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The AIH Transcript for March 27, 2017

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

CO: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

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

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight:

CO: The detention mounts. Tens of thousands of Russians take to the streets to protest corruption. Hundreds are arrested on the charge of "illegal provocation" – including opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and our guest.

JD: Plower power. If you buy a so-called "smart tractor," you're locked into a restrictive contract that makes repairs prohibitively expensive – so some desperate DIY farmers are resorting to buying hacked software.

CO: Reappearing act. One man's legal battle ends with the official resurrection of a people now that a BC court has declared that the Sinixt First Nation is very much alive after all.

JD: Hard to tell what's more amazing: the hostage or the host-age. To mark the anniversary of the death of legendary As It Happens host Barbara Frum, we are going to air her 1977 interview with a hostage-taker and one of his captives.

CO: Coming through, without the clutch. An Austrian mayor is shocked that a Nova Scotia man's name was deemed too offensive to put on a license plate, because in his town, someone with the last name "Grabher" is always within arm's reach.

JD: And...reinventing the squeal. An auditory researcher in Virginia exercises sound judgment in creating with what may be the most annoying sound ever, a grating shriek intended to save you from a head-on collision.
As It Happens, the Monday edition. Radio that brings everything to a halting screech.

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Part 1: Navalny arrest, Sinixt First Nation update, most annoying sound

Navalny Arrest

Guest: Alex Luhn

JEFF DOUGLAS: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is behind bars, for his role in organizing massive anti-corruption demonstrations in Russia over the weekend.
Thousands of people turned out in cities across Russia yesterday. It was the biggest show of civic discontent in the country since the anti-Kremlin demonstrations there in 2011 and 2012.
Earlier today, Mr. Navalny was sentenced to 15 days in prison.
Alec Luhn covers Russia for The Guardian. He was also arrested yesterday. We reached Alec Luhn in Moscow.

CAROL OFF: Mr. Luhn, we know that Alexei Navalny has called for people to take to the streets before. What did you make of the numbers of people who turned out yesterday?

ALEX LUHN: This was bigger than I or many people expected. The biggest protest I've seen here in Russia, the biggest unsanctioned protest since 2011. This time though the mood was a little bit different. It was a quiet kind of protest because people knew it was unsanctioned. They didn't come out with a lot of slogans or signs or banners. They just walked clockwise up and down the main street of Moscow. But the moment where it did get a bit heated was when Navalny appeared at the protest and was immediately detained and taken away in a police van and that's when my own kind of adventure started so to speak.

CO: And you were arrested at the same time?

AL: I was following this police van in which Navalny had been detained down this side street as it attempted to kind of move through this narrow crowded side street to get away and people started following, chanting “Let him out.” I followed the crowd. And at that point, the riot police on the small side streets suddenly started detaining people and I lifted my phone to take a picture and at that point I was grabbed and taken to a police van myself. All the while saying that I was a foreign journalist, that I have accreditation.

CO: The pictures are very dramatic. The round-up, the arrests, people are being dragged, being stuffed, some of them almost upside down as they are being pushed into the vans. The people on the street trying to prevent the arrests. Given the fact that this was an illegal protest, how prepared were the police to handle it?

AL: I think police were ready. I mean there were hundreds of riot police out. There were police helicopters in the air. But nonetheless, it was very surprising, just the number of arrests they conducted. This was massive arrests. More than 8000 people were reportedly detained in Moscow alone. There were also protests in many other Russian cities. And just the fact that the police were willing to go and detain people almost at random with very little provocation from their arrests that I saw happen before me and for my own arrest I can say, pretty dramatic, pretty unexpected crackdown. And I think that this shows how worried they were and how on edge they were, worried that this protests might grow into something larger.

CO: What brought them out to the street? What did the Alexander Navalny say or do that inspired so many people to turn out? Given that they were being warned all weekend that there will be serious consequences if they did so. What was it that brought them out?

AL: Well the immediate catalyst was an investigation that Navalny did in which he made very detailed and long accusations of corruption by the Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, alleging that Medvedev had secretly amassed a huge portfolio of really expensive real estate, mansions, vineyards. There seemed to be something of a new wave. A lot of the younger protesters this time around, very young people. I was detained with a kid who was 15 years old was the youngest in the police van and he had been kicked by police when he was on the ground and was bleeding from the nose.
And you know it's kind of this new generation is a bit of an enigma because we haven't really dealt with them on the political stage here before.

CO: There was a fair bit of discussion about that today because of the efforts that Vladimir Putin has gone to propagandize into and to take on side young people to be patriotic, to not question things. They have very little access into media except what they get in social media. So they've obviously all these young, this extraordinary number of really young young people, are getting their ideas from someplace else other than the state sponsored media.

AL: Yeah and it was kind of shocking today and yesterday that despite these huge protests going on, there was no coverage, no mention of them on the state television news, which is controlled by the state, as if it weren't happening.

CO: And 90 cities across Russia had protests, in every corner of the country, every region had people turn out to the streets. So something is going on in Russia these days.

AL: Absolutely. But on the other hand, it's very interesting I would caution because the target this protest was specifically Dmitri Medvedev, the Prime Minister, not Putin. And Putin's approval rating remains very high. So we know that people kind of tend to blame the internal politics, the internal problems on the government which is headed by Dmitri Medvedev, where and on the other hand they give Putin and the Kremlin the credit for the foreign policy successes that Russia has had recently.

CO: Just finally what's become of Alexei Navalny. He was given sentenced to 15 days in jail for his role in organizing the protests. What does that mean for him?

AL: Well he's promised to appeal that ruling but he hasn't had much luck in the Russian courts in the past. A lot of questionable charges have been brought against him there. I think what this means for him is 15 days, sure that will lock him up for 15 days, but he'll come out again. He's already said he intends to run for election next year and the presidential election. Putin of course is also to expected to run for his fourth term. So that sets those two on a collision course. And whereas Putin may control all the levers of the state, the volley has shown that he can mobilize a fair number of people across Russia with his anti-corruption platform. So those two are on a collision course and I'm sure we haven't seen the last of this issue.

CO: All right we'll be watching this. Mr. Luhn, thank you.

AL: Thanks so much.

CO: Good night.

JD: Alec Luhn covers Russia for The Guardian newspaper. We reached him in Moscow. And shortly before he was sentenced, Mr. Navalny tweeted a selfie from the courtroom along with a defiant caption “The time will come when we will have them on trial, only honestly.”

[Music]

Lynn Beyak

JD: Senator Lynn Beyak says she doesn't need education about residential schools. And she's not apologizing for her comments. In an address to the Senate earlier this month, the Conservative senator criticized the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for not "focusing on the good" that went on at residential schools.
Since then, the Anglican Church has denounced her remarks. First Nations groups have offered to give her a history lesson. And now, there are calls for her to resign her seat from the Senate's Aboriginal Peoples Committee. The CBC's Katie Simpson and John Paul Tasker caught up with Senator Beyak today.

