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The AIH Transcript for April 22, 2019

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: Brute force foreseen. Yesterday's bombings in Sri Lanka have killed nearly 300 people -- a former U.N. counter-terrorism official says he warned the government it wasn't prepared for what he saw coming.

JD: Out of character. Everyone knows Ukraine's new president used to play the Ukrainian president in a TV program but no one knows what kinds of programs he'll put in place now that he's been elected.

CO: A shadow of their former shelves. The Ontario government cuts the budget for the library service in half -- our guest says she's worried the slashing will have a disastrous effect on service.

JD: Repeat offense. There is widespread disgust when a Polish town revives an anti-Semitic Easter tradition -- and Jewish groups fear it's part of a larger national resurgence.

CO: World champion. An Earth Day interview with author Barry Lopez -- whose new book recounts what he's learned from 50 years of traveling the planet and what we need to do to save it.

JD: And forward Marge. Toronto reporter Lucas Meyer worked hard to get Justin Trudeau's voice down -- and in his upcoming appearance on "The Simpsons" his imitation of the PM hits close to Homer. As It Happens. The Monday Edition. Radio that's relieved he didn't give them the wrong impression.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Sri Lanka's counter-terrorism strategy a 'recipe for disaster': Former UN investigator

Sri Lanka: UN

Guest: Ben Emmerson

SOUNDCLIP

[Loud noise]

JD: That was the sound in Colombo today, as a van exploded before Sri Lanka police could defuse the bomb inside it. As we go to air, the death toll from yesterday's attacks is approaching 300 -- and hundreds more have to contend with what it means to survive. 16-year-old Primasha Fernando was among the first to arrive at St. Sebastian's church in Negombo. She told the BBC what she saw.

SOUNDCLIP

PRIMASHA FERNANDO: The walls were full of blood. Spread everywhere...the whole church was blood. And I saw many small children had died. Many children. I saw one family was there -- the mother and father was crying because the three children were crushed through the roof tiles. Those people are my villagers. I everyday see my friends, my teachers, my elders -- half of them dead.

JD: That was 16-year-old Primasha Fernando speaking to the BBC. Government ministers now say that the president's security officials were warned about a plot by a small Islamist group. It would not have been the government's only warning. Last year, Ben Emmerson issued a report on the country's ability to respond to terrorism. At the time Mr. Emmerson was the U.N. Special Rapporteur for human rights and countering terrorism. We reached Ben Emmerson in Turin, Italy.

CO: Mr. Emmerson after all the work you did on a potential terrorist attack in Sri Lanka, what was your initial response to the news of yesterday's attacks?

BEN EMMERSON: Well obviously our first thoughts must be with the victims, with the families, and with the people of Sri Lanka in coming to terms with this atrocious crime against civilians at worship and those of all faiths who were the victims of the attacks in the various resorts and churches in Sri Lanka yesterday. On wider questions -- which I think will inevitably start to be asked in the coming days, it is not as much of a surprise that there should be a sliding back towards armed violence of this nature in Sri Lanka because the anti-counter-terrorism apparatus that has been adopted by Sri Lanka, it has to be said, not fit for purpose.

CO: The group that's been identified as being responsible: National Thowheed Jamath. It is a small group, they've -- in the past -- done attacks on Buddhist sites but nothing nearly to this scale. Actually the government -- we've seen letters, we've seen documents, that show they were warned that not only was there an attack coming, that it was this specific group that was going to commit the attack. And they were even in writing given the names of people and their addresses where they could be found as they planned this attack. What does that tell you about the preparation for counter-terrorism in Sri Lanka?

BE: Well if those reports are confirmed to be accurate then the first thing it tells us is that there was a catastrophic breakdown in communication inside Sri Lanka's process for protecting the civilian population against terrorist attacks. And I think one of the things that's important for people to bear in mind at this stage is that creates a legal liability, not just a moral and political responsibility, but a legal liability on those who have failed to discharge the obligation to save lives. And I think you know as we move forward in this extremely difficult and complex situation in the investigation over the coming weeks, it's going to be important to bear in mind that the risk of individuals being scapegoated for failing to pass information on is that there's a fundamental conflict and the fundamental dysfunction of the heart of Sri Lankan government between the prime minister and members of the cabinet and the presidency which resulted in a constitutional crisis last year, the removal of the prime minister, his reinstatement. And I think what we saw yesterday was a pretty clear statement that the prime minister and ministers in cabinet were not informed of the risks that had been identified which tends to suggest because the president is the person responsible for counter terrorism that the information has not been communicated through relevant officials as a result of the dysfunction that besets Sri Lankan national security.

CO: And not just leading up to this attack -- what we saw even in these past couple of days is the extraordinary chaos and missed communications between the president's office and the prime minister's office. The president's out of the country -- or he was. And the prime minister who called a meeting of the security council and no one showed up. They don't talk anyways -- even if they do. Everyone is trying to position themselves and not be the ones responsible and decide who should be forced to resign. All fingers seemed posed to the president's office. He's the one who should have known, would have known, should have known, could have known about this right?

BE: Well I think the first question is: did he know? It is possible of course that the communications failure occurred at a much lower level of communication than the president personally and that there was an administrative failure. I mean that would obviously point to serious questions about the system but it wouldn't necessarily directly implicate the president in personal political legal failure. But one of the big issues in trying to get reform of the counter-terrorism strategy in Sri Lanka and the one that I highlighted in my report last year was that the reports of torture as the main means of investigating terrorism or allegations of terrorism are widespread and consistent and have been frequently documented right up until the time of these attacks. And I myself saw people in custody who had their fingernails removed, who had been the victims of torture by electrocution, by beating it, and so on. And I think when you have a community which is made up of different ethnic groups some of whom have been violently marginalized and suppressed, whose rights are not recognised, who are not protected, and who are subjected to violence by the security services -- against the background of the civil war where there has been effective impunity for war crimes against civilians by the authorities. And you have a recipe for disaster -- and the promises that Sri Lanka has made to the United Nations over the past six years that it would reform the security sector, eliminate torture, ensure proper effective supervision and intelligence based policing and so forth --none of these things have happened. The process of reform has ground to a complete halt and all that Sri Lanka ever does is to apply for further extensions of time and something terrible of some kind was bound to happen.

CO: We will leave it there Mr. Emmerson and we will of course be covering the fall out of this story. I appreciate you speaking with us tonight. Thank you.

