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The Current Transcript for May 1, 2019

Host: Piya Chattopadhyay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

I mean he's taking your clothes off. How much of a fight did you put up for...

But I don't remember him taking my clothes off.

How much did you resist him taking off your clothes?

I didn't. That's the terrible part.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: That is an indigenous teenager being interrogated by an RCMP officer after she reported she had been sexually assaulted. And as their conversation continues things only become more problematic. This taped police interview came to light recently and it is sparking many conversations including about just how common this type of interaction is. In a moment we're delving into whether police forces across our country really understand the laws around consent, and how to best protect those who are young and especially vulnerable. Also on the show today are you in the 15, 18 or 20 percent? I'm talking about tipping and how much money you leave after a restaurant meal. You might think your gratuity goes to your server and their colleagues like dishwashers but are you OK with part of your tip going to salaried managers?

SOUNDCLIP

We're not making as much as we used to. That's for sure. We're tipping over ten thousand dollars. That's a car. That's a down payment for a mortgage. You know it used to be half that.

PC: Tipping out to managers especially since Ontario's increase to the minimum wage has some workers at a well-known restaurant in Niagara Falls out on the picket line. We'll hear about what's behind the server strike and what it says about working for tips right across our country. And after that.

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We've been fighting cancer for nine years now, her longer than me. It was caused by Roundup.

PC: Alberta Pilloid is a billion dollars richer after a California jury ruled in her favour this week. There are cases against the makers of Roundup in Canada as well. But some farmers insist the well-known herbicide is a game changer. We'll talk about all of that in an hour. Hi I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

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It will take 'rewiring all of us' to change myths about sexual assault victims: reporter

Guests: Cindy Blackstock, Robyn Doolittle

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I'm a criminal defence lawyer and we're used to seeing graphic and disturbing things but this was very shocking. A complainant in that position, vulnerable, intimidated, very anxious. How could you ask those questions? How did you know yourself to form those words in your mouth and put them to a vulnerable teenager? This is absolutely disgusting.

PC: That's lawyer Michael Patterson speaking with CBC Radio's As It Happens. He's disgusted by what an RCMP officer said to his client years ago in a Kelowna, B.C. police interrogation room. The woman is now 24 years old. But Patterson says she was just a teenager when she told her foster parents that she had been sexually assaulted. The RCMP ended up questioning her for two hours about her allegations. The tape of that 2012 interrogation has recently emerged as part of the evidence in an ongoing civil lawsuit against a B.C. Ministry of Child and Family Development and the social workers involved in her case. And the woman has shared that video with APTN and CBC News. Now just before I play a bit of it I want to let you know that what you're about to hear in this recording may be disturbing to some listeners.

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OFFICER: Were you - I'm going to ask some uncomfortable questions here because I need to know - where you at all turned on during this at all, even a little bit?

GIRL: No.

OFFICER: Physically you weren't at all responsive to his advances even maybe, subconsciously.

GIRL: Maybe subconsciously but no, no. I was really scared.

OFFICER: Okay. Because you understand that when a guy tries to have sex with a female and the female is completely unwilling, it's very difficult. Right?

GIRL: Yes yes. It hurt a lot.

OFFICER: It hurt a lot? At the beginning?

GIRL: For the whole thing.

PC: That video has prompted outrage from politicians across the political spectrum and it has raised a whole lot of questions with it. Robyn Doolittle spent almost two years documenting how police across our country investigate sexual assault cases and how they treat accusers. Robyn is a reporter at The Globe and Mail and her series, Unfounded, resulted in the RCMP doing a full scale review of its sexual assault cases. Robyn Doolittle's in Toronto. Hello.

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: Hi good morning.

PC: How familiar was that scene that unfolded in this video for you?

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: Well first it's one of the worst videos I've ever seen and I've seen many of them and I've read many transcripts of complainant interviews. But yet the sad thing is it kind of ticked all the boxes of what goes wrong in police investigations. It just was much more egregious than most of them.

PC: OK so let's talk about that because we just heard part of it and I just noted that the officer asked the woman: were you turned on? Were you responsive to his advances? And she says: I was really scared. Tell me about the kinds of questions the RCMP investigators often ask.

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: Well there's a couple of things with this video. I mean there's that element that she's saying I was really scared and you know is he understanding the reality of what it would be like for someone in that situation. But the bigger problem is he just doesn't understand the law. There's a whole bunch of- you know before that clip he's talking about like 'did you say no, well did you resist, how are your clothes coming off, well why didn't you run out of the room, what would you do if this was someone that you didn't know?' And he says to her 'I know what I would do'. All of those things are not actually consistent with what needs to happen in a Canadian sexual assault case for it to be sexual assault. In Canada a complainant doesn't need to say no. She doesn't need to fight back. Those are old outdated stereotypes of how women or sexual assault victims are supposed to act in sexual assaults, and our law has actually moved past those myths and stereotypes. But he clearly doesn't understand that.

PC: Let me ask you this is this one quote unquote "bad apple" that we're seeing in that video. Because that is the claim that people say look this guy this this person allegedly behaved totally inappropriately. But most officers in that kind of situation don't act that way.

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: Right. So as you said you know I spent nearly two years and actually I'm writing a book on this and about me too now. So it's now almost four years. I've watched so many of these videos and read so many of these transcripts. And I'm specifically for my Globe and Mail investigation looked into 54 specific cases and what I can say is that this was shockingly common. Maybe not to this extent, but the idea that police officers weren't sure of Canadian consent law, weren't clear on the way that trauma can impact victim behaviour and memory. This was very common not just the RCMP but across the country.

PC: And you use the word outdated that the practice that we heard the video is or should be outdated, and that is something Ralph Goodale Minister of Public Safety the minister in charge of the RCMP said about the video, that the practices in the video are outdated. He called the video abhorrent. Several other politicians have echoed that. Are they really out to [unintelligible] him from your investigations.

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: No. I mean my series started in 2017 and since then the RCMP like a 100 Canadian police services have launched reviews of sexual assault cases and updated their policy in training and oversight measures. But the thing is what they're trying to get at here is to change cultural attitudes around sexual assault victims. And that's a slow moving goal here because this is about rewiring all of us not just police but all of us. So many people harbour these ideas. When he said you know like if a woman really doesn't want to be raped she can stop it. But that's a completely insane thing to say. But it is an idea that some people harbour. A lot of people harbour in there in their hearts maybe so. The RCMP has been stepping in the right direction on what to do with these cases. But this is not going to change overnight. And I can tell you I still get emails every single week from sexual assault complainants and their families about situations that are coming up and in their investigations. I could do this beat the rest of my life and write 10 stories a week about it.

PC: We did ask the RCMP for an interview it declined. It did send us a statement. It said that officers are receiving the training on myths surrounding sexual assault consent law and how to better interview witnesses. It's also, as you say Robyn, developing new training around cultural competency in dealing with trauma. And as you say this is a slow moving thing to change a culture. How effective do you think the change that the RCMP says it is doing going to be?