SOUNDCLIP

KATIE SIMPSON: Senator Beyak, can we just ask you really quickly, have you given any thought to resigning from the Aboriginal peoples committee?

LYNN BEYAK: No, and I made my statements and I stand by them. The transcripts are there, everything for you to read. Up in my riding, it works really well. We've worked together for years.

KS: What do you mean? What works together really well?

LB: The ones who are still suffering our council by the ones who are healing and the teachers, the nurses, everybody will work together to get better.

KS: But your colleagues have called on you to resign from their committee. Will you resign from their committee?

LB: So what do you have to say to Senator Lillian Dyck?

KS: I have work to do in the north for my people.

JOHN PAUL TASKER: Have you heard positive reaction from your colleagues?

LB: Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of letters. There were two sides to every story.

KS: And so, can, you do any examples of that? Can your office provide any proof of this?

LB: We have 700 letters, we’re making a binder, and we'll make it all available.

KS: And what did when you said “fake news”, what did you mean by that?

LB: People take to soundbites instead of the whole story. If they read my whole speech from the start, there wouldn’t have been a story.

KS: So do you think that you know, saying that there was a good side to residential school, that the media has picked up on, that that’s a problem?

LB: I think it is a bit. If you go across Canada, there shining examples from sea to sea of people who owe their lives to the schools. Any little bit of good is never going to minimize or excuse the atrocities ever.

KS: And even though we heard from the AFN, they were going to reach out to your office to possibly provide more education, or more information, have you heard from them? Have you responded to them?

LB: I don't need any more education. I've been involved since we double dated when I was 15 with an Aboriginal fellow and his wife. I've lived up there for 40 years, worked with them, they're my friends. They spoke at my husband's funeral. We all get along great.

JPT: There are a lot of positive experiences but some people felt like maybe you didn't give equal coverage or equal attention to both the negative and the positive. That you weren’t doing a full picture of what actually went down in those schools. Do you understand how that might be of concern for some people?

LB: I do. Absolutely.

KS: And so what do you say to those people who have that concern?

LB: I've suffered with them. I appreciate their suffering more than they’ll ever know.

JD: Senator Lynn speaking to the CBC's Katie Simpson and John Paul Tasker earlier today.

[Music]

Sinixt update

Guest: Mark Underhill

JD: They were declared extinct by the Canadian government over 60 years ago. But as of today, members of the Sinixt First Nation are officially recognized in Canada.
In 2010, U.S. resident Rick Desautel was charged with hunting without a licence and hunting as a non-resident in British Columbia. But when he went to court, he had much bigger game in his sights. He was there to fight for the resurrection of his people.
Today, Mr. Desautel won that case. He reversed the extinction of the Sinixt First Nation. Here's what he said after the court's decision.

SOUNDCLIP

RICK DESAUTEL: The history of where we've come from Castlegar has to be the basis of what the decision is made on. You can't ignore that those pit houses over there we're here for a long long long time. And for me to come back into this country, or this part of the country I should say, and exercise my traditional rights to hunt as my ancestors did in [unintelligible], shouldn't be denied by someone that came in and said now you're no longer exist here and we got the claims to this land here.

JD: That was Rick Desautel, reacting after winning his case today. Mr. Desautel is part of the Sinixt First Nation. Mark Underhill is his lawyer. We reached him in Nelson, British Columbia.

CO: Mr. Underhill, what was the scene in the courtroom today when this announcement was made?

MARK UNDERHILL: It was one of remarkable motion I have to say. I turned around after the judge left the courtroom and saw basically a sea of tears. It was quite something.

CO: What did it mean for people who were there? And you’re talking about Sinixt people who were there in the–

MU: We are, and I'm not sure I can put in words to be honest with you. It was you know, 1956, the Arrow Lakes Indian Band was declared extinct. And since that time, the people who were in the courtroom had been told by various levels of government they don't exist, and today the court said they did and it was an incredible day.

CO: Your client is Rick Desautel and he is a man who has been trying to get this before the courts for a long time. When we spoke with you last, what the case begins with is Mr. Desautel going hunting, coming across the border from the United States to Canada and hunting and trying to get himself arrested so he can get this case into court. So when you started this, did you think it was going to go this far?

MU: Well you know it was an interesting beginning because this all started back in 2010 believe it or not, when was originally charged. But then they didn't proceed with the case and then all of a sudden, sort of maybe three years I guess now, three and a half years ago, they decided they would press forward with charges. And you know, it's been it's been a remarkable journey since that time.

CO: When we spoke last, your task as you explained it to us, was to convince the court that a nation, a people, existed that the Canadian government had declared didn't exist, declared them extinct. That was the task before you. How did you do that? How did you prove to the court that the Sinixt actually exist?

MU: Well we started of course [unintelligible] brought to your listeners with the Sinixt people themselves, who came to court, and it sounds a bit trite to say, but told the court who they were and their connection to both their ancestors, who as the judge found, lived in this part of British Columbia for thousands of years into their territory, and their profound connection to that territory. And then we coupled that with some expert evidence. In particular as a struggle, as [unintelligible] described it, a remarkable piece of work from Dr. Andrea Laforet, a genealogist based out of Ontario who believe it or not, took old Jesuit records, mostly written in Latin, and traced back Rick and a number of their families back to Sinixt people who were living in British Colombia prior to 1830.

CO: The Crown argued the Sinixt had moved voluntarily south to farm and that's where they had gone. And they were happily doing that and they didn't have a stake in Canada anymore. What did the judge say to that?

MU: And she rejected that. She said, you know, on the evidence before her, it just could not be said that there was any sort of voluntary move south of the border. What she said, and in fact this came out in the cross-examination of the Crown’s expert, that really at the end of the day, it was the best of a series of bad choices for the Sinixt people.

CO: And there was also the claim that they were farmers and that they had no hunting rights. What happened, did the judge say to that?

MU: Well in fact the Crown’s expert that went so far as to say that the Sinixt had left British Columbia to quote unquote “enthusiastically embrace farming.” And again, the court rejected that and said what became clear to her from listening to the Sinixt people who came to court were that they, hunting remained, as the lawyers say, an integral part of their culture, and that's what she found.

CO: What does this decision actually mean?

MU: Well you know, again as trite as it may sound, it means everything for the Sinixt people, because they genuinely believe they did not exist as a people until this morning, and now they can begin finally the process of reconciliation and finding their place in Canadian society after a lot of years of you know, roaming in the wilderness so to speak.

CO: But that means that they are going to claim they have rights. And so what happens? Don't come into to clash with other First Nations who have who are in the areas that they claim are theirs?

