Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2018

The AIH Transcript for August 7, 2018

Hosts: Matt Galloway and Jeff Douglas

Prologue

MATT GALLOWAY: Hello I'm Matt Galloway sitting in for Carol Off. Good evening.

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

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight…

MG: Glimmers of hope. The death toll in Indonesia continues to rise after Sunday's earthquake. But amid widespread destruction there are rare and dramatic stories of rescues on the island of Lombok.

JD: He will not succumb to beer-pressure. Our guest is one of many in the industry who suggest trouble is brewing after Ontario Premier Doug Ford uncap his much heralded buck a beer initiative.

MG: History replaces itself. In place of a historical plaque in Montreal that featured a brutal detail, a new plaque has been put up, but the Mohawk history teacher who first complained said that wasn't the solution he was after.

JD: Tables for two? When his 14-month-old son needed a nappy change in a Tim Hortons, a Quebec father was surprised and extremely disappointed to find no facilities for the task in the men's bathroom.

MG: Attention shoppers. Two very different celebrity encounters in two very different grocery stores — one involving the rapper Ludacris in a heartwarming situation, the other involving Keith Urban in a ludicrous situation.

JD: And…The spirit is willing and the flesh is like, ‘Why not?’ For most of us it takes a chill of some kind. But in his research our guest has discovered a subset of the population who can give themselves goosebumps just by thinking. As It Happens: The Tuesday Edition: Radio that brings in a self-bumper crop.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Part 1: Indonesia Earthquake, Montreal Plaque, Voluntary Goosebumps

Indonesia Earthquake

Guest: Evan Burns

JD: The death toll from Sunday's earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok is nearing 100 people. Officials expect that number to rise as more people are retrieved from under collapsed buildings. But amid the grim recovery operations there have been some striking scenes of survival.

SOUNDCLIP

MAN CRYING AND VOICES IN THE BACKGROUND

JD: That was the sound of a man being pulled alive from the rubble of a mosque in north Lombok, Indonesia. The 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck during evening prayers when as many as 50 worshippers were in the building. Elsewhere on the island residents and emergency workers have been contending with damaged infrastructure as well as three more earthquakes. As recently as 2a.m. this morning a 5.3 magnitude quake forced more evacuations. Evan Burns is the manager of the Living Asia Resort on Lombok ‘s west coast, which is where we reached him.

MG: Mr. Burns, how are you and your family doing today?

EVAN BURNS: Quite good thanks. It's been a tiring last couple of days but everything's OK at the moment.

MG: Describe what the damage is like where you are right now?

EB: We're in the tourist area of Setangi Lombok. Last couple of days it's been a big cleanup effort. It's ghostly quiet. People are living in makeshift tents and refugee camps set up so it's not a nice feeling. I’m in a hotel so we’re quite safe with some damage, it's not a pretty sight at all, but many relief work is happening and it's starting to get back to normal.

MG: Are people staying in the rooms of the resort right now?

EB: We only have a few guests left that couldn't get any flights or boats out to the area. We've had multiple aftershocks and a couple of small earthquakes yesterday following the big one on Sunday and many of our guests chose to sleep inside the garden area of the hotel under some shelter because they're terrified to be sleeping in the rooms. But a majority of the guests have departed and they were excited to head towards the airport.

MG: And what about your employees?

EB: Many employees we hire from the local villages. We’ve accounted for all staff and all staff’s family seem to be in good health minus a few injuries, but all our staff have been accounted for. They just obviously cannot get to the hotel because they live in villages that have been wiped out or severely damaged.

MG: And what do we know about what's happening, as you mentioned, a resort presumably has more resources than some of those villages. What's the status of life in those villages and smaller towns?

EB: I personally haven't been up there. I've spoken to some media who have been to the epicentre and it's not a good site. Some of these people only a couple of days earlier went through a smaller earthquake and were already in makeshift housing and living in the outside of the homes. And from the accounts I’ve heard many villages have been completely wiped out. The death count cannot be counted because many bodies are under complete rubble.

MG: Where were you on Sunday night when the earthquake hit?

EB: I was at home, I was with my family, my wife and son. We live about 10 minutes away from my resort and it struck about 7:30 p.m. there’s plenty of quakes here so we know what they feel like but this was unbelievably loud. The house started to shake and immediately started cracking and it was very hard to run. You can imagine the ground and the buildings moving so hard that you cannot walk straight, you’re running on an angle. I finally got my family, we ran outside and the building is starting to fall apart, all the tiles and windows are starting to break and crack and we were outside and then we got the tsunami warning close after and then we had to shift to the village, which was about three kilometres make our way by foot.

MG: When you say that it was unbelievably loud, what did it sound like?

