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The Current Transcript for January 23, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: Individual woolen socks to keep them warm were 17 eggs of four different species, as well as two hatched vulture chicks.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Well he wasn't your typical smuggler and that padded belt full of delicate and hatching eggs wasn't the usual contraband confiscated at London's Heathrow Airport. One man's obsession with falcons and other birds of prey has left him cooling his heels in a British prison now. But who does that? Poaches the eggs of rare magnificent birds, arguably no one does it quite as well as Jeffrey Lendrum, who has dangled out of helicopters in northern Quebec, descended into volcanoes in Patagonia and climbed cliffs, well everywhere in pursuit of eggs to hatch and sell to emirs and collectors. We are on the trail of the notorious egg poacher in an hour. Also today, forget about the eggs and the dairy and the meat.

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VOICE: This is complete gastronomic appropriation. God, why would anyone want to eat this?

AMT: Well the British contrarian Piers Morgan may find it hard to swallow, but the number of vegans in Britain has increased threefold in the last decade and with the release of Health Canada's new Food Guide, which suggests less meat and less dairy and more plant-based protein, more than one food futurist sees this as the year veganism goes mainstream. We'll tell you more in half an hour. But we're starting with Canada's uncomfortable relationship with China.

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VOICE: We'll always stand up for the rule of law and we will always encourage friends allies and thoughtful people around the world to point out that Canada stands up for the rule of law.

AMT: At this point, that may not be the issue. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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China's criticism of Canadian law is a change from refusing criticism of their own: expert

Guests: Richard Fadden, Amy Karam

AMT: Well the United States has now made it clear it will indeed proceed with its extradition request for Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of the Chinese telecom giant, Huawei, now out on bail in Vancouver. And in anticipation of what that means both legally and politically, the words were flying yesterday between Canada and China. Here's China's foreign ministry issuing another stern warning and Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland firing back.

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VOICE 1: Canada and the United States arbitrarily abused their bilateral extradition treaty. We urge the Canadian sides to immediately release Ms. Meng Wanzhou and earnestly safeguard her legitimate and lawful rights.

VOICE 2: We have an extradition treaty with the United States and Canada is a rule of law country. We act and honour our international treaty commitments.

AMT: And then Canada's ambassador to China, John McCallum, just days after briefing cabinet, had this to say to Chinese language media in Markham, Ontario.

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VOICE: I think she has quite good arguments on her side. One, political involvement by comments from Donald Trump in her case. Two, there's an extra territorial aspect to her case and three, there's the issue of Iran's sanctions, which are involved in her case and Canada does not sign on to these Iran sanctions. So I think she has some strong arguments that she can make before a judge.

AMT: So how does all of this affect Canada-China relations? My next guests has spent many years tracking that relationship. Richard Fadden is a former CSIS director and national security advisor to Prime Ministers, Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper. He is a member of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute's advisory council on national security. He's in Ottawa. Amy Karam is the author of The China Factor and a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. We've reached her in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Hello to you both.

RICHARD FADDEN: Good morning.

AMY KARAM: Hi.

AMT: Richard Fadden, I'll start with you. Okay we just heard three statements. What do you make of what you just heard?

RF: Well I think that in order to get out of this issue, we're going to have to show a little bit of patience and hopefully I think stop shouting at one another across the airwaves. Clearly, the Chinese government has made a determination that they want to get a message across, not just to us, but to the west generally, that they're not to be trifled with and we're caught between them and the United States on this this and a number of other issues. I don't think we're going to get out of this very quickly. I was a little bit surprised to hear John McCallum you know opine as a crown servant on what the courts may or may not do. I'm not sure this is going to help in the end, so in my view it would be a better thing in the short to medium term to speak less and to use the old fashioned approach of using diplomacy.

AMT: Amy Karam, what do you think of what John McCallum said?

AK: Yeah we're in a little bit of a bind. I think really the question I'd bring up is where's the U.S. in all this? I think yes, Mr. Fadden is correct in that we need to be patient, but the USA really got Canada into this bind and I'm a little disappointed that they're not doing more to get us out of it. They clearly used us, used Canada in their trade negotiations, although that's been disputed. The timing is very curious and I think we should be pressuring them a little bit more as well to use their leverage to calm the waters.

AMT: And Amy Karam, Canada repeatedly says look we are a country that follows the rule of law, this is how it works.

AK: Yes.

AMT: And what do you think of that?

AK: I agree. Of course we need to follow the rule of law. It's just unfortunate of the timing that the U.S. has asked to enforce it. I mean the warrant for her arrest was out in August of 2018. Why all the sudden, you know first week of December was was this arrest requested?

RF: You know I think that this is just another indication of you know the very problematic United States foreign policy. You know they've shifted the way they deal, not only with Canada, with virtually every country on the planet. So I agree entirely with what was said, but I'm not sure at this point in time the United States can do a heck of a lot. We have and they have themselves, being the Chinese, put themselves in a bit of a corner and I think we're going to have to try and find some way of getting ourselves out of this without you know having them lose too much face. On the other hand, you know the United States, I agree could be doing a bit more, shouldn't necessarily have got us into position in the first place, but it's the first and probably not the last example of a somewhat novel to be diplomatic approach by the United States and its dealings with countries around the world.

AMT: And should Canada have immediately leapt to that extradition request or should they have been more weary, Richard Fadden?

RF: Well I think that you know the statement by the Foreign Affairs Minister is correct. There's a process that when you receive an extradition request, there's a mechanical aspect to it. You know forms are processed, detention orders are issued and once that happens, you either respect the law or you don't abide by the rule of law. Now whether or not something could have been done before that happened, is another issue entirely, but once we've received the formal request, we either believe in the execution of the law or we don't.

AMT: All of this of course is entwined with the issue of technology that Huawei has, the 5G technology. Richard Fadden, you are one of many calling for a ban of Huawei's 5G technology in Canada. Why should Canada ban Huawei?