BE: Thank you.

JD: Ben Emmerson is the former U.N. Special Rapporteurs for the protection of human rights and countering terrorism. We reached him in Turin, Italy. And we do have more on this story on the As It Happens website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Library Cuts

Guest: Dayna DeBenedet

JD: Ernest Hemingway once said, "There is no friend as loyal as a book." Sadly, it seems that that loyalty does not go both ways. Ontario's libraries are reeling after news that the agencies that support them are facing a 50 percent funding cut. In response, the Southern Ontario Library Service has announced it is suspending the province's inter-library loan program as of this Friday. And that more cuts may be on the horizon. Dayna DeBenedet is chief executive officer of the Dryden Public Library. We reached her in Fort Frances, Ontario -- which is the northwestern part of the province.

CO: Dayna what was your reaction when you heard about these cuts last week?

DAYNA DEBENEDET: I mean I think it was just kind of a reaction of shock because we rely on them so much for the administration that they provide to us and so it's a sense of shock that such a significant cut would happen. And then also you know worry about the services that we could lose and how they'll impact our libraries.

CO: What services might you lose?

DD: So already we've heard that the inter-library loan service was suspended. So my library in Dryden we borrow between seven and eight hundred books per year by inter-library loan because we're a small library, we can't buy everything. When we don't have a book, we order it from another library in the province. And one of the number one things that we order by inter-library loan is large print material. So we have a lot of seniors in our community who are wanting to read large print -- and unfortunately in our library we just can't afford to buy everything in both regular print and large print. So we use inter-library loan every day to order large print material. And now we won't be able to do that. So the reading choices for a lot of our seniors are going to be really limited.

CO: What about the basic softwares, cataloguing, all of that? People are less conscious of how that affects them. But what happens to those aspects of your library service?

DD: Yeah so we're part of a consortium -- a buying group -- in Northern Ontario, it's called JASI (Joint Automated Server Initiative) and basically it's around 130 libraries, we all pay in, and it's administered by Ontario Library Service North -- and that provides us with the software that we use to check in books, check books out, search our collections, people can place a hold. That's what allows them to look at our collection from home and go into their account online and renew their books. And if that service is jeopardized by these cuts you know a 130 library systems across all of Ontario -- not just the north but primarily the north -- our library service will just grind to a halt. We wouldn't be able to function.

CO: Is that actually going to happen?

DD: I mean we haven't heard any news about what the impact might be on JASI yet. I'm sure that they're doing everything they can to protect it. But any small changes to that service like even if the libraries have to take on more cost to pay for the administration of that service many of the small libraries in our region like First Nations libraries, very small northern libraries, that won't be able to afford those changes. Or if my library has to take on additional cost for that service, it has to come out of our budget somewhere, right? So buying less books, offering fewer programs, being open fewer hours because we can't function without it. So if the cost increase we have to absorb them somewhere. So it's basically just the cost that's being passed from the province to the municipality.

CO: I've been to a number of Ontario libraries because when they have fundraisers I've been asked to go and help them raise money they need for expansions or whatever. And the two things I've noted in those communities one is the extreme passion that people feel toward their libraries. And on the other hand how desperately poor they are. What do these libraries -- the ones you know especially in the north -- what do they mean to the people there?

DD: I think that libraries are really a community haven and a community hub in a lot of our small communities because they're a place where anyone can go and you don't have to be a consumer to use the library. You don't have to buy anything. And so just in terms of like in our northern communities we know that you know there's a lot of people who do not have access to the Internet anywhere but at the public library. So they rely on the library to apply for jobs or write their resume -- to bring their kids for story hour. It is a safe place to go after school. And so the loss of that kind of public space or even the reduction of that kind of public space it's a harm to our communities.

CO: I know that recently you had a chance to speak with some MPPs before these cuts came down. What was that experience? What were you able to tell them? How did they respond?

DD: Yeah I had an opportunity to speak at the pre-budget consultation and I was really pleased with how it went. I was able to talk about you know what our library does in Dryden specifically and we also did return on investment study at our library to be able to show what kind of value we bring to the community. And I was also able to talk to them about kind of what library funding has looked like in Ontario for the last 20 plus years because our public libraries have been under a funding freeze for 23 years. So we're getting the same amount of money from our government now that we were getting in 1996. So we already know that Ontario is funding libraries at a lower level than almost any other province in Ontario. And the MPPs who were there were really receptive. Like some of the MPPs were telling me about how they worked in libraries as teenagers. And one of them was was telling us about how he used to dress up like the mascot for the Ottawa Public Library and go to a children's story hours. So they really seemed like they understood the value of the library which is why it's so disappointing to me now to see these cuts that could jeopardize some of our services.

CO: And given these cuts, what value do you think that the Ontario government places on libraries?

DD: I think it's hard to say. I don't think that they understand the value that our libraries provide to our communities. And I don't think that they understand the huge value that Ontario Library Service North and the Southern Ontario library service provide. The minister had said in his public statement that it won't impact the day-to-day operations of our public libraries, but that's untrue. We already see the day-to-day impact with the cut to inter-library loan -- and future cuts that will likely be announced as they sort out their budget will certainly have a day-to-day impact on our libraries.

CO: All right Dayna we'll leave it there. And I appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks.

DD: Thank you.

JD: Dayna DeBenedet is the chief executive officer of the Dryden Public Library. We reached her in Fort Frances, Ontario. We have more on this story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Simpsons Trudeau

Guest: Lucas Meyer

SOUNDCLIP

MARGE SIMPSON: It's so clean and bland. I'm home!

BART SIMPSON: Wow! This bus station is the birthplace of Paul Shaffer.

LISA SIMPSON: Dad no! It says, "Don't walk."

HOMER SIMPSON: Doesn't matter, they have free healthcare.

JD: That was the sound of the Simpsons visiting Toronto way back in 2002. Well on next Sunday's episode the family is going to be back and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be making an appearance -- or at least a bright yellow two dimensional version of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will. But he will not be speaking for himself. His voice will be supplied by Lucas Meyer -- a reporter with Toronto's Newstalk 1010. Here are a few of Mr. Meyer's impressions that may sound familiar to CBC viewers.

