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The AIH Transcript for December 17, 2018

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello I'm Carol Off.

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

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight...

CO: Straighten Up and fly right. Ottawa says its air passengers' bill of rights will ensure airlines treat Canadians with respect -- but one advocate says it's a "slap in the face" instead of a nice hot towel.

JD: Rules are rules. Which are okay as far as they go -- but our guest wishes the 196 countries that just agreed to rules governing their climate commitments would just commit to act.

CO: Overdue process. In India, a top politician is found guilty of inciting violence against Sikhs in 1984 -- and a professor who survived that violence says the verdict comes too late.

JD: Remaking a name for himself. It is obvious that our guest, David Mayer the 90 year old academic, is not "David Mayer" the one-armed terrorist -- but U.S. authorities can't seem to tell the difference.

CO: It's always blind, sometimes rough, and sometimes poetic. And now that one dictionary has chosen "justice" as its word of the year it seems like -- well what's the word for "fair and correct?"

JD: And... all the news that fits in print. A horse that got a haircut; a woman with a snowball in her freezer; and a man who peed in a barn: the annual list of Prince Edward Island's newsmakers of the year is hot off the presses. Well, tepid, really. As It Happens. The Monday Edition. Radio that salutes reporters who go full-bore.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: 'Grandma keeps snowball in freezer' and other P.E.I. newsmakers of 2018

Passenger rights

Guest: Gabor Lukacs

JD: Marc Garneau says his new passengers' bill of rights will not just be the best -- it will also be the fairest enjoyed by air passengers anywhere. Today Canada's Transport Minister proposed regulations that would entitle airline passengers to hundreds of dollars in compensation for everything from flight delays and lost bags to the frustration of getting bumped. There are also standards for the treatment of people who find themselves locked inside planes idling for hours on the tarmac. But Gabor Lukacs is not on board with the minister's proposal. Mr. Lukacs is the founder of a non-profit called Air Passenger Rights. We reached him in Halifax.

CO: Mr. Lukacs, Minister Garneau says his passengers' bill of rights is the best and the fairest in the whole world. How would you rate it?

GABOR LUKACS: It is ridiculous. Actually it's cynical and ridiculous. What the government dubs an air passenger bill of rights is actually a slap on the face of the Canadian public.

CO: Why do you say that?

GL: There are two very drastic elements that harm the public. First is, doubling or even more than doubling the amount of time an airline can confine passengers to an aircraft on the tarmac from 90 minutes to three hours or even more. The second issue is the lack of compensation or removing compensation for flight delay and cancellation caused by the airline's own maintenance problems. This actually gives the airplane a carte blanche to refuse paying compensation to passengers on the basis of unverifiable claims of maintenance issues.

CO: Let's just go -- first of all start with the compensation, what they're saying is that for delays of up to six hours 400 dollars of compensation, 1000 dollars for delays of more than nine hours. And for compensation for being what they called 'denied boarding' -- that's when they say you've been bumped, right, they say 900 dollars if it leads to a late arrival of six hours. 1800 dollars for nine hours. 2400 dollars if you're late arrival is more than nine hours. So that's not an improvement you're saying?

GL: You are missing the point unfortunately and so do most Canadians. The question is not how much dollar amount they put in the paper, the question is how much money passengers will actually get. Most flight delays and cancellations are caused either by the weather or by maintenance issues. In both of those cases the proposed regulations provide no compensation for passengers. So what my question is in what case passengers will get any compensation? The exclusions, the exemptions, from the obligation to pay compensation are so broad that passengers will virtually never get any compensation.

CO: What about compensation for lost or damaged baggage of up to 2100 dollars?

GL: Those rules with respect to the Montreal Convention have been around for 15 years. I'm disappointed and quite perplexed why Minister Garneau misrepresent those as if they hadn't been around for a long time.

CO: We've heard from the industry, the airline industry, who is very critical of these regulations and they say that whatever cost that this might represent as far as compensating passengers that they will pass that on to the consumers -- onto us. What do you say to that?

GL: I wish them good luck for that. The airlines can't just set the prices they want -- it's dictated by the market. In the European Union where they actually have way more stringent regulations than what is being proposed in Canada, prices are significantly cheaper.

CO: I mean when you make that comparison with Europe -- isn't that the case that there is so much more competition in that European market and you look at Canada -- there is very little competition. Huge country, huge distances to travel, and not many choices. So they kind of has us over a barrel don't they?

GL: More competition would be most welcome in Canada. Unfortunately government regulations have not been making it possible -- for example Lufthansa or KLM or Air France cannot transport passengers on or from Toronto to Montreal or from Toronto to Vancouver -- that's part and parcel of the problem. The lack of competition is caused by the current Canadian regulatory regime. But it is also no justification for letting down passengers -- on the contrary the lack of competition is one more reason why Canadian passengers need more protection than European ones, because in Europe if you don't like one airline you go to another airline -- in Canada there is such a little choice that we are living in a quasi-monopoly or duopoly.

CO: But if we already have some of these rights then why aren't they enforced?

GL: Those rights exist on the books but the government is not enforcing them. For example the Canadian transportation agency could issue fines to airlines up 25,000 dollars for each false information they give out. But just recently CBC's Go Public exposed that Air Canada has been telling them that they are owed few hundred dollars when their baggage lost -- while in reality federal law already says 2100 Canadian dollars. But there are no consequences. There has not been even a single case where a Canadian transportation agency issued a fine for an airline for misleading the public even though those rules exist in the law books. Those findings in the law books -- but they have gone into disuse. What you need to understand is that we have a regulator, what we call a captured regulator, the federal watchdog -- the Canadian transportation agency is very cozy with the airlines.

CO: Can I ask -- your day job, you're a math professor, is that right?

GL: That's right. I teach financial mathematics at Dalhousie University part time.

CO: Why has this come to matter to you so much?

GL: I travel a lot and it was not a kind of sudden thing, it was a gradual process. I realized that airlines are harming passengers within a great scale and is actually making profit from shortchanging passengers. And that's wrong. I would like to see a healthy capitalist type of competition where airlines compete with offering better service. It is a common wrong that everybody sees but nobody seems to have the energy or stamina to do something about it and it doesn't look good -- it's something that is not healthy for society.

CO: And you have the energy and the stamina because this just got under your skin and you're not going to give up until you see it changed?