RF: Well I think it's generally recognized that the Chinese state takes a very liberal view of how it acquires intelligence and IT abroad. There's a law in China that says that Chinese companies, whether they are owned by the Chinese state or not, are to help the Chinese security services acquire information when they want to abroad. If we allow Huawei into the construction of our information infrastructure, I think basically we're saying to them, whenever you want to take advantage of that fact to access any information that we'll have on our information network, go ahead and do it. Australia, the United States and New Zealand have already barred Huawei from doing this. I think the United Kingdom is reviewing its position as we are. The current view of Canada and the UK is that we can build the necessary and I don't use this in a technical sense, the necessary firewalls to protect ourselves., ut my view is if we let them in eventually there's a way that there is a way to be found around every firewall. And if we let them in they will eventually get in. But I think there's almost universal acceptance in the west that the Chinese are relatively aggressive in acquiring intelligence through the use of cyber tools and I can think of very few other ones that would be more effective in allowing them to do this. The federal government in Canada has already said Huawei cannot be used in any of the federal infrastructures. So my view would be if we can't, if we don't let them use it for the federal infrastructure, we shouldn't let them use it, we shouldn't let it allowed to be used for our national infrastructure. And I guess secondly and lastly, there's a real need I think for us to show some solidarity with our Five Eyes partners and if we become the weak link in the chain, given the interoperability of you know communications around the planet and in particular in North America, I don't think we're going to be helping our allies if we allow Huawei to be part of our information infrastructure.

AMT: Amy Karam what are some of the potential dangers in banning their 5G technology?

AK: The political repercussion of course. They've been very vocal about retaliation even economically if we decide to go that rout. They are our number two trading partner. The U.S. is number one and they're number two. The unfortuante part is that Canada needs to take a side and that's not typically our style, right? We have been really good about making friends in in different places and not being so firm because I mean even in November some of the Canadian politicians were trying to mend the tension between theU.S. and China by hosting a WTO meeting in Ottawa with them even attending. So it's going to be a shift in our general philosophy, I think.

AMT: Amy you have made the point there we're already pretty entwined with Huawei.

AK: Yeah hugely. I mean the other thing that concerns me is that well I don't know if that's a concern but this is another big decision I think governments needs to make is why it is funny the researcher 5G in our university. They have invested 50 million dollars engaged 100 professors across the country and I think about 30 universities. So it's almost comical is that we're we are fueling the growth of our way this company to the Western world is trying to shut down and show. We need a bigger policy. The prime minister needs to decide on a global view where we stand relative to Huawei and relative to China and what it looks like specifically.

AMT: Now Amy you've done your own work on competitive intelligence gathering in China. What have you learned?

AK: Yeah. So in fact this topic is especially interesting to me because I worked at Cisco in the United States in California. And I actually led a program is it was comparing self-support program where we gathered intelligence in support of the sales teams in how to compete with yway because they were a rising formidable competitor. And this is in the late 2000s so while it is not new on the scene they are they are a strong competitor. They compete differently and that's why I keep in my practice to inform me western based companies. How why are we in the Chinese do business and how we need to change our engagement and change our strategy and approach it in order to be better prepared and more globally competitive.

AMT: Well I want you to hear the perspective of Martin Thorley who studies international engagement with China at the University of Nottingham.

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VOICE: The is the relationship between Huawei and the Chinese government is often misunderstood in the west. In reality, we must remember that the Chinese Communist Party, you know not only does it govern, but it has control of education of the judiciary of the police, of the media. If you're dealing with Huawei, when the time comes, if the party calls on them, they simply have to answer that call. This case in particular will be quite a landmark and perhaps it comes to embody to be honest the misconception that many in the west have that further engaged with China would lead to a convergence with international norms. I think most would now conceded that was an error.

AMT: Amy Karam what do you say to his point that we don't really understand what's going on in China?

AK: What aspect really is he referring to. I didn't quite get the whole nuance to that. Is he basically saying, we're not really prepared for how large and how strong China has become?

AMT: Yeah that and the fact that it's very entwined with its own, you know that its control of education, the judiciary, the police, the media and business.

AK: This is the concern right. This is why the West is is stressed out right. This is why they are finally rising to this challenge. It is very entwines why it has been subsidized by the Chinese government for over a decade maybe almost two decades. Their global expansion was not by accident. When I was tracking them you know 10 years ago closely the Chinese government this is public information gave Huawei $10 billion to help them expand globally. The government has, the Chinese government has incorporated you know Huawei deals into trade agreements abd other companies of course. And you know good for China. I mean the public private sector collaboration has done really well for their economy. It has really fueled their international growth and now their strength. So yes hundred percent they are very intertwined.

AMT: So should Canada be doing, as we look again, you know you both have made the point that Canada's kinda stuck between China and the United States on this. How does Canada move forward?

RF: Well if I can just support something that Amy said a minute ago. I think we and a significant number of other countries in the words we need a holistic policy to deal with China. So there's going to be easy because I think Mr. Harper's government and Mr. Trudea's government you know all tried to do this. We cannot do this in silos. We can't do just security on the one here and then then trade in economic affairs and strategic affairs. We need to look at things more holistically and we're not doing particularly well. But to the point I was just moved aside from the intelligence aspect of dealing with Chinese companies they have an unlimited pocket book which means that for a Canadian American or Australian companies there is no fair competition there's no even playing ground. So I think the first thing we need to do is we need to target both these things more and make sure that companies and governments that are dealing with China appreciate. I think we I don't agree with the professor from knowing that we don't understand what's going on in China. I think we understand all too well what we done is we've all of a comprehensive way of dealing with them. So if were going to have companies dealing in China I think that's perfectly fine but we have to realise that the rules are different than they are in virtually any other country in the world except possibly Russia. I think we have to go into these relationships with our eyes and I would view the rule as respect to my fellow countrymen. I don't think we do that all the time. So talking about these issues understanding them better then at some point saying to the Chinese and others possibly you know we cannot only have a different system and we have to respect that up to a point but you have to respect ours as well. I mean I was quite struck by this woman from the Foreign Ministry in China when she was going on about how they considered our internal systems of law and justice and the rule of law unacceptable yet they constantly remind the rest of the world how we should never comment on how they organize themselves and how their system operates. Well it seems to me to some degree they're going to have to accept that what's good for the goose is good for the gander and we'll have to work practical ways of dealing with these differences. Throughout history that's been done before, I just think we haven't got there yet.

AMT: Well I guess I have to ask, OK we have you know we have the CFO sitting in Vancouver out on bail. Amy Karam, it's not like this has happened overnight with China. Why do you think we don't have a policy yet? Why do you think we are still flailing?

