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The Current Transcript for May 24, 2019

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

LARA LYNCH: I'm Laura Lynch and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

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Theresa May's successor will face 'exactly same problem' of divided Britain, says historian

Guests: Margaret Evans, Anne Applebaum

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I have voted for the Brexit party because I voted in the other referendum to leave the EU and my wish has not been undertaken.

VOICE 2: I also feel it is important send a message that we should be in it which should be in Europe. And whoever we do send here for whatever length of time until Brexit does or doesn't happen should be people that care about the European Union and care about the UK's place in Europe.

LL: So much happening in British politics today. There is an election under way but it's an election that in some sense was never supposed to have happened. Brits are joining fellow citizens of the European Union in EU parliamentary elections sending representatives to Brussels. There are actually 751 seats up for grabs including 73 from the UK. That is despite the fact that Britons voted to leave the EU in a 2016 referendum and of course that Brexit has proven elusive. And then just hours ago Prime Minister Theresa May announced her resignation for failing to deliver on Brexit. Watching closely all of this is Margaret Evans the CBC senior Europe correspondent. She's based in London. And that's where she is today. Hi Margaret.

MARGARET EVANS: Good morning Laura.

LL: So why did Theresa May resign?

MARGARET EVANS: Well you know most people here would be saying why has she lasted as long as she did almost the entire time of her tenure - before and after you know an ill-fated decision to have a snap election and she just barely hung on there - she has been dogged by this Brexit issue and the phrases that earned her in in the press here the nickname The Maybot these kind of robotic Brexit means Brexit kind of lines. But she just hasn't been able to deliver. She hasn't been able to conquer that classic age old division within the Conservative Party between the hard liner Euro sceptics who have always been there but been growing in strength and those who would like to see compromise. And when she did resign this morning and she resigned, I should point out, as leader of the Conservative party. She will remain as as prime minister while this leadership contest goes on. She will be prime minister you know hosting Donald Trump when he comes here in just over a week's time. But she hasn't been able to conquer this divide and she wanted to try to get this Brexit deal through. She's already tried to get it through Parliament three times had been rejected. She said she was going to try for a fourth time and at that point this very already fractured cabinet started to see more fractures and his one comedian here has put it. She has lost so many cabinet ministers over the course of her time in power that the only way you actually know somebody who's been in Cabinet is when they resign.

LL: You mentioned that she had been such a survivor in the Conservative Party over the years, a party that has torn its leaders to pieces, is tearing itself apart. So who are the people who are seen as her possible successors?

MARGARET EVANS: Well there are at least a dozen names floating around as being interested in the job. The one that floated to the top as the most likely the frontrunner according to the bookies and to lots of the pundits here, we all know him very well. He's that colourful figure Boris Johnson, you know with a straw coloured hair, a former mayor of London and the former Foreign Secretary. I know him from days of old in the Brussels press courts back in the 1990s when he used to torment the former European Commission President Jacques Delors. But he has a lot of critics too. I mean you know the people we all go to kind of take the pulse of the city, my cab driver this morning, said to me 'Oh I thank goodness Theresa May is has finally gone. But the problem is that we're more like we're going to have that clown in power' and a lot of people do see him as clown like. But he is considered the front runner and he has the support of a lot of the hard line Brexiteers and they're the ones who seem to have the upper hand right now within the Conservative Party because they're the ones who've managed to drive Theresa May out of her job.

MARGARET EVANS: And if he in fact does a seat to the leadership of the party in the prime minister ship could he succeed where she failed?

LL: You know a lot of people say they don't think anybody can succeed at this stage that it's no longer even about individuals because the party is so divided, and that party that sort of malaise has spread outside and beyond the party to the Labour Party the opposition party to the country itself which is just extremely divided. You've had three years of incredible turmoil here and uncertainty and a lot of people really unhappy now about the fact yet the next prime minister of the country is going to be chosen by the Conservative Party. And most people think it will be a hard liner who wants to just take Britain out at any cost which means without an agreement. So it could be quite chaotic. How do you do that without actually going back to a general election. But you know there are other people who say you know it's undemocratic because there was a referendum here. But the problem of the divisions over Brexit are not going to just disappear. And even when you take, if you do take Britain out of the European Union, those divisions are not going to disappear.

LL: But let's tie this in then to the E.U. elections. The Brexit party is expected to do spectacularly well in the EU elections at the expense of the Tories. What impact will that have on the conservatives as they choose a new leader?

MARGARET EVANS: Well the Brexit party is led by another familiar face Nigel Farage who was the former leader of the UK the United Kingdom Independence Party and he's fighting these European Parliament elections on you know saying we are the only party who will guarantee that we can take Britain out of the EU without a deal no matter what. We're going. He's benefiting in part from the huge rage that a lot of people, whether they're for or against leaving the European Union, feel within the Conservative Party. You know the conservative supposed to do abysmally in the European Parliament elections and so he's benefiting from that but he's also benefiting from a split on the other side, people who want to remain in the European Union. There are two or three different parties actually more than that if you count the Scottish National Party up in Scotland who are campaigning on remain. But they're splitting that vote. But he is a rabble rouser. He's a populist. He's close to the fringes on the right here in the United Kingdom. And he will drive the debate within the Conservative Party because they see their support haemorrhaging to him just like David Cameron who's the man who called the referendum, the former conservative prime minister, was afraid of haemorrhaging support to UKIP and therefore called the election. And so that's the power that he's going to hold. He'll be a tail wagging the dog but he believes he has the power to actually split that dog in half and be sort of you know the harbinger of its doom if you like, because he believes that most conservatives will support the Brexit party. So it's going to keep the right wingers or the hard right, the ones who want to see a really deliberate hard exit from the European Union, I think, in the forefront of the leadership card contest within the Conservative Party.

LL: Margaret we've got just about 30 seconds left and I'm wondering as you watch the politics unfold in the UK what do you think is at stake for the EU?

MARGARET EVANS: For the EU, I think in a funny way the European Union has actually benefited a little bit from how messy the Brexit process has been because they're also- you're seeing other populist parties who want to kind of be the Trojan Horse within the European Union, running for parliament, wanting to split it up who are against it. But they're also people looking at it saying wow we don't want that mess and they also understand some of the costs to Britain of leaving the European Union as well. So you know it has cons it but it also has benefits in terms of support for the ideals of European integration.

LL: Margaret thanks for your time this morning.

MARGARET EVANS: Always a pleasure Laura.

LL: Margaret Evans is CBC senior Europe correspondent she is in London. Well far right politicians from across Europe are expecting to see best ever showings in the EU elections this week and those breakthroughs could have other unexpected consequences across the political spectrum. Anne Applebaum is a Pulitzer prise winning journalist and a historian who is a columnist for The Washington Post and she joins me from Northwest, Poland. Hello.

ANNE APPLEBAUM: Hello.

LL: First of all I just wonder if I could get your reaction to Theresa May's announcement of her resignation.

ANNE APPLEBAUM: It's incredible that it took so long to happen. People have been talking about her wanting her resignation for months and months plotting it, planning it, discussing it and she's finally done it. I mean the irony is that whoever is her successor with whatever point of view they have they're going to face exactly the same dilemma and exactly the same problem which is there is no majority inside the current British parliament for anything, not for leaving, not for staying, not for any compromise.

LL: Now you heard Margaret there refer to Nigel Farage in the Brexit party and where he sits on the political spectrum. They're expected to do well in the EU elections. Who are who are the most influential and other prominent far right leaders across the continent?

ANNE APPLEBAUM: So there's a range of far right leaders who have really for the first time been trying to conduct a cross European campaign. They include Matteo Salvini Italy. The leader of a party called the Northern League, Viktor Orban in Hungary who's actually the prime minister. [Unintelligible] I should say is part of the Italian government. And then some who are not in government like the likes of Marine Le Pen's National Rally in France and a handful of others, the Sweden Democrats in Sweden. They've been trying to conduct a European campaign. They actually do some joint messaging so you can find them spreading. There's a kind of international alt right now that spreads messages and means and ideas from country to country. At a different level they've also been trying to create some kind of new party inside Europe or some kind of new organization, with some mixed success. These are very different parties. They have different backgrounds and although they agree that they're against the establishment whatever the establishment is they don't necessarily agree on where they're going.

LL: So how much power do you expect they'll hold after this EU election?