GL: That's right. And I've slowly grown expertise in the area -- I never wanted to become an air passenger advocate -- I just realized that I have a clear understanding of how the regulatory regime works and often the regulator themselves. And many of the successful complaints I made it were based on the fact that I said, here is the law, here's what the airline is doing -- the two things are inconsistent, so please fix it.

CO: Alright well we will be following your work Mr. Lukacs. Thank you.

GL: Thank you very much.

CO: Bye bye.

GL: Bye.

JD: Gabor Lukacs is the founder of Air Passenger Rights, an advocacy group. We reached Mr. Lukacs in Halifax.

[Music]

India rights conviction

Guest: Swaran Singh

JD: Today, after more than three decades, there has been a landmark conviction in the massacre of thousands of Sikhs in India. In 1984, India's then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. Four days of bloodshed followed during which thousands of Sikhs were brutally murdered. Today, Sajjan Kumar who was a sitting Member of Parliament at the time was found guilty of inciting crowds to kill a family of Sikhs. He has been sentenced to life in prison. When the violence broke out, Swaran Singh was a young Sikh surgeon in training in Delhi. He is now a professor at England's Warwick Medical School. We reached Dr. Singh in Solihull, England.

CO: Professor Singh these events took place 34 years ago. What does this conviction mean to you?

SWARAN SINGH: I got mixed feelings. I wish I could say it was straightforward relief -- it's not because it has been very late in the coming. Many people who should be here to see this conviction are no longer with us. So along with that relief is a sense of dismay, some anger, and also the knowledge that many others were equally guilty are still walking around free.

CO: Let's go back to that day, October 1st, 1984. You were a young doctor in Delhi. And how did you learn that something had happened?

SS: Well I turned up at the hospital on my -- I was training to be a surgeon, and I turned up at the ward in the morning. And the ward clerk looked at me and snarled at me and said "You (swear word) have done it." I was really taken aback. And I turned to the nurses and I said 'did you hear what he just said?' And one of them said, 'have you not heard it? Mrs. Gandhi has been shot.' And that's how I first learned about it -- just about maybe 10-15 minutes after she was shot and she was being brought to the main hospital which was across the road from where I was. So I rushed off like many other people and we ended up waiting for the announcement which didn't come till much later in the day.

CO: She was assassinated by her bodyguards and it was understood to be in reaction for Operation Bluestar when she had gone into the Golden Temple to arrest those involved in Sikh separatism. So what was the reaction because they took it out on the Sikhs in the community, right?

SS: Yes that's correct and all the evidence that we've had since then -- and there has been a lot of evidence gathering and fact finding, is that it was meticulously planned. And there is quite a lot of evidence that the Congress Party expected a backlash from the Sikhs following the Operation Bluestar and so they had prepared for a clampdown on Sikhs. But that backlash never came. So when Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated months later they already had a system in place to identify Sikh households and they had in place a structure to mobilize you know marauding gangs of killers to take it out on the Sikhs.

CO: It was reported at the time, and I recall this, that they said this was a spontaneous outpouring of grief and anger over the assassination of Indira Gandhi and that this is why people had taken to the streets and they were murdering -- they were massacring Sikhs at an extraordinary rate. What was the evidence -- what has been learned is the evidence that it was not spontaneous, that it was provoked -- and the fact directed?

SS: What I experienced was absolute outpouring of grief. When I was coming back from the hospital about midday a friend of mine had said to me 'well you better leave. It's turning a bit nasty.' I had an assault from the crowd but at that time some of them were crying even as they hit me. I wasn't badly hurt -- they were just lashing out and I was just a symbol. The main killings started next morning. They were planning in quite a lot of detail. They were not led by crowds who were in grief -- they were crowds who had been paid. For two and a half days the national broadcast both the radio and television -- they showed Mrs. Gandhi's body and a crowd milling around her shouting "(speaking in Hindi) Khoon Ka Badla Khoon" which literally means "We seek blood for blood." They were prepared with jerry cans of kerosene -- I mean there's a lot of evidence that it was meticulously planned. Looking back it is utterly shameful that it has taken 34 years -- and one of the reasons it's taken 34 years paradoxically is that the chain of command goes all the way to the top. So the killers have had political patronage because right at the very top is where the orders seem to have come from.

CO: Why was it so important that this one case of Sajjan Kumar -- why is it so important that he should be convicted?

SS: This man along with a few others was the senior most politician that we could identify as having personally led the mobs. These people not only stayed in politics with impunity, they rose. So this was an example of the Congress Party deliberately allowing -- not just look the other way but promoting these people in full knowledge of what they had done. So I think he has become a symbol of that long long injustice.

CO: And so he was found guilty -- not of actually doing the killing himself, but of inciting the crowds to kill a family of Sikhs.

SS: There was a family in which five men were killed and it was the eyewitness account of the widow, of the senior member of the family, who identified him and named him. He was initially acquitted and now he's been convicted. And it's also worth noticing that there is a chance for appeal so let's see what happens. But the fact that someone senior has been held accountable is really a first -- so in that case it is delayed justice, but at least it's justice nonetheless.

CO: There are others though, aren't there? Because this was -- the significance again that there are those who did the lynching and the burning and the destroying of shops and the murdering of people, but those who were considered to have organized it and directed it -- this is the first conviction of this level. Do you think there will be others?

SS: I hope there will be others. There is one more thing worth mentioning -- the government figure is about 3,000 people dead -- think of it like this, if in broad daylight the murderers of 3,000 people have killed and have not been brought to justice then no one is really safe in that society. It's a problem for the country.

CO: We leave it there. Professor Singh I appreciate speaking with you tonight. Thank you.

SS: Thank you very much.

JD: Dr. Swaran Singh was in Delhi during the 1984 massacre of thousands of Sikhs. We reached him today in Solihull, England.

[Music]

Alberta RALLY

SOUNDCLIP

[Crowd chanting]

JD: The sound of protesters in Calgary's municipal plaza today -- hundreds of sets of pipes being used to demand one big one. And the local government is totally behind them -- Calgary City Council unanimously passed a motion declaring crude oil prices a local, regional, and national crisis -- and pledging support for new pipeline construction. And there were similar chants in Grande Prairie, Alberta, yesterday -- where 1500 people came out in support of the province's oil workers. Bernard Hancock was there. He describes himself as an unofficial spokesperson for the oil patch. And he called on the rest of Canada to recognize the role the industry plays in the country's economy.