AK: I think we're just waking up to the game really late. I mean the good news is you know Canada is jumping in and realizing China is a great opportunity and a strong trading partner. The unfortunate part is we've been a little bit dormant for a little too long. This Huawei issue has been an issue with the U.S. for a very long time. Why have we kept the polls on this then and done our homework. We also think you know maybe even thinking that the G7 still has a lot of influence in rules the world and it's really about the G 20. China is a big part of the G 20 ish as as Richard just said hello again. Yeah they do business differently. They have different rules. Yeah that mutual respect is a big part of what we need to do and they profess that as well. And so we just jumped in with. He started playing in different buckets. Yeah we haven't been looking at it holistically. This is why you have people like wow this is really drastic by China. Why are they holding our citizens in you know taking taking such a retaliatory stance. Well I think it's more then the reason I'm arresting the Huawei CFO. It's this zigzag yo yo, you know engagement that we've had with them that Richard was also alluding to.

AMT: That we just heard in those clips actually as well of the ambassador versus the foreign minister.

AK: Exactly, it's just like are we friends? Are we building a long term relationship or not? And you can't just show up with a different stance in various circumstances. You know just to make the subject a little bit lighter, Huawei is funding Hockey Night in Canada. So where does that stand? The contract holds till 2020.

AMT: That's a sponsorship contract, right?

AK: Yes. So I mean I'm just throwing in yet another lighter aspect to all the ways that we are also intertwined with China. We've opened the doors. We welcomed them in. We've accepted their money sometimes. Let's not get into the whole deal.

AMT: OK well we're going to leave it there because we're out of time, but both of you, thank you for your thoughts on this. I really appreciate your insights.

RF: Thank you for having us.

AK: You're welcome.

AMT: That is Amy Karam. She's the author of The China Factor. She's a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. She's in Fort Lauderdale, Florida today. Richard Fadden is a former CSIS director and national security advisor to Prime Ministers Trudeau and Harper and a member of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute's advisory council on national security. He's in Ottawa. What do you think? Let us know. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. And stay with us, the news is next and then we're back talking veganism.

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Could 2019 be the year that we all go vegan?

Guests: Lynda Turner, David Sax, Leslie Beck

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come, it is a sad truth that majestic birds of prey, such as wild falcons, are preyed on by humans, as part of a black market trade. One of the most notorious poachers of wild bird eggs for this trade is now convicted and in a British jail. In half an hour, I'll speak with a journalist who spent years on his trail helping to crack the case. First let them eat kale.

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VOICE: Canada's Food Guide reflects an important concept: healthy eating is more than just the food that you eat and it gives Canadians the tools they need to eat healthy.

AMT: They say you are what you eat and with yesterday's release of the new Canada Food Guide, it seems Health Canada and the minister responsible, Ginette Petitpas Taylor, who you just heard there, would like to see Canadians change things up a bit from years past. Less meat, less dairy, more vegetables and plant-based protein. Those are some of the key takeaways from the newly revamped Food Guide and though the number of Canadians who follow a vegan diet is still rather small, a study from Dalhousie University last year, says nearly 10 percent of Canadians consider themselves vegetarian or vegan. The new Food Guide is just the latest sign of a move away from meat and dairy and toward a plant-based alternatives. In fact, the new guidelines arrive in the middle of a month some have started calling Veganuary, a time for people to try out going vegan. And while the changes may come as a disappointment to some meat and dairy producers, it is welcome news to my next guest. Lynda Turner is the owner and founder of Fauxmagerie Zengarry, that is a vegan cheese company based in Alexandria, Ontario and that's where we've reached her. Hello Lynda.

LYNDA TURNER: Hello Anna Maria.

AMT: You don't need the Canada Food Guide to convince you. Why did you decide to go vegan when you did?

LT: I read a lot of literature and science on diet and plant-based diets and it was just compelling enough to convince me to change the way I ate.

AMT: And how much influence do you think these new guidelines will have in nudging Canadians away from meat and dairy?

LT: I think people are looking for the right information to keep themselves healthy and Canada's Food Guide will give nutritionists and physicians the tools they need to advise people on how to keep themselves stayed and healthy by using a prayer based diet or a more plant-based diet.

AMT: Do you think the changes are significant?

LT: I think the changes are significant and I think people listen to what their doctors tell them. And I think that the Canada Food Guide is something that is there as a guide for these professionals.

AMT: So you have a business called Fauxmagerie? What made you think hey, I can turn my vegan diet into a business?

LT: I just think that having more options available on the market makes it a lot easier for people to add more prayer based foods to their diet. When I started I began diet about nine years ago. These products weren't available with a lot more challenging to eat out with a lot more challenging to eat convenient food because they just weren't available at my grocery store.

AMT: And so you started making cheese, faux cheese. So how do you do that? What's in there?

LT: Well we use cashews. So we use raw organic cashews and other all natural ingredients like coconut oil fresh herbs, Ontario grown garlic and we make cheese alternative an alternative to fine cheeses. So we have flavors that range from a freestyle double cream to a word says our girl is fine. And even our newest flavor is ale aged cheddar flavor which is actually fermented with a local craft beer.

AMT: So when you got into the business was there a lot of competition in this or you've seen it really changing?

LT: It has changed a lot over the last five years. When I first started this in 2013, there weren't a lot of alternatives available on the market. So we've seen the market we all the grocery stores or trying to really impress those alternatives and provide those foods for people in mainstream grocery stores.

AMT: And why do you think that's happening that shift?

LT: People are demanding it. People are looking for the products. People are adding more player beef to their diet you has denied increasing a dietary play based diet. They're still adding more players into their diet. They have meatless Mondays maybe or they're eating player based at home. And just to keep eating more when they're out and about or go to someone's house for dinner. So people do something new called The Flexitarian Diet. So people will embrace may be aware they stay home, but they're not strict when they're entertaining.

AMT: And I guess the more it becomes available the more people will give it a try because they can actually see it on the shelves.

LT: I think the easier it is the more people are going to do it for sure.

AMT: You must be aware of all the cultural tropes about vegans, the idea that they're sanctimonious and preachy about their lifestyle. What would you make of that?

LT: Well I think there is a gradient of vegans and there are people that feel that way and then there are people that are more accepting of other people. Most of you were at one point not in their life. So I think it's important to recognize the people are on a journey and they're learning and they're evolving as they learn more.

AMT: Okay well Lynda, thanks for talking to me today.

LT: Thank you so much for having me.

AMT: Lynda Turner, founder and owner of Fauxmagerie Zengarry, a vegan cheese company based in Alexandria, Ontario. Well if it seems as if veganism is all of a sudden as everywhere, it is not your imagination. Beyonce and Jay-Z are the latest celebrities following an all plant diet and challenging their fans to do the same. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has credited his recent weight loss with following a plant diet. Hollywood director James Cameron isn't solely a vegan, he has put his money where his mouth is, investing in a Saskatchewan based pea protein company. So how did veganism go from a hippie and punk rock subculture to becoming the diet of choice for such a range of prominent people in the mainstream? David Sax is a writer specializing in business and food and what makes trends catch on. He is the author of The Tastemakers: Why We're Crazy for Cupcakes But Fed Up With Fondue and he's with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

DAVID SAX: Good morning.