MU: Well I think what they would say if you were talking to them, is they would say “Look, the process of reconciliation takes all sorts of different forms. This is a big area. We want to find our place in it, but doesn't mean that others can't find their place.” And so I know they're looking forward to coming up here and reconnecting, not only with their territory, but with the other people who are already here.

CO: But will they be making a claim in British Columbia?

MU: Well I think we'll let them decide. I think they've got to, you know, sit back and think about what reconciliation means for them given their history.

CO: What about the courts? Will there be an appeal for this decision?

MU: The answer is yes there will be an appeal. I think the judge did an excellent job in reviewing the evidence and I think has laid an excellent foundation for this case should it go further. But ultimately that will be up to the government to decide what they want to do.

CO: What are the chances that this is going to end up in the Supreme Court of Canada?

MU: At this point, probably still fairly high I'm afraid.

CO: All right, we'll be talking to you again.

MU: Thanks Carol.

CO: Mr. Underhill, thank you.

JD: Mark Underhill is a lawyer who fought for the Sinixt First Nation to be recognized once again in Canada. We reached Mr. Underhill in Nelson, British Columbia.
In 1956, Ottawa declared the Sinixt First Nation extinct under the provisions of the Indian Act. But in a historic ruling today, the British Columbia Provincial Court said that Sinixt do in fact have a place in this country.

[Music]

Most annoying sound

Guest: Carryl Baldwin

JD: Professor Carryl Baldwin has an annoying job. I don't mean that in the sense that she finds her job annoying. Her job is to annoy you. But for your own good.
Over the course of her annoying research, Professor Baldwin has now created what may be the world's most annoying sound. We will play you a sample now.

[Sound: annoying high-pitched beeping sound]

JD: That's good. Thank you yes. Wow. It took years of research for Carol Baldwin to come up with that sound, which got a lot of attention last week after the posting of a video which referred to it as the most annoying sound ever. Professor Baldwin does auditory research at George Mason University in Virginia. We read her though in San Francisco.

CO: Professor Baldwin, why did you need to find a noise that was so annoying?

CARRYL BALDWIN: Well actually I didn't set out to find a noise that was very annoying, but more attention grabbing. We were trying to find something that would grab your attention in the context of driving a vehicle to let you know that there was a potential hazard in front of you. Collision warnings, you know, are unfortunately going off very frequently, and so you might forget, even if you’d heard it when you first purchased the vehicle or something like that, you might forget, or maybe you're driving a rental car and you've never heard the sound before. And so we were looking to find a sound, or design a sound that would be instantly perceived as grabbing your attention in a time critical situation the very first time.

CO: And how difficult is that? What did you consider in the way of sounds that would grab your attention that quickly?

CB: So we started by going out and looking at what was already out there. What kind of sounds were already being used. And we basically found that many of the sounds that were currently being used were not necessarily perceived as being very urgent or maybe not necessarily even perceived as being any kind of a warning at all. So we thought well, we need to do some work here and try to come up with something that would work better.

CO: So what are the considerations. Because there are all kinds of… our lives are filled with alarms and pings and warnings of one kind or another that are not urgent but we have to be aware of them. So what were the possibilities?

CB: So pitch, like high or low pitch, is how we subjectively perceive frequency. It needs to be something that is different than other sounds. We certainly wouldn't want it to be confused with a cell phone ring or a text message or something like that coming in. So it needs to be kind of unique. We respond faster to things with fast tempos. So that was one of the characteristics we looked at. And then just basically anything else that would kind of give that instant perception as quickly as possible. Beats, harmonics you know, different rhythm patterns, anything like that might affect your immediate response to a sound.

CO: Let's just play it again this is the sound that you determined would be the best to warn people of immediate impending collision. Here's the sound:

[Sound: high-pitched fast beeping]

CO: OK. I accidentally forgot to warn people before that and I had my earphones on. That is truly alarming. So but that sound if I'm driving a car in the future, will tell me that I'm about to collide with somebody right?

CB: Yeah. That is how people perceive it. And very quickly, they perceive it like so within just a few hundred milliseconds, it grabs their attention and it brings their eyes back to the forward roadway and prepares them to it to make an immediate response.
A lot of our listeners are driving their cars with listening to their show. So this might have been a test for them to see how quickly they put eyes forward and put away all the distractions. How did you test it? What did you do to make sure that this was going to work?

CB: We've done a series of experiments using a bunch of different methods. We started out by simply just like taking sounds that were currently being used in cars. We simply had people sit in front of a computer screen with a picture of a dashboard on, and just play a sound and then categorize it as quickly as possible into what they thought it would represent. Something highly urgent and time critical or just well important but not time critical, or not important at all, just like a social notification.
That's how we started it and we looked at the sounds that were put in that most high urgency category and then began to dissect our acoustic parameters to kind of see OK what parameters are the most important in reading to that perception, and then began designing sounds based on that to put into additional testing. So in low-fidelity simulator, driving simulators initially, and ultimately in a high fidelity simulator and even on the road in a more naturalistic driving conditions. So this sounds that met these criteria that are in that sound that everybody just heard were consistently responded to faster, perceived as more urgent. They tended to reduce the number of collisions in the driving simulator. And even if it didn't completely eliminate the collision, people would collide at a much lower speed and that would transfer in a more natural setting as a less severe crash if the crash did occur.

CO: Why not just words? Why not “Warning warning danger danger”? Why not a voice?

CB: You know, we've looked at vocal, verbal kinds of warnings and they can sometimes be good. Unfortunately, they're more likely to be masked by other sounds in the environment, like if you're listening to music or something. They don't tend to have the complex frequencies that can kind of cut through the other background noise that might be around.

CO: So in the future this may be a sound that will be played, maybe a sound that we can hear in our cars, or we hope we never hear in our cars, that warns us of a collision.

CB: Right right, exactly yeah you hope you don't hear it. So one of our goals was to kind of come up with some of the ranges for each of the different characteristics. It could still allow automobile manufacturers to do some branding, distinguishing themselves from other manufacturers and things like that. So we're not saying that you know that's the only one that would be affective. We actually came up with recommendations for each of the five main acoustic characteristics and allow people still some flexibility to design their own sound. But they're going to be similar to that sound.

CO: Alright. So a sound we hope we never hear in our cars.

CB: Right.

CO: Professor Baldwin, thank you.

CO: My pleasure.

JD: Professor Carol Baldwin created what is being, or what's been called and what is being called, the world's most annoying sound although it was actually created to save people from collisions. Currently the sound is under review by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. And if you would learn like to learn more about it or if for some reason you would like to hear it again, or perhaps send it to someone, check out our website, cbc.ca/aih.

