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The AIH Transcript for May 31, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

CAROL OFF: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening, I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

JD: Tonight:

CO: Who stood on guard for them. The final report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls concludes that they were the victims of a, quote, “Canadian genocide”.

JD: Unmaking an entrance. The Supreme Court says police violated a Toronto man's rights when they went into a backyard without a warrant, and searched him.

CO: One assembly required. There's pandemonium, and then there's the response. superstar rapper Lil Nas X got from hundreds of ecstatic kids, when he performed at an elementary school in Ohio.

JD: Bringing them and an idea home. In the spirit of repatriation, two indigenous polls that stood at the Royal BC museum for decades are being given to the communities that inspired their creation.

CO: And…. the co-host is clear. As Jeff Douglas prepares to leave us Jeff-free and Douglas-less for a new chapter in Nova Scotia, we will celebrate a man who always made this show a feast for the ears.

CO: As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that offers our compliments to the Jeff.

[Music: Theme]

Part one: MMIWG report, SCC: search case, Lil Nas X school principal

MMIWG report

Guest: Jorge Barrera

JD: It took two years, and it cost 92 million dollars. It heard hours of heart-wrenching testimony across the country. And now, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls has a final report to show for that work. It will be released publicly on Monday, but CBC Indigenous Unit Reporter Jorge Barrera got an advance copy. The report does not mince words. It concludes that the thousands of Indigenous women and girls who have gone missing or have been murdered in this country, have been victims of a, quote, "Canadian genocide". We reached Jorge Barrera in Ottawa.

CO: Jorge, when you first flipped through the final report, and you saw those words “Canadian genocide”, what did you think?

JORGE BARRERA: Well, to be honest, actually before I flipped the pages, I knew that this was coming. Yesterday, in the late morning, I spoke with a source about this report. They were reading me sections of the report. And when he got to that section, I asked him to stop and reread it. And then I got him to reread it again and again so I could type it out completely accurately. Because having covered Indigenous country for as long as I have, you know I worked for Aboriginal Peoples Television Network before CBC, this is something that people say. You're at a protest or having tea with somebody. This comes up. People say you know we believe that Canada committed genocide against us. But it's never sort of reached a level of officialdom.

CO: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, they used the term “cultural genocide”. We heard it from the former Chief of the Supreme Court Beverley McLachlin, who used the term. How is this different from those contexts?

JB: The report doesn't qualify it. They don't have the word “cultural” in front of “genocide”. They just have “genocide”. And the only connected qualifications would be they would talk about the legal and societal types of genocide. But you know they don't go this is cultural genocide. They just say it's genocide. And then they refer to this Globe and Mail op-ed that was written in 2013 by former Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine and the former Executive Director of the Canadian Jewish Congress Bernie Farber, where they argued that the definition of genocide should apply to what happened to Indigenous people in Canada.

CO: You know in that context, I mean Bernie Farber is using the word genocide because this term has been used legally, right? It's not just a simple descriptor, a powerful descriptor, but it triggers legal consequences. This is the word that would that brought people to trial for Rwanda, for the former Yugoslavia, going back to Nuremberg. So is that addressed in this report? Are they using that word “genocide” in a legal context as well?

JB: Yes, yes, they are. And they actually say what we have discovered is so severe that we are going to write a supplemental report specifically on that issue. And the legal definition of what they say, quote, “Canadian genocide” against Indigenous peoples. And that brings up a lot of issues. And one of the big ones is like reparations. You know residential schools and Sixties Scoop have been dealt with through court settlements. But you know when you bring in a term like “genocide” and an impact on a whole nation of people, that completely changes the equation. So this could open up a completely new realm in Canada facing up to it's both historical and current treatment of the Indigenous nations within the boundaries of this country.

CO: Genocide means the annihilation or attempted annihilation of a race of people. You say that this is a term that is used often in Indigenous communities among First Nations. When this report uses it, what do they point to? What do they say are the reasons why it must be called genocide?

JB: One of the things they point to is they actually say that the child welfare system, which is something that is being dealt with right now that is in crisis right now, it says that Indigenous child welfare is being used as a tool of genocide. That's quoting from them. They also say that genocide, and I'll quote directly from the report, they say this genocide has been empowered by colonial structures. Evidenced notably by the Indian Act, the Sixties Scoop, residential schools, and breaches of human, Inuit, Matis, and First Nations rights — leading directly to the current increased rates of violence, death, and suicide in Indigenous populations.

CO: The purpose of this commission was to examine the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls — the thousands of cases, we don't even know how many cases, of women and girls who have been murdered and have gone missing. How does it tied to that?