EB: If you can imagine the sound of a building cracking and it was extremely loud. My house is made of pure concrete reinforced with steel. Some of the concrete is just splitting, shredding in half, so you can imagine taking a jackhammer to a piece of concrete , the sound that it makes is like that, thumping loud coming from all directions.

MG: As you said, I mean, you've been through earthquakes before this was very different — it's terrifying. How scared were you?

EB: I've been through a lot working in hotels. Unfortunately you see absolutely everything — tsunami and earthquake and bombing and everything that I've experienced. But this was not so much the strength from this earthquake but unfortunately it went on for over 30 seconds. Most of the ones we’re prone to o last four, five, six or 10 seconds and then it will stop before any severe damage is done. But during that time I've sent messages to my family, which was basically goodbye messages that we wouldn’t make it out alive. Also from the tsunami alert, we were very still very close to the ocean. As a father of a two-year-old I haven't done any natural disasters since being a father, so the feeling is different. But I was also away from the hotel so I felt trapped because I couldn't support the guests in the hotel which is my responsibility. So I had to rely on my staff to do that, but my responsibility to get my family to safety and running three kilometres with a baby and a wife in the middle of the night in the pitch black in the jungle is not a nice feeling. And what goes through your mind is ‘What have I done that's so wrong that I had put my family through something like this?’ It's not a nice feeling at all.

MG: And writing those messages, those goodbye messages. I mean, that's unimaginable I think for most people.

EB: You have to do what you have to do. You look back on it now and there’s many people that have of lost lives, but it's all in perspective now. But if I didn't have that chance to write such a message then you'd regret it. So the main this is that we’re safe and the housing everything we can rebuild, but you can't replace the lives that were lost out there in these last two earthquakes with well over 100 people now.

MG: And what have the last few days been like in terms of — you talked about the slow rebuild and the slow recovery — what have those last couple of days been like?

EB: It's ok, we move on and we make the guest come and I've sent my family to safety and far further from the impact zone. But now my responsibility is to get the hotel back up and running and make sure the guests feel safe and go from there. As the head of the hotel your reputation is on the line. I have a job to do to make sure that everyone feels comfortable and has the resources that they need.

MG: You've been through a lot in the last couple of days and it's still unfolding, so I appreciate you joining us and thanks so much and take care of yourself.

EB: Thanks.

MG: Bye, bye.

JD: Evan Burns is the manager of the Living Asia Resort. We reached him on Lombok.

[Music: Ambient Tones]

Montreal Plaque

Guest: Michael Rice

JD: Today, two stone plaques are being removed from a heritage building on a bustling street in the city of Montreal and being replaced with new ones in English and French. And these new plaques excise a pretty brutal reference to Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve killing a Iroquois Chief quote “with his own hands” in 1644. Michael Rice is a history teacher from Kahnawake, Quebec. He first drew attention to these plaques more than 25 years ago. We reached Mr. Rice in Deux-Montagnes.

MG: Mr. Rice, does this feel like victory for you, the removal of these plaques?

MICHAEL RICE: Yes and no. I was kind of surprised when I found out that the plaques had been changed today. First of all, because I had never asked for them to remove those plaques, I've been insisting all along that they could add an extra plaque to give the Iroquois perspective. And it seems that was something that was lost in the discussion, I don’t know when but they seem to interpret it that it was much easier just to remove the plaques, change the wording on them slightly and then put new ones back up.

MG: This is the English translation of the plaques. It said “Near this square the founders of Ville-Marie first encountered the Iroquois whom they defeated. Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve killing the chief with his own hands, March 1644.” When you read that for the first time back in 1992, what was your reaction?

MR: I was shocked. I was like ‘What kind of dedication is this on a corner stone of a bank.’ So I went inside and that's to speak to the manager and I says ‘Look you have an offensive sign in your building.’ And at that time that was that 350th anniversary of Montreal. We were working in old Montreal, we had an exhibit for the cultural center from Kahnawake, and I went in with my manager time and she said ‘Yes, that's wrong. Where else would you see that this message written that somebody was killed with their bare hands or strangled or whatever to that effect?’ So the bank manager and the bank staff at the time said ‘Oh yeah, we've never really paid attention because we bought the building. We'll bring attention to the authorities’ and I figured while something would be done with it. And then lo and behold, last July they had a reconciliation dinner which was hosted by then mayor of Montreal Denis Coderre and local native chiefs and dignitaries, and I wrote instead of having these big $200.00 plate VIP meals why don’t they start doing small gestures like dealing with these stupid plaques?

MG: How prominently are the plaques? I mean, for people who don't know, describe the location that this bank branch is in.

