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The AIH Transcript for August 15, 2018

Hosts: Matt Galloway and Jeff Douglas

Prologue

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

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

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight…

MG: Devouring infernos. British Columbia declares a state of emergency as more than 500 fires burn across the province. Our guest describes the danger that forced him to flee to the challenges of fleeing.

JD: It's no day at the beach. The state of Florida declares a state of emergency in seven counties as a massive red tide of toxic algae fills the beaches with dead fish and empties the beaches of people.

MG: Calling off all the shots. Despite evidence that they save lives, the Ontario government suspends three proposals for safe injection sites. And one Toronto councillor tells us why she's just saying no to any new sites in her ward.

JD: Her art went beyond imitating life. The paintings of Mary Pratt were often depictions of commonplace things made amazingly uncommon by what the late artist herself called a quote “love affair with vision.”

MG: Used to be a site for sewer eyes. But now a new livestream allows anyone with a computer to check in on a hunk of the great, gross London fatberg. And if you're lucky, lucky he said, you'll be watching when it achieves sentience.

JD: I can't even. And…Oh, my sainted antlers. While driving in Newfoundland two friends get video of a breathtaking rare white piebald moose and provide a running commentary that is like the Canadian version of the double rainbow guy. As It Happens: The Wednesday Edition. Radio that goes is pretty heavy with the styling moose.

[Music: Theme]

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Part 1: BC Fires, Mary Pratt Obit, Florida Red Tide

BC Fires

Guest: Trevor Chapman

JD: It is a state of emergency in British Columbia. 560 fires are burning across that province. Thousands of people are under evacuation orders. Thousands more are on alert. Trevor Chapman is among those who decided to leave Fraser Lake. Yesterday afternoon the Shovel Lake wildfire, the largest one in the province, was getting too close for comfort. We reach Trevor Chapman in Prince George.

MG: At what point Trevor, did you decide, this is it, I got to get out of here?

TREVOR CHAPMAN: My son had called me and basically told me to get myself a truck and get out.

MG: What did it look like at that time?

TC: Once it flared up it was really bad. And, you know, living in a trailer park where you can’t get insurance on your belongings or anything like that, you basically had no choice but to pack and leave. And hopefully it’s still standing when you return.

MG: What is really bad look like?

TC: About three o'clock in the afternoon is supposed to be sunny and 27 degrees — well it looked like midnight and the awful pink and red glow in the sky was enough to give your head a shake and go ‘Yeah, okay, it's time to go.’ Nobody was telling us anything on any website. We basically took it upon ourselves, the people of Fraser Lake, to make our own decisions and start evacuating and moving our own selves out. You know what I mean? This is the frustrating part about the whole situation. There is no help. No nothing.

MG: It sounds like you're out on your own. I have to say your voice sounds really hoarse. Is that because of the smoke that's been around?

TC: Yeah. The amount of ashes and smoke and everything else, you know, I'm surprised I haven't got a puffer yet.

MG: Describe what happens as you leave? I mean, you get it on the road, what is it like?

TC: Oh, very hard trying to come up with that word again — apocalyptic. Driving you can’t see a-foot-and-a-half, two feet in front of you. People are racing by you doing like a 100, 120, you aren’t going to get there any faster than we are. But yeah people are just no respect for anybody else on the road but put your pedal to the metal and go.

MG: You mentioned the ash, was there a lot of ash falling at the time?

TC: Oh, yeah was like whiteout conditions like, you know, when you're driving through a snow storm, which we do not quite frequently up here, too. Yeah that's exactly what it was like windshield wipers couldn't keep up with that kind of thing.

MG: Could you feel the heat from the fire?

TC: No, couldn’t feel the heat, but you could definitely taste it, smell it, if you understand what I mean on that part. You know, when you sit around the campfire kind of thing, close to a campfire, like that. You could taste it, you could smell it, you could feel it in all my clothes and you could smell it all over you. Yeah, it’s like sitting in front of a campfire for a few hours.

MG: You ever seen anything like this before?

TC: Not in our area, no. Like we have had fires over the years, like I've been in Fraser Lake for quite some time. We've had fires but nothing like this of any way, shape or form nothing. I've never seen it like this.