SOUNDCLIP

LUCAS MEYER: [Imitating Peter Mansbridge] Good evening I'm Peter Mansbridge and this is The National -- a special edition. Our top story, more questions for the prime minister today in the ongoing battle over pipelines in this country. Terry Milewski has more. Terry...

[Imitating Terry Milewski] Peter the Prime Minister reiterated his dedication to pipelines in the national interest today. But when pressed by reporters about what options he would take to make sure one gets built, he kept his options close to the chest.

[Imitating Justin Trudeau] We have said ah many times that we don't have to ah sacrifice the economy for the environment.

JD: That was Lucas Meyer with an assortment of impressions including -- in the last there -- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. On Sunday, Mr. Meyer will be voicing Mr. Trudeau on a special Canadian themed episode of "The Simpsons." We reach Lucas Meyer in Toronto.

CO: Lucas first of all congratulations.

LUCAS MEYER: Thank you very much Carol.

CO: How hard is it to keep this a secret?

LM: You know in our line of business -- we're in the business I guess of keeping secrets. It actually has not been as difficult as it could have been. But you know I did tell my family and I did tell some very close friends. I may have told a couple of people who I shouldn't have told in retrospect. To let it all come out now feels very surreal.

CO: And people should know is it that all three of those voices are you. You're doing Peter Mansbridge, [chuckles] you're doing Terry Milewski which is very funny, and an absolutely pitch perfect Justin Trudeau. How did you end up with the gig?

LM: I was sitting at home in September and I received an email from the casting producer of the show. And they said that Hello Mr. Meyer we have an episode in mind and it's kind of based in Canada, there is a role, a bit with the prime minister, we came across your video -- we were very impressed. Would you be interested in auditioning? And my jaw hit the floor [chuckles] as you can imagine. And I said of course. I had a phone interview that day. That said okay we'll send you the script. They sent me the script. I had a phone interview that day and I felt really good. Yeah I felt like I was genuinely making them laugh. And then, okay we'll let you know next week. And then it was the next day actually -- right after they said, "okay you got the gig." And then I voiced it at a studio here about a week later and I've been having to hold on to it ever since.

CO: And had you always wanted to be in The Simpsons?

LM: Certainly nothing that I had ever anticipated. You know I grew up with the show. It is ironic because my father was one of those dads who said "you're not allowed to watch the show." Yeah one of those which of course makes you want to watch the show even more. So, sorry dad. But I mean I never would have expected this. I mean when I put out my original videos, they were just for friends and family. They were very well received. And it has turned into this -- it's astonishing.

CO: Now I know in The Simpsons that throughout the show there have been these references to Canada -- they sprinkled in a lot of things about Winnipeg. And we just played a bit of the one episode where they go to Toronto. But this episode that will be on Sunday -- it's called "D'oh Canada." What's it about?

LM: I can't give too much away Carol. But what I can say is Lisa is basically given a very kind of bizarre asylum claim into Canada. She ends up there and she kind of learns about the country and kind of falls in love with it. But then she realizes that it has its own flaws just like any other. You know that kind of 'Canada is the best place to live' -- and sort of along those lines, and then she realizes that it has its own things going on.

CO: And people who don't know -- Lisa is the brains in the family.

LM: Yes that's correct.

CO: So does she make an asylum claim? Does she come as a refugee to Canada?

LM: I can't go into those details. But to be perfectly honest with you -- who knows the script may have potentially changed. So we'll see what comes out on Sunday.

CO: Okay so what role does Justin Trudeau play in this?

LM: I'll put it this way -- I voiced two scenes. I don't know if they're going to use both. They may very well cut one. I'm not a star in any sense of the show whatsoever. But he has an exchange with one of the characters I'll put it that way.

CO: Okay. Does it involve -- I feel like I'm in Front Page Challenge here -- does it involve a recent scandal in Canada?

LM: What I can say is that it is my understanding that post-SNC-Lavalin there is some sort of reference to SNC-Lavalin.

CO: On The Simpsons?

LM: Yes.

CO: Well then you'll end up on the front page of The Global and Mail.

LM: Well you know what's ironic about that Carol is that the day of the SNC-Lavalin scandal I was involved in a little exchange with the prime minister when he was denying what the Globe was originally reporting. He was saying that you know we never directed. But of course that's not what the Globe reported at the time and I challenged him on that and we had a little back and forth where he continued to use the word directed the attorney general. And in fact that exchange -- part of it was published on the front page of The National Post the next day. So it kind of adds to this whole dynamic.

CO: Now when you were trying to figure out how to do Trudeau -- when you were trying to nail his character, his voice, what was key to that?

LM: I think it's a combination of things. I think with any impression -- and I'm certainly not a professional by any stretch nor am I, again, the star of the episode. But I think if you're trying to pull it off correctly you want to try to get the mannerisms, it's the eyebrow, it's the difference between doing prepared remarks and doing a Q and A. It is you know how you take a breath. It's all those little idiosyncrasies that really make an impression good I think. And I guess I've managed to pull those off.

CO: Can you give us your best Trudeau one more time?

LM: Would you like to ask him a question?

CO: [Laughs] Mr. Trudeau how do you feel about being on The Simpsons?

LM: [Imitating Justin Trudeau] Ah look ah it's a very classic cartoon and show. And I just hope that people get a good laugh out of it. But we're focused on what Canadians really want to talk about: the economy, the environment. And ah as long as we get that message out there -- especially with an election coming -- that ah is the most important thing to do.

CO: [Laughs] Lucas that was very good. I think given the fact that every time we requested an interview with Justin Trudeau he's turned us down -- the next time, we will just call you.

LM: My pleasure. I'm sure people won't know the difference. [Laughs]

CO: Congratulations again. Thanks for speaking with us.

LM: My pleasure. Thank you very much.

JD: Lucas Meyer is a reporter with the Toronto radio station Newstalk 1010. He voiced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for next Sunday's episode of The Simpsons. We reached Lucas Meyer in Toronto.

[Music]

Part 2: Ukraine election 'a wake-up' call to Canada on Russian meddling, warns former minister

Ukraine Election

Guest: Lloyd Axworthy

JD: An actor who played the president of Ukraine on TV now has that job in real life. Volodymyr Zelensky has been elected in an overwhelming victory -- with more than 70 percent of the vote. He told the crowd at his victory party last night that he wasn't going to bother with any quote, "pathetic speeches." But his reticence has some people a little worried about where the neophyte leader may take the country. Lloyd Axworthy is a former Liberal foreign minister for Canada. He is in Ukraine monitoring the vote. We reached him in Kiev.