SOUNDCLIP

BERNARD HANCOCK: It puts chicken in the pot in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. It puts a roast in the oven in Miramichi, New Brunswick. It puts tortiere on the fork in Granby, Quebec. And it puts tofu on the table in Toronto and Vancouver! [Crowd cheering] And for most of the proud men and women here today it feeds your families right here in beautiful 'Swan City' Grande Prairie, Alberta.

JD: That weas Bernard Hancock at a pro oil patch rally in Grande Prairie, Alberta, on Sunday.

[Music]

P.E.I. newsmakers of the year

Guest: Dave Atkinson

JD: As 2018 draws to a close and we reflect on the big stories of the year, it's really hard to keep track. And frankly, it has been an exhausting year. But luckily for us some folks from Prince Edward Island have been keeping track of the big local stories -- not the nebulous stuff like Brexit, or natural disasters, or any sort of political intrigue -- these are hard-hitting, closer to home, type stories. Stories like: 'Man pees in barn.' Or 'Former Islander eats big donair.' Dave Atkinson is a P.E.I writer who keeps track of the small but mighty province's top news stories of the year -- and the 2018 list is just out. We reached Dave Atkinson in Charlottetown.

CO: Dave I think this year's list is even better than last year's where we had those great headlines 'String found in can of tomatoes' and 'Cold lady gets warm.'

DAVE ATKINSON: [Chuckles] Well P.E.I just keeps getting better and better Carol. I don't know what to tell you.

CO: One of my favourite headlines on your list this year -- and this is really archetypal isn't it? 'Heart-shaped potato found.'

DA: I love the heart-shaped potato. It literally is an entire story about how someone dug up a potato and it's large and it's shaped like a heart. But the best part of it is the photo because let's get the kids and so there's a couple of adorable kids holding the potato and then right before someone took the picture you can just tell -- you can just tell someone said 'get the baby. Someone get the baby in the picture.' [Laughs] Because sitting right behind it is this baby just being a baby right by this huge heart-shaped potato.

CO: It is heart-shaped?

DA: It's heart-shaped. This isn't like trying to find Jesus' face on the shelf of wood last year -- this most definitely is a heart-shaped potato.

CO: Okay. How about this one: 'Grandma keep snowball in freezer.'

DA: Yeah. And not only did she keep it -- she kept it for 11 years. Her granddaughter when she was 6 years old said 'Grandma, nanny I've got a gift for you.' And it was a snowball. And nanny put it in a Ziploc bag and tucked away in her freezer. And every so often when she is moving things around in the freezer she'll say, 'oh and there it is.' And they actually have a photo of when they gave it to her -- and it was 11 years earlier.

CO: [Laughs] And I saw the picture it still looks like a snowball like a kid made.

DA: I have to say this was a bit of a debate on whether it should make a newsmaker, a P.E.I newsmaker, because part of my criteria I always think is that, 'would this make headlines elsewhere?' And I'm telling you, it would. [Laughs]

CO: Oh you know what, we didn't know about this story because this has As It Happens written all over it. I'm sorry we didn't catch this one.

DA: We need to talk more Carol.

CO: [Laughs] We'll just have to follow the news in Charlottetown much better. 'Horse gets haircut.'

DA: 'Horse gets a haircut' -- I mean this was traumatic for some people because somebody's horse came trotting into the barn after grazing outside for a few hours and someone had come along and trimmed its hair, trimmed its tail, took some off of its main. And yeah that was a bit of a mystery -- like who would be so bold to do this daytime crime to cut the hair of a horse?

CO: So that file is still open then?

DA: It's a cold case.

CO: Here's one that really perplexes me: 'Former Islander eats big donair.' Wait a second here -- former Islander? Is it possible to be a former Islander? I thought that you were for life no matter where you live, where you went, you were always an Islander -- this shocks me.

DA: Well former Islander is actually sort of an archetypal character [chuckles] in the P.E.I news. So like if you lived here and then you went away and you did something either great or terrible -- you're a former Islander. In this case I don't know why he wasn't just claimed as an Islander because that was a very big donair he ate.

CO: Alright this one is actually I think this should have been on As It Happens: 'Man pees in barn.'

DA: And there is the hardest story in the world to write a headline for because -- so here's what happened: it's a racehorse who tested for a banned substance and no one could figure out how this horse ingested this banned substance. And so the investigation that ensued -- it turned out someone who works in the barn peed in the hay because he needed to and the horse unfortunately ate it but the man was taking medication for gout and that apparently is -- there was enough there that it tested positive for a banned substance. And yeah so the driver of that horse was actually suspended.

CO: But the man who peed in the hay fessed up so to speak.

DA: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And that's the thing. And so like I actually -- there's another one I didn't do the follow up on, I don't follow the horse pages as close as I should. But there is another one where even though they were saying, 'yes I did it. Here's what happened.' The horse still tested so he was still suspended.

CO: You said earlier that you and I -- we should stay closer in contact so we get these stories, but this goes two ways I think Dave because we have identified a few things that really surprised weren't on the list. There's one -- I want to play you a clip of one thing we think we should have seen on the list. Here it is.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Well they were concerned that they didn't see any obituaries in that day's paper. There had been no mistake -- there just wasn't any obituaries to be printed that day.

CO: Do you know what that story is?

DA: Not only do I know it -- I know who that voice is, that is Colin MacLean from the Journal Pioneer who just today tweeted out me saying that he was so disappointed that one of his stories didn't make the list this year.

CO: We are with Colin on this. I mean this is like -- there was a day they had their people complain that there were no obituaries because no one had died. That's a big story.

DA: Nobody died in P.E.I.

CO: Okay here's one we did cover on As It Happens which did not make your list. So here is another one.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The last thing he heard in the parking lot -- my voice has a tendency to carry for some reason -- and Lawrence turned, he looked at me, I looked at him and I said you're an arsehole Lawrence. It's a big slight to call him that in P.E.I. And he was quite sour about it, and I really did owe the man an apology -- and I did do a heartfelt apology.

CO: What's that story?

DA: That is Ranald MacFarlane apologizing for calling the Agriculture Minister an arsehole. But he didn't apologize to him, he wrote a letter to the editor of a paper -- apologizing publicly for calling him an arsehole.

CO: That was big news everywhere and it didn't make your list.

DA: You know -- so here's how small P.E.I -- I was going to tape this interview a little bit earlier in the day but I had to go to a doctor's appointment and who was standing in the parking lot but Ranald MacFarlane.