JB: When you look at MMIWG cases, there are layers to them. Like look at the case of Tina Fontaine, right? You have institutions interacting with women and girls who end up you know meeting tragic ends. And that's connected to other institutions, whether they’re families were survivors of residential schools. All these layers play into the tragedies that have happened to date.

CO: There were a lot of criticisms of this whole process. And the families of the Missing and Murdered Women and Girls felt many times that they were being failed — many people felt that the commission was failing. Do you think that this report will go the distance to mitigate any of that? To convince any of these critics that the work was done properly?

JB: I do know that the feelings going into the release of the report were sort of already baked in because one of the biggest parts of this inquiry was the process of testimony, of gathering information, of delving into individual cases. And for many families, they felt that that part of it really failed. You know there's been submissions that were given to the inquiry criticizing how when family members would go up to testify, the commissioners did not have their files in hand, and couldn't tailor their questions to really get out what went wrong with each individual case. And you know lots of miscommunications. There was high staff turnover. Now for the inquiry to come out with this conclusion of genocide, I don't know what that impact will be because that's going to create its own debate. But I think for those who felt that the inquiry didn't really meet the needs of dealing specifically with their cases, I don't know if that's going to change.

CO: This goes beyond just the government obligations to face our colonial legacy in this report. It's also appeals to Canadians themselves to take ownership of what has happened. What kind of a challenge does this report issue to Canadians at large?

JB: Its challenges seem to be directed at what people can do in their daily lives, within their own little corners of their world. They're calling on Canadians to learn about Canada's true history, learn about Indigenous history, call out racism and violence against Indigenous women girls whenever you see it, and simply pick up this report and learn from it. So it's not asking people to organize and you know write letters.It's tasking people to embed a change in attitude in their daily lives.

CO: Joge, we will be following the developments in this report, especially about the genocide charges, and I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

JB: Thank you.

JD: Jorge Barrera is a reporter with the CBC's Indigenous Unit. We reached him in Ottawa.

[Music: Ambient]

SCC: search case

Guest: Emily Lam

JD: It's taken seven years, but the Supreme Court has finally ruled that a Toronto man's rights were violated when he was searched by police. In 2012, Tom Le was found with a loaded gun, cocaine, and cash. He went to prison. But today, the Supreme Court said that Toronto Police never had grounds to search Mr. Le, and that they'd committed a serious violation of his charter rights. Emily Lam is one of Mr. Le's lawyers. We reached Ms. Lam in Toronto.

CO: Ms. Lam, how did Mr. Le react to his victory at the Supreme Court?

EMILY LAM: So I think Mr. Le was both grateful and relieved that the Supreme Court decided the way it did. As you know, the incident that led to him being charged happened approximately seven years ago. And Mr. Le has fought every single step of the way, every level of court, to have it recognized that his right to be free from arbitrary detention has been breached.

CO: But he's already served his time, has he not?

EL: He has served his time.

CO: And does this Supreme Court decision mean that the case against him is basically thrown out?

EL: Yes, the acquittals have been entered.

CO: Do you want to just remind people what happened back in 2012? And how police came to detain Tom Le?

EL: So in 2012, Mr. Le and his friends were sort of hanging out enjoying the night in one of his friend's backyard. His friend lives in a so-called “high crime neighbourhood”. And the police came through the fenced backyard, and began asking the young men questions about who they were. They began demanding identification. They asked them to put their hands in front of their body, and so started making demands of the young men.

CO: And then what happened?

EL: They approached Mr. Le and asked him for his identification. As he was getting his identification, they asked him what was in his bag. And at that point, Mr. Le began to run out of the residence. And the police ended up chasing him, eventually tackled him, and searched his bag and found a gun and some drugs.

CO: They found a gun and drugs in the bag.

EL: That’s correct.

CO: And so what was he charged and convicted for?

EL: So I think there were a total of at least ten charges involving possession of a restricted firearm and possession of an illegal substance. And those amounted to approximately ten different charges.

CO: Now, it must be pointed out that Mr. Le is of Asian descent. And the men he was with, his friends, were four black men. What role is race believed to have played in this situation?

EL: So in this situation or in this case, the evidence that they had been racially profiled came from both Mr. Lee and his friends who were in the backyard. They all explained how living in that neighbourhood, they interacted with the police on a regular and consistent basis, being asked who they were, whether they belonged in the community, what they were doing was a regular occurrence, and they talked about how that impacted their interactions and mistrust of the police.

CO: But now the police entering private property without consent or a warrant, questioning, searching, or attempting to search, arresting. All of these things one assumes police know that this evidence that they would gather in this would not be admissible. Did it come up at all in court as to why the police thought this would work?

