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 Current Transcript for August 30, 2018

Host: Connie Walker

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

This is the time that Canadians are realizing that without having non U.S. markets we are landlocked. We are moving forward on this project.

CONNIE WALKER: That was Amarjeet Sohi, Federal Minister of Natural Resources, speaking earlier this week. But just over an hour ago, a federal court brought those plans to a screeching halt -- overturning the approval for the federal government's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. What that means for the future of that pipeline and what it says about Indigenous rights. That's first up today. Plus a new and some would say icky twist on what's sometimes called the world's oldest profession.

SOUNDCLIP

We operate similar to a brothel where guests come in, they have their own room, and the doll -- like a girl, will be ready and waiting for you in the room.

CW: Yes. A sex doll brothel could be coming to a neighborhood near you. The ethics of silicone escorts, in half an hour. Plus, it's the most popular course at Yale University and it's no surprise why.

SOUNDCLIP

So like many Yalies, I'm taking this course Psychology and the Good Life because I want to find authentic happiness and that's not always the easiest thing to come by.

CW: We'll get some tips from the popular prof teaching Ivy League students to make their happiness a priority. I'm Connie Walker and this is the summer edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

Indigenous leader calls on the government to accept Trans Mountain court decision

Guests: John Paul Tasker, Jocelyn Stacey, Peter Lantin, Tim McMillan

CW: The Federal Court of Appeal has today handed B.C. Indigenous and environmental groups a major victory in their fight to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project. The court found that the federal government failed in its duty to consult with First Nations. The ruling quashes the construction permit on the 7.4 billion dollar project. John Paul Tasker is a reporter in the CBC's parliamentary bureau. And he joins us from Ottawa. Hello.

JOHN PAUL TASKER: Good morning.

CW: So John Paul what did the court give as its reasons for this ruling?

JOHN PAUL TASKER: Connie can I just say off the top this is an absolute nightmare scenario for the Liberal government. They did not expect this ruling to come down today. But essentially the Federal Court of Appeal, the second highest court in the land, has quashed federal cabinet's approval of the pipeline and they've also nullified the construction licence of the National Energy Board, the energy regulator in this country, has issued to the proponent. So essentially they have to go back to the drawing board because the court has found that the consultation between the federal government and Indigenous peoples was inadequate but also the NEB's assessment of this project was so flawed that cabinet could not reasonably rely on it when it was making its decision. Why is the NBE so flawed in its report? Essentially it did not even remotely take into consideration the impacts this project could have on the marine life around Vancouver -- around the terminal there in Burnaby. And the NBE it's not necessarily the best body to review marine activity but the Federal Court said it should have taken into consideration all the increased tanker traffic that would result from this major expansion to the Trans Mountain pipeline you know doubling essentially the number of barrels that go through the pipe but also you know a massive increase in the number of tankers carrying that oil from Burnaby to Asia. So for those reasons, they've quashed it.

CW: So as you said this was a priority for the Liberal government. The Trudeau government said in the springtime that they would buy this pipeline project from Kinder Morgan to ensure that it goes ahead. Now Kinder Morgan shareholders just voted you know just a half hour ago to approve the sale today. What does this decision mean for the government? What will happen next?

JOHN PAUL TASKER: Well Kinder Morgan, the proponent of the pipeline, must be thinking they did the right thing. They're sitting quite pretty right now because they've offloaded a project that will face months if not years of further delays to the government for four and a half billion dollars. So the federal government is going to have to make some tough decisions now. Do they still go ahead with this project even though they have all these other hoops to jump through because of the Federal Court of Appeal decision? Do they proceed? Do they still make that purchase? Can they try and pull out? But what we've been hearing from the Liberal government this week and in the weeks since the sale is at, that they're committed to this -- they will move ahead with this project. But now you know they have to instruct the NEB to go back to Indigenous peoples, to sit down and have meaningful consultation that could take a while and it could be very costly to the taxpayers and to the federal government of course. So I'm not really sure frankly we'll have to wait and see. We know Bill Morneau, the finance minister, who has been the lead on the financial side of all this and the actual purchase agreement, will be up later today speaking to reporters to give us a sense of what they're going to do. But surely this is not what they expected.

CW: And this isn't the first energy project that has had issues around failing to properly or adequately consult with First Nations. What does this say about the Trudeau government's commitments -- do you think to reconciliation or a recognition of Indigenous rights?

JOHN PAUL TASKER: Well Connie it really is fascinating because this government has said as you well know, is that Indigenous peoples it's most important relationship to them as a government. And in fact actually when they were first elected they knew the Trans Mountain expansion project would be problematic, that it had entrenched opposition from Indigenous groups and environmentalists there in British Columbia and across North America, so they actually added an extra layer of consultation beyond what the NEB had already done -- beyond what the regulator had already accomplish. And they took about a year meeting with Indigenous peoples and other stakeholders trying to get their perspective on it but even with that extra layer, even with the Liberal efforts to really you know dot all the I's cross all the T's the Federal Court of Appeals said it wasn't enough. So we can expect absolutely this decision to go to the federal or sorry -- the Supreme Court of Canada now for a ruling on what exactly the federal government has to do when it is consulting with Indigenous peoples because it seems obviously no one is quite sure and there was not a lot of detail on what exactly it had to do in this ruling today. So still many questions to be answered on that front of course the top court will have to shed some light on what exactly is required.

CW: Okay very quickly now, what is the reaction from the oil industry so far?

JOHN PAUL TASKER: Shock and awe. Horror. Obviously many people in the oil patch are depending on this pipeline. It's a huge project. It would carry so many Canadian barrels of oil to tidewater where we would actually be able to fetch market prices for Canadian oil. They must be absolutely terrified at the thought of not seeing this project through.

CW: Well this is something we're going to continue to follow and we appreciate you joining us today.

JOHN PAUL TASKER: Thank you.

CW: John Paul Tasker is a reporter in the CBC's parliamentary bureau. He was in Ottawa. Two years ago the Federal Court of Appeal killed the Northern Gateway pipeline project in northern B.C. in a similar decision. The court found the government had failed to conduct meaningful consultation with Indigenous and environmental groups. One of those groups was the Haida Nation in B.C.'s Haida Gwaii. Peter Lantin is the president of the Council of the B.C. Haida Nation. And he's on the line from Prince George, British Columbia. Hello.

PETER LANTIN: Good morning.

CW: Peter what does this decision tell you about the Trudeau government's commitment to reconciliation and their recognition of Indigenous rights?

PETER LANTIN: Well I mean it shows you that really nothing has really changed even with this government. They came out with a lot of big language, a lot of you know fancy words, but really when it comes down to you know the brass tacks of it all, nothing has really changed. You know they're not consulting properly with First Nations. They don't like what they hear. I mean that's really the problem and their mind is made up, so makes it very discouraging I think for all First Nations that are hearing this big language around recognition of rights and things like that when really the same behavior continues.

CW: Walk us through after the Northern Gateway decision it would be another five months before the government announced that it wouldn't pursue it any further. What were those five months like for you and your nation? Were you expecting it to go to the Supreme Court?

PETER LANTIN: Oh yeah. I mean that's what you always have to expect. You have to prepare for that. You know I think the First Nations you know who should be celebrating today. I think that's the one thing you know we made sure that we did when the decision came down for us was to take that moment in time to celebrate you know the defense of really your rights. But it is only going to be short lived because you know tomorrow they're going to start focusing in on the next hurdle and then the next fight for them because I think this government has very clear that they want that project to continue regardless of this decision. So it's difficult. I mean this is the thing you know coming from our perspective in the Haida Nation, this is not necessarily the work that we want to be doing as First Nation leaders, we want to be building our economies, we want to be working for our people but we spend so much time so much resources on fighting back you know decisions like that that you know unfortunately for them it's not over. You know I know a lot of them are aware of that but you know hopefully they can celebrate at least this victory today.

CW: You know after the Northern Gateway there was suppose to be a different strategy, a different consultation process for First Nations. What in your view would constitute meaningful consultation with Indigenous groups for energy projects like this?

PETER LANTIN: I believe it's really sitting down and getting an understanding as to why First Nations oppose these types of projects. I mean when it comes down to whose opinions matter the most you know is it generally you in the best interest of all Canadians that their opinion or the opinion of those who are going to wear all the burden and take all the risk with these projects. I think that's you know that's really the difficulty in all this is the consultation is difficult because they don't want to hear what we have to say, which is that we're not willing to take all the risk. It is too risky for us in terms of what's at stake and our opinion should matter the most. You know the people that are going to wear the risks of the project. So I think the consultation process you know really needs to get into having all the information you know the good and the bad and sitting down and really listening to the First Nations as to why these projects should not proceed. And I think in our experience that's the consultation that has never happened.

