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The Current Transcript for February 16, 2018

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Older wells sort of gone, are no longer producing they are a mess. I mean regulations were not strict at those times and there is oil on the ground. It's not pretty, right

LAURA LYNCH: Kelly Nelson can count about 15 wells on her family's farm near Vulcan, Alberta. Thousands of wells that no longer pump oil from the ground are becoming a bigger and bigger problem in the province. And now it's a problem that's gone all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. That's because smaller oil companies are going bankrupt and instead of using whatever funds remain to clean up well sites, any leftover credit is going to the banks. Who's responsible for the mess left behind? That's up first this morning and then: k

SOUNDCLIP

How this affects our sport, we don't now. But all we can do is continue on and continue to hopefully put our trust in the IOC that they will make the right decision and put us back in for 2016.

LL: American Jennie Finch is an Olympic champion in softball. So naturally she wasn't happy when the sport was dropped from the games after 2008. It will be back in 2020 but it is just one example of the behind the scenes fight to get into the Olympic Club and stay there and get theirs. There is talk of including so-called e-sports, electronic gaming, in the games of the future. As week one of the Olympics in PyeongChang winds down we look at what's in and what's out. After that, the urgent search for new ways to stave off life threatening infections.

SOUNDCLIP

As in any war, in order to win we need to develop new more powerful weapons to fight and defeat them. And the time to invest in new antibiotics is now before we're completely out of weapons.

Drug researchers and doctors know it is becoming increasingly difficult to conquer serious infections meaning more patients die in hospital. But it seems there's not enough incentive to push big pharma to produce new antibiotics that are up to the challenge meaning an uncertain and potentially deadly gap in hospital care. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Who should pay to clean up abandoned oil wells? Farmers say they're left with someone else's mess

Guests: Kyle Bakx, Daryl Bennett, Sarah Hawco

SOUNDCLIP

Oil and gas companies, we can't say no to them. They are allowed to come on our land no matter what. So we're, as a farmer, were left holding the bag with whatever is left over at the end and trying to clean up the mess.

LL: That is Alberta farmer Kelly Nelson describing what it's like to have abandoned oil wells on her land. Pumping oil wells are a familiar sight across the prairies but as the price of oil has dropped some of those wells have been shut down or abandoned, as companies have gone bankrupt. In fact hundreds of wells have been left unattended, orphaned wells, as they call them in the industry. Yesterday the Supreme Court of Canada heard from a number of key players on just who should be responsible for cleaning up those wells when the remaining assets are sold. Is the money to be used to clean up the environmental mess or is it to first pay back banks and other creditors? It is a case that brings together farmers, government, environmentalists and oil companies and pits them against banks and creditors. It could have far reaching implications. Kyle Bakx a reporter with the CBC in Calgary. He has been covering this story for years and he was in the Supreme Court yesterday to listen to the arguments. Kyle Bakx is in Calgary today. Hello.

KYLE BAKX: Good morning.

LL: To understand the Supreme Court case you have to go back to the bankruptcy of a company called Redwater Energy. Tell me what happened.

KYLE BAKX: The Alberta company had about 80 oil and gas wells and in 2015 it went bankrupt. So most of those wells were inactive and had little value. Only about 20 of the wells could be sold. The main lender ETB financial and the receiver wanted to sell those good wells to pay off the company's debt. It seems like straight forward bankruptcy practice like when any company goes belly up you liquidate what you can and pay the debts that you care. But with oil companies is a bit different. During the insolvency process the regulators stepped in. The Alberta energy regulator said any money raised would have to be used to clean up all those inactive wells the company owned. The receiver refused and you had the beginning of a fight over this failed oil company.

LL: A fight that went to court in Alberta. What happened in Alberta in the courts?

KYLE BAKX: Well the first court decision went in favor of the receiver that was appealed, but again the receiver won. The courts agreed that when assets are sold the money should first go to the bank, some other creditors, before being used for the environmental cleanup of abandoned wells.

LL: And now it's at the Supreme Court of Canada. You were there yesterday. How did the case go? What were the judges interested in?

KYLE BAKX: They were really interested in the different positions. And this battle between bankruptcy law and also just the rights of provincial governments on you know bankruptcy. That's a federal law and so it's pretty important. But you have on the other hand these provincial governments that want to make sure that the have control over natural resource development and they want to be able to to regulate the industry.

LL: You talked about this one company Redwater but can you describe the scope of the wells that are sitting there in Alberta?

KYLE BAKX: Yes it's a big problem. You have no more than a 100,000 wells that are inactive in Alberta right now and in the last 5 years this problem with abandoned wells just keeps getting worse and worse. Because when a resource company falls through the cracks many of the wells are turned over to the Orphan Well association to be reclaimed. It's a unique group since it's funded by oil companies but the Orphan Well association has its hands full with thousands of abandoned wells that need to be cleaned up. So it already has several years of work on its hands. The outcome of this case could make the situation much worse. And it's important to understand some of these wells are old they haven't produced oil or gas in decades and having them sit around can be dangerous. Those wells need to be regularly observed, maintained and eventually cleaned up or they can be toxic.

LL: You have any idea how much it actually cost to clean up an abandoned well.

KYLE BAKX: Not specifically because in some cases it's not easy. I was talking with the farmers group that represented yesterday and they were talking about one case in Southern Alberta where this one well - I think it was 40 years or more than it was on a farmer's property in southern Alberta - they've been trying to reclaim it for 12 years now. They've been trying different techniques and nothing seems to be working. It still is leaking oil and I think that's a unique case. It's not as easy as just sending out a crew in a day and it's done. In some cases that may be the case but not always there is some problematic ones out there.

LL: Now obviously as they are Orphan Wells association it is getting more and more of an inventory because during the downturn in oil prices these smaller companies did go bankrupt. Tell me a little bit more about the Orphan Well Association. Who funds that?

KYLE BAKX: Yeah so it was a group that's set up and it's funded by the oil industry, that oil and gas industry. So every year they pay levies to this group. It really became a huge problem when oil prices collapsed. So you had this huge spike in the amount of wells that are being turned over to the Orphan Well association. So before that price collapse you know I think there was a problem, you could say, with orphan wells in the province but once the price collapsed it became a crisis. And I'm not being dramatic. That's how experts are describing the situation in Alberta. Prices crashed and there was a spike in oil company bankruptcies. And with that came a spike in abandoned wells. And so the inventory for the Orphan Well association, it's tripled in the last few years because of that.

LL: Now a number of provinces, aside of Alberta, also decided to intervene in this case which suggests there are implications beyond Alberta. What are they?

KYLE BAKX: Well you just have to think about all the industrial sites across the country. The manufacturing facilities, the chemical and fertilizer plants, refineries and mines. It goes on and on. If those companies go bankrupt this case is about who will pay to clean up those states and in most cases that's the tax payer. That's why the provincial governments of B.C., Saskatchewan and Ontario are all intervening in this case. They each want to make sure environmental clean-up is a priority when companies go bankrupt. This case could set a precedent across the country for who was on the hook for clean up when these industrial companies go under.

