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The Current Transcript for May 14, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: We are very happy to be across Canada as Greens. We've seen a lot of growth and support and the question always gets asked, can you translate that to more seats federally? And now today the answer is clearly, yes.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: For years, Elizabeth May has had the lonely distinction of being the only Green Party Member of Parliament in Ottawa. That changed last week with a victory in a byelection in BC. Part of a wider pattern of wins for the Greens in provincial legislatures and it's likely no coincidence that this is happening in a political environment where the realities of climate change are still met with either icy denial or promises that shift like desert sands. No federal leader can talk environmental fact more comprehensively than Elizabeth May and we'll go there today, but we also want to know how she views other major issues dogging Canada. Elizabeth May is my guest in just a moment and then.

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VOICE: It means that our truths are being told. It means that it's time for Canada to listen.

AMT: The survivors of 700 federal Indian day schools are finally able to submit their stories of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, as a federal court judge in Winnipeg considers a proposed settlement agreement. But after decades of fighting for recognition of their pain, aging survivors question whether the institutions that once failed them, can now help them enough. We'll have that discussion in half an hour. Also today, extinction on camera.

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VOICE: Sudan was the ambassador for extinction. He was just a giant magnificent animal. There's a lot of other species that we don't really realize, but they're going extinct every day.

AMT: To filmmaker David Hambridge follows the Kenyan park rangers who cared for and protected a northern white male rhino called, Sudan. The last of his species. Those park rangers and the director join me in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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History will judge 'reckless, even criminal' politicians ignoring climate change crisis: Elizabeth May

Guests: Elizabeth May

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VOICE 1: Deliriously happy.

VOICE 2: It was a lovely ceremony.

VOICE 1: It was kind of amazing. Beautiful and lots of different themes and traditions woven in and I'm very, very grateful to all my friends for helping so much.

AMT: This year Elizabeth May spent Earth Day getting married. She and John Kidder wed in Victoria, BC. it was a low carbon celebration capped off with the couple driving away in a Tesla to spend their honeymoon on a train from Vancouver to Ottawa. All very fitting for the woman who has helmed Canada's Green Party since 2006, but it's not just those nuptials putting a smile on Elizabeth May's face. By several measures, her party appears to be blooming. Last week Paul Manly won the federal byelection in the BC riding of Nanaimo-Ladysmith becoming the second Green MP elected, after Ms. May's own win in 2011. Provincially, New Brunswick has three Greens, Ontario elected their first green lawmakers last year. The Green Party holds the balance of power in BC and for the first time it forms the official opposition in PEI. Whether that momentum will translate into new gains in October's federal election remains to be seen. The party has had high hopes dashed before and despite climate change being top of mind for voters, many wonder if the Greens can deliver on other key files, such as the economy. Elizabeth May joins me from our Ottawa studio. Hello and welcome.

ELIZABETH MAY: Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: So you're the only federal leader who was planning a wedding, a byelection and a federal election at the same time. What does that tell us?

EM: Well it was a busy year, but at least it's been quite an incredible few weeks because as your intro mentioned, John and I were married on Earth Day. The very next day was the Prince Edward Island election and we got back from the honeymoon, I put in work in parliament and then zoomed right back out to Nanaimo-Ladysmith and was campaigning there with John right up till the moment where I had to get myself back to Ottawa for work. So it's been quite, it's been quite a very positive and optimistic period of weeks. People shout out to me from across the street, congratulations. I say, for what? I start to point at the wedding finger, this one or that one or? So it certainly is encouraging.

AMT: Well and John has run provincially for the Greens. I understand he plans to run in October, is that right?

EM: Yeah, we actually met six years ago when he was running for a seat for the BC Green Party way back when he was one of the original founders of the Green Party of B.C.. But you know he had been a federal Liberal so his only lived only federal run was as a liberal years back. But he is running as the Green Party candidate in Mission Matt swe Fraser canyon because he's figured out the only way we're going to see each other is if he's in Ottawa. So he's a yeah we're a good we're a good team.

AMT: So the Greens have hit new polling highs since the last election, but we've seen in the past that support diminishes when the time comes for voters to cast their ballots. What do you think could be different this time?

EM: Yeah, diminishes is a kind word. Last election after 2015, some of the major pollsters in this country people we can't afford to hire said to me oh we felt really badly I saw your poll I saw your support drop in half in the last week of the election campaign and it was the demon of strategic voting and the fear based campaign of other parties that said well if you vote Green you're helping Harper. If you vote Green you're wasting your vote. And I think what's different this time. Couple of things are different. One is that there isn't a figure on the political landscape as polarizing as Stephen Harper. There isn't that same ability to prompt a fear based vote that doesn't even take the time to think through will. Is there really a chance in this riding where I'm voting for this candidate who's in a neck and neck race with an NDP candidate. Does that message of fear make sense. The other of course big factor is that now that we have shown that even in a first past the post voting system greens can be elected in Canada and have been elected and are elected and it's really a tribute to the the just the integrity and the hard work of the Greens and with Andrew Weaver and Sonia first now and Adam Olsen in B.C. and the team that Peter Bevan Baker leads in Prince Edward Island and David Koon in New Brunswick and Mike Schreiner Ontario, each one of these individuals to know them is to inspire a lot of optimism that OK these people really do walk the talk. They really do want to do politics differently and electing a green is is a makes me as a voter happy. So across the country I think we're seeing that the undermining of our potential from saying that you just you know voting Green is a waste. Well if you vote Green and elect a Green and it keeps happening then that argument loses its force.

AMT: Well let's talk about some election issues and I'll get to climate policy, but first I want to ask about the economy. The Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz has said that our biggest economic threat is a trade war. We have trade tensions with China. Steel and aluminium tariffs imposed by the U.S. are in place. A renegotiated US-Canada-Mexico trade deal remains unsigned. What would you do to ensure smooth trade relations?