AMT: Are we fed up with fondue?

DS: I'm not. But I guess it's got to be a vegan fondue, or tofu fondue.

AMT: It just depends on your what you think. So why do you think veganism is having a moment right now?

DS: Well this is this is a big substantial food trend and the big substantial food trends versus the flavor of the month, you know cake pops coming out or you know a certain type of sandwich or you know unicorn lattes that happened a couple years ago. Those are more fads. But the long term trends the ones that have a real lasting impact on the way that people eat and shop and cook and sell food really happen when there's a confluence of different factors that are feeding them a different sort of substrate. And the vegetarian or vegan trend that we're really seeing kind of popping into every aspect of the culture now is being fed from a couple different areas.

AMT: Which are other areas?

DS: So on the one hand you have sort of a health and diet based trend and that is really coming out of the science. So Canada Food Guide is acknowledging as well as you know the nutritional scientific community around the world is that you know plant based diets are healthy or there seem to be no negative consequences to that. And so we've seen this in the past when there is a shift in the sort of medder diet information in the 80s we had the idea about saturated fats being bad that caused a titanic shift in the way that people were eating and cooking. So you know big in fatty meats road goes up it was all about you know boneless skinless chicken breasts, margarine you might remember that hellish stuff.

AMT: No bias there, but keep going.

DS: The margerine producers are really going to be on me today. And so you saw that shift and then when the winds shifted away from that and saying actually we were wrong about that information, that 20 years ago we said that was the gospel is wrong. You saw the shift to back to higher saturated fat. And you know we saw a reverse trend over the past decade which was you know nose to tail eating high fat eating high protein as much sort of high fat dairy high fat protein as you could you get. Obviously the pendulum's going to swing again. And the evidence has been growing for some time about the benefits of a plant based diet for personal health for ecological health.

AMT: I was just going to say, when you talk about the different the confluence of things coming together, you've got the whole environmental movement then you have the celebrities, you also have chefs and restaurants.

DS: Yeah and so that, everything sort of percolates up through different aspects of the culture right because the chefs are responding to things in their own lives and demands from their customers and the high end chefs the ones that are really known that have a big media presence like the author of many successful cookbooks, which are very vegtable sort of centric vegetable based that percolates down into other restaurants in cities like Toronto and Vancouver and places like Winnipeg that are offering more vegetarian options on their menu and so 10 years ago you saw places making their own sausages in you know putting a pig's head on a plate. And now many of those same chefs have kind of had a foxhole moment maybe Africa on the doctor in an end and now opening up their own vegetarian restaurants and their own vegetable centric places. And you see that trickle out through Instagram, you see it trickle out through cookbooks and of course celebrities will pick up on that. And they become kind of the carrier pigeons of the taste in the culture.

AMT: So you you have this, you're saying that's different from veganism of the past.

DS: You know the veganism in the past and again this is nothing new. I mean there are religions in the east in India that have you know Jains have followed many of these same precepts for hundreds of thousands of years. You know vegetarianism in India. You had that, but it was again wrapped up in what you alluded to with the previous guest the sort of sanctimoniousness and I think there is that element of it now, but I think people realize in order to sort of make that wider change, you can't tell people that they have to eat something, they want to eat something in order to make that bigger change.

AMT: Well let's you know again that was at one point and I'll say at one point veganism, vegetarianism, associated with and I've got my air quotes going here, hippies, leftys, punks. Now there's a different kind of advocate listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: If they tell you to eat more meat in order to get strong, don't buy it.

They tell you to eat more meat to grow tall.

Don't buy it.

Someone tells you that eating more meat is good for you or our planet.

Definitely don't buy it. As meat and dairy consumption goes up so does heart diseases and other serious illnesses.

Meat production leads to deforestation and more greenhouse gases that dangerously warm our planet.

Please consider eating less meat.

Good for you. Good for the planet.

Less meat.

AMT: Okay so we've got the Terminator in there, Arnold Schwarzenegger. We also have, this as an ad he did promoting veganism, Chinese actress Li Bingbing and James Cameron, Hollywood director. What does that say about we are culturally with that trio?

DS: You know it's interesting and it's an interesting mix of people actually. But I think you know there is this moment that we're out and this becomes in the vanguard. Right. And so you'll see people coming on board you'll see people trying you'll see a shift but they're like any cultural moment will be a blowback. And I imagine in the United States as well as probably here in Canada you're going to see a cultural schism that might fall on those same political lines you know country music stars you know might fall one way people out in the West who are connected to communities that deal with ranching and our bird in Saskatchewan are going to express you know their own their own feelings around it. And so while we tend to think of these things as the sort of upward trajectory and everybody's moving in this direction of veganism because up 10 percent you know in that study say they're going to vegetarian you know food trends happen. They swing back and forth. The scientific evidence does always change and evolve, tastes change and evolve and people get tired of eating the same thing.

AMT: You know even on The National last night, there was a dairy producer who made the point a lot of people are buying high-fat dairy now, which again goes back to the issue about fats, right. That they're not necessarily going to stop.

DS: And I think ultimately the end of the day you know we have to remember that this is yes there are scientific guides there's recommendations for health there's ways that we should be doing but for most people that they want to eat what they want to eat and they want a better but their their willingness to go so far is is limited by the options that they have the hunger that they have what's what's available to them. People still enjoy eating meat and dairy and sort of animal based products as part of their diet. Perhaps that will lessen in some way as more options become available. But you know there's still a long way to go for that to become part of the real mainstream.

AMT: We're also talking of business. James Cameron is an investor in a pea protein company in Saskatchewan. How big a business, are you seeing other shifts?

DS: You see shifts all the time and I think anyone who has you know a commodity or you know sees an opportunity in the market as it's growing is going to go and try to capture that. So that's you know the commodity producers at the soy level at the pea protein level.

AMT: Maple Leaf Foods is changing.