LL: So it's bankruptcy laws vs. environmental laws. When are we expecting to hear a ruling?

KYLE BAKX: The Supreme Court is going to take its time to go over the evidence on what was presented yesterday. We are expecting a decision in either a spring or summer.

LL: Kyle, thank you very much.

KYLE BAKX: My pleasure.

LL: Kyle Bakx is a reporter with the CBC in Calgary and that is where we reached him today. My next guest is Daryl Bennett he is a land owner and a farmer out of Taber, Alberta. He also sits on the board of directors of Action Service Rights which works to protect the interests of landowners. We have reached Daryl Bennett today in Orlando, Florida. Hello.

DARYL BENNETT: Hello.

LL: You have owned land that had orphaned wells and you do represent other land owners. What consequences are there for the farmers who are trying to deal with this?

DARYL BENNETT: A lot of these wells the company has gone bankrupt and they've just walked away. So they didn't just abandon and left how they were. Some farmers are having food safety problems, is that safe to farm around these sites? There is an issue of farmer safety. Some land owners can no longer get a mortgage on their land because the banks won't lend it because the land is contaminated. In other circumstances builders lens have been placed on the land from contractors that did work to the previous operator. I've seen that as high as over a quarter million dollars charged against the land. There is unpaid utility bills, land owners are forced to participate in bankruptcy proceedings. They have to get legal help to help them with that. And often the annual rental that the company is supposed to be paying, it didn't go to the land owners it actually went to the bank that held the mortgage on the House. So now the banks are actually calling the landowner up saying 'where's our money?'. A lot of land owners just don't have five, ten thousand dollars sitting around to just hand over to the bank. Often there's weed problems, there is no maintenance, there is nobody on site to take care of the problems. And then the landlords are forced to go through a lengthy and convoluted process at the surface rights board to get paid their annual rentals. And then you have the problem of the underfunded Orphan Well Association that normally reclaims maybe 50 to 100 wells a year and they are severely underfunded. And those wells are probably going to sit for decades before they get around to being reclaimed.

LL: Okay let's just clarify something. What do you legally have when an energy company wants to drill on your land? Because I'm sure a lot of people were thinking why would you let them on your land in the first place.

DARYL BENNETT: Oh you can't stop them. They have the right to be at a right of entry order and if you have really no say in the matter on who the company is or when they're coming on.

LL: So you have no choice but you would expect and hope this will be cleaned up once the bell stops pumping. I'm wondering this has been a problem for a while but the Redwater decision has changed the way small companies are dealing with abandoned wells houses. How have you seen the impact of that?

DARYL BENNETT: Well Redwater creates an incentive. Your last guest mentioned that there's 100,000 inactive Wells, it is actually around 150,000. And then there is another 150,000 wells that really don't produce any royalties to the province. So Redwater has created an incentive for industry to arrange their affairs to dump these 300,000 wells onto the Orphan Well Association or onto the taxpayer. And so that is a huge problem.

LL: You know you know the banks and creditors would say that this is the way things should operate because the banks take a risk when they lend, especially to smaller companies, and that there wouldn't be that kind of development if the banks weren't lending money. If they attempt to get some of their investment back, then why would they invest in the first place?

DARYL BENNETT: That is true. However, this isn't just a commercial lease or rental agreement. In most cases those rental agreements are cancelled, Nobody is using that facility anymore. But there is still something on the ground here. There is something sticking out of the ground that it is unsafe, that the farmer has to farm around. It may be there for another 20 or 30 years. So it's not like both sides can terminate the problem. There still is a problem for the land owner.

LL: So what do you think the solution is?

DARYL BENNETT: It's an interesting question because Redwater illustrates the fact that federal law trumps provincial law. So there is a question on whether the provinces even have the constitutional framework to do something about it. The banks in the industry were successful in lobbying the federal government to change the bankruptcy insolvency act to reward them for financing the pollution of our lands. Our province has asked the federal government to amend the bankruptcy insolvency act. We would hope that if the Supreme Court finds in favor of Redwater and doesn't overturn it that they would at least provide guidance to the parliament and the amendments or changes that they should make to the bankruptcy insolvency act. So this problem doesn't continue.

LL: What about forcing companies to have a bond in place, so that you can guarantee that if this happens the environmental cleanup will occur?

DARYL BENNETT: We actually agreed with a lot of what the Court of Appeal said in Redwater and in that they found that the regulator had pretty much been incompetent. That you don't ask for a security deposit from a bankrupt company and that they should have asked for money to, or should have required money to be set aside in good times to take care of bad times. So that is something that the regulator and the current government is looking at; that if you're going to drill a new well you might have to put up a bonder 250,000 dollars that sits there, that are safe from the banks and it will remain attached to that well until [unintelligible] occurs. But that's only going to solve the problem from new wells. There are still 300,000 old wells that remain to be reclaimed.

LL: Thanks for your perspective on this.

DARYL BENNETT: Thank you for having me on.

LL: Daryl Bennett is a land owner and a farmer from Taber, Alberta. Now everyone thinks the Al Alberta courts got their ruling on federal bankruptcy legislation wrong. Sarah Hawco is the president of the 180 Group in Calgary. It is a business consulting firm that deals with commercial dispute resolution. She is also a specialist in insolvency law and Sarah Hawco joins me from Calgary. Hello.

SARAH HAWCO: Hi. How are you?

SARAH HAWCO: Fine thanks. What do you say to farmers like Daryl Bennett who are concerned about these abandoned wells?

SARAH HAWCO: I agree with Mr. Bennett's concerns and those concerns are shared by, not only all Albertans, I suspect that they're shared across the board with Canadians. It's a big concern and it's a concern that the insolvency community has been voicing as well. When we get into the discussion about Redwater, Redwater is not, in my opinion anyway, It's not about the environmental laws. It comes back to priorities and it comes back to Paramount say so is it federal legislation or provincial legislation. He's correct to say and I think we have common ground here that this was a problem created in large part by the regulator itself by not taking adequate steps when it knew there is a problem. So the AER recognized that there is a problem back in the early 90s which is when this Orphan Well Association came to be. But it seemed to not take adequate steps, such as the ones you rightly mentioned and Mr. Bennett mentioned as well, to impose pre-drilling bonds, perhaps time lines saying that wells must be reclaimed or re-mediated within a certain time period maybe insurance looking to other jurisdictions around the world. All of these steps should have been taken and they weren't. Rather AER, in my opinion, seemed to bow down to industry pressure to not impose these deadlines.

LL: You say AER. I just want to clarify that means Alberta Energy Regulator. I just want to ask you though why should profitable banks be protected?