EL: Well, the police said they tried to give reasons for why they entered in to a private backyard, which you know were accepted by the trial judge. It was not accepted by the Supreme Court that they were there for a legal reason. But some of the reasons they gave were that they were investigating someone who may or may not have been in the neighbourhood two or three weeks ago. So they did give reasons, but those reasons weren't legal reasons that were accepted or should be accepted by court.

CO: And the court did not accept those as plausible reasons.

EL: The Supreme Court did not accept that.

CO: Did the Supreme Court say anything at all about the conduct of the police? The assumptions that they made that they could prosecute a case — they would get the evidence they could prosecute a case against this man?

EL: Well, I think this case is really like a strong statement about the limits of community policing — there's a lot going on in this statement. But it's an acknowledgement that police don't have the ability to walk into private places and infringe on people's rights, no matter where that place is. So disproportionate policing based on you know whether your community is labeled high-risk based on you know affluence or how much money you have. What the court is saying it doesn't matter that these rights have to be applied equally and fairly for everyone in Canada.

CO: So how important is this decision on the part of the Supreme Court for people who live in low income neighbourhoods, who are subjected to racial profiling?

EL: I would like to think not only because I worked on this case, but I would like to think that it is it is important. And it's important for two reasons. I think the first reason is that it legitimizes the experience and realities that people who are living in marginalized communities face, their everyday experience that they have faced. And it's important sort of moving forward for the future. It sends a message to the police; it sends a message to courts, that we have to be sensitive to the realities of living in these communities.

CO: Police did find drugs and a gun on Mr. Le. What do you say to people who listen to this and say well gosh, you know the police were doing their job there? What he had on him was something he was convicted for. How are they supposed to work if they can't they can't operate this way? What would you say to Canadians who think that ends justify means here?

EL: Well, I would say that, first of all, this is an individual case. And this case is the case that sends the message to the police, to the public, and to courts that the justice system doesn't condone serious state misconduct. And that moving forward, we hope that things will change. And that sometimes you lose the one case for the greater good.

CO: Ms. Lam, we’ll leave it there. Thank you.

EL: Thank very much, Carol.

JD: Emily Lam is a lawyer. We reached her in Toronto.

[Music: Industrial]

Lil Nas X school principal

Guest: Felecia Evans

JD: If you're an up-and-coming musician, there are venues you might dream about performing in: Massey Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Grand Ole Opry. Lander Elementary School is not necessarily one of those venues for most people. But it was for superstar rapper Lil Nas X, whose song "Old Town Road" has been Number One on the Billboard charts for 8 weeks in a row. Here's what it sounded like when students realized he was there.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: A ton of screaming]

JD: Sounds almost exactly the same as when Carol Off walks into the atrium at the broadcast centre here in Toronto. Felecia Evans is the principal of Landor Elementary in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. That is where we reached her.

CO: Felecia we have just heard the sound in your school gym that moment when Lil Nas X walked in. What did it look like?

FELECIA EVANS: It looked like undeniable joy in children — and just children being children, and laughing, and just undeniable joy.

CO: How old are the kids?

FE: They are between the ages of five and ten, so kindergarten through fifth grade.

[both laugh]

CO: And so they all know this song, right? “Old Town Road”.

FE: They do. They do. And luckily I have a five-year-old and a seven-year-old myself, so I'm pretty familiar with it as well. [laughs]

CO: Okay, so if you go back now to how this all began. How did you bring it into the school?

FE: So it was actually the kids. So each year, we have a fifth grade talent show, where our fifth graders perform for their peers for the entire school. And then we have a tradition because it's the end of the school year is that we play a song for the whole school that everybody knows so everybody can sing and dance together. And this year, the kids had requested that we play the “Old Town Road” as the song for everybody. At the moment we turned it on, the entire gym full of five hundred children just started singing and dancing. It was just such a beautiful moment. And I captured it on my phone, and I tweeted it out, and I tagged the rapper a Lil Nas X not thinking he would ever respond. But I guess he sort of thought it was great and responded with…

CO: Sorry, he responded with what? What did he say?

FE: I responded back when can you come to Cleveland, Ohio? And then from there we just started messing messaging each other, and then his team reached out, and we set it up as a surprise for our students on the last day of school.

CO: But now just to go back to the tweet you put out, I have seen that, and the kids getting up, all of them knowing the words, all of them knowing the moves. It's just such a wonderful scene. But when you first heard back from him, how did you react?

FE: I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. My phone started dinging, and I'm like what is happening? I got like 400 likes. You know as a school principal at a school in Ohio, I usually get like 10 likes on something I post. And then all of a sudden, he had actually retweeted it to say when do you want a show? So all of his followers saw it.

[both laugh]

CO: Why did you post it? Why did you want to put that up?

FE: You know what? Because I wanted to show just you know my job as a principal we see so much, we do so much, but those moments where you have 500 kids just happy and dancing and singing altogether like I just wanted to share that. You know I love this job. I love that this is something that I get to do and I get to see. And I want everybody else to see just the joy of children really.