ANNE APPLEBAUM: It's very hard to predict. And we just had some exit polls from the Dutch elections which will be counted on Sunday. A couple of countries vote early. Most European countries are voting on Sunday. None of the votes are counted until then. And the exit polls show that the Dutch far right wing did unexpectedly well in recent elections there has remained the same. And instead voters were flocking to the centre left. And this is what just happened in Spain. If you want to go near parliamentary election. While there is certainly a rise you hear more about the far right there. There are much more prominent. They are at the centre of politics. They're speaking to one another across borders. You're also now having a counter reaction a kind of pushback as people are beginning to hear these this language that begin to be afraid of it. They're afraid of the country's leading youth and they're beginning to revert to either centrist or in some cases new pro-European parties. So while I do expect a surge in the far right support I also expect a surge in Green Party support in a number of countries, as well as for parties that have kind of green or ecological values which is something that has come to prominence a lot of European elections it's very hard to guess. I mean the far right is not going to have a decisive voice in the new European Parliament. There's no projections by which they have any kind of majority but they'll be more visible. They'll be more influential. Of course there their language is often very destructive and their behaviour is destructive. Nigel Farage spent a lot of time trying to disrupt the work of the European Parliament rather than contributing to it. So we can expect more of that. However the reason I'm sounding and this- I think we may see a backlash as well.

LL: So then how much support is there in Europe for the European Union across Europe right now?

ANNE APPLEBAUM: Well funny enough as your previous correspondent said one of the side effects of Brexit is that it made a lot of countries fearful that their country too might leave the European Union. And a lot of people have turned against it and support for the European Union has gone up. It's that kind of skyrocket high level in Central Europe even though you hear a lot about how supposedly anti-European they are. Countries don't want to leave it. A number of the far right parties who were in favour of their countries leaving for example Marine Le Pen French far right party have now changed their policy. And they say no we don't want to leave it we just want to change it over there. They're unclear about how they want to change it. The same is true of the Swedish far right and actually even with the Italian far right who ran against the European Union. But when it gets right down to it what they seem to want is for the for the eurozone bankers to give them. Let them have wider budget deficit. I mean so in effect you're using this anti-European language in order to push for some change or shift in the treaties or new [unintelligible] that they want. So you actually have a surge of support for the community. I mean it's partly a reaction in some ways to Brexit is partly to Donald Trump. People are afraid now that the world is becoming- you know we have the United States on the one hand we have China on the other hand we have Russia on the other hand. Where will Europe be if it splits up it will just be a lot of small countries with no power? And people beginning to see that kind of clinging to the European Union as a kind of security blanket or institution that can offer people safety and a larger voice in the world. And although I don't want to be too Pollyanna-ish about it or over optimistic you see that trend really across with some exceptions but really across the continent.

LL: And in Poland as well I take it.

ANNE APPLEBAUM: Absolutely in Poland. And in Poland support for the European Union is at an all-time high of 91 percent. So despite the current government making anti-European noises the country doesn't support, certainly doesn't support, the European Union.

LL: All right Anne Applebaum we'll have to leave it there. Thank you.

ANNE APPLEBAUM: Thank you.

LL: Anne Applebaum is a Pulitzer prise winning journalist and historian who writes a column for The Washington Post and she joined me from Northwest Poland. We're going to have to wait a few days to see the EU election results but we are seeing signs as we just talked about of a grassroots backlash against the far right. The Current's producer Julie Chrysler has been looking into it.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: That's what you get for being fascist.

JULIE CHRUSLER: The slogan is lactose against intolerance. And that video has inspired something of a movement. It shows young men pouring his milkshake on Tommy Robinson a far right candidate for the European Parliament. In recent weeks, other politicians have become targets too including Nigel Farage. He's a Brexit campaigner known for his anti-immigration views. On Thursday he refused to get off his bus when it was surrounded by protesters. Some appeared to be armed with milkshakes, or according to some reports, iced lattes. Nigel Farage may have been right to be nervous though, after all on Monday he got a milkshake to the chest during a campaign stop in Newcastle. This man was charged with assault but he was unrepentant.

VOICE 2: The bile and the racism that he spouts out in this country is far more damaging than a milkshake to his body.

VOICE 3: What flavour was it?

VOICE 2: It was a banana and salted caramel. I was actually quite looking forward to it.

ADITYA CHAKRABORTTY: I think the month of May if it's remembered anything one of the things that we remembered for in Britain will be the start of our very own milkshake spring.

JULIE CHRUSLER: That's Aditya Chakrabortty, a reporter columnist at The Guardian.

ADITYA CHAKRABORTTY: The thing that's really important to bear in mind about British politics at the moment is we have a whole bunch of really horrible- I think everyone would agree that some of these guys are really horrible. Some of them have served time in prison. A lot of them said racist things. Some if them said downright misogynist things. It's a way of taking someone down a peg or two without doing them any actual bodily harm.

JULIE CHRUSLER: For Canadians the idea of using a dairy product and political protest might sound a bit familiar.

NEWSCASTER: In the news tonight Alberta's premier gets creamed at the Calgary Stampede.

JULIE CHRUSLER: During the late 90s and early 2000s a series of Canadian politicians found themselves on the receiving end of cream pies and that included a prime minister.

VOICE 4: Probably almost every Canadian has wished they could pie Jean Chretien. But since we heard that Chretien was coming to Prince Edward Island we thought about it and talked about it and we came up with a plan.

JULIE CHRUSLER: Among those targeted by tarts was Pierre Pettigrew. He was Minister of Human Resources Development when he got hit with a pie at an event in Montreal.

PIERRE PETTIGREW: All of a sudden I got that by and at the back the guy had written in French [French speech] 'On behalf of the unemployed'. It was something like I would think white shaving cream. I didn't spend too much time tasting it. But it wasn't. It wasn't a pleasant experience for sure.

JULIE CHRUSLER: You can hear he has a bit of a sense of humour about the whole thing but Pierre Pettigrew also seem concerned that throwing food is once again part of a political fight.

PIERRE PETTIGREW: At first on the fraction of a second you get scared because it is a physical assault. I don't think we should touch the persons of the individuals who serve, whatever their ideology. We should try to find other ways to express ourselves. You know what they say. It is theatre. I mean they should be at the other end of it once you understand what it really is.

JULIE CHRUSLER: Whatever it really is. Milk shaking seems to be shaking up British politics. And some say certain candidates are just getting their just desserts.

LL: And that is the CBC's Julie Chrysler.

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Tower of London welcomes its first raven chicks in 3 decades

Guest: Christopher Skaife

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. Still to come we've all been there but it can still seem like a foreign alien land and I'm referring to high school. In a few minutes CBC journalist Jason D'Souza takes us along as he braves a return to the corridors of secondary school. But first not another royal baby exactly but an exciting birth announcement from the Tower of London.

SOUNDCLIP

[Raven chicks noise]

LL: That is the sound of some freshly hatched Raven chicks. The newest members of the legendary family of Ravens at the Tower of London. You may remember that last year I spoke with Christopher Skaife and he's the man with the enviable position of being the raven master at the tower. Legend has it that if the ravens should ever leave the tower the tower itself will crumble to dust and a great harm will befall the kingdom. So there is a lot riding on Christopher Skaife's job. And just last month Mr. Scaife got a little bit more job security for the first time in 30 years. Raven chicks have been born at the Tower of London and that is a lot to crow about - pardon the pun. Christopher SKaife is back with me this morning. He's in London. Hello.

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: Hello there. How are you?

LL: I'm fine thank you. Congratulations. How are the babies doing?

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: They're doing really really well, growing up very fast indeed.

LL: did I just hear one in the background there'

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: Yes. I'll get you on the phone. It's George.

LL: Hello. George.

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: George has gone all shy.

LL: So George is one of the babies. He was born to Huginn and Muninn the parents. Christopher tell me how Huginn and Muninn, the parents of the chicks, came to stay and breed at the tower.

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: Well a year or so ago one a friend of mine he asked me if I'd want to take on his breeding pair of ravens and they would get into about twelve thirteen years of age and he was older and he was worried that they were going to outlive him. So he asked me if I wanted to take them on here at the Tower of London. I asked the tower and they said yes let's go for it.

LL: So you had to make a home for them there, what did you do?

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: Yes so what we've done is we took the enclosure that they were already in so they'd been in the enclosure all their lives. We moved it lock stock and barrel so to speak all the way to the Tower of London. And we set it up in a quiet recess inside the moat. So they're not actually visible to the public as you come in. So they're in a nice quiet area. So they could do their business on their own.

LL: Do their business. So when did you first have a sense that there might be some babies. [Chick noise] Oh ok there goes George.

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: Go ahead feeding him some beef at the moments.

LL: Okay . And did you set them to do their business that quickly given the disruption in their lives?

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: No I absolutely didn't. To be honest with you, it is a bit of a shock for me. There was a huge amount of disruption for them and one morning I went down to feed them and I'd been putting in twigs and [unintelligible] so that they could build a nest for about a month or so. And I went down one morning and the female Raven had built this huge nest and it kind of took me by surprise to be honest with you.

LL: And then what happened?

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: Well we kind of let nature take its course and we left them alone while I stood back. You know I've got everybody from the tower to move away and not go down and see them and we let nature take its course. And then one morning I went down there and I saw that the female was actually sitting on the nest. So I would presume that, although we didn't have any cameras in place or anything like that, we presume that she was sitting on eggs.