MG: It sounds, I mean, to have that that close, and as you said, you know, you're sort of out on your own in trying to figure out when you're going to leave, that sounds really scary. Were you frightened?

TC: Yeah. Like I said, we had no support, nobody telling us anything. Nobody updating anything, so, and you know pardon my language, but to hell with it. This is hell, I'm going somewhere else.

MG: The British Columbia government has declared, as we mentioned, a state of emergency in response to the situation today. How does that strike you?

TC: Well a little late, but it's a good thing. You know, just saying it's a little late on that, but I mean if they're going to finally step in and do what needs to be done — great. But ten days too late kind of thing.

MG: What did you manage to leave with? I mean, you got to get out and you can't take everything. What did you manage to take with you?

TC: You know, I went through the last like everybody does, you know, important papers, clothing. Yeah, basically as much as I could fit into the back of my cousin's truck and leave everything else and if it’s still there when I get back, great. It it’s not, well, rebuild once again.

MG: Do you have any sense as to how the trailer is today?

TC: I tried to message my son not that long ago. Everything is still raining ash like just another normal day. But yeah, the fire didn't come over the hill on the north shore side, which is a very good thing. Well, at least it hasn't crested the mountain yet. That’s what everybody is worried about. So yeah again, no air traffic yesterday, which is probably understandable, there was zero visibility for them to be tackling anything. And everybody is going ‘Where's the planes? Where's the choppers? Where is everything?’ Are they just going to stand back and watch it burn?

MG: Well, I hope when you get back the trailer is still there and I hope your voice is doing okay as well as, you've been through a lot in the last day or so.

TC: Yeah but frantically you’ve got to to do what you’ve got to do. Adrenaline kicks in and away you go.

MG: Away you go, indeed. Trevor, it's good to talk to you about this. Take care yourself.

TC: All right you too, sir. Thank you very much for your time.

MG: Bye, bye.

TC: Bye.

JD: We reached Trevor Chapman in Prince George, British Columbia. Mr. Chapman left his home in Fraser Lake yesterday and we have posted photographs of the conditions in Fraser Lake on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Ukulele]

Mary Pratt Obit

Guest: Emma Butler

JD: Mary Pratt subjects are often the stuff of just everyday life. But the Newfoundland painter somehow set them aglow with the wonder of life. Mary Pratt died yesterday in her St. John's home. She was 83 years old. Today, she is being celebrated as a feminist pioneer and one of the brightest lights of Newfoundland and Canadian art. She's also being mourned as the mother of four and as a cherished friend. Emma Butler was one of those friends, and the founder of the Emma Butler gallery where so many of Mary Pratt's paintings were first shown. We reached Emma Butler in St John's.

MG: Emma Butler, I'm sorry for your loss.

EMMA BUTLER: Oh, thank you Matt. It's way more than my loss — it's a loss to the whole country. Very, very sad day I'm afraid.

MG: How are you remembering Mary Pratt today?

EB: Oh, well, you know, it's interesting you ask that because people talk about her work because her work was so original. She had her own imagery that was so easily recognizable. People would come into our gallery right away say ‘Oh that's a Mary Pratt. Look that's a Mary Pratt.’ But for me, today, I'm spending more time thinking about the woman because I just admired the way Mary Pratt lived her life.

MG: Tell me more about that?

EB: Well, you know, her circumstances, I mean, she came here back in the late 50s I think. She came from a very genteel part of the country, from Fredericton, and she ended up in a wild place, ended up living down by a river with no neighbours, no support, no family around her. You know, she had four children there. She had carried twins at one point and one of them was stillborn and the other one only lived a few days. She was married twice. She was divorced twice. And yes, she made the most incredible and beautiful paintings that they've ever been. But there was something about she lived that everybody admired.

MG: For people who don't know her art, describe that imagery, describe the work that she did?

EB: Well, you know, it's not as easy as that, really, because people think of how she made us see the inside of our homes and the domestic part of our lives as beautiful — and we hadn't thought of that before. First when I knew Mary, if you call yourself a feminist, which we did, eyes were raised, it was a bad word. So those of us who were still raising children and creating a good home for them but knew there was something more and trying to have a career at the same time. But yet, because of her a dinner table with everybody gone holds a beauty, an unmade bed holds a beauty, jars filled with jelly — fish on a plate. All of a sudden, and for ever, these images now have a beauty that they didn't have before Mary Pratt painted them.