CO: In the small world department you cannot beat Prince Edward Island.

DA: For so many reasons -- this is my love letter to P.E.I -- I know I mentioned it last year. I don't want this to be an insult to the hardworking reporters or anything like this -- I think these stories are evidence that we live in the greatest place on earth. We have 150,000 people on this island and we're served by two daily papers and an entire CBC station. So every morning all those reporters have to wake up and say, 'What am I going to pitch to my editor today?' And sometimes it's a terrific scandal from the legislature and sometimes it's Ranald apologize to Lawrence for calling him an arsehole.

CO: Well you keep feeding us material so it's all good -- even for all those former Islanders out there.

DA: [Laughs] Thanks a lot Carol.

CO: Good to talk to you Dave. Bye.

DA: Bye.

JD: Dave Atkinson is one of the Prince Edward Island writers who compiled the 2018 official -- unofficial rather, P.E.I newsmakers of the year list. For the whole list go to our website cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Part 2: Theatre historian, 90, can't get U.S. mail since ISIS fighter used his name as an alias

Climate goals

Guest: Liz Hutchins

JD: 196 countries signed this weekend's follow up to the Paris Accord. They are calling it a 'rulebook' for the fight against climate change. And that means more or less that it is less about what each country must do to avert catastrophe and more about making sure that everyone's on the same page when it comes to understanding what those commitments really mean. Liz Hutchins says it's a bit late to be talking about rules alone. Ms. Hutchins is the Campaigns Director for Friends of the Earth in the UK. We reached her in London.

CO: Ms. Hutchins why are you dissatisfied with this agreement?

LIZ HUTCHINS: Well climate change is an absolutely existential threat for humanity -- and the world scientists came together earlier this year to say we really only have 12 years to turn this crisis around. And this conference in Poland was the chance that the world leaders had to take action in the really immediate term. And quite simply they failed to get the whole world on track for tackling climate change in the way that is needed.

CO: What did they failed to do?

LH: Well the conference was about creating what they called a 'rulebook' for the Paris agreement, the international climate treaty, and what they did was they put in place similar mechanisms that will allow finances to be transferred from one country to another -- but fundamentally this conference ended with the richest countries on the planet, the ones most responsible for driving the pollution that causes climate change and the ones most able to take action, they did two things: they failed to step up and commit to the speed and scale of emissions cuts in their own countries that we needed. And secondly they really dodged some of the important responsibilities -- they've got to fund climate action in poor or in developing countries.

CO: Our own Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna, was there -- at the end she pointed out that a lot has changed in global politics since the Paris signing of this agreement and she says that you should be celebrating the fact that 196 countries could agree on anything given what we're up against. What do you say to her?

LH: Well it is important that those 196 countries agreed that international action on climate change should be based on science and that we should all be trying to keep global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees -- and above the pre-industrial average. And I think what people are celebrating is that Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia and Russia were not able to flaw these talks and they weren't able to derail them entirely. But you know that's a really really small win when actually what we've got to do is radically change global policies to end fossil fuels and to shift to renewable energy. And you know the window of opportunity is closing. And these steps were just far too small.

CO: Another argument that one hears a lot around Paris and around the talks in Poland is that the big emitters like China, the biggest emitter, is in a position where they don't have to reach the same emissions standards or they can have higher emissions than other countries because they are considered a developing country. Did any of that get addressed in Poland?

LH: Well it's absolutely right that the richest countries that drive pollution need to take most action and are in the strongest position to be able to lead the way. And it's also necessary for poorer developing countries to avoid replicating the mistakes that countries like the United Kingdom did at the birth of the industrial revolution. We don't want developing countries to power their economies from coal and fossil fuels and so on. Now China is often held up as a you know a polluting problem and it overall as a country it does have the highest emissions but actually the Chinese government is showing real leadership in investing in a switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy. And you know we must remember that a lot of the products created in China are then export it to countries like the United Kingdom where I am now and these are embedded carbon emissions that actually we're consuming overhead. So we should be careful about pointing the finger at developing countries.

CO: We're seeing what's happening in France with the 'gilets jaunes' movement --people protesting against the price of fuel that has been increased in order to try and decrease the consumption of fossil fuels. We're seeing in Canada the pushback against carbon pricing that the federal government has tried to impose --- with political parties campaigning on saying that they're going to get rid of any carbon pricing. So this is the kind of pushback that the political leaders that you saw in Poland are facing back home. So where does it put them?

LH: Well I'd say that Macron in France is a case study in how not to tackle climate change. He's slashed taxes for the rich and he's put up taxes for the poor. And obviously there's going to be a pushback on that and actually it sets a really bad tone because the things that we need to do to tackle climate change in general massively benefit ordinary people. You know it will mean cleaner air to breathe. It will mean you know -- it will be easier to travel around -- we'll have warm insulated homes instead of living in the cold. You know these are all social goods and it's a win-win often with the efforts that we need to do to tackle climate change.

CO: For people like yourself who are trying to get policies and laws in place to prevent climate change. Where do you see hope? What gives you hope?

LH: Oh I think there is immense hope. I don't actually think it comes mainly from national leaders of countries. I think cities are really showing that leadership can happen at a more local level where people are already facing some of the impacts of climate change. And fundamentally people are ahead of politicians on climate change. So when you look at opinion polls, if you look at the voices of young people, there's a real outcry and an actual growing anger as a sense that our political leaders are behind the curve on this. I do think that 2019 is going to be a year of protest around the world where politicians who have to face up to the new reality that the public want action on climate change and it's actually cheaper and better for people to go green rather than continuing to be locked to high fossil fuel interests -- that part of the economy is of our past.

CO: Alright we will leave it there. Ms. Hutchins thank you.

LH: Thank you.

CO: Bye bye.

JD: Liz Hutchins Campaigns Director for Friends of the Earth. We reached her in London, England.

[Music]

Baloo the cat

JD: When a family in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia noticed that their cat was missing, they did what cat owners do -- what pet owners do: they plastered their neighbourhood with pictures of Baloo -- the cat, and waited anxiously for him to return home. Obviously they hoped to get a call from a neighbour, instead they got a call from Purolator, and the Montreal SPCA -- you know as in Montreal, Quebec. Anita Kapuscinska is the Communications Director for the Montreal SPCA. She spoke to CBC Montreal's 'Daybreak' program this morning and explained to host Mike Finnerty just what happened to Baloo and how she got involved.