SARAH HAWCO: Well profitable banks should be protected because they're the ones taking the front end risk that. The Redwater case looked at a few things. It looked at as we know the operational conflict between the federal and provincial legislation. It looked at what the trustee or the receiver is bound to do and it looked at whether or not the regulator could refuse applications. That's what this case was decided upon. So the bank needs to be protected if you will because that's what the Canadian solvency legislation is designed to do. It's designed to create workable solutions for all of the stakeholder involved and it gives no absolute priority to any of the stakeholders. So with the AER what the regulator is trying to do is to create what we call a super priority. They're trying to indirectly get what it can not legally obtain directly. So what that means is the banks need to be protected because they took the initial risk and made the loan to fund the economy to fund the operations. And there needs to be a predictability in the claims process.

LL: What about the concept that the polluter should pay?

SARAH HAWCO: Well the concept that the polluter should pay is fine. The polluter should pay but to what extent and who is the polluter? Is it the previous oil and gas companies? Is that the previous drillers? When did this pollution occur? And this is why we have the regulations in place; they have this ratio with the assets less the liabilities. And we have the proper ratios, are they in line with the regulator? But the polluter should pay. The bank isn't the polluter.

LL: Well the bank invested in the polluter but the other question is that the company doesn't pay. Doesn't that end up falling on taxpayer shoulders?

SARAH HAWCO: Well as it's designed it technically falls on to the Orphan Well Fund Association.

LL: Which is partly paid for by the companies but in this case what happens is if it can't pay then it would fall back on taxpayers.

SARAH HAWCO: Eventually it may. But it's in this case they are arguing over approximately four million dollars but it doesn't matter because we could use it for any company situation. The company is insolvent. Insolvency is not an easy step. Mr. Bennett mentioned that this case gives incentives, incentives to companies to walk away. Going through the insolvency process whether it's receivership or bankruptcy is never an easy or cheap out and it still leaves, the directors of these companies still have some exposure. Personally I don't know that anyone would actively strategize to become insolvent so they could walk away from obligations. If the Redwater case rules in favour of the regulator and the Orphan Well Fund then what could happen is that the banks will refuse to lend in the future, receiver's and trustees would not get involved and there would be no ability to recover on the good wells or the bad.

LL: We are running out of time but I thank you very much.

SARAH HAWCO: Thanks for your time.

LL: Sarah Hawco is president of the 180 Group in Calgary and a specialist in insolvency law and she is in Calgary. Well the CBC News is coming up next. Then ski ballet came and went. Squash is fighting to get in, and as of PyeongChang mix doubles curling is in. The game plan for sporting associations to make it to the Olympic Games. I'm Laura Lynch and you are listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Back To Top »

Squash isn't an Olympic sport, but video gaming might be. How do they decide?

Guests: Adam van Koeverden, LA Schmidt, Michael Heine

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: theme]

LL: Still to come:

SOUNDCLIP

The antibiotics that have been developed over the years to treat bacterial infections are losing their effectiveness and may not work at all. This is called antibiotic resistance.

LL: The never ending search for new antibiotic ammunition in the fight against superbugs. But first, new sports vying for a place on the Olympic podium.

SOUNDCLIP

There's the final stone in six parade. Under pressure again. Big heave here. [Screaming cheers] Close. That's the steal.

LL: It is end 6 in the gold medal match for the new sport of Mixed Doubles curling at the Olympics. Switzerland's rock misses the mark allowing Canada to steal two points on the end.

SOUNDCLIP

COMMENTATOR 1: The league continues to swell after 6 it's 10-3. They're gonna shake! They're gonna shake!

[Cheers and applause]

COMMENTATOR 2: Celebration for Team Canada.

COMMENTATOR 1: First ever Olympic gold medallists in mixed doubles curling Kaitlyn Laws and John Morris of Canada.

COMMENTATOR 3: That was a clinic in how to play mixed doubles.

LL: And so Canada takes home the first ever gold in mixed doubles curling. And although it doesn't get any better than number one in the world in your sport there has been push back in more than a bit of curling shaming. The critics are asking if mixed doubles curling is really a sport at all. Well in this Olympics it is. It's one of four new sports at the 2018 games. Sports come and go at the Olympics but when and how does a sport get official Olympic status. We will get to that in a few minutes. But first we're going to begin in PyeongChang South Korea. Adam van Koeverden is a Canadian Olympic kayaking champion and a feature analyst for CBC Sports. Hello.

ADAM VAN KOEVERDEN: Good morning.

LL: We are one weekend- this is more or less the halfway point. How is Canada doing?

ADAM VAN KOEVERDEN: In terms of medals, we're doing very well. We have won an unprecedented number of medals for the first half of the Olympics. Lots of great stories, plenty of ups and downs, as the Olympics always promise but all things considered, Canada is doing great.

LL: What were some of the highlights of this past week then?

ADAM VAN KOEVERDEN: Certainly the luge medal yesterday [unintelligible] was amazing I got to go to the track and watch the Canadian team compete in the second luge team event. And winning a silver medal was fantastic. It was more than I could have expected and it certainly symbolizes redemption from what happened. They are on a roller coaster ride of emotion for the last couple of months as they were told that they would be receiving a bronze medal for their fourth performance when they came forth in Sochi I should say because the Russians were accused of doping. And then of course that, after a couple of weeks of waiting, was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. So to win a silver medal in that same event here in Pyongyang is sweet redemption for the luge team. Of course we saw a recent Canadian Ted-Jan Bloemen originally from the Netherlands but of course [unintelligible] in Calgary and trained to the Calgary oval and speedskating, set a new Olympic record in the men's 10,000 meter. And he's of course the world champion and world record holder in that event. And he's probably the proudest Canadian of anybody on the team these days. There has been lots of great - lots of reasons to celebrate. The Canadian team is competing very well.

LL: What are some of the events that you're going to be watching for in the next week?

ADAM VAN KOEVERDEN: I'm a big fan of cross-country skiing. I was an endurance athlete myself as a kayaker. I kind of empathize with what goes on in somebody's body when they're trying to push themselves to the maximum. So I'm really anxious to see Alex Harvey have the race of his career at these games and biathlon is of keen interest to me as well. Long track speed skating currently is [unintelligible] there's a lot more of that. But I'm also a big figure skating fan. I'd like to watch Tessa and Scott compete. But more than a fan I'm actually here as an analyst with CBC. So I'm supposed to be cheering less and reporting more and trying to remove myself emotionally from some of the results which has been a challenge. I just retired from the sport of kayaking after an 18 year career on the national team but I'm looking forward to reporting on through my feature called Measuring Up, which is a sport science feature. We focus on the science and technology that athletes and coaches use to improve their performance.

LL: Okay I would take you a little more outside your zone here. Mixed doubles' curling is one of the sports at these games and Canada won gold in it. How do you find people responding to that sport there?