MR: The plaques are right at the dedication cornerstones of the Bank of Montreal right in Place d'Armes, which is facing the Notre Dame basilica. So any tourist who is passing by, it’s about maybe six to eight feet off the ground and you would look up and you would be able to read the dedication stone. And then if you go across the street into the square, which is maybe not even a hundred meters away, on there it says Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve met the Iroquois and was able to defeat them. But on the stone’s engraving it shows him drawing a pistol and shooting the native chief in the head. And I was saying ‘Hey something doesn’t correlate here. In the story of one he is strangling him and here he’s shooting him with a pistol.

MG: How did what was on the plaques square with the depiction of Indigenous peoples that you'd seen and that you grew up with as a Mohawk man?

MR: Well, it basically kept reiterating the whole thing that native people have disappeared, they were defeated, they're gone. And all I simply asked the bank was to put a plaque saying that he Iroquois were defending their territory — that's all I wanted. I says don't remove that line. Leave it there. It's a teachable moment, it's been there for so many years. But put this plaque up there to saying that the Iroquois are defending their territory. All you're doing is you have one-sided version of the conflict and it doesn’t explain why the Iroquois were there.

MG: The new plaque states that the founders of Ville-Marie first met the Iroquois around the Place d'Armes area and defeated them as 1644. Does that offer the context that you were looking for?

MR: No, not at all. And especially it's ironic because about two weeks ago they were doing archaeological excavations on Peel Street and they recovered pottery from an Iroquois village from around the 13th century — basically 200 years older than another Iroquois site that they found right near the entrance to McGill University. Like why is it so hard to acknowledge that the native people were here? It's not a big thing to put a plaque up there saying that they were just defending what they considered to be their territory.

MG: You know that this has been a debate across the country where people have talked about statues and plaques that could be removed, that could be renamed, whether it's the Langevin Block in Ottawa or the statue of Edward Cornwallis the statue of Egerton Ryerson in Toronto at Ryerson University. You raised that issue of the reconciliation dinner, and the belief from some people is that if you want reconciliation to be more than just a word and you want to take real steps towards that, you need to address those historical monuments. One of the ways that people do that is by taking those monuments down. Why do you think that that's not the right approach?

MR: Well, you're losing the opportunity to have open and honest discussions on history, because you have to remember the route of history is his story. It's coming from one's perspective. And if we start removing all these plaques and all these monuments, I mean, what are you going to have in its place? You’re going to have a lot of empty squares and you would have a lot of empty streets, streets with no names.

MG: But you might also have less hurt, less pain from people who do find those names or those statues offensive?

MR: Well, the thing is you can't change the past. I think what's more important is that you have a teachable moment where you can bring it up to people to say that the Iroquois were just defending their territory, whereas it basically says there they met them, they fought, they killed them and then they're gone. And it’s not just a simple matter. I mean, the French fought the Iroquois off and on for over a period of 150 years. And what's always been at the base of it has always been title and recognition to who owns the land. And it seems like it's the elephant — instead of the room — it’s the elephant in the Place d’Armes Square that nobody wants to go near.

MG: Mr. Rice, we'll leave it there. It's good to speak with you. Thank you.

MR: You're welcome.

MG: Bye, bye.

JD: Michael Rice is a high school history teacher in Kahnawake, Quebec. We reached him in Deux-Montagnes.

[Music: 90’s Hip-Hop]

Voluntary Goosebumps

Guest: James Heathers

JD: Most of us get goosebumps when we’re hand with a cold blast of air or water or when we're faced with something that freaks us out. And by these things I mean obviously something external. But researchers at Northeastern University in Boston feel that they have made a breakthrough in the study of horripilation — that apparently is the fancy word for goosebumps. In a recently published paper they say that a small number of people can give themselves goosebumps without any kind of external stimuli. We reached James Heathers, one of the authors of the study, in Boston.

MG: Mr. Heathers, how does somebody become interested in people who can give themselves goosebumps?

JAMES HEATHERS: By accident is the best answer to come up with to that. I found a reference reading through a paper which said ‘the autonomic nervous system is always automatic except in unusual circumstances’ and listed a paper from the 1930s. And the paper from the 1930s was a case study on how there were, very occasionally, people who couldn't control their own goosebumps.

MG: Very occasionally?

JH: Yeah, well we actually don't know how common or uncommon it is. I wanted to get a measure of prevalence from the study I did but we could not. We haven't actually managed to figure that out yet. We just know it's rare.

MG: But the understanding is that you shouldn't be able to do this, right? That this is something that happens and voluntarily not something that you can control?

JH: Absolutely, and that's why there's been three case studies on it in more than a century, which is a grand total of three people, ever really, before our study because we assume that the autonomic nervous system, the part of the nervous system that operates outside of conscious control is not something that you have conscious access to.

MG: Can you do this?