CO: How were you able to keep it a surprise that you are going to actually have a Lil Nas X walk into the gym?

FE: Well, we had to do a little bit of covert work because we had also been tweeting back and forth like some days and times. And so I had to deny to all the local media, and even my teachers. I had to say you know what? He's just so busy. He just was not able to make it, unfortunately. But we're still going to bring the kids back into the gym on the last day of school play the song just to dance again. So that was kind of a cover. They thought we were just coming together to sing the song. They didn't know that he was actually really going to show up.

CO: So this is the end of your magic show that this was the pretense?

FE: Yeah. So every year, we do a magic show. We have a local magician come in. And I came on stage and said well, boys and girls, I have one last magic trick for you for this school year, do you want to see it? And they all start screaming “yeah”. So then I leave the stage, and I go back to a classroom where we had him hiding out, and bring him on stage, and that's where you see them just erupt.

[both laugh]

CO: Well, here's just a little bit of the sound of him actually doing the performance. I want to just give that to our listeners.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: You’ve likely heard this song. Only now it’s being sung by Lil Nas X and kids]

CO: That's just wonderful.

[both laugh]

CO: And he really did give it to them, didn't he? He was just so generous.

FE: He did. You know, and then he not only did the song, performed the song, he then wanted to meet all the kids. So we had all the kids line the hallways, and he got a chance to walk through the school, and high five every kid, and take selfies, and give autographs. And I mean you know he spent almost an hour at our school. And I mean it was just it was an incredible way to end a school year.

CO: What do you think it meant to the kids to have Lil Nas X perform for them, to show up like that?

FE: You know what? I think it meant everything to them. You know, they think that they're just kids in Cleveland, Ohio, and nobody really knows who they are. And I think to have somebody who's made his own dreams come true at a young age show up for them. I think it meant the world to them.

CO: This is a great story. Felecia, thank you so much.

FE: Thank you.

CO: Bye.

FE: Bye-bye.

JD: Felecia Evans is the principal at Landor Elementary School, where a Lil Nas X recently performed a surprise concert. We reached Ms. Evans in Mayfield Heights, Ohio.

[Music: Country]

Part two: Jeff Douglas exit interview

Jeff Douglas exit interview

Guest: Jeff Douglas.

CO: As you know, As It Happens is about to make a change. It'll still happen, but it's going to happen differently. In just under an hour, our Jeff Douglas will say his final goodbyes on this program, and he's going to walk out of the studio for the last time. In the eight years since Jeff joined me hosting this show, he's obviously left his mark. And like all of us who work here at As It Happens, Jeff knows he's taken part in something bigger than himself. First of all, here's Jeff himself from a few months back during our fiftieth anniversary celebrations, and he's describing what's made As It Happens endure.

SOUNDCLIP

JD: I think what makes As It Happens distinct is that it has a personality. It has a sense of humour. I always think As It Happens is like kind of like your geeky uncle, with his corny sense of humour. Who you can always trust, and you know is going to embarrass you with his stupid jokes or stupid puns. But you can also trust. You can come to for advice. You know that they're the one who like when you call, and you need something, they are going to come and pick you up.

CO: That is Jeff Douglas, talking about this program at the fiftieth anniversary celebrations at As It Happens. And I think it's an apt description of him as well. [laughs a little] As a personality, he can be geeky uncle type, trustworthy, dependable, a good friend, able to do corny things. But before we let Jeff go back home to Nova Scotia, I had to sit down and give him the As It Happens, take-no-prisoners interview treatment.

CO: Jeff Douglas, welcome to the As It Happens studio.

JD: Thank you, Carol.

CO: I’ve put you in a different chair, so you're out of your comfort zone.

JD: Yeah, I feel like I've never been here before.

CO: Because I want it to be clear right from the beginning that I'm not going to pull any punches here.

JD: I would never expect you to.

CO: But we have to ask you very seriously, why are you abandoning us?

JD: Well, I…

[crosstalk]

CO: Come, come now, Mr. Douglas. Are you trying to avoid this question?

JD: I mean I could have fun with it. Or I can answer it seriously.

CO: Do I need to ask you twice?

JD: Thrice. I'm going home — that's why I'm abandoning you. And I would never have left to go anywhere else. I had no desire to leave As It Happens. I just had a desire to go home to Nova Scotia.

CO: Even if it meant disregarding our feelings?

JD: umm… yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm afraid that yes, yeah, that I had very little regard for your feelings.

CO: For my feelings, but not just our feelings here at As It Happens, but for listeners. It's complete abandonment of the listeners of As It Happens that you have no regard for. We just need to drill down on this, Mr. Douglas.