CO: Mr. Axworthy it is clear that this victory for Mr. Zelensky was pretty overwhelming. Did you have or do you have any doubts about the legitimacy of the vote?

LLOYD AXWORTHY: No. I think one of the interesting and I think important results coming out is that Ukrainians in very large numbers voted for change but did so in a very democratic way. I mean we have observers in every particular part of Ukraine -- and every report we got was that the election was clean, it was open, the ballots were there, no interference. It's a tribute you know in today's world that you can actually have a change of government by the ballot box. And that, I think, is a real tribute to Ukraine and themselves.

CO: Yet Ukraine is a country at war -- as you have pointed out, and there were regions where people were not able to vote: Eastern Ukraine, Crimea, what prevented them from being able to cast a ballot?

LA: Crimea is fully occupied by the Russians and the eastern part of Ukraine is by Russians and their proxies. But what's happening is that the Ukrainian election system offered an opportunity for people to cross the border to come to the free part of Ukraine -- and many hundreds did. But I have got to tell you that it wasn't without obstructions. The Russians and their allies there were putting all kinds of barriers in the way, including planting landmines along the roads.

CO: I want to get to back to that -- about your concerns about what this tells us about the kind of influence Russia might be having in elections. But let's just talk about the actual victory here for Volodymyr Zelensky. People might or might not know (that) he is a comedian and an actor who is actually the star of a TV show that was about a teacher who becomes quite unwittingly the President of Ukraine. He's extremely well known because of that role. And now he is the president. What does he represent? Who is Mr. Zelensky?

LA: You know something right now, it's a mystery. He made a basic statement in his campaign. He is not making any promises because he doesn't want to break any promises. What he was really saying is, I don't want to be held bound or accountable to different positions. And that's, to me, one of the concerns about the election is it really was based on a quite tightly closed restriction of free press and media being able to provide policy and accountability for that policy from one of the major candidates. Now I have to tell you -- I mean I attended the most incredibly crazy political event in my life when I went to the stadium on Friday night where the two candidates were debating in an Olympic soccer stadium with 40,000 people cheering on their champion. But I thought to myself you know maybe it isn't so crazy. Maybe that's not a bad way to get people out there participating. But even in those circumstances, the new president-elect was very restricted in what he was prepared to commit.

CO: Yeah. And that's because that debate which was this bizarre thing that you attended where they were on either stages in either side of the stadium and then they flipped a coin to see whose side they debate on -- it was all like a big wrestling match.

LA: It was political theater at its most exciting and absurd at the same time.

CO: But at the same time that was the only time we would have a chance to know what Mr. Zelensky is about as a debater. (He) Does not do interviews. (He) was never challenged, never questioned about what he was offering. But Mr. Zelensky made a very powerful statement, didn't he, after his victory that must have rattled Mr. Putin. He said that -- this is a quote -- "As a citizen of Ukraine I can say to all post-Soviet countries: Look at us, everything is possible." What alarm bells must have gone on in Mr. Putin's head at that point?

LA: You know that's an encouraging statement, it's an encouraging sign. The intelligence that we've been picking up is that Mr. Zelesky has around him some very talented people. I mean his campaign was really run by the producers and writers of his TV show. They were really skilled in it. But when it comes down to what position he's going to be taking, it's going to happen soon. He's going to have to make really serious decisions because I think Putin is going to put some propositions in front of him very quickly. Propositions like well look if I'm prepared to exchange prisoners, I'm prepared to negotiate certain agreements as long as you agree to the invasion of Crimea. And elsewhere I think there's a real responsibility from Western countries including our own to put our own kind of case forward.

CO: This front row seat you have had on the Ukraine election has been able to let you see how Moscow operates and how it interferes in the elections. What warnings are you coming back to Ottawa with? What will you tell Canadians and tell the government about what it can expect?

LA: Carol I'm coming back with almost a Paul Revere awareness. It's time for a wake up. This whole increasing ability to build a cyber-system to change people's minds, to foment disruptions, is so powerful. And as one of the Ukrainian security people told me today, they've had five years of it. And by the way they were quite successful in the second round of elections in being able to suppress a lot of that because they have a preventative system -- they have worked on their technology. They worked on training their election people. But there's no question that the agenda of Putin is to provide disruption where he goes. And I think -- we have elections in six months and let's not kid ourselves -- the Russians are going to be involved. It's a question of how well we're able to counteract that.

CO: We will leave it there. Mr. Axworthy I really appreciate speaking with you tonight. Thank you.

LA: Thanks for calling Carol. Talk to you again sometime.

CO: You bet.

LA: Bye bye.

CO: Bye bye.

JD: Lloyd Axworthy is Canada's former foreign affairs minister. We reached him in Kiev. And we have more on this story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Quebec flooding

JD: People living in the north and west areas of Montreal are dealing with flooding again. The Ile-Bizard neighbourhood was hit hard by floods two years ago. And now, some of the same streets and homes are being inundated yet again. Today, Quebec Premier Francois Legault said that people living in flood prone regions may have to move rather than repairing their homes again and again. And he offered them financial incentives to do so. Tauseef Bhatti's house in Ile-Bizard was flooded in 2017. And this week as the water rises he is helping out his neighbours. He spoke with CBC Montreal's Rebecca Ugolini earlier today.

SOUNDCLIP

TAUSEEF BHATTI: The street in Ile-Bizard is almost like 2017. We cannot pass there with small cars. The levees they built last night until 11 o'clock -- it was very weak so we were there trying to reinforce it. So it is pretty much like 2017.

REBECCA UGOLINI: People, citizens, have been very involved. What have your past couple of days been like -- I imagine trying to reinforce your home against the floodwaters?

TAUSEEF BHATTI: Actually my house was demolished so I'm not in that area but I was there to assist and help my neighbours.

REBECCA UGOLINI: From the neighbours that you're helping, how do people seem to be feeling? You're helping out people who are at a higher risk of flooding than you are it sounds like. So what is that like for them?