JH: No, I can't, I wish I could. And people in my study have tried to teach me on more than one occasion and outlined the steps that they took, but I absolutely cannot.

MG: Have you met anyone who is able to do this, anyone in person?

JH: I'm only just about to because we’re only just about to start laboratory studies where people come in so we can take physiological measurements from them, but so far the conversations have been confined to the Internet and Skype and the videos that people send me of them doing it.

MG: And so based on those conversations in the videos, you believe them, I mean, that somebody can do something they shouldn't be able to do in terms of giving themselves goosebumps?

JH: Oh yes, absolutely.

MG: What do they described to you? I mean, explain how they go about doing this?

JH: First of all, they make a decision about what they want to do. And then they describe a tension or an energy that builds at the back of the head or some part of the neck, maybe behind their ear, and that energy sort of travels down the spine and starts to radiate out into their limbs and generally where they see it come through strongly is a few seconds after that the goosebumps on my forearm start to rise and then the goosebumps on their legs. That is how they describe the sensation.

MG: You said that they'd offered you and they'd given you, because you can't do this yourself, they've given you sort of steps or tips on how to do this?

JH: Yeah, I don't know actually any of them are any good becuase I haven't been able to make any of them work yet.

MG: Try them out on me, I mean, I don't know how to give myself goosebumps, what would I need to do?

JH: OK, well we'll have a go. Let's see what happens. The first thing you need to try and do, these are the most common ones I've received. Exhale completely and then inhale completely and as you're inhaling completely try to keep your chest up and focus your attention on the back of your head like you were trying to pull your ears back and try to remember what the sensation of Goosebumps is like when you when you feel something, when you see a great work of art or you hear a piece of music that really touches a chord inside you. Not much to go on is it?

MG: Nothing's happening. You know, I had a moment which I thought maybe something would happen and nothing's happening. Can people actually learn how to do this?

JH: I have absolutely no idea yet but I'm going to keep getting tips and we're going to keep trying them because the answer to whether or not you can learn it has a great deal of potential to teach us something about how the nervous system works.

MG: Explain a bit more about this. I mean, why should we care whether somebody can give themselves goosebumps or not?

JH: That's the $64,000 question. It rewrites what we know, to some small degree, about how food goosebumps themselves are actually wired. We think of them in terms of being completely automatic and the muscles that control the individual hairs that make the bumps, which everyone has even if you don't have hairs that are visible you obviously still get goosebumps, because the tiny muscles that are doing the pulling to make the goosebumps have no conscious control whatsoever. So it shouldn't technically be possible and anything we can learn about how the nervous system is wired is potentially useful for a variety of reasons.

MG: Is it correct that people who can do this have told you that it feels like they have some sort of superpower?

JH: Yeah people have used the phrase tiny superpower or very mild superpower. The vast majority of people who can do this quite like the experience of doing it. Some of them do it all the time just because it feels nice, the same way you'd rub a knot out of your forearm or you scratch an itch, they give themselves goosebumps.

MG: As word of this phenomenon and the study of it starts to spread, are you hearing from more people who say that they can do this, who are getting in touch revealing their tiny superpower?

JH: Yeah, all the time. I have an enormous amount of e-mails from all over the world. And as the story starts to cross into different markets and go between different places. I've had emails from Austria, India, Finland, Australia, just yesterday Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore.

MG: Any Canadians in touch?

JH: And yes, very definitely some Canadians. So it's not just the cold when you leave the house without the goose jacket. Some people are doing that deliberately.

MG: We will no doubt hear from people who perhaps tried the experiment as I did but can do this themselves and perhaps they'll get in touch with you. In the meantime Mr. Heathers, thank you.

JH: Very much welcome. Thank you very much.

JD: James Heathers is a researcher at Northeastern University in Boston. That's where we reached him. Mr. Heathers is one of the authors behind a recently published paper that explores how some people can give themselves goosebumps. And we do have more on this on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Ambient Beeps]

Ludacris/Keith Urban

JD: And now two stories of celebrity musicians. Both are tales of people who met a generous benefactor at the precise moment they needed help, but only one suggests Keith Urban does not know how to use an ATM. The first was shared on Facebook by a freelance writer by the name of a Therra Gwyn Jaramillo. She was in line at a Whole Foods store in Atlanta recently in an emotional fog. She was almost broke and had been struggling since her husband's death, and so she wasn't paying attention and her items got mixed up with the items of the guy in front of her. She told Atlanta TV station 11Live what happened next.