MG: Where do you think that came from? You mentioned the jars of jelly and, I mean, that that is for a lot of us our favourite work, or at least one of the most iconic works, but a lot of us would also look at a shelf full of four jars of jelly and not see the beauty that she was able to extract from that. Where did that come from?

EB: Well, I think that's rather complicated. I can recall hearing her or reading that, you know, when life was difficult for us when she was a new mom and in the new place, one time she heard her grandmother's voice telling her ‘It's the light, it's all about the light.’ And she knew what light does to colour. I mean, she was such an educated artist, she knew about concepts and form — but more than that — she knew about joy and beauty. And it wasn't just domestic images. I mean, she could paint a rooster or a moose carcass or a nude woman or a Christmas cake. And they all let you the viewer see them as if for the first time.

MG: How do you think she has changed how we see beauty in our lives?

EB: Well, she's changed it by assuring us that you don't have to look far — it's everywhere. It's under your nose.

MG: Knowing her work as well as you do, is there a painting that you'll look at in the days ahead to remind yourself of her and what she meant to you?

EB: There is one. I also represent her daughter Barbara, and there is a picture of Barbara in her wedding dress done by her mother that's very powerful and very special to me. Mary Pratt would be loved here and everywhere, everywhere — people came from all over to visit her — other artists, writers, filmmakers, intellectuals — I could give you names but I won't, you know, wanted to visit her and chat with her.

MG: What was she like just as a friend? What was she like to talk to?

EB: Very forthright. She would talk about anything and everything. And she was elegant, you know, Matt. She was beautiful and she dressed well and she had an air about her. She I think she should have had a title. She should have been Lady Mary Pratt or Dame Mary Pratt or Dutchess Mary Pratt I think would have been right. She was so well-loved.

MG: You've done a wonderful job in remembering your friend. Emma, thank you.

EB: Thank you Matt.

MG: It's a great pleasure to talk to you. Bye, bye.

EB: Bye, bye.

JD: Emma Butler is a St. John's gallery owner. Her friend, the painter Dame Mary Pratt, died yesterday at the age of 83. In 2013 the CBC’s has Angela Antle asked Ms. Pratt whether there might be a subversive message beneath the domestic beauty of so much of her art. Here is Ms. Pratt’s response.

SOUNDCLIP

MARY PRATT: Not intentional.

AA: I don’t believe you.

MP: Oh, really? Why not?

AA: I think there’s a subversive message in some of them.

MP: Well, people have told me all about my paintings. People are very good at that, they tell you that you know because you were confined that you painted fruit in a bowl and all that kind of stuff. Well, I don’t know the fruit was in the bowl and it looked nice to me. It looked good, it looked as if it wanted to be saved. I don't know maybe — I read an awful lot and you know I read Germaine Greer and all that stuff. And frankly, I really did think that we all knew that anyway. But by the time the 60s came I had a passel of kids. I was in the country. I didn't have to think about it really very much. And when I did think about it I thought ‘I'm not going to get fussed about this. I'm just gonna try to be what I was brought up to be and what I was trained. I’m just going to be a painter and I’ll keep my eyes open and I’ll work as hard as I can. I love to paint.

JD: That was the great painter, Mary Pratt, speaking to the CBC. Angela Antle in 2013. Ms. Pratt died yesterday at her home in St. John's. She was 83 years old. And you can find out more about her on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Piano Ballad]

Florida Red Tide

Guest: Adrienne Miceli Trask

JD: More than 1 million kilograms of fish, hundreds of sea turtles, manatees, dolphins, a whale shark — all found dead on and around the beaches of Florida this summer. And what killed them as a suitably ominous name — the red tide. It is a toxic algae bloom that stretches 160 kilometres. And it's not just massacring marine life it is also poisoning people who breathe in its toxins when they become aerosolized. Now, a state of emergency has been declared in seven Florida counties, with the State Government pledging $1.5 million U.S. dollars for cleanup and Animal Rescue. Adrienne Miceli Trask is a local salon owner who organized a demonstration along the water this weekend. We reached her in Sarasota.