LL: And then and then you heard the chirping, and as we've already said the name of one of the chicks, George, who we hear in the background. Why did you pick the name George?

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: It was an ideal time to first realize that we could hear the chirping was on the twenty third of April which happens to be St. George's Day here in England. St. George is Patron saint of England. And so it was an ideal name to call it George. Or perhaps because we don't know the sex. Georgie.

LL: Oh okay. So you do know the sex yet?

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: No we don't. We don't at this moment but we'll find out in the future. So we're kind of leave it leave it in the air. But George it is for now.

LL: Okay. So tell me what George looks like.

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: What Georgia's grown up really really fast. You know he's a month down the line and when they first hatched they look rather Jurassic. They're not the prettiest of chicks but he's growing up really fast and he's very very adult like. Now he's still got his his babyness around his face and the pink on its mouth and he's still got a couple of his baby feathers but he's doing really well.

LL: Now when I spoke to you in the past about the Ravens you really were very good at describing how they had, each had, very distinctive personalities. Do you see Georgia's personality emerging already?

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: Yes I think I do. I mean and I go down and I see him developing day on day on and yes he's quite a shy Raven which is quite nice because. Some of ours are very boisterous. So I'll keep an eye on him and see how he does. I think he'll fit in really well with the other Ravens at the Tower of London.

LL: And what about the other babies? Where are they?

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: Well the other babies have gone to the countryside. They've gone to live in the countryside with a friend of mine. He's going to look after them for me. We don't have enough space here at the Tower of London to have them all. So he will look after them and should we need them when he calls them back to duty.

LL: Why did you want to do this, raise chicks at the tower instead of just getting them from outside breeders?

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: Well we have to look at the laws of the land here. And so the Ravens have to be born in captivity for educational display purposes, as per the law of the land here. And there's a few legal captive live in breed is around. And so we will kind of get into the point where we were looking at it and thinking you know maybe we should breed our own just to secure our future here at the Tower of London for our Ravens.

LL: And when I spoke with you last year you describes some really pretty crazy things that you did in order to protect the Ravens and the safety of the kingdom. I'm wondering how protective you feel of the babies now.

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: I do the same all over again should I have to. I am probably the only person who swung on the White Tower spire trying to catch a wave and so on I would do it all again in the preservation of the country.

LL: And for the babies, are you like a new dad?

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: I am the happiest father although someone said to me grandfather the other day. I took a bit of umbrage to that one. But I am the happiest father around at the moment. I'm so pleased that they've had babies here. It's so exciting for the Tower of London.

LL: And when will the public get a chance to get their first glimpse of George?

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: Well you can see George on social media. He's going to be appearing tomorrow I believe on social media on my Reven Master social pages and to the public in the next week or so. I mean he's still living around my house that moment running up and down my corridor and pooing in my living room. But other than that they'll be out in the next couple of weeks.

LL: Christopher congratulations again and thanks for talking to me.

CHRISTOPHER SKAIFE: You're more than welcome.

LL: Christopher Scaife is the raven master of the Tower of London and that is where we reached him.

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What happens when you send a journalist back to high school?

Guest: Jason D’Souza

LL: I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. Well get ready for those of you who have fond or not so fond memories of high school because we're all about to go back there with someone who isn't a high school student anymore but took the time to look into it.

SOUNDCLIP

I think it's an issue. I don't think it's an issue because we need to get to class on time because usually the important stuff happens like in the first 10-15 minutes. Right. And if you're not there for the first 15 minutes just kind of point going because you don't know what's going on. But you still should. First of all we're calling all of us out because this is a big issue right.

LL: That brings back memories. The struggle to get to class on time one of the fundamental challenges of high school life. And you add into that the parental expectations, changing bodies, the struggle to find a place in the social order. High school can be very fraught. But even just a few years into adulthood the world of teenagers can seem like a far away island with its own language, its own customs. And Jason D'Souza is a producer with CBC Vancouver and he recently took a journey back to that place. He spent a month embedded at L.A. Matheson secondary school in Surrey, B.C. and he's turned that experience into a series that explores the lives of high schoolers on their own terms. And Jason D'Souza joins me now to share his experiences. Hi Jason.

JASON D'SOUZA: Hi Laura.

LL: So when you say you were embedded - this is your word - what do you mean by that?

JASON D'SOUZA: I mean full immersion. I was enrolled in an a full grade 11 class schedule which means I was at school every single day for the first class that early morning as we heard there at 8:00 in the morning up until the last class until 3 o'clock. I should be super clear, this wasn't 21 Jump Street. I wasn't undercover trying to pretend to be a student. But yes. There was that level of immersion and the reason for effectively embedding myself into a full class schedule for an entire month was to get to know these students and perhaps more importantly than that for these students to get used to the fact that there was a 28 year old man hanging out with them in class every single day.

LL: So what was the point of all of this?

JASON D'SOUZA: Well it feels like we only ever talk about teenagers in the context of a problem either they're taking drugs, they're spending too much time on line, they're not sleeping enough. You know it's the perennial kind of topic when we talk about young people. And the other aspect of all of this is we always talk to people about teenagers. We so rarely hear from teenagers themselves. And when we do, how often is it really unfiltered so that they would feel comfortable talking about anything really.

LL: That you have been out of school for more than a decade. I'm wondering what it was like to actually be back in a classroom with a bunch of teenagers.

JASON D'SOUZA: It was this interesting juxtaposition between being strange and also being familiar. I found myself choosing clothes to at least try to fit in with my classmates and not come across as the journalist in class or just another teacher. And a lot of ways I went back to being high school Jason. I think though the most striking thing was probably the presence of smartphones in the classroom. This was completely different than when I was in high school. And how this technology plays in the social lives of these students.

LL: But you're only 28. Didn't you have a phone when you were in school?

JASON D'SOUZA: I actually got my first cell phone when I was in grade 12. It was this really lame Motorola slider.

LL: I don't know what that is.

JASON D'SOUZA: It's in the context of today's technology it was a brick essentially all right Laura. I think I was able to send something like a hundred text a month which you know I used up within three days or something. But I felt like a big deal at the time, but the phone wasn't this all consuming preoccupation that it is now. And we were also really restricted in how we could use it because they were completely and utterly forbidden in class.

LL: So how is that changed?

JASON D'SOUZA: Well I found out from one of my classmates, Duggan Cattail, a Grade 11 student that there's no real hard and fast rule about phones in class. Different teachers have different policies around it. And we were in Mr. McKillop Grade 11 English class when Duggan got his phone taken away and I took the opportunity to ask him if that confiscation happens often.

SOUNDCLIP

DUGGAN: I think some teachers are strict about it some teachers aren't like not. Mr. McKillop he just takes it away for the rest of us. There are some teachers I'll give it to you at the end of the day and this teachers does tell you to put it away and then not really care about it.

JASON D'SOUZA: When did you first get a cellphone?

DUGGAN: I got it last year.

JASON D'SOUZA: There's probably a lot of people that had one like Grade 8 and like elementary school?

DUGGAN: They did. And I was only one that did not because my mom felt like you should be focussing on your work. And then when you're old enough to make phone calls we'll get you one. And she did.

LL: Okay it sounds like even though he's got the phone now it's still kind of working out the right balance.

JASON D'SOUZA: Yeah I would suggest everyone is, including teachers. Policy wise, there's also this balance that's trying to be struck as well. You know should they continue to ban cell phones straight up? Sometimes it may feel like that's the obvious solution but Mr. McKillop says we're in a completely different time nowadays.

SOUNDCLIP

MR. MCKILLOP: We are in some post real world where you are working on an understanding with kids rather than guiding with rules. Whatever rule you give them is going to be broken. The second day in my class we negotiate the terms of how we'll treat each other, how I'll treat them, how they'll treat me, how they'll treat each other and. Cell phones are part of that discussion. The research I've seen says that cell phones will inhibit their growth in my classroom. So I tell them that. They tell me how they'll die without the cell phone and we work it out from there.

LL: They'll die without their phones. So this is life or death is it?

JASON D'SOUZA: Yes sure. I mean obviously there's some hyperbole in that, but I have a lot more empathy now that I understand how critical social media is for high school students today. Simron Lal is a Grade 11 student that I had social justice class with and when I asked her about social media she had a really interesting response Laura. It gave me a sense at just what's at stake here when it comes to smartphone use.

SOUNDCLIP

I feel like in our age group especially Snapchat is really important. You got to Snapchat what are you doing, Snapchat what you eat, you got to Snapchat like you're at a party. You got to Snapchat your friend just to tell them you are with this guy, that kind of thing going on. And like Instagram but like what we have is like Facebook stereotype that's for old people right. When I have Instagram I have certain posts that like my mom follows me. But I like block from seeing my posts. So in certain ways you had that kind of thing because you don't want everybody to know, but you have only like you want show off to a certain person or certain thing.