SOUNDCLIP

TERRA GWYN JARAMILLO: And I said to the cashier ‘I'm so sorry, so sorry, that's mine.’ You know because I wasn't paying attention. And I heard the guy say, not to me but to the cashier, ‘I might as well get it.’ I thought my ‘What?’ My brain went, ‘He wants my dog food? That was the last bag on the shelf of that kind of dog food.’ But I thought ‘If he wants it he can have it, I’ll get more dog food.’ I didn’t realize what was happening, I really didn’t. And I tried to stop the cashier when she got to $263.00 because I’m like ‘Oh my gosh, I’m over.’ And he turned to me and he said — this handsome young stranger — he said ‘I got this. All of this. Don't put things back, put it up here.’

JD: Ms. Jaramillo was grateful but didn't know this guy who said he was just a guy, until he left and the cashier said ‘You know that's Ludacris right?’ So it was Chris Bridges, better known as the rapper and actor Ludacris. Ms. Jaramillo wrote quote “He was just doing something kind for a disheveled, harried stranger, showing the love in his soul, shining a light in the world” unquote. Speaking of doing something kind for disheveled, harried strangers, that is where Keith Urban comes in. Last Friday he was at a convenience store in Medford, New Jersey when he met substitute teacher Ruth Reed. But she was not the disheveled stranger — he was. Ms. Reed makes a habit of stepping in to pay for people at that particular convenience store. So when the guy with the tattoos and the modified Rachel haircut realized he did not have enough cash she offered to pitch in. She said he looked like Keith Urban. He said he was. She said no he wasn't. His bodyguard said he was. It was then Ruth Reed says that ‘I realized what an idiot I was.’ So two celebrity encounters, one restores someone's faith in humanity, another made someone feel like an idiot. But in both cases the women are thanking they're lucky stars.

Back To Top »

Part 2: Ford: Buck a Beer, Tim Horton's Changing Table

Ford: Buck a Beer

Guest: Troy Burtch

JD: It's not exactly a chicken in every pot. But today, Ontario Premier Doug Ford did announce that he is making good on one of his campaign promises — a buck a beer — sort of. What he actually announced to us that later this month the permitted minimum price for a bottle or a can of beer would drop to a dollar from the current standard of $1.25.

SOUNDCLIP

PREMIERE DOUG FORD: Nobody is being forced to lower their prices and there will be no subsidies or tax handouts. Instead, we are launching the buck-a-beer challenge. We are putting the challenge out there for every brewer big and small — that's all 260 brewers in Ontario. Bring your price down to a dollar in time for August 27th. Those that get there first will be recognized throughout the year. Those opportunities could include promotional programs such as limited time discounts, in-store displays and end of the aisles and shelf extenders or advertising and the LCBO flyers and newspaper inserts — and of course, the respect and appreciation they will get from consumers will be priceless.

JD: Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaking earlier today from Barley Days Brewery Picton. That company has said it will participate and plans to sell beer at a dollar per bottle. Troy Burtch is with Great Lakes Brewery in Etobicoke and that's where we reached him.

MG: Troy Burtch, you just heard Premier Doug Ford call on breweries like yours to take that buck abeer challenge, are you in?

TROY BURTCH: We are not in. No, no we are absolutely not.

MG: Why not?

TB: Well, we feel like buck a beer diminishes brand. It's something that's has a perception of cheap and and weak if you will, not in terms of alcohol, but something that just doesn't benefit a company that cares about the community and engagement with consumers.

MG: What's going to be in that cheap beer though that's selling for a buck apiece?

TB: Well, I think the best way to describe it is you're going to get what you pay for. It's going to be a beer that has no flavour. It's going to be a beer that, for lack of a better word, it's going to taste watered down and it may well be. There are breweries out there that can make beer well with cheaper ingredients, but at the end of the day the craft beer drinker in Ontario is not looking for something without character. So I think that the growth of the industry over the last 10 years is really something. We're at 7.6 per cent of market share now in Ontario collectively, and I think that's because consumers are getting sick of bland beer.

MG: Barley Days Brewery, which is where the challenge was launched by the Premier, says that they're in they can do this without compromising on quality.

TB: I guess we'll have to wait and see.

MG: But why not see this as some sort of challenge, that in the spread of beers that your brewery creates you could create one that sells for a bit cheaper that might be still within the standards that you've set?

TB: Well, for example, our flagship brand is Canuck Pale Ale and we did a little bit of math this morning because like a lot of other Ontario craft breweries, this news while it wasn't a complete surprise we found out more about it on the weekend. But we did some number crunching today and if we were to sell a can of our Canuck Pale Ale that sells at the LCBO at $2.80 currently, if we were to sell it to the LCBO so that they could sell it on store shelves for one dollar, with the taxes, deposit, basic price adjustments — it would literally be selling it to them for 13 cents. So at the end of the day we can’t run a business that employs approximately 50 people and put on community initiatives and participate in local charitable groups and activities with undercutting our beer that much.