CW: Are you hopeful that they will change and that they will engage in that kind of meaningful consultation in the future?

PETER LANTIN: Well I think if they really want to you know recognize Indigenous rights and title, that's what has to happen. And they have to accept that no might be answer. You know when you already know what you're looking for and your answer is to ram this thing through, you know it's very difficult for them to want to consult with First Nations when they know what our answer is. But that's really what true consultation is. That's what true recognition is. Is that no means no and the Canadian government will have to accept that.

CW: All right well thank you very much for joining us Peter we appreciate it.

PETER LANTIN: Thank you.

CW: Peter Lantin is the president of the Council of the Haida Nation. We reached him in Prince George, British Columbia. As we heard the Trans Mountain court case was not the first legal decision on the duty to consult First Nations on questions around energy products but the implications could affect many other projects as well. Jocelyn Stacey is an assistant professor at the Peter Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. And she is in Vancouver. Hello.

JOCELYN STACEY: Hi good morning.

CW: So Jocelyn how surprised were you about today's decision?

JOCELYN STACEY: Well in one sense I'm not surprised because there were so many different legal paths that were available to the court to quash this permit. There were well-known flaws in the process. First Nations had been voicing their concerns from the outset with the way in which consultation and the assessment of the project was proceeding. So there were many ways that the court could reach this answer and obviously they did through two of these legal arguments that were before them.

CW: Help us understand what was the Federal Court of Appeal asked to consider in this case?

JOCELYN STACEY: Yes so they were asked to consider basically three different sources of law. They were asked to consider the constitutional law that apply to this pipeline which was basically with respect to First Nations whose Aboriginal rights and title and reserve lands were affected by this proposed pipeline expansion so that includes the duty to consult which we've been hearing about already. They were asked to consider common law requirements of fairness. Right. So whether or not the NEB and the federal government followed these common law requirements to have a fair process. And they were asked to consider the specific requirements in the statutes that govern the process so that was the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the National Energy Board act. And what they concluded was that the project assessment process and the decision fell short on two of those fronts, so they concluded that the decision to exclude marine tanker traffic and therefore not address the impacts on the southern resident Orca population violated the requirements of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and they also concluded that the Crown did not to carry out its constitutional obligation to consult adequately and accommodate First Nations.

CW: And that was around their failure to engage dialogue meaningfully and grapple with the real concerns of Indigenous applicants.

JOCELYN STACEY: Yeah that's right. And so what the Federal Court of Appeal said was that the process that the federal government used here was an improvement on the Northern Gateway pipeline process but it still wasn't enough. Fundamentally there was no responsive considered meaningful dialogue, that's what the Federal Court of Appeal has said and this is really well settled law so I think we were all expecting that the federal government would learn from the decision in the Northern Gateway pipeline case. But this really goes back to earlier in the 2000s when the Supreme Court of Canada articulated the duty to consult and laid out that the Crown must approach consultation in good faith with a view of substantially addressing concerns of Indigenous people. So what we're seeing through these pipeline cases is that the Crown is providing an opportunity for First Nations to bring forward their concerns but there is no meaningful dialogue taking place. It doesn't appear that the Crown has really received the court's message that they have to be approaching this with the objective of substantially addressing these concerns.

CW: So what does this decision mean for the future of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project?

JOCELYN STACEY: Right. So everything is on hold now. Right. There is no legally valid permit in place that allows this project to proceed. What we will look for in the coming days is whether the federal government decides to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. They would have to be granted leave by the Supreme Court, it doesn't hear cases automatically. What the court considers is whether there is a legal issue of national importance when it's deciding whether or not to grant leave. Certainly this case is politically of national importance but what's interesting is that the reasons that the Federal Court of Appeal have given for quashing this approval rely on relatively well settled legal principles. So we would have to wait and see what first the federal government decides to do and then if they do seek leave what the Supreme Court of Canada decides.

CW: Very quickly, could this mean the end of the project?

JOCELYN STACEY: Certainly possible. Right. So the federal government has the option to remake this decision but the bases for canceling this project go to fundamental flaws in the process for approving it so it's going to take a lot of work if the federal government decides to proceed.

CW: Okay. Thank you very much Jocelyn.

JOCELYN STACEY: Thanks for having me.

CW: Jocelyn Stacey is an assistant professor at the Peter Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. She was in Vancouver. The Federal Court of Appeals decision is a major blow for a pipeline that has been long been dogged by opposition. Tim McMillan is the president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. He's with us from Calgary. Hello.

TIM MCMILLAN: Good morning.

CW: So Tim what is your reaction to today's decision?

TIM MCMILLAN: You know it's very frustrating. I think that's what we're seeing certainly across our industry but even more broadly across Canada that a project that has been in the works for this period of time where the proponent of the project has done everything may need to still find that there's a challenge that requires the federal government to do more work.

CW: From an industry standpoint, how do you respond to the court's assessment that there wasn't proper or meaningful consultation with First Nations or adequate measures put in place to protect ocean habitat?

TIM MCMILLAN: You know we represent the upstream oil and gas industry in Canada and we work very closely with the pipeline sector and as we look through this judgement quite briefly so far, but it looks as though the proponent the company that's looking to build the pipeline has done what they need to do and the federal government who has to their credit reaffirmed repeatedly that this project is so important to Canada that they've stepped in and actually purchased it. It's frustrating that they haven't got the consultation done in a way that is adequate to the courts and to the stakeholders involved.

CW: The decision said that Canada's representatives limited their mandate to listening and recording concerns of Indigenous applicants and transmitting them on to decision makers and they didn't consider that to be meaningful dialogue. And the same court ruled in 2016 that there was inadequate consultation on Northern Gateway pipeline. Has the industry learned anything from that previous decision and how were those lessons applied to the Trans Mountain consultations?

TIM MCMILLAN: Yeah Connie let's be clear this is the federal government in both cases that have the duty to consult, it's not industry. So industry has met their requirements. This court case again puts the burden on the government to do that work. And with the court case in 2016 they were very clear what the government needed to do to correct it to enable that project to go forward. Unfortunately the federal government chose not to. In this case our expectation is that the government will do the work required in a very timely fashion to enable this project to go forward. I know the federal government has truly been a champion of this project and has articulated how important it is to all Canadians. So like I say I think we're frustrated. I think the people that work in our industry and Canadians broadly are frustrated by the sort of delay.

CW: So what does this mean then for the future of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project in your view? I mean what will the timeline be to do that work that you say is required?

TIM MCMILLAN: Well it's the courts that say that work is required and I think the government will need to give us their response here hopefully later or shortly that gives their plan on how they plan to move this forward.

CW: What would you like to see?

TIM MCMILLAN: You know as efficiently as they can get the work that is required done is our expectation. The project was supposed to be in service mid-2019 and at this point that's not going to happen.

CW: What do you think that this decision along with the Northern Gateway decision -- what does it mean for the future of pipelines and the oil industry in Canada?

TIM MCMILLAN: You know our industry has continued to grow over the last several decades. The global demand continues to rise. The challenge Canada has is we have one customer. And we have been beholden to the United States that has not been to our advantage and projects like Northern Gateway and Energy East and Kinder Morgan would and will give us access to global markets and global prices. So it's fundamentally important to our nation to have that sovereignty over our own resources. So I think that that is what needs to drive us to get to a positive outcome here.

CW: All right well we'll continue to watch this. Thank you very much for joining us Tim.

TIM MCMILLAN: Thanks for your time.

CW: Tim McMillan is the president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and we reached him in Calgary. I'm Connie Walker and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

'Humiliating' U.S.-Mexico trade deal will limit success of NAFTA negotiations, says Conservative MP

Guests: Katie Simpson, Pierre Poilievre, Andrew Leslie

SOUNDCLIP

PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU: I've said from the very beginning, no NAFTA deal is better than a bad NAFTA deal. And we are going to remain firm on that principle because Canadians expect us to stand up for them and that's exactly what this government's going to do.

CW: And the clock is supposedly ticking down toward Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's two stated options: a good NAFTA deal or no deal at all. U.S. President Donald Trump has promised to inform Congress tomorrow that he will sign a new bilateral trade pact with Mexico replacing NAFTA with or without Canada. And as negotiations continue down to the wire some of Trudeau's critics accuse him of bungling the file. One of the sticking points has always been the issue of supply management for the dairy industry which the Canadian government says it doesn't want to give up. Dairy farmers like Julaine Treur are waiting anxiously to see what happens. Her family owns a dairy farm in Agassiz, B.C. and says supply management is what helps keep it afloat.