TAUSEEF BHATTI: It's very very scary. People are worried, they are concerned, because in 2017 we got a big surprise. People are like in shock that it happened again so soon. One of our neighbour's had a heart attack yesterday. So he ended up in hospital. I know another family -- the gentlemen has heart problems and the lady she's quite old so they had a lot of problem getting their house protected. So we were working yesterday with them and the other families. So they are very concerned. There is a lot of anxiety. So they are worried. It is very very important to help the people -- the flood victims -- because you know we suffer with PTSD and you know many other people have been suffering from the previous flood. And it is very important that we have some arrangements to take care of them -- their health and well-being.

JD: That was Tauseef Bhatti speaking with CBC Montreal's Rebecca Ugolini today.

[Music]

Poland Effigy

Guest: Jan Grabowski

JD: For those who celebrate, Easter weekend is rife with rituals -- from church services to big family dinners. But in Pruchnik, a small town in southeastern Poland, residents decided to revive a dark tradition from the community's past.

SOUNDCLIP

[Children shouting]

JD: That is the sound of children kicking and striking a giant effigy of Judas while a crowd of adults looks on on Good Friday. The revival of this tradition has been widely criticized in Poland by people who believe it is unmistakably anti-Semitic. Jan Grabowski is a professor at the University of Ottawa. And we reached him in Ottawa.

CO: Professor Grabowski I know you have seen the video of this ritual. How did you react when you saw it?

JAN GRABOWSKI: Well you know I have seen it before -- perhaps not in a movie, but on the photographs. And I heard about this celebration if you will. And given the political context of today in Poland I was not very surprised I must tell.

CO: You say you've seen it before, but have you seen it recently? Because I know there are pictures people are putting online that show this exact ritual with exactly the same effigy of Judas Iscariot before World War 2 -- in the 1930s...

JG: Yeah I believe that they had this thing going on around in that area since the late 18th century. Simply over the last few years it sort of you know was kept more hidden or perhaps not practised -- but came back with a vengeance as we can see.

CO: Well this is hardly hidden. It is in broad daylight. The scene in the video, could you describe it for people?

JG: Well basically what you have is on Good Friday -- you have a crowd of people who hang this effigy, this figure of Judas the traitor who betrayed our Lord Jesus Christ. And afterwards they drag this figure, they hang the figure, they drag it in front of the mock court, and this mock court sentences the Judas -- the betrayer, the traitor -- to 30 strikes for each piece of silver Judas received for betrayal of Jesus Christ. This figure receives one strike of a baton or a bat and then they will dismember or burn this figure. So I mean all the most horrible scenes you can associate with pogroms, also with the Holocaust later on -- all of that you find here deeply embedded in this very cruel ceremony. And what is striking here, you have children. You have young children being sort of enticed, encouraged, by their parents or adults -- in other case -- the strike as they -- strike the figure harder. Very large figure basically of a Jew. You can see the hair locks of Orthodox Jewish person. You see this typical huge nose which has been a part of this anti-Semitic imaginarium for centuries. So basically you have the features of the stereotypical Jew. And the children I mean I hope they don't understand exactly what they are taking part in but the adults around them know very well what is going on. It gets you appalled.

CO: We should mention that it was Good Friday where this took place but that was also the beginning of Passover. People in your community, people in your circles, what effect did it have on them when they saw this?

JG: Well I mean it brings all the -- really the worst kind of memories. I mean especially you know the Polish Jewish relations at the time of Easter Passover crucifixion was the worst part of the year. That's when you have enraged kind of crowds of Catholics in the 1920s-1930s. You have them going on rampage. You have the Jewish stores -- this is when they were not only disrupted, but destroyed. And you have pogrom atmosphere in the night late -- especially in 1930s. So you have other kinds of this kind -- there is especially this kind of anti-Jewish sentiment. And it is pronounced during the Easter time because of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. But you have to remember that we are talking about a country where people have not seen a Jew for the last 75 years. Okay. It tells you a lot about the persistence of ideology of anti-Semitism. The last Jew in Pruchnik probably was seen in 1945. And by the way, three kilometres away from Pruchnik in 1945 Poles murdered 13 survivors of the Holocaust who returned back home. So if you place these things in the context of the extraordinary bloody history of Jews in that particular area, it is really more than you know horrifying.

CO: We should point out that there were of course millions of Jews in Poland and in this region before the Nazis. And we've heard people in the town -- the town administrator of Pruchnik, he condemned the ritual. The administration said it had nothing to do with it. The Catholic Church condemned it in Poland. Poland's interior minister did the same thing. Does that ease your concerns at all?

JG: Well you know just four days ago U.S. Ambassador to Poland offered on Facebook or Twitter wishes of happy Passover to Polish Jewish community. And apparently her Twitter account exploded with absolutely horrifying comments: how dare you praise Jews in Poland? And leading the pack was the Member of Parliament for the ruling party Krystyna Pawlowicz who expressed her deep discontent and fury with the American ambassador for daring over Easter to say something nice to Jews as well. So the problem is that what we see today in Poland, in Pruchnik, and elsewhere -- is a part of a bigger package and the bigger package is that brown wave that unfortunately sweeps Eastern Europe. And when you listen to the declaration coming from the ruling circles in Poland you can understand who let's say encouraged this kind of ceremonies to take place. It's not an accident that they come back in 2019.

CO: Professor Grabowski I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

JG: Thank you Carol very much.

JD: Jan Grabowski is a professor at the University of Ottawa. We reached him in Ottawa.

[Music]

Polly Higgins

JD: The International Criminal Court prosecutes four types of crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. Polly Higgins wanted a fifth crime added: "ecocide." She defined ecocide as quote, "the extensive damage to, destruction of, or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished." And when I say Ms. Higgins wanted it added, I really mean that Ms. Higgins did absolutely everything in her power to have it added. She quit her job as a lawyer. She sold her house to get enough money to start a campaign. And even after she was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive cancer just over a month ago, she signalled that her work would continue. She told Guardian writer George Monbiot, if this is my time to go my legal team will continue undeterred. Polly Higgins died yesterday. She was 50 years old. She told a great story about the epiphany that led her to start this campaign. Years ago she was in court trying to secure compensation for a client who had been injured in the workplace. She told the Scotsman newspaper quote, "I looked out the window and thought the Earth is being injured and harmed as well and nothing is being done about it. I actually thought, the Earth needs a good lawyer." In October of 2011, she staged a mock trial in the U.K. Supreme Court in which two fictional Alberta oil companies were tried for ecocide. After that she spoke with Brent Bambury on CBC's "Day 6.".