ADAM VAN KOEVERDEN: Mixed doubles' curling is one of the most popular sports and I think people are starting to wonder why wasn't it always mixed doubles because it seemed to be a bit faster of a game than team curling and you know new sport sports are confusing. More or less mixed curling has the same rules as the old [unintelligible] curling that we're used to watching on television. There are a couple of new events here at the Winter Games in 2018 including a mixed curling and big air snowboarding which is yet to come. There's also a team event in downhill skiing where men and women compete with each other again. And finally there's a [unintelligible] and long track speedskating which is new.

LL: We are going to be digging a little more to this idea of new sports that get introduced in the games and other ones that get taken away. And coming up in the 2020 Summer Games we are going to see women's canoeing for the first time, something that women have been fighting for for a long long time. Given that you have been in that area of sport kayaking canoeing, what's your view of having women compete in that?

ADAM VAN KOEVERDEN: Well it's certainly about time. The women have been paddling canoes for quite some time certainly in Canada for as long as they have been paddling any boats. And of course when we talk about canoeing and kayaking in Canada, I always make a point to thank indigenous people in Canada for inventing these boats. Their heritage is steeped in canoes and kayaks and as a kayaker I got to use an indigenous invention for my sport and to make a name for myself here and abroad. So I'm very very grateful to the Inuit and to the canoe builders of probably 4500 years ago. But it's about time that women get to paddle canoes at the Olympics. They have been doing so at the world championships and Canada's quite good at it. So it's great for our country.

LL: And just finally Adam I know that the role that you're playing there and a lot of it is about I guess the psychology of sport and how people get up to compete. And I'm wondering what your view is of how our athletes are doing when it comes to the mental game at these Olympics.

ADAM VAN KOEVERDEN: Well people love to ask you know is my sport, as any sport, more of a mental struggle or more of a physical struggle. And I think every athlete will tell you it's 100 percent of both. They're two totally different things but they work in conjunction with one another. You know I used to say that my body was connected to my brain and with spinal cord and there is no way separating the two.

LL: And I get to ask you for a prediction. Canada's best Winter Games Vancouver in 2010 with 26 medals. What do you think, can the team Canada beat that this time

ADAM VAN KOEVERDEN: I certainly think it's possible. You know I think it's a bit of an arbitrary thing to measure our best ever Olympics with a number of medals. As you pointed out there's a different number of competitions and sport the medals given out at every games. So it's a little bit difficult to determine exactly what makes up the game. Certainly for those who won gold medals it does represent that someone did clever.

LL: Adam, great to have you there in PyeongChang and thank you for joining us.

ADAM VAN KOEVERDEN: Thanks so much for having me.

LL: Bye bye.

ADAM VAN KOEVERDEN: Bye.

LL: Adam van Koeverden is a Canadian Olympic kayaking champion and a feature analyst for CBC Sports and we reached him in PyeongChang.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music]

VOICE 1: What would playing at the Olympic Games mean to me? Everything.

VOICE 2: I would happily trade all my six world titles for an Olympic gold medal.

[Music]

VOICE 2: Why do I think squash deserves its chance?

VOICE 1: Because squash is a successful sport all over the world.

VOICE 2: It's played in every corner of the globe.

VOICE 1: All five Continents have produced a world champion. I am one of them

VOICE 2: And I am another.

LL: This is a man from the World Squash Federation, a video that was part of the federation's unsuccessful bid to have its sport included in the 2020 Olympics. As much as some people are wondering whether mixed doubles curling should be an Olympic sport, there are just as many people wondering why squash is not an Olympic sport especially as there are some other sports being considered that have some people scratching their heads. Organizers of the 2024 Paris Olympics and the International Olympic Committee say they are exploring the possibility of including e-sports, competitive video gaming, at those games. Now my next guest knows what it's like to fight to have her sport included in the Olympics. At the 2020 Games, women's canoe events will make their Olympic debut. LA Schmidt is the chair of the Sprint Domestic Development Committee at Canoe Kayak Canada and we reached her in Ottawa. Hello.

LA SCHMIDT: Good morning.

LL: I think some people might be surprised that women's canoeing isn't already in the Olympics. Men's canoeing has been for quite a while. How long have you been fighting to include it

LA SCHMIDT: I did a little research, I looked back about 70 years. As Adam has mentioned women's camoe has been in Canada for a very long time, both at our local Canoe Club levels and at our national championships for about the past 25-30 years. So we've been doing a lot of work here in Canada and women's canoes so it was a lot more work to get it into the Olympic program but all that work and effort was well worth it by our volunteers and paddlers.

LL: Right men's canoes has been part of the Olympics since 1924. What reasons were you given for the exclusion of women's canoe?

LA SCHMIDT: Well ironically, and I find this one the most funny, that it wasn't good for our bodies and particularly our reproductive organs and systems which has been proven not true. I think there were never enough women doing it worldwide which now we have much larger numbers. Maybe we weren't competitive enough as women. Not really sure. These are all reasons we've heard. I would say at the top levels in the International Confederation and maybe the International Olympic Committee, we need more women around those board tables. The races were full, the schedules were full and it would mean that something would have to be given up to get the women in there. But and I think in general change it's hard work isn't it. And it's a lot easier to say no sometimes than it is to really put the wheels in motion to move something forward.

LL: Right because when you say that they gave you the reason that it wasn't competitive enough you must have looked at the beginnings of women's hockey and wondered well what's the difference there.

LA SCHMIDT: Absolutely and in Canada it is super competitive, both in whitewater and flat water you go to any of our national championships and it is one of the most full races, competitive races and you just need to go online and look at a few of our women canoers and see the intensity and the drive, Laurence Vincent-Lapointe, Katie. You know it's quite impressive.

LL: Tell me about the campaign that you had to mount to get your sport included. You said it was a hard fight what did it entail?

LA SCHMIDT: Well from our perspective in Canada I think one of the smartest things we did was that we made sure that on every agenda of every meeting of every board in Canoe Kayak Canada women's canoe held a spot on that agenda. So at every meeting I, myself and many others would say okay where are we at. What have we done internationally where's the push. We sent teams of people over negotiating with the International Confederation. We pushed very hard. Canada is a big leader around those board meeting tables and they look to us for a lot of advice. And I think in this case we had great volunteers, great athletes, out of our athletes out of their pockets paid to get there and race at the world championships because we were an unfunded event. So you know all those things we sent I was lucky enough to go over to Switzerland and be able to present in front of the ICF which was exciting and you know we really pushed the envelope to the max and we've never ever ever gave up and that was really worthwhile.

LL: ICF is International canoe Federation I take it. Were your male counterparts supportive of your fight

LA SCHMIDT: Absolutely absolutely. When I was listing all the key players last night on my paper and pen here you know almost half of the group of leaders that push this were men, and men and women in our sport are so lucky because a lot of times get trained together. We spend a lot of time at training camps etc. and our men were very supportive.