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: I think honestly the most impactful thing that can be done right now is for videos like that to come out, where people actually- because they might think these things and not actually think about it in the context. But sitting there and watching that poor teenager just try to do what she's been told her whole life to do, that if you've been sexually assaulted go to police, go report your case. That's your duty. And to see what happened to her that is a real visceral gut punch. And I do think that police officers feel that too. In my series, what I can say is I saw a whole bunch of really bad stuff. But I also don't think that the officers are bad people. I think they just don't understand or have the training. They haven't ever really had a good think about what rape myths and stereotypes are and why they harbour these views. So I actually think these types of stories do so much to advance our understanding of how these cases should he handled.

PC: You know one of the things the RCMP has said it is also considering is bringing in a policy to allow people to report sexual assault through third parties and not have to deal with the RCMP directly. If that change happens what kind of impact do you think that could have?

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: I don't understand how that would work if the ultimate goal is to take the case to court. I mean I'm not a lawyer so maybe there's something that I'm missing there. But ultimately what you want and what my whole series was about is you want police to do thorough investigations and what's happening was if they don't understand Canadian consent law, they don't understand the questions they're supposed to be asking, they think this victim is lying, it doesn't ring true to them, they're not investigating those cases. That officer didn't come out of that room and go 'I'm gonna go do a darn good job looking in to see whether this actually happened.' He obviously thinks this isn't a big deal so he's not going to do that work collecting that evidence to then hand to a Crown who could then take it to court. So we really need these officers trained so that they do big robust investigation that then they can give the crown this evidence that the Crown can mount the best case they can in a courtroom.

PC: You know this video many people are pointing out it isn't just a young woman being sexual assault - that would be bad enough for allegedly reporting about her alleged sexual assault. This is a teenager who is in foster care, who is Indigenous, vulnerable on many many levels. What do you think this particular video says about how the justice system sees young Indigenous women in particular?

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: Oh it's just awful. You can't watch that video and not just feel so enraged for this girl and sad and frustrated and helpless. And I can say that in and all of the dozens and dozens of complainants that I've interviewed almost all of them said that the experience of having a police interview where it was obvious that the officer tasked with handling their case didn't believe them, that was more traumatic than the actual sexual assaults. Because you know the sexual assault that's the quote unquote "bad guy" the officer that's supposed to be the good guy. That's the person that's helping you and saving you.

PC: Robyn Doolittle we'll leave it there. Thank you very much.

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: Thank you.

PC: Robyn Doolittle is a journalist with The Globe and Mail and we reached her in Toronto. The type of police questioning we hear on the recently surfaced videotape strikes many many people as troublesome. But when the person facing those questions is an indigenous teenager in foster care the scenario can be even more fraught. Here is the minister of Crown indigenous relations Carolyn Bennett responding to the recording.

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Interview techniques for sexual assault victims back in 2012 were unenlightened and inappropriate. Unfortunately reminiscent of some of what we were hearing during the gatherings on the pre inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women girls. Somehow people have felt that racism sexism interfered with someone's life or experience being taken seriously.

PC: That's a minister of Crown indigenous relations Carolyn Bennett speaking on CBC Vancouver's Early Edition. We'll talk more about the challenges faced by Indigenous children and youth in care we are joined by Cindy Blackstock. She's the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and Cindy Blackstock is in our Ottawa studio. Hi.

CINDY BLACKSTOCK: Good morning.

PC: When you watch that video you thought what?

CINDY BLACKSTOCK: Horrified. You know horrified that a young person who's already experienced trauma and those that resulted in them being in care, and in this particular case the young girl had actually experienced sexual assault by a family member. And to have her come forward and experience that kind of accusatory interview was abusive and it was highly inappropriate. And I can say just to follow up on what Robin was sharing earlier. I actually did child protection in British Columbia in 80s and 90s. And even back then asking leading questions which this officer was doing and not conducting those interviews with the requisite compassion was us you know that was standard practice. You had to ask non leading questions. You had to act with compassion. So I don't think it's any excuse that this was happening and in 2012 when we knew better in the 1980s and 90s.

PC: What do we know Cindy about how common cases of sexual assault are involving young people in care? What data do we have?

CINDY BLACKSTOCK: We don't have any reliable data. In fact we have no reliable data on child welfare experiences for children in care period at a national level in Canada. And that's something that needs to change the Truth and Reconciliation Commission asked that. What we do know is from speaking to you thing care that this is a frequent experience that there's a lot of stereotypes of course about sexual assault in general but when you layer that with the misperceptions and the stereotypes about being a young person in care, when you layer that on top of that with being a First Nations Metis or Inuit youth who experience the sexual assault then there are multiple pathways of disadvantage and being treated poorly by the systems that you interact with.

PC: Let's talk some more about the interrogation that we heard in the video itself. The woman's lawyer told our colleagues at As it Happens that no charges were laid after she made this report. She even had to write a letter apologizing to the person who allegedly sexually assaulted her and that she didn't have a social worker with her during that questioning. So beyond the troubling line of questioning by that particular RCMP officer, how should her report have been handled?

CINDY BLACKSTOCK: Well number one I think all RCMP should receive training from youth in care networks across the country to get an insight into what it is to be a youth in care. On top of that there should be obviously very in-depth training of First Nations maintains Inuit peoples. And I think there needs to be a special vetting of the officers who actually do investigations in sexual assault. Not every officer is competent in that particular area. And I'd like to see specialized teams being able to do it. What should have happened is she should have had somebody with her that she trusted. There should have been a supervisor watching that interview from the RCMP so that they could have intervened when those questions started going sideways. And there also should have been support after the interview provided to her. There should have been - when I get to watch that interview would I get a sense as that officer walked in there and thought I didn't believe her. And she feels that way too. She says that during that interview. And that is inappropriate for law enforcement. Law enforcement's was to come in with an open mind and conduct a thorough investigation. The idea that they made her write a letter of apology I find that kind of appalling, really appalling. That's not her role as a youth who is in care who's reporting a crime to the RCMP. I just I can't understand that.

PC: To those who say you know the interrogation process in a legal sense is supposed to be somewhat adversary. We hear this from defence lawyers sometimes in court. What do you say to that?

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Well I say that it is not supposed to be adversarial. It's supposed to be a truth seeking exercise. That's what the justice system is supposed to be. And then the judge or the judiciary official ways the different pieces of evidence and makes a decision. There is no reason to go on the attack for someone coming forward about a crime of any nature particularly sexual assault. Certainly you can ask questions to illuminate the truth but you don't go out attacking people and you certainly don't do that in a situation where it's a child who's in foster care who's first nations may tune in to eat and who's just reported a sexual assault case.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: You heard the statement that the RCMP sent us and they said it before that the force is working hard to train staff on issues of consent and sexual assault and you said and Robin Doolittle said look these things these cultural shifts take time Robin said it's heading in the right direction. What more do you want to hear from the RCMP that has not been said?