EM: Well it's very very difficult and I'm not going to, it's a difficult question because it's a difficult dilemma. We've never had a situation where our largest trading partner being the United States was at least the executive branch in the hands of someone who was reckless and not can not as concerned as one would imagine the U.S. government would be with continuing good relations with with Canada. We I mean I've often said that you know give full marks to Chrystia Freeland first fearing and navigating that relationship in renegotiating to what the second phase of NAFTA which actually has some significant improvements for Canada particularly getting rid of the investor state provisions in Chapter 11 and getting rid of the energy chapter. The challenge now is for all three countries to ratify the USMC in a situation where quite inexplicably Trump is keeping those steel and aluminium tariffs in place. So it's it's I'm not going to say that this is easy or that Greens would do things so much better than the current Liberal Government has been handling this in terms of trade with China. Now I do think there could be improvements there and I think one of the biggest mistakes that was ever made was made by Stephen Harper and his administration. A lot of people seem to have forgotten that that Harper locked us into being beholden to the People's Republic of China in the candidate China Investment Treaty which I think is is such a large barrier to us being able to properly regulate state owned enterprises from the People's Republic of China operating within Canada. So trade agreements like anything else and trade relations are also based on good diplomacy strong diplomacy. I certainly think we need to have an ambassador in the People's Republic of China. We need to work harder on improving our diplomatic muscle around the world.

AMT: And of course our problem with China right now is not what China is doing with business in Canada, it's what Canadian business can't do in China.

EM: It's also human rights challenge where we know that Canadians are being held and it appears to be entirely retaliatory action for our recognition of the U.S. ability to say you have extradition treaties, you have to arrest the executive for Huawei, you have to do it right now, that whole relationship and the ways in which Canada is being caught in a bind right now in the meat in the sandwich between Canada between the U.S. and China and their trading relationships is a real challenge for Canada. For me I mean it's it's outrageous that China says there's something wrong with Canadian canola without being able to name the past. I think it's in our canola but more and more concerning is the lives of Canadians who appear to have been caught up in it in a net of retaliatory action over the. So what would you do. Well it's it's not as I said it's not easy I would make sure we have an ambassador in the People's Republic of China on behalf of Canada. I'd make sure that we are clear with the People's Republic of China that human rights are our top concern and continue to work in in diplomacy which is of course the only tool we have in these trade spats. I think retaliatory actions aren't helpful. We certainly can take complaints to the WTO because some of China's actions I think violate the rule. The rules of the World Trade Organization but and that the whole question of the multilateral trade world the the the WTO structure that was created after the Uruguay Round is in jeopardy more than it's been in a very long time because again back to the recklessness of the present the United States in disregarding multilateral trade rules. And it's ironic that this is coming out of my mouth because for years and decades the Greens have been saying look we need to renegotiate those terms within the WTO that place the trade relationship above other questions that really matter like trade deals have become environmental deals they become human rights deals they become cultural industry deals in a way that they weren't before the Uruguay round. So unpacking this means really paying attention to restructuring and rebuilding a stronger World Trade Organization, but one that doesn't impede on aspects of social policy and environmental policy.

AMT: Well and you talk about the recklessness of President Trump. United States is our largest trading partner. Mr Trump wants out of the International Paris Agreement on climate change. How would you deal with that?

EM: Well the reality is that despite Trump's declaration in the Rose Garden that the U.S. was leaving the Paris Agreement, he hasn't taken a single legal step towards doing that because the terms of the Paris Agreement mean that he can't and the legal exit from the Paris Agreement if the U.S. continued to pursue it, wouldn't be able to take effect until the day after the next U.S. election, more than a year from now. So what's happened in the U.S. which is fascinating is that the subnational governments as they get called me U.N. so all the states and all the mayors that we are still in coalition within the United States is delivering on reducing greenhouse gases more than Canada is right now. So we we definitely have a problem with Trump. We have a huge issue that we're in a climate emergency and aren't taking it seriously globally virtually anywhere. So but the U.S. has to do its fair share. But candidate you know a guy go back to when I worked in it for I don't know start from backtracking all the way to the 1980s. But when I was in the minister of environment's office in the Mulroney administration, you know it was from the prime minister on down, acid rain is our top priority. And that meant that whenever he sat down with the present United States, acid rain is a top priority and we pursued it in a way that we actually got the United States to agree to slashing sulphur dioxide emissions with a president who initially Ronald Reagan said acid rain was caused by ducks. So you can't really compare Trump to Reagan, but you can't say Canada could do what much much more than we're now doing, if you have a strong focus and strong leadership.

AMT: Well I want to ask you about the so-called subnational governments, as you call them or as you make the point in Canada, I mean what's your view on the Conservative leaning premiers including Jason Kenney in Alberta, Doug Ford in Ontario, fighting the federal carbon tax?

EM: History will judge them. If we do take action on the climate crisis and avoid the loss of human civilization so that there are future generations to look back history will look back on these politicians as inexplicably reckless even criminal in the way they're using climate crisis as a political football. They will not be judged well fortunately in our federation in Canada. Constitutionally the federal government has the powers that are required to work to actually deliver the reductions in greenhouse gases and the adaptation policies and the improved sequestration through more forest planning and so on. The federal government has all the jurisdiction that's needed to do what's required but the the the the actions of Jason Kenney, Doug Ford, Scott Mauer are really beneath that. You know they so fail what's required of responsible leadership, but then again at the federal level, despite good words, we don't have a single improvement on in terms of our target is the same target left under Stephen Harper. So while yes it's an improvement to have carbon pricing in place, all the cumulative federal Liberal plans on climate change fail to meet the current target and the current target remains unchanged from that left behind by Stephen Harper, which we know from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is approximately half what's required and we're not there yet.

AMT: So are the Liberals and Conservatives lying to us about their climate change plans?