LL: I kind of understand what Snapchat is. I'm not a user of it but I get what it is. But the way she's talking about it it sounds like so much to deal with. It sounds like a job.

JASON D'SOUZA: Exactly. Right. I mean listen to the language that she uses there. You get this sense that the phone and social media apps they aren't just fun accessories. You heard her say Snapchat is important. She says you got to Snapchat what you're doing. Got to Snapchat what you eat. Got to Snapchat that you're at a party. So she's talking about it like it's a responsibility. On top of that you know the tricky real social challenges of being in high school.

LL: It really starts to sound like a burden and I know there's all kinds of anxiety among parents and educators about that. And we heard that she's fencing stuff off from her parents so they don't know about it. What's your sense of how well your classmates are navigating all that?

JASON D'SOUZA: This was one of the topics that I found myself really really intrigued by because I think it's fair to say sometimes the older you get we can have a look at the younger generation and say they're really naive. They don't actually understand that what's at stake here, when it comes to their policy, when it comes to how they use their phones. There's just this level of lack of experience. And yet from my experience being in the classroom and seeing how these students use their social media accounts, I think these students actually have a really sophisticated sense of how social media works. That became really apparent when they introduced me to something called a spam account.

LL: Okay. Spam accounts. That doesn't sound particularly good.

JASON D'SOUZA: I know it doesn't but it's actually not what you think it is and I'll let a couple of my classmates explain. This is Kendra and Jaya and Misha who are Grade 12 students. They call themselves the Soul Sisters and just have a listen to how they describe it.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Your public account is just there like. It shows like who you are and if you're doing like whatever it is you're doing that you want find.

VOICE 2: Showcasing yourself.

VOICE 3: Showcasing your best parts.

VOICE 2: On your actual accounts.

VOICE 3: If you spam is like more vulnerable things. I would say I post a lot more vulnerable things on there than my main.

VOICE 1: Because it's more honest opinions.

VOICE 3: My mom knows about my mom and my mom followed me when she found it. Yes. That's also another thing with spam accounts, with parents who have social media. They're going to follow their kid right. Obviously you want to follow your mom back on Instagram right. Or like friend them on Facebook. But then you have like other things that you're not maybe yet comfortable. Or it's like a type of humour that isn't intergenerational humor.

VOICE 1: They'll be like 'are you okay? Is something wrong with you?'

JASON D'SOUZA: So who do you guys allow to follow you on your spam accounts?

VOICE 2: Close friends.

VOICE 1: Anybody that you pretty much can trust without them like criticizing you on that account.

LL: That is so interesting and I bet a lot of parents out there are going huh. Spam account.

JASON D'SOUZA: No kidding.

LL: They're allowing themselves to be vulnerable only in those certain little groups where they can control the audience, is that the idea?

JASON D'SOUZA: Exactly and I think there is something to be said about the intergenerational aspect of being a young person and wanting your own personal space away from your parents, away from these older people. And then on the flipside you hear them talking about showcasing themselves and showcasing their best parts. Which gets back to what we heard from Simron.

LL: But to what end? What were they doing all the showcasing for? I guess I get that opening yourself up and being vulnerable. But who's the audience for the showcase?

JASON D'SOUZA: There are probably as many answers to that as there are students at Matheson. But I think I started to get some clues when I caught wind about a party that was in the works. You know I feel like pop culture has turned this idea of the high school party is a kind of crucible of adolescent social angst. But even apart from the mean girls version of what a high school party is at the root of it or are these anxieties that come up. These anxieties run the relationships that are at play here between friends, between clicks, between those who get the invite to the party and those who don't. That last part that Simron and her friend Isha were trying to work out.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We just have this thing going on and. The brother of the girl who's house it is he is saying that we can only have like a limited amount of people, like 20 people and we have a lot more than that.

VOICE 2: I mean because in grade 11 that especially like in Matheson not a lot of parties happen all the time, so I guess when a party does happen, especially for seniors and grade 12s and 11, it's a big thing.

VOICE 1: I guess people just go to parties like if they're invited. It's just about popularity. Like if you don't go it's like you're not popular enough. You're not invited.

VOICE 2: I hate saying I he talking my popularity because it makes me feel because I have some friends that aren't as popular, but I'm still friends with them. I hate to say it. I feel like it just puts people down. But like in this case I'm just going to have to. It's as if you are just kind of quiet you have your own kind of set of friends. Sometimes those people they don't get invited because they are the quiet ones most people that get invited are the rowdy ones the fun ones. Right.

LL: Okay. That starts to sound like my high school experience. So that seems to be something that's pretty universal despite smartphones and Snapchat and all of that. It's who's in and who's out and who's considered cool. So maybe the showcasing is the way to get on the list.

JASON D'SOUZA: Absolutely. That's my theory anyway. When we heard from Simron earlier talk about this idea of you got a Snapchat who you're with and what you're doing. It's kind of as you mentioned it goes back to this idea of showcasing and wanting to fit in and wanting to get the invite to the party. We also heard in that clip there Laura, this idea that sometimes the quiet ones don't always get invited to the party. And I really got that feeling when I had a chance to sit down with Grade 11 student Monica Dongwall. She's in grade 11 and she is one of those quiet ones that Simron was alluding to. Every day she has lunch in this quiet corner of the school between a main hallway and a stair quiet case with a bunch of her friends, a few of her friends. You know it's really tucked away in this area of the school you could walk by it a thousand times and you might never see them. And to give you some context she only recently emigrated to Canada from India. And we had the chance to talk about what it was like to perhaps be outside of that bubble of popularity.

SOUNDCLIP

MONICA: When I came here I met lots of students. Some students on good but some like make laugh on you and like do not talk to you properly. So I just stay alone forever. And like I have a teacher who are my friends. So I thought if I don't have any friends teachers are my friends.

JASON D'SOUZA: What was it like trying to make friends here?

MONICA: So they all the time laugh at me. My clothes and all those stuffs. They just laugh at me. So I feel so alone. I don't want to stay in this school and all those jobs. But then my mom said to me, look, if anyone tried to make a laugh on you just smiled back at them and they will never laugh at you again. So I just did that. Then maybe not. So they not laugh at again and they just do their work and all. I feel my mom is right with these things.

LL: Oh my heart goes out to Monica. I had experience of that in high school too and it's just so painful.

JASON D'SOUZA: Laura I do want to reassure our listeners though that Monica has settled into her own group of friends now. But, yes, for anyone who has ever felt that kind of loneliness you can understand why classmates, or these students, feel the kind of pressure that they do to present this particular image online and to curate that image very carefully.

LL: You spent a lot of time trying to in essence be a Matheson's student and I don't want to press you on the academics so much, but tell me how you did socially. Did you get invited to the party?

JASON D'SOUZA: Spoiler alert, I tried. So I floated this idea to Simron I know that there was only a few spots left in terms of this list for the party. But would she be willing to add me to the list?

SOUNDCLIP

SIMRON: We can't be having snakes at the party. We can't have a [beep] started at the party.

JASON D'SOUZA: You think I'm a [beep].

SIMRON: No not you. But in general I'm just talking about parties in general, not you. You're really a chill laidback person so you're fine but-.

JASON D'SOUZA: You're being kind. Don't worry. I won't come to your party.

SIMRON: Okay decently you low key you want to go to the party, but Isha like she high key wants to go to the party. She really really wants to she's down for it.

JASON D'SOUZA: I tried.

LL: That's so funny. You really are a snake right. You got that.

JASON D'SOUZA: Yes.

LL: She said you're not but you are.

JASON D'SOUZA: The amount of times these students either called me an op, a low key Fed, or a narc. I could not count on enough fingers how many times I got called that. But I do have to say it was pretty unbelievable to speak to these kids and to hear them open up in these ways. It was such a incredible opportunity.

LL: Jason thanks so much for telling us about this. It's really interesting.

JASON D'SOUZA: Thank you so much, Laura.

LL: Jason D'Souza is the producer of the CBC Vancouver series Matheson, and you can read and hear more from the series at cbc.ca/bc. Coming up in our next half hour what to do with a problem like wild boars. It's not hypothetical. Wild boars and pigs have overrun parts of Europe and the states. And guess what? Canada could be next. I'm Laura Lynch in Vancouver and you are listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Canada is not dangerously overrun with wild pigs, yet

Guests: Daniel Simberloff, Drew Pratton, Ruth Aschim

RUTH ASCHIM: Hi.

LL: We just heard that Shel Silverstein poem and he'd rather not come close enough to be able to count a wild boars teeth, understandable. What stories have you heard about close encounters with these animals?

RUTH ASCHIM: In Canada, they are fairly elusive. So the only time I've heard of close encounters is when there's a hunter in the bush and a pig feels threatened or they've been wounded by a hunter and they will turn around and in charge a hunter, if they are threatened or wounded.

LL: And in other places where there are more of them, in Europe, are the encounters much more common?