DS: Right exactly. Are you saying how can we get in on this. This is a trend. What's our what's our strategy here or whether we're Loblaws or whether were Maple Leaf or whether we're Jack Astor's. Right. And then of course you have individuals like the woman with the cheese company up the street from me here in Toronto there's a vegan butcher that opened up a couple years ago and they sell all sorts of different dishes that are made from non animal proteins and and different to vegan vegetarian products that they have. And there is a market there and they've remained in business and been successful. You see the growth of sort of the vegan fast food chains, you know the better fake burgers and sloppy joes and all these sorts of things that are popping up around cities as well.

AMT: And of course tonight we shall we make the point there is pushback. I've got a little clip here from Ellen DeGeneres. Listen to what she says.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It's hard to be vegan. If you go to a restaurant, unless it's a vegan restaurant, they don't know what to do. They you know you say I'm vegan so, well then you can't have the chicken? No can't have the chicken. I'll get the asparagus. Well that comes with parmesan cheese. Can you do it without? Alright, I'll just get the salad then. Well that's soaked in ham juice? Why. That's how we do it.

AMT: So what kind of potential power does veganism has?

DS: I think vegetarianism or let's say more vegetable centric diet right, which is what the Canada Food Guide was recommending. It was not recommending veganism. It was saying eat more fruits and vegetables. Everybody knows that. That's not new science. That's what your parents have been telling you, what I'm yelling at my kids all the time and doesn't seem to sort of go through. They still want the chicken nuggets. So it will have a growth it's having a moment in that's a positive thing for people's health it's better to eat more fruits and vegetables. How far that goes really depends on the willingness of the bulk of the population to completely change the way they're using give up the things that they love and are used to and are often more convenient. And so I think you're going to see a limited amount of growth of that but I think overall you know the more vegan options have vegetarian options there are menus but easier it's going to be for someone to choose that option. When it isn't there, you know it it falls again back to that small core.

AMT: Thanks for coming in.

DS: Thank you.

AMT: David Sax, the author of The Tastemakers: Why We're Crazy for Cupcakes But Fed Up with Fondue, joined me in our Toronto studio. Leslie Beck has been listening in to our conversation. She is a registered dietitian with MedCan in Toronto. She's also a columnist with The Globe and Mail and she joins us now. Hi.

LESLIE BECK: Hi Anna Maria.

AMT: So what does science say about the health benefits of veganism?

LB: Well it certainly is associated with health advantages. I mean compared to meat eaters, studies in plant based eaters have a low risk of heart disease. They have lower cholesterol levels lower blood pressure. They have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. It's got to be a source you know which protection against certain cancers plant based leaders. They have healthier weights, they have healther microbios, than do meateaters. So yes there is a fair bit of science out there observational research to suggest that eating a plant based diet I should say that because there is a subtle difference when we talk about the organism versus plant based eating there is a little bit of a difference in philosophy if you will. However there is definitely some research out there to suggest that it is healthier for you than a meat-centric diet.

AMT: Are there are health downsides to veganism?

LB: Well you know I think as long as you are carefully planning your diet and that isn't certain. To make sure that your covering off your nutrient base is it is very healthy. It's a very healthy way to eat and in fact a position statement. It came out in 2016 from dieticians of Canada and also United States found that a carefully planned vegetarian or vegan diet is appropriate for all age groups, including infants, including teenagers, growing children. But the key is planning it properly.

AMT: So what do you think about what our last guest has said about how this trend, it has a different kind of staying power. I'm wondering what you're seeing with your own clients if people are able to stick to veganism.

LB: Well you know what I see certainly, I do see people that are wanting to make the transition 100 percent. You know I want to eat a 100 percent plant based diet Ive heard its better already. I saw an animal welfare comes into it alive as well as environmental concerns. But you know what I hear more and more and I think this does speak to the guy that was you know unveiled yesterday in Montreal and our revised Food Guide and more people are saying you know what I dont want to go full board league but I do want to eat more plant meals. I want it include those kinds of foods in my diet more often than I am. I want to live longer healthier and I heard that this is the way to do it. So that's what Im seeing. So I really, I help people eat more plant based meals because a lot of people quite frankly you know what do I do with those beans and lentils. Besides making a potted jelly. I dont know how to cook with tofu. How do I get enough protein. And these are some of the questions I'm getting from people that want to eat definitely more plant based, a lot more than they are today, but don't necessarily want to do it 100 percent of the time.

AMT: And veganism is not only a diet for many, it is a lifestyle. And I've got a clip here from Ada McVean, who finds it off putting. She's a science communicator at McGill University. She's been vegetarian for five years. She says she may eventually become vegan, but she finds the fervency in claims of vegans online problematic, especially she says when they draw on pseudo science to make the case. Listen to her.

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VOICE: There's also a connection between the carnivore diet and pseudo science. So it's certainly not only limited to the animal-free side of the spectrum, but I think in general extreme diets do attract people that are having health conditions and they try these extreme diets. They find their health conditions clear up. They go on the internet, they tell somebody else, somebody else tries it and their health conditions also clear up. And truth be told, I'm very happy for these people if their happiness are clearing up on whatever diet they're using, but these are anecdotes. They're not evidence-based, they're not science-based and we can't trust pseudo science to pick up disassociating itself with veganism, which is something I do believe in.

AMT: What do you think, Leslie Beck?

LB: No I agree with that and that is true. That is anecdotal evidence and we hear it from everywhere it's not just you know on the Internet it's from our friends are personal trainers our families. That's the thing about nutrition today that it makes it difficult I think for consumers confusing and sometimes frustrating is that everybody is an expert and part of that is because food in our diet it's emotional and cash to us and everybody believes in what they're doing is right. So but but I do agree with that. We have to be careful because what's right for somebody may not be right for somebody else and the advice to do it properly, it could be dangerous.

AMT: And of course vegans can also eat processed food and things like Oreos for example are allowed. So we've got the whole, we still have you know healthy eating choices versus not so healthy. No offense to the Oreos.

LB: And that's why you know this growing trend of sort of plant-based eating is a little bit different because it really does focus on whole plant based food. So you know all those things that Canada Food Guide was talking about whole grains beans and lentils nuts fruits and vegetables that type of thing and so people who are following more are whole foods plant based diet. Many people for health reasons you know really wouldn't be eating the refined highly processed plant based, well foods that don't have any animal products in them should I say.

AMT: There are a lot of restrictive eating practices out there and choices for diets. There's, we've been talking about veganism, there's the paleo, the keto. What do you tell your clients who want to eat healthier?