EM: I don't use the word lying easily, I'd say that Andrew Scheer is at this point unfit to govern. He hasn't shown any understanding of climate science. I don't know that he understands climate science. So let's put Scheer to the side. Justin Trudeau certainly understands climate science as does his ministers, but they're refusing to take action on it because of short term political concerns. So going from saying we're going to be climate leaders too we're buying a pipeline and we're going to continue to subsidize fossil fuels even though we promised we wouldn't. Was more directed by the short term political considerations of how do we how do we help. Rachel Notley stay in power in Alberta, I know we'll give her a pipeline. This is not the way decisions should be made. There should be a review of the evidence and acknowledgement that there isn't an economic case for expanding a pipeline 100 percent dedicated for export of bitumen which is a product for which there isn't an export market outside the United States. So there's a lot of of it propaganda that contaminates a discussion around what we should do about pipelines how our economy may or may not be dependent on exports of raw bitumen. We really in the case of Justin Trudeau, I wouldn't say lying is a hard word, I would say massively disappointing in breaking far too many promises.

AMT: Let me ask you then, what sacrifices do you believe Canadians have to make to meet targets? What should we prepared to do without, what do we need to confront in your view?

EM: I think we need to confront the truth and this is a hard thing to talk about. The honest truth is that we're in far more trouble if we continue down a path that fails to meet what's required by science than we are if we take action. Taking action doesn't it's some of, I was almost going to say Anna Maria,it's not gonna be hard to take action. The actions that are required to actually take Canada to a place where by 2050 we don't use fossil fuels anymore and that's where we must go.

AMT: So what does that look at? What do we have, like what you set in motion?

EM: It looks like democratizing energy supplies. It looks like individual communities and homeowners being able to generate the electricity they need for their house and then more from things like solar panels and geothermal and making sure every building in Canada doesn't leak energy to the outdoors. It means that we'd create millions of jobs in just the physical retrofitting of our buildings whether institutional buildings like universities and hospitals as well as commercial buildings as well as residential. It looks like making sure the East-West electricity grid is actually modernized and can deliver renewable green energy from those provinces that have it to those provinces that are in transition to run 100 percent on renewable. These are all things that are documented through lots of good work that's been done in our universities lots of good work that's been done internationally. But the reality of what it looks like is actually the kind of a lot of British Columbians are already plugging their car into their house and the solar panel on their roof is delivering the energy they need for their car and then if you're on the road you're plugging in to a station that's run off of the Hydro that B.C. has been relying on for energy so we have a in British Columbia at least our electricity sector is not running on fossil fuels except for now they want to gear up and and have fracking that fuels an LNG industry. But what it looks like in the future isn't scary. What's scary is if you look at a future where we don't take action where we pretend we can kick this down the road to a different government and a different election and the hard reality of it is that the 2019 election in Canada is the last chance we have to actually shift course and take the decisions that are necessary so we can reach targets in 2030 and are compatible with what we must do.

AMT: We're almost out of time. I want to go back to that the election then. You have invited Jodi Wilson-Raybold and Jane Philpott to run for the Greens. Did you get an answer?

EM: They're thinking about it and honestly I don't see any, I mean we're friends. It always sounds like a big political manoeuvre, did you talk them? Of course I talked to them. I respect them both individually. We are friends and I got to know Jane after she became Minister of Health and I went to her right away because of my bill on Lyme disease and we needed under the terms of that bill to hold a conference.

AMT: So you're waiting for an answer?

EM: I'm waiting for. And again I've nothing but respect for Jodi Wilson-Raybould for standing firm on the prosecutorial independence in the SNC-Lavalin case. I wait, we chat, it's up to them to decide and I just you know we doubled our caucus this week. It'd be really nice to double again next week, but you know can't.

AMT: You know like there's musing about you even being a co-leader with Jodi Wilson-Raybould.

EM: Well our constitution within the Greens doesn't yet allow for co-leaders. I'm keen on the idea because many Green parties around the world do have co-leaders. In New Zealand they do, in Sweden they do and the UK Greens recently moved from a single leader to a co-leader.

AMT: You're not threatened by that?

EM: Why would I be?

AMT: Well other leaders might be.

EM: Well no I mean the Greens are not about a leader that's a boss. It's all about power sharing, not power accumulation. It's not about hoarding something onto myself because I don't have any particular powers as leader of the Green Party. My job is to work for Canada, work for the constituents of Sandwich Golf Islands, work for the members of the Green Party who want a better future, but that's for all of Canada. It's not for me personally.

AMT: Elizabeth May, the music is on, we're out of time. Thank you for taking the time today.

EM: Thank you so much.

AMT: Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada in our Ottawa studio. Let us know what you think of what she had to say. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website and click on the contact link, cbc.ca/thecurrent. Stay with us. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti.

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Why the former chair of the TRC is worried about the Indian day school settlement

Guests: Ray Mason, Sandra Bighead, Murray Sinclair

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

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AMT: Still to come, a devastating United Nations report is warning that as many as a million species are threatened with extinction. I'll speak with a filmmaker whose new documentary, Kifaru, brings one species into focus with the last days of the very last male northern white rhino. That story in half an hour. But first, weighing the indian day schools settlement against history.

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VOICE: We know it's a new beginning. We know we still have lots of work to do and I know you may not know some of the damages that have happened and for me I forgive you for that. Cause for me without forgiveness, things stay the same.