CINDY BLACKSTOCK: I want them to apologize to her. I think that any you know I've had the pleasure working with many people in law enforcement in court including RCMP officers in sexual assault cases over the years. Many thankfully are doing a good job. I think anyone looking at this who's reasonable knows that this thing was completely inappropriate. And they owe an apology to her. And they also oh an apology to others sexual assault victims who watching this may feel diminished or may feel less likely to report it.

PC: And this case is that the lawsuit is still before the courts civil lawsuit. So if the RCMP will apologize that may happen after the legal proceedings and we just don't know that at this point.

ROBYN DOOLITTLE: You know what. I've heard that excuse a lot from different people that we can't apologize because it's before the courts. I don't agree. I think this case that's before the respondent is the Ministry for child and family development is not the RCMP. There's nothing in my view that would stop them from saying what we saw. We agree that what we saw in that tape was not appropriate. It was not the way we want to see sexual assault victims treated. And we apologize for that. I think that they can do that and they should do that.

PC: Robyn Doolittle made the point that she believes that these videotapes, these videos of these kinds of interrogations, are good when they become public because it shines a light on what is happening in many cases. Do you agree with them'

CINDY BLACKSTOCK: I worry about that. I worry that if we have to allow these types of very painful stories to come forward to awaken the system to do the right thing. I just think there's enough on the record and certainly with the murdered missing indigenous women inquiry findings coming out shortly. There is enough stories on the record that we should all be shocked into action and it shouldn't take the release of a video like this for us to treat other sexual assault victims with the dignity with the respect and with the compassion they deserve.

PC: Cindy Blackstock always good to talk to you. Thank you for your time today. Thank you. Cindy Blackstock is the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. She was in our Ottawa studio. If you have anything to say about this story please do get in touch with us here at the current. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. You can find us on Facebook. Facebook.com/slash CBC the current or you can go to our Web site CBC dossier slash the current and you click on Contact Us link and from there you are able to e-mail us. OK. The CBC News is next. Then how much of your tip at a restaurant really goes to your server and the other minimum wage earning stuff. A conversation about who should be in and tipping out that is coming up here on the Friday edition of The Current. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and we're back in just a bit.

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Niagara servers protest policy forcing them to share tips with management

Guests: Shaun Watson, James Rilett, Alison Braley-Rattai

PC: Hi I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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PC: Still to come, we'll hear more about a two billion dollar verdict against Monsanto and parent company Bayer for cancer allegedly caused by their popular herbicide Roundup. Yep you heard that right. More than two billion dollars awarded by a California jury this week. And that could be just the tip of the iceberg with thousands more lawsuits against the chemical giant in the queue including a class action suit here in Canada. More of all that in about half an hour.

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Boycot Niagara [unintelligible] respect workers, boycott Rainforest Cafe.

PC: It has been almost six weeks since much of the staff at the Niagara Falls Ontario Rainforest Cafe walked out. Among other things they're protesting the restaurant's new policy on tips or more specifically on tipping out. If you have worked in the service industry then you are likely familiar with the term. Tipping out is when servers pool their earned tips so they can be shared with non-tip receiving staff such as hostesses, buzzers and kitchen workers. Tipping out is nothing new, but since Ontario raised its minimum wage last year restaurants have been grappling with ways to maintain happy customers, profit margins and staff. Some servers say they are being made to foot the bill and they are not happy. Shaun Watson has been out on the picket line since day one of the Rainforest Cafe strike. He's been a server and bartender there for more than 15 years and Shaun is with me in our Toronto studio. Hi.

SHAUN WATSON: Good morning everybody.

PC: So what prompted you to go out on strike about six weeks ago?

SHAUN WATSON: So I can go over so many different reasons why we went on strike but I guess you could say the main ones are when the employer raised the tip out, we weren't that concerned about it in that sense we were we were we were wondering why it went up and then it was because of the minimum wage. They sent a letter to us saying we wouldn't be viable anymore. And saying we would be team members and put together everything and it would save jobs and everything like that. We questioned why it went up and they we found out it was going to salaried managers, and not just a little bit, but a lot of our tip out was going there.

PC: Okay so let's back up a sec. So how much- you've always had to tip out?

SHAUN WATSON: Yes.

PC: How much did it increase?

SHAUN WATSON: Literally doubled overnight. If say our read was a thousand dollars we'd be tipping up forty five dollars on a normal day basis and now we're tipping out ninety dollars.

PC: So when you go, when the union goes to management says this is really unfair policy. You guys are making- there's been an increase in minimum wage and it's on our backs that you folks are making more money. They said what to you?

SHAUN WATSON: So they brought up the ministry of labour legislation, and when it was changed it favours the employer even though it looks like it's favouring the employee. It gives the employer control of where the money goes and how much they can put on the tip out. There's a fine balance where depending on the type of restaurant you have how much money they should be taking from the servers. But we have no say in that.

PC: If you're willing to go here, let's go through your kind of average workday. Right. So prior to the minimum wage increase in Ontario last year how much were you making a day in tips, and how much did you have to put into the kitty that would go to other employees?

SHAUN WATSON: So every day's different. I've been there full time for 15 years. On an average day we're probably making about one hundred dollars in tips and then we're tipping out between 30 and 60 dollars easily. So you're going home with 40 bucks in your pockets now. No we'll be going home with 100 but we're tipping out that extra amount as well. Like on top of that.

PC: And how does that compare to what was happening say last year or the year before?

SHAUN WATSON: It would be less than half of what we were tipping out. So if I was tipping a 30 or 40 dollars I'm tipping out 15 or 20 dollars last year.

PC: Are you cool with having always tipped out to your fellow co-workers the buzzers, the dishwashers, the kitchen- the back room people in a restaurant, that is a fair practice?

SHAUN WATSON: Absolutely. These people are literally our backbone when it comes to making sure the table is set correctly. Greeting the guests for the first time. You need a smile. You need any friendliness. Otherwise you set people in a mood and then were the second people that take over the situation. And then we've got to correct it. I have no problems tipping out our support workers.

PC: And what about management? Because the argument could be 'hey we're entitled to the tipping pool too'.

SHAUN WATSON: Well that's a difficult situation because as a salaried manager you would feel that they were compensated properly by the employer. They do parts of our job at some given times when emergency situations arise. They're making sure the show is going properly the way it should. But on a daily basis no. We do our own jobs and we do it well.

PC: So we reach out to the Rainforest Cafe because we wanted to get a comment from them. And this is part of what Sarah Vasquez the vice president of marketing and business development for the Canadian Niagara hotel sent us. And I am quoting her here: "Host, buzzer, servers and bartenders appear satisfied with the restaurant's current offer. The staff want the union to end this strike so they can serve more guests". You say what to that?