RUTH ASCHIM: Yes but they aren't overly aggressive species. Again it's when they're threatened that they will attack or charge at you. But I liken them to a black bear where nine times out of ten they don't want anything to do with you. It's just if you're threatening their livelihood or safety.

LL: I think I can vouch for that having had an encounter with a wild boar in Barcelona once and it was more interested in the garbage pile than me. So thank goodness. Let's get our terms straight here wild boars, wild pigs, are they the same thing?

RUTH ASCHIM: Essentially but we use wild pigs now to generalize the term. So in Canada wild boar were brought over from Europe. These breeding stocks were brought over to farm to diversify our livestock production. What happened was these animals escaped from the farms or they were intentionally released. Then they were onto the landscape and we know that hybridisation with domestic pigs has occurred. So now we just heard them a wild pig because there is that mix of genetics on the landscape.

LL: What are some of their characteristics and behaviours?

RUTH ASCHIM: So one of the big things that wild pigs do is a rooting behaviour. And that's where they root up the vegetation and soil to access the vegetation as well as invertebrates in the soil. But this causes a large [unintelligible] like effect which can have a lot of environmental damage and this can also be detrimental if they get into crops, sandy crops especially. So this could result in crop damage or loss for producers.

LL: Now you mentioned that they had a tendency to escape or that they were released. Wasn't there concern about that at the time at the time?

RUTH ASCHIM: No there weren't a lot of regulations regarding these animals in the beginning. And I think a lot of people thought that they probably wouldn't be able to survive in the cold winters on our landscape. But we know wild boar are native to Eurasia. So they are native to parts of Russia. So these cold temperatures are not a limiting factor to their survival at all especially when we know that the majority of their range expansion and population expansion have occurred in Saskatchewan with some of the coldest winters in the Canadian provinces. So the cold really doesn't affect them and they're able to access a lot of resources to reproduce and survive.

LL: I believe that you coined a lovely little word to describe the shelters that they built for themselves in the cold pig loose.

RUTH ASCHIM: Pigloos, yes. We call them pigloos. So they insist Gadson especially they seem to really like to stay in wetland habitats where we have a lot of cat tail growth. So they will kind of pile up a cat tails make little nests for themselves and then if we get a good snow in the winter time they kind of create this little shelter for themselves. So it's called The Pig live. But they'll do it out of grass or for any kind of material that they can find that will keep them warm during the wintertime. \.

LL: And what do you find out about how they're multiplying?

RUTH ASCHIM: So we know about wild pigs have a high reproduction rate. An average wild pig litter is about six piglets per litter and we know that the gestation period is just under four months. So these pigs are able to reproduce more than once a year. And we know that the juveniles are the piglets become sexually mature between four to eight months of age. So they reproduce very very quickly which is why we're seeing this exponential range expansion. And over the past 27 years we've seen just as rapid increase in their distribution across Canada. So from the initial introductions onto the landscape in the early 1990s to current day it's just been a huge rapid increase in their range expansion specifically in the prairie provinces, but we are seeing it across Canada.

LL: So they're spreading fast?

RUTH ASCHIM: They are spreading fast. Yes yes.

LL: I want to play a clip for you now. It's of a hog country near Penhold, Alberta. That province has tried different things to reduce the number of wild pigs from offering a bounty to requiring more security for farms and here's what Ray Mackay says should be done.

SOUNDCLIP

You know it does get out of control. You've got to get autumn soon as you find them and get on them. I mean they're putting collars on them and everything and tracking on them and all. When they find them, you've got to get rid of them it's just like the problem with rats in Alberta you know. They don't put a collar on a rat and then go try to find the whole family.

LL: Now that's Ray McKay. He says hunting the wild pigs is the answer and hunters should have more leeway to go after them. Do you think hunting or culling work to kerb the problem in Canada is a good idea?

RUTH ASCHIM: No we actually say hunting makes the problem worse. Alberta had that done and they actually stopped bounty because sport hunting does not work. So what this does is it educates the animals. The move to a new area they will change their activity patterns of behaviour, will become more elusive and wary of humans presence. And they might become exclusively nocturnal which means we can't obviously hunt at night. Hunter effort kills between eight to 24 percent of the population. But with wild pigs you need to kill 80 percent or higher annually to actually decrease that population. So Hunter effort actually makes the problem worse. In the United States in areas where they are actively trying to eradicate wild pigs, they've actually banned sport hunting. It's not legal for wild pigs. So hunting and bounties will not work as a form of wild take management.

LL: So what does need to happen here in light of your research?

LL: So we need to have aggressive and targeted management and I think this needs to come from a national level. Currently it's only up to individual provinces how they want to manage their wild pig problem. I think it needs to come from a national framework as a very aggressive approach. As that hunter said you need to get after them quickly because we know they multiply because we know they are so smart. Multiple techniques seems to be a good answer as well because they're not as stimulated to one so they can't get used to a technique and start to avoid it which we know that they will do because again they're such smart animals. So we need an aggressive approach but with multiple different techniques kind of working at the same time.

LL: Ruth Aschim thank you for your time.

RUTH ASCHIM: Thanks for having me.

LL: Ruth Aschim is a PHC student at the University of Saskatchewan and she recently published a paper Tracking the Exponential Rise in the Wild Pig Population across Canada. We reached her in Nashville Tennessee. Well wild boars may be non-native to Canada but the British Isles were some of their original stomping grounds. They went extinct there three centuries ago. But as it turns out they're back. Wild boars from robust European herds have slowly trickled into the British Isles and spread out. And now they live in places like the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire and they're a source of delight to many, not to the government though which considers them a menace and organises calls to control their numbers. My next guest actively tries just to thwart those efforts. Drew Pratton is a founder of the Forest of Dean wild boar called saboteurs. And we reached him in Gloucestershire, England. Hello.

DREW PRATTON: Hello there.

LL: How would you describe the Forest of Dean is like now that the wild boars have made a home there?

DREW PRATTON: I think it's a magical place. It's wonderful. They're an incredibly as your previous caller said equipment part of the elusive animal but just catching the sight of them in the forest. I think is a wonderful thing and a lot of people too. It has done wonders for our tourist industry if nothing else.

LL: People come just to see the boars.

DREW PRATTON: They do. Yes. It's one of the few places in England that you can actually go to see them.

LL: Now when did they come to town?

DREW PRATTON: About the same time as yours. It was in the early 90s. They were released by a farmer.

LL: How many boars are we talking about now?

DREW PRATTON: Well they've gone from a herd of 20 in the mid-90s to around 1800 just in Gloucestershire.

LL: They've been busy.

DREW PRATTON: They have been, something they do very well now.

LL: There are pig farmers in your area who are worried about the possibility of African swine fever spreading to the UK from Europe via those wild boars. How legitimate a worry do you think that is?

DREW PRATTON: Well the closest African swine fever has come to the UK is Poland and we've got you know the English Channel in between us and Europe. So it's highly unlikely it's going to affect us here.

LL: But it seems the English Channel didn't prevent the wild boar from showing up.

DREW PRATTON: Whoa. It was one of the English farmers that let them go.

LL: So you're saying then that it's unlikely that they will come across.

DREW PRATTON: Yes I mean it's very very unlikely.

LL: The government says it's also worried about people not being able to walk freely at night because of the fear of an encounter with a boar.

DREW PRATTON: These animals when you encounter them they want to be left alone. If you have a mother with babies as long as people say we are quiet in the forest. I always tell people. We go to schools and give talks on this if you're aloud and they can hear you coming they don't feel threatened because they know you're there. The only time the boar in my experience have ever been threatened is when you sneak up on them and they look up because they have very poor eyesight, very good smell and they suddenly catch a whiff of you. That's when they get a bit aggressive. But even then I mean I've been charged a couple of times and it certainly unnerve you that they'll charge up to you to about four or five feet away, snort at you and then turn around and walk away. It's just their way of saying go away.

LL: What caused them to charge you? Did you did you do what you said? You snuck up on them? They didn't know you were coming?

DREW PRATTON: Yes. Yes. We were trying to get some nice pictures and we were trying not scare them off so we when we were the winds must've changed and the mom had a baby and she charged but she she stopped short.

LL: What about this idea though that these invading species can mess with the ecological balance in some places, affect things like water quality as well?

DREW PRATTON: All can speak of our experience here and all they brought to our forest. They turned the ground over. We have stunning BlueBell Woods which look even better now. We've had the boar turning the soil over.

LL: Is there is there any downside then to them?

DREW PRATTON: Not that I can see, if I'm honest with you. As long as people know how to deal with them. The only problem we've had is with people feeding them. And someone has been bitten because if they see people with carrier bag feeding them they then associate people with carrier bags and food and they can get aggressive for that.

LL: You’ve now actually gone a step further than just wanting them here. You're actively sabotaging efforts to cull the herd. What are you doing? What steps do you take?