MG: Ms. Miceli Trask, what does it smell like along the coast of Florida these days?

ADRIENNE MICELI TRASK: Well, the smell is — it smells like rotting death if there is such a smell as that, but it's horrific, it's putrid — it's very putrid. Even outside my house sometimes I step outside you just get this rotting fish smell and it's overwhelming — powerful, powerful smell — it's very nasty.

MG: What does it look like?

AMT: It has a greenish tint and it's very murky. It doesn't look — it's not your normal typical gulf-looking type of the blue green water and clear. I mean, usually when you're in it you can see your feet, if you stand in the water you can see your feet.

MG: What has this meant then for your neighbourhood? I mean, it's a beautiful stretch of coast, it's smelling like rotting death and, you know, looking green is not what you would expect. What does this mean for your neighbourhood?

AMT: It's detrimental, especially for the businesses. I mean, we have a lot of businesses on the water — places to eat, fishing charters, we have boats to go out on tour boats. We have The Marina Jack, which is not only right on the water but it's also has a boat where you do a dinner cruise. We have all these things going on here that people are no longer able to enjoy it because when you go sit out anywhere near the water, there's tons and tons of dead fish in the water. So not only do they have to smell that, but they have to look at the dead fish and it's really hurting the spirit of everybody around here. And it's not just people that are directly affected that live on the water or at businesses on the water, but just in general, everybody here can't even enjoy the beaches or doing anything that they want — can't be go to a sunset.

MG: What has this meant for your own business?

AMT: Well, my business is not really affected by this right now, but we do have a lot of, we call them ‘snowbirds,’ which is people that come here to visit. We actually have a lot of Canadians that come to my business. So they go up there and then they come back here in the winter to their second home or they just come vacation here and we do have quite a few of those. So yes, I am kind of waiting to see what the impact is on my particular business during this time as well with everything happening. I just don't know what it's going to be like in a few months truthfully.

MG: It's not just an effect on businesses. There's also been a health effect. We're hearing about respiratory effects as well. What's going on there?

AMT: Yes, the respiratory — even right now my throat — I have asthma so I've been coughing a lot and some days I'm better than others. But today I was having a horrible fit, it causes burning of the eyes, your throats sore, sometimes get a tickle in the back of your throat. People that have asthma or COPD or chronic respiratory disease are being more affected by this — headaches, nausea, just stomach problems that can cause a whole host of things that a lot of people besides myself for quite a few of my friends have experienced these things that I just talked to about.

MG: This sort of algae is an annual occurrence but, I guess, this year has been worse than other years. What have you seen in past when it comes to this sort of thing?

AMT: Well, I know back in probably 2005 after the big hurricane, there was quite a bit of red tide and it was pretty bad. But I lived here, personally, since 1979, I moved to the Sarasota area and then I moved away for about 13 years after 21 years of being here. But I would always come back and visit. And I've been back here for a little over four years now and all this time since 1979 I have not, I personally, have not seen it like this, not with dolphins. They just retrieved the 11th dolphin out of Sarasota that has passed away due to this and we're talking dolphins that have been being tracked for years. Over 400 sea turtles, manatees, every kind of fish you can think of has been washed up.

MG: People who've been following this from the scientific perspective have said that there are natural causes to this but there are also manmade causes to this. Why do you think it's this year than perhaps in past years if you take a look at the causes behind it?

AMT: I don't have any type of degrees, I'm not I'm not even claiming to, my personal opinion, I believe, the runoff, the runoff from the lake that they're discharging from the Herbert Hoover Dike dam over there Lake Okeechobee is just exasperating the situation.

MG: You had a big demonstration on the weekend that you helped organize. What were you trying to get across with that demonstration?

AMT: Yes it was called ‘Hands Along The Water’ and it was basically we called it ‘A peaceful gathering to defend our Florida waters and wildlife and to create awareness,’ that was basically our mission. Without the ecosystem here and our natural flow of things and our at sea life, we’re a disaster waiting to happen and we were messing with our whole environment here. It's just, to me, it’s just a travesty and it just really breaks my heart.

MG: The government has said that a-million-and-a-half dollars will be spent to try and fight something like that. Is that going to be enough?