SHAUN WATSON: They can say that all they want but I know it's all replacement workers and they're paying their bills and they're making the wheels turn for the rainforest still. These people do not know what a contract entails. And I don't believe that they've actually- if we had a chance to explain the contract, they would not be okay with what the company is offering.

PC: For you personally, you've been out on the line. You worked this a job for 15 years and now for the past six weeks you've been out on a picket line. What are you doing for money? How are you surviving?

SHAUN WATSON: You know what some of us are fortunate enough to have a little bit of a savings as a background, family and friends. The union does provide strike pay. It's not as much as what I'm making obviously but it's enough to get by and I mean some people are picking up part time jobs here and there but still coming out to the line and putting their effort in. As a bargaining member, I'm out there literally every day because I got to show that this is important to me and then you know everybody will follow as well.

PC: Are you losing money with this new tipping out policy? Or let me put it this way. Is your profit margin down as a server?

SHAUN WATSON: Yes. A regular full time server would bring in about 250 to 300 thousand dollars for the company just by selling food and beverages. We're tipping out over 10,000 dollars. That's a car. I used to be half that. So yes we're not making as much as we used to. That's for sure.

PC: Shaun thank you for coming in I appreciate it.

SHAUN WATSON: Thank you very much.

PC: Shaun Watson is a striking server and bartender at the Rainforest Cafe in Niagara Falls Ontario. Restaurants across our country are constantly having to negotiate with staff, managers and customers when it comes to tipping. And that's something our next guest thinks about a lot. James Rilett is the vice president Central Canada of Restaurants Canada. That's a national industry advocacy group. He too is with me in Toronto. Hi.

JAMES RILETT: Thanks for having me.

PC: You know our last guest just said 'look`, I went kind of overnight from having to tip out 45 bucks, next day it was 90 bucks'. Is that common? Do you think that that kind of increase overnight is fair?

JAMES RILETT: I can't really say. I don't know the numbers. I don't know of what those numbers represent. I do know that usually the tipped employees, the servers are usually the highest earning people in the restaurants. It's often hard to get managers because most managers will have to come from people who work in the restaurant and know the industry and often it's hard to get them to walk away from the tips. So that's how it evolved into managers participating in the typical because it was often hard to get managers to walk away.

JAMES RILETT: So you're saying traditionally that servers who were getting tipped out were making more overall than managers.

JAMES RILETT: It's very common. Yes.

PC: Okay. So the managers at many restaurants are like hey wait a minute where are the quote unquote "leaders" of this, we're running the whole shop, we should be able to participate in that tip out as well.

JAMES RILETT: I think it kind of went the other way. You usually try to find managers and and you obviously look at your employees first and you want to move people up through the system. And to be able to get them to agree to become a manager they they say well I still want to participate in my tip pool.

PC: But one of the intersections here in Ontario when it comes to this issue is the increase in the minimum wage last year when it went up to 14 dollars per hour, and as I said earlier that it is different for restaurant workers and bar workers. However servers are saying they're footing the bill for the minimum wage hike because they're tip out percentage has increased at the same time. Is that what you're hearing? And if so is that fair?

JAMES RILETT: I don't think it's common. I think one reason, one thing that it did do, was the menu prices went up. That was the main thing that restaurants did to to compensate for the minimum wage increase. And so when you have higher menu prices obviously you have higher tip percentages. We're also seeing over the last 10 years tipping has gone from an average of 11 percent to 17-18 percent. So I think people that participate in tip pools looked at it and say, okay, well you're you're getting, when before you would have got 11 to 15 percent. Normally now you're getting 18 to 20 percent. So why am I not seeing some of that. So a lot of it comes from the other employees that want to share on the tip pool.

PC: Right. Until we heard Shaun say this and we've heard this from other servers to say look we're not taking issue with a tip out itself. We are happy to share our earnings our tip earnings with the many many other people who get food on the table for customers like me. But the fact they say is that it's sometimes going to managers there's not a lot of transparency around where the money is going. Should there be more transparency on this?

JAMES RILETT: We recommend wouldn't when we talk to members that that ask us for advice. We always say you should be very transparent. You should involve your employees and participating in the pool. We always encourage people to discuss that with the employees have them participate, have them see the numbers from start to finish so that they know that this is truly a team effort.

PC: You know as I said in the introduction to you, restaurants are different. They're all different size, serving different food, different locations, different cos, all those things. But why is it difficult to have a blanket regulatory framework for all restaurants to follow which is then kind of like if you're a smaller one this is how it works and if you're a bigger one that's how it works.

JAMES RILETT: I think not just restaurants are different, customers are different. So you're seeing a lot of customers want different things. One big thing you're hearing a lot of people saying we don't want tipping at all. I think there was I saw a recent survey said 46 percent of people say we'd rather not have tipping. You're seeing some restaurants especially here in Toronto that don't allow tipping at all.

PC: Their argument for not tipping is pay me a fair wage, right? Instead of relying on my tips.

JAMES RILETT: Yes they're saying set the menu prices so that you can pay, make up for that non tips. Some customers like that. We've seen some that once that model fail. So it's like anything in the restaurant industry if customers like it they'll do it. And if customers are going somewhere others will copy it. So I think it's a blend of what the employees, what the employers and what the customers want.

PC: What advice do you have for restaurants who are trying to balance their books along with their customer, servers, managers? What's your advice?

JAMES RILETT: I always say talk to your employees tell them what your difficulties are. Restaurants are hard business. On average it's around four percent profit margins which is, when you look at in investment terms it's pretty low. What we say to all restaurants before you do something talk to your employees. Talk to your customers. Talk to everyone and try and get something that everyone can live with.

PC: James Rilett thank you for your time as well I appreciate it.

JAMES RILETT: Thank you for having me.

PC: James Rilett is the vice president's central Canada of Restaurants Canada. So when it comes to regulations around tipping they vary across our country. Ontario is just one of a handful of provinces with legislation addressing it. It's known as the protecting employees tips act and it sets provisions on what employers can and cannot do with servers tips. But while many were excited about the new law when it was brought in in 2015 others say it's difficult to enforce and has too many expectations. Alison Braley red tie is an assistant professor in the Department of Labour Studies at Brock University. She is in St. Catharine’s Ontario. Hello to you.

ALISON BRALEY: Hi how are you.

PC: I'm good. What do you make of restaurant Canada's position on tipping out? It is varied, they say, and a lot of different things that a lot of different places.

ALISON BRALEY: Well I think two things come to my mind. In the first place while it's certainly good practice to try to get employers to converse with their employees and get by on policies and so forth. I think it is characterized in a way that was a little overly optimistic. I think it's unrealistic to think that the majority of employers are out there desperately looking to get the employee buy in when it comes to their servers and about policies. But the other thing that came to my mind as well was that there's no doubt that it's true. Managers very often are people who sort of work their way through the ranks but they know that business because they started off as servers. But you know the claim that you managers are saying or people who are going into those positions are saying, 'hey, I want to remain part of the tip out pool' is is not quite right. What I suspect really they're saying is that I want to make sure that I'm making the same kind of income that I was making when I was a server. The real issue is who ought to be footing the bill for that. And that's really the crux of the issue.