MG: We heard from the Premier earlier in that clip suggesting that there will be no financial incentives. Instead those who participate in this challenge, as he's calling it, could get front row shelving at the LCBO, could get advertising for advertising in the magazine that the LCBO produces. To a brewer like yourself, how important and how valuable is that sort of placement?

TB: Well, it's very valuable. We actually just participate in one of the larger ones in the lead up to Canada Day. In June we purchased end aisle displays for our Canuck Pale Ale. We did approximately 380 stores over four weeks and that cost just over $7,000 plus tax. So that's a lot of money that suppliers, not just brewers, but wineries cideries and spirit companies are paying to the LCBO. And you start to move some of that to give it to the beer challenge companies and you're taking money away from the LCBO, which in turn will then take it away from providing it to the government at the end of the day.

MG: Those incentives aren't tempting for someone like yourself?

TB: Tempting — we do purchase them so they are tempting to us, but at the end of the day we will let our beer speak for itself and there's no real reason for us to participate in something to make a quick buck.

MG: Since word got out about this over the weekend there has been a discussion and debate about it. Somebody who was speaking about it was the Ontario MPP Randy Hillier, who is saying on Twitter, these are his words “As a young apprentice electrician making seven dollars an hour and raising a family and paying a mortgage, it was welcomed that I could afford a dozen beers once a week. That was my real Ontario you pretentious snob.” Do you worry that you might alienate a segment of the population who perhaps can't afford your beer, that they want cheaper beer?

TB: No, I don't think so. I don't think at this point a lot of the people that are wanting the buck a beer are currently craft beer consumers. It's great to bring more and more people into the fold, but we're looking for people that want to have a memorable time with flavour, with character, with a company that puts values ahead of profit. Everyone wants to make money and be successful in this industry but at the end of the day our whole goal is just to get the freshest Great Lakes beer out to the public. And I understand where people are coming from. If Hillier wanted to really do something about the price of beer they would look at taxation, not put it on the backs of brewers to accept the challenge.

MG: Why do you think the Premier is doing this now?

TB: That's one question we've been asked a lot today and I don't want to assume what he's thinking or why he does what he does.

MG: But here you're in this industry, you know it well. Why do you think this is appeared now?

TB: I think he made a campaign promise and it was something that's very easy to do. It's a low hanging fruit. He makes an announcement and it goes through and puts it on the backs of brewers to participate so he can say well no one's doing it I gave the brewers the option to do it. If they're really concerned with pricing of beer and helping out the people they would look at the kind of taxes we pay as brewers here in the province.

MG: Premier Doug Ford wants this in place by the Labour Day long weekend. If you take a look a year from now how many brewers do you think will be selling buck a beer?

TB: If I look into my crystal ball on Great Lakes behalf, I would say that the most up to maybe under 10.

MG: Under 10 out of 260 some breweries in Ontario?

TB: I don't want to be presumptuous but I think a lot of the people are comrades, if you will, in the Ontario craft brewing industry. They understand that our whole game, our whole business philosophy is all about producing quality beer. And if you can't do that and offer do it and offer it for a dollar, I don't think you're going to see the bulk — 99 per cent of of craft brewers slide into that challenge.

MG: Mr. Burtch, we'll leave it there. Good to talk to you, thank you.

JD: Troy Burtch is a spokesperson for Great Lakes Brewery in Etobicoke, Ontario and that is where we reached him. And to see more reaction to today's buck a beer announcement, or to hear that interview again or share it, visit our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Whimsical Bells]

Jellybean Row

JD: When you see Jellybean Row in St. John's, Newfoundland you don't have to ask why it is called Jellybean Row. The houses and the fish sheds along the road come in every bright colour you can imagine, they are landmarks in St. John's. Now an artist says some of that vivid spectrum is showing up very far from the island's east coast capital — on the west side of Newfoundland. Robin Love has lived there since the late nineties and she has noticed that people there are painting their houses and fish sheds just like Jellybean Row, and Ms. Love spoke with CBC Corner Brook’s Jennifer Grudićr about this case of bi-coastal colour.

SOUNDCLIP

ROBIN LOVE: A few years ago in there was some money, like historic preservation money, for people who had fish sheds to fix them up and repaint them as long as they kept to the traditional colours, which were red and white — mainly red with white trim. And people could only access the money if they stuck to the tradition. So that's when I started to think ‘Well, wait a minute, these aren't really the colours that have traditionally been here. So is there a potential to lose something that's specific to here just in the effort to make something that's very appealing perhaps to tourists?’ That became my question.

JENNIFER GRUDIC: Some people might be hearing this and think ‘Well, it's pretty colours, everyone can have pretty colours on their homes. What's the harm in this?’ But is there anything that you think might be getting lost through this sort of process where people are replicating the jellybean look from the East Coast here on the West Coast?