DREW PRATTON: Well the Forestry Commission here they put food out to get the boar into a specific place. We just go along remove the food to put it somewhere else so they don't shoot in the wrong place. Alternatively if we have very draconian gun laws in this country and they're not allowed to shoot if you there so we say sabotage it. It's all we have to do is literally sit where the boar are, read a book and they're not allowed to shoot me.

LL: And you've done that yourself.

DREW PRATTON: Oh yes.

LL: How long are you going to carry on this campaign?

DREW PRATTON: Until they become accepted. I mean I think you're a wonderful animal. It's getting too rushed into these too what is quite a deprived area of the UK. I know it's adding to our biodiversity. My bursting with to carry him.

LL: All right Drew Pratton thank you.

DREW PRATTON: Thank you.

LL: Drew Pratton is the founder of the Forest of Dean wild boar called saboteurs. We reached him in Gloucestershire, England. So what to do when one person's welcome neighbour is another one's pest. It is of course a much debated question when it comes to invasive species both animals and plants and some of them are doing plenty of damage. Daniel Simberloff of is an ecologist and the Gore hunger Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Tennessee. He is also the author of Invasive Species: What Everyone Needs to Know and he joins us from Knoxville, Tennessee. Hello.

DANIEL SIMBERLOFF: Hi.

LL: Well what did you make of what you just heard from Drew Pratton that wild boar call saboteur.

DANIEL SIMBERLOFF: That's not the only case I know in which individuals have attempted to thwart invasive species management programs. Many aspects of the points he raised are simply fatuous or incorrect increases biodiversity well enough if they added smallpox that also increased biodiversity or the Burmese python or whatever. In general wild boar and feral pigs and their hybrids have many many impacts depends a lot on the nature of the habitat. But this rooting disturbs the soil glares and it mixes the organic layer on top with the mineral layers which has major implications for the normal ground cover. They tend to eat plants that have tuberous roots and often just remove them from an area and they may otherwise have been dominant plants. And they cause erosion as well as water quality issues. But in Hillier mountainous areas for example the Canadian Rockies and their foothills think they cause massive erosion. They do other things. They vector diseases to both wildlife and domestic animals for that matter to humans. In the US they've vectored brucellosis both to human hunters and to cattle.

[Cross talking]

LL: Which is a very serious thing.

DANIEL SIMBERLOFF: Yes very serious.

LL: Besides these boars what are some of the other more problematic invasive species out there.

DANIEL SIMBERLOFF: Well although they don't get nearly as much press because they're not flashy as much, invasive plants are really a huge problem because they change the landscape in Canada. Dog strangling Vine in Ontario for example, and in the west like in parts of the Prairies and in B.C. Scotch broom is a huge problem. They're both economic problems and ecological problems.

LL: Are they wiping out crops? Is that why you note them?

DANIEL SIMBERLOFF: In some places, certainly, Scotch broom damages crops. But I'm always thinking in terms of ecological damage and they're replacing native plants and sometimes replacing dominant native plants and changing the entire character of what would have been in the native ecosystem.

LL: Tell us about the case of the emerald ash borer.

DANIEL SIMBERLOFF: Oh a terrible case. The emerald ash borer is an insect from the old world from Asia. Ultimately it was introduced to an area near Detroit and wood haven't been treated. And in a lumber yard it reproduced and then spread in the Detroit area. And of course it spread quickly to Windsor also at its spread and spread and spread. And now it's destroying all of the native Ash species. There are several throughout Eastern and Midwestern Canada and the United States. It's pretty much out of control it will undoubtedly change forests for centuries to come.

LL: How do you balance those concerns about animal welfare and animal rights with the need to control populations when we are talking about animals?

DANIEL SIMBERLOFF: Well when we're talking about vertebrates especially mammals like the boar, this is a very controversial subject. And it basically boils down to concern for animal rights and animal welfare of individual animals on the one hand, versus the rights and welfare of populations and communities and ecosystems on the other. And I'm very sympathetic to concerns about animal welfare. And I hope that methods to control species are humane and many of them are. But in the end I come down on the side of protecting entire populations and communities and ecosystems. And I will point out that an invasive species like the boar, their very existence a species is certainly not threatened in any way. They're widespread in their native range and wild boar are found on every continent but Antarctica, and their hybrids also. So that's not an issue. In some cases the very existence of native species is really at risk. I agree it's controversial. Other people have different views.

LL: Right. And you use somewhat famously took on another biologist, Mark Davis at McAllister College in Minnesota, who argued that the animosity toward non-native species is overblown and that these species shouldn't automatically be targeted because of where they first came from. What was your rebuttal to that?

DANIEL SIMBERLOFF: Well my rebuttal to Mark had several different aspects. Mark by the way did not- He works primarily on plants and his point was not about animal welfare but his main argument was that most introduced species don't seem to be invasive and he suggested in a famous paper with a number of co-authors that this was sort of a displace the xenophobia. And my response was that, no, the response to introduce species is based on scientific evidence, observational and empirical of actual impacts on native ecosystems communities and species. And often we don't recognize the damage even if the damage is very substantial until decades because it may be subtle. It may be for example a change in nutrients in the soil. And we don't actually see that happening and recognize its impact for a while. I also pointed out that many introduced species arrive, establish a small population but then they don't spread. They sort of sit there innocuously for decades or even a century and then suddenly they explode across the landscape. We don't always get to understand why there is this the way sometimes we know or can learn why. Other times it's still mysterious. But the fact that it happens is not at all mysterious and so just to say we should not act until we actually see a damaging impact is simply inefficient and potentially disastrous.

LL: It is truly evident though that lots of species aren't native to where they flourish now. I mean pigs in general aren't actually native to North America, are they?

DANIEL SIMBERLOFF: They know they're not. They're native to Asia. They were - wild boar - as and parts of Europe they were independently domesticated both in China and in Europe maybe ten thousand eleven thousand years ago .and then subsequently about 2000 years ago the Asian domestic version was introduced into Europe and so we have a variety of domestic pigs and they're all over the world. But you know that doesn't mean that as feral animals they're innocuous, and we absolutely must manage them or else they devastate many parts of the landscape. That's one way in which Mr. Pratton and I think was very much an error when he acted as if it's a great thing for the forests that they're there. I'm sure that this rooting and disturbance of the soil that he seems to think is really great is changing the ground cover and probably also recruitment by the native trees.

LL: All right. Daniel Simberloff thank you very much for your time.

DANIEL SIMBERLOFF: Thank you. Glad to be here.

LL: Daniel Simberloff is an ecologist and the author of invasive species what everyone needs to know he joined us from Knoxville, Tennessee.

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B.C. ruling will 'dial down tension' on Trans Mountain, but not for long: professor

Guest: Martha Hall Findlay, George Hoberg, Jack Woodward

LL: The ruling has just come out so the details of it are still unfolding. The decision about whether the province had the constitutional authority to restrict the town's transport of oil within its boundaries just released now, and that would be oil that would flow from Alberta to the coast. Now Joe Arvay was the lawyer who represented B.C. in court. He argued in March that under current legislation the province is powerless to protect its environment and its economy from the risk of a spill and it shouldn't be that way.

SOUNDCLIP

We say that the province is not required to accept such a fate.

LL: But the lawyer for the federal government Jan Brongers had a different perspective.

SOUNDCLIP

We're concerned because we recognize that there may be a superficial attraction to British Columbia's argument that the proposed legislation is just a benign environmental protection measure. Our main concern is that this legislation appears to be a Trojan horse.

LL: Now as I mentioned the ruling has just come out and we are hoping to speak to our reporter Greg Rasmussen soon. He has been in a lockup all morning getting a preview of the ruling. He'll fill us in on what is in it. But for now I am joined by a panel of guests to help us understand what the case is about and what is at stake. George Hoberg is a professor at the University of British Columbia's School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. Jack Woodward. He's a constitutional lawyer who specializes in aboriginal rights and title and we've reached him in Campbell River, B.C. and Martha Hall Findlay is the president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation. She lives in Calgary. But today we have reached her in Ontario hello to you all.

MARTHA HALL FINDLAY: Good morning.

GEORGE HOBERG: Hello.

JACK WOODWARD: Good morning.

LL: So we won't get into the details of a reaction to the ruling till we get some more information about it but let's start with this George Hoberg. Remind us what this case is about what does B.C. want?

GEORGE HOBERG: Well B.C. wants to be able to regulate the substance that flows to the pipeline. And the question is why they want to do that it's pretty obvious that they're trying to stop the expansion the Trans Mountain pipeline.

LL: What would that proposed legislation require of parties who wanted to ship bitumen through the province?

MARTHA HALL FINDLAY: It would essentially create a new permitting authority to require them to get a permit if a shipper wants to move the levels of heavy oil going through that mode of transportation greater than it has been over the past four or five years.

LL: Now Jack Woodward what legal arguments did the province of B.C. put forward?