SOUNDCLIP

ANITA KAPUSCINSKA: We actually received a call from Purolator saying that they found a cat in a parcel and they were able to help track the owners -- the owner of the cat, and they asked if they can bring the cat to the Montreal SPCA -- of course we said yes. Then we had him checked by the vet as soon as he arrived and luckily he had a clean bill of health. Obviously this story could have ended in a very tragic way so we're very relieved that Baloo is doing fine -- and now that he's back home.

MIKE FINNERTY: So no the scarring of any kind? No physical impact?

AK: No -- I mean he was really happy. Purolator did mention that he was very happy to get out of there, but he's fine. He's a very zen cat. We're very lucky that the story did not end in a tragic way. This must have been a very stressful journey for him of course. And we can imagine the stress when the family found out that he arrived in Montreal while they were looking for him in Nova Scotia. So this is just one of those happy ending stories that we're just lucky that ended the way it did.

MF: How does a cat end up being shipped from Nova Scotia to Montreal?

AK: Well I think you know we know that cats love boxes and they're very good at hiding and crawling into small spaces. So I think you know we have a lesson learnt from all this as to whether it's a parcel, a Christmas present, just be very careful. But another really important thing that I think is something that we should all take away from this is even if you have an indoor cat it's a great idea to have your animal microchips -- make sure they're well identified because if something does happen and obviously we want to try to avoid these kind of situations in the first place, but even an indoor cat can get lost.

JD: Anita Kapuscinska is the Communications Director for the Montreal SPCA. She was in conversation with Mike Finnerty on CBC Montreal's 'Daybreak' this morning. Baloo the cat finished his 1,200 kilometre journey and reunited with his owners in Dartmouth Saturday evening.

[Music]

ISIS alias

Guest: David Mayer

JD: David Mayer is a semi-retired theatre historian and U.S. Army veteran who lives near Manchester, England. But instead of enjoying what could be leisurely years in peace, he has spent years contending with a curious and extremely inconvenient case of mistaken identity. U.S. authorities seem to have confused Mr. Mayer with a Chechen terrorist who once used "David Mayer" as an alias. And even though the real David Mayer has stood up, he cannot seem to get the authorities to stand down. We reached that real David Mayer in West Didsbury, England.

CO: Mr. Mayer what effect does this mix up have on your life?

DAVID MAYER: Well it denies me regular access to ephemera that I acquire in America. It denies me access to predicted correspondence with colleagues in America. I'm immediately connected with the American Society for Theatre Research -- much of my work deals with the 19th century American theatre and its interactions with early motion pictures. So yes there is an impediment but there is also a social element to it. Casual mail reaches me or fails to reach me and the only mail that predictably reaches me is from the Internal Revenue Service.

CO: So they found you?

DM: Those envelopes get through but nothing else is in the least predictable.

CO: So how did it come to your attention that this member of ISIS from Chechnya -- this Chechen terrorists, was using your name, David Mayer, as an alias?

DM: A poster that I had bought on eBay was returned to the sender -- and the sender contacted me and said look we've had this thing returned to us, we don't quite know why but here are the labels on it. I said well okay I'm going to be in New York in a few weeks -- will you send it to a colleague and I'll pick it up. When I did collect it there were stickers on it saying return to the sender, that was one of the stickers, and my name circled. And also a second sticker saying this parcel cannot be delivered to someone who is not eligible to receive post from America or to America. They use the term unauthorized.

CO: And what did you make of that? When you saw that, what did you make of it when you saw that you were not...

DM: I can only say I was baffled. I had no idea what was the cause of it -- why I was unauthorized. But I then talk about this to my daughters and one of them -- her partner is a technical wizard, a digital expert, and he went through the Internet in some way and discovered what the impediment was. Who is this 'Akhmed the One-armed' was. And that didn't solve anything -- it merely identified the problem. And so for three years I've lived with this problem of having mail disrupted, my research interfered with for no reason other than that my name corresponds to an alias that the man was using. The man, I subsequently learned just a few days ago, is dead -- has been dead for about a year. But that hasn't stopped the U.S. Postal Service from still restricting my post. This kind of continuous interference lending a strong element of unpredictability to my life.

CO: Just to go back to who is this man is -- this ISIS member who you mention 'Akhmed the One-armed' -- that is Akhmed Chatayev, this Chechen. He was considered to have been or he was suspected of organizing an airport attack in Istanbul killing 41 people. As you say he was reported to have died during a counterterrorism operation a year ago. And we know that he was well known in the United States -- he was on a terror blacklist. So they knew about this man and undoubtedly know that he's dead. I understand that is also, but with this name, it's been difficult for you to get on planes -- to do international plane travel.

DM: I did have some difficulty. That was in effect easier because I could speak to the people at the airport and as soon as they saw my proof of nationality the issue evaporated and I got on the plane. But what I find throughout this is the clumsiness of the American postal system -- their ability to obstruct the mail but not their ability to rectify mistakes when they've made them.

CO: We have done a number of stories on this show of people who have been on these lists because of having the same name -- they are on no-fly list and whatever -- countless numbers of them are children, like small kids who ended up having the same name as somebody. There is a whole website dedicated to numbers of children who can't travel. We have a Senator in Canada who is -- David Smith is his name and he has this mix up. So they've all said the same thing that it is extremely difficult to get off these lists. So what efforts, what have you been able to find out about that?

DM: Well I was able, as I said through my daughter's partner, to find out who was the obstructer and who was using my name. But when I tried to reach my Congressman in Wisconsin's Eighth Congressional District no response, no effort, made that I was aware of. I was advised -- there were people in the U.S. embassy in London to contact -- once again they were of no help to me and as far as I could tell made no effort. The only positive thing that has come out of this is that a very good friend who also lives in Wisconsin has contacted our Senator and she was aware of the problem and I'm hoping that my Wisconsin senator might be effectual in eliminating this but I really don't know Carol. I want to be optimistic about it but I don't yet have the grounds to be.

CO: Well we will stay in touch and see how this develops Mr. Mayer. And I hope you get your name cleared and you get to get your mail. Thank you for speaking with us.

DM: Well thank you.

CO: Take care.