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Part 2: Tractor hacking, From Our Archives: Frum & hostage taking

Tractor hacking

Guest: John Doe

JEFF DOUGLAS: For generations, farmers have been able to repair their own tractors with their own two hands, a little ingenuity, and some baler twine. But with the advent of so-called “smart” tractors, which feature all sorts of computerized components, repair jobs have become a lot more difficult. And because the companies that sell the tractors won't allow farmers to fix them without going through a licensed dealer.
Some farmers in Canada have found a way around the company sale agreements so they can continue to repair their own tractors by buying hacked software on the black market.
We reached a grain farmer in Saskatchewan who has used one of these underground solutions. He asked us to conceal his identity because he doesn't want to get in trouble with John Deere and other tractor companies, or with the law.

CAROL OFF: Can you tell us first of all, where did you go to look for help when you needed to repair your John Deere tractor?

FARMER: Well, we've always done all of our own repairs on the farm and basically when it came to this unit, we expected to do the exact same thing we've always done and just take care of it ourselves.

CO: And what happened?

FARMER: Thanks to modern technology and software and computers running everything, we ran up to the problem of needing the John Deere software in order to be able to complete a repair. And we just weren't in the position where we wanted to pay the dealer $500 dollars to come out and spend 15 minutes with a laptop hooked up to the tractor.

CO: And is that what John Deere requires you to do?

FARMER: Yes. All of the manufacturers now are that way. The equipment is completely controlled by computers and software and is proprietary to the manufacturer of that piece of equipment.

CO: Did you have to agree to that that you would use their technicians and their repair people when you bought the tractor?

FARMER: Yes. Every monitor when on start-up flashes an agreement that signifies that if you start to tractor or operate this tractor, you agree to the license terms.

CO: So what did you do?

FARMER: Well basically because we bought the tractor used to start with, and as I said, we were not in the position where we wanted to spend that kind of money for something that was so rudimentary and basic, we turned to the internet and found for lack of a better term, a hacked version of the software to use ourselves.

CO: Where did you find that?

FARMER: Well they're actually scattered all over the Internet. There are certain forums and discussion groups and sites like that where software is hacked or cracked software is traded. And the John Deere Service Advisor is one of the downloads that was available.

CO: So where… was at some place in another country where you were able to source this?

FARMER: Well the Internet is so anonymous, it's really hard to know who originally did the cracking of the software. But in this case, the credits are to somebody who had a Russian e-mail address, so I'm assuming somewhere from Russia.

CO: This is what we call the darknet, isn't it. This is where this is where all kinds of usually nefarious activity is going on. Everything from drug trafficking to all kinds of hacking. And this is where you had to go in order to get your tractor repaired.

FARMER: Well, the darknet, you can find anything on the darknet. But some of this more benign stuff like this, yes. That is where it's originally distributed. But you can actually find it on the on the regular Internet if you know what you're looking for.

CO: Is it legal what you did?

FARMER: According to John Deere’s eyes, probably not. Is it by law? I’m not really… I'm not a lawyer, I'm not qualified to answer that. But in my eyes, I've paid real money for a real tractor that's expected to perform on our farm, and as has been the case for the last hundred and some years, my forefathers have always been able to repair their own machinery. And I don't see why, while we might be repairing it with laptops instead of wrenches and a the welder, I don't see why I would not be allowed to repair my own equipment today as like I say, as my dad and grandpa did before him.

CO: Well John Deere’s argument is that you bought the tractor, you bought the hardware, the actual machine, but you didn't buy the software. You are licensing that. So that's their argument as to why you should be using them and allowing them to have the connection with that that I guess is licensed.

FARMER: Well yes, but on the flip side of that, when I pay $189,000 thousand dollars for a tractor, I expect to have a piece of equipment that is functioning. The tractor without the software will not function. It will not start, it will not drive, it will not do anything.
There is a big difference in software between, say, the software that runs global positioning systems and optional equipment, and the software that runs the internal engine and transmission components that are required to make the tractor do anything. And I think this is where the gray area showed up.
No one is disputing that John Deere has intellectual property rights to their software. What we're disputing is that the base code that actually makes the machine do something is part of the machine. It's not a separate entity because the machine will not operate without that code.

CO: When you say “we”, how many other farmers, Canadian farmers or other farmers who using these kinds of tractors, are running into the same problem, as far as you know?

FARMER: Pretty much every farmer runs into the same problem. The big problem is logistics. What they've basically done is try to create a new revenue stream for their service departments without thinking about the logistics of trying to support a huge number of farmers that are geographically spread out with limited dealer resources.
And for instance, last fall we had a snowstorm forecast for the beginning of October with lots of crops still out in the field. Every combine tractor, everything every farmer had was in the field, day and night trying to get as much crop off before that snowstorm came. In our immediate area here, I bet you there is three or four hundred farmers that run John Deere equipment, and there's one John Deere dealer with maybe 12 mechanics. So if things break, and they usually do when you're pushing that hard trying to get every last acre you can in, there's no way that those 12 mechanics can take care of everybody that needs service.

CO: So it's not just the money and the principle of it. You said at the beginning, you've been doing this for generations and you're not going to stop. But it's more than that. It's that it's just not feasible.

FARMER: Well exactly, it's when you phone your dealer and they go, well we can be there the next day. I mean, in a 12 hour day, a modern combine will take off 50 or $60,000 grain. So I mean that's 50 or 60 thousand dollars of revenue that would be sitting under the snow because the dealer couldn't come out to spend 10 minutes with a laptop to unlock a new part.

CO: You know, you asked us to protect your identity, not reveal your name in this interview. We do that a lot on As It Happens but usually with people who are in in very difficult parts of the world with all kinds of threats to them. I never thought I'd be anonymously interviewing a Canadian farmer. What do you fear might happen? What do you think might happen if your identity was revealed?

FARMER: Well my biggest concern is that John Deere would try to come after us legally because of what we're doing.

CO: We will leave it there. I know you are you're very soon to be out in your fields and I hope the crops go well this year.

FARMER: Thank you very much.

CO: Bye-bye.

JD: That was a grain farmer in Saskatchewan who has turned to using hacked software from the darknet to fix his own tractor. He asked us to conceal his identity because he does not want to get in trouble with the tractor companies. In Canada, it is unclear as to whether this is illegal or not.For more on this "right to repair" issue, check out our website, cbc.ca/asithappens.

[Music]

From Our Archives: Frum and Hostage Taking

JD: We'd like to just take a few minutes now to acknowledge yesterday, a day that marks a very sad occasion in the history of this program. It was twenty-five years ago yesterday, on March 26, 1992, that As it Happens joined the CBC and its audience in mourning the death of veteran CBC Radio and TV broadcaster, Barbara Frum.
If you listened to this program during her decade-long tenure behind the mic here, you can attest to her indelible contribution to this program. She set the bar and the tone for a show that often demands the near-impossible from a journalist: namely, being able to navigate a daily roller-coaster ride from the ridiculous and the heart-wrenching, and everything in between. All day, five days a week.
I could go on about Ms. Frum's extraordinary skills as a host. But her work speaks best for itself. Take this shining example from almost 40 years ago to the day, when Barbara Frum essentially mediated a conference call between a hostage taker, a hostage, and the police.
On March 21, 1977, just before noon, thirty-eight-year-old Robert McLagan walked into the Bank Canadienne Nationale at King and Yonge St in Toronto with a sawed-off shotgun. Shortly thereafter, As it Happens had him on the line. And then Ms. Frum took over.