LL: What was your reaction then when the IOC announced that women's canoe events will be added to the 2020 Games?

LA SCHMIDT: It was amazing. I actually said last night when I was talking to somebody I thought that I'd be long gone when that vision was made. I think I was just super over them for the athletes because they worked so hard.

LL: Were you at one time a competitive athlete yourself in the sport?

LA SCHMIDT: I was. But unlike Adam I started actually at a local Canoe Club and then I got into women's canoe in C4 because we weren't allowed to race singles. So I never went to the level he went to but I certainly competed at the national championships and the sport. And I still do. I'm a masters athlete [unintelligible].

LL: I wonder if bittersweet then to have advanced to the Olympic Games when you have no opportunity to get there yourself.

LA SCHMIDT: Agreed it's probably bittersweet for a good chunk of our women in canoe but for those that do get the opportunity in 2020 we are all going to be glued to our set. No TV sets. No problem.

LL: What do you think the inclusion of your sport does mean for female athletes in general?

LA SCHMIDT: Well I just think that it means that you know we're not going to give up. We're not going to sit back in our chairs and say it's not worth the fight. I think it's well worth the fight. I think it's worth - even whitewater I want to make a hit to Haley Daniels and her group of athletes in whitewater that got in as well and I just think it means we don't give up. We just keep fighting and we all want to be there so we just have to keep working hard.

LL: So would that be your advice to other sports that are trying to be included?

LA SCHMIDT: Absolutely. You can't say it enough. You can't just come in and go. You've got to keep it on the board agendas. It's got to be around every table of discussion both provincially, nationally, internationally and if it really means that much - very much like para sport as well - Be a leader show that Canada - We are leaders there's no question and I think we have to just keep believing that we're great leaders and show what we can do in Canada around the world.

LL: Well congratulations on winning that fight and thanks for telling us about it.

LA SCHMIDT: Thanks so much for having us. Go Canada go.

LL: LA Schmidt is the chair of the Sprint Domestic Development Committee Canoe Kayak Canada and we reached her in Ottawa. Well since the modern Olympics launched in Athens in 1896 some interesting competitions have come and gone. Here's just a few of them.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music]

Ski ballet, which is sort of like figure skating on snow with skis. Ski ballet was a demonstration event at both the 1988 and 1992 Olympics. Long jump for horses, is exactly what it sounds like. A horse and a rider see just how far they can jump. The sport's first and only appearance was 1900. Ski joring, where kiers hang on to the reins of a horse or a dog and get pulled along over ice or snow. It only showed up as a demonstration sport once at the 1928 winter games. Tug of war, now it's played at picnics and school sports days but tug of war was featured in five modern Olympics games, from 1900 through to 1920. It was also part of the ancient Olympics. Solo synchronized swimming. This might sound a little bit like an oxymoron but this was a sport at the Olympic games between 1984 and 1992.

LL: So how is it that squash is out of the games but skateboarding and surfing will be part of the Olympics in 2020. There is a process that the International Olympic Committee uses to consider the inclusion of new sports. And ultimately it is the IOC that decides who is in and who is out. Michael Heina is the director of the International Center for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario. He is in our London, Ontario studio this morning. Hello.

MICHAEL HEINE: Good morning.

LL: So tell us about this criteria that the IOC uses to select new official sports.

MICHAEL HEINE: Well there are several in play really. We have to understand that the IOC has to make these kind of decisions against the increasing scale, size and capacity problems that the Olympics bring with them now as the large scale events that they are. And the IOC has to in a way cap the number of events and disciplines that's featured at the Olympics simply to allow the organization of this kind of event. And up until a few years ago the IOC had to set a limit on the number of sports that could be in the Olympics. So if you wanted to get a new sport into the games you had to kick another one out. That always created tensions of course. The IOC has recently changed their strategy on this that the games now can host a number of sports that exceeds 28. But the IOC has set a limit on the number of athletes that can compete.

LL: Can you give us a sense of what the criteria are though that they're judging by?

MICHAEL HEINE: Sure. There you have to look at the interests of the IOC. We would assume that the IOC primarily would work for the interest of the sport as it were canoeing or squash or karate, but the primary consideration for the IOC is the popularity of the sport as a platform for the profile of the Olympics. So the IOC strategically looks at this in terms of the utility of the sport as a platform for the Olympic visibility and then secondarily of course also at the utility of the sport being on the Olympic program, which in many cases is immense Of course.

LL: We heard LA Schmidt say that the excuses that have been given to women's canoeing over the years were among them was what it would to women's reproductive systems. I gather that's no longer a part of a consideration for the IOC.

MICHAEL HEINE: No I mean there's a whole history of medical narratives serving the exclusion of women mostly directed at doubts over their reproductive capacity under high performance sports conditions. But that narrative no longer holds up of course from a gender equity point of view or from any medical point of view. But it's interesting to note how much staying power that narrative has had. So that is pretty much behind the Olympic movement. But gender symmetry and gender equity is of course one of the still energising issues determining some of these considerations as we have just seen your guest describes this with regard to women's canoeing, or apparently much to the dismay of some curling fans, mixed curling which I personally find is a great thing. But as you mentioned there's some criticism of these kind of decisions of course.

LL: Now I just talked about skateboarding and surfing in the 2020 Olympics, are there any other new sports we will be seeing there?

MICHAEL HEINE: Well karate will be in it, of course sports climbing.

LL: Sports climbing.

MICHAEL HEINE: Yes wall climbing, indoor wall climbing and the baseball softball combination. So softball is back in, having teamed up with baseball as a combination they were voted in. The IOC executive board kind of draws up a list of likely sports and the General Assembly which is called the session in IOC parlance makes these kind of decisions. Now what is new here is that these five new events were included at the suggestion of the organizing committee of the Tokyo Games and that is an indication of the new flexibility the IOC has put into its programming strategy, because these kind of options were not available to organizing committees before the 2020 Games.

LL: How much of a role do marketing and economics play in the selection process?

MICHAEL HEINE: Immensely so. As we all know the Olympics are a media driven event by now. And if you look at the former documentations the IOC has to determine the [unintelligible] of a sport for inclusion. Popularity is one of the main concerns. But the interesting thing is that if you look at what we might mean by popularity it's not so much the number of active participants in the sport across the globe but the media presence of the event. So what kind of page hits does the International Sports Federation get, what's the visibility of the sport in social media and so forth. These kinds of considerations play a huge role in the way the IOC determines these kinds of things and we find an indication of this and you've mentioned this initially that the IOC is in fact considering the inclusion of e-sports as one of these new sports with the 2024 Olympics.

LL: Right. Electronic gaming. That surprised me. Do you think it will actually happen?

MICHAEL HEINE: It wouldn't surprise me at all because the IOC is very aware of the fact that global audiences for e-sport ballooning they are probably at around, what? 400 million viewers this year. It's hugely popular in particular among young people and the IOC as a media presence on the international stage has very significant aging problems as it were.