AMT: That's the voice of Garry McLean. He is from the Lake Manitoba First Nation. The damage he's referring to took place at the Dog Creek Day School, which he started attending when he was six-years-old. Compared with residential schools, we don't hear much about the day schools where students went home at night. But former day school students say the erasure of their Indigenous culture and language was just as pervasive and punishing and that they too suffered physical and sexual abuse. Nationwide about 200,000 Indigenous children attended the day schools. They were not included in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement of 2006. And so by 2009, Garry McLean became the lead plaintiff in a $15 billion class action lawsuit against the government of Canada. Just last December Garry McLean and government officials announced they had come to a tentative agreement on that class action and then Mr. McLean died two months after the settlement was reached. Other survivors however are gathering at a Winnipeg federal court this week to tell the judge what they think about the proposed compensation plan. And among them is Ray Mason an elder with the Peguis First Nation. He's one of the people who started the lawsuit with Garry McLean. He testified at yesterdays hearings. Ray Mason is in our Winnipeg studio today. Hi.

RAY MASON: Good morning.

AMT: What's it like to hear that clip of Garry McLean?

RM: Kind of emotional. Excuse me. You know I was there behind him and you know like I said, I'm the one that brought him into the scenea nd we worked together every day. You know there wasn't a day that went by without him calling me or me calling him. And so we were very very close. And I guess we made a good team because you know I was in residential school myself for twelve years and two years in day school before that. And Garry was in this day school for ten years. So we were, we coupled our experiences together and we were able to come up with suggestions and ideas for this agreement that was being contemplated.

AMT: What do you remember about your experiences at the day school?

RM: Oh I you know at that time I was I think I was six-years-old because I just came out of the sanitarium. I had TB from when I was 2-years-old till I was six-years-old. And when I came back home and I couldn't speak English and I was ostracized. I was made to stand corner and balance, put my hand behind my back and put a balance a book on my head. You know for I don't know how long, but it seemed like hours on end. And then I had to write on chalkboard that I would never speak Indian again. You know I don't know how many lines, I think it was 100 lines and you know so that was very hard. You know I I experienced hair pulling, had ears pulled.

AMT: The teachers did this to you?

RM: Yeah. Yes, yes. And I even had to stick my tongue out so she can pinch it, you know. So I went through a lot in the two years, a year and a half. And also I experienced a lot of bullying because in our schools, grade one through six was in the same building. So the older students would pick on the younger ones and we used to get bullied and beat up a lot.

AMT: So this lawsuit has been ten years in the making. There's a push to get it finished as soon as possible now, why is that?

RM: Well one of the main things is because you know we have on the average approximately 2000 survivors passing on. You know and that is a lot you know and it's really essential that we get this agreement through for the people so that they can be here and and witness and experience and get their justice.

AMT: So Garry McLean is not the only one who didn't live to see it?

RM: Yes.

AMT: You know the compensation process is only accepting written submissions from survivors unlike the settlements for residential schools where people actually could us give oral presentation. What do you think of that?

RM: I think that's great because you know because you know the oral, like it the IAP component of the Indian residential school didn't work. It was like you know we had to sit in front of an adjudicator and Canada's lawyer you know and we were interrogated. We were asked the same question two or three times like they tried to trip us up you know. So this new way that we suggested, Gary and I and the lawyers, we said let's do something different. You know a lot more friendly much you know much expedited much easily and that Canada will take the people for their word. You know, so that's great.

AMT: And there is some criticism from survivors that the compensation won't be enough. What do you what do you think?

RM: I don't believe that because if you were to look at on the average of what people got from the Indian Residential School agreement, I think the average came out around 50,000 to 148,000 to 160,000 because I've never heard anybody getting anywhere near 150,000 to 200,000. Never you know during all my work and my travels and you know so I think they have to understand the process on how you could because if you can understand the process of the first year you get 10,000 and from that like it's level 1 through 5 and you go through level to 2 to 5. And it's much like the same at the end of the day. You know.

AMT: Ray Mason, it's good to talk to you today. Thank you for taking the time in the midst of all of this to talk to me.

RM: Okay. You're welcome. Thank you very much.

AMT: Ray Mason is an elder with the Peguis First Nation. He's an indian day school and residential school survivor. He joined us from our Winnipeg studio. The hearings in Winnipeg about proposed compensation for day school survivors will continue until tomorrow. There will be different points of view about settlement terms. Sandra Bighead for one takes issue with some of them. She was a day school student, as a young girl in Saskatchewan from age 4 through 8. Sandra Bighead's on the line from Saskatoon. Hi.

SANDRA BIGHEAD: Hello. Good morning. It's a little early for me here.

AMT: Yeah well I appreciate you. I appreciate you taking the phone call. Can you tell us Sandra what you remember about your own time at day school?

SB: Well you know this settlement agreement when it first came out, I read it and my first reaction was shock. Like how could anybody think that this was good for the people? Because it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all. So I thought about it and I reread it a couple of times and I looked at the application and there was a draft application and I thought OK I'm going fill this out and I got stressed, but not only for myself. I thought about kindergarten and how nowadays children love their kindergarten teacher. I didn't. I didn't like my kindergarten teacher at all.

AMT: Were you afraid of your teacher?

SB: Afraid. I used to run to the furnace room where my dad was. He was a janitor and he'd always have to bring me back and he'd tell me to be a brave girl.

AMT: Why? What would happen?

SB: Well not only was she mean to all of us, but she would pick on certain kids and that was hard to watch. And I didn't like that so I would run away. My dad we have to bring me back. That was that's what I was filling out the application and I stopped because I got angry I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't I couldn't fill it out. And you know what I want. I want to choose my own lawyer. I want to look in his eyes, his or her eyes and see if they care and understand me. I want to tell them my story and I want them to fill out my application for me cause it's too hard for me. I want them to collect the necessary documents that I would need and have them find any witnesses that I may need. And I want the government to pay them because I don't want it to come out of my award.

AMT: So the whole process of a class action suit where you actually put in your own written statement, that doesn't work for you?

SB: No not at all. Especially coming from the residential school process. And I had a claim and I got to have, I got to see a therapist two years before my hearing. And that did me more good than anything. The money was nothing compared to the mental health support I got.

AMT: So are you looking for something beyond like the compensation would be monetary this time. That's not what you're looking for?