SOUNDCLIP

BRENT BAMBURY: But you're still proposing legislation that would result in financial penalties and potentially jail terms for a number of people involved in what is a legal and very very lucrative form of employment right now. For people who work in the oil industry listening to us right now -- you're talking to them about their work and how they support their families. What do you have to say to them about their livelihood?

POLLY HIGGINS: Yeah I absolutely agree -- and this is very important about what I mean by how it's managed because in fact this is about re-skilling. Not about putting people out of jobs. This is about a huge job creation scheme. Corporations actually work very well with legislation. Close the door in one avenue, they have to reinvent their way of being in another avenue. A socially and environmentally responsible company will recognise that in fact it is absolutely untenable to continue down this route with unconventional tar extraction. There's nothing ethical about that whatsoever because all we're doing is we're stirring up enormous problems for the future. And in fact within our own lifetimes. So this is really not just a crime against nature that we are looking at, we are looking at as a crime against humanity as well as a crime against future generations.

BRENT BAMBURY: But countries particularly in the West have their own regulations protecting the environment. Why remove their sovereignty by putting the jurisdiction in the hands of the international court?

POLLY HIGGINS: It's not so much removing the sovereignty but in fact applying international legislative rules where sovereignty comes second to international responsibilities, duties, and obligations. Now we do that with genocide. It's not sufficient for a country to argue well you know look the rest of the world has criminalized genocide but we're going to continue with it. Now you may argue that it still does happen but it is the exception not the rule. Amazingly genocide was not a crime until 1948, and now we accept that as a norm.

JD: Brent Bambury speaking with Polly Higgins on "Day 6" in October of 2011. Polly Higgins spent years fighting for ecocide to be made an international crime. Ms. Higgins -- the Scottish barrister and eco-activist -- died yesterday. She was 50 years old.

[Music]

Part 3: Horizon author Barry Lopez describes 'emotional blow' of witnessing melting Canadian Arctic

Encore: Barry Lopez

Guest: Barry Lopez

JD: Today is Earth Day -- when we're supposed to think about our planet and how to save it. Barry Lopez however does not need the annual reminder. It is all he thinks about. One of Mr. Lopez's earliest memories is of wading into the ocean, right up to his chin. He was three years old and he couldn't swim -- but he remembers longing to go further beyond the rocks and the islands. All the way to the horizon. That desire never left Barry Lopez. And he turned it into a career. For more than 50 years, he has explored more than 70 countries. Writing about the people, the places, and the history that he has encountered on his travels. And that work has earned him a reputation as a humanitarian and as an environmentalist. It also earned him the National Book Award for his 1986 book "Arctic Dreams." Now Mr. Lopez has written a new book, it's called: Horizon. And it takes us to the Arctic and Antarctica and four other regions of the world. It is an examination of life on this planet and what it means to be human. And it addresses what we can do to prevent our own extinction. Barry Lopez joined Carol in the As It Happens studio to talk about "Horizon."

CO: Barry Lopez welcome to As It Happens.

BARRY LOPEZ: Thank you Carol. I'm very glad to be here.

CO: I'm glad you could be in our studio. And I want to begin where you begin which is this --well you talk about boys swimming in the Pacific Ocean, yourself and your grandson. But you yourself -- you describe this moment: you're three years old, you're up to your neck in the ocean, and there's something about that moment that tells you that you are going to be pursuing that horizon. What is it at that moment do you think that connects with you?

BL: I don't know what I understood as a 3-year-old. You know you're always colonizing the past by going into your own history and thinking this must be how it was, and your mother will tell you that wasn't how it was at all. [Chuckles] I think it's accurate to say that I felt a profound yearning when I was a child to get out of my own given place in the culture to which I was born. I didn't wake up to it though until I'd finished university. And I thought well now wait a minute -- I am thinking of myself as a well-educated man in 20th century America. But clearly I'm not. Why? Because I went to school only with men and I went to school people almost all of whom were white and Christian and raised with a certain set of middle class values. So when I graduated from university I thought I really need an education. And so that's what I did. A lot of my motivation for travel was to see the bigger world and understand why I wanted to periodically bury myself in it.

CO: But when you describe that you grew up in a world that was of men -- white men -- and had the same religion, same values, probably same everything. Many people if not most find a comfort in being within the familiar, of being with likeminded people. You never have obviously. You seem to feel more most comfortable in the unfamiliar. Why is that?

BL: Because the complacency that develops in you as a person when you stay in your own culture I think is generated by fear and the intuitive knowledge that something big and bad is coming. And if you're limited to the ideas that define your own culture, you're not going to be well-prepared. And as we move into this period of global awareness, I don't think it's that unusual for someone to be thinking: what do other cultures think about the approach of the truly threatening things? The visible ones are global climate change or ocean acidification -- the usual list of coming disasters. But I know I am living in a highly destabilized Western culture in the United States. And the proof of it is the erratic and incompetent president of my country. This is not somebody who's prepared at all for the kind of changes that are coming which you know intellectuals might called demographics. And he's not empathetic. He's not educated. And those are signs that when the trouble comes this is not the person that will be helping us at all.

CO: But to put it -- I mean all of this being the case at the same time, he's not alone in that. I mean he's...

BL: No. Go to Brazil, go to Hungary, go to Israel -- in so many places we see the same thing: "I know. Follow me." And when you look at the foundational cultures out of which modern humanity comes, all of those cultures take a different approach. The most important thing is not progress...it's stability. And you don't find those in these charismatic 'I know. Follow me' personalities. What you find are grownups. And I remember a man once defined when I asked him, what is a grown up? He said it's someone who no longer needs to be supervised -- who understands the responsibility of an older generation to a younger generation and understands why you take care of your parents. So those aren't attractive pursuits I think in cultural West. We all seem to be so lost, and desperately looking for the hero who will guide us out. And that's just never going to happen.

CO: In your book Horizon -- it is a beautiful cover. But inside -- the book is full of wonderful maps and charts and images. But there's only one really image of the kind that's on the inside and the back side cover which is a picture, a painting, that is so striking. And maybe if you can describe what it is and why that was I guess the symbol of what you're trying to do in this book?