LB: Well you know most of my clients come to me, they already have an idea of how they want to eat, but I think you know what I end up doing first of all is really taking a look at somebody's current eating habits, their current diet, their lifestyle, what their goals are and start making small changes. And I think you know even for people who do want to go plant based, you know we start small. We start with small goals, transitioning them, so that it's something that's easier for them to do, something they'll like and something that ultimately has to be sustainable. And I suppose that is my message to my clients and the public as well, is you know whatever your goal is today, whether you want to lower your blood sugar, lose weight, just you know simply healthier for healthy aging, whatever you do today, really does need to be the same thing you're going to do tomorrow, a year from now, six years ag. So it has to be sustainable.

AMT: Okay Leslie Beck. Thanks a lot. It's always a pleasure reading your column.

LB: Thank you.

AMT: Leslie Beck is a registered dietitian with MedCan in Toronto. She's a columnist with The Globe and Mail. She joined us from Toronto. Let us know what you think. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent.

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How a wildlife criminal built a career snatching eggs from rare birds

Guests: Joshua Hammer

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. Our next story is about poaching eggs. Now the kind you're thinking though. This is not a story about brunch. This is an international crime story and it involves Emirati sheikhs, bush pilots in Northern Quebec repelling from cliffs and dangling from helicopters and at the center of it all is one of the world's most unusual thieves. His name is Jeffrey Lendrum. Earlier this month he was sentenced to just over three years in jail in the U.K. for trying to smuggle rare falcon eggs into the country. Joshua Hammer is a journalist and has spent more than a year on Jeffrey Lendrum's trail. He's now working on a book about what Jeffrey Lendrum has been up to for decades. Joshua Hammer joins us from Berlin. Hello.

JOSHUA HAMMER: Hi there.

AMT: Rare falcon eggs were never on my radar.

JH: They weren't on mine either, until I stumbled across an article a couple years ago after he had escaped from Brazil where he had been doing the same thing. And so I was in London at the time and the British taken, I followed his career, his life of crime much more closely than pretty much any other country. So they talked about his, there was a couple of articles about his escape and that just caught my eye. Falcon eggs, as you said, dangling from helicopters, Emirati sheiksh, so I began digging into it.

AMT: Well let's start when Jeffrey Lendrum shows up at Heathrow Airport, what do authorities find?.

JH: So this is the most recent of his many arrests in. So this was in June 2018. He came into Heathrow in the middle of the summer wearing a heavy jacket. It's unknown whether his name was actually on a watch list, but whatever he was quickly taken by the Border Force official to the customs desk and at that point admitted because he knew he was going to be searched, that he was carrying rare live bird eggs. So they stripped him of his shirt and underneath they found hospital guaze concealing a customized black belt and inside the black belt were individuals woolen socks to keep them warm, were 17 eggs of four different species as well as two hatched cape vulture chicks that had hatched apparently in transit, if not moments before as he was walking up to the immigration line.

AMT: That's incredible. And what did he tell them? He had that belt of eggs and hatched chicks around him himself for.

JH: Yeah well he kind of knew the game was up, so he reverted to the lies that he's told several times before. He claimed that he was planning on announcing that he was carrying these. He was going to give them, he was going to surrender himself to customers before they cut him off and that he was on a mercy mission. He had saved these eggs from certain death because their habitat was being destroyed in South Africa. He was going to take them to a bird rehabilitation center in western England and he was there strictly for good intentions. It didn't work unfortunately.

AMT: Where did they actually come from then, those eggs?

JH: Nobody knows for sure, but what emerged during the trial was that the four different species they include African fish eagles, which is considered to be in danger of extinction and the hawk rated the most endangered by conservation groups. There were African Black Sparrow hawks, African hawk eagles and cape vultures. The cape vultures nest on cliffs. The other three nest in forests, different kinds of habitats. I learned a very new thing even though I had already been pretty deeply into the story, I learned new things about bird habitats just from listening to the bird expert testifying at the trial.

AMT: So what on earth would motivate someone to smuggle falcon eggs?

JH: Money. Jeff's been doing it for money for a long time. He tapped very early or fairly early in his career into a hugely lucrative market in the Middle East. Falconing or hawking is still a very hugely popular sport in the Middle East, especially among middle eastern royals. I should say that most of the falcons are acquired through captive breeders, but there is a belief that the wild eggs are simply genetically superior because they have been domesticated because it's been the survival of the fittest out there for generations. So these are going to be better quality birds. So that is one side of the market. There's also a market all around the world, apparently quite a big one in the United Kingdom for rare species. These could be for a falconers who have a particular urge to hunt with very exotic birds or it's for people who have you know exotic bird collections at home. You know there is this kind of strange little subculture of people who are just obsessed by birds of prey and who are willing to pay a large amount of money for the rarest, for birds which can only get on the black market.

AMT: Define large amount of money.

JH: So we know, it was confirmed to me when I was in Abu Dhabi last year that a pure white Gyrfalcon, Gyrfalcon is the largest falcon out there. It's found only in the northern latitudes, you had mentioned Quebecer earlier in your introduction. They, it was confirmed to me that a particular billionaire sheikh had paid $400,000 for one of these. Actually this was a bird, this was a hatched bird, not an egg, but one can presume and I have also heard that the eggs can sell. The eggs of Gyrfalcons, the most sought after birth in the Middle East, can go for $400,000, even half a million dollars.

AMT: That's incredible. Wow.

JH: I mean whether or not this is, I've heard from enough sources that I've come to believe it. I think that is the most extreme, but you know I mean the trove that Lendrum was carrying of these 17 birds, eggs and two hatched vultures, the British bird expert who testified at the trial, put a total value of them at 90,000 pounds.So that would be about $100,000 U.S.

AMT: And that sounds lowballing compared to what you just mentioned.

JH: Yeah, but of course there are different dyes attached to different species, depending on how rare they are and the danger of traveling with them in a kind of punishment you know jail time you can get for carrying them etc.

AMT: So what have you been able to learn about Jeffrey Lendrum's background and how he got into this business.