SOUNDCLIP

BARBARA FRUM: Hello?

ROBERT MCLAGEN: Yeah.

BF: My name is Barbara Frum. Can you tell me what situation you're in?

RM: I'm in a pretty good situation really, as long as these cowboys out here don't try anything, you know, funny.

BF: Yeah.

RM: I've got about 15 people up here.

BF: Yeah.

RM: They've got nowhere to go. There's really no way that the police can get at me. Unless they snipe me which I doubt.

BF: What are you in there for?

RM: I want to C-130 Hercules aircraft. I don't want to own it, I just want to borrow it.

BF: Where are you going?

RM: I will drive down to Africa.

BF: Where?

RM: Uganda.

BF: Why Uganda?

RM: I want to see my pal, Idi Amin.

BF: How's he your pal?

RM: Well I'm a fan of his. I've never met the man, but I'm a fan of his. I was a mercenary in the Congo, ’65.

BF: Yeah.

RM: I just want to get back down that area, that’s all.

BF: Who did you come in with?

RM: Myself.

BF: What kind of weapons?

RM: 12 gage shotgun. Chopped down.

BF: Why did you pick that spot?

RM: Handy, that’s all.

BF: When did you start planning this?

RM: A couple weeks ago, kicked the idea around.

BF: Did you read it in the newspapers?

RM: Oh no, no.

BF: All your own.

RM: Yeah. I want to see C-130 lady and that's all, the rest is incidental.

BF: Can we talk to any of the people you're holding there?

RM: Um, yeah. Hold on I’ll get somebody.

LOIS: Hello?

BF: Yes.

LOIS: Who's speaking?

BF: My name is Barbara Frum.

LOIS: Yes.

BF: Who are you?

LOIS: My name's Lois.

BF: How are you doing there Lois?

LOIS: Well we could be better I’d say.

BF: How did this thing start?

LOIS: Well, he just sort of walked in very casually and calmly and walked right through the first time and there's this CP-Air building attached to it. So we all thought he was you know probably mistaken and came into the wrong place, and he was on his way to the CP-Air and then he turned around, came back in, and pulled out his gun.

BF: Are you a teller at the bank?

LOIS: No I'm an assistant accountant.

BF: When did you realize you were in trouble? How soon after that?

LOIS: Well I'd say about two seconds afterwards, he told us to lock the doors and close the drapes and to topple over a couple desks and for everybody to come upstairs.

BF: How are you being held there? He’s let you come to the phone. Is everyone walking around loose?

LOIS: Yes. Well not walking around, we're all in one room, and he sent me down to get everybody's lunches and water so he's treating us very well. And he said he didn't want to hurt anybody. All he wants is apparently some kind of aircraft. So I mean so far nobody's hurt. There's a few people that are you know, not taking the situation too easily.

BF: What does that mean?

LOIS: Well one girl sort of passed out and another girl is slightly hysterical but everybody seems to be ok otherwise.

BF: He sounds very calm just now. What do you make of that?

LOIS: Yes he is very calm. I just hope nobody gets excited because then, you know you never know what people will do. And since he's the only one with a gun and we're all up here, you know, I just hope everybody gives him what he wants.

BF: Tell him we are, on our other line, we're getting the police chief.

LOIS: OK. Did you want to speak to the police chief? Is he there?

BF: We’re trying to raise them on the other line you see.

LOIS: OK because he said “When he comes on the line”, I guess you want to talk to him but in the meantime, he’s just sort of walking around.

BF: Is he actually holding a gun on you?

LOIS: No, no.

BF: Where's his gun?

LOIS: Well he has that out but it's not pointed in my direction. I don't think he’d hurt me.

BF: If he wanted to go to Uganda, why didn’t he just buy an airplane ticket and go.

LOIS: I don’t know, I can’t understand.t I don't even know if that's where you want to go. All I know is he wants an airplane.

BF: That's why he told us. He wants to go to see his friend Idi Amin.

LOIS: Oh Jesus. Some friend. Well I don't know. He hasn't discussed that with any of us.

BF: Alright, we think we've got a policeman. Hold on. Here's Superintendent Webster. Mr. Webster?

SUPT WEBSTER: Yes.

BF: We have one of the hostages on the line. Do you want to talk to her?

SW: Yes.

BF: She is prepared to get the gunmen for you.

SW: All right.

BF: Go ahead.

LOIS: Hello?

SW: Hello it's Staff Supt. Webster speaking.

LOIS: Yes sir.

SW: And you are?

LOIS: My name's Lois.

SW: Lois?

LOIS: Lafave (sp?)

SW : Lois Lefave. Does this chap want to speak to a police officer?

LOIS: Yes he does.

SW: Alright, I’ll speak to him.

LOIS: Ok just hold please.

SW: Thank you.

LOIS: He’s on the line.

SW: Hello. It’s Staff Superintendent Webster, metro police speaking. Who is this?

RM: It’s Bob McLagan.

SW: Bob?

RM: Yes. I’m the fellow with the gun.

SW: Yes all right what can I do for you now to ease this situation.

RM: The C-130 Hercules.

SW: A 130 Hercules?

RM: I want to fly down to Uganda.

SW: To Uganda.

RM: Yeah.

SW: Well that's a military type plane isn’t it? This aircraft will have to be at some air force base nearby won't it? Like downsview?

RM: Sure, downsview sounds great.

SW: Well how do you propose now to get from there to Downsview?

RM: Well we'll get one of your little tactical squad vans and have him back up to the door and we'll just about half a dozen of us, just step inside.

SW: Do you need all those people Bob with you there? Those are innocent people there and we will cooperate in every way we can with you. We want to keep the situation calm and cool. Without any tricks and I can assure you of that. But I think that you should release some of those people there who will be, may have illnesses that we're not aware of. Would you agree with that?

RM: I'll check out any of them that might have illnesses, and if they all seem to be alright, I think we'll just keep things the way they are for now. I’ll maybe release them a bit later. You know, because I see your boys out here getting a little bit psyched up, and the front doors are unlocked, and I've got a damn good vantage point where I can see that door and I can see the stairwell.

SW: Yes.

RM: Outside of gun hold charge or anything, there’s not really a hell of a lot you can do.

SW: No well we certainly don't want anyone to get hurt and that includes you. Now, is there anything further that you wish to tell me at this time.

RM: No. I think that’s all.

BF: All right Bob, let me give you our phone number here too. We'll keep a line open for you all day. 9293272.

RM: All right. OK. See you later.