JD: That was David Mayer the theatre historian, not the one-armed Chechen terrorist. We reached him in West Didsbury, England. And if you would like to learn more on this story check out our website cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Word Of The Year

JD: They do their best to make sure their word is the law. And this year, the law is their word. Each and every year, Merriam Webster, crowns a 'Word of the Year.' And today, the dictionary announced that 'justice' is its official selection for 2018. Merriam Webster defines justice as quote "the maintenance or administration of what is reasonable, correct, lawful, or deserved." And it turns out that the definition of justice was central to people in 2018. It topped the dictionary's search results. Look-ups for justice increased 74 percent compared to 2017. Editor Peter Sokolowski told the Associated Press, "the word and the concept of justice has been at the centre of so many of our national debates over the past year: racial justice, social justice, criminal justice, economic justice." Mr. Sokolowski added that, "a conversation about these topics can naturally lead to seeking a clearer idea of what we mean when we speak of justice." But seeking and or gaining clarity on a definition of justice may prove difficult. Consider the top entries from the other word tracking heavyweights: Oxford Dictionaries which named 'toxic' it's Word of the Year. And then Dictionary.com which selected 'misinformation' as its winner. So to recap: justice, toxic, misinformation -- a neat and tidy trio to summarize the 2018 news cycle but don't take our word for it.

[Music]

Part 3: Storm surge unearths 'incredible' trove of dinosaur fossils in U.K.

Dino prints

Guest: Anthony Shillito

JD: Nowadays paths along the cliffs near Hastings, England may be lightly marked with the elaborate treads of fancy hiking boots but about 100 million years ago the locals were a bit more heavy footed. A collection of fossils unearthed over the past four years has unveiled new details about the dinosaurs that once roamed the coastline during the Cretaceous period. Anthony Shillito is the University of Cambridge Ph.D. student leading the research. We reached him in Edinburgh, Scotland.

CO: Anthony how did you come to learn about these footprints?

ANTHONY SHILLITO: I have a friend that lives in the area. He was walking along the beach one day and he saw something that he thought might be a dinosaur trap. So he then got in contact with us and said, 'do you want to come down and have a look?' So me and my colleague Dr. Neil Davies, we went down and came across all of these incredible footprints on the beach.

CO: What did you think? What was your reaction when he saw this collection of footprints?

AS: We were amazed. I had never seen anything quite like it because I'd done some work looking at things in the Isle of Wight previously because that's well renowned for its dinosaur footprints and there you can see the outline, you can tell what they're supposed to be, but there isn't a lot of extra detail. Whereas the stuff we came across down in Hastings was incredible -- the fact you could see claw impressions and skin texture and all of this detail -- we were amazed and so we had to come back. So we've been back each year for the past four years. And each time we found some more amazing stuff.

CO: How is it -- I mean Hastings is not exactly a remote place, where you found them. Why were they never noticed before?

AS: I think part of the reason is that there isn't new stuff coming out of the cliff all the time. So even though we're getting quite a lot of erosion, quite a lot of cliff retreat, dinosaur footprints only occurring in certain places within the cliff and this is based on where the dinosaurs were originally walking about on these surface and what material the surfaces are made of. So you're only getting footprints if the surface is the right amount of sticky. If it's too soupy then you're not going to get the shape of the footprint preserve properly. But if it's too hard and too firm you are not going to see anything at all. And also the dinosaurs are possibly sticking closer to where that food sources are going to be -- you might expect things to be walking along closer to where the rivers were flowing.

CO: But so many of them -- I mean how many different species do you think are in those footprints?

AS: So we've seen at least seven different species of dinosaur and it's possibly more because there are about 13 different shapes of footprint but we think that some of those were made by the same type of dinosaur. So we've got a range of 3,4, and 5 toed footprints and these sort of things are coming from famous a dinosaur called Iguanodon which was first discovered about 200 years ago-- it's one of the first dinosaurs that people discovered. And that's what sort of animal is making most of these footprints so that's a fairly large herbivore. Then you've got the kind of club-tailed, Ankylosaurus, the big-armoured dinosaur -- that's making some of the four toed things. We've got some sort of Stegosaurus -- so the ones with the pointy plates on its back, we think that that might have made the five toed print. Then we also have some of the more predatory dinosaurs, so we've got some of the smaller faster running carnivores so things that are probably closer in size to a Raptor than to a T-Rex. But yeah the sort of things that might have been coming and hunting these big herbivores.

CO: So the significance of these three four and five toed footprints -- are some of them fairly unusual or rare?

AS: Yes, so the three toed ones are what you see most of the time and also the kind of more amorphous footprints that are made by big sauropod type things like Brontosaurus and Diplodocus so that are more frequently seen -- whereas the four toed are quite unusual. We only found a few of them -- we found I think five of these four toed footprints -- but some of them have really exceptional detail and we're seeing really good skin impressions and claw impressions and there aren't many examples of footprints like that around.

CO: Have you learned things from these footprints that you didn't know?

AS: So there's one of the footprints or a couple of the footprints there are from a type of dinosaur that wasn't previously known to exist at this time in this place. So we found something that add to our picture of what was living in the area and then we've also seen evidence of how the dinosaurs interacted with the environments they were living in. So we've seen evidence of little plants growing within the dinosaur footprints because they've created hollows that then fill up with water and provide a good place for these parts to grow.

CO: Just make sure, are you okay? Because we can hear the yelling in the background and the police siren earlier. So are you in any danger where you are?

AS: I'm totally fine where I'm. It's a safe place. I'm in a nice quiet courtyard although it was a lot quieter until people around the corner started yelling [Laughs].

CO: Clearly something going on. But we will continue unless you need to move and you'll let us know. Now just one question about the location. I understand that there's a lot of these cliffs have been eroded quite a bit over -- winter has taken quite a beating -- what affect has that had on this cache, this finding, of these footprints?

AS: So we found some really good stuff this January, just after some of the winter storms. Some of the best things that we found actually came after some of the big storms this year so it's made a big difference. But they've recently finished building some sea defenses in the area which obviously is a good thing to protect the homes of the people living near the cliff tops but from a selfish scientific point the downside is that we might not see any new prints coming out of the cliffs for a while.

CO: Alright Anthony we will leave it there and let you move on [Laughter] incase it is a bit hazardous. We'll leave it there and thanks for speaking with us.

AS: Great to speak to take. Thanks very much.

CO: Bye bye.