JACK WOODWARD: Well he was right in the mainstream of Canadian law and especially the modern trend which is that both Canada and the province have jurisdiction over the environment. So this is not unusual and I'm surprised that B.C. lost. It for sure it'll go to the Supreme Court of Canada. And actually I would expect the Supreme Court of Canada may well reverse this decision although of course I haven't read it yet. Brand new. I just want to add one more thing to what George just said is that it also would regulate and provide for adequate financial liability. Of course if there is a spill - which God forbid - if there is a spill there's a terrible financial cost to people and often the operator of the pipeline doesn't have enough insurance or doesn't have enough financial backing to properly compensate. We've seen that over and over in Canada where the mess is made but then the public is left to clean it up at their own expense. And so this legislation proposed by British Columbia is not just to protect the environment but it's also to provide some financial liability.

LL: Martha Hall Findlay I just want to turn to you now . This of course comes just as the new government is settling in in Alberta. What what does Premier Jason Kenney's position been on this?

MARTHA HALL FINDLAY: T be clear it's not just Jason Kenney. It's not just Alberta. I think a lot of people have been watching this court case because of the potential precedent that might set in terms of what a province can do to hold up what is actually a federal undertaking. So this would apply to rails as well this, it would apply to provincial pipelines, this would apply to inter provincial transmission lines for electricity. So any federal undertaking if in the actual affect of provincial legislation and the desire of the intent of the legislation is in fact to stop a federal undertaking, then it should be it should be shut down. It's interesting. I don't think anybody would disagree that we need to work on better ocean protection and the Federal Government has committed to significantly more effort in this regard. The new set of conditions that put it on the Trans Mountain all relate to maritime shipping and really put the onus on the federal government. These are all really good things. If there's a concern about compensation, if there's concern about cleanup, let's deal with those but don't hide behind a piece of legislation that really its intent is to simply stop a pipeline.

LL: I will just note now that we are hearing that this was a unanimous 5-0 ruling. The door effectively shut the province even though, Jack Woodward, you suggested that an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada is almost inevitable. With a 5-0 ruling isn't that difficult?

JACK WOODWARD: No not I don't think so. There's quite often you've seen me go to Canada overturn 5-0 rulings from a provincial court of appeal. Supreme Court of Canada takes a more ecumenical stance on this. They may actually have been promoting rapidly over the last 20 years the idea that both provinces and Canada have concurrent jurisdiction on all sorts of things especially environment. Now look the shoe is on the other foot with the Saskatchewan court of appeal that recently said the carbon tax is constitutional. Now here we're talking about not a federal law but a provincial law and this is the trend. The modern trend is that you're going to have concurrent jurisdiction.

LL: well it's a trend that seemed to stop at the BC Court of Appeal, Jack.

MARTHA HALL FINDLAY: And I would say that it's actually it's actually quite consistent with the Saskatchewan Court ruling in saying that the federal government actually has the ability to act in this way. I mean there the whole concept of the Constitution Section 91 and 92 insert that lay out what is a federal undertaking what is provincial and even where there is concurrent jurisdiction. An overarching responsibility of the federal government and the federal jurisdiction to deal with things that are in the national interest.

[Cross talking]

LL: I just want to pull back from the constitutional point then and talk about this as a political issue. George Hoberg what is at stake for B.C. Premier John Horgan here?

GEORGE HOBERG: The stakes are huge. It's not just for Horgan to me. The reason that the Trans Mountain expansion case is so interesting because it actually goes to what kind of country Canada is, in terms of who gets to decide what issues. The court very clearly is saying today that on inter provincial pipelines the federal government Canada gets to decide. So that that takes away the major ammunition the province of British Columbia had to block the pipeline. However that's not the biggest risk to the pipeline in terms of the long term. The biggest risk has always been what say the First Nations have on the issue. And once the federal government probably approves the pipeline now that we own it, it's destined to go back to court on the issues about First Nations consultation and accommodation and that's where the real action lies. And I want everyone to remember that even if it clears all those court hurdles and the construction begins there will still be a long and very protracted civil disobedience campaign that's going to be a very uncomfortable thing for British Columbia and Canada.

LL: Now let's just remind our listeners what you're talking about. The federal government has yet to give the green light to starting up construction of the project again because of a previous court case and another NEB review. So we're waiting for that to happen first and you're suggesting that First Nations are going to challenge that and will be right back in court again.

JACK WOODWARD: That's the federal court process and what the federal government has to do under that process is consult honestly and fairly with the First Nation. And they've tied their own hands by buying the pipeline. So how can they be both impartial and activists in support of the First Nations aspirations when they've all said, the whole Federal Cabinet has said, that they support this pipeline and it has to be built. Like they're in a terrible bind in terms of trying to do that. That's their efforts which are just saying that's their second big hurdle. There's yet another court case out there that's that's got to be watched for. This is the fact that the pipeline doesn't have a provincial permit. That's been argued at the B.C. Court of Appeal.

LL: We're going to turn now to CBC reporter Greg Rasmussen who's been in the lockup in Vancouver this morning reading through the decision. Hi Greg.

GREG RASMUSSEN: Good morning.

LL: So at this point we know that the court ruled against B.C. and that it was a 5-0 ruling. Can you tell me what more the court had to say?

GREG RASMUSSEN: Well yes it was a very strong ruling with that unanimous judge judgment by all five justices. Basically they're saying that the province overstepped here, that they were intruding into federal territory, that pipelines are an inter provincial work. And it's clear under that BNA act the Constitution that that's solely in the federal ballpark to regulate. They said that basically B.C. was trying to do an end run and around those rules and trying to interfere in Federal territory. So they said there was there was no need to answer all three questions that were referred to the court. Instead they were just able to rule on the one question, did this interfere with federal jurisdiction? And they very strongly came down citing a number of cases saying that clearly B.C. was overstepping here.

LL: And these are age old constitutional principles for Canada. But I'm wondering was was there any word from the court on how they viewed B.C. argument that they needed to protect their own parliament.

GREG RASMUSSEN: It does say extensively and recognize that environment is one of those things that is a shared responsibility between the federal government and the provinces. But they said that there were adequate measures in place under the National Energy Board, that they're not out operating in a vacuum here, that there are strong environmental considerations at play and it would just be too complicated if you had one set of regulations for instance on the Alberta side of the border gathering that as soon as that pipeline crossed the border into B.C. that the operators the pipeline had to deal with an entirely different set of regulations. They said there's an existing framework that's been in place for many years and that on top of the new constitutional arguments tip the case against BC.

LL: Greg I know that this has only just been released I'm wondering if you've heard any official reaction from anyone involved in the case.

GREG RASMUSSEN: Not yet. I just walked out of the lockup and it was all journalists in there. So we haven't had the chance to run it by anybody. But there was talk that going into it today that it would be a field no matter which way it goes. I think based on how strong the ruling was whether it will go to an appeal. That would up to the province to decide. We expect to hear from the Premier and the attorney general within an hour or two to see what they have to say about it. They might decide immediately. They might defer. What we'll see what happens in terms of appeal. But once again a very strong ruling against the province in this case.

LL: All right Greg we'll let you get back to gathering reaction. Thank you.

GREG RASMUSSEN: Thank you.

LL: The CBC is Greg Rasmussen was in the lockup in Vancouver this morning for this B.C. Court of Appeal ruling. This case was one of the tools in B.C. Premier John Horgan so-called tool box that he said was being used to do everything he can to protect BC's coast and prevent the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. And if you are just joining us I'm Laura Lynch in Vancouver and I'm with three guests who are going to help us analyze what this ruling means and knowing that we all haven't had a chance to read the full decision. But we got a good sense of it from Greg, George Hoberg is a professor at the University of British Columbia's School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Jack Woodward is a constitutional lawyer and expert in aboriginal rights and title. Martha Hall Findlay is the president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation. Now I just want to read one quote from the ruling Appeal Court. Justice Mary Newberry wrote on behalf of the panel that Beazley's legislation is not just an environmental law of general application but it's targeted at one substance in one inter provincial pipeline, the Trans Mountain expansion project and George Hoberg I guess that that kind of says it all right there they saw through. They saw the Trojan Horse.

GEORGE HOBERG: Exactly. And so again that's not at all in my view a surprising ruling. I do think it will be appealed. Politically what the Horgan government needed to do is stand up for British Columbia and it has. I mean it put the regulation. It proposed the regulation. It went to court to try to defend it and now that Tool's been taken away. But they'll be appealing it.

LL: Jack Woodward some indigenous groups would actually like to see this pipeline be built. They're probably celebrating today.

JACK WOODWARD: Well you know there's differences between First Nations and also differences between provinces. There is not a homogenous point of view that's for sure.

LL: Martha Hall Findlay What do you think? What position does this put Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in this morning?