[Sound: Phone hanging up]

JD: From our archives from March 21st of 1977, that was Barbara from facilitating a conversation between a hostage-taker, one of his hostages, and the Toronto police by As It Happens. Incidentally, Robert McLagan surrendered peacefully to police 12 hours after the siege began. Barbara Frum died 25 years ago yesterday. She was just 54 years old.

[Music]

McLaren breastfeeding

JD: Leah McLaren had something to get off her chest about the time she tried to get something on her chest. Someone on her chest, I should say.
I've piqued your interest. Just as Ms. McLaren herself does. Whatever the problems with the column she wrote for The Globe and Mail last week – and there are problems, you have to give her credit for a strong opening. Quote: "Watching the dispiriting moral fumbling match that passes for a Conservative Party leadership campaign this spring, I've often found myself reminded of the time I tried to breastfeed Michael Chong's baby." Unquote.
Now that's what we would call a "grabby lede." Unfortunately, it's misleading, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the Conservative Party leadership campaign. Also unfortunately, it's not misleading – as the rest of the column reveals, she actually did try to breastfeed Michael Chong's baby. Talk about grabby.
Years ago, Ms. McLaren's column relates, she was at a party and she went into a bedroom and there was a baby in there. It became obvious to her that the baby wanted to breast-feed. So, despite the fact that she was not lactating, she started unbuttoning her blouse. "Just as I was reaching into my bra," she writes, "a shortish man in a navy suit walked into the room."
This was Michael Chong – one of the candidates currently running to lead the Conservative Party. He politely asked to take the baby from the strange woman with the open blouse. And that was that, whatever that was.
The column goes on to establish that Ms. McLaren is aware her behaviour was, at best, well-intentioned, but wrong, and at worst, just wrong.
Almost as soon as it went up on The Globe's site, it was taken down. But it's still been widely shared, and widely condemned. There was such an almost-breast-feeding frenzy that Michael Chong himself responded by tweeting the following. Quote, "Incident happened over 10 years ago. It was no doubt odd, but of no real consequence. Let's focus on the important challenges facing Canada." Good to hear he's not nursing a grudge.

Back To Top »

Part 3: Grabher town, spinach heart tissue

Sound of the Day: Trumpcare ads

JEFF DOUGLAS: Well, the Republican attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare was a flop. And, having blamed everyone else, President Donald Trump would like to move on.
But on Friday night, the American Action Network PAC made that a little more difficult.
You see, so confident was the conservative PAC that the Republicans would be victorious that it bought a series of ads. Ads that thanked Republican congress people for successfully repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. Ads that were all set up to go on the assumption that the new bill would pass.
Ads that did indeed air during basketball games across the U.S.A. even after the whole thing had collapsed.
Here's part of what viewers of the Wizards versus Nets game heard in Virginia on Friday night. This is our sound of the day.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Inspiring music]

Thank Congresswoman Barbara Comstock for keeping her promise and replacing the Affordable Care Act with a better health care you deserve.

JD: Awkward.

[Music]

Grabher town

Guest: Kurt Fischer

JD: The Nova Scotia government is standing its ground but so is Lorne Grabher. Last week we brought you the story of Mr. Grabher, a Dartmouth man who was outraged that the government had withdrawn his personalized license plate. The plate reads Grabher, it is spelt G-R-A-B-H-E-R. The Nova Scotia government saw that as two words, being “grab” and “her” and they deemed that message to be offensive. Mr. Grabher is furious about the whole thing and he now has an unlikely ally.
Kurt Fischer is the Mayor of Lustenau, a town in Austria, a place where you are very likely to meet someone with the last name Grabher.

CAROL OFF: Mayor Rischer, how many Grahbers do you know?

KURT FISCHER: Personally, I've met hundreds at least and I know very many personally. And I just met one 20 minutes ago, a young architect. I told him the story.

CO: The story being about this man in Nova Scotia, in Canada who has a license plate with his name, Grabher, and he has to take it off.

KF: Yes, exactly.

CO: How did you come to learn about this story of this man?

KF: Well actually I read it on Twitter. Somebody had posted it last week on Twitter. Having absolutely I'm sure, it’s the highest percentage by far, the highest percentage of people with that surname in our little town, I don't know if it's if it's funny or if it's absurd or if it's sad, but somehow it touched me. And then I got into contact with Lorne.

CO: You contacted Lorne Grabher?

KF: Yeah that's what I did. With social media it's no problem. I found out that Lorne was on Facebook and I just wrote him a note, and a few hours later he wrote me back.

CO: Why did you what did you say to him?

KF: Well I told him I wrote him a note that said I was the mayor of the town where there are so many people with that surname, and that my predecessor’s name, he had been mayor for 17 years, and that my predecessors name was Grabher and so on.

CO: The mayor Grabher was the mayor. He was the mayor before you.

KF: Yeah that was my predecessor and he was mayor for 17 years. We have got 23,000 inhabitants and Grabher is one of the most common names, by far one of the most common names.

CO: Well how come you have so many Grabhers in Lustena?

KF: I don't know. It's an old name and a lot of people from the beginning had the name. I don't know the etymology actually and I couldn't find out on the Internet. But after [unintelligible], I was trying to do some research. You find the name of the US, you find the name in South America and Canada.

CO: Well that's what Lorne Grabher, when we spoke with him last week and he was telling us about how he was not going to be able to use his license plate anymore because it was considered offensive to have his name on it. He said he had already had relatives all over. He said there’s are lots of Grabhers out west in Canada and all over the place. So it's a common name in North America.

KF: Yes because even from our small area, we are at the Swiss border close to Lake Constance, also close to Bavaria, to Germany, and a lot of people after World War I emigrated to the United States. Well now what did Lorne say to you when you reached out to him and wrote to him. He was glad to hear from abroad. It probably could be that his roots go back to our town or at least our area. Then today we had a phone call in the afternoon because our local newspaper, the most popular newspaper in this area, they're going to do an article today and the article was published tomorrow, in tomorrow's edition.

CO: An article about his license plate.

KF: Exactly about the story and about this strange homonym thing with grab her having two meanings in two languages and causing problems. What I found amazing is I mean this socially unacceptable slogan, having your surname being labelled as socially unacceptable.

CO: It was worse than that he was. He was called misogynist.

KF: Yeah exactly. I think the lady who complained.

CO: A woman complained, yeah.

KF: He told me on the phone actually, that I don't know whether you know that, but he told me today when where when we had a phone call that he was sitting in in a coffee shop and he saw a woman taking photographs of his car or the license plate and that that's how the whole thing started with the woman complaining and the number plates being withdrawn officially.
I mean for me it's, in a way, I don't know because it's his surname, for me it's politically correct that somehow reduce the absurdity of that.
I don't know how you see it when you lift there and when your mother tongue is English. I mean I don't know.