JD: We reached geologist Anthony Shillito outside a conference in Edinburgh. To see photos of the fossils unearthed in East Sussex head to our website cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Ireland abortion vote

JD: Ireland's Prime Minister has called it a historic moment for women. A bill to legalise abortion services in Ireland has passed all stages of the Irish parliament and senate. It will now go to the Irish president to be signed into law. The new law allows for abortion services to be provided for up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy where there is a risk of fatal fetal abnormality and or a risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman. And it follows a heated vote in late May when about two thirds of Irish voters agreed to repeal the amendment that banned abortion in Ireland. Siobhan Donohue was a 'yes' voter who spoke to Carol back in May. From our archives, here's part of that conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

SIOBHAN DONOHUE: I became one of those people. I discovered in 2011, on my third pregnancy, that my baby had a condition called anencephaly, where the top half of his head had never formed. And these babies don't live, they will either die during the pregnancy or at delivery, or if not, if they do survive delivery, will die shortly after birth. So as we came to terms with that information and how we would be able to cope or not cope as it turned out, as we went on we were faced with another 20 weeks of pregnancy possibly with this with this news, we made the difficult decision to travel to terminate the pregnancy because we became aware that there was no option to do that in Ireland. If you stayed in our end you would be forced to continue with the pregnancy. And it very quickly became apparent to me that that was going to be extremely distressing. I really felt it was a form of torture to have to just have this information, to know this baby was not going to survive, and I really felt I would be continuing with the pregnancy just to bury this baby. So I made the decision to travel and we went to Liverpool in the UK, we went to Liverpool Women's Hospital.

CO: Your baby was induced, right? That's what happened?

SD: So this is what they call it, they describe it as a compassionate induction of labour. So they give you some medication to take it you can start things off. You had to go away for a day or so to return back to the hospital. And then I was admitted for an induction of labour. I had to have previous inductions of labour for two normal pregnancies and it was almost the same procedure and that’s all it was.

CO: But if you had had that procedure done in Ireland, if it was possible, that's against the law that's, a criminal act in Ireland?

SD: It is absolutely, because if there's still a fetal heartbeat and you terminate a pregnancy, absolutely it's a criminal act. But if I had been able to do that at home it would have meant my parents could have been there with me. They could have got to meet their grandson and my two younger children, who were four and two at the time, they could have got to meet him. It just would have been — it would have made it that that the most difficult thing about that whole thing would be that our baby was about to die. But because we had to travel that was not the hardest thing to face. The hardest thing was feeling this sense that you had to leave your country, that you were nearly being treated like a criminal being told you want to do this you can't do it at home, you need to travel outside of your country. And then the indignity of shortly after giving birth, having to get back on the flight to come home. And also that we chose to have our baby cremated after the procedure. And that meant two or three weeks after we came home there was a ring on my doorbell and it was a courier delivering my baby's ashes and that's how my baby came home to us. And that's something you shouldn't have to deal with in that scenario.

CO: A number of people have mentioned over the course of this campaign that this is more than just a referendum on abortion, as large as that is for Ireland, that it carries a deeper meaning for Ireland in its culture. Would you agree with that?

SD: I would. I think it signals, I hope it signals, that the Ireland has grown up as a country, and over the last 35 years that it has changed substantially, and it now recognizes that it needs to deal, particularly with its women, in a more caring, compassionate, considerate way. Because obviously, this is mostly an issue that affects women and affecting women's health, because there is nothing in our Constitution that affects men's health in any kind of similar way. And I think it has opened a bigger debate about how we treat women in this country and how we try and move on from the kind of hold that the Catholic Church traditionally had things in this country. And it has certainly opened that conversation. You can see a lot of people have moved on, have been able to separate whatever religious beliefs that they have and look at this issue in terms of healthcare, in terms of compassionate care for people in difficult situations. And certainly I think that's been the case, and I think that's the thing that won't go away after this regardless of the result. I think that conversation should continue and I hope it does.

JD: From our archives that was Carol's conversation with Siobhan Donohue who voted 'yes' in Ireland's referendum on abortion. The bill is ready to be sent to the president of Ireland to be signed into law.

[Music]

Reading: Who Has Seen The Wind?

JD: By now, children likely and hopefully have their Christmas wish-list are ready to go -- probably for quite a while now. And while they are probably prepared it in multiple media formats for easy messaging, the list itself is probably not that different from lists of the past: a cool new toy, a new bike, new skates. The perfect pair of skates was definitely on Brian O'Connal's list. In fact, that was his list. But sometimes alas parents get it wrong. Here is former As It Happens co-host Barbara Budd, reading an excerpt from W.O. Mitchell's classic 1947 novel Who Has Seen The Wind.

SOUNDCLIP

BARBARA BUDD: In the O'Connal family, Christmas began as a rule early in December -- when the boys started to decide what presents they would like. In Brian's second year of school Christmas was called earlier to the parents attention because with the beginning of winter Brian asked for skates. Maggie's first response was unbelief. It was difficult for her to think that one of her boys was old enough to want skates. She reminded him that he was just past seven and that Forbsie Hoffman didn't have skates yet. Brian replied that Art Sherry had them. Art who was a year and a half older than Brian had inherited a pair from an older sister. Their high tops had been cut down. They had to be worn with three pairs of woolen socks so that Art's feet wouldn't slide around in the shoes. But to Brian, skate-less they were things whose beauty would endure forever. Skates became a frequent topic of conversation at meals. At length the grandmother said she was sick of hearing about them. "Would it not be possible to get the child a pair so that he could break his neck and give them a few peaceful meals?" Maggie forbad Brian to mention skates at the table again. The day that he saw the new tube's skate in the hardware store window Brian called on his father at work.

"Oh why can't I have them Dad?"

"Well your mother says you're too young for them."

"No but I'm not."

"Seven is pretty young for skates."

"I was seven a long time ago in the fall. I'm past seven."

"Well you're still too young. When you're older -- next year perhaps."

"Yeah but I'll be older at Christmas. That's a long ways away. May I have them for Christmas?"

"No I don't think so son."