BL: Well you know I pay a lot of attention to readers because I see myself as an intermediary that's been to all of these countries and traveled to all of these places and met all of these people. And I don't think it has any value -- social value -- unless what comes out of it benefits the reader. If a reader can become immersed in a place that you've been to and you can just back out of the picture, I think that's the best thing. So it was a reader who sent this image that we're talking about -- Nicholas Rowe Rich's painting called "Remember." And far off on the right is what is apparently a mother and a daughter outside their house at the foot of the Himalayas and all the way over on the left is a man on a horse looking back to them. That moment of departure and his title "Remember" says to me whenever you leave remember where you came from, remember your people, remember what you mean by your life. So I said to my editor you know I know we're not going to go into colour printing for the book, but do you think we can do something with this image that was sent to me as a postcard by a reader I had never met. But when I got that card, I pinned it above my desk and I thought I know this is telling me something I need to know as I begin work on this book.

CO: And for you -- I mean because this image, this man at way end of the painting of the picture, he is looking back. But his horse is pointing in the other direction. He's going. He's out of here. He might be saying sayonara. But he's leaving. You have been doing that for decades now. Do you see yourself as that man? Do you look back and say I have to remember where I have come from?

BL: I do all the time. And it's not just remembering where you come from, it's a more complex thought which is the man on the horse knows that he's leaving everything that defines him. And going off to an undefined place and has to ask himself: Why are you doing this? Are you just running away from the real centre of your life? Or are you going to bring something back that will help us? And the answer to it is that I care -- this will sound grandiose -- but I care what happens to us, I care what happens to my children and my grandchildren and my extended family, I care what happens to you and to other people in our world of communication and writing and radio and whatnot, and I want to be sure we're going to be okay. And I think all of us at some level are profoundly worried about our families and ourselves and how we're going to take care of each other because the world that is coming will challenge us more than humanity has ever been challenged.

CO: I'm speaking with Barry Lopez. He's here in the studio with me. And you are listening to As It Happens. We are speaking to Barry about his new book: Horizon. Which is an extraordinary span of time and place. And it covers many parts of the world -- and I want to talk about it because this is of course the substance of the book, the travels and what you learn there. Let's take you to 2012, you're on the Canadian Arctic, you have visited many times before. And you wrote about it in Arctic Dreams. But here you are in a boat and you are about to enter Peel Sound. And you are with another couple, it's very early in the morning, you have steaming mugs of coffee, and you're about to enter, and you suddenly with absolutely ice in your veins realize that there's something seriously wrong here. What did you see?

BL: Well I had come up on the deck with the expectation that of course in the middle of summer up north is going to be light all the time. But I wanted to start my day in my imagination right by having my coffee and looking for birds. And this older couple that was there with me that I saw every morning weren't sipping their coffee and they didn't have their binoculars up. And I thought well why is that? And then I looked and I have read a lot of Arctic history and as I processed the ideas from the sleepyhead trying to wake up with my coffee I thought oh my God there's no history of going into Peel Sound without an icebreaker escort because there's no open water here. And all I could see was open water.

CO: But this is you know 2012 -- you're very aware of the effects of climate change, you are seeing the environment everywhere in the world, you're traveling you know this is happening. And so why was this particular moment so astonishing for you? I mean was it just one of those moments when you suddenly in a kind of negative way when you realize that this is what it means?

BL: It's a difference between being intellectually aware of a condition and then feeling it as an emotional blow. "Oh my god is it ever real. And it's right here in front of me." And I think that's one reason I travel as much as I do. I want to feel it in my body. If you don't travel or regularly look at newspapers from other countries you can fall into this trap of thinking well it's going to be okay -- we will be alright. And when you're traveling in sub-Saharan Africa you're thinking it would be better for people born here to be given a death certificate rather than a birth certificate because there's nothing there for them. And I don't think any of us can appreciate the scale on which humanity is running away from home for ecological reasons, for economic reasons, to avoid war. There are millions of people running to someplace else to be safe -- and look at the situation which of course Mr. Trump has turned into something of an idiot's joke, but there is plight in Central America and there people are looking for some place they've been led to believe is going to be safe for them and not only can they not get there but they are greeted by xenophobes and racists. So how are they going to explain that to their children? They can't. So if you get away from the comfort zone you at least have a chance to see what the bigger thing looks like. And I think what I was trying to do in Horizon is say things are not really good for humanity in this moment, and then supply the things that allow you to escape the confrontation for long enough to make up your own mind about what you can face and how are you going to take care of your family.

CO: And I think at one point you say that we are past the point of adapt or die -- and now it has become absolutely imperative that we must cooperate with one another or die.

BL: That's right.

CO: And that's the hope you're offering? Is it that possibility of getting out of the mess we're in?

BL: Yes. And I say that because too many of us think of the mess that we're in as something that can be solved by industrial science or by elected governments. And now we see that that is not the case and will never be the case. The only way people will survive is by taking care of each other. And you can say 'well Barry that's really naive. You know the forms of government we have are all we have.' And my answer to that is no. It is not to turn your back on your own country or your own culture -- it's to realize that the indifference of methane gas pouring out of the tundra now, it's not interested in nation states and these other things that we look to for survival. It's absolutely indifferent to human survival. And everything I look at when I travel says take care of those who you are with and if you can take care of people you've never met.

CO: See the other as your own.

BL: Yes.

CO: I'm speaking with Barry Lopez. And he's in the studio with me here talking about his latest book: Horizon. And you're listening to As It Happens. You features six regions in this book and I want to concentrate on two of them.

BL: Yes.

CO: Antarctica and the Galapagos Islands. You couldn't think of two more different places -- one) the Galapagos being so fecund and rich -- just life everywhere. And Antarctica, where there is no visible life, and places you actually saw where there hasn't been even a drop of rain ever in all the history of the planet. Just starting first of all with Antarctica, what is it about that landscape that draws you in?

BL: I loved the opportunity of it. And what I would tell you about my travel to Antarctica I guess is that I move almost entirely by intuition. I don't have a set of questions or something I'm trying to find. And of course if you travel like that you constantly lose your way but you also find situations that are not consciously defined for you but once you're in the middle of them you say 'oh I get why I always wanted to come here.' And that was the feeling I had in every trip I made to Antarctica.

CO: One place you make a special trek because we should point out you have purpose when you go there -- you were helping a scientific mission to look for meteorites. At the time you were with a team of divers looking for ocean life into the ice shelf which is a fascinating story and must've been very cold. And Vanda Station -- you were doing research there. But then there was another trek you took -- this really extraordinary thing you decided you had to get to Cape Crozier on a snowmobile which was life challenging. And you met with a group of people. That moment when you describe it, it was seemed to have been life altering for you when you got there. Why is that?