JD: No, I did. Clearly, I have regard because you will have noticed that in the past month or so since this announcement has been made, that I've gone to quite a bit of trouble to grow a beard [CO laughs] in an effort to disguise myself from listeners.

CO: It worked really well.

JD: Well, you didn't know me when I came in here today.

CO: It's true. Well, that paper bag you wearing on your head was maybe a part of it.

JD: It was a different colour than the normal paper bag, that's for sure. [CO laughs]

CO: Okay, but listen, as far as going home, to some extent I can understand this because I am married to a maritimer, and I am in Cape Breton every summer. You people have to go home and be with you people. I totally understand this. But there's somebody else who also identified this. I want to play a bit of tape from Jonathan Torrens, who was born in Prince Edward Island, but now lives in Nova Scotia. And when you heard that you were coming back, he had something to say about it. And so this is Jonathan.

SOUNDCLIP

JONATHAN TORRENS: Jeff Douglas, it's Jonathan Torrens. You know, for two guys with strikingly similar stories, it's a wonder we haven't spent more time together. We're both from the Maritimes, we both headed to Toronto to further our careers. You were Joe Canada when I was doing “Jonovision”. We're both in awe of Carol Off. And if you're like me, I'll bet there was a time when you found your hometown kind of limiting, suffocating even — that's what sparked your quest west, probably. But now, you're at the stage where all the things that once held you back are now calling you home. Limiting and suffocating have morphed into comforting and familiar. And you're ready to give up Queen Street for Main Street. I know this because like you, I too made the lifestyle decision to move home. In an even more strange twist, I didn't even move back to my home, Charlottetown. As it happens, I moved home to your home — Truro, Nova Scotia stop in sometime you're in Truro for a visit. We can regale each other with tales from our time up in Toronto. Congratulations on this chapter. All of us back home are excited for your next one.

CO: That's from your new neighbour, Jonathan Torrens.

JD: Jonathan Torrens, up I think in Onslow, just outside of Truro, of course, where I grew up. But you know, unlike when Jonathan, I was the one person growing up in Truro who didn't want to leave Truro. Like I never thought I would leave. I loved it there. I was the only one I knew of all my friends growing up who was like…

[crosstalk]

CO: Who were out there with their hair on fire from the fiction of living there?

JD: Yeah, but I was the only one who hadn't said I was going to do it. But I did. But now, I am going back.

CO: Uh huh. And even though you are, as Jonathan is, in awe of me, you still feel that you need to return home?

JD: One can only live so long in the shadow of a giant [CO laughs] before one has to strike out.

CO: Nice try. I am going to play something else for you. And I don't know if you remember, but when you first got this job way back in 2010, I interviewed you for the first time. Now, this is the last time. And I gave you a pop quiz to test you on how much you actually knew about As It Happens. Do you remember this?

JD: Yes, yes.

CO: You're getting nervous. I can see you twitching.

JD: Well, I remember… yeah, I didn't know as much as I had maybe claimed.

CO: All right. Well, let's refresh your memory.

SOUNDCLIP

CO: Name this tune.

[Music: Curried Soul by Moe Koffman]

JD: Wow! Name it? I know what it is, of course. It is the flute riff — the theme to As It Happens. The name of it…

CO: Who composed it?

[Jeff pauses]

CO: Oh, Jeff! All right, “Curried Soul” by Moe Koffman.

JD: “Curried Soul”! I was gonna say that.

CO: Nail that to the inside of your head. All right, finish this classic As It Happens question How big is that GD __.

JD: Cabbage.

CO: Yes!

JD: As tempting as it may be to say something else, even I know that.

CO: Excellent! That's Barbara Frum's question out of frustration with someone who couldn't hear her. Now, how far is this studio from the city of Reading?

JD: I don't know exactly, but I'm gonna go with the equivalent of five-point-eight-million hockey bags laid end to end. [CO laughing] A hockey bag being one metre.

CO: You got it! [JD laughs] Great to have you here.

JD: I'm so happy, Carol. I'm really looking forward to it.

CO: Me too.

JD: All right.

CO: Now that's sad. [laughs]

JD: Clearly, I knew “Curried Soul”. Clearly, it must have been some sort of I don't remember exactly it had to be a gag.

CO: When I say it’s sad not because how pathetic it was that you didn't have all the answers.

JD: Right.

CO: But that was our first encounter, one of our first encounters, on this program eight years ago.

JD: Yes, and why is that sad? Is it sad because now we're having this encounter?

CO: Because we're having this encounter, and this is sad to me. How do you think As It Happens has changed you?