After Brian had left, Gerald felt a pang of remorse. It was difficult to see why the boy could not have skates so that night he had a talk with Maggie. "Perhaps by Christmas time." He asked her. "He'll be almost seven and a half then." His wife looked at him a long time before answering. "You know I love him too Gerald. I hate to deny them anything as much as you. It's just that he seems so... do you think he's old enough? Do you honestly?" "Yeah I think so Maggie. It isn't because he just wants them so badly well he's old enough. Let them skate.” So after a decent interval Brian was told that he might possibly get skates for Christmas. Bobby then insisted that he should get skates too but he finally settled for a hockey stick and a puck. Brian looked forward with eagerness to the promise skates. He thought of them often. Whenever the boys gathered after school with worn slivered thin sticks to play a sort of hockey between tin can goalposts and with a blob of frozen horse manure for a puck and the more he thought of them -- the less envious he was of Art with his women's skates. There would be nothing feminine about his. They would be sturdy tubes with thick felt tongues. The night before Christmas he was almost sick with excitement and anticipation as he lay in his bed with Bobby beside him. He could see the skates clearly with their frosted tubing and the clear runners that would cling to his thumb when he ran it along them to test their sharpness. He could see himself gliding over the river, alone on shining ice -- with a twist and the lean a shower of ice snow and it came to a breathtaking stop. Bobby stirred in his sleep. "Are you awake Bobby?" But Bobby didn't answer him. Perhaps there would be strap us over the ankles, not that he would need them for his ankles were strong. His feet wouldn't slop. He flexed them beneath the covers. Yeah stronger than anything. Maybe they were too strong. And when he pushed he would push the ice clean full of cracks. He closed his eyes tightly -- if only he could get to sleep the time would pass more quickly. When one slept it was nothing. Swift as a person on skate. Swift as the wind. "He came Brian! He came." Bobby was jumping on the bed, his hair bright in the winter sunshine that filled the room. Brian jumped from bed. "Come on." There stockings lumpy with oranges each with a coloured cardboard clown protruding from its top hung from the mantle of the fireplace. Bobby's sleigh that could be steered was before the tree. Bobby threw himself upon the parcels. "Hey wait a minute," cried Brian. "They're not all yours -- just with your name." He began to sort out the presence upon which Maggie the night before had printed in the large block letters that Brian could easily read. Anxiously Brian watched the growing pile of parcels beside him. He opened a deep box to find it full of coloured cars and an engine in little compartments. He opened another, a mechanical affair which when wound caused two long men to dance all the while turning round. Slippers were in one promising looking parcel. And as he opened the last of his parcels he was filled with the horrible conviction that something was wrong. And then he saw a parcel behind the Christmas tree. His name was on it. He opened it. They were not tube skates. They were not single runners skates. They were bob-skates. Double runner affairs with curving toe cleats and a half bucket arrangement to catch the heel of the shoe. For a swift moment Brian's heart was filled with mixed feeling: a disappointment bitter and blinding was there. But with it a half dazed feeling of inner release and relief that he had got skates -- they were skates, he told himself as he turned them over in his hands. "What's the matter Brian?" Bobby had looked up from his fire engine. Brian got up and went into the living room. He sat on the window seat next to the Shamrock plant, the bob skates upon his knees. When Bobby came through a while later clutching a hockey stick a foot longer than himself, Brian paid no attention to him. Throughout dinner he spoke only when spoken to. When his father and uncle were seated in the living room with lighted cigars and his mother and grandmother were in the kitchen washing the dinner dishes, he went unnoticed to the hallway, put on his coat and tuck, and with the bob skates went out. He passed other children as he walked pulling Christmas sleighs and Christmas toboggans -- some with gleaming Christmas skates slung over their shoulders. Through the fiercely tinsel snow sparkling unbearably in the sunlight he walked -- not toward the downtown bridge where children and adults swoop over cleared ice but toward the powerhouse and the small footbridge. There he sat near a clump of willow, fitted the skates to his feet, buckled the straps over his insteps, and went knee deep through the snow on the river bank to the ice. Once on the ice, he stood for a moment on trembling legs. He pushed with one foot. It skidded sideways. The other went suddenly from under him and he came down with a bump that snatched his breath. He got carefully up and stood uncertainly. He pushed a tentative skate ahead and then another. He stood still with knees half bent. He gave a push with one skate preparatory to swooping over the ice and fell flat on his face. He got up he began a slow forward sliding across the ice. Painfully. Noncommittal steps of a stroke victim just risen from bed -- he was not skating. He was walking with an overwhelming feeling of frustration that reminded him of dreams in which he ran with all his might but stayed only in one spot. He fell again and felt his elbow go numb. He sat on the ice looking at his own feet ahead of him and he began to cry. Brian's parents, his grandmother, and his uncle, were seated in the living room when he got back to the house. He was carrying the bob skates as he came out of the hallway. "Oh you've been skating?" said Sean. Brian didn't answer him. "Uncle Sean asked you a question son," said Maggie. Sean's big freckled hand reached out to take one of the bob skates. "Now that's a damn fool question," said Sean. "Fellow doesn't skate with bob skates. Had somebody pulling ya, did ya?" Brian shook his head. "What's wrong?" Brian's father was looking at his tear stained face. Brian rush from the room. "What do you mean?" Maggie turned to Sean. "What do you mean? What's wrong with his skates? What did you mean by..." "Oh yeah they call them skates," said Sean. "But you can't skate with them -- just teaches kids a healthy respect for ice that's all. It got no grip at all. They skid like hell. Never forget the first time I took Gerald on ice with a pair -- about the same age as Brian. He had a hell of a time -- ended up hanging on to me coat tails whilst I pulled him around." "But that means that Brian... That means that..." Maggie got up and went swiftly from the room. She found Brian at the kitchen window. "Oh don't they work son?" Still looking out the window, Brian shook his head. "Oh aren't they what you wanted?" "Tubes," he got out with difficulty. "Tubes like in Harris’s." "I'm sorry Brian." Maggie watched his shoulders moving. She turned his face around to her. "Oh don't please. Don't sweetie. I'll fix it." And she went to the phone."Mr. Harris, have you got a pair of tube skates left? Is it small size? I wonder... I wonder if you could come down to the store with me and my son -- will you? You will." That night Maggie O'Connal stood at her children's bedside. With her white nightgown almost to her heels, her hair in two black braids, she looked like a little girl in the dimness of the room. A glinting caught her eye and she saw a length of leather lace hanging down the side of the bed. Brian slapped with his hand clenched around the runner of one tube skate. His nose almost inside the boot. Maggie reached out one hand and laid it lightly upon Brian's cheek. She kept it there for a long time. Then she gently took the skate from his hand. She turned and with the flat soft step of the barefooted she went from the room.

JD: That was Barbara Budd reading from the novel Who Has Seen The Wind by W.O. Mitchell. We have posted that story on our website cbc.ca/aih. And we will have more holiday readings leading up to Christmas including The Shepherd on Monday December 24th.

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December 17, 2018 Episode Transcript

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