JH: I think I've learned more about Jeffrey Lendrum than just about anybody, but his mother at this point. Probably I know more than she does about certain aspects of his life. He grew up in, he's been doing this for years from the time he was a kid. He grew up in Southern Africa in the town of Bulawayo, in what was then Rhodesia, later became Zimbabwe. It was a sort of a frontier town out in the bush. His father was an avid, was a bird enthusiast and a collector and from an early age, Jeffrey was climbing into trees and up cliffs taking eggs. I mean it began as a kind of collecting obsession. There's a whole subculture of people who love collecting bird eggs and do this, which is illegal now in most parts of the world. At some point along the line, probably when he was in his 20s, this segue wayed into a business for profit. And by the late 1990s, we know that probably through a boyhood friend who ended up travelling to Dubai and became a breeder for a couple of the wealthy sheikhs. He was introduced to these sheikhs and just because he did what he did was one of the only people that only people out there doing his sort of thing. He was hired to go our travel around the world often a front in a large amount of cash to him to travel to places like Quebec to Patagonia to some other real real remote corners of the planet where some of the rarest Falcons exist. Stealing the eggs was just one porringer the other. It was managed to keep the eggs alive as he would transport them long distances sneaking them across international borders PAOs customs officials through security checkpointsetc. and bring them back alive to the Middle East so this was a really difficult every step of the way. It was a challenge as far as I know. As far as the police I've talked to him, who followed his career. There's nobody else doing what he does. Nobody else who has done what he's done. The one stop shopping for a rare bird eggs. He's a sui generis case.

AMT: So he did carry out some astonishing capers and you mentioned northern Quebec. Tell us more about what happened in northern Quebec.

JH: So the operation in northern Quebec, which I learned through his accomplice there and for a long time his closest friend. They had a falling out and a friend just went to the police and told his story after Jeff was arrested in England in 2010 as sort of to provide a sort of a bad character witness or affidavit. Anyway so I found him as well and he told me this really remarkable story of having Jeff having $100,000 in cash that was given to him by a sheikh, smuggling it across, smuggling it to Londong. Going on a buying spree to buy cold weather equipment then travelling to Quebec, chartering a helicopter, meeting a pilot who was a close friend of his from Rhodesia, who was one of the great bush pilots out there, helicopter pilots. Then the three of them going up to Quebec and posing as a wildlife documentary team for the National Geographic. That was their cover story and then going out for basically a solid week every morning out in this helicopter. Jeff Lendrum was an expert at this point in being able to look at the sky and look at a cliff and figure out exactly where the nests were. It sounds like a needle in the haystack operation and for most people it is, but Lendrum had been doing this for so long. He just had a sort of an uncanny ability to find these nests and they found according to the accomplice, they found over the course of a week about 29 nests or more. Actually he said they stole 29 eggs, so two eggs a nest, say 15 nests and 29 eggs and then Lrndrum brought them back down to Montreal and then from there flew to London with the eggs, I think carried on his body and then from London to Dubai and basically brought them all back he said alive.

AMT: Wow. So he does these crazy things, he's dangling from a rope going on a cliff to do this, but then he goes back a year later and what happens?

JH: Yeah in 2002, this was his third trip. 2000 was a reconnaissance tour by himself. 2001 was the trip where they stole about 29 or 30 eggs, the three of them. Then he goes back again. This time he wants to do it on the cheap. So rather than bring in his private, his own helicopter pilot. He decides to charter a helicopter up there in Kuujjuaq and it comes with a pilot, obviously the owner of the company. The pilot gets suspicious of him and the accomplice because they're asking him to leave them at various points, various cliffs and then fly back to town and come back in an hour to pick them up because obviously they didn't want him to catch on to what they were doing. So after about a day of this the pilot became highly suspicious that they were trying to hide something. He had a friend in the wildlife protection service, I forget the official name of it. They went out, saw that eggs had apparently been taken. They got a search warrant and burst into the hotel room of Lendrum and Paul Mullen, his associate and arrested them. So this was really, well Jeff had been arrested in 1984 in his native Zimbabwe, but that one was kind of quiet hushed up. This one was blared all over the Canadian newspapers, apparently was picked up by CNN and brought Lendrum really to the attention of conservationists of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and other conservation groups for the first time. So this was kind of the beginning of a slippery slope that ended with another major arrest in 2010, eight years later, which brought him his first jail sentence in England.

AMT: OK well let's just stick to Quebec for a second because he's found guilty and he's fined, right?

JH: He's fined. That's correct. He wasn't jailed. They didn't have, they said that the cops they talked to said that if he had gotten them on a smuggling charge he would have gone to jail but because they caught him in a hotel room there was no evidence he was actually taking them out of the country they couldn't get the prosecutor up in northern Quebec to come up with smuggling charges. So the best they could get him for was some sort of hunting violation, poaching whatever. And that just a $7000, $8000 fine.

AMT: Although it's telling because he pays cash right, because he's got all this money because he's oging to make even more.

JH: Exactly.

AMT: So what happened in Brazil?

JH: Brazil's another, is an entire chapter of the book I'm writing. It's another crazy misadventure he at his destination was Chile was southern Patagonia actually went down there to follow in his footsteps because nobody seemed to know anything about what had happened down there. So what I found out was that Lendrum had been there a few times and on the previous trip in 2014 he had left a backpack behind filled with an incubator of ropes climbing gearetc. after a year and nobody hadn't come back to claim it, so a night watchman looked in it found the suspicious equipment, Googled him discovered the lender and went you know because he was here already made a reservation he came back a year later. So by then when Lendrum arrived back to steal these Périgord falcons and Patagonia was already well-known Hawi wires in his long background as an egg thief. So basically from the moment he arrived in Chile and started climbing around these cliffs in Beechers to steal eggs he was a marked man. They essentially laid a trap for they let him fly out of Chile with eggs. When he landed in Brazil wildlife police in Brazil approached emeny airport seized him found the eggs bone when drums on trial yet again get sensitive four and a half years in prison, you know the steepest sentence yet in the Brazilian prison which is now wonderful but for reasons that are still unclear. Paolo dismisses the Brasier legal system. They allowed him to post bail until his appeal so he was convicted waiting to serve four and a half years and then fled the country. He skipped out and fled back to South Africa so he was behind an ex convict now who was an Interpol fugitive with an Interpol red notice following him around so facing the possibility of extradition. And this is the state condition in which I found him when I have done with them last year. He was claiming he was out of the business he was he'd been dealing with prostate cancer he had a car accident said he was too weak and too old to go back to this way of life. And then you know a few months later when we conversed on a pretty regular basis and then one point the phone calls just stopped coming and he stopped answering calls his song was shut off and that's when I had found out in June that he'd been arrested yet again at Heathrow Airport. So this was the fifth arrest and obviously a guy who just can't quit.

AMT: So when you did track him down and started to speak to him, what was your impression of him?