SOUNDCLIP

JULAINE TREUR: I don't know how long we will be able to continue. We need to pay our bills. We need to buy feed. And if we can't do that we'll have to sell the cows and close the doors. It's a family farm. We farm with our five kids. Our oldest is almost 12 and he would really love to dairy farm one day. He would be the sixth generation in our family to be a farmer. And it's sad to think that it could all be wiped away in just signing of an agreement.

CW: Despite his recent ultimatums President Trump is also facing pressure from within his own party to include Canada in any new trade agreement. And he said yesterday afternoon that he felt talks were "on track for the Friday deadline." Joining us now with the latest on negotiations is Katie Simpson, senior reporter in the parliamentary bureau for CBC News. She's in our Washington D.C. studio. Hello.

KATIE SIMPSON: Good morning.

CW: Katie what's the latest on how these negotiations are going?

KATIE SIMPSON: Well the technical officials went almost through the overnight, they did get a little bit of sleep I'm told, to try and work out some of the technical details ahead political meetings which resume today. So Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland will again be meeting with her American counterparts and to keep those talks going in the hopes of reaching some form of agreement or at least getting closer to one by Friday.

CW: Well she met with them twice yesterday, what came of those meetings?

KATIE SIMPSON: Well it appears that there is progress and that there is momentum. Although it is very cautious, most of the public speaking about this from the Prime Minister, from Chrystia Freeland, even from Donald Trump, appears to be positive; Trump saying things like you know it looks like the talks are on track to meet Friday. Justin Trudeau saying you know there is space for there to be a good agreement for Canada. But at this point we know that there are a couple of issues that are on the table that Canada has a sticking point and the U.S. has a sticking point. The Canadians big concern right now is Chapter 19. That is the dispute resolution process. It's something that Canada has said from the very beginning it wants to maintain -- it wants to make sure that there is an independent body to adjudicate disputes in trade. And the Americans, they want more access to sell their products in Canadian -- their dairy products in Canada.

CW: What are you hearing about what concessions the Canadians may be prepared to make?

KATIE SIMPSON: Well that dairy could be one. The Liberals have said very clearly they will not dismantle the supply management system. And although the American demand is to dismantle the supply management system, throughout the course of these negotiations we've heard from very influential Americans including the Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue that he doesn't necessarily even want to see that dismantle -- it could be a bigger demand in the hopes of actually getting a smaller gain. So there could be some satisfaction on the American side if Canada opens up its markets a little more and allows more American farmers to sell more of their products in Canada and to allow them to make more money.

CW: So we know that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to brief premiers on the NAFTA talks over a conference call today. What is his sales pitch expected to be?

KATIE SIMPSON: Well what we know so far is that this phone call is being build as a big announcement and it was put out there by the Prime Minister's press secretary -- the Prime Minister's director of communications on Twitter. So they want everyone to know this briefing is happening which suggests that things are going well; if there's going to be a briefing and it's not good news we would probably find out about it after, but we're being given a heads up that they have something important to say this afternoon. Chrystia Freeland will also be updating her NAFTA council today. So people are being briefed on what is happening behind the scenes which suggests things are progressing so we know that Justin Trudeau has the premiers on side. There has been a lot of support mostly across the country for Canada to get to a deal given how important NAFTA is for the Canadian economy.

CW: Are you hearing whether or not the Canadian officials who are actually at the negotiating table -- whether or not they're optimistic that a deal can be reached by this Friday deadline which is tomorrow?

KATIE SIMPSON: Well it's really funny you ask that. Some of the technical people who follow these issues very very closely say, getting something on paper by Friday is if not impossible a very very difficult task because there are so many technical details that need to be worked out and that's what's really happening behind the scenes right now. Those officials who are at the technical level are going line by line through the U.S.-Mexican deal, and the Canadian side they're flagging things that they like -- issues that they can live with, and you know concerns they have that they need to do more negotiating on. So there is so much work to do on that. But the language from the political side that we are hearing is that things are going in a positive direction. So that is where things can change very quickly though trade negotiations are strange.

CW: And there isn't very much time left. What happens if they don't reach a deal?

KATIE SIMPSON: That could get messy but not necessarily in a messy-bad way for Canada. Donald Trump's Friday deadline is self-imposed. They want a deal before December 1st so that the outgoing President of Mexico Enrique Pena Nieto can stand on a stage next to Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau and sign off on NAFTA before December 1st. However, the Americans say they want to go forward without Canada technically at the negotiating level the authority that the American team has -- they don't have the authority from Congress to actually go forward on a bilateral deal without Canada. And if something is going to get approved by Congress even if there is a trilateral deal some of the early response to what people are seeing, even Republicans are seeing, it's not necessarily overwhelmingly positive. So Congress is going to be a factor in this and even though everyone's rushing rushing rushing, get to this Friday deadline, try and make it happen -- there are huge technical hurdles particularly in the United States with Congress that need to be met and trying to sort of find a way to get something through Congress will be the next big step if they can reach this first big hurdle of getting something on paper by Friday.

CW: Okay well thank you very much for joining us Katie.

KATIE SIMPSON: Thank you.

CW: Katie Simpson is a senior reporter in the parliamentary bureau of CBC News. She was in our Washington D.C. studio. As the Liberal government tries to hammer out a deal in Washington, the official opposition in Ottawa is taking the government to task for its handling of the file. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has warned that Canadians will end up paying for Mr. Trudeau's "weakness and failure on NAFTA." Pierre Poilievre is a Conservative MP and the party's finance critic. We've reached him in the village of Greeley, Ontario. Hello.

PIERRE POILIEVRE: Good morning.

CW: So what is the weakness and failure on NAFTA that Mr. Scheer is referring to?

PIERRE POILIEVRE: Well so far Mr. Trudeau has been sidelined from the negotiations. Apparently unbeknownst to our Prime Minister, the Americans and Mexicans have been negotiating a trilateral deal, absent Canada for several months now. Trudeau was under the impression that they were just talking about bilateral issues that didn't affect Canada. That turned out not to be true. And now after the Mexicans and Americans have agreed to a plan, we're now suddenly brought back in four days before a deadline. You know listening to your report earlier, it was very interesting. We're not hearing anything about gains Canada might make in these trade negotiations, it's only what we might give up. So that sounds like so far the government has been unsuccessful at advancing any Canadian trade objectives of which there are many pressing concerns we ought to have been trying to advance.

CW: Well one of those trilateral issues that was discussed was the sunset clause. There seems to have been some movement on that -- that Canadians would possibly be happy with.

PIERRE POILIEVRE: If I could just cut in on that. We already had a sunset clause in the old agreement. So if we preserve a sunset clause that will not have been a gain or a victory for Canada, that will be just a preservation of the status quo. When I say gain, I mean are we talking about getting rid of Buy America clauses so that Canadian businesses can have unfettered access to American governmental projects. Because in the past we've lost billions of dollars because of Buy America policies and I haven't even heard that that's getting rid of those policies is even on the agenda. So are there guarantees that the Americans won't slap us with duties on our softwood lumber in the future? I don't know. All I hear about is are the concessions that Canada is considering making -- and it really looks like Prime Minister Trudeau is on the defense when he's at the talks at all.

CW: Because they recently just joined the talks after the United States and Mexico announced a bilateral deal on Monday. But one trade lawyer called the decision to sideline Canada "a disgraceful display of bad faith on Donald Trump's part." Given that this president is so unpredictable, could the Canadian government really have foreseen that this would have happened?

PIERRE POILIEVRE: I just find it interesting that the Americans and the Mexicans had these enormous grievances and disputes. The president was talking about building a wall in front of Mexico -- the very harsh disagreements between the two countries and at the outset there was really no talk whatsoever that Canada was a trade problem. And now here we are with the Mexicans and Americans having a deal, and Canada being on the sidelines. I do agree that it has been humiliating to watch as the Mexicans and Americans have negotiated a deal behind Justin Trudeau's back, without his knowledge -- while he was on vacation only to bring his government back into the conversation four days before a deadline. So I do agree that is unfortunate as a Canadian.

CW: So let's get into some of the issues. One major sticking point is about this dispute settlement mechanism Chapter 19. How hard a line should Canada take trying to maintain that mechanism for resolving trade conflicts?

PIERRE POILIEVRE: Well I think it's extremely important that we keep it. I can't believe that we're even talking about this, this was settled two and a half decades ago by Brian Mulroney. So the fact that this is even on the table, it's the bare minimum that we should expect the government would retain that. But again if it is retained it wouldn't be a grand victory. We already had a dispute settlement mechanism, so that would just be a preservation of something we already had. It wouldn't be a gain for Canada.

CW: What about the issue of supply management? Your own party has been facing some internal conflicts lately about supply management in the dairy sector. How much should be Canada prepared to concede on this?