AMT: No, I don't think so. I think that it's like a good gesture but it's a little too late. I mean, anything will help. But I think we need a lot more. We need more money to be allocated just for specifically for this, not for tourism. We just need it all across the board for every area that's being affected we need a lot of money and a lot of help. It's very personal. It breaks my heart. I see I see all our sea-life being wiped out here. And that's basically how a lot of people are feeling. But we're also feeling strong because we feel like we have our voices were using that and we can we can try to make a difference to let our representatives and people higher up to know that enough is enough.

MG: Adrienne, I hope it gets cleaned up soon. Thank you so much.

AMT: Yes, thank you so much, Matt. I appreciate it.

MG: Take care. Bye bye.

JD: That was salon owner Adrienne Miceli Trask. We reached her in Sarasota.

[Music: 90’s Pop]

Fatberg Livestream

JD: Until recently. If you wanted to watch it per perspire or birth plump shining flies you had to witness it in person. But now thanks to the miracle of modern technology you can watch a chunk of the London Fatberg go through horrifying changes from anywhere in the world. You will recall that particular Fatberg as the one that bunged up the sewers of east London last year. A putrid, glutinous colossus hundred 250 metres in length, three-and-a-half-metres deep and 130 tons in mass made of stuff people flushed down the toilet — much of which they should not have. The Museum of London has now kindly, or cruelly, set up a webcam. Just search Fat Cam. It is pointed out the grayish quarantine piece of fat that's now part of its esteemed collection. Hear how the museum describes what you've been missing on the video. Quote “The Fatberg has started to grow an unusual and toxic mold in the form of visible yellow pustules,” visible yellow pustules. Well that settles it, my computer will now always have an open Fat Cam tab. Heck, I'm going to save that my homescreen. And my excitement means my face will match that pile argue that I'm staring at — flushed.

Back To Top »

Part 2: Safe Injection Sites, "The List" Vandalized

Safe Injection Sites

Guest: Lucy Troisi

JD: Police in Toronto say a bad batch of opioids is responsible for the overdose deaths of seven people in less than two weeks. They say that would be alarming enough if those deaths were scattered across the whole city — but they all happened in one area. The fatal overdose Spike prompted police to issue a public safety warning. Meanwhile, Ontario's new Progressive Conservative government has announced a pause on all new supervised injection sites pending a review. Lucy Troisi is a Toronto city councillor for a ward where there are four overdose prevention sites. She believes that is enough and she would like to stop more from cropping up. We reached councillor Troisi in Toronto.

MG: Councillor, why do you want to stop opening any new supervised injection sites in your part of the city?

CITY COUNCILLOR LUCY TROISI: Well, our neighbourhood has the most injection sites in any neighbourhood in the world. So it's time to press the pause button and say no to any more news sites in Ward 28.

MG: What is the reasoning behind that?

LT: Well, we've had, you know, I'm hearing from our community, they have fears of walking their streets going to the local park. Seniors are afraid to leave their home. Parents will no longer send their children to school on their own. So you ask anyone in the neighbourhood and they will tell you that this has been very challenging to live here. This is far too much for one neighbourhood to manage.

MG: The timing of this is interesting because, as you well know, Toronto Police issued a public warning today after seven people died of overdoses in just 12 days. Doesn't this suggest that the city needs more supervised places for people to use drugs, not fewer?

LT: Yes. I'd like to make this very clear. My moratorium is just for my neighbourhood. This is not to suggest other wards should have a stop. In fact, I would hope that other wards will embrace injection sites in their neighbourhoods. It is a crisis and we need to have these services. I support harm reduction strategies. Deploying good harm reduction strategies is absolutely essential. But putting all the treatment sites in one neighbourhood is wrong and a disservice to the people we're trying to help. So I'm calling the city of Toronto to halt the expansion of supervised and overdose prevention sites.

MG: In your own neighborhood, in Moss Park, at the supervised injection site there, advocates say that they have prevented more than 250 overdoses and have never had a single death in that site. In the face of those numbers how can you still call for no new sites in your ward? Clearly there is a demand.