JD: I have looked at the world, or I look at the world, in a different way now than I did eight years ago. It has deepened I think my empathy for the plight of people that I have never met around the world because you are in touch with so many people in so many difficult situations on a daily basis. I will tell you this: that it has not done much to increase my love of the pun, sadly enough. [CO laughs] Yeah, and I just want to come clean about this: that I get a lot of feedback on social media, good and bad, about the puns. Mostly, it is good. Mostly, people are in awe of the puns. How do you come up with all those puns? How do you come up with all those puns? And what I would say is the way you come up with all those puns is to work with a genius like Chris Howden, who comes up with all those puns and all the brilliance of all the scripted bits every single day.

CO: Okay, so you mentioned Chris Howden being the brilliant punster, among many other things that he does so brilliantly, and his writing is so good. And so on that note…

[crosstalk]

JD: Oh…

CO: I have something from Chris Howden for you to read just to see how you do. Because this is stuff you tried to pronounce in the course of your career. And I’m give you a chance to do it again.

JD: Son of a gun!

CO: There it is, JD. Here is a script written by Chris Howden for JD to now read to us.

JD: So here we go. Is it only the one page?

CO: Um hmm.

JD: Okay. One Welsh chef is offering some quinoa observations about his culinary perspicacity. The restaurateur has a new piece de resistance: a sort of bouillabaisse, featuring Worcester sauce, foie gras from a nearby rural Isthmus, and a truffle detritus. It's a true behemoth of a dish with a soupsan of bergamot, served in a crunch shell. It is the epitome of creativity, and it's attracted a slew of luminaries — including: six statisticians, a professor emeritus, [both laughing] and several Canadian premiers were there at the premiere of “The Dish”. We're withholding his name because we haven't thought of one, but we have reached the chef in the Welsh village of [how do I translate this?]

[CO laughs]

CO: But this is a name you had to once give though.

JD: Yes.

CO: This Welsh village.

JD: I think I got it that time!

CO: No one called to say you didn’t. But, of course, for me, what's been so much fun over these years is that listeners don't know that I turn off my mic and laugh while you're trying to pronounce these things [JD laughs] because I know how much you're struggling with them, and it gives me such a delight.

JD: I think at times you've actually crawled into a ball in the corner laughing — one particular time.

CO: Tears running down my cheeks.

JD: It's good to have that support when you’re in here line on the radio. That's a good one. And you know, Worcester.

CO: You've always had a problem with that one.

JD: Well, how do you say it?

CO: Wooster sauce. Sorry. Anyway, let's move on. And we are going to have you, this is our favourite part of the show. You and I always loved this part: when we get to hear it the listeners. We announced that you were leaving. People called, and they wrote, and so, first of all, here is Talkback.

SOUNDCLIP

CALLER: My name is Janine. And Jeff, I met you and Anna. And I want to wish both of you all the very best. It's been a privilege to me to know you and Anna. And I'm really going to be sorry to see you go.

CALLER: This is Joe Tory in Seattle. What's really sad is that, Jeff, you're leaving! This is a bummer. But onward and upward, I understand.

CALLER: Hi, it’s Jason Turgeon from Thunder Bay, Ontario. I do wish him all the best, but it breaks my heart because Jeff and Carol are a major, major awesome team. And you shouldn't break something that's a good thing.

CALLER: This is Janet from Prince George, British Columbia. I hear that Jeff leaving the show, and I'm saddened. But I wish the best for him. I just love you both.

CO: That is Talkback, and that was just a sample of what we heard. And I think you had a lot of personal messages yourself. We also had other messages from Nancy, I believe in Thunder Bay, Ontario. “I dropped my coffee cup on the floor when you both announced that Jeff is leaving As It Happens. Jeff, what will I do without your delivery of headlines squeezing out every bit of serious feeling and/or funniness?” And from Zina Galvin in Grimsby, Ontario. “You, Jeff, make me laugh several times during each daily program. You will be missed more than you know. Thank you for all the laughter you have brought over the years. You are very talented man.”

JD: Hmmm.

CO: What do you make of those messages?

JD: Ummm. It's moving, right? And it's very humbling. Listeners, I have for eight years sat here in this little, windowless room in Toronto. And I have honestly felt you on the other side of the microphone, if that's even possible. But I've felt the other side of the conversation that Carol and I have had every night. And so I appreciate that. I will miss you too — those of you who aren't going to be able to hear me down in Nova Scotia. And I'm proud, I am proud of my time here. And I do think that Carol and I are a good team.

CO: You know those messages reflect what people think of your talent, and that's what Zina Galvin was saying. You are a very talented man. I know that. I know how talented you are. But I want people to know something that they can only know if they have a relationship with you, as I do, that you are an extremely kind and generous man. And you have always been willing to do anything for people here, and anyone you know. And in this age of rage and ego, that counts for so much. And that's something I want listeners to know about you.