PIERRE POILIEVRE: Well again I would just point out that you're asking: how much should we concede, how much should we give up. And not rather than how much can we gain in some other area. Your question in of itself illustrates the degree to which Justin Trudeau is on defense defense defense here I'm not making any gains for Canadians and get getting more victories for Canadian exporters. But you know in previous negotiations the Harper government was able to satisfy the concerns of dairy and poultry producers while signing onto a very large trade agreements like Canada-EU, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, and smaller agreements like Jordan-Canada, Colombia-Canada, South Korea. So we have been able to sign very important trade agreements all around the world without causing problems for our dairy and poultry producers in the past and I don't know why we would be in a different position right now.

CW: Very quickly now, the Prime Minister reiterated his position that no NAFTA deal is better than a bad NAFTA deal. What do you say to that very quickly?

PIERRE POILIEVRE: Again I just don't know how we got here. Justin Trudeau offered to renegotiate NAFTA when President Trump took office, even though Trump was looking to negotiate changes with Mexico. And now a year later we're only looking at losses. There are no gains that, as we listen to these negotiations unfold, we're not hearing about any potential gains or improvements that Canada could realize. All we're hearing about is all of the concessions and losses that we might have to accept. It just seems like an incredible failure and a failure of negotiation and a failure for the Canadian economy.

CW: All right we'll have to leave it there. Thank you for joining us.

PIERRE POILIEVRE: Thank you.

CW: Pierre Poilievre is a Conservative MP and the party's finance critic. He was in the village of Greeley, Ontario. We've heard from the Conservatives who say Canada runs the risk of losing out on a free trade deal. I'm joined now by the Liberal MP Andrew Leslie. He's the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland. And he is in Ottawa. Hello.

ANDREW LESLIE: Good morning Connie.

CW: How do you respond to that criticism from Mr. Poilievre that the Liberal government has mishandled the NAFTA file?

ANDREW LESLIE: Nonsense. So you have to remember that this has been an ongoing process for well over a year. The trade between Canada, the United States, and Mexico involves not thousands but literally hundreds of thousands of different line items. The negotiators and I would argue we have amongst the very best of the negotiating teams in the world of professional public servants who've done this in a whole bunch of other venues. They have managed to get agreement in principle, keeping in mind nothing's signed yet, the agreement in principle for successes for Canada which are literally in the multiple hundreds.

CW: What are some of those successes? Can you tell us what some of the successes are?

ANDREW LESLIE: Well I can't tell you -- so full disclosure, there's actually negotiations going on right now and I cannot and will not negotiate in public because what I say may influence some of the decisions that are being taken down in Washington. That is an agreement that has been reached between the highest levels in Canada, Mexico, and United States. But what I can tell you is that there has been a whole bunch of successes: technical successes in terms of streamlining, in terms of making trade better between our countries. And now what we're facing is the last couple of days and the last two or three issues. And I think Katie Simpson said it really well, trade negotiations are strange. Those are her words. And very often the last couple of sticking points are resolved in the last 24 hours.

CW: Some people pointed out it did seem strange that Canada was not part of the negotiating that was happening between the United States and Mexico over the last several weeks. Why was Canada left out of the negotiating room until this week?

ANDREW LESLIE: Well essentially the Mexicans and the Americans had more issues to resolve right from the beginning of NAFTA and the huge sticking point arguably the most complicated to resolve was automobiles: rules of origin, the actual content in terms of what is built where and how, labour costs across the board, and of course a whole bunch of really good thought and contributions [inaudible] Canada suggesting alternatives to the previous status quo to help Mexico and the United States resolve this issue. That appears to be solved. We're now at the table doing the last couple of things which have been sticking points for the last year.

CW: The United States and Mexico announced things in their press conference on Monday that were also trilateral issues that they had come to an agreement on. Should Canada have been at the table to be part of those discussions earlier?

ANDREW LESLIE: You know we are where we are right now. Point being is that the teams are down there negotiating as we speak. They were up most of the night, if not all night. We're now trying to resolve the last couple of issues to lead us to a successful win-win-win scenario. The finish line is in sight. I can quote you what I think Katie mentioned about President Trump and that he believes we are on the track to success.

CW: How much has the pressure to sign a deal by tomorrow, Trump's imposed deadline, how much has the pressure to sign the deal by tomorrow weakened Canada's bargaining position?

ANDREW LESLIE: Well let's not forget what the Prime Minister said since the beginning; we want a good deal for Canadians, not just any deal. So unless the deal is appropriate for increasing the success of our middle class and for Canadians, Prime Minister has been very clear.

CW: I want to ask about supply management. We heard from a dairy farmer earlier how much access is Canada willing to offer the United States to our protected dairy sector?

ANDREW LESLIE: Look the Liberal government started the whole idea of supply management and we're going to continue to defend it. There's no doubt about that. The system of supply management has served our country extraordinarily well. Having said that as with any of the specific issues that remain to be resolved the last three or four out of literally tens of thousands, I'm not going to comment in public.

CW: Are you optimistic that there will be a deal announced a deal tomorrow?

ANDREW LESLIE: I am cautiously optimistic, but as we've seen with so many other issues recently involving the tripartite agreements things can literally change in a heartbeat. And quite frankly I think Katie said it extraordinarily well, there's a mood of optimism that exists amongst the professional negotiators. But literally anything can happen.

CW: Very quickly, what happens if there is no deal by tomorrow?

ANDREW LESLIE: Well we're going to try and work through -- look let's focus on the positive. Let's focus on getting this across the finish line. Let's focus on creating the conditions for continued success for Canada and our partners. And if doesn't work out the way that we might all hope then we'll see.

CW: All right well thank you very much for joining us today. We appreciate it.

ANDREW LESLIE: Thanks Connie.

CW: Liberal MP Andrew Leslie is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland. He is in Ottawa. The CBC News is next. Then, what to make of Toronto's newest crop of sex workers since they're made out of silicone. The arrival of sex doll brothels in Canada, in our next half hour. I'm Connie Walker and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

Sex doll brothel turns 'women into objects,' says critic

Guests: Matt Krivickie, Meghan Murphy, Marq Smith

CW: Hello I'm Connie Walker and you're listening to The Current. Still to come, if you or someone you love is just heading back to university consider putting 'happiness' on their syllabus. In half an hour, why Psychology and the Good Life is the most popular course at Yale University. But first, A warning: this next story may be about dolls... but not the kind children play with, they are sex dolls in a brothel. Listener discretion is advised.

SOUNDCLIP

Erica loves to have fun and is very social, but also enjoys deep sensual conversations and doesn't mind listening to you all night long. Erica is available for duo and couple friendly services. Erica loves to create fulfilling experiences and is intrigued by role play and just knows how to keep you happy and satisfied. Having fun is what Aura Dolls is all about. And Erica is ready to show you her energetic side. Erica is a creature of habit and is selective with whom she sees. If you have spent time with Erica you already know that she loves to be booked in advance and doesn't like it when you see other Aura dolls without her. Erica loves to share exciting experiences and loves the companionship of men and women of any age.

CW: The website for Aura Dolls promises "exotic girls to cater to everyone's choice of beauty." The women are sensual and playful. They're great listeners and oh yes... they're made of silicone. This week residents in the north end of Toronto were astonished to discover advertisements in their neighborhood for a new business that describes itself as a sex doll brothel. John Filion, the local city councillor, spoke about his concerns on CBC's As It Happens.

SOUNDCLIP

JOHN FILION: Well it's where it's located. For one thing, where it's being proposed happens to be near an intersection where about 25,000 people live. All kinds of families, for elementary schools very nearby. And you know people shouldn't really need to be out in a walk with their families and try to explain to their kids why somebody is having sex with a doll.

VOICE: What have your constituents been telling you about this plan?

JOHN FILION: Just that you know this is disgusting, we don't want this around our kids, and this doesn't belong in our neighbourhood.

CW: Aura Dolls was set to open next month but there are reports that its lease has been cancelled by the property owner. However it has emerged that a similar establishment Kinky S Dolls has been operating in Toronto for more than a year. In a moment we'll look at the long history and cultural significance of erotic dolls. But first I'm joined by Matt Krivickie. He is the owner and creator of Sinthetics. He makes highly realistic dolls that customers use for erotic and non-erotic purposes. He joins me from Los Angeles. Hello.

MATT KRIVICKIE: Hi Connie, how are you?

CW: I'm well. Thanks for joining us Matt. What do you say to the neighborhood's concerns about the presence of a sex doll brothel?

MATT KRIVICKIE: Well you know -- I don't know. You know we have been approached with this type of business before and we always turn it down. It doesn't sound -- I think it's a lot of hype. It sounds to me. I don't believe this is a sustainable business model. I don't think that the neighborhood there really has that much to worry about in my opinion.