LT: Well, I will say once again that my neighbourhood has the most injection sites in the entire world in just one neighbourhood. Toronto's a big city, addicts from Scarborough, Etobicoke, North York, they need services in their own communities where they have family and support and social stability as well.

MG: But in your community 9,962 visits were seen from the 12th of August 2017 to the 2nd of July 2018 at that Moss Park facility. Does that not suggest that in your community there is a need for more not fewer supervised injection sites?

LT: I'm listening to the residents. It's been very challenging for our neighbourhood. People are very afraid at this point. No one's leaving their homes. People have become victims. People who are vulnerable have become victims. We need a larger plan to deal with this.

MG: What are you hearing from the residents in your community about, to your point, safety in the neighbourhood?

LT: They're afraid to go for a Sunday walk in the neighbourhood. They're afraid to invite family and friends over for a Saturday barbecue. I mean, they do want people with mental health and addiction to get the treatment they need. But they also don't want to be afraid to let their children walk to school.

MG: So is there a sense that people are coming from elsewhere in the city to use drugs in a supervised setting that happens to be in your neighbourhood?

LT: Yes. I'm hearing that there are people that are coming from other parts of the city. I'm also hearing that there is a greater amount of drug dealers that are coming to this neighbourhood as a result of finding a client much easier because they have injection sites fairly close.

MG: Presumably people in the community will continue to use drugs. So what happens to them if there aren't more supervised injection sites? Is the safety issue likely to go down if more of those sites aren't opened?

LT: Well, we have four of them. So I believe our neighbourhood is doing their share.

MG: But is the community likely to be safer if more sites aren't opened?

LT: We need harm reduction strategies otherwise it would have a greater impact, absolutely. Putting all the treatment sites in one neighbourhood is wrong. And it's a disservice to the people who are trying to help.

MG: If people are going to inject drugs anyway and those are sites are busy, where do you think they'll end up using those drugs?

LT: Well, I think what one of the difficulties we're having with the current sites is that, you know, this is a 24/7 issue. They operate business hours and we need to start looking at if there is a concentration better coordinating times and schedules.

MG: The advocates who run the supervised injection sites in your community have said that the concerns that you're alleging are an example of ‘NIMBYism.’ That you should be more concerned with saving lives than you should be with ‘NIMBYism.’ What's your reaction to that?

LT: You know, I've always supported harm reduction strategies. I sat on the Regent Park Community Health Board for well over a decade. I’ll always support treatment for addiction and mental health issues. But deploying harm reduction strategies is essential but putting all the treatment sites in one neighbourhood is wrong and it's a disservice to the people were tried to help.

MG: You've asked for a meeting with Ontario's health minister Christine Elliott, who announced earlier this week that she's going to pause three proposals for safe injection, or supervised injection sites in Ontario, including one that would have been on the other side of town in Toronto. What are you hoping to hear from her?

LT: Well, I'm hoping that she would actually come and visit the neighbourhood. I would like her to walk around and before making any future decisions on overdose prevention sites that she has an understanding of the supports that these harm reduction services require. And that it also deals with the impact that it has on a community.

MG: Councillor, we'll leave it there. I appreciate you joining us today. Thank you so much.

LY: Okay, great. Thank you.

MG: Great to talk to you.

JD: Lucy Troisi is a city councilor in Toronto. That is where we reached her.

[Music: Piano]

Genoa Bridge Collapse

JD: One moment they were on their way across a bridge the next that bridge was gone. At least 39 people have been confirmed dead after yesterday's disaster in Genoa, Italy when a bridge collapsed dropping vehicles onto the ground dozens of metres below. Today, the Italian Prime Minister announced that there would be a year-long state of emergency in the region where the disaster happened, and called it an unacceptable tragedy that quote “should not happen in a modern society.” There has been criticism of the company that operated the bridge, and the Government has announced plans to end its contract. Nicola and Lisa Henton-Mitchell from the U.K. were in Genoa yesterday with their kids. It was the beginning of their three week holiday. They were driving — then there was chaos. They told the BBC what they went through.

SOUNDCLIP

LISA HENTON-MITCHELL: The rain was torrential and as we drive along we felt the car slide to the right. We kept going and then all of a sudden we saw lots of red lights, all the cars braking. We could only see a couple of cars ahead of us. Then all of a sudden all the reverse lights came on.