SB: No I want support, mental health support through this process and I think it'll be good for a lot of people because this settlement agreement the way it's set up right now, it's just not fair.

AMT: And not fair because it's too hard to sort of navigate the system?

SB: Well there's the paper application and then there's the hearing. We should have the option to choose whether like I appreciate Mr. Mason and Mr. McLean, all the hard work they did and they paved the way for all of us and I really appreciate that, but there's many things that are wrong with this agreement. And one should be, we should have our own, we should have that choice, whether we want paper application or a hearing.

AMT: So in other words you would really want to speak and put it on the record orally, the way that the the residential school survivors.

SB: Exactly.

AMT: OK.

SB: Yeah adjudicator listened to your story.

AMT: You know at the same time people said that that re traumatized people and they wanted to avoid that.

SB: Well it's still traumatizing, whether you do it yourself on paper or in a hearing. It's still traumatizing.

AMT: So what would justice look like for you Sandra?

SB: Justice for me would be, they should have followed the IEP process. The Indian Residential School model, they should have and need it better. There were some things that was wron, but they could improve on it. And another thing that there's no CEP. And I think that's really important that everybody should get this, you know the common experience payment. I think that's important. And also getting, having access to your own lawyer because I have no faith in, I know they won't come see me in Saskatchewan and I won't be able to come and see them and to call them up. It's so impersonal, you know. It's so, how do I connect with somebody that I don't see.

AMT: So the law firm you know the law firm that's handling the class action suit.

SB: Yes. I have no faith in them.

AMT: Sandra we have to leave it there. Thank you for speaking with me today.

SB: Oh thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

AMT: Bye bye.

SB: Bye

AMT: Sandra Bighead. She is a survivor of the indian day schools. She joins me from Saskatoon. Well the stories coming out of the indian day school settlement hearings echo much of what we heard during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission looking into residential schools: physical and sexual abuse, a concerted effort to erase Indigenous cultures. Part of a broader policy of assimilation with which Canada is still coming to grips. Joining me for his insights is Senator Murray Sinclair. He served as chair of the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2009 to 2015. Senator Murray Sinclair is in our Ottawa studio. Hello.

MURRAY SINCLAIR: Good morning.

AMT: What are you thinking as you're listening to my last two guests?

MS: Well it's very difficult not to recall many of the things that we experienced during the course of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and some of the complaints and criticisms that we heard about the processes involved in that settlement agreement and some of the suggestions that we were making to government officials about how they could have improved at the next go around there. There have been opportunities to address some of the concerns that survivors brought to our attention the difficulties they experienced giving testimony in the course of the IEP process. The difficulties they had in terms of communicating with their lawyers and the difficulties ahead in terms of filling out forms and signing documents and reading documents because we must never forget that the one thing about the residential school experience as it was with the day school experience is that the educational component was a minimal part of what the effort was all about. The primary purpose of the educational system during that era was really to indoctrinate children into a different culture. And there were very few opportunities to provide a good education. So my concern about the day school survivors is that they're now being told that they have to do all of the work themselves so they have to find the documents they have to prove they went to the school they have to match the records that the department provides to the law firm I assume to justify that they in fact are the same person whose name might be spelled four or five different ways according to school records and who may not have had an English name. And so they then have to fill out the forms and we're talking about a population of people whose literacy rates are the lowest in Canada. And so now we're going to the complete opposite direction and during all of this, there are no health supports being provided to the day school survivors while they're going through this process and that really concerns me as.

AMT: Sandra points out the burden is on on the survivors, not on the government.

MS: Yes.

AMT: Just talk to me a little bit more about where the day schools fit into the broader policy of assimilation.

MS: Well the residential school a process that was started in the 19th century by the government was the primary focus of the government because they saw it as an easier way to to change the culture of children. It was you know the U.N. Convention on Genocide now recognizes that the forcible removal of children for the purpose of indoctrinating them into the culture of a different society is an act of genocide. And so that was what the schools were all about that they took the children away from their parents away from their communities away from their cultural influences and placed them in an environment in which they were told that their culture their language their race their history their people were inferior not worth protecting not worth trying to maintain. And so that experience continued into the public school system as well. And the public school system in the day school system worked hand in hand when it came to continuing the efforts at the residential schools had started the residential schools proved to be very expensive. The American government in fact started closing down their Indian boarding schools in the 1930s because of the expense involved. The Canadian government according to the records that we came across were thinking about the same question and then in fact following the U.N. Convention on Genocide which was passed in the late 1940s after the Second World War they made a decision to actually close down residential schools and start using provincial school systems.

AMT: So they didn't want to change the policy, they just wanted to change the venue.

MS: They wanted to change the delivery system. So that is what it was. And the problem is that they ran up against resistance from the churches that were running the schools primarily the Catholic Church which wanted to maintain the schools for their their own purposes. And so the effort to close down the schools by the government actually didn't succeed until finally in 1969 when they passed the requisite documentation to to close down the residential school system and then too but during the 50s and the 60s there was more and more of an effort of taking children away from their families sending them to urban governments or small towns and villages for the purpose of educating them in public schools or in schools that were maintained by the government on the reserve. And those schools were continuing the very same thing that residential schools did and sometimes with the same kinds of abusive patterns.

AMT: It's been almost four years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its report on residential schools. Where do you think we are in the process of reconciliation in this country?

MS: Well we're at various stages. You know I think there is a great recognition on the part of members of the public that something needs to be done. Some acknowledgement needs to occur and some action needs to take place. And we see it at various levels. I'm happy to see those schools that are trying to adapt their curriculum to include more and more of this history so that children being educated in Canada are learning about each other and speak to it about each other in a much better way than we did in the past. But that's not so pervasive across the country. Provincial governments have stopped changing their curriculums in Quebec and in Ontario, two of the largest provinces in the country and that concerns me because it's the curriculum change that really is important.