PC: There is provincial legislation only in a small number of our provinces in Canada including Ontario. So let's go through like what is and isn't allowed under the legislation.

ALISON BRALEY: Ontario prior to enacting the protect employees tips act had no regulation around tips whatsoever. They are not counted legally as wages and in the absence of any regulation around them the employer could implement whatever policy it wanted. So it could take however much it wanted it could put any purpose it wanted. The protecting employees tips Act came in with the principled idea that first and foremost the tips belong to the employees for whom they are left and that the employer may take them in the context of a tip out pool. So that exception means that all the other reasons for which an employer might take tips like having customers have dined and dashed and all these other business expenses that employers might have taken tips for before are no longer allowed. But that doesn't say anything about things like how much the tip out amount can be which is still up to the employer to determine. And then there is some question about whether or not frontline managers these salaried managers that we're really talking about whether or not they can participate in Mario I would suggest that's actually a grey area and the B.C. legislation that has just come in virtually replicates the language in the Ontario legislation.

PC: So it makes it grey because this is one of the sticking points of the Rainforest Cafe dispute right about the managers are part of the tipping pool.

ALISON BRALEY: Well what makes it grey is the question about whether or not the legislation actually permits managers to be part of a tipping pool. And the reason that it's grey has to do with how the legislation is written that it first of all doesn't talk about managers when it talks about the sole proprietors for instance who can participate in the tip pool, as long as they're doing the general work that the same employees who are getting tipped are doing. But managers aren't sole proprietors and the only place where managers are defined in the Employment Standards Act is you don't talk about employers. It says employers can be defined as a number of things including managers. But isn't it obvious that a frontline manager is the same as the kind of manager that might be you know identified in this definition of the employer in the Employment Standards Act.

PC: So Alison in Ontario or elsewhere in this country. How likely is it that we are going to see some regulation around tip transparency?

ALISON BRALEY: Well I'm not convinced that we're going to see legislation soon because I'm not sure that there's been enough noise made that this is an issue. But it would be a relatively easy fix in my view to in fact put in something in the legislation that would in fact increase the transparency.

PC: When you look across our country in the patchwork of legislation or the non-existence of legislation in some provinces where do you look to a province that's doing it well?

ALISON BRALEY: Well in Quebec they have legislation that is very strong in terms of making sure that kids are in fact the you know the property if you will of the servers to whom they are left, and tip sharing arrangements can't be imposed upon workers by employers. Workers have to collectively decide that they want to have tip sharing arrangements and then decide the rules about them. So there are ways of tweaking I think the legislation that we do have possibly in all the jurisdictions but at the very least when it comes to Ontario and BC, which more or less mimics Ontario's language, some stronger language around transparency I think would be a good starting point.

PC: Alison Baley-Rattai, thank you for your time in helping us understand this I appreciate it. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Alison Braley-Rattai is an assistant professor in the Department of Labour Studies at Brock University in St. Catharines Ontario. Now I know you have thoughts on tipping and tip outs whether you are a server or a restaurant manager or customer. So tweet us. We are @TheCurrentCBC. We are going to turn our attention from tipping to TV because a beloved show by many went out with a bang last night. After a run of 12 seasons the final episode of The Big Bang Theory has aired. The sitcom attracted tons of TV viewers each and every week averaging three million Canadian viewers and more than 12 million in the United States. Those are numbers that rival the HBO hit Game of Thrones. If you didn't watch the Big Bang Theory The show is about a group of Mensa, smart friends, physicists who can find their daily life pretty awkward. The show can make the critics cringe but its fans believed this much maligned sitcom will be remembered for making nerd culture respectable. We asked this couple, super fans, who have watched every episode together why they will miss The Big Bang Theory.

SOUNDCLIP

DONNA BOWMAN: Okay let's start by introducing ourselves I guess. My name's Donna Bowman.

NOEL MURRAY: I'm Noel Murray.

DONNA BOWMAN: Okay let's talk about why we're super fans of The Big Bang Theory. Some of the guest stars, some of the ways is interfaced with actual nerd culture, actual science.

[Lines from the show]

DONNA BOWMAN: Maths, actual astrophysics. All of those kind of things.

[Lines fromo the show]

DONNA BOWMAN: There's not that many mass media places where that happened.

NOEL MURRAY: Yes but this show has put Stephen Hawking on the same level as William Shatner. Right. They're both super important to these guys and gals.

[Lines from the show]

NOEL MURRAY: I want to ask you though, as as you're a woman, right.

DONNA BOWMAN: I am a woman. I am also a person who works in a university. I'm not a scientist but I'm an academic.

NOEL MURRAY: And a nerd I would say.

DONNA BOWMAN: I'm a total nerd.

NOEL MURRAY: Do you I mean you know did you find yourself find it harder to relate to the show when it was just mostly guys.

[Lines from the show]

DONNA BOWMAN: That whole nerd culture that you know that the show is set in. Again part of the criticism is whether that is just this portrait of basement dwelling, no social skills, whose interests keep girls away or whether they're going to be virgins for the rest of their lives or whatever it is. But I got to say the show became so much better when, as you point out, the story of these characters became that they had full lives and relationships and love and growth and all of those kinds of things.

[Parts from the show]

DONNA BOWMAN: Within the context of comedy I mean the show has never been super sappy right. It's never even had a very special episode really. And I think we got to talk about the character Sheldon a little bit.

[Parts from the show]

DONNA BOWMAN: That Jim Parsons is a really really fine performer. We identify with this partly because you know we have a child is on the spectrum and so we recognize a lot of the things that Sheldon does, including being super annoying by you know being on having a one track mind, and being very very set in his routine and knowing that people don't want to upset that but it also frustrates them. In that vein I thinking about I think probably my very favourite memory of watching this show is the Season eight premiere which is the one where he's gone on a trip.

[Parts from the show]

DONNA BOWMAN: He's in a he's in a bus station. You know he's he's finally trying to get home and he doesn't really know how to do it. And just the concern that I felt for this fictional character who is so far out of his comfort zone but he's trying to find his way in the world. I really you know felt like this show touched on something that the audience was gonna care about but that was true to the character without losing the ability to generate laughs. And it was the whole idea of yelling, he bus pants, if you remember that.

NOEL MURRAY: Yes.

[Parts from the show]

NOEL MURRAY: The question of whether this show is degrading in some way to nerds. You know I think we've seen nerds are doing this fine. And if anything this show is kind of presented characters who like I said a hell of a lot more dimensionality than you might expect in terms of the relationships they hold. And you know they're like you say they're working at a university. And the show has promoted the idea of science and learning and education as being you know something something worthwhile which in this day and age you know thank goodness for that.