JH: Well I found him to be a charming fabricator, a charming liar, if you will. And over time I I pressed him on things. He just has this whole persona that he tries to present to the outside world the persona is that he's he's conservationist and each one of these rare as was a misunderstanding that he was out to save wildlife that each one of the cyclists thankfully he he moved in to grab these eggs. He did it because the birds were under some sort of environmental pressure or imminent harm. He's got this whole thing just like this story just down you know and if you don't know women if you don't know the facts about he did it again and that's understand in his recent trial and if you're not familiar with him, he sounds charming. He sounds believable, you know.

AMT: And so you went to the trial.

JH: Yeah I did. I was there of course I had to see it through to the end you know.

AMT: And how did he seem?

JH: He seemed well, he was sitting in the gallery with a few other journals British journals because there is residual interest and people have followed the case for a while in the UK and there was one friend who was there who had with a friend from Zimbabwe who moved to the UK was that the only person saw him in jail and me and Jeff came in in you know expressionless and he saw me and he kind of, he smiled in recognition, friendly you know nice smile. But for the most of the time he was kind of expressionless, arms folded. He got a chest testifying and his barrister the one with a wig and the robes a dealer is his lawyer kind of led him gently through his life story and Jeff did his usual rationalizations and portraying himself as a as a rescuer. And then the prosecutor got up there and the prosecutor had done his homework and he knew very well that Jeff was a fugitive from Brazil. He knew the details of every one of these arrests and Lendrum was just, he had kind of met his match you know. He really was kind of stammering and unable to respond and claiming memory loss. It was almost painful to watch.

AMT: So he was sentenced to just over three years in prison. What reasons did the judge give?

JH: Well he gave several reasons, his age. There was the prostate cancer that he suffered from. There were a couple of character, good character affidavits that friends of his had written. Just a charming guy, he has lots of friends, you know. People in spite of everything are always willing to come to his defense and a couple of other extenuating factors the fact that Geoffrey had finally on the first day of the trial changed has pleaded guilty. So he'll serve another year in prison, 13 months and then he'll be on licence, the kind of parole in the UK for another year and a half or two years and then he'll be released and you know who knows what happens then.

AMT: Did you ever figure out why he does this? Like what motivates him to be like an egg smuggler?

JH: Yes so I think there are a lot of things going on at once. Well first of all he's really good at. He's a very agile, athletic guy, who has been, you know people have seen him climb cliffs and climb trees and just said he's utterly fearless and utterly you know superhuman in his skill. He loves doing it, he gets a total rush out of it. He's a bit of a danger junkie. He's into things like he's kind of crazy. He's into, well he races cars, not surprisingly, but he also does things like you he'd like to drive along. There's even a YouTube video of him driving on a road in Zimbabwe and looking for poisonous snakes venomous snakes and he'll start and pick up a cobra and like toy with a cobra or you know a puffer or you're highly toxic snakes it'll kill you in like five 10 minutes you know. I mean just just doing this kind of nonchalantly for the cameras. And then also I think he has this rationalization in his mind that the death rate of these birds in the wild is really high and therefore by snatching them out of their nests and delivering them to wealthy sheiks where they in a place where they have farka and hospitals and treat these birds with incredible care that he is somehow doing a good deed for them then I do think there's money involved. I don't know how much money but you know for a guy who doesn't like to. He's never worked a 9 to 5 job in his life who you know loves loves the wild, enjoys birds and nature and doesn't want to work too hard. This is kind of I guess it provided him with a decent living for awhile.

AMT: So there must have been so many weird moments when you were on this guy's trail. Can you tell one that stays with you?

JH: Some of the places he went. Like this national park in the most remote corner of Chile, covered with black lava spills from like these volcanoes that erupted thousands of years, I mean I had the GPS point to go into this like the remains of this charred blackened volcano. Just the lengths that he went to you know, this volcano at the very bottom of the world. One of the most sort of desolate remarkable scenes I've ever seen and I imagine him like hooking is his ropes down and shinning down into this one slip and he's you know into a bottomless abyss of a volcano at the middle of Patagonia. Every one of these places that he that I visited it is just incredibly dramatic places I mean I was I was blown off a cliff in Wales following him into the right into his trail onto the round of Valley to this denuded Cliff that had been. So this was a coal mining area where they had chopped down every single tree to basically support the tunnels in mines so it was this really stark denuded vast network of cliffs where Lendrick and because there were no trees you just had these powerful winds whipping along and I went with these cops and to the edge of the cliffs to see where Landrum had climbed and you know this when I was six took me off to the into the abyss a thousand feet to the bottom of the cliffs. So it just made me realise how remarkable this guy's life was. This is what he did, you know.

AMT: And he kept those little eggs intact.

JH: And somehow managed to keep these eggs alive. You know that's again, that's almost even more formidable than making these climbs in these incredible treacherous parts of the world.

AMT: Well you certainly can't make it up. It's fascinating, astonishing. Thanks for your work.

JH: Thank you. Thanks for having me on to yak about it.

AMT: Journalist Joshua Hammer has written about his investigation into Jeffrey Lendrum in Outside Magazine in an article called The Egg Thief and he's working on a book now. We reached him in Berlin. Let us know what you think about what he had to say and anything else you hear on the program today. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook or go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. I want to tell you about a documentary we're going to bring you tomorrow. Norman Barwin is a former fertility doctor and he's the subject of a class action lawsuit. Now we've heard stories about him here on The Current in the past, most notably in 2016, when two women claimed they were his biological children conceived when their mothers were patients at his clinic. Tomorrow we'll hear the story of another family, we're not naming them in order to protect the children involved, but they too had turned to Dr. Barwin to help them get pregnant and they did twice and it was only recently that they started to wonder about the paternity of their own kids.

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VOICE 1: At first I had no doubts whatsoever. My children reminded me of my wife and sometimes parts of me. It's only when they start getting older and we heard rumors of Dr. Barwin being investigated for having made a mistake and we started wondering could we be a victim.

VOICE 2: I wanted to go get the children tested. My husband was more reluctant.

VOICE 1: I guess part of me didn't really want to know because once I knew, I knew that it would not be possible to unknow that.

AMT: Hear the full documentary, coming up tomorrow on The Current. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Canadian actress Tatiana Maslany is on the show to talk about her Broadway debut in an adaptation of the 1976 Oscar winning movie, Network. After our conversation today about the mainstreaming veganism, we're going to leave you with some stand up from the British comic Romesh Ranganathan, who just happens to vegan. He is performing here and what you're going to hear at the Edinburgh Comedy Fest. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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Comedy bit from Romesh Ranganathan.

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Jan 23, 2019 episode transcript

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