AMT: And they've stopped. They were started and then they just abandoned it?

MS: They stopped and decided that they weren't going to do it anymore. And that speaks to a lack of commitment and a lack of will to recognize that in order to overcome the damages of the past we have to take more positive action in the future. And so but we do see provinces and territories that are doing exceptional work, in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut educational curricular materials now are being developed that recognizes history and that kids are being educated in a different way. You know prairie provinces are starting to change the curriculum through their provincial departments of education and that's important. And those changes are going to have long term impacts and so we're not going to see the impact of that for a generation or two, but the reality is that it's a recognition by teachers by educators by people in charge of systems that we have to do something and this is the best thing that they can do.

AMT: Murray Sinclair, It's good to have you on our program. Good to hear from you today. Thank you.

MS: Thank you for having me.

AMT: Senator Murray Sinclair served as chair of the Indian Residential School's Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2009 to 2015. He joined me from our studio in Ottawa. Let us know what you think of what he had to say, specifically about updating on how this is moving forward in our schools. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC, you can find us on Facebook or you can go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. Stay with us. In our next half hour, the last male white rhino, northern white rhino is immortalized in a documentary film that could help people understand what extinction really means. We're doing that next. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

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World's last male northern white rhino was 'ambassador of extinction': filmmaker

Guests: David Hambridge, James Mwenda, Joseph Wachira

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. In a moment we'll meet two Kenyan rangers who cared for the last male northern white rhino. That's a story of extinction up close in real time brought to us through the lens of the documentary called Kifaru, but before we get there I want to tell you about a discussion we're having tomorrow, looking at the Winnipeg general strike one hundred years on. It was May 15th of 1919 and 24,000 workers in Winnipeg walked off the job and started the biggest strike in Canadian history. The government cracked down hard.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The Red Scare had risen to a climax at that time and there was tremendous hysteria and fear in the country and in the governing circles. And well they honestly believed that this was an attempted Soviet revolution that there would be a red government installed on the banks of the Red River.

AMT: Can hear about that tomorrow as we revisit the history and talk to a longtime Labour leader about the legacy of the Winnipeg general strike. But right now a project of passion.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: People often ask me how we got to this point. Why do we fight and plunder the wild until nothing is left? We had a question to answer as to why we give everything to a cause that seems so hopeless. I don't know the answers to these questions. All I know is our story.

AMT: That's the voice of James Mwenda in a powerful new documentary called, Kifaru. Kifaru means rhinoceros in Swahili. And the story is about a northern white rhino, a male rhino named Sudan. The very last male of his kind. Following last week's grim U.N. report that showed as many as a million species are on the verge of the same fate, Sudan's story has even more resonance. Kifaru tells the story of the people who loved and cared for Sudan in his final days, including two rangers James Mwenda, who you just heard and Joseph Wachira. They both join me from San Francisco and with me in Toronto is the director of Kifaru is David Hambridge. Hello everyone and welcome.

DAVID HAMBRIDGE: Thank you so much.

JOSEPH WACHIRA: Hello.

JAMES MWEDNA: Thank you.

AMT: James Mwedna, let's start with you tell. Tell me about Sudan. Who was he? How did he come to be at the conservancy?

JM: Sudan got his name from southern Sudan, where he was born. Unfortunately there was civil strife in that country and he was taking refuge in a zoo in Czech Republic. And so he stayed in the zoo for quite a number of years. And as a breeding program he was brought back again to Africa to see whether the essence of being in the African soil would get him mate together with the females that he came along with. And so then he came to Ol Pejeta Conservancy in 2009 December.

AMT: And did he mate with a female?

JM: Unfortunately no. The intention was Sudan not to directly mate the females that are there, was too mate with Southern white rhinos as a way of trying to cross breed because the two girls we have are kind of like one of them is his daughter. The other one his granddaughter. So he wasn't able to mate because actually his age advanced to his time since he came in 2009. And so he wasn't able to mate.

AMT: In the clip we hear you say the work you do is hopeless. Do you really believe that?

JM: That's actually is based on what people think and ask why do you have to do this? If it seems they're the last two of their kind now, people say like why do you have to be there every day for these animals and why do you have to put so much effort on them when they're going? You know you need to focus on other things. But the thing is that we can't let this species down and just watch them go down. So you have to try and do the best we can.

AMT: Joseph Wachira, what made you decide to become a ranger at Ol Pejeta?

JW: At the beginning I did not know about taking care of animals, but when I went and working in the Conservancy I used to be a cooker and I used to see my colleagues working with the rhinos and they are working very well. So I started thinking maybe I want to be working with rhinos.

AMT: What is it about the rhinos that you wanted to work with them?

JW: Because how they were gentle and so you know they're big animals like three tonnes and sometimes it's a little bit hard to believe you can be able to work with a big animal.

AMT: That's true as we watch it we forget how big they are because they seem so natural with you. Joseph the job of a ranger doesn't pay very well or have a lot of prestige in Kenya. Why not?

JW: Yeah like I used to have a lot of friends, which one we grow with them together but because of knowing which one I do, working with the rhinos, taking, cleaning the rhinos, collecting the poop and to put their area very well, so they started saying because them they have a good job. So they starting saying like that work is not very nice. You could come and then we could be able to find you a good job, which one you can be able to have a lot of money, but that one because I know to be working with rhinos is not just only for fun, but you know you're trying to help and.

AMT: You're also guarding them.

JW: Yeah.

AMT: James why do rhinos in Kenya need armed guards?

JM: It's basically due to the fact that they are endangered. We have to admit that we have taken what is primary there's, that is their land and the demand for their horn is still there. And if we don't do what we do to protect them then it seems in the next 10 or 15 years there won't be any rhinos.

AMT: David Hambridge, the rhino horn and we see this at the end, the rhino horn is prized. It's worth a lot of money, it's carved. So this is why they're so vulnerable to poachers.