RL: You know, I mean, maybe there's no harm and I guess, but potentially I think there's a sense that the island becomes a bit more homogenized and the West Coast does have its own history and its own traditions and perhaps those could be lost. And just as I said, you know, those colors are so appealing and I completely understand it. At the same time, there's so much here that's already extremely appealing and I would hate to see that get kind of basically erased. But at the same time culture is not stagnant. So changes are made and this just might be another one.

JD: That was artist Robin Love speaking with CBC’s Jennifer Grudic about why colourfully painted houses on the west coast of Newfoundland may be infringing on St. John’s Jellybean Row.

[Music: Ambient Tones]

Tim Horton's Changing Table

Guest: Chris Webb

JD: Last week Chris Webb was at a Tim Hortons in Quebec with his son Owen. Owen is 14-months-old and when he needed a nappy change his dad took him to the washroom to do the dirty work. But according to Mr. Webb what happened next was a quote “awkward” and quote “unnecessary situation.” And afterwards, outside the store he took to Twitter to vent his frustration. He has since received a response from Tim Hortons and a commitment to improve the situation. We reached Chris Webb at his home in Pincourt, Quebec.

MG: Mr. Webb, you go to the washroom with Owen, dirty diaper in tow. What happened?

CHRIS WEBB: We discovered that there was no change table in the men's washroom so we went and talked to one of the employees who was serving and she told us that there was no change table in the men's washroom but there was one in the women's and we could go and use that.

MG: How did you react when you were told that?

CW: I say ‘Okay, fine whatever.’ It's not the first time where I've had to go into the women's washroom to use a change table. I'm sure it won’t be the last time I go into the women's washroom to use a change table. I was like ‘Really, seriously?’ I was kind of taken aback that there was not one to begin with. Tim Hortons are a huge chain in Canada, they market themselves as a family friendly business. They provide highchairs — I was surprised not to see a change table in the men's washroom.

MG: So what happened then, you're told you can go into the women's washroom?

CW: And that was kind of the end of the conversation and I'm like ‘I'm not comfortable with just walking in the women's washroom.’ So I asked the lady who said you can go use the women's washroom to go and check if there's any in there, which she did. And she said there was nobody in there. So I propped the door to the stall open with the stroller, proceeded to change him. A lady came into the washroom ‘Is this the men’s washroom?’ ‘No, no it's not. This is the women's washroom.’ And she went to go and in the stall next to the one that had change table in at and then decided to leave. So I finished up I was like ‘Should I go wash my hands in the men's washroom?’ No that's ridiculous I'm going to stay in here and wash my hands in the women's. We left and this lady was stood outside the washroom and I apologized to her and she said ‘Oh, don't worry I like I have children.’ But if she hadn’t have been bothered by it I would have thought that she would have just used the stall, it was a separate toilet stall, she would have the one next to us and gone on about her business and we would have all moved on with our days. But she didn't, she felt the need to leave.

MG: When you were done — wash your hands diaper changed — you went and spoke with a supervisor, what happened there?

CW: So she said she knew that there wasn't one in the men's washroom but there was one in the women's and the women don't mind.

MG: And that was the end of the conversation?

CW: Pretty much. I just kept saying that's not acceptable it's not good enough, there should be one in the men's washroom, there's one in the women's washroom. In the end she said ‘I could talk to my manager about it.’ But I didn't leave feeling any conviction that she was going to do anything about it.

MG: What were you hoping that your tweet would do? I mean ,is it just venting or were you hoping that it would create some sort of action?

CW: It was a little bit of a vent at the moment. I made the decision that if I didn't speak out then there was going to be no change. I actually went to call them and I looked on their website to find their phone number. And it's as far as I can tell it’s not on the website and in my conversation with Tim Hortons yesterday they also couldn’t find on that website. And that's something that they said that they're going to rectify so that people have a direct means to communicate with them. I wouldn't have taken this to Twitter if they had a phone number. I would have called them. I would have taken it up with them and told them it's not good enough and that would have been the end of the matter. But through them not providing a means of direct means of communication, this is the end result.

MG: How quickly did it take for Tim Hortons to be aware of what happened and get back in touch with you?

CW: So the first response I received from Tim Hortons was yesterday afternoon, so Monday afternoon. And this happened on Friday at lunchtime.

MG: And what did they say?

CW: She said that the franchisee of that particular restaurant has purchased a change table for that location having heard about the comments, that it would be installed and they like me in my family to go for a meal and to use the change table. She said that they're refurbishing all of their restaurants across Canada over the next so many years, she didn't commit to a timeframe, and that in that process they would be installing change tables in all of those restaurants where the space permitted.