MARTHA HALL FINDLAY: Well I just I think it's important to stress it. You know Canada West Foundation we're nonpartisan we're not aligned and we are wholly supportive of the environmental protections that need to happen on all of our coasts. And frankly they're not good enough on all of our coasts and they do need to be much better. But all of our coastline. But we also absolutely support the harnessing of our natural resources. And we support the constitutional I think not sure which one said you know that hundred year old thinking. Well the 100 year old thinking that we find it's actually worth 100 years in our Constitution has actually served Canada incredibly well for a very diverse and multi region country. And so I'm not surprised at the ruling. I'm actually heartened by it because I do think it reinforces how this country works. But I do think also it will help the federal government. It is consistent with their positions. And you know there was earlier conversation about the duty to consult. Well that was an insight that the piece went back from the from the last decision for a Federal Court of Appeal decision on Trans Mountain was to say federal government you need to fulfil your Section 35 charter responsibilities, you need to go and do finish your duty to consult. That will have been done before the federal cabinet makes its decision. That's exactly what they've been doing for the last number of months, specifically as directed by the Federal Court of Appeal. So if they feel as though they will have done that duty to consult and fulfilled it then you know they will have fulfilled the requirements a central part of appeal. At some point we have to say a court makes a decision and we comply with that.

LL: I think George Hoberg wants to jump in here.

GEORGE HOBERG: Actually it's the court that gets to say whether the federal government has complied with that. And that's really the next big step after the Trudeau government gives its approval to the pipeline in this case.

LL: Jack.

JACK WOODWARD: Well it can hardly be said to be fair consultation when the one side of the discussion that is the federal government has said we're going to build this pipeline no matter what. I mean think of the position the first nations are in when they're trying to have a fair and reasonable consultation with a party that is charged with protecting their interests when that party has said well we're gonna build this pipeline no matter, what you say? It can't be fair.

MARTHA HALL FINDLAY: But you also have a whole lot of other people on the other side saying absolutely no never ever to any pipeline. I mean consultation actually goes both ways. The court has made that clear a number of times. The courts have made that very clear a number of times. At some point that it is how this country is actually supposed to work together and it does require compromise. It does require a certain amount of cooperation and collaboration.

LL: Let's talk about compromise. George, what will this decision do between existing tensions between Alberta and BC?

GEORGE HOBERG: Well it actually serves to diffuse those tensions I think. I mean they don't go away if B.C. appeals but it take it dials down that conflict and Alberta does not have to immediately use its turn off the taps legislation. So it's very good for that. But back to the issue about First Nations, this case is directly about how Canada works in terms of who gets the site into provincial pipelines between the province and the federal government. It does not address the issue of what role the First Nations got in deciding. That's something that the court put out a very demanding task that there has to be a two way exchange between the parties. And as Jack states it's very hard to see a two way exchange when the decider is also the owner and proponent of the project.

MARTHA HALL FINDLAY: There's no two way if the decision's already been made and very locally so by people on the other side that's all--

[Cross talking]

LL: All right everyone let's turn it down. I just want to get back to the provincial relations between Alberta and B.C. Martha Hall Findlay you live in Alberta. Do you think that the tensions are going to be dialled down by this ruling?

MARTHA HALL FINDLAY: No I agree that this this doesn't make sense helps in the sense that it doesn't make the worse or make them more immediate. But I think it's worth noting that this the challenge in this country about energy hypocrisy. I mean you know all that gasoline that costs so much, it comes from Alberta is that you know that BC-ers are so upset about. It is okay to take oil and gas and gasoline from our put up but not if it doesn't suit BC's purposes. In Quebec we hear the same thing 44 percent of the oil that is refined and used in Quebec, and those are a lot of refining jobs. It's not just gas going into tanks, 44 percent of all that Quebec does now comes from Alberta. But the province of Quebec wants to stand up and say but you can't have a pipeline going across our province. You're happy to have a pipeline coming in for our province but not okay to go across it. As a country we need to get over this sort of hypocritical focussing on one pipeline or one issue and look at how these challenges are in fact the responsibility of the country.

LL: And the job of doing that largely falls to the federal government, it is supposed to see this as a national issue and it did prevail in this case. And George Hoberg I'm wondering, it's suggested one of the reasons why Ottawa hasn't announced its decision on whether to go ahead again with Trans Mountain is because of the recent election in Alberta, and I'm wondering we're only five months from a federal election. How could this decision hurt or even help the federal government?

GEORGE HOBERG: Well it's really fascinating because if you remember this decision was all about a larger compromise around something we haven't discussed yet which is climate. And Trudeau in order to get his climate plan supported by a Premier Notley in Alberta had to make sure he gave them a pipeline. And so that was kind of conditional that going forward. Now that Kenney is abandoning that climate plan and those promises and the fact challenging the federal government's jurisdiction on climate, it would make sense for Trudeau to abandon his part of the commitment. But now we own the pipeline. So he's not in a position to do that. So we all expect him to go forward with it. And the reason I'm concerned about this is also it's a national issue not just because of the energy we need. It's a national issue because we have an international issue because we have a climate emergency. So the big question for a lot of the people who are entrenched in their opposition is if we have a climate emergency why are we building new fossil fuel infrastructure that is expanding greenhouse gas emissions?

LL: Jack Woodward, I'm wondering and I know you are a lawyer you're not a politician but how do you expect the federal government to fare in the upcoming elections especially in light of this ruling and everything that's going on with Trans Mountain?

JACK WOODWARD: Well it is very odd how Jason Kenney says that Trudeau is at war on the oil industry. I mean he bought the pipeline. So in British Columbia the way that plays is that Trudeau is is the advocate of the pipeline. So that's very unpopular.

LL: It's not unpopular in all parts of the province.

MARTHA HALL FINDLAY: In fact every poll has shown that the majority of BC-ers actually support pipeline.

LL: But there are many, Martha Hall Findlay, I will generalize and say in urban areas who do not want to see this pipeline go ahead.

MARTHA HALL FINDLAY: But the majority of people in the province of British Columbia repeatedly support the pipeline. I think Premier Horgan is probably relieved that this decision because in a way it fits with what the majority of the people in British Columbia--

LL: Well we will let. We will let him speak for himself. But I'm wondering, Martha Hall Findlay, as a former Liberal MP how do you think this could play into the Liberals chances in the next election?

MARTHA HALL FINDLAY: All right you know this this idea that federal government bought the pipeline there is nobody who actually support the idea that the federal government buy the pipeline. The problem was that it wasn't. It was simply not going to go ahead and had has import for the entire country, for the entire country's economy, for prosperity generally. It's not just this one pipeline. It's this whole concept of how do we harness our resources sustainably as opposed to simply keep them all in the ground. That is not going to do anything for posterity and that was the driver behind the federal government. And I will say this whole concept of a grand bargain that somehow pipeline in return for carbon taxes, we support carbon pricing at Canada West. We have all along.

LL: We are running out of time. George Hoberg, we are going to give you the last word. The premiers are meeting in July in Saskatchewan. What will this decision do for the already fraught tensions among them?

GEORGE HOBERG: We have about a minute left I don't think this is going to be a big issue there that the big issues there will be about climate first and equalization second.

LL: This is all going to go away.

GEORGE HOBERG: It's not going to go away but it just dials the tensions around the pipeline down for a while.

LL: For a while until the next court ruling or the next election.

GEORGE HOBERG: Yes.

LL: All right. Thank you very much to all three of you. George Hoberg is a professor at the University of British Columbia's School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. Martha Hall Findlay is the president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation she lives in Calgary. But we reached her today in Ontario. Jack Woodward is a constitutional lawyer an expert in Aboriginal rights and title. He's in Campbell River BC. In case you just tuned in the B.C. Court of Appeal has ruled 5-0 against the province of British Columbia in its attempts to try to regulate bitumen coming into the province to tidewater in B.C. in an attempt to block the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project and we will continue to hear a reaction to this throughout the day on CBC.

INES COLABRESE: Hi, I'm Ines Colabrese - a producer here at The Current. This week the show was produced by: Idella Sturino, Alison Masemann, Howard Goldenthal, John Chipman, Julie Crysler, Samira Moyheddin, Kristin Nelson, Danielle Carr, Jessica Linzey, Sarah-Joyce Battersby, and Julianne Hazlewood. Special thanks to Michael O'Halloran in Calgary. The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producers are Padraig Moran, and Emilie Quesnel Transcriptions are provided by Rasha Shehata and Shamhan Bhuiyan. Our technical producer is Gary Francis, with help this week from Gabbie Hagoriles. 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.

LL: That is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q Tom power. We'll be joined by actor as Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Denver of Book Smart, a new female led buddy comedy. And remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app it is free from the App Store or Google Play. And finally after our trip back to high school with reporter Jason D'Souza here's some music from Bowling for Soup. This is their song High School never ends. I'm Laura Lynch in Vancouver. Thank you for listening. Listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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Friday May 24, 2019 Full Transcript

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