LL: Does it strike you as an Olympic sport?

MICHAEL HEINE: Well I mean no. Now you're telling me philosophically as it were but of course most of us would associate physical activity with sports no matter what definition we use. And I looked this actually up and the rationale for the IOC even to consider this is, and I have I'll have to read this for my- competitive e-sports could be considered as a sporting activity and the players involved prepare and train with an intensity which may be comparable to athletes in traditional sports. So which means you have to widen your understanding of what amounts to a sport in order to accommodate it under the Olympic program. So and that I'm sure will create very significant debates in the future of course. But from the IOC point of view this is too big a thing to pass up.

LL: Well we'll look and see what happens with that. Michael Heine, thank you very much.

MICHAEL HEINE: Thanks for having me.

LL: Michael Heine is the director of the International Center for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario and he was in our London, Ontario studio. Coming up in our next half hour: Scientists turn to Mother Nature in their battle against drug resistant germs. We'll hear about efforts to find the next generation of antibiotics. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Rise of superbugs could make chemotherapy impossible

Guests: Ewen Harrison, Lori Burrows

LL: Hi I'm Laura Lynch and this is the Friday edition of The Current. Anna Maria is in Halifax hosting a special town hall tonight about the legacy of anti- Black racism in Nova Scotia and how it affects property rights and environmental decisions. It is the first in a special series that we're calling Facing Race. The show has no seats left but no matter where you are in the country you can watch on Facebook Live at 7:00 o'clock in the Maritimes which is 6:00 o'clock Eastern or 3:00 in B.C. Go to our cbc.ca/thecurrent to get all the details and see some videos about the stories that we're going to be looking at. Coming up now, though, dire warnings.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Imagine surviving major surgery then dying from a basic skin infection. That's the reality our world is facing.

VOICE 2: We're facing situations where there are organisms out there which are resistant to every antibiotic.

VOICE 3: These are the bacteria that the chief medical officer says pose a catastrophic threat. This one is called Klebsiella. Mutilates of this bacterium that are resistant to antibiotics are twice as deadly.

VOICE 4: They are too small for the eye to see, but creating a global medical emergency, the superbugs that have become resistant to modern medicine turning common treatable infections into killers.

LL: The warnings about superbugs are growing increasingly urgent. Some medical experts predict the coming post-antibiotic apocalypse will run out of tools for fighting infections. It's estimated now that antibiotic resistance is responsible for 700,000 deaths annually worldwide, and by 2050 it's expected to kill more people than cancer each year which means it's a race against time to find solutions including new sources of antibiotics that can give superbugs a run for their money. We'll hear more about that. But first, the Lancet journal has published a new study this week indicating just how serious the impact of drug resistance might be. It looked at infections that develop after patients undergo surgery and found that a fifth of those people infected were resistant to antibiotics. Ewen Harrison is the study's author. He is a senior lecturer in general surgery at the University of Edinburgh and that's where we've reached him. Hello.

EWEN HARRISON: Hello. Thank you for having me.

LL: Tell me more about the rate of infections after surgery that you found in your study.

EWEN HARRISON: This was the first study of its kind using young surgeons about the world both in low and high income countries, collecting data on the patients that they are looking after on a day to day basis. After relatively common bowel surgery or digestive tract surgery we found that the rate of wound infections after the surgery was much greater than had been anticipated. One in ten in high income countries, such as Canada, but up to one in four patients after this common surgery getting a wound infection.

LL: One in four. In what part, in what areas?

EWEN HARRISON: So in low income countries such as sub-Saharan Africa parts of South America, Southeast Asia.

LL: And so you say they're wound infections.

EWEN HARRISON: Yes. So wind infections are when the incision, the cut that has been used to perform the surgery gets an infection in it after the operation. This is important because they're sore, uncomfortable for patients, they delay discharged from hospital, they stop return to work and for health care systems they cost a lot of money, an estimate from the U.S. was 35,000 dollars per infection.

LL: What accounts for the higher rate of infections?

EWEN HARRISON: So infections are related to things to do with the patient, the disease that they're suffering from and the surgery that they have undergone. So for instance if you have diabetes then you're more likely to get an infection after surgery. Similarly if you have been in a car accident and got a bad laceration in the belly that has become contaminated during the accident, then that will be more likely to become infected.

LL: But what accounts for the higher rate? Because I'm sure that those kinds of infections have been around a long time. Why is it getting higher?

EWEN HARRISON: Well this study didn't look at rates over time. It may not be getting any higher but it's certainly becoming much more greatly appreciated than it has before. For instance patients often develop a wound infection following discharged from hospital, and it may be that the team that performed the surgery didn't necessarily find out that the wound infection exists. So rates of one in 10 up to one in four after surgery are higher than is generally reported in some more studies prior to this.

LL: What did you conclude about the role antibiotic resistance is playing in the results?

EWEN HARRISON: So we can't be absolutely conclusive from our data about antibiotic resistance because the numbers aren't great enough. However there are clear signs in the study that we've done that antibiotic resistance bugs causing the wound infections that don't work with common antibiotics, that this resistance is much more common than had been previously anticipated. So around 1 in 6 for patients in high income countries, such as Canada and the UK, and up to one in three patients in low income countries such as sub-Saharan Africa.

LL: And what happens to patients who develop infections and resist antibiotic treatment?

EWEN HARRISON: So in a high income setting where we know that the bug is resistant there may be other options, other antibiotics available that do work for that bug, as you say it in your lead, and there are some bugs for which new antibiotic now works. These are thankfully very rare across common hospital settings. What's important though is particularly in low and middle income countries it may be that the antibiotic which doesn't work is the only one that the hospital has available. It may be that they don't have any others. So that can mean that the infection cannot be treated by antibiotics and needs to be treated by other ways like drainage and surgery.

LL: Is that why the problem of antibiotic resistance is worse in developing countries?

EWEN HARRISON: Certainly antibiotic resistance is a recognized problem in developing countries and there may be a number of different factors contributing to that. We certainly found a high use of antibiotics particularly after surgery in low income countries compared with high income countries. For some patients that may be entirely appropriate. It may be that they've had a particularity bad disease that justifies having antibiotics continued after the surgery. But we're confident now from other studies that have been done that when surgery is performed effectively there is no added benefit to continuing with the antibiotics after surgery. They should just be stopped quite quickly. Continuing with the antibiotics just doesn't do the patient any good and just increases the chance of antibiotic resistance. So that may be contributing.

LL: There was a report out last week which found that two thirds of the antibiotic drugs sold in India between 2007 and 2012 were not approved for sale and that they were essentially illegal. How does that add to this problem of antibiotic resistance?