MG: Is that satisfying to you?

CW: It is and it isn't. This was never really about Tim Hortons. I think it has become focused on Tim Hortons. It was more about the fact that there in some places I know changing facilities either for men or for women — that's totally unacceptable. And that in those locations where there's changing services made available to women, why are those facilities also not available to fathers? There is this sort of expectation that it's the mother’s role to change a child's diaper. There's plenty of stay at home dads, there’s plenty of families where both parents are male, there's plenty of situations where dads go out on their own with their child and they need to change them. And this is not just Tim Hortons, this is a systemic issue where there are no changing facilities made available to men and there's also in lot of situations no changing facilities made available to women either and that's totally unacceptable.

MG: I remember, more than a decade ago, taking my young daughter out and trying to find somewhere to change her and you'd have to balance her on the side of the sink in the men's washroom or on the floor or something like that. I would have assumed that in more than a decade that would have changed. It hasn't changed that much.

CW: It has improved. I think there's been a big push to provide facilities for women to breastfeed — that's amazing. There's been a push for family washrooms — the number of family washrooms I've been in that don't have a change table in it is surprising. You seem to go on these bizarre bathrooms that have two toilets and no changing table and then changing tables somewhere else. There's a lot of strange decisions that seem to be made based around this idea of being a family and changing your child.

MG: Chris, good to talk to you, I appreciate it. Thank you.

CW: Thank you.

JD: That was Chris Webb in Pincourt, Quebec. In a statement to CBC News Tim Hortons said quote “Obviously as a family brand we need to make accessible changing tables available for all our guests. This is now standard in our new restaurant design that is rolling out across Canada,” unquote. A spokesperson also clarified quote “There are many restaurants in our system that already have this option available, unquote.”

[Music: Trance Bass]

Sarah Lawson

JD: Last week Sarah Lawson was in a parking lot in Saint John, New Brunswick when she fell hard, headfirst onto the pavement. She could not get up by herself. Ms. Lawson has muscular dystrophy, which can make getting up from a position like that very difficult. So when she saw a woman getting out of her car she asked for help. Ms. Lawson told the CBC’s Julia Wright what happened next.

SOUNDCLIP

SARAH LAWSON: She was coming out and going into the building and I called out to her and I asked her for help and she looked at me and she said ‘No,’ and kept walking. At that point I noticed that there was a car that was originally parked behind me and it had started to back out and I was right behind it and I wasn't able to get out of the way so the car started to frighten me over, and at that point I heard other people coming running yelling for the lady to stop. She didn't hear or understand at first so she kept backing over me. When she heard she stopped the car and the car was parked on top of me but the patrons didn’t realize that and they tried to pull me out but I told him I was pinned under the car, I can't move. So they got her to then roll her car forward off of me and then they pulled me out from under the car and they helped me get up again.

JULIA WRIGHT: What went through your mind when you realized that no one was going to help you up and that a car was moving toward you?

SW: Well, when I realized she wasn't going to help me I knew I was in a very precarious situation. I knew there was a very good chance that I was going to get hit by a car because I couldn't get up. So I was just kind of looking around to kind of figure out what direction was it going to come from when it happened. So then I saw a car was eventually moving, she was moving slowly so it kind of happened in slow motion and it was surreal. I’m just kind of watching it happen thinking ‘Is this really happening?’ Very soon after the police arrived and firemen, paramedics, so I was taken into the ambulance to be assessed and while I was in there one of the police people who had arrived, he was taking statements. He came in and talked to me and told me that the woman didn’t help me because she thought it was a scam, she thought that I was planning on robbing her.

JD: That was Sarah Lawson speaking to CBC reporter Julia Wright about her fall in a New Brunswick parking lot last week. Ms. Lawson suffered some cuts and bruises and she has a cast on her leg.

[Music: Violin]

Black Album

JD: It has long been considered a holy grail for record collectors Princes 1987 LP The Black Album. It is one of the most coveted and mysterious records in the purple one’s catalog. And now it is easily the most expensive — an original copy of it just sold online for $27,500 U.S. It is the most expensive record ever sold on the music marketplace Discogs. Steeped in music nerd lore, The Black Album was shelved a week before its release after Prince decided the album was quote “evil” and immediately ordered all pressings be destroyed. A few promo copies survived — bootlegs, of course as they do, made the rounds. Eventually Warner Brothers released a limited run of the album in 1994. But original pressings are seldom seen. And the one that just sold has a Canadian connection, which makes it even more obscure — no one knew any Canadian pressings existed. But according to Discogs the sealed LP was quote “part of an otherwise destroyed Canadian production run and was saved by a pressing plant employee at the last minute.”

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

August 7, 2018 episode transcript

More Stories Like This