CO: Do you think Lorne Grabher should be able to keep his license plate?

KF: Yeah. I mean after the publicity it would be even easier because everybody knows now.

CO: It's true.

KF: Might have heard about it and everybody knows what it actually means. That is the surname he's proud of. And I mean misogyny and sexism, it's a huge problem in society. It's a terrible thing. But the question is, if this kind of political correctness really helps.

CO: Well you make a good point that if everybody knows that Grabher is his name, then maybe he should just be able to keep the plate. That's a good point.

KF: I hope that Lorne still is proud of his name and that possibly he will get his number plate back after all this coverage of this incident.

CO: Yes. It's good to talk to you, Mayor Fischer. Thanks.

KF: OK thanks. OK bye.

JD: Kurt Fischer is the Mayor of Lustenau, Austria. That is where we reached him.

[Music]

Rapoport doctorate

Guest: Ingeborg Rapoport

JD: Ingeborg Rapoport received her doctorate from the University of Hamburg two years ago. A doctorate that was 77 years in the making.
As a 25-year-old student, in 1938, Ms. Rapoport submitted a doctoral thesis on diptheria. Her professors praised her work, but because her mother was Jewish, and it was Nazi Germany, she was not permitted to defend it. Until 2015. That's when, through the efforts of the Dean of the University of Hamburg, the 102-year-old Ms. Rapoport finally received the doctorate she deserved. Ingeborg Rapoport died last week. She was 104 years old.
Ms. Rapoport spoke with Carol on this program in 2015, after successfully defending her thesis. From our archives, here is part of that conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

INGEBORG RAPOPORT: I remember exactly the term, at the moment at the Nazis came. I was ostracized. I had a yellow student card. Yes. I was ostracized.

CO: And you are very close to being finished but you had not defended your thesis on diptheria. Is that right?

IR: I made the thesis and I handed it into my professor. He accepted this and he couldn't admit me to an exam and because of way that that happened.

CO: And so did you have any support? Were any of your professors defending you at that time?

IR: Well this professor gave me a certificate that I did all that and I couldn't be admitted to the oral examination further. And I emigrated with this certificate which didn't help in the U.S.A.

CO: You did have a lucky break. You had some luck in the United States after you escaped from Germany.

IR: I had great luck. I would have stayed there if it hadn't been McCarthyism.

CO: McCarthyism.

IR: Yes. That made me, made us leave the United States.

CO: You became a doctor though in the United States.

IR: Yes, I took two more years at the University, Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. I went to John Hopkins and stayed there for two years at the clinic and had a wonderful medical education in the United States, and then I went to Cincinnati where I met my husband.

CO: And so what happened to you under Senator Joe McCarthy, what happened to you under McCarthyism?

IR: Well, we couldn't stay there at the university. My boss asked me to be deny that we were communists and I told him no. That is such a thing wouldn't be right. So they said we would have to leave. They couldn't keep us at the hospital.

CO: You were going to be fired because you were a communist.

IR: Yeah. He had to. He was a very decent man and he tried very much to keep my husband and me in Cincinnati but it couldn't.

JD: That was the late Ingeborg Rapoport speaking to Carol on this program in 2015. At the time she was 102 years old. She had just received her doctorate from the University of Hamburg. She had first submitted it in 1938 but the Nazis would not let her defend it. Ingeborg Rapoport died last week. She was 104.

[Music]

Spinach heart tissue

Guest: Josh Gershlak

JD: Spinach may not be your thing but there is no denying that the nutrient packed leafy green is good for us. And it turns out that spinach is not only beneficial to our health, but it is also good for science.
Researchers in Massachusetts have grown heart tissue on spinach.
Josh Gershlak is a PhD student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the lead author of the study. We reached him in Worcester, Massachusetts.

CO: Mr. Gershlak, the images, the video from your study is just extraordinary. Just maybe for those who don't have it before them, tell us what your piece of spinach looked like when you're finished with it.

JOSH GERSHLAK: So after we're done with our processing the spinach is translucent, it's absolutely see through. It just completely is transformed from what you'd see in the store growing out of the ground to what we're using to put the heart tissue onto.

CO: It appears that there is blood pumping through it.

JG: Yeah it's a red dye. It's not blood itself. It's just a visual effect. But we’ve also done, we’ve used some micro particles that were the size of red blood cells to study whether or not blood could flow through. And we found that the micro particles that are on the size scale of a red blood cell could flow through the entire leaf.

CO: So what's actually going on?

JG: With our process we use detergents, normal everyday soaps at very high concentrations that are pumped through the stem of the leaf and through the detergents, they're able to break up the plant cells and remove out all the plant material outside of the cellulose which is the major component of the leaf and the vascular network. And after that, once we're able to remove all the plant cells, we were studying the ability to perfuse or float liquids through that, after the fact. And then we also put cardiomyocytes or heart muscle cells onto the surface, and they were able to attach and beat like they normally would, for three weeks.

CO: And what's the actual kind of translucent white stuff that's around the cellulose?

JG: Yes so that's the remaining proteins in the leaf after the processing. And so that would be mostly comprised of cellulose which in itself is used in a wide variety of applications in medicine.

CO: But is that actually components of human tissue?

JG: No not yet. Hopefully, hopefully soon.

CO: And so what can you do with this?

JG: So we envision it right now as a potential scaffolding material to use when we try to build tissues in the lab. And so the major limitation when we do this type of work is trying to have the ability to deliver blood and oxygen and nutrients, and there's really no good technique that's able to fully replicate the right size and the right branching patterns that we would really need to do this effectively. And what we're able to do is harness Mother Nature and use all those years of development that plants have gone through. That's pretty similar to our own bodies and use that for a potential patch for heart tissue, or really, it's almost endless in terms of the tissues that we could use this for.

CO: Give us a bit more about that. So how could it be used?

JG: So specifically for the heart, regeneration cardiac tissue and improving function of damaged hearts has really been a focus of our lab for many years. So for instance, when someone goes through a heart attack, there's irreversible scar that's formed in the heart. And that scar is non-functional. So what current kind of gold standards, current surgical technique such as a bypass surgery, just really reopens blood flow to that area and doesn't really fix that scar. It doesn't fix that dead tissue. And so for instance, if we're able to get good cardiac tissue and have it grow on our scaffold made out of the spinach leaf, we could potentially remove that scar in the heart wall and replace it with this spinach heart-tissue engineered tissue.

CO: So it's possible that in the future, people have bits of spinach in them that are repairing their hearts and other parts of them.

JG: Possibly, maybe, very very down the road. But it's seeming theoretically possible.

CO: How did you come up with this idea?