JD: Thank you. Yeah, I can't… I don't know what to say to that?

CO: I'll say also that you have patience with people is als remarkable because you have had some negative people contact you, and you met them head on. And there is one listener in particular who did not take well to your arrival. If you can tell me about what you remember of her?

JD: This would be my Aunt Bernice, as she came to be known, from I cannot remember now if she was in Minnesota or Wisconsin. But I did get an e-mail one morning not long after I'd started the show from Bernice or Eunice, whatever her name was, I can't remember now. But it was definitely not only have you ruined the superb dynamic of two women on the radio by hiring a man, but you have hired the most idiotic man on planet Earth. I will never be listening again. You know, that's hard to hear when you're starting a new job.

CO: That’s a slight exaggeration, but it was something to that effect.

JD: Yeah, no, I think that that was pretty well… you mean what she was saying is a slight exaggeration.

CO: Yes. No, what you're saying she said.

JD: Oh, OK, right. No, because she was dead on when she was talking about me.

CO: No, no.

JD: She wasn't. But no, that's almost verbatim what she had said. But I wrote back to her, and I just said you know, I know I'm supposed to be professional about this. And when I started here, all the hosts told me never read the email. Never read the email. It'll destroy you. Except Michael Enright, who told me read the email, read it every day until you're tough and you can take it. And so I, for whatever reason, decided to follow Enright's advice, and happened, of course, across this email. So I wrote back to her, and I said I know I'm supposed to be professional. I know that this is not supposed to get to me. But I'm a person, I'm a human being, I'm three weeks into a new job, and I'm failing in a very public medium. And it's very difficult to get an email like this from a person you have never met. But I'm sure that you considered my feelings before you wrote that email. And she wrote back, and said basically Jeff, I'm so ashamed. When I read that email, I hadn't, I fired it off. And, first of all, she said I didn't expect for you to read it. I thought you know the show powers that be at the show would, but not you personally. And she said I do find you very annoying, but I have a nephew whom I love very much who I find very annoying as well. And I will endeavor to think of you as my annoying nephew. And she would write back to me then you know every Christmas for probably four or five years, she wrote back just to wish me a season's greetings, that she loved me, but still did find me quite annoying. But you know, it became kind of familial, yeah.

CO: Well, this has been lovely.

JD: The eight-and-half years? Thanks.

CO: And this conversation. And I have to congratulate you on your new job, and wish you well. Even though I am going to miss you a lot, and it's tough. But you're going to be stellar.

[Music: Sad piano]

Part three: Indigenous artifacts, dead puffins

Pascal Siakam

JD: I don't know if you've heard this yet. But last night, the Toronto Raptors played a game of basketball, and won. It was their first-ever NBA Finals game. The Raptors' Pascal Siakam had a career-highlight night, scoring 32 points in what would eventually be a 118 to 109 victory — making him the man of the moment. In fact, better make that "moments", plural.

SOUNDCLIP

ANNOUNCER: Lowry finds Pascal Siakam. Nails the three-pointer! Siakam, right at Draymond Green, and Gets the roll. Siakam drives hard. Well defended, and he still banks it home.

JD: At a news conference today, the Cameroonian forward answered questions about how he came back from a challenging playoff series to wow fans in his first NBA Finals game.

SOUNDCLIP

PASCAL SIAKAM: I always try. Like I kind of learn a lot, and I know I have a lot to learn. I think that's one advantage for me just like I know I have so much to learn, I have to grow. It allows me to look at my mistakes, and evaluate them, and try to see how I can do better. Obviously, well, you never know. I mean you get fouls, and you know using your head, and a lot things like that you just got to be smarter. And that's something that I try to do, you know? Just being like a little smarter, and learning every single night out there on the floor.

CONNOR LETOURNEAU: Connor Letourneau, San Francisco Chronicle. Pascal, Steph Currie has compared you to Draymond, says he thinks you're kind of a young Draymond Green. Do you see that parallel at all? And is Draymond someone that you you've kind of patterned yourself after in any way at any point in your career?

PS: I think you know like I always say man I try to be myself as much as I can. And even I'm just starting to play the game and learning about a game of basketball. Obviously, I watch a lot of different players and guys that do different things. But, for the most part, man, I try to be myself, and kind of work to be a better version of myself.

PRESS AGENT: Thank you.

PS: No French questions? What's going on?

[lots of laughing]

PRESS AGENT: Not that we were able to get to today.

JD: That was Toronto Raptors’ power forward Pascal Siakam, speaking at a news conference today.