NICOLA HENTON-MITCHELL: People started shouting, waving their arms to reverse out the windows.

LHM: And tooting horns and everything like that. And so we tried to reverse and we couldn't go anywhere. And the car in front hit the front of our car and people were running screaming in Italian run.

NHM: Out, cars out, cars.

LHM: So we just literally ‘Kids, run, run’ because we didn't know what was happening.

REPORTER: Because you have a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old.

LHM: Yes, we do. And we know we come through the tunnel so we were just like run. We left everything in the car and we just ran for our lives. We didn't know.

NHM: And then everyone was just stood in the entrance. So there was lots of screaming and then someone shouted ‘Collapse,’.

LHM: ‘Stay, stay.’ So everybody — the lorry driver sort of took control a bit and got everybody off the bridge into the tunnel and then it just seemed forever and we waited. And there were all nationalities there.

NHM: Everybody was translating for everybody sort of thing. We had a lovely elderly Belgian couple that gave the children some dry clothes because they'd managed to grab a bag from their car.

JD: Nicola and Lisa Henton-Mitchell Speaking about yesterday's bridge collapse in Genoa, Italy which left dozens dead.

[Music: Ambient Guitar]

Bowhead Whale Hunt

JD: When a bowhead whale was spotted early Tuesday morning Koovian Flanagan was excited to sign up for the hunt. Little did she know that the bowhead would wind up being her very first kill — making her responsible for the first successful bowhead hunt in Iqaluit in seven years. The CBC’s Michael Salomone spoke with Ms. Flanagan about what that catch means to her and to her community.

SOUNDCLIP

KOOVIAN FLANAGAN: It was a very exciting experience. It was scary that adrenaline was still, is still running through me right now. I was terrified. I was happy, I was scared, I was excited. You know, I'm thinking about our great, great, great, great-grandfathers who were whalers and how they did it in a little kayak. I did it for the experience. I've never hunted a ptarmigan or a seal or a caribou. That was my first kill. I had to aim really big and it was easy.

MICHAEL SALOMONE: So are you going take this new knowledge of yours and then pass it on to somebody else that’s important to you?

KF: Yeah, I'll be passing it on. I'll be telling my story, sharing our experiences. The teamwork that we had developed to have successful hunt was amazing. Like we've been meeting for five, six, seven months and we met every week, every two weeks, we watched a video, we were very well prepared for this hunt.

MS: So it was around noon that you guys first started to get the reports that this one was harpooned and how far along, how many people harpooned it in addition to you?

KF: Four other people. I was the fifth harpoon, I had the last harpoon of the day. And it was a scary experience to be that close to a whale. I don't think we should have been that close. We had two mishaps where one hunter actually got stopped by the whale and that was very scary to see even after I'm watching the videos online. It was scary. I'm glad it wasn't me and I'm so glad he was healthy enough to pull himself back out into the boat.

JD: Koovian Flanagan speaking to the CBC’s Michael Salomone about these successful bowhead whale hunt in Iqaluit.

[Music: Trance Bass]

‘The List’ Vandalized

Guest: Sally Tallant

JD: Earlier this year we told you about ‘The List.’ That has a record of more than 30,000 refugees or migrants who died trying to get to Europe in recent decades. It was published by The Guardian for World Refugee Day. Since then ‘The List’ has been publicly displayed in the United Kingdom. Last month, it was posted along a wall as part of the Liverpool Biennial. Since then, the organizers of that art festival say it has been damaged multiple times. They also say that they have decided not to fix it. Sally Tallant is the director of the Liverpool Biennial. We reached her in Liverpool.

MG: Ms. Tallant, for people who haven't seen photos of The List, what was this display originally supposed to look like?

SALLY TALLANT: So The List is compiled and updated each year by UNITED For Intercultural Action. It pulls together information relating to the death of refugees and migrants who have lost their lives within or on the borders of Europe since 1993. And it lists their names, where they disappeared or where their bodies were found, and it also details how they might have died. One of the artists we're working with Banu Cennetoğlu, who is working together with UNITED For Intercultural Action to make that list public. And so we published it in the form of kind of posters on a hoarding. And it was about 280 metres long. It meant that you could walk down a walkway in the centre of Liverpool and actually read this list and you walk along the street.