JG: So me and my boss Dr. Glenn Gaudette, who's the lead, the corresponding author on this study, we had been talking about doing this type of work and we had lunch one day and there was some spinach salad involved, and we just saw the vasculature and the spinach leaf, and the stem of the spinach really stood out to me. And so both me and Glenn, we both have had expertise in doing this process, not on spinach leaves but on hearts. And when you do it on hearts, we take a needle and we put that into the aorta, which is the main blood vessel coming out of the heart, before we pump through the same detergents. And so we saw the stem, and it reminded me of the aorta. So we thought maybe that might work the same way and it did. It worked pretty quickly and remarkably.

CO: You know that mostly about eating spinach for lunch do not look at it and see the potential for becoming human tissue.

JG: No…

CO: You’re aware of that.

JG: Yeah. It's been interesting to have salad ever since and I've had to kind of hold back when I'm walking down the street and see different leaves on the ground to stop from trying to inspect them.

CO: And on that subject then why spinach? Why not, I mean kale has a pretty good network of veins and and fibers in it. Why spinach?

JG: You know what's great about spinach was that stem really. It's very easy for us to use the diffuse the detergents that we need to through there. The other great thing with spinach is how flat it is, and we're able to really kind of get our cardiac cells on that surface because of how flat it is. And it's also a good size scale as well for us to kind of begin this experimentation. When we're trying to do this type of work in the lab, we really have to start on smaller scale type of sizes in order to really kind of understand and kind of build up the processes. And so spinach just kind of fit the boat for all of it.

CO: Spinach is good for you in so many ways.

JG: Yeah absolutely.

CO: Mr. Gershlak, thank you.

JG: Thank you.

CO: Bye-bye.

JG: Bye.

CO: Josh Gershlak is a Ph.D. student at a Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He has grown heart tissue on spinach. His study, which has already been published online, will be in the print version of the journal Biomaterial in May. We reached Mr. Gershlak in Worcester.

[Music]

Regina inquest

JD: Today is Day One of the coroner's inquest into the death of Nadine Machiskinic.
Ms. Machiskinic, an Indigenous mother of four, died in hospital in January 2015, shortly after being found at the bottom of a Regina hotel's laundry chute. Reportedly, the 29-year-old sex-trade worker had been drinking the night she died. Her family has always felt the investigation into her death was not a priority for police.
On September 22nd of last year, Carol spoke with Nadine Machiskinic's aunt, Delores Stevenson. Here is part of their conversation, from our archives.

SOUNDCLIP

DELORES STEVENSON: I think that they ruled out foul play too soon and that their investigation, I don't feel that it was thorough.

CO: What are the aspects of what you've learned that make you think that, bring you to that conclusion?

DS: Because of the high risk lifestyle that she lived, she was involved in the sex trade and I don't have any other reason to believe that she was at that hotel that night with somebody and something happened to her.

CO: Why do you suspect it was more than just an accident?

DS: Because Nadine wouldn't put herself in a laundry chute.

CO: What are some of the other details that you've learned about that night and what happened in the hotel that it raised questions for you?

DS: Security were supposedly not, didn't see her go into the hotel, but there was a fire alarm pulled by Nadine that same night and police weren't called to the scene.

CO: No one came to the fire alarm?

DS: Not that I know of no.

CO: And how do you know that Nadine was the one who pulled it?

DS: I was told that by investigators, that Nadine had pulled the fire alarm, and that she was screaming “Fire”.

CO: What questions does that raises for you.

DS: For me that she very well was in trouble, that something was happening to her, and that maybe she pulled the fire alarm because she needed help.

CO: There is another person that was there, on the 10th floor. What do you know about him?

DS: I know that in the beginning of the investigation that he was questioned and he was a registered guest and he was the last person who saw Nadine alive who witnessed her pulling the fire alarm.

CO: Might he have been with Nadine?

DS: He might have. I suspect that he could have been with Nadine if he was the last person to see Nadine alive.

CO: What do you think police should have done differently?

DS: I think that the authorities should have been at the investigation the night that she died. The police weren't involved for a day or two. That's a big gap in the investigation.

CO: The police have said that they understand where you're coming from, that they know you're anxious but the fact that they don't have the investigation complete is not an indication that the case has been forgotten or closed prematurely. That's a quote from them. What do you say to the police?

DS: What I don't understand about the whole situation is why it's not considered foul play, why her death is not considered suspicious in any way. I don't get it.

JD: From our archives, that was Delores Stevenson in conversation with Carol in September of last year. Her niece Nadine Machiskinic, died in hospital in January 2015, shortly after being found at the bottom of a Regina hotel's laundry chute. A coroner's inquest into her death began today.

[Music]

#Nofilter

JD: All right everyone, buckle up for a savage dose of the truth. I'm going to give you my opinion on a controversial topic, no filter.
Briefs. Not my thing. Although it's fine if they're your thing. I don't find them very comfortable, but maybe I just haven't found the right pair. They're fine, I guess. The end.
See, I know what you're thinking: that was hardly an opinion at all. I led you to believe I was going to put briefs on blast, but I didn't even put them on blow-dry.
See, I set out to prove two things. One, I stand by my stance on briefs, unless it bothers you, in which case I can change it. There I did change it, done. And two, sometimes when someone says they're giving you something with no filter, they’re not.
Take the hashtag #NoFilter. You see it on Instagram, when people post a bold, warts-and-all picture of themselves without adjusting the picture at all. Instead of applying a filter like Mayfair, Valencia or Nashville, filters that subtly change the exposure and contrast of the photograph, they're just bravely asking you to accept them as they are.
Are they really doing that, though? Or are they just pretending to give you a glimpse of their unfiltered selves? I mean, would someone lie on social media?
Well, University of Windsor student Paige Coyne and her colleagues have determined that, shocking as it is, 12 per cent of people who use the hashtag #NoFilter on Instagram are actually using filters.
Tony Doucette, host of CBC Radio's Windsor Morning asked Ms. Coyne why she thinks that matters.

SOUNDCLIP

TONY DOUCETTE: I get the sense that you're concerned, that you have a bit of an issue with this.

PAIGE COYNE: Yes I do.

TD: Why does it matter?

PC: I just think that we already get all this pressure in society and this pressure from the media and now it's not a far reach right? It's not your celebrities. It's not people that you're not really close with. These are your friends and family that you're following, and if you're kind of putting up a false facade to them, right, I just there's some distrust there and I just I wish everybody would kind of accept themselves the way they are because unfortunately it leads to issues like eating disorders. It leads to like lower self-esteem, some body dissatisfaction, which, I mean, if we could take that all that would be great.

JD: That was University of Windsor student Paige Coyne in conversation with Tony Doucette, host of Windsor Morning. Ms. Coyne and her colleagues found that 12 per cent of people who use the hashtag "#NoFilter" on Instagram, claiming they hadn't applied a filter to their photo, actually had applied a filter to their photo.
Ms. Coyne is right, of course. Sometimes, when you're messing with that little picture, you have to try to see the big picture.

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March 27, 2017 episode transcript

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