pursuant to the forced labor policy our clients were doing mostly janitorial work. They were cleaning, mopping, cleaning toilets and showers. Some of them also engaged in what Geo refers to as the Voluntary Work Program. Through that program, our clients did other types of work. They served food to other detainees. They functioned as barbers for other detainees.

CO: And were they paid at all?

ND: The folks who participated in the Voluntary Work Program were paid a dollar a day. And everyone participated in the Forced Labor Program, and for that work they were paid nothing.

CO: This is an immigration detention center. Who are the people who are being held in that center?

ND: So folks held at Geo’s Aurora facility may either be awaiting a determination of their immigration status or may be awaiting deportation.

CO: The company, Geo, the facility is running in Aurora and elsewhere, this is a for-profit company?

ND: It's a for-profit company that contracts with the federal government to provide immigrant detainment services all around the United States.

CO: And what you're describing sounds truly unfair, but is it illegal?

ND: Our clients alleged that it's illegal. And not only is it illegal for Geo to force detainees to work under threat of solitary confinement, but it's also our clients allege illegal, because Geo is unjustly enriching itself on the backs of this captive labor force.

CO: Does it have a hired staff? Is it entirely staffed or worked by the people who are detained?

ND: Geo does employ guards and it's our understanding that Geo employs one janitorial worker for the entire 1,500 beds facility out in Aurora. All other janitorial work is conducted by detainees.

CO: Now, this is a class action suit. The judge has ruled that it can proceed as such, but it's still not proven in court this is the case. What did the judge say in granting this class action?

ND: The judge's ruling last week, that allows our nine clients to function as representatives of a class of approximately 60,000 current and former detainees. And the judge recognized that the class action mechanism is potentially the only way that many of these class members would be able to seek redress given the nature of the detained population. Some of whom may ultimately have been deported. They just haven't been able to both identify and defend their own rights. So the class action mechanism is the most efficient way to vindicate those rights.

CO: The company itself, Geo is saying that, of course, it strongly refutes these allegations. And it also says that their facility is completely in compliance with federal government regulations. Is that true?

ND: Our clients did not believe that that's true. I think it's also really interesting that Geo has given some statements to the media focused exclusively on the Volunteer Work Program. The class of individuals we currently represent who are making claims related to the Volunteer Work Program is about 2,000 people. Whereas Geo has not responded to the media regarding allegations of forced labor, which affects a class of up to 60,000 people. Meanwhile, Geo has mentioned in comments to the press that the federal government has somehow authorized payment of a dollar a day to the workers to participate in the Voluntary Work Program. The judge has already refuted that and found that not to be true.

CO: The company has also said that the threat of solitary confinement is one of the reasons that your clients say they were coerced into doing this work. That none of the clients were ever put into solitary confinement. What did the judge say about that?

ND: That threat of solitary confinement is enough to compel someone to work. Solitary confinement has been demonstrated to be tremendously detrimental to both physical and mental health of people who are detained.

CO: Just a final question about timing because I'm sure you know that President Trump has said that he's going to crack down on people in the country who he says are not there legally and that he's vowed to open more of these for-profit detention centers and to hold them. What about the timing of your lawsuit? Is there an idea of sending a message to others who are in these conditions that this sort of thing can be fought in courts?

ND: We at Towards Justice always hope that people step up and defend their rights. I mean I think that's one of the most inspiring things about this particular lawsuit is that we have nine clients, all of whom are willing to step up and try to defend not only their own rights, but their rights of up to 60,000 other people. But I do think that President Trump’s interests in rounding up and deporting more people from our country and makes our case particularly important at this juncture. Because to the extent Geo is engaged in forced labor, we'd like to prevent more people from being subjected to those policies. So it gives you know an additional sense of urgency to our work.

CO: We will leave it there. Ms. DiSalvo, thank you.

ND: Thank you so much.

JD: Nina DiSalvo is the executive director of Towards Justice. We reached her in Denver.

[Music: Ambient]

Squirrels latest

JD: Your grandkids are going to ask you in the future, you know they are. What tore the United Kingdom apart in 2017? Was it Brexit? And you're going to tell them no, it wasn't Brexit, it was squirrels. Last month, we told you about a plan to get the population of grey squirrels in the U.K. under control to save the country's dwindling population of native red squirrels. Grey Squirrels are invasive. Their population is estimated at 3.5 million and they carry the squirrelpox virus, which is killing red squirrels. Now the plan we told you about involves tricking the grey squirrels into eating Nutella laced with a contraceptive. It is simple, it is humane and it is backed by the U.K. Squirrel Accord and… by Prince Charles. But wait here comes another conservation group: Red Squirrel United or RSU. It doesn't just regard the grey squirrel as an enemy. It seems to regard the U.K. Squirrel Accord as an enemy. Because RSU's squirrel control plan is to educate the public about the evils of grey squirrels. Also, to ask volunteers to trap the grey squirrels, put them in a bag and smash their heads in. Red Squirrel United's program manager, Dr. Cathleen Thomas says somewhat British-ly, “it's not everyone's cup of tea. Nobody does it happily, but it's one or the other. Speaking of reds or grays and we're in a position where we have to decide.” Well it's not just Reds or grays is it? It's the gentle suggestion of the heir to the throne or the violent horror of Game of Thrones. It is contraceptive Nutella or heads smashing. And these two groups, with their two approaches to the battle against invasive squirrels may divide the British Isles forever. I suggest the choice of method is clear: heads or tails

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March 10, 2017 episode transcript

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