MG: And what does it look like now?

ST: So it's been through quite a bit of damage. Two thirds of it were removed so we reinstated a section of it in full. And then just on August the 12th it was attacked again and I would say that it is — fragments have been ripped and torn from the list. It almost looks like it's been kind of attacked or scratched. Some chunks of it are still legible and still intact, but there's damage nearly across the whole surface.

MG: It's a big project, it's an ambitious project. When you first saw that it had been vandalized or ripped down, what went through your mind?

ST: I was really shocked at first because we published it in The Guardian together with the Chisenhale Gallery in London on the 20th of June, which was World Refugee Day, and we got amazing responses and it created a really interesting debate. Then when we put it into the public realm here by publishing it along a hoarding I didn't actually expect this kind of response. I'm not really sure what I thought would happen. What this does is make visible the loss of lives. These are people like you and I, who have been forced to flee the countries in which they live and seek refuge elsewhere and they've died attempting to do that. And The List kind of memorializes their lives and by putting it into the public realm this way it sort of honours their memory. So to me it feels a double violation to attack it in this way. And we were just really shocked that this happened.

MG: Why do you think The List keeps being damaged in the way that it is — that people keep ripping that the entire part of a down or raking through parts of it?

ST: I honestly don't know. And I've called for the people who are doing this to come forward and have a debate. It's very powerful and very upsetting. The material is not something you can just read and it doesn't move you or angry you or upset you. So maybe it does create a very emotional response and then maybe it's something as stupid as just kids. Who knows? You know, it could be just somebody taking an opportunity to tear down something in the public realm, I don't know. But actually, it does feel very targeted to us.

MG: Yeah, well I was gonna say is there the possibility that is just kids who scratched it up or somebody who was out on a late night and there is the suggestion that maybe some workers thought that was illegal flyering rather than something deliberate and something that was meant to speak out against the idea of people seeking refugee status?

ST: I would hope that something as positive as that is what happened. I'd say my experience of living in Liverpool is that it's a very tolerant city. It's a city that is a port city so it's always been defined by the migration of people coming through the city and it's a city that sees itself as a sanctuary for refugees. You know, the mayor is very supportive of refugees coming to the city and offering housing to them. So it's not a place where I’ve experienced racism. I think I would be quite shocked if that's what it is. You know, I'm hoping that it's something, something more like kids or maybe passers-by, but I'm beginning to doubt that now because of the targeted persistence of the damage.

MG: When you stop and you read The List, I was reading it earlier today, and it is incredibly powerful to read the individual stories of people whose broader story we all know and whose broader story we've been talking about for a long time. What have you seen in having this displayed along a wall when people stop and they absorb themselves in The List?

ST: I think that's the power of it because we've become accustomed to violence and everyday violence in our society. And it's easy to think that we know about this issue, but do we? Do we really have the empathy to think about individuals’ loss of life in these kind of horrific circumstances? And I think it does offer the possibility of that. I was walking past it and some have been written down and I stopped to take a photograph and a family came towards me and they were recent Kurdish refugees and they had a small child of them who's about 11-10, something like this. And I was explaining what we were doing and trying to put it back and the kid was trying to stick the list back together and he was saying it's important that people see this. You know, I think for him it makes visible something that's a reality for many families and for people who — this is real people who died and we don't even really acknowledge that they lived.

MG: It would be perhaps even more powerful if people were able to see that entire list in its completed form. But you said that you're not going to fix the damage this time around. What are you hoping people would take away from the damaged list?

ST: So we are putting, we're going to put a text on the site which explains the decision not to, because we don't want this to become about the damage to this list. We'll make sure that people can access the list online so if they want to they can read it. I think this could easily become about the destruction of something in the public realm, when actually the bigger issue is what we want to focus on. So we're hoping by leaving it in that way and it will open up the debate even more.

MG: Sally, we'll leave it there. It's great to speak with you. Thank you so much.

ST: Sally Tallant is the director of the Liverpool Biennial Art Festival. We reached her in Liverpool. And if you'd like to see pictures of their display of the list, visit our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

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August 15, 2018 episode transcript

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