CW: What do you think of some people think the idea of even using sex dolls is as the councillor said "disgusting." How do you respond to that?

MATT KRIVICKIE: Well I think I'm personally more turned off and I think more disgusted by violence on TV. I think terms like disgusting when it comes to anything that is perhaps sex related it's really kind of tricky language to start using. I think it's too puritanical. I think people use all kinds of sexual aids whether it's vibrators or dildos or dolls or just roleplaying devices. And I don't think dolls are really that different from anything else. I don't think the doll itself is disgusting. I think it may be a little bit odd for some people to think about it if it's not something that's in their repertoire.

CW: Well tell me about your clients first of all. The clients who buy the sex dolls. Who are they?

MATT KRIVICKIE: There's no real way to put our clients in a box because they come from all walks of life. We have blue collar. White collar. We have doctors. We have lawyers. We have all kinds of people. We have couples. We have people that use the dolls for surrogate purposes. So there's no real one box to put them in because you know some are art collectors as well.

CW: What sort of feedback do you get from clients about the dolls that you sell?

MATT KRIVICKIE: The dolls that we sell specifically I think the most feedback that we get is people return to us or come to us because of the realism that we have in the dolls. I'm not interested in making a doll that is like a lot of the ones that are on the market, especially the ones that are now coming out of China. The dolls that I make -- I got into this business because it's a business where I can really infuse all of my art ability to create a product that looks like it has personality. You know I try to make the dolls have an engaging look. I try to make them look like they are -- I try to cross the uncanny valley and make it comfortable when you look at the product. When you look at the doll I want it to feel like the doll is looking at you. So I hope that answers your question.

CW: Well I mean you build the dolls -- maybe help our audience understand what they look like. You know how much detail is involved. How long does it take for you to make one?

MATT KRIVICKIE: Each doll you know depending on the complexity of the design and we have everything from really basic -- we have like 13 different skin tones. We have four different female bodies. Like 11 or 12 different female heads.

CW: Are all the dolls female?

MATT KRIVICKIE: No, we also have male dolls. We have male dolls as well. The male dolls -- we have one male body and four male heads currently. Our dolls you know they are as far as how long they take, it could be anywhere from 60 to possibly 120 hours to create the doll from start to finish.

CW: How much do the dolls cost?

MATT KRIVICKIE: The female dolls start around 6500. Male dolls start closer to 7000 and they can go anywhere from there. You know they can go -- our typical I'd say average prices somewhere between eight and ten thousand dollars.

CW: So the dolls are very lifelike and for many that's exactly the problem. How do you respond to criticisms that these dolls objectify women?

MATT KRIVICKIE: I think the best answer that I have for that is any woman who has a dildo in their drawer or a sex toy in their drawer that is a resemblance of a male phallus -- they have stripped the entire body away and they only have the penis, which I think is way more objectifying of a male body because what they're signifying that they don't need any other aspect of the person. With the dolls -- what we're creating, flaws and all, I make dolls that have stretch marks. I make dolls that have freckles and tan lines and you know all kinds of things. We're really celebrating the human form. We're not -- I don't believe that we're negatively objectifying anybody. I think that we are celebrating the human form as it comes in all shapes.

CW: So you've been making these dolls since 2011. What were the reactions like when you first put them out on the market?

MATT KRIVICKIE: Reactions were -- I don't know reaction from clients or reactions from family?

CW: Both. Trying to get a sense of whether or not the reaction to them has changed over the years.

MATT KRIVICKIE: Yeah you know the dolls have been around for a long time now. So I think they are becoming more commonplace. I think people -- more and more people are getting used to them or you know I think when people see them now, if they come to our studio and they see them now, they're fascinated with the craftsmanship that goes into them. They don't seem to be as turned off to the idea anymore. And I don't know if that's in part due to movies like Ex Machina and things of that nature you know Blade Runner, all these movies where there are you know talking about robots that will come to life that you can have sex with or adventures with or whatever. I think that the -- I think stigma's while they still exist, are always going to exist but I think they are changing and the dolls are becoming more acceptable.

CW: All right well thank you very much for joining us to talk about it Matt.

MATT KRIVICKIE: Absolutely. Thank you Connie.

CW: Matt Krivickie is the creator and co-owner of Sinthetics. He is in Los Angeles. Meghan Murphy has been listening in on our conversation. She's the founder of Feminist Current, an online Canadian feminist publication. And she is in our Vancouver studio. Hello.

MEGHAN MURPHY: Hi. Thanks for having me on.

CW: Megan what are you thinking as you listen to that perspective on the erotic doll business?

MEGHAN MURPHY: I think that it's odd to frame concerns that people have about these sex doll brothels as puritanical. I mean the things that people are expressing concern about are around dehumanization, objectification, the normalization of dominance. I mean this does literally turn women into objects. And when you turn something or someone into an object it becomes much easier to harm that person or thing, or to treat it as though it doesn't have feelings, to not feel empathy towards it, etc. So I think it actually is pretty dangerous.

CW: He mentioned that you know he didn't feel it was any more or less objectifying than women using sex toys or a vibrator. What do you think of that?

MEGHAN MURPHY: Well I mean I don't think that masturbation is dehumanizing. I mean I think that the fact that these dolls are supposed to be lifelike that they've been given so-called personalities that they're being sold in a brothel as though they're prostitutes, I think that really differentiates these dolls from you know tools that people might use to masturbate in the privacy of their own homes.

CW: What did you think about the advertisement the way that the dolls were described in the ad as being social or a really good listener?

MEGHAN MURPHY: Yeah I found it really troubling. I mean these were all kind of pornographic sexist stereotypes. These so-called personalities are very much about pleasing men. You know I was looking at their website earlier today and for example the Korean doll was described as petite, innocent, and submissive. And then there was one who is described as the all-American girl. These are kind of one dimensional personalities that are really nothing more than male fantasies and these really sexist stereotypes about women. And you know the bodies of the dolls were also really troubling to me. I wanted to add: most of them have large breasts that look like implants, a naturally thin waist, no body hair, genitals that look frankly prepubescent or at least like women who have had vaginal plasty. You know they're supposed to look like real women but very young looking. I know that they're not supposed to have dolls that look under age but they all do look quite young. It's really emulating pornography in kind of an extreme way.

CW: The operators of sex doll brothels build their dolls as enabling clients to fulfill their fantasies. What are your thoughts on that? Could it be a healthy outlet?

MEGHAN MURPHY: I mean that same argument is used to defend pornography and also to defend prostitution. So arguments in defense of prostitution for example will say you know these men need this outlet in order to prevent them from being violent or aggressive towards other women -- and you know men need to watch pornography, they need to watch this violent degrading abuse of objectifying pornography so that they don't do it to other women in so-called real life. I mean these women are real and they exist in real life so that's sort of a troubling argument also. But it doesn't work you know all that it does really is to bolster these ideas and bolster these fantasies. You know rape has not ended because of pornography. And objectification and the dehumanization of women has not ended because prostitution and pornography exist. I mean there's more pornography than ever before -- it's more accessible than ever before. Prostitution is a huge industry that spans the globe, and men continue to be violent and I think that when we say that men need these fantasies and they need somewhere to put these fantasies we're missing the point that by indulging in these fantasies it just normalizes -- it normalizes those fantasies and it sort of makes it okay and says, you know any fantasy that you have you should act on and in fact you need to act on it. And that's simply not true.

CW: What about the idea that you know some of the men who may visit this brothel or buy a sex doll are just lonely and that this is a form of companionship?

MEGHAN MURPHY: Again, that argument is used in defense of prostitution all the time. People who argue for the legalization, normalization of prostitution will say, what about men who can't meet women in real life? What about men who have trouble forming relationships? These are lonely men. They just want some kind of companionship. And you know men who visit prostitutes are married men, they're men with girlfriends, they're jocks, they're popular guys, they're rich men, they're working class men, some of them might be lonely, there are all kinds of men. And the reason that men go to prostitutes is because they want to be in a position of dominance and because they don't want to have to care about the person on the other end of the exchange. And I think that's the same reason behind you know why a man would go to a sex doll brothel, because he wants to be in a position of dominance, he doesn't want to have to feel empathy towards someone else, he doesn't want to have to care about a woman's feelings, he doesn't want to think about what she needs, he doesn't want to think about if he's hurting her or not. And I don't think that we should support those kinds of behaviors. I don't think that's healthy. I don't think that teaches men healthy things about sex and sexuality and women.

CW: How do you think that this drive for this connection with human like objects as opposed to actual humans for sex say to you about what's changing in human relationships? Do you think that that affects empathy?