EWEN HARRISON: Regulation of drugs in high income settings is well-established and people living in high income countries are used to having to go to a doctor or a physician to get a prescription in order to get access to antibiotics. In low income countries you can often just walk in off the street into a pharmacy and buy these over the counter without any need for any prescription. So firstly that means that there is greater use of antibiotics inappropriate situations than would be desirable. And as your question pertains to it may be that the drugs that the individuals are being given are in fact not what is written on the box or on the tin and who knows what some people are getting.

LL: Some medical experts have been talking about routine surgeries or treatments, chemotherapy, joint replacement and even some invasive diagnostic procedures becoming impossible in a world where there aren't antibiotics to guard against infection. Is that a realistic fear in your view?

EWEN HARRISON: Well what is important is to get across the message that something needs to be done about this today. It's an increasing problem. It's not going away and there aren't many new antibiotics in the pipeline in order to deal with us in the future. So if we don't take it seriously and deal with it today it's going to become an extreme problem in the future. But the catastrophic predictions of not being able to give chemotherapy or not being able to do joint replacements, well I mean that is possible. I hope that that can be avoided with prompt action now.

LL: Now you are a surgeon. I'm wondering how the issue of antibiotic resistance affects you in your day to day work.

EWEN HARRISON: It does. I mean we have we have patients who we know prior to surgery have bugs on their skin that are resistant to antibiotics. I don't know if you use that same phrase MRSA.

LL: Yes it is well known.

EWEN HARRISON: So that's one of the common resistant bugs which is, at different levels in different countries, but we see it quite commonly. And patients who get skin, lung, chest infections or wind infections who have the MRSA will need to be treated differently. They will need to be isolated away from other patients and they'll need to have different drugs that can be harder to cure the infection the way it is. Antibiotic resistance is a day to day problem it's not just something theoretical.

LL: It's here now. Thank you Dr. Harrison.

EWEN HARRISON: Thank you very much.

LL: Ewen Harrison is a senior lecturer in general surgery at the University of Edinburgh. He's the author of a new research in the medical journal The Lancet, looking at rates of infection among patients who have had gastro-intestinal surgery. Well scientists are now busy searching for a new generation of antibiotics. Some in the lab but others are actually turning to nature. Adrian Smith is an assistant research professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University.

SOUNDCLIP

One of the places to look for new microbials, new antibiotics as in nature. The best guess of where we know how to look is to look to organisms that face similar challenges that we as humans face. That's why my research group works on ants because they share a lot of things in common with human societies, especially in the sort of realm of being faced with pathogens or disease threat. Ants face that pressure because they live in microbial rich environments like the soil. They live in great numbers of dense societies, so up to a couple of million individuals living really in close contact with each other. And then there's low genetic diversity in those nests because all those ants are related to each other. And that's sort of a perfect storm of a situation or disease could spread.

LL: Adrian Smith is the co-author of a new study on ants and their ability to fight off disease.

SOUNDCLIP

They have multiple different glands in their body which produce compounds that can be used to inhibit the growth of bacteria or the spread of disease or fungal pathogens that might pop up. So my research was looking at a whole bunch of different species - 20 species. And we found that there's certain groups that produce really really strong anti-microbial. Some of them are really surprising species like this is a subterranean tiny blind thief ant that never comes above ground, mostly lives in the soil and actually raids the nest of other species. And that was one of the ants we found evidence that it was producing really really strong anti-microbial. So this research sort of gives us an insight by stepping back and looking at cross all ant evolution; what are the groups of a species of ants that might be producing really strong sort of general antimicrobial that can help resist the growth of bacteria in their nest. And the future research is going to test what compounds they are using, how they're producing them and how we can make use of them in a sort of a biomedical context.

LL: So ants are just one species that could hold clues for finding anti-microbial medications in the future but bringing any of these new ideas to the market could be years away. And while the pharmaceutical industry has pledged to work at developing new drugs to outwit superbugs, critics say it's not doing enough. Now an international public health group is calling for a one billion dollar incentive to help speed up the research. To talk about the challenges involved in finding solutions to the problem of antibiotic resistance I'm joined by Lori Burrows. She's a microbiologist and a professor of biochemistry and biomedical sciences at McMaster University. She's in Hamilton. Hello.

LORI BURROWS: Good morning.

LL: Now we just heard about ant research. What are some of the other exciting areas of research?

LORI BURROWS: Well we're going at it this on all fronts. We're looking for new antibiotics as Adrian Smith said in soil, in other organisms that have to deal with drug resistant infections. We are looking at new vaccines. We're looking at little viruses called phage that kill bacteria and we're looking at immune stimulators. So maybe we can help your immune system fight off the infection.

LL: So some of those aren't actually antibiotics in fact. Can you explain a little more about the idea of using phages, I think I said that right. What are they? How do they work?

LORI BURROWS: So they're small viruses that kill bacteria and they're very specific for bacteria so they don't harm human hosts. And they were actually quite popular before antibiotics arose because they are very effective at killing. Their drawback is that they're extremely specific for a certain type of bacteria whereas antibiotics are a little more broad in scope. So if you are admitted to the hospital for example with an infection and physicians don't know exactly what it is you have, it can be challenging to find the rate phage to kill that infection. However antibiotics because they're a little more broad in scope they will kill lots of different bacteria.

LL: Doctors though, are they using phages in practice now?

LORI BURROWS: So we have had to turn back to phages because, as your previous guests mentioned, we are running out of antibiotics. So yes they're starting to bring these into use again. They can be challenging, as I said, because they're very targeted for specific bacteria. So in order to use them you have to have first identified what the person is suffering from and that can take some time, and a lot of times we don't have time to figure out what the infection is. We have to treat it immediately before the person gets sicker.

LL: But they are having some success with them, I take it.

LORI BURROWS: Absolutely. So there's you know anecdotal stories now coming out. There was an article recently on treating C. diff which is a diarrheal disease that's really common in hospitals. The researchers identified a phage cocktail that could actually clear this infection.

LL: So you also just talked about soil. But researchers say that this idea is still years away from being a practical use. Why is this kind of early research so important?

LORI BURROWS: So a lot of drugs don't make it through the drug pipeline right. So the success rate it can actually be quite low. So once we find something that works in the lab there's many many steps and many expensive steps between that and putting it in human. And even drugs that make it all the way through the pre-clinical stages into Phase one, one in five of those will fail. And getting a drug through Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 clinical trials costs millions and millions of dollars. So you know you have to acknowledge that that investment that you put into that drug may eventually come to nothing if the drug fails in late stage trials.

LL: It's also a lot of it is about money. Now I mentioned this proposal to offer what really is a reward, a one billion dollar reward to drug companies to encourage them to get new drugs onto the market. How effective do you think that would be?