DH: Yeah, yeah absolutely. You know I think the belief and you know when we were in Hong Kong, James and I went there and we actually went to a lot of schools and James spoke to them very directly and they were very intrigued and interested in everything he was doing and he was dressed up, you know he's wearing his ranger uniform, but they actually thought that the rhino horn just falls off the rhino and the rangers job is to pick it up and that's how the horn is you know that's where it comes from. And so there's a lot of misinformation.

AMT: Because they kill the rhino to get the horn.

DH: They do, yeah.

AMT: They don't, they don't just cut it off even, right? They want the whole thing, they kill him.

DH: They go very deep, yeah. And so you know James and Jojo know this,d but there's you know the scene is very gruesome and it's really sad because it can even go all the way down to you know cutting through their pathways, their air pathways, so they're kind of just it's you know it's very grotesque actually. I don't want to describe it too much in detail, but it's very sad and tragic and it's still happening.

AMT: And that's why the two gentlemen who are our guests as well are so important in this process to protect them. How did you get interested in the story of Sudan, David?

DH: I really have to attribute it to James and Joseph. I mean I went there and I met Sudan myself and he was magnificent. He was pretty healthy. And so this is in 2015. I spent a lot of time, I spent about a week there, kind of running around by myself. I have to say you know meeting Jojo and really on one of the last days I talked to James at the place called the Information centre. I could just tell that he was probably the most connected to the rhinos and they really had a bond and I just wanted to talk to him you know and see you like what is your life like and kind of what's it like taking care of this animal that's being billed in the mainstream media as the last of his kind. And I just kept going back after that.

AMT: James how many rhinos are left at the conservancy?

JM: We actually having the largest population of black rhinos in eastern central Africa, which holds approximately 123 black rhinos and like 36 southern white rhinos and the two northern white rhinos. Rhinos are like our signature species at the conservancy. Focusing on them has helped us to keep safe the 90,000 acres of a Ol Pejeta conservancy.

AMT: Now at one point in the documentary we see Jacob and he's he's running around in the field with Sudan, waving his arms and playing with this giant rhino. And one of you guys says he's like a rhino himself. What's that about?

JM: Well at the end of the day we realize our job from a wider perspective or a wider view of it is emotionally draining and these moments of excitement have to be induced for us to keep the job as exciting as possible. So you can assume for us being young as we are and Jacob being like our elder, leading us and then he's up there playing and jumping with the rhinos is like you know, there are those moments that you seize and just take off all the work and you know get to enjoy working with these animals. They can be scaring, they can be dangerous, but if you have a light moment to play with a rhino, that's a cool thing you know.

AMT: Well yeah I was kind of amazed because they are so big. What'd you guys say, three tones? And of course there's the baby that you find and rescue and Jojo, Joseph the little one follows you around like it's a puppy. Like he just follows you.

JW: Yeah because when the day we rescued him, he was almost two weeks old and thus so I was the first one to give him formula milk.

AMT: With a giant baby bottle.

JW: Yeah. So from that time I take responsibility to be his mom or his father. So and then we communicate. So he used to follow me wherever I go. He was like a small dog following me wherever I go.

AMT: Now you guys rescued him, what happened to his mother?

JW: Yeah. Her mother was her first time to have a baby, so he left to him because he knew Ringo was having a problem. So that was the reason why he left him.

AMT: Okay. David this film has been billed as a documentary that shows extinction in real time. What do you want people to understand?

DH: That's a good question. You know I think everyone I want everyone to kind of take their own you know experience from it. It's the fact that it happens in real time and you kind of get to experience the joys and pitfalls of conservation on the front lines through the eyes and the vessel of these caretakers. But to me I think I really want people to take away the humanity aspect of it and that these animals are very threatened and that Sudan was the ambassador for extinction. And I think he'll always be that. He was just a giant magnificent animal. And I think that there's a lot of other species and a lot of other animals -- flora and fauna -- that we don't really really realize, but they're going extinct everyday too. And I hope the humanity side of it makes or inspires people to to get engaged and want to you know meet others that are doing this kind of work and can have a hand in conservation in the future.

AMT: James when we first meet Sudan in this film, he has already lived much longer than most rhinos in the wild. First of all how old was he?

JM: Till his death, Sudan was actually 45 years and that's typically orld for a rhino. He can live between 40 to 50 years in captivity. So him being 45 was very old.

AMT: And so what did you want to give him in his last years? What did you want that magnificent large animal to experience in those final years?

JM: The thing was to make sure his life as long as it lived was well lived. So we basically surrounded him with love, knowing to the fact that he was more accustomed to be around people and we also wanted him actually his legacy to be something that not just is passive, something that will will in years to come, it was to be like a point of reflection of the real issues that are affecting us. So we shouted as much as we could. We were able to tell the world that we are witnessing this animal being labelled as the last male standing and our essence was to to to make his life better, but also use him for the essence of what he stood for as a vessel to speak on behalf of many other endagered species that are on the verge of being extinct because of our actions.

AMT: And there was like there's such gentle care of him. At one point like you guys are giving him his own little mud bath. You're smearing mud over him and you really look after him.

JM: Yeah. Yeah it was all built around the love and affection we felt for him. From a realistic approach of it. I mean he should have been in the wild and doing all this stuff by himself, but because he was just there now and that's the situation we had to help him. And then again we just pushed him. You know he wouldn't roll in the mud like a normal rhino should roll in the mud. So we had to give a hand just to make sure he had a good you know mud bath, which is very essential for his skin and for his well-being.