BL: It was. Because you know a group of six of us left McMurdo base -- the American base on Ross Island -- and made this trip that was famous. Became famous in a book by Cherry-Garrard called "The Worst Journey in the World." And I said to my colleagues all of whom were -- we'd all been in Antarctica over a period of years -- and I said you know if we do it in summer it won't be the worst journey in the world, and the prize will be to go to Cape Crozier and watch these penguins. I just knew it intuitively. And we got there and the birds kicked language out of all of us. We just almost fell to the ground in silence and bathed in the reality of these indefatigable birds taking care of their young. The image was, over the period of time that we sat there, it was like sitting through a symphony. And it made us all feel alive. It made us want to touch each other, to show tenderness toward each other. Sure we were doing something and it was bloody cold and all the rest of it, but we felt awakened to our purpose in life. And we all in our different ways thought I want to bring this home.

CO: But when you talk about how people need to be out of their comfort zone -- they're drinking each other's bathwater usually where they are, they are reading newspapers that reinforce all their views, and you have to go out and have turn inside out to see the world with fresh eyes. If you could take everybody one-by-one to Cape Crozier just for a moment do you think the world would be a different place?

BL: If you could do something that impossible, yes I do. The part that seems to be missing in modern culture is to get out of the self is to get out of the world where everything was made by human beings and understand what is my place in the enormous expression of beautiful life which was there with those penguins in Cape Crozier.

CO: Barry Lopez is with me in the As It Happens studio. And we are talking about this new book: Horizon. You speak about the explorers like Captain Cook for instance -- James Cook -- without whom you couldn't be doing what you're doing. These were people, explorers, that were out there without knowing where they were going. I mean they didn't even know where the next -- if this was an island or a massive continent. They were making these maps. And James Cook was the most amazing cartographer and filled in the blanks of our time. But you know those explorers were the ones that opened up these horizons for those who went and exploited and conquered and killed and destroyed everything to get the gold or the silver they wanted and colonise these people and killed them in large numbers and altered everything about them. How can you feel so positive about those who created the environment...

BL: Throughout the book there is a condemnation of exploitive discovery. But resentment is a kind of argument with reality. In this sense here is where we are and you know as the book opens in that chapter in Cape Foulweather where I'm trying to line out some of the themes of the book. I'm trying to encourage people to not spend all of their energy condemning the past. You have to own that past before you can imagine a viable future. So if (James) Cook or the others conquistadores did damage, that was their era. It's not our era. And we condemn it and we see the deep damage that it has done. Our object I think at the moment is to condemn the damage that their rightful heirs are creating, people like Putin for example. If we condemn that and find the best among us to imagine a radically different way of creating a different world in which to live I think we'll be alright.

CO: You know you said that you are very careful never to take things away from where you are. You leave things. You don't take souvenirs -- not even if it's a rock or something. You're very very conscious of that. A few times you have I think -- you given a half dozen examples. But you never do that. But you do take something away, don't you? You take away your impressions and then you craft those impressions into really extraordinary prose that draw people into the stories and then guess what? They go to look at the places you've gone to. And you have seen that all the tourism that ends up -- people showing up in large numbers all wearing the same jacket [laughter] and you know just "Hey. Where do I go to see where Barry said this in the book?" And very very destructive force in many cases. So what responsibility do you feel for that?

BL: I never used to think about it and now I think about it all the time. If I describe a place and try to elevate it in prose, it's like an invitation to people to come and see it for themselves. I don't want that to happen. And I've been conflicted for years about how ethically responsible is it of me to create enough confusion in a beautiful evocation of a place so that people would never be able to find it.

CO: I don't have time to ask you as much about the Galapagos as I would like to but one thing it does that part of the book does return to is your love of the Pacific Ocean -- as more than just a beautiful place but something just out of this world, something other worldly that you can't even fathom literally how deep and wide and extraordinary it is. What is it about the Pacific especially there when you're on the Galapagos Islands which would be such an extraordinary place to be in itself -- but looking at that ocean, and its sighing and heaving. What does it say to you?

BL: Well I'm just going to give you the answer that popped into my mind but what it says is, life is very dangerous, you'll be okay. I remember when my mother was dying of cancer in 1976 I brought her the first book that I published and I wanted her to have it. Although she was right at the end of her life in hospital. And so I handed her the book and explained what it was. She took it in her hands and turned it like an object. And then she rolled it over. I don't know if she was reading anything on the back of the book but it was an object and she wanted to get the feel of it. And then she hugged it to her chest and just held it there. And I'm standing right next to her. And then with her right hand she put her hand on my left forearm and said, "You'll be okay now." So that is what I think the ocean was saying to me that I am incomprehensible, I am vast and beyond your understanding and I'm going to show you as a little boy part of what I am and that is this Portuguese man o' war that's going to wrap itself around your little legs and make you very sick and very afraid and in great pain. But that's part of what I am. And the other part of me is going to reflect light into your face in ways that make you almost breathless with the beauty of what I do. But I am unknown and I will remain unknown. And part of what was attractive to me about James Cook is he got that. He understood that you're sailing across a mystery, don't make the mistake of reading a book while it's going on.

CO: You were writing Horizon at a time when you were facing your own mortality. And I know you've spoken elsewhere about it so I can ask you about the cancer that you were dealing with. How did that change the way you wrote the book? How did it change your views?

BL: I think that the diagnosis of terminal cancer made me feel more deeply tenderness toward other people and toward the world. It opened me up to be tender, be gentle, be kind to people. Everybody is going through something difficult and you must support and embrace them and be kind and not try to tell them what to do or own them. Just be gentle with them. So it turned out for me that that diagnosis was the kind of support I wanted when I sat down to write what I wrote in Horizon.

CO: And Horizon is one of those books that will change how people see things. And so whatever it is the journey you went through internally and externally to get to write this book it is taking people on that journey as well. Barry Lopez it's been a great pleasure to have you in the studio. Thank you.

BL: Thank you for making room for me.

JD: That was Barry Lopez the author -- most recently -- of Horizon, which is published by Random House Canada. He joined Carol in the As It Happens studio.

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April 22, 2019 Episode Transcript

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