MEGHAN MURPHY: Yeah I definitely do and I think it's really sad. I mean relationships with other people are -- that's what brings meaning into our lives. And it's really important whether they are relationships with friends, with family members, with people in your community, whether they're intimate or sexual relationships. And when we start to think about relationships in terms of just getting what we want as individuals out of it and not being concerned about the people around us or about our communities or about society, it becomes really dangerous because we can't just always be doing exactly what we want all the time without considering anyone else. We do lose empathy. And I think that the idea that we can have relationships with these objects or you know robots for example, there's also you know these sex robots that are coming onto the market, it really is kind of like a sad and dangerous road to go down in terms of what we think about what relationships are for and what other people are for. You know people don't just exist for our use or abuse. They don't just exist for us to project or fantasies on. They don't just exist to provide us with pleasure.

CW: Okay well thank you very much Meghan. We'll have to leave it there. We appreciate you joining us.

MEGHAN MURPHY: Thanks.

CW: Meghan Murphy is the founder of Feminist Current, an online feminist publication. She was in our Vancouver studio.

SOUNDCLIP

You know Bianca is a missionary. Or was a missionary. Right, sorry. Because she was raised by nuns but now she's on a sabbatical so she can experience the world. Isn't that neat? [Laughs] Well you are -- everything is so new for her.

CW: The 2007 movie, Lars and the Real Girl, Ryan Gosling's character plays a shy guy who falls in love with a plastic sex doll and presents her to his horrified family and friends as his girlfriend Bianca. The film is a touching and quirky inversion of the old myth of Pygmalion. And spoiler alert for those who haven't seen it, Bianca doesn't come to life like Pygmalion's sculpture. Instead, Lars finally comes to find real connection with the real people around him. At the heart of the film is anxiety about the loss of intimacy in our contemporary world and that anxiety is part of what drives controversy about sex dolls and other erotic technologies. According to my next guest both the dolls themselves and our worries about them have had a long history. Marq Smith is the author of The Erotic Doll: A Modern Fetish. He's a professor at University College London Institute of Education. He's in London, England. Hello.

MARQ SMITH: Hi Connie it's nice to be here.

CW: Thanks for joining us. Let me start by getting your reaction to what you just heard from Meghan Murphy.

MARQ SMITH: It's a great conversation to be having at breakfast time and I applaud Canadian broadcasters for being daring enough to have it. It's been really interesting listening to Matt and Meghan both, and I must admit I end up falling in line pretty much with most of what Meghan has been saying. I think there are some serious issues around intimacy that we can go on to talk about. I think there are some issues that we can discuss around a crisis in heterosexual masculinity -- if you want to call it a crisis. The only point I guess I diverged from Meghan is talking about the dolls is anything other than objects and I think one needs to try and make a really careful distinction between real human beings in the real world and these objects that function and circulate within the sex industry. But we can go in talk about that some more.

CW: Sure. The so-called sex doll brothel was set to open in Toronto. It has prompted a lot of disgust in the community. What do you read into that reaction?

MARQ SMITH: Yeah my partner who is Italian-Canadian actually received a text from her brother-in-law, who is also Canadian a couple of days ago, with a link to the story about the brothel opening and proclaimed it as the end of civilization as we know it. So it has obviously got people feeling very passionate. I don't think it's the end of civilization. I think what it does do is to raise certain questions. I wouldn't really call them fears or anxieties but I think the questions around the ongoing tensions between nature and technology, between nature and human nature which of course has been enhanced by technology in so many ways over millennia. I think it draws attention to all kinds of challenges that we're having in our contemporary moment around human relationships. And they are both heterosexual and non-heterosexual relations as well as relations between human and non-human form. So as I said I think there is a general crisis around intimacy let's say, and a lot of it gets focused around the heteronormative couple which you know strikes me as what's really causing so much anxiety. You know the fact that you know we have a sense of what you know normal relationships are, or what normal families are. And the evolutionary imperative to replicate them. A lot of that is coming under pressure from lots of different directions and rightly so in many cases.

CW: Let's talk about a bit of the history first. What are some of the earliest examples of people using inanimate objects for sexual purposes -- like how has this evolved over time to get to this point where we're talking about sex dolls?

MARQ SMITH: Yeah. I mean there is a very long history as you mentioned. It is something that goes back to the ancient Greeks who were developing numerous kinds of artificial devices in Egypt, Greece, and Rome. If you go to an archaeological museum in Greece for instance you'll see hundreds of vibrators -- hundreds of objects that were utilized as part of vibratory regimes by men and women. And men and women. And men and men as well. I mean there's a you know a way more interesting gender fluidity going on in those ancient sexual cultures. And there are plenty of examples in the history of science, in the history of medicine, and the history of sexology. Again going back 2000 years of men and women having intimate relations with sculptures; rubbing themselves up against them, you know creating certain kinds of erotic intimacies. They are recorded you know as I say going back 2000 years.

CW: Did people have the same concerns then about using an inanimate object for sexual purposes?

MARQ SMITH: Not as far as I know. I mean there were general issues around who's going to have to clean up afterwards. But not so much of a concern around the ethics of it.

CW: Ultimately, what do you think the fascination and repulsion that we have for sex dolls says about our culture at this point?

MARQ SMITH: I think that there are more worrying things to be concerned about if one concerns -- compares it for instance to you know the predatory masculinity that we've been seeing played out around Weinstein and the advent of 'me too' -- one should be far more concerned about that. At the same time, you know the dolls do raise questions as Meghan was saying around the sexualization of technology, around the objectification you know of our patriarchal misogynistic culture. And those are certainly things that one needs to be attending to. You know having a conversation about it is a great starting point.

CW: All right well thanks for joining us this morning Marq.

MARQ SMITH: That's great. Thank you very much Connie.

CW: Marq Smith is a professor at the University College London Institute of Education and author of The Erotic Doll: A Modern Fetish. He was in London, England. Coming up in our next half hour, get happy. I'm Connie Walker and you're listening to this summer edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

The secret to happiness? Ask this Yale professor (and the 1,200 students taking her class)

CW: I'm Connie Walker and you're listening to this summer edition of The Current. As you know there's a whole new season of The Current just around the corner. Starting next week, Anna Maria Tremonti will be back in the host chair and one of the high profile guests joining her next week will be the former Mexican President Vicente Fox. He will be in Canada as part of one of his post presidential political projects, advocating for international drug decriminalization. But you've likely seen Mr. Fox in the news quite a bit over the past year or two for a different reason. He has been a very vocal thorn in U.S. President Donald Trump's side.

SOUNDCLIP

VICENTE FOX: It is me Vicente Fox with another message for President Donald Trump. When you became president you didn't become the boss of your people. They became the boss of you. Even the ones who didn't vote for you. You can call them haters. Losers. But they are still your boss. You live in their house. They pay your salary. And if they don't like the job you're doing then in a few years, months... you're fired!

VOICE 1: The president referring to immigrants from places like Africa, Haiti, and El Salvador as being from s***hole countries. Tonight the condemnation growing not just from the United States, now we have a comment from Mexico -- the former president of Mexico Vicente Fox, who of course is no fan of this president and has a history of using profanity in that regard tweeting Donald Trump your mouth is the foulest s***hole in the world with what authority do you proclaim whose welcome in America and who's not. America's greatness is built on diversity. Or have you forgotten your immigrant background.

VOICE 2: Have you met Donald Trump?

VOICE 3: No and I hope not until he apologize to Mexico and to Mexicans. Then I can go and share a taco bowl in his tower in New York. So the building of a wall is stupidity. Out of the mind of Trump. That wall is no purpose -- no positive purpose. It's just isolating the United States from the rest of the world. That wall is only in Trump's mind.

CW: Former Mexican President Vicente Fox will be Anna Maria Tremonti's guest next week. It's part of the new season of The Current. You're listening to the summer edition of The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Connie Walker.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Hello. Bonjour. My name is Alex Mackay. I'm sophomore, a second-year here at Yale University, majoring in neuroscience, and I am originally from Vancouver, Canada. So like many Yalie’s I'm taking this course Psychology and the Good Life because I want to find authentic happiness. That's not always the easiest thing to come by.

CW: Finding authentic happiness is not usually what you find in university classes. But this is no ordinary class at Yale. It's trying to address the mental wellbeing of students. From getting the grades to get in, to choosing the right courses, to landing a good job afterwards — going to university or college is often a stressful experience. Ninety percent of Canadians in post-secondary education say they felt overwhelmed by everything on their to-do list, according to a 2016 survey. More than half felt overwhelmed by their academics. A Yale professor is hoping to help her students experience the good life amid the pressure cooker of an elite school. And her course on living well has become the most popular in the school's history, with one of every four undergrads on campus signed up students like Alex, who take their homework for the class very seriously.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: So this week our rewirement is doing nice things for others. So I am going to be doing a random act of kindness and I hope you guys enjoy.