[Music: Ambient]

Indigenous artifacts

Guest: Lou-Ann Neel

JD: The grounds of Thunderbird Park at the Royal BC Museum are dotted with poles. They tell the stories of the province's coastal First Nations. And this morning, one of those poles began a journey to the Quatsino community that inspired its creation. A second pole from the Haida nation will come down next week. It's part of a larger effort to return items taken from Indigenous communities to their rightful owners. Lou-Ann Neel is the repatriation specialist with the Royal B.C. Museum. We reached her in Victoria, B.C.

CO: Ms. Neel, how was this ceremony this morning?

LOU-ANN NEEL: Oh, this morning's ceremony was absolutely beautiful. Everything went perfectly. It was emotional, it was joyous, and a little bit of nervous when we watched the pole coming down. But a big sigh of relief when everything was finally done.

CO: Can you describe what the poles look like?

LAN: First one is a much shorter pole, about 16 feet I believe. And it tells a story from the Quatsino people of the origin story or connection that the people have that links them to the kingdom beneath the sea. And so the pole had a mythical cannibal bird on top, with a bear holding a copper, which is our shield that represents wealth. And then at the bottom of the pole, the bear is also holding a killer whale.

CO: Why are the poles coming down?

LAN: Well, they're very old. These aren't original poles. The original poles that came through the process of the museum collecting in the early part of the century are still within our collections. But the Poles weren't strong enough to be stood up, so Mungo Martin who was hired by the museum, and worked at the museum back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, was commissioned to create replicas of these poles. So the poles are over 60 years old now, and they have been out there in the weather and subject to the elements. So the insides of the core of the pole started to rot, and became a little bit of a public danger. So we actually sensed all around Thunderbird Park and made sure that they were safe until we could take them down today.

CO: You mentioned Mungo Martin specifically. Who was he, and what role did he play in this?

LAN: Mungo Martin was really quite a prolific carver in his day, and really a man of many, many talents — including: singing and memorizing oral histories, family histories, tribal histories. So Mungo was very knowledgeable on all of these things, and was very much well-practiced in managing the protocols between different First Nations as well.

CO: But this Thunderbird park that where these poles are, I understand it was a place you spent of a time as a child, and being quite connected to it.

LAN: Yeah, I used to come and play and run around the poles. And I can say it now that I tried to climb a couple of them. [both laugh]

CO: You’re the reason why they're coming down! [both laugh]

LAN: I might have weakened them. It was my fault. And then there was also still a carving studio on the backside of Thunderbird Park where Mungo used to work. So I used to come down and watch the carvers because I was hoping that one day I could be a carver.

CO: And did you ever become a carver?

LAN: I have started, yes. My younger brother Kevin Cranmer, who is also one of the lines of apprentices of Mungo, Mungo apprenticed the Hunts. And the Hunts continued to apprentice more people from different clockwork Kwakwaka'wakw families. So I did dabble in a little bit when my brother first started carving. And then I went away to do textiles and other things. But my brother just started teaching me again a couple of years ago.

CO: Lovely! You say the original ones are inside the museum. How did they come to be there?

LAN: Well, they were collected by Charles Newcomb back in the early part of the century. So it was the same kind of work that a lot of museums in that era were doing, meeting with different tribes, and recording histories. So a lot of the legends that are attached to these poles are also in our audio collections.

CO: So those poles will remain in the museum, but the others where are they going — the ones from Thunderbird Park?

LAN: First one, the Quatsino pole, is going to ultimately be brought over to the Quatsino people at Coal Harbour. But they talked with Chief David Knox, who is the grandson of Mungo Martin. So one of the first things David did was he went and talked with the Quatsino chiefs, but they said they would really love it to be brought back to their community so that it can be placed on the ground and returned to the earth. Because that's what we used to do with poles once they had completed their life. The second pole is a replica of a Haida mortuary poll, and the chief so far has said he wants the pole to go back to David to bring to Fort Rupert and stay in Fort Rupert. So what David's going to be doing is creating a memorial park in Mungo's name where they can lay and rest. And then also so that some of our new generation of carvers will be able to study the polls and learn from them.

CO: But this is the traditional way is it…

[crosstalk]

LAN: Yes.

CO: That once a once a pole has reached its end of its lifecycle, it's put the rest back to the ground?

LAN: Absolutely, yeah.

CO: How important is it for communities to have all of these, well we call them artefacts, but these parts of their communities returned from the museums where they have been for a long time?

LAN: Oh, it's incredibly important. But what we really want to do is do a lot more public education to help people understand that these objects aren't just objects or artefacts. They actually represent our ancestors. They believed to carry the spirits of what the artist put into them. They also speak to our identity. But also in terms of the healing, so much has been taken out of our communities over the years, and we've all heard about residential schools. And I think that when we really talk about reconciliation, this is something that needs to be reconciled — the fact that our communities have been without this information or these pieces to validate who they are, and have a