PC: That is Donna Bowman and Noel Murray by the way. Another big finale is coming up this weekend; Game of Thrones, and we're going to be talking about that on Monday. All right. Coming up in our next half hour the weed killer Roundup appears to be found increasingly toxic by courts. We will talk about the pros and cons of Roundup. That's coming up. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay. And you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Farmer says weed killer Roundup is vital to his businesses, despite allegations it causes cancer

Guests: Dorothy Atkins, Warren Sekulic, Jean Zigby

PC: Hi again. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and you were listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

The verdict really meant to me that this thing was not done in vain. Now I remember standing there saying to myself if I lose this case this company is going to be able to get away and then they'll be able to say, see, I told you I'd step in and do that.

People are getting sick and they have no idea that it's being caused by roundup. This verdict is as clear of a statement as you can get that they need to change what they're doing.

All this money is really nice but our health would have been better. Had they been [unintelligible] we would have paid attention to it.

I wish It'd never happened at all.

PC: Those are the voices of plaintiffs and their lawyer who sued Monsanto and won for making them sick. Each one says long term exposure to Monsanto's herbicide Roundup caused their cancer. This week the latest verdict by a jury awarded a California couple, Alberta and Alva Pilliod, more than two billion dollars. It is the highest amount of the three roundup judgments against Monsanto and its parent company Bayer. The Pilliods say they use the weed killer on their property. For decades both have been diagnosed with non Hodgkin's lymphoma. Roundup cases surged after the WHO, The World Health Organization, had a report in 2015 that found the main ingredient of Roundup glyphosate is quote "probably carcinogenic to humans"". There are thousands of pending legal cases including a class action lawsuit filed in Saskatchewan where the lead plaintiff is a Moose Jaw farmer diagnosed with cancer. Dorothy Atkins is a reporter with Law360. It is a news service specializing in legal matters and she's been covering the roundup trials over the last year. And she joins us from San Francisco in the Bay Area. Hello.

DOROTHY ATKINS: Hi.

PC: You were in that courtroom when the two billion dollar judgment came down what was it like?

DOROTHY ATKINS: Everyone had a suspicion that this could be a big verdict if it went in the plaintiff's favour but nobody was expecting it to be two billion. Mainly because the plaintiffs didn't even suggest that the jury award two billion. They had kind of thrown out a one billion dollar number. So when the two billion dollar verdict came down everyone was kind of shocked.

PC: So we never really know how a judge or a jury is going to rule. But as you say there was sort of this inkling in the courtroom that the company responsible would be found guilty for these counsellors. Why weren't you surprised that it ended up being that way?

DOROTHY ATKINS: Well there have been three trials so far over claims that Roundup causes cancer and this one out of all of the three, this one had the most evidence come in. The judge did an exclude things that were excluded in the previous trials. So if anything the more evidence there was against Monsanto theoretically kind of the more fuel for the jury to come down with a verdict in favour of the plaintiffs.

PC: Monsanto for its part denies and has continued to deny that glyphosate that - again is the main ingredient in Roundup - is a carcinogen says nope it's not. And in its defence it cited health Canada quite a few times. What did Monsanto say about health Canada?

DOROTHY ATKINS: Yes especially in this last trial, Monsanto repeatedly mentioned health Canada as well as the EPA as well as the Australian government, pointing to these regulatory agencies and saying hey look they they said that glyphosate is safe. So we should be in the clear, basically.

PC: Right what does EPA say because this trial, this latest one, and the others, are in the United States?

DOROTHY ATKINS: Well the EPA has looked into glyphosate and repeatedly concluded that glyphosate is safe. It's currently in the middle of re reviewing whether or not it thinks it's safe. So it actually issued an interim report in the middle of the last trial and that Monsanto had tried to get that interim report in as evidence because it sounds like the EPA is kind of leaning towards its previous findings, which is that glyphosate is safe. And the judge said basically no. And Bayer has said that it's going to try to challenge that on appeal. One issue though during trial. The allegations are that Monsanto has essentially been feeding the EPA bad science about the toxicity of glyphosate. So you know it kind of casts a shadow on whether or not the EPA is even using the right studies to reach its conclusion.

PC: And here in Canada, Health Canada maintains that it has conducted a thorough review and that glyphosate is safe at levels that humans are exposed to. The jury's haven't agreed with that kind of finding. What have they said about these cases?

PC: Right. I mean I think that that's what's kind of so shocking to us who are in the courtroom. Just because these are three consecutive plaintiffs wins, three consecutive juries are coming down hard against Monsanto and saying 'No, hey, this is dangerous and this probably caused these people's cancers'. So there seems to be a huge disconnect between what the juries are deciding and then also what these regulators are saying. Part of the issue too is that they're sitting there through weeks and months of trial and expert testimony. People are fiercely fighting this. You know experts put on by both sides have very different takes on what the science says. So at the end of the day you know it comes down to who you believe and the jury just has not believed Monsanto's experts or talking points basically.

PC: And these three cases are just the tip of the iceberg because there are thousands of other pending cases against Monsanto as it pertains to Roundup. Just give us a broad stroke, the range of these lawsuits.

DOROTHY ATKINS: Right well so one thing to note that, about a year ago before even the first case went to trial, there were only about 5000 claims pending against the company. But now in the past month or two the latest number was 13400. And it's all across the country. About 600 of them are pending in front of a federal judge in San Francisco. And the rest are kind of scattered as many are in state court in California and also in Missouri. So a lot of them are household users of the product. Some are some are are farmers. I don't know that there's a class action pending and in Canada.

PC: There is. And I'll get to that in a sec but I'm wondering this, so Bayer bears the parent company of Monsanto. Is there any talk or any hints that it may go after Monsanto? In other words the parent company says to the child company 'hey you're responsible for this'.

DOROTHY ATKINS: So Bayer purchased Monsanto for 63 billion dollars and the deal closed last June which was two months before the first verdict came down against Monsanto. So everybody now is kind of wondering scratching their heads why in the world did Bayer buy this company when there is this huge liability. But you know I've tried to ask Bayer about this. They're very hard lined against defending the claims there. They're going to see what happens on appeal. They've just taken the stance that this this chemical is safe and that Roundup should be on on the shelves and it doesn't need any kind of label change.

PC: The next trial is in Missouri. It's in St.. Lewis. It's the first roundup trial that will be take place outside of California. What are you going to be watching for that one?

DOROTHY ATKINS: Right. So this is the first time that Monsanto executives will be put on the stand and what they've testified in the trials in California but they're all of their depositions had been pre-recorded because the plaintiffs can't force them to travel to California and sit on the stand. So this will be interesting just to see how they react under the pressure of being in the courtroom and sitting in front of a jury. It's very different that that kind of situation is very different I think than sitting kind of in a room and being interviewed and on video.