[Sound: Ordering coffee]

CW: Alex just bought a coffee for a stranger. Head to the library and you'll find fellow classmate Yannis Messaoui.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: My homework for this week is to perform random acts of kindness and I just bought these little cute donuts that I am going to give out to random people in the library to encourage them in their studying.

VOICE 2: Thank you so much.

VOICE 1: No problem. Do you want one too?

VOICE 1: That felt good. I don't know it's just cool. I think this is probably a multi-collateral effect of this class. But it's just good see a more positive culture on campus. You know I just brought smile to my friends and neighbour. Some positive change happening at Yale.

CW: Laurie Santos is a professor of psychology at Yale University and the head of one of the residential colleges at the school. She teaches the popular course Psychology and the Good Life. She spoke with Anna Maria Tremonti in February from New Haven, Connecticut. As classes are about to resume this year, here again is that interview.

AMT: Hello.

LAURIE SANTOS: Hello. Thanks for having me on the show.

AMT: What is a good life?

LAURIE SANTOS: I think it's one in which you feel like you’re satisfied with your life and your positive emotions are a little bit higher than your negative emotions. That's really what we're going for with the students in the class.

AMT: And how good are Yale students at making themselves happy and figuring out how to live a good life?

LAURIE SANTOS: Well we hope they'll get better over time. I mean as you mentioned in your introduction the statistics on college in general are pretty dire. In the U.S. you find that around 80 percent of college students are feeling overwhelmed. Over 50 percent are feeling lonely. Around a third are so depressed it's hard to function. I mean these are pretty dire statistics and the goal of the class is really to get around some of these big issues.

AMT: What does the size of that class tell you about how they see life on campus?

LAURIE SANTOS: I think the size of the class tells us two things. The first is that I think students want this culture to change. They're not happy feeling so overwhelmed. I think they're of course amazingly privileged to get into an elite college like Yale. But there's this question about at what cost? And I think the interest in the course really suggests that students want to do more to make their culture better and they want to do more to live a happy life. But the second thing I think the course tells us is that student’s sort of see a way to get around this and that through some of the social science we've been learning about. The course focuses on positive psychology but also behavioural change. And I think this is something that's really exciting to the students too. Behavioural work is kind of in this heyday right now. Richard Thaler just won the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on nudging your behaviour. I think it's kind of really hot right now for students to think about how they can use the science of psychology to live a better life.

AMT: Well tell me more about what you have been seeing among students that made you want to create this course.

LAURIE SANTOS: I mean really what you see at Yale is the kind of thing you see at a lot of elite institutions. 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 there 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, and 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're putting in place for our students, they may not be the kinds of things that are going to make them most happy in the long run.

AMT: So tell me what the classes are like. What are you teaching them? What are your lectures like?

LAURIE SANTOS: So we start off in the course with some misconceptions about what makes you happy because we have to get those out of the way first. And these are things that we commonly think are going to make us happy but the research suggests they just don't. Things like a really high salary and lots of awesome some stuff; for my students it's getting good grades. We go through the science that suggests that these are misconceptions. They’re spots where our minds are lying to us. Then we go through a little bit of the psychology to talk about why that is. Like why do our minds deliver to us this incorrect information about what's going to make us happy. But halfway through the course we get to what really will make us happy — kind of all the things I mentioned. And then the last part of the course is really on the science of behaviour change. What can we do to put better habits in to achieve these good goals? And I think that's a lot of what's really exciting the students the most. It's one thing to learn about the science of psychology but if you can't put that science into practice you're not going to really get the benefit yourself.

AMT: And so what kinds of assignments are they doing?

LAURIE SANTOS: Well it's a course you know. So you have your typical Ivy League college requirements. Things like midterms and final papers and quizzes and so on. But we also have a different set of requirements that we jokingly refer to as the rewirements. And that's because they're there to rewire students’ habits. And these are things like taking time to experience gratitude daily and writing a few things you're grateful for. This week the students are focusing on doing random acts of kindness. They're supposed to do five per week. And these sound a little cheesy but they're based on real scientific work suggesting that if you put in that intentional effort to do these kinds of practices you're just going to increase your subjective well-being. And that's the goal of the rewirements; kind of putting these habits into place that will lead to healthier outcomes down the line.

AMT: And so do they come to class and talk about those random acts of kindness?

LAURIE SANTOS: They're keeping track of them on their own. We'll soon have up and running a new app. So it's a mobile app that students can log their acts of happiness and acts of gratitude and so on. As a professor I didn't realize how hard it was to develop this app — so a little bit behind on that. But the hope is that students can track these things and we'll see them over time. I mean they're not getting a grade for experiencing gratitude. But really if they want this class to benefit them those are the practices they need to engage in daily.

AMT: How do you grade this?

LAURIE SANTOS: Well the grades are based on a midterm and a final paper. The final paper is one where students need to learn about the research on happiness and what makes you happy. How they can put those practices into place and then they get to do a little research project on themselves where they have to apply one of these techniques in their own life and kind of do a little bit of an experiment to see what happens.

AMT: Is that what you call the hack yourself?

LAURIE SANTOS: Yes. The students like the "hack yourself." So they find that funny. But they really think of this as a way to use the science to kind of hack or make these changes in their own lives.

AMT: The Yale campus paper reported that you joked you might give every student a D grade. Basically part of your argument that grades don't necessarily make you happy. What happened when you joked?

LAURIE SANTOS: Yeah. It was actually a joke that was in one of the student web pages — on their Facebook page. I just put up a joke that students I had. But that really scared some students I think despite the fact that we're hearing that grades don't increase well-being. If anything the data suggests might go in the other direction. It might actually be higher high school GPAs are correlated with less well-being. With stress you can see why that might be the case. But I think students were really worried about it. I got some calls from deans who are the academic advisers on campus who had heard from parents who were worried. So I think it just shows we have a lot more work to do to convince people that even though your mind are telling you these goals are good they might not be increasing happiness in the way you think.

AMT: It’s also telling that some parents did contact the deans because not only their minds were telling them their parents are telling them.

LAURIE SANTOS: That's right. And I think this is kind of a broader concern with the class is that we've gotten excitement on campus obviously with one in four students wanting to take the class. But really I've been amazed at the excitement I've seen beyond campus. The emails I'm getting aren't from other students, they're from parents, they're from coaches, they're from retirees, and they're from folks who want to implement these kinds of practices in their own lives. I think a lot of the stresses we're seeing on campuses are just a tiny microcosm of the sort of stresses we see all over the world in our adult lives.

AMT: It's almost as if you dared to speak what everyone was afraid to say.

LAURIE SANTOS: Maybe. The hope is that really we are in this exciting moment where we have science to help us out with this, right? Before we took for granted our minds are telling us this I guess we have to go with it. But now we have this fantastic work in positive psychology and behaviour change that can lead us to some really important ways we can apply these tips and really get better in our lives.

AMT: It's interesting. When we talk about grades, as I read about your course, the real question is whether they'll fail themselves if they're there and they really take to heart what you're trying to bring forward?

LAURIE SANTOS: I've joked with the students that this is the hardest class at Yale. They have this hashtag they use #hardestclassatYale. And the reason is that what the research shows is that you can't just hear about these findings and automatically become happy. You have to put the work out which is the tough message. The positive psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky is famous for saying that becoming happier takes intentional daily effort. She likens it to learning to play the violin or learning an elite sport. You have to put the practice in and that means this class takes a lot of work to really do the rewirements everyday of form these new habits. You have to put that effort in. For students they have to put their time in which is even more difficult. And so my sense is that many of them might get As in the course, but might not use the course in the way that I want them to which is to really put these habits into practice. That's going to take much more effort.

AMT: I'm sure you know sometimes years later someone can remember something that a professor taught them and suddenly the penny really drops and they understand how it really does affect their life. This is something I am guessing that can stay with you and allow you to maybe make choices beyond your academic career as an individual in life, right? It sets a pattern.

LAURIE SANTOS: And that's really the hope for the classes that a lot of the things they're learning about they can apply on campus. But a lot of them are for when they leave here. We're talking about the kinds of things that make marriages happier, that make you not get adapted to your spouse, and things that you can do to continue experiencing gratitude five, 10 or 15 years into a marriage. My hope is that the students are learning things they'll really take with them into the future. And in part because we think this is so important, Yale has agreed to release a shorter version of the class on their Coursera platform and so that's something that learners can use once they've graduated from Yale learners all over the world can access for free. And so we really want to make what we think are really important materials available.

AMT: So tell us a little bit more about what the research has taught us about what does make us happy and why it isn't always what we think?