AMT: David, Sudan develops a terrible wound on his leg. What happened to him?d

DH: Well when I was there in 2017 in November I noticed, Joseph and I actually were together when we went out for a routine feeding and we saw that he was having trouble with his leg and he would almost you know sit down normally like he would on any one of his legs in the back, but then he would pop back up really quick and we could tell it was like painful. So you know we were filming we just noticed something was wrong there. He had bed sores. You know he was an old rhino and in human years it's it's like he was 100 years old at that point at a certain point there was a cyst, a large cyst in his leg and it exploded. It was infected. And when that happened a lot of fluid came out and it actually had been very deep in his leg and and these things are actually pretty common in elephants and rhinos, but when you're as old as Sudan was bouncing back from something like that isn't exactly easy.

AMT: You're filming a Sudan collapses and struggles to get up, what was that like for you as a filmmaker?

DH: Well I had been there you know I had filmed Sudan so many times. I had seen him for two or three weeks and just seen the wound and seen him trying to fix it. And I was anticipating it to happen any day and it was raining and he got excited because you know animals in the wild when it rain you get excited and he was also on you know banana painkillers basically they would put those in because the wound hurt so I think you get a false sense of footing that day. And so when it happened to be honest and you know I am filming this doctor for four years. I was I flinched when he when he went down and from that point on you know you just. I was focussed on the emotion that I was seeing from James and and and Jacob because he was there when that happened and you just kind of go into a robotic-like mode filming and just make sure you're capturing the story as it unfolds.

AMT: James what do you remember about the day Sudan collapsed?

JM: It was indeed sad as Sudan was, it wasn't just a rhino to us, it was our friend. We had got into a point when as he got sick and the infection got worse, we were sure that at some point we might lose him. It's that moment that you feel we have to let him go, but it's still attached to you because he's a special animal. You know he wasn't just any other rhino, he was the last male known northern rhino to exist on the entire Earth. So our care that we had given him, our concern, the love that we had given him, we we were broken. You know seeing him go through that, we you know were at that point you know Sudan we've given you the best, I think this is getting too hard for you. We have to let you go. So there were some of the most emotional and sad moments for all of us, but we had to soak them in and you know get the satisfaction that we have given them the best we could.

AMT: David we see in the film that he's euthanized. The veterinarians take tissue samples to create a new rhino embryo. Where is all of that?

DH: So that is there's a science international team of scientists from South Africa. He was actually the one that when Sudan was euthanized, he took the DNA samples from his trachea, his ear, his testicular tissue. You know all sorts of places in his body where the the genetics would be useful for the future and crowd genetically frozen. So I followed Dr. Mornay to the lab and filmed for about eight hours, ten hours or so until it was cryogenically frozen, but where they are with with you know the IVF which is kind of the the last hope until you have to go to methods like cloning which you know have ethical you know things around them. So I think that IVF is they've been working on it and practicing the Czech Republic Zoo which is where these rhinos came from. They're spearheading the science and they're doing a really great job at it. And they're actually going to be extracting the eggs from far too who Sudan's granddaughter and the youngest son of the last two northern white females left and using IVF to use maybe her eggs. If it's successful obviously it's also very risky to do. And even the slightest mistake could be devastating. And then they would free they would take frozen male northern white sperm and implant that embryo in a southern white female surrogate mother and that one is actually at Ol Pejeta and they keep her around the last two females to kind of I guess inspire the wild nature of being a wild rhino. So yeah.

AMT: And of course the problems that led the white rhinos to become extinct are still there. What needs to change to make it safer for rhinos?

JM: A lot needs to be done. I think the whole issue of the rhinos is opening up a very be debates on how much we need to do in terms of securing habitats that will be healthy for them to survive. And also if you look at the countries where the northern rhino is taped well, Congo, southern Sudan, northwest and parts of Uganda, it's a shame that still they have conflicts, these civil conflicts. So even when now rhinos you know there would be essence of trying to reintroduce rhinos, it still couldn't be the best homes for them because people are still fighting for power. It's a big subject when you talk about extinction and what does face to the northern white rhinos. It's all about our political affiliations. It's all about the climate change and now we are heading to. It's all about shrinking habitats for these animals. And so we need to have a bigger view of what they represent on the habitats and also make sure we safeguard what is their homes for now because as you see the human population is increasing. There also needs to be a change in terms of policies that will you know be like more animal friendly and also emphasize on us understanding the importance of these animals. So especially in African countries where we come is a law that needs to be done be it through the government to enforce to have strict rules to enforce these rules and to ensure that anyone dealing with any trade of of animal artefacts is just like taken through and it doesn't become a normal thing. But also as a common general people we need to revisit our understanding of what we think of these animals because if we all get to a point of caring for these animals or asking what role they play in the system then we would better, you'll be able to embrace and continue supporting these animals.

AMT: It's a really important story and it's good David that you introduced us to these gentlemen, so we can see how dedicated they are. How much they care. It's a beautiful film.

DH: Thank you so much.

AMT: And it's got some beautiful moments,d despite the sadness.

DH: Yeah it it's definitely you know it deals with some very you know tragic things obviously, but I think it helps us reflect on how we've gotten here and makes people think about that.

AMT: You guys have good hearts. Thank you.

JM: Thank you so much.

JW: Thank you.

AMT: James Mwenda and Joseph Wachira are rangers at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. They spoke to us from San Francisco. David Hambridge is the director of Kifarw. He joined us in Toronto. Kifaru screened at Toronto Hot Docs film festival. It's showing at festivals and special screenings around North America over the coming weeks. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Riit is an Inuk throat singer who makes traditional sounds with electronic music. Hear her performing in front of an audience in Iqaluit, part of Tom Power's northern visit that he's showcasing all week. Finally, after our conversation about Sudan the rhino and efforts to save those creatures, we're going to end today with some music inspired by the continent. Egged on by their fans last year, the rock band Weezer recorded their version of a song that was a first a hit for Toto back in 1982. So we'll leave you with Weezer performing "Africa." I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Song: "Africa" performed by Weezer]

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May. 14, 2019 episode transcript

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