PC: And here at home you mentioned that there is a class action lawsuit in Saskatchewan. What do you make of that? Because that's a class action different than the ones that have gone forward so far in the United States.

DOROTHY ATKINS: The one interesting thing about that is that it's primarily brought by farmers and you know so far the three cases that have gone to trial have focussed on household users of the product. So I think there will be a lot of different kind of conversations about what the farmers regular practices were in terms of handling these pesticides, and also what the company told them and and how safe they thought it was in terms of spraying it.

PC: Dorothy thank you for explaining all this to us I appreciate your time.

DOROTHY ATKINS: No problem. Thank you.

PC: Dorothy Atkins is a reporter with Law360 and she's in the San Francisco Bay area. Now Bayer, the parent company of Monsanto, says it will appeal the verdict in the California case. In a statement to us it says quote: "The Verdict conflicts directly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's interim registration review decision and that glyphosate based products can be used safely and that glyphosate is not carcinogenic. When it comes to the Canadian lawsuit, Bayer Canada added this quote: "Glyphosate based herbicides are not the cause of their illnesses and we will rigorously defend our products" end quote. Warren Sekulic is one of thousands of farmers in Canada who uses roundup on his field. Warren is a canola, wheat, pea and oat grower near Rycroft that's in northern Alberta. And he's also a director of the farm lobby organization Grain Growers of Canada. Warren, hi.

WARREN SEKULIC: Hello.

PC: So what are you thinking as you see these California court decisions linking glyphosate to non Hodgkin's lymphoma?

WARREN SEKULIC: It's so concerning to me because it's such an important product to me and how I use it on my farm. That's also concerning to me because jurors are not scientists and judges are not scientists. They don't have the training or the scientific literacy to assess toxicological hazard and risk like the people at the PMRA, what the people the regulatory agencies do. And the regulatory agencies keep saying that it is safe and the jurors are not. So it's very concerning to me.

PC: So let's talk about how and why you use it on your field. You grow a number of crops. How often do you use Roundup on your farm?

WARREN SEKULIC: Well I do what's called zero till farming system. And so the most important use and the most common use for glyphosate in my farm is to do what we call a pre seed burn down or it kills all the weeds before planting. We use the glyphosate instead of tillage tools now.

PC: Why do you choose to use Glyphosate Roundup instead of tilling?

WARREN SEKULIC: It's really important because it conserves our soil moisture. It increases increases our soil organic matter. It reduces our soil erosion by both wind and water because there's always stubble and there's always root material that anchoring that soil in the ground. And because of this root material in this doublet that not being turned over, it's not being decomposed, we're actually sequestering a whole pile of carbon so much so that my dad actually is able to sell carbon credits on the land that's been in this production practice since the mid and early 90's. It's been an absolute game changer for us in terms of our farms health, the soil health, the agronomic health, the financial health of our farm. There just isn't a product on the market that as you know is as safe. There's nothing out there on the market that can replace this product right now.

PC: Do you brought up the word safe and I'm glad you did. When you were out there spraying your fields with Roundup, what safety precautions do you take?

WARREN SEKULIC: Well our biggest exposure to the risk is that when we're mixing and loading the chemicals into our sprayer. So that's what we're dealing with the concentrated chemicals. So the labels are very clear on on how you're supposed to do that. You are supposed to wear goggles or safety glasses and a hat and long sleeve shirts, long pants, gloves, rubber boots just to limit your exposure to any chemical that might splash back or anything that might get on you in the process of loading and mixing. And then when we're out spraying it. We watch very closely the weather conditions, the humidity, the wind temperature, the wind direction, the air temperature, what the temperature was the night before because cold nights can affect uptake into the plant. We follow the label and we do everything we possibly can to make it as safe as we can and to target just what we are targeting.

PC: So if we follow the cautions on the label to have any training on how to use Roundup?

WARREN SEKULIC: I actually haven't been a certified pesticide applicator so I do have a significant amount of training in the use.

PC: And so you know your next door to you in Saskatchewan, there is that class action suit by a bunch of farmers claiming that roundup has caused their cancers. Does any of that give you pause?

WARREN SEKULIC: No. No not really because the regulatory agencies are staffed with people that are you know PHD level knowledge in toxicology and the science of how these things interact with us. And every single one of them is sitting it safe. So I don't have any concerns. No.

PC: So you know we consumers are eating your and thousands of others farmers crops. And so for us we're probably more concerned about like, hey, is eating this stuff safe for us? So how would those of us eating your crops know if there's glyphosate residue? Like Do you have to test your grain once it's in the band for glyphosate residues?

WARREN SEKULIC: I specifically, at a personal farmer level, I don't have to test my grain that's in the bin. But in terms of the grain that I'm delivering into the system, the grain commission, the Canadian Grain Commission tests and monitors are all kinds of parameters of safety residue limits all kinds of parameters to the sea, see the category Commission does tests for lots of this stuff, because we market to some of the most discerning customers in the world. So the product is tested.

PC: Do you think Health Canada is doing enough to educate the public about roundup and its safety?

WARREN SEKULIC: I don't necessarily know. I don't think they are. I don't know if that's their mandate but they say that it's safe. I've been to the PMRA myself and they grilled me over my use rates, my use pattern, like how I use it just to be sure that how we're using it in the real world is safe.

PC: You said that Roundup or glyphosate is a game changer for you and your farm in many ways. One of those was economically. You know this very well it is a tough time for you as a canola farmer right now with tensions with China. What would happen to your industry do you think if you stopped using Roundup.

WARREN SEKULIC: Oh it would be it would be catastrophic. The production system of zero tillage is probably not feasible without it. So we would be going back to having to chill and so if we are having to go back to our older practices that we're using in the 80s we're going to burn a heck of a lot more fuel that sequestering carbon is going to be released as the organic material breaks down. Our production is going to decrease significantly. It's kind of the cornerstone of this system and this system has been like I said a game changer to us. So it's significant. This whole process is significantly concerning to me.

PC: Warren thank you for your perspective.

WARREN SEKULIC: Thank you for having me on.

PC: Bye bye. But Warren psychology is a farmer near Rye Croft northern Alberta and a director with the Grain Growers of Canada. We asked Health Canada for an interview but it directed us to a previous statement from January. It refers to a review of glyphosate safety and it says in part quote: "following the release of the department's final re-evaluation decision on glyphosate in 2017 Health Canada received eight notices of objection, after a thorough scientific review we have concluded that the concerns raised by the objectors could not be scientifically supported when considering the entire body of relevant data. Therefore the department's final decision will stand". End quote. Health Canada also points out that no pesticide regulatory authority in the world considers glyphosate to be a cancer risk to humans at the levels at which humans are currently exposed. Nonetheless the Canadian Association of Physicians for the environment has been raising concerns about the safety of glyphosate. Dr. Jean Zigby is the association's past president. He is a family palliative care specialist and the associate director of the strong families Cancer Prevention Centre at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal and that is where we have reached him. Hello.