LAURIE SANTOS: What we know is mostly based on research on who is happy. So researchers just go out and they ask people "Are you happy?" And they ask "OK, what are the practices of happy people? What are they doing that seems to make them different from people who are unhappy?" And by and large what you find is that happy people tend to have practices that make them a little bit more social. They tend to spend more time with friends. They tend to prioritize social time. They also do a bunch of positive practices. Things like experiencing gratitude. Things like experiencing compassion. They tend to do random acts of kindness for other people. And they tend to be sharp enough to give themselves some space. People who are happier tend to engage in practices like mindfulness and they tend to sleep more. In some ways it feels like a lot of platitudes. But what the research is suggesting is that simply kind of being kind to others, being social, and giving yourself some space can have a much huger effect than we think on our well-being.

AMT: And what kind of impact do you hope this course has on the campus mind set of focusing on good grades and a good job?

LAURIE SANTOS: My hope is that the class can have an impact beyond just the things we're teaching them. With one out of four Yale students taking the class, if students really are doing things differently, if they're engaging in different practices in the class, that could have a side effect and I hope really change the campus and really change the culture of focusing too much on grades and internships. Maybe make them think that caring about others and really engaging in practices where you're being healthy and taking time for yourself. Those things can be even more helpful than students often think. So I hope I can really see change across the campus.

AMT: You were talking about some statistics earlier. Nearly one in five post-secondary students in Canada and the U.S. report that they've been diagnosed with anxiety or depression. How much can a course such as this help that group that may also need some mental health care?

LAURIE SANTOS: I think finding resources for mental health care is important and hopefully this class will also contribute to that conversation as well. But part of the anxiety seems to come from all these misdirected goals. In the U.S. there was a national college health assessment back in 2009 that found that around 47 percent of students are experiencing overwhelming anxiety. But if you look at what they're anxious about it tends to be about academic stress. It tends to be worries about things like grades and papers and internships. Worries, the research suggests, just don't matter for happiness as much as you think. The hope is that teaching students the right way to spend their time and the right things to worry about and the right things to focus on, might actually shift things around such that students who are engaging in these healthy practices might actually be able to overcome not just the kind of garden variety depression and anxiety but maybe even the bigger things too.

AMT: So what did all those students who wanted to get into this class been allowed in?

LAURIE SANTOS: Yes, which is great on Yale's part. They had to first simulcast different rooms. We're now teaching the class in the room that we used for stadium concerts. So the big concert hall on campus, which isn’t set up to be a classroom. There are no desks and there's no projector. But Yale's administrators did a great job to make sure that anyone who wanted to take this class was able to do so.

AMT: Have you ever taught a class that large?

LAURIE SANTOS: No. I mean no one at Yale has.

AMT: [Laughs]

LAURIE SANTOS: I haven't done that yet.

AMT: And what's that like to be on a stage with a massive group that that clamoured to get in there?

LAURIE SANTOS: I mean I think it's really fun. It's very exciting to be teaching a class knowing that so many students want to take it and knowing that so many students want to hear this message. That's really been fantastic. I'm humbled but experiencing a lot of gratitude about it.

AMT: It's not a huge student body, the undergrad group.

LAURIE SANTOS: That's correct. We have about 1,200 students in the class and that's about one out of four students at Yale total — undergraduate students at Yale total.

AMT: So you've basically taken a quarter of the undergraduates and how does that go over with your fellow professors?

LAURIE SANTOS: I've been surprised at the extent to which other professors’ are excited about the class. I think it just creates a few logistical challenges. You know everyone heads to that one room at lunch. Everyone leaves the dining hall at a particular time. So I think there are logistical challenges we didn't expect. But so far everyone on campus has been really positive about the class.

AMT: Is this something that you will now continue every year?

LAURIE SANTOS: Well I still have my kind of day job. I teach evolutionary psychology and I'd like to get back to that — a different popular class at Yale the students were sad that I hadn't taught. So next year I'll be back to that one. But the hope is that we'll be able to put the class back into action again. In the meantime we've put together this Coursera class that any student at Yale or anyone in the world can access for free and we hope that shorter version will kind of give everyone at least a lot of the tips that are most important from the class.

AMT: So we know that some parents contacted the dean over that joke about failing students. Do you know if any parents have tried to sneak into the class and catch a lecture or two?

LAURIE SANTOS: We've definitely had a lot of auditors who like to come in. Some parents have asked. I know students are sending the materials back to parents and that's been really fun as well. It means the students are bringing this material to the masses. They're writing little Facebook jokes about it. They're sharing these materials with their brothers and sisters. If you have asked if their family members who are at high school can access their materials so this is the kind of material that's resonating with a lot of students on college campuses. I think it's important material for a lot of folks to learn.

AMT: So what tips your hand for the rest of us who aren't students at Yale or students at all on how to figure out what a good life could mean for us?

LAURIE SANTOS: I think the top three tips that we're telling students is first take time for yourself. Really focus on time affluence. Often we wind up working too hard to get access to salary and money and compromise our time, but it turns out that because salaries aren't making us as happy as we think that might not be the best strategy out there. A second thing is to really take time to be mindful and grateful. A short 5 to 10 minutes every day where you meditate or just sit down and write five things that you're grateful for. Those things don't take a lot of time but can have really serious impacts on subjective well-being. And then the third tip would just be to think about doing nice things for others. It turns out that the reason that money doesn't have an impact on our happiness that we think is we often keep it for ourselves. People who give money away, give things away, donate to charity, and volunteer their time, those are the folks that tend to be happier. And so the more nice things you can do for others the more you'll inadvertently end up increasing your own happiness.

AMT: You made the point that you teach evolutionary psychology as well and you do research on this. What does your work in evolutionary psychology — how does that inform what you're doing now? How does that inform how we are as individuals facing these kinds of issues now?

LAURIE SANTOS: I think the evolutionary perspective gives us two things. First it tells us a little bit why the stuff we think might make us happy probably doesn't, right? We're species that are built for our social connections. We're species that are built to cooperate with one another. As we get further and further from that I think we see the seeds of some of this unhappiness. The second perspective that evolution gives us is the fact that our minds are a little bit [unintelligible]. You know we didn't have an intelligent designer who designed them from scratch. They're kind of just built from our old primate brains and that means of course they're going to have some errors. Of course they're going to have some motivations that don't really work. And that provides some hints about the fact that our minds can be lying to us about what really matters. We should take the data seriously and not always believe the kinds of things we're getting from our [unintelligible] primate brains.

AMT: Is this cause leading you toward a better life?

LAURIE SANTOS: I think so. One great thing about the class is that I have to practice what I preach. You know the students will tell if I am not sleeping enough or not taking time for my own time affluence. So it's really forced me to do a lot of the same practices I am doing with the students. And in that sense it's been really fantastic. It's also giving me something to be incredibly grateful about that we were able to start this conversation. It's resonated with so many people. I'm really thankful for that and I feel really humbled by it.

AMT: You actually live on campus, right? You're in one of the residential colleges.

LAURIE SANTOS: That's correct. So I live with students. I'm in the dining hall with students all the time. I'm really part of their community and it's allowed me to really see that kind of need for a course like this.

AMT: Fascinating stuff. I wish you well.

LAURIE SANTOS: Thank you so much.

AMT: Thank you very much. Bye bye.

LAURIE SANTOS: Bye bye.

CW: That was Anna Maria Tremonti speaking with Laurie Santos a professor of psychology at Yale University. Laurie Santos teaches the course called Psychology and the Good Life. She was in New Haven, Connecticut. Let's hear from one more of her students. This is Derek Demel, it's the end of his day. He's back in his dorm room and ready to write in his gratitude journal.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I really like this exercise because it has me sit down and think about the events that happened to throughout the day that brought up me happiness. One thing I'm very happy about is that this morning my professor met with me outside of his scheduled office hours for 45 minutes to go this topic in multivariable calculus that I was really confused about. Something else that happened, actually about half an hour ago as I got back to my college, and my roommate on bought me a [unintelligible] because I was out of money and I was starving and that made me very, very content. If you see yesterday's I have a lot of them here. And that's 'cause yesterday was actually my birthday. A lot of crazy cool things happened and I was very thankful for that and so I wanted to log them all to make sure I didn't forget. So one of those things was that my parents actually mailed me birthday cake in a bunch of dry ice and I was able to have that yesterday because it's my first time having a birthday away from home and I thought that was really sweet.

CW: Well there you go. Many random acts of kindness related to food. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. Choreographer Laurieann Gibson is on the show. After that conversation about happiness with Laurie Santos let's end today's show off with some music. This is Nina Simone with Feeling Good. I'm Connie Walker. Thanks for listening to this summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Nina Simone ‘Feeling Good’]

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

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

Thursday August 30, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

More Stories Like This