LORI BURROWS: So, it's an interesting idea. Because governments around the world now acknowledge that we really need to address this problem now, this is one of many solutions being proposed. So you know if a company is offered a reward up front to develop a drug they may be interested. They may be interested more so if they can take on a product that has already been through the pre-clinical stages and the risk of it failing has been reduced because then that the investment is reduced as well. There's also incentives on the regulatory side. So the U.S. government brought in some changes to their regulations giving companies five more years of patent protection on new drugs which is an incentive. They also offered them a faster track to regulatory approval which helps because then you have the drug in the market more quickly and that also extends the patent life on the drug. So there's multiple ways to incentivize companies to do this. But you know it's convincing them that antibiotics are a good investment as opposed to you know cardiac drugs or cholesterol lowering medications and other things that you have to take every day for the rest of your life.

LL: But I guess their view right now is that it's not worth it financially the drug companies to do this.

LORI BURROWS: Well at the end of the day they're in it to make money right. They have shareholders that they're beholden to. And antibiotics are something that you take only for a short time and there is a potential that they will stop working if the bacteria that they're meant to kill stop or become resistant to them. So you know you don't have that problem with a cholesterol lowering drug that people become resistant to it.

LL: Now if drug companies then aren't going to drive the process, what's the answer?

LORI BURROWS: So academics like myself and my colleagues at McMaster and other universities have tried to step into this breach. So we're trying to find new drugs. We're trying to get them through the pre-clinical stages because there are still smaller companies, small to medium biotech companies that are willing to take on new molecules and try to develop them. And there's approximately 40 antibiotics in the pipeline right now that are in various stages from pre-clinical to even up to Phase 3 clinical trials. The problem is that those drugs don't kill what the World Health Organization considers the most dire threats in terms of superbugs. They also, most of them don't address new targets. A lot of them are tweaks on existing drugs or aimed at the same targets we've already been using for years. So we need some more creative ideas to get around this problem.

LL: Now given that I'm wondering what your view on how close you think we are to a situation where elective surgery might end up becoming impossible because of the risk of developing antibiotic resistant infections.

LORI BURROWS: As Dr. Harrison said earlier, thankfully these organisms are still relatively rare and that's partly because we are trying very hard to make sure that we don't make the problem worse. It is entirely possible though that if we don't deal with this now we are going to start having issues with completely resistant organisms. So they've already had a case in the U.S. where a patient in Nevada died because her organism was resistant to 26 different antibiotics. They simply had nothing left.

LL: That's frightening. Governments have debated this issue at the United Nations. We've seen various action plans being developed you've talked about everything else that's going on and I am wondering how optimistic you are that we're heading in the right direction?

LORI BURROWS: Well I'm an optimist by nature. You have to be an optimist to be a scientist because a lot of what you do doesn't work. But I think there's a lot of willpower not only in the scientific community but at the government level this is recognized as global and serious problem. So you know we're trying to push for new investment because we need new drugs. We're trying to push for stewardship and that means that we take better care of the antibiotics we already have. So we don't prescribe them when you have a viral infection like the cold or the flu. And you don't buy them over the counter. You make sure that you go through someone who knows what they're doing. And we're also pushing for regulatory changes which some of which I mentioned earlier, so a faster approval of these drugs and a smoother pathway to getting intellectual property coverage because that's what will get companies interested.

LL: Well I'm glad you're an optimist and thank you for sharing a bit of that optimism with us today. Bye bye.

LORI BURROWS: Thanks.

LL: Lori Burrows is a microbiologist and professor of biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster University. She was in our Hamilton studio. Now we have some time to tell you about a story that is coming up next Tuesday on The Current. Anna Maria Tremonti speaks with Yale University professor of psychology Laurie Santos. She teaches a course called Psychology and the Good Life. And it has become the most popular course in the school's 317 year history. One of every four undergrads on campus has signed up.

SOUNDCLIP

I mean really what you see at Yale is I think that kind of thing you see at a lot of elite institutions. You know the students work incredibly hard to get there. They have to focus very carefully on grades and accolades and these things. But there is this question about whether or not those things are the kind of stuff that really happiness is all about. I mean we tell our students that they have to worry so much about grades. But really what the research shows is that focusing on things like social connection, focusing on gratitude even focusing on what's called time affluence - the idea that you just have time to do the things you like - those are the things that make for a good life. And those are the things that will make for a good life for our students down the line too. And so I started to really worry that the kinds of goals we were putting in place for our students might not be the kinds of things that are going to make them most happy in the long run.

LL: Yale professor Laurie Santos will be Anna Maria's guest next Tuesday. And now a note of thanks to the people who brought you The Current this week.

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KORI SIDAWAY: Hi. I'm Kori Sidaway, the intern here at The Current. This week the show was produced by: Idella Sturino, Howard Goldenthal, Ines Colabrese,Rosa Kim, Pacinthe Mattar, Julie Crysler, Samira Mohyeddin, Kristin Nelson, Karin Marley, John Chipman, Yamri Taddese, Ram Sharvendiran, Amra Pasic and Liz Hoath. And special thanks this week to Anne Penman in Vancouver, Suzanne Dusfrene in Winnipeg and Mary-Catherine McIntosh in Halifax. The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Our digital producer is Padraig Moran. Our documentary editor is Joan Webber. Transcriptions are provided by Rasha Shehata and Nikhil Sharma. Our technical producer is Gary Francis with help from Paul Hodge. Our senior producers are Willow Smith in Toronto and Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Lara O'Brien.

LL: And that is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for Q. Black Panther is the first big budget superhero film to feature a predominantly Black cast and director and it is already breaking early box office records. It's also garnering praise for exploring social issues never before covered in the genre. Danai Gurira is a star in the film and she's going to join Tom Power. And remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app. It lets you browse through past episodes of our show and start listening in just a few seconds. It is free from the App Store or Google Play. And as you heard earlier in the show the Olympics have hosted quite a number of, well, let's just say peculiar sporting competitions since 1896: Tug of war, horse long jumping, solo synchronized swimming. All are gone now. But what's next. Solo boxing? Well Monty Python have an idea for an Olympic event and it is crazy enough that it just might make it. I'm Laura Lynch. Thank you for listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Hello. Good afternoon and welcome to the second leg of the Olympic final of the men's Hide and Seek, [laughter] here in the House Britain's London. You'll be starting in just a couple of moments from now. And there you can see the two competitors: Francisco Huron on the Paraguayan who in this is the seeker. And there is the man he will be looking for: Our own Don Roberts from Hinkley in Gloucestershire who is [unintelligible] tells me is at the height of his self-secreting form. [Laughter] Now in the first leg which ended on Wednesday our Don succeeded in finding the Paraguayan in the new world record time of 11 years,[laughter] two months, 26 days, nine hours, three minutes, 27.4 seconds in a sweet shop in [unintelligible].

[Indistinct shouting]

[Counting in indistinct language]

Well Don is off to a really great start there. Remember, the Paraguayan has 11 years, two months, 26 days, nine months, three minutes, 27.4 seconds to beat.

[Counting in indistinct language] Coming

[Laughing]

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Friday February 16, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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