JEAN ZIGBY: Good morning.

PC: So I just read part but a lengthy part of Health Canada's position. How do you respond to that?

WARREN SEKULIC: The way that we respond to it is in fact to continue to hopefully convince Health Canada that there is a significant body of literature which they're not considering relevant, which independent researchers and physicians would consider relevant,, which would suggest that we would have to look more closely at glyphosate and other pesticides before saying that they are safe to use everywhere in whichever way that people would want to as long as you're following the label.

PC: What are your concerns about this?

WARREN SEKULIC: So our concerns are: Number one, there are many other coal formulations. In other words there's other ingredients in these pesticides which are used with glyphosate which are truly not tested adequately and can sometimes make the glyphosate products much more toxic than the glyphosate itself. And the vast majority of the studies which are being assessed actually take that into account. As well, the Health Canada and the PMRA despite their their very excellent efforts are unfortunately limited by the research which they have to ask from the parent companies to conduct.

PC: And the PMRA that's the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, yes?

JEAN ZIGBY: Exactly so that's the branch of Health Canada which is responsible for allowing the sale and the regulations around the sale for those chemicals in Canada.

PC: Okay. I want to play a bit of tape from you. This is Professor Emeritus Keith Solomon who we spoke with. He's at the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph. He has reviewed the literature on glyphosate for the Organization of American States. I should also say that he has received funding from Monsanto for his work. Take a listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

There's no evidence to show that glyphosate is a carcinogen in the sense of the claims that have been made. That is exactly what the United States Environmental Protection Agency said in the recent release that they put out a few days ago. It's what the Australian regulatory agency said. It's what the European Food Safety Agency said. All of them have agreed that it is not a human carcenogen.

PC: So Dr John Zogby How do you square your perspective with that one? Which is also held by Health Canada and other international health authorities.

JEAN ZIGBY: Well again it all depends upon how you how hard you look and whether these studies which are designed to actually find the changes which you really want to look for. Unfortunately we're very unconvinced that the quality of the studies which are being asked for actually look at the carcinogenic city in a very way meaning throughout the entire lifecycle. And certainly the idea that that labels are going to be able to protect the population is a little less than than convincing to us.

PC: You obviously know this as a medical professional much better than I. But it is hard to figure out directly what causes a cancer most often. So what evidence could you hold up that contradicts the science that Health Canada and others holds up?

JEAN ZIGBY: So the the most important evidence I think would be the fact that the industry studies which look at the genome toxicity, in other words the likelihood that these pesticides actually cause damage to genetic material, was found in very very few if any of the industry results. But in fact when you look at the independent studies they found that about 75 percent of the studies seem to indicate that these chemicals cause genetic damage.

PC: So what do you want Health Canada to do in terms of what kind of testing would you like the Health Canada to do?

JEAN ZIGBY: I think it's important that we start looking at the entire lifecycle of the animal studies that they're asking for as well as multigenerational animal studies to see what the effects are on not just the animal during a certain period of its life but throughout the entire lifecycle from birth to to death and through pregnancy and as well as the effects on the the children of those animals in order to see whether those can actually be affected by it as well as looking at the effects of multiple chemicals simultaneously which is certainly not asked for right now.

PC: And in the meantime or at least for now or maybe forever do you think there should be an outright ban on Roundup?

JEAN ZIGBY: That's a ban is one very crude tool. I think that based on a lot of issues which are happening right now, at both eco systemically and with respect to how many chemicals are out there possibly affecting our health, it's definitely one of the factors that has to be taken into account, and certainly glyphosate is being sprayed at an extremely large amount into the environment.

PC: And so when you hear from farmers like Warren cyclists who ,,says you know glyphosate is such a crucial part of my farming what do you want to say to him.

JEAN ZIGBY: I want to say you know that it's a very very tenuous thing to be dependent on one chemical in one chemical alone. I completely understand that it changed the lives of those farmers and I don't argue that. But unfortunately like the antibiotics which are used to treat infections the product which is being used will eventually develop resistance and will we will have to adapt to the loss of its efficacy sooner or later and the sooner the better.

PC: And for you know there's so many Canadians gardeners who use like a small spray bottle of Roundup I can picture my head on there you know flowers and their vegetable gardens. What do you want to say to them?

WARREN SEKULIC: I would say try as much as possible to not use pesticides at all. And in fact we are strongly advocating the ban of all what we would call cosmetic pesticides when you can very easily remove the offending agents using a physical means specially when it can potentially lead to animals and children being exposed.

PC: Dr. Zigby thank you very much for your perspective as well. You're very welcome. Thank you. Dr. Jean Zigby is a palliative care doctor in Montreal and the past president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the environment.

KARIN MARLEY: Hi, I'm Karin Marley - a producer here at The Current. This week the show was produced by: Idella Sturino, Alison Masemann, Howard Goldenthal, Samira Mohyeddin, John Chipman, Julie Crysler, Ines Colabrese, Danielle Carr, Jessica Linzey, Sarah-Joyce Battersby, Julianne Hazlewood, Rachel Levy-McLaughlin and Cameron Perrier. Special thanks to the CBC's Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg, Susan McKenzie in Montreal, and Anne Penman in Vancouver. The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producers are Padraig Moran, Emilie Quesnel and Kirsten Fenn. Transcriptions are provided by Rasha Shehata and Shamhan Bhuiyan. Our technical producer is Gary Francis. Our documentary editor is Joan Webber, and our presentation producer is Liz Hoath. Our senior producers are Pacinthe Mattar in Toronto, and Cathy Simon and Geoff Turner in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Willow Smith. And of course, the host of the Current - Anna Maria Tremonti.PC: That is the program for today stay tuned to Radio One for Q and more from Q's trip to Nunavut with a performance from Juno Award winners, The Jerry Cans. Finally as you may have heard U.S. President Donald Trump granted Canadian publisher Conrad Black a pardon this week. So to mark the occasion we are going to leave you with one of our most popular last words of our show. Following the re-election of President Barack Obama in 2012 Conrad Black penned an op ed decrying what he saw as a disaster for America. Our producer Howard Goldenthal then five year old son had some questions about that. So here from November 8, 2012 is Mitchell Cait-Goldenthal reading Conrad Black. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay thank you for lending us your ear here on the Friday edition of The Current.

VOICE: Before your time, Mitchell.

MITCHELL: There are five million fewer people working them four years ago. Foot stamp fuels have doubled and almost as many people have criminal records ranked by the country's fascistic justice system. What did that mean?

VOICE: Lord Black had some legal problems in Chicago.

MITCHELL: Some Fiscal Blunder pass. Will be compacted. That will make a snail's progress. On the deficit and strangle the pitiful scream of economic recovery that this regime has generated with [unintelligigble] of that.

What doeos that mean? It's really weird what I am saying.

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