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The AIH Transcript for April 18, 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.

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JD: Tonight:

CO: Faster than a speeding ballot. After British Prime Minister Theresa May calls a surprise snap election. A Labor Party member predicts her haste will lay waste to the opposition.

JD: A striking resemblance. In fact, the newspaper set up by journalists on straight from the Chronicle Herald in Halifax doesn't just look like a real newspaper. It is now nominated for twice as many awards as the Chronicle Herald itself.

CO: Home stretched. Toronto's Mayor joins provincial and federal ministers in promising to cool the city's overheated housing market. But a Vancouver prof says a whole generation of young people are already feeling the burn.

JD: From bad to wars. We know the United States is divided right now. But the debut novel by Canadian journalist Omar el-Akkad envisions a future in which the north and the south are just split. They're fighting another civil war.

CO: Don't ask don't tell. To report this story on the brutal abuse of gay men in Chechnya. Russian journalist Elena Milashina did both. And now she is under threat and preparing to leave her home country.

JD: And… what if they can't decant. At a family vineyard in British Columbia, the owners name their dog after grape and then named a wine after their dog. But that name is Ziggy and a Canadian grocery giant does not like the pairing. As It Happens, the Tuesday edition radio that's concerned they may be corking disaster.

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Part 1: UK snap election, Toronto housing prices, Ziggy winery, and more

UK snap election

Guest: Stewart Woods

JD: This morning, British Prime Minister to resume called for a general election. And that did not just shock parliamentarians. Brenda from Bristol was also surprised… unpleasantly.

SOUNDCLIP

BRENDA: you’re joking. Not another one! Oh for God’s sake! I can't stand this. There is too much politics going on at the moment. Why does she need to do it?

JD: Well Brenda, Prime Minister May said today, that her decision to call for an election came recently and reluctantly. And that it would be the only way to guarantee certainty and stability in the face of Brexit. Today, Brexit secretary David Davis spoke on the “World at One” program on BBC Radio 4 and the host Martha Kearney put a provocative first question to Secretary Davis.

SOUNDCLIP

MARTHA KEARNEY: The Prime Minister has broken her word. Isn't trust rather like virginity, once lost you can't get it back?

DAVID DAVIS: I think the reasoning for it is an extremely important thing to bear in mind and that is she's done this and more she believed to be the national interest. We had the referendum last year. The vast majority want us to get on with it whether they voted to remain or leave. So whilst the country is coming together, Westminster is still divided.

MK: The country voted for leave. The shenanigans of what happens in Westminster isn't going to trouble them at all is it?

DD: Well, it gives it gives them comfort when people undermine the power of the position we're trying to put to the European Union.

MK: But as you admitted, you have an overall majority you can win those votes.

DD: Of course, of course, it still doesn't mean we don't get undermined by that.

JD: That was Brexit secretary David Davis, speaking to BBC Radio 4 host Martha Kearney today. Lord Stewart Wood sits in the UK House of Lords in the Labor party, and was an adviser to former Labor leader Ed Miliband. We reached Lord Stewart in London.

CO: Lord Wood, what do you think is this election in the national interest as David Davis says?

STEWART WOOD: I think it's quite hard to justify it being in the national interest. I think it's overwhelmingly in the political interests of Theresa May and in a way it's no surprise. I mean she's in a position of being 20 points ahead in the opinion polls. And yet, when it comes to Parliament she has barely a majority inherited from her predecessor David Cameron. I think this is a good time from her point of view to call an election because I think she smells the possibility of getting a very significant majority for her party, which means she's in a good position not just to face down people on the right in the party who wanted to be very tough on Brexit, but also to face down the European Union and be tougher in the negotiations when they actually begin.

CO: So it seems to me it is more than just political then. I mean she needs a stronger mandate doesn't she? If she is going to deal with “Hard Brexit” as they call it, and steer you out of the European Union. Doesn't she need to have a stronger mandate?

SW: Well, I think the case that would have been stronger three months ago because three months ago she had to try and get Parliament to support the triggering of the negotiations. What's called the article 50 rule, but she got that through. Once that's gone through I think it's quite difficult for her to say that there is an overwhelming national interest in stirring everything up in the air. I mean seven times she said publicly on television and radio that she was not going to have an early election because she thought it would induce unnecessary uncertainty and instability. It's very difficult then to turn around and say the national interest is suggesting you do the opposite of what you've been saying the last six months.

CO: No she has said in her statement the country is coming together. But Westminster is not. She says Labor have threatened to vote against the final agreement. The Lib-Dems have said they want to grind the business of government to a standstill unelected members of the House of Lords. She's including you obviously in that.

SW: That’s me yes.

CO: Have vowed to fight us at every step of the way. Is there is there truth to that?

SW: Well, there is certainly truth that there is division in Westminster. But I think what a lot of people in Westminster want is the they want the right to review the deal once it emerges and scrutinize it and vote on it then. I don’t think that's an unreasonable demand. So she's right that there is division in Westminster, but she is wrong to say that the country itself does not have serious questions.

CO: And doesn't she though have serious opposition in Westminster. I mean the Liberal Democrats, the Lib-Dems, have made it clear that they see this election as an opportunity to re-campaign on Brexit? The House of Lords of, which you remember, blocked Article 50 twice before it went through. I mean so she's looking at all that and she thinks of I have to get hard Brexit it through I'm going to have to get more troops on my side.

SW: I think that's exactly what she's thinking although I mean the Liberal Democrats can oppose what they like. They only have seven seats at the moment at of 650. Even if they quadruple their representation they're still not going to be a serious problem for her. But I think the hard choices for British companies, British businesses, British citizens who want to travel and all sorts of other things will remain. So a lot of the difficulty won't be eliminated by coming back with an election victory.

CO: Doesn’t she also see that the Labor Party, your party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn are really struggling. He's welcome the election call, but it's no secret that his personal ratings are in the toilet and there are problems within the party itself. So isn't this a good time to sort of throw some more disarray in the Labor?

SW: I mean I'd love to say that wasn't true but I think that is true. And Labor is in a pretty bad state at the moment. There's a lot of pro-European people in the Labor Party who are very upset that Jeremy Corbyn has not been as pro-European as they like. Labor's position on Brexit is I think to be charitable is unclear as a national position. So and there's no doubt about it that if Labor wasn't in the very weak position it's in at the moment under Jeremy Corbin that she wouldn't have called this election. So I think that's definitely part of the story here.

CO: OK there's one other player and we heard from her at the very beginning of this. Brenda from Bristol and the public in the UK, who was as she says another one! This is too much! Can't they stop all this politics-ing? You're going into the summer you know what it's like in June it's very nice and the people want to stop thinking about all these things. Is there even going to be much appetite for an election this spring?

SW: It's an incredibly important consideration. I suspect it weighed a lot on Theresa May’s mind. This will be the fourth summer in a row when we've had a major political vote with the Scottish referendum in 2014, a general election 2015, the Brexit referendum last summer and now a general election again. So I suspect in your country it's the same. People don't like needless political engagement. I mean look the odds are definitely in favor of Theresa May. But there is a slight danger that this looks too opportunistic and there isn't a big question of the national interest which is justifying it. And I think she's going to have to go out of her way in the next couple of weeks to make that case a little bit more strongly than she did today because I think that is going to be the justification that people like Brenda are going to need to have.

CO: And just briefly before you go what about Teresa May’s own seat? I mean there have been suggestions in the media that if the Lib-Dems campaign hard and you have all those people who vote and remain in the Brexit vote that she actually might lose her seat.

SW: I don't think her seat will be in danger. I think we've seen in campaigns before when the leader looks like they may even have a sliver of danger in their own seat the party throws a lot of money at it because the embarrassment will be too huge. But I do think that there are lots of seats the Conservatives won against the Liberal Democrats, which is the party that is most unambiguously against Brexit. And the Liberal Democrats I think will probably have a good election because they are targeting people unhappy with Brexit and I think they'll take back quite a few seats from the Conservatives in particularly the southwest part of our country. And you already heard today Conservative MPs who think they'll lose their seats being a little bit upset that Theresa May has called what they think is a needless early election. So I think there will be some local difficulties for her, but I don't think there'll be a difficulty in her own seat.

CO: Well despite Brenda from Bristol, this should be interesting to watch for many of us and Lord Wood it is good to talk to you. Thank you.

SW: Thank you very much.

JD: Lord Stuart Wood is a Labor peer in the UK House of Lords. Lord Wood was in London.

[Music: Indie]

Toronto housing prices

Guest: Paul Kershaw

JD: Toronto's very, very hot housing market has clearly got politicians spooked. Prices have spiked by more than 30 per cent since just last year. And today, the city's mayor joined the federal and provincial finance ministers to promise action. Paul Kershaw, however, says that words alone will not keep an entire generation from being priced out of Canada’s largest city. The UBC professors the founder of Generation Squeeze, a lobby group for millenials. We reached Paul Kershaw in Vancouver.

CO: Professor Kershaw, did you hear anything out of the meeting in Toronto that suggested the going to cool off the city's housing markets?

PAUL KERSHAW: I think the best that we heard today was a wait for further announcements in the Ontario budget that will come in April 27th. And I think the leaders may have missed an opportunity today to just signal the degree of urgency we need to bring to the housing market across Canada, but especially in the GTA and Metro Vancouver where these high home price leaving earnings behind is a major generational problem for younger people. It's not only crushing dreams of home ownership, but it's asking us to work more and more years even as we're trying to pay for rent. And so this is a big challenge going forward. And I didn't hear a lot of urgency quite yet from those three people today.

CO: Well they're urgently realising that they have a crisis but not within the solutions. The mayor of Toronto, John Tory, was saying the CBC this morning I don't think there are any magic answers. If there were some we would have discovered them by now, so at least we're going to talk. So at least we're going to talk. How satisfying is that for you?

PK: Well, I'll grant Mayor Tory that there's no one silver bullet. There's not one policy fix to this, but we can bring a comprehensive suite of policies into play. And I like to think about it is that a four prong pitchfork that we need to put to work in Ontario and British Columbia and other parts of Canada. On the one hand something there Tory's office can do is he needs to encourage density in land already zoned for residences. So much of Toronto is zoned for a single home on one lot when the price of that lot has gone up so much it would encourage us to build far more units on it and we need to change our neighborhood supply to work for older and younger people alike and price young people back in. We also do need to level the playing field between renters and owners and at the very least, close the 1991 loophole that permits limitless increases to the rents that some people may pay in homes that were built after 1991. And I know the mayor says but I wanted to encourage people to still build rental homes and he's bang on. We need to do that. But you don't need to have limitless increases on rents to incentivize that there are other tax policy ways we can do it, which then brings us to tax policy. We need to moderate the demand for housing and recognise that so many of our policies are outdated and creating inefficiencies in the housing market by protecting housing assets far more than we protect other kinds of wealth assets and as a result it's incentivizing people to treat our real estate market as a vehicle for investments as opposed to a vehicle to provide an efficient supply of suitable homes that are in reach for what people can earn. But I think ultimately we also need to recognise that a younger demographic is going to be invited to pay more for homes than their parents and grandparents did in part to protect the equity of an ageing population. Our parents and grandparents we love in that retirement. That means we need to then go beyond housing policy and say hey, we can't let transit or childcare keep being second and third mortgage-sized payments if we bring those down we'll better position younger people to deal with the new reality of high home price.

CO: So that's your list of things and so are you hearing anywhere in Vancouver and Toronto. Because those are the two big cities for these kinds of prices where you see anyone actually moving to or doing any of those things?

PK: Oh absolutely, the mayor of Vancouver has specifically opened the conversation to change zoning and single detached neighborhoods. He is taxing housing wealth differently with the empty homes tax. There are efforts being made to level the playing field between renters and owners and to incentivize the building of purpose built rental. And you do have in our BC election two or three parties saying hey, we can make sure a child care no longer costs mortgage-sized payment. So there is movement here and I think some of that movement can be learned from in the GTA and some of that can be made specifically for Ontario it's fair enough. But we need all levels of government municipal, provincial and federal to say my goodness these home prices leaving earnings behind is fundamentally problematic for generations of younger people that we need to stop that now.

CO: And that's for people who are still trying to get into the housing market. But here's an issue that so many people over these past years have spent an awful lot of money and a lot of people have spent a lot of money to buy houses. What would the banks do if these prices of these houses started to come down and these people already have these huge purchase prices?

PK: The people who are at risk in the housing market today are those who bought relatively recently. And so then if there was some massive correction and suddenly their mortgage was larger than the value of the home that you know that's the kind of group that in particular a younger group that will need to think about how do we protect? At the very least we need to start with the premise let's no longer celebrate as home prices rise any further. We now need to recognize that high home prices may be driving our economy's economic growth. And premiers and other political leaders like to celebrate that, but this path for economic growth is so problematic because it's premised on the idea of driving home prices up but not jobs that keep pace with them. And so that's a vision of growth that we can no longer say is adequate and we need to recognize that really it's making Ontario's economy the second worst in the country and BC’s the worst in the country for younger generations.

CO: And not only does it matter for those who want to buy houses, but the cities themselves will lose people?

PK: We risk turning some of our most vibrant cities into generational ghost towns. We're squeezing people out financially we're pushing them further away from where they work or study. Some are just saying I'm not willing to make a go of it and even for those we're willing to remain then the way in which they can raise a family in these cities doesn't approximate at all what we thought would be the norm a couple of decades ago. So we have got to recognize that it's not going to be adequate to expect the younger demographic to turn their cupboards and their closets into nurseries. Think about pulley systems on their ceilings to lift the crib above the dining room table when they want to eat. These are the adaptations that young people are making, but we've got to meet them part way to create an efficient supply of suitable homes that are in reach for what they can earn.

CO: All right, we'll leave it there. We'll be watching. Professor Kershaw, thank you.

PK: Thank you. Have a great evening.

CO: You too. Bye.

JD: Paul Kershaw is a professor at UBC. He is the founder of Generation Squeeze. We reached him in Vancouver.

[Music: Bluegrass]

Ziggy winery

Guest: Brenda Hetman-Craig

JD: A family-run Vineyard on Vancouver Island is staring down one of Canada's biggest retailers in a trademark dispute. In 2015, the 40 Knots Winery started bottling a white wine they call “Ziggy”. If you shop at Loblaws, you may be familiar with that name. “Ziggy's” is the name of Loblaws in-house deli products. The grocery chain does not sell “Ziggy's”-branded wine and 40 Knots does not sell “Ziggy”-branded deli products. Nonetheless, Loblaw Canada is challenging the trademark on the wine. Brenda Hetman-Craig is the owner of 40 Knots Winery. We reached her in Comox Valley, British Columbia.

CO: Brenda, why did you decide to name this wine Ziggy?

BRENDA HETMAN-CRAIG: We grow a German hybrid grape called zagreba and it is quite favored in the valley and our vineyard quite favors it. So when we adopted our whippet puppy we had her registered as zagreba because she loves our vineyard just as well. And since I, a lot of other people that don't speak German, can't pronounce it properly. We thought trademarking it as Ziggy and naming it Ziggy would be more comfortable for people.

CO: And how popular has Ziggy become?

BHC: Ziggy's quite favored and sought after. She has received a lot of recognition she was recognized by the lieutenant governor. She scored 91. And she sells out really quickly. We have people calling all the time looking for when it's sold out.

CO: What did you think when Loblaw came to you and said that they have something called Ziggy's brand and they don't want you to be selling Ziggy wine?

BHC: We were quite shocked. The reasoning behind trademarking Ziggy was to protect ourselves. As a small company, it would be financially devastating to us to get a cease and desist order we may be given to remove our brand. So we worked very hard at branding it and there are other Ziggy names out there for other products. There is Ziggy Stardust there's Ziggy Loblaws deli food and fast food. There was no Trademark for wines, so we trademarked under number 33 for wines and spirits.

CO: And Ziggy Stardust that’s a David Bowie song. Is that also a product and a trademark?

BHC: I believe it does. I haven't checked into it. We had no worries of ever being a conflict because although my husband is a musician, I can barely clap and beat.

CO: So you didn't think that you’d be challenged there. Did you know that that there was a Ziggy brand that Loblaws had and that the possibility was that you might be challenged for it?

BHC: We didn't research everybody that was using Ziggy such as denim. We researched to make sure nobody was using Ziggy as a wine and for trademarks you trademark your product that you're manufacturing and selling.

CO: So why can't you just change the name?

BHC: We've spent a considerable amount of effort financially and otherwise to brand this name and it's quite adorned by our labels and by our publications and it works for our winery.

CO: So it is established with publicity, with marketing, with advertising as Ziggy wine, right?

BHC: Absolutely.

CO: What would happen to you if you were served with a cease and desist order and you couldn't use that name anymore?

BHC: It would have a huge financial impact on us. And then we'd have to go out and rebrand it. We wouldn't be able to use any of the awards we've received and any of the advertising. We would have to work on another three years of educating others about this brand.

CO: And have you learned why they're challenging you? Have you learned their arguments?

BHC: We have received evidence that showed how and how much they have received in revenues from Ziggy food and a couple affidavits from their staff saying that Ziggy is a well-recognized brand for the deli food and fast food.

CO: And what threat do they feel that your wine would be to that brand?

BHC: It's quite a big news item now with grocery stores buying wine licenses and starting to sell wine, particularly in British Columbia. I'm assuming that they wouldn't want to see a Ziggy wine in their store that wasn't theirs.

CO: Can you understand that argument?

BHC: I can understand it. And I also understand I’m confident I'm correct that they haven't been manufacturing wine or selling wine with the Ziggy name.

CO: But perhaps they want to entertain that possibility somewhere down the road since they are going to be in the business.

BHC: I believe they do. And that's why we set off to work with them when we learned of their opposition.

CO: So what are you going to do?

BHC: Our lawyer feels very confident that we have a very good case and that our evidence is very strong. We're about to bottle Ziggy and get it out to the general public. And I don't know what the future of Ziggy will be, but we're going to continue with our branding and with our sale of Ziggy.

CO: So you've had that 2014 and 2015 vintages and you plan to bottle 2016?

BHC: As soon as our labels come in that should be possibly even today.

CO: All right, well we'll see what happens. Brenda, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

BHC: Thank you so very much Carol.

CO: Bye bye.

BHC: Bye bye.

JD: Brenda Hetman-Craig is the owner of 40 Knots Winery on Vancouver Island. Her vineyard is involved in a trademark dispute with Loblaw over her company's wine Ziggy. We reached Ms. Hetman-Craig in Comox Valley and you can find more on that story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Folk]

Random choices at 25

JD: That is soooo random! From millennials on down that is a popular way of saying something makes no sense or it's weird. Or you know it is actually random. Although, after checking with some of our younger producers, I have discovered that that usage is already a bit dated. Nowadays there is apparently less emphasis on the “so”. But there are things that are apparently still random — lots of things. Now, according to the Urban Dictionary, random is defined as quote, “The latest buzzword used amongst mindless teenagers as a way of showing just how utterly irreverent their predictable sense of humor is.” Unquote. That sounds a bit more judgmental than I don't know say the OED’s definition. Now at this point this script itself might seem a bit random, but I do assure you it has a point. According to science, there is some certainty to randomness, specifically about the time in our lives when we are most likely to be best at being random. Researchers at the Algorithmic Nature Group in Paris have discovered that people's ability to make random choices or mimic random process peaks at age 25. For their new study the scientists rigorously tested the ability of people between the ages of four and 91 to make a list of things that quote would look random to someone else. Things such as listing the imagined results of 12 coin flip or the rolls of a die. And then they analyzed the imagined results for their true randomness. Et voila! Twenty-five- year-olds are best at not making any logical sense at all. Now you can question the implications of this study or indeed the usefulness of this random study.

Back To Top »

Part 2: Strike paper awards, Elena Melashina, and more

Strike paper awards

Guest: Frances Willick

JD: When journalists at the Chronicle Herald down in Halifax went on strike in January of 2016, a strike that continues to this day in fact, they did not stop reporting the news. They set up a new online news site called Local Xpress. Well last month, the nominees for the 2016 Atlantic Journalism Awards were announced. And Local Xpress received six nominations to the Chronicle Harold’s 3. And now a crowd funding campaign to send striking journalists to the awards ceremony in Newfoundland has surpassed its goal. Frances Willick is one of the journalists nominated. She was on strike for more than a year. She recently took a job with the CBC. We reached Frances Willick in Halifax.

CO: Frances, congratulations.

FRANCES WILLICK: Thank you very much.

CO: What story did you get nominated for?

FW: Yeah, so it was a story that I worked on with another reporter named Michael Gorman and it is about the reopening of the Donkin Mine in Cape Breton. So basically the story came to us, we got a tip that one of the people who was involved in the opening of the mine was the president of a mine in West Virginia that exploded in 2010 and that accident killed 29 people.

CO: And so how did this story resolve itself?

FW: Well, we can't claim with certainty that it was our report that caused a change in leadership. But basically after we started asking questions of the company and questions of the government here in Nova Scotia he did resign.

CO: You were investigating and writing this story not for the paper that you were working for that was on strike, but for this Local Xpress. What exactly was this publication?

FW: Yes, so the reporters, editors, photographers and the journalists of the Chronicle Herald went on strike on January 23^rd, 2016. And about a week after that we started up a website called Local Xpress. So basically we kept on trucking with what we always have done. So reporting, editing, photographing and doing all of that, so it's basically a way for the reporters, editors and the journalists, who are on strike to continue doing what they do.

CO: How are you doing this without having an office of any kind? Where were you doing this journalism?

FW: Well, I mean that was part of that kind of special circumstances that we encountered. So obviously we don't have an office. So you know working from home a lot by phone or just going out on our own dime in our cars and interviewing people. Some of us did interviews on the sidewalk, on the picket line and in front of the building that we used to work inside.

CO: You're walking the picket line and you're working the phones and doing the interviews for the stories.

FW: Exactly, trying to track people down.

CO: So is it some sweet justice that the Local Xpress, this publication, has been nominated for more awards than the paper that you were striking?

FW: It feels great. Yeah, it feels it feels like vindication. You know all along the union has said that the strike is about protecting quality journalism. And so to see our work nominated and recognized just reminds us during a pretty dark time that what we are doing is important and that journalism is valued even though the circumstances that we find ourselves in may not make us think that.

CO: There's one category that has nothing but Local Xpress people nominated in it.

FW: I think one of the photojournalism categories. Yeah we have great photographers at the Herald and unfortunately the Herald has plans to lay off a lot of their photographers.

CO: Was there an added irony that the story you are investigating, that you've been nominated for, there was a union issue at the heart of it, right? Isn’t the mining company in question known to be anti-union?

FW: Yeah, that is you know something that has been raised in the past. That the parent company you know they work hard to keep unions out of their minds. And the one that is now operating in Donkin I think the last I heard it is not unionized yet.

CO: Do you think that they were aware that you were a striking journalist working on the picket line making phone calls when you were calling them?

FW: It was actually funny, one of the people I called when I was reporting this story was the United Mine Workers of America. So I was hoping to speak with the union about you know the safety violations of the parent company — this is down in West Virginia. And he initially didn't call me back because all he heard was the Chronicle Herald and he sent me an e-mail saying I'm not going to talk to you. Call me back when the Chronicle Herald starts treating its workers better. And I had to clarify I was like no, no, no I am one of the striking reporters!

CO: And you got that message through?

FW: I did and he did the interview.

CO: OK, so you had one other labor issue that you were dealing with in this story. Do you want to tell us about that one?

FW: Yeah, so when the strike started in January, I was heavily pregnant. So I was walking the picket line quite heavily pregnant for a couple of months and working on this story at the same time. So doing picket duty and doing reporting. And, in fact, I was working on this story up until the day that I went into labor and when I came home from the hospital with a two day old baby my husband he was very understanding I said I'm really, really sorry. I just have to go and you know like look at this story one more time or deal with these e-mails or you know give it one last edit. So he was very wonderful and understanding.

CO: But you went into labor in the middle of a labor dispute and you're covering this story dealing with labor.

FW: That's right.

CO: That’s very busy. And so now you now I understand you're moving to the CBC?

FW: I am here at the CBC now. I have been on strike and actually that's one thing I wanted to mention. So I have been on strike with the union up until one week ago. I just came to the CBC to start working here one week ago. And Michael Gorman, the other reporter who worked on the story with me, he has been at the CBC here in Halifax for almost a year. So we're both here at the CBC now. I'm not speaking on behalf of the CBC, I'm just speaking on my behalf. But for the fundraising aspect of this story, Mike is not accepting any donations for his part of the trip and because I just started a new job here because I've been on strike up until a week ago. I'm accepting a small part, but I'm paying probably two thirds or three quarters of my way.

CO: And you're talking about this crowd funding campaign that's been going on in order to raise the money to send the nominees to the awards?

FW: That's right.

CO: You are going to be there?

FW: Yes, I will be there.

CO: Best of luck to you Frances. Thank you.

FW: Thank you so much.

CO: Bye.

FW: OK bye bye.

JD: Frances Willick is a former reporter with the Halifax Chronicle Herald. After going on strike, she was a reporter for Local Xpress. Her work there was nominated for an Atlantic journalism Award. She now works for CBC News. We reached her in Halifax.

[Music: Country]

Shrimp protest

JD: Tensions are rising in Port au Choix, Newfoundland. Today, dozens of fishermen set fire to their gear outside the Department of Fisheries and Oceans office there. They burned nets and traps. Equipment they say that they no longer need because of recent cuts to shrimp and crab quotas. Earlier this month, shrimp harvesters smashed a window and stormed into DFO headquarters in St. John's in protest against cut quotas. And they also argue that zoning rules don't give local people access to enough fish to make a living. Stella Mailman helped organize the protest. And here she is speaking to the CBC's Marilyn Boone.

SOUNDCLIP

STELLA MAILMAN: They have nothing to fish for. So it was only something sitting by their shed at home in their place and just rotting out and just being an eyesore if they can't use it. So they might as well burn it. So they brought it here to the DFO building and burnt it. We were hoping that we would talk to somebody, but we absolutely had no one. No one came forward to speak with us.

MARILYN BOONE: Was this fishing gear that was in use or was it stuff that is being discarded and has no value?

SM: Oh no! Some of it was good gear that it was in use. But they can't use it, so they might as well burn it. We know we need it if there was something to use it for. But if there's nothing to use it for then why keep it around? Like I said, we have nobody right now. We have nobody. We feel that we are completely abandoned right from our municipal government to our provincial government to our federal government and our so-called “union” that we pay so much money for. Nobody stands up for us — nobody. So this is why the fishermen are here today doing this protesting. We shouldn't be here. This is a protest for the fish harvesters looking for something to fish for. Right now we’ve got nothing because, as you know, we had a big cut in the shrimp fishery. The crab is go now. Everything is cut, cut, cut, but in our opinion evweryone seems to be getting increases and we are so fed up. I can't express myself how the feeling of the people around here today. Proud fishermen that could hold their head high they're devastated. They’ve got nothing to do and we're at the point of starvation. We're here for someone to say yes, we know we're hurting or we wouldn't be here.

JD: That was fisheries worker Stella Mailman from Port au Choix, Newfoundland, speaking with CBC reporter Marilyn Boone.

[Music: Country]

Elena Milashina

Guest: Elena Milashina

JD: All month, LGBT activists in Russia have been calling on the Kremlin to investigate some disturbing reports out of Chechnya. We brought you details of that story yesterday that more than 100 gay men in Chechnya were targeted by Chechen authorities. They were imprisoned and tortured. This week, there has been some movement: the Russian government has called on regional prosecutors in Chechnya to investigate the reports. The journalist who broke the initial story is Elena Milashina with the investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Since the story broke, her newspaper has faced a wave of threats serious enough that Ms. Milashina plans to flee Russia. We reached Elena Milashina in Moscow.

CO: Elena, In what ways has your newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, been threatened since you published these articles?

ELENA MILASHINA: Well, I wasn't being threatened personally, but all this noise in the offical media that was made by Chechen authorities about me. It's a typical situation because I write because I write about Chechnya for a long time — 12 years. And I got the reaction on almost all my stories and I write a lot about human rights violations in Chechnya. And they always say that I’m any enemy of the Chechen people and blah, blah, blah.

CO: We’ve heard that before but we've not ever heard you before say that you plan to leave Russia. So it's not a typical situation is it?

EM: It became not a typical situation on the 3rd of April when they put together 15,000 religious people in the main mosque of Chechnya and they announced jihad actually on all staff of Novaya Gazeta. And that was a pretty scary situation. It wasn't typical at all. It was first time during all those years I work in Chechnya.

CO: And this is because of the article you wrote this is an extraordinary account of how LGBT people in Chechnya are being treated. How they're being arrested, they're being detained and tortured and being killed in cases not just a few. You've reported on about 100 people you have documented. Tell us a bit about the kinds of reaction you got of Chechnya when you published this story?

EM: Well, when we published this on first of April, but before that we were starting to get information about the campaign against LGBT people in Chechnya. And we managed to prove some facts of murdering and I have a lot of sources that confirm that situation that the people was detaining illegally, torturing and even killed only just because their LGBT people. And we announced an emergency line for those who got to these secret prisons and that managed to escape out of them and the first people started to call in this emergency line. It was the first reaction from Chechen people on very important for us. But the reaction from Chechen authorities was first that they were denying the fact. Not that they detained people. They denied the fact that LGBT exist among Chechen nation.

CO: And this is really the extraordinary thing about the reaction that you reported is that it's seems to be not so much that you have reported that dozens of people have been taken to secret prisons where they have been abused in this way. But that the reaction seems to be anger that you would suggest that there are LGBT people who live in Chechnya. Is that your sense?

EM: Yes, but personally think that this is the way they are trying to put attention away from the main fact that the people detained and tortured and killed just for being gay. They are trying to put away the attention from crimes against humanity actually. But, of course, the Chechen Society and even the Russian society is homophobic and they are using that people have this homophobia. They are using it as a tool against that article that that the crimes against humanity are a happening in Chechnya.

CO: The Human Rights Council in Chechnya said that they could find no confirmation for the Novaya Gazeta story that you published about this. This would indicate that the authorities in Chechnya have no intentions of doing anything about this abuse. But you are seeing some developments in the Russian government as far as opening up the possibility of an investigation. What are you hearing about that investigation?

EM: Today I was informed that finally 18 days after the first article was published then the investigation committee of Russia started an investigation on my articles and they decided to do this and this is the first time for the last three years when they actually did it.

CO: You think they will investigate this abuse?

EM: I think it's going to be a long and very hard way to put pressure on the investigative committee and the Russian government. And still it happened only because of the reaction of the international world. And what we did actually when all those victims ask for help and called the emergency line the first led for a journalist to talk to them. Not that a lot of Russian journalists wanted to do this. Some of them only because maybe they didn't cover the story at all even now. Now the three weeks that this story going and the story is still on top of the world news.

CO: What about yourself though? You mentioned that there is this jihad against the Novaya Gazeta journalists. Your newspaper as you know very well, you have lost colleagues and friends who have been assassinated for their journalism and there have been threats of all kinds in the past. How threatened are you? how vulnerable are you at this point since you were the one who wrote it?

EM: You know when I started to cover Chechnya I'm pretty ready to that kind of situation and I'm taking measures. But my colleagues and people who work at Novaya Gazeta are pretty much scared and I'm scared for them also.

CO: But you are planning your thinking you have to leave your country at this point?

EM: Yeah, I'm planning to leave the country. Because this is the first time when I feel that I should take much stronger measures of safety. Because I'm planning some other articles or some other stories on Chechnya and they're pretty much like this one. And to continue this work I should probably leave the country and I will do this.

CO: I'm sorry to hear that it's come to that Elena. We will be following your journalism and we will speak again. Thank you for speaking with us tonight.

EM: Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye bye.

CO: Bye Bye

JD: Elena Milashina is a journalist with the investigative Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. We reached her in Moscow.

[Music: Piano]

Shakespeare

JD: To teach, or not to teach, that is the question. It actually is the question that is whether Shakespeare should be removed from the required reading list for high school students in Alberta because apparently there are people who would not fardels bear. People who don't even want to look up the word fardels. A report released by Alberta education said there is a quote, “strong desire” to have Shakespeare's work struck from the curriculum. But Edmonton Journal columnist Paula Simons apparently hopes that this report is just a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Yesterday, she spoke to the host of the Calgary Eyeopener”, David Gray. And David began by asking her reaction to the findings.

SOUNDCLIP

PAULA SIMONS: I was quite disturbed by you know by the pricking of my thumbs of what I read. Because the report said there was a strong desire to remove Shakespeare from the list of required reading. Now that wouldn't mean that you would be banned from teaching Shakespeare. It would mean that currently our curriculum says that in grade 11 and grade 12 if you're sort of senior matriculation bound you're required to read one play by Shakespeare. Know I think it's usually Macbeth and King Leer or Hamlet and something like that. And so the suggestion was that instead of making grade 11 and 12 students read a Shakespeare play they should be able to you know have more flexibility.

DAVID GRAY: And to use the phrase it's a “strong desire” to remove Shakespeare — a strong desire.

PS: It is a consummation devoutly to be wished apparently and it turned out very late Thursday afternoon, right before the long weekend. Alberta education got back to me and quote, “A strong desire signified that 60 people in the whole province of the 25,650 who filled in this part of the survey. 60 People volunteered something unprompted about Shakespeare.”

DG: Now Paula, no legacy is so rich as honesty. Why does this surprise you in any way that Albertans would rather not be reading Shakespeare in high school? That maybe Shakespeare's had his time and people are done with the confusing prose and are ready to move on to something more contemporary?

PS: Oh my sweetie. First of all, Shakespeare is not in prose. Fabulous iambic pentameter verse.

DG: Yes.

PS: Second of all, there is no writer who is more for the ages. Banish Shakespeare and banish all the world. And I think it's a great shame. What it signifies to me as some people have very bad memories of studying Shakespeare in high school.

DG Yes they do.

PS: Which suggests they had bad English teachers.

DG: It's painful if you're a high school student and you're interested in anything other than Shakespeare. You get dragged through the course.

PS: Is anybody in high school interested in sex, violence….

DG: Yes, it's all there.

PS: Ghost, zombies. All of that is in Shakespeare. You know people say well you know you could replace him with something else. But the polls suggested that what people want him replaced with are business writing classes. Lord what fools these mortals be.

JD: Edmonton Journal columnist Paula Simons speaking to the host of CBC Radio’s “Calgary Eyeopener”, David Gray.

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April 18, 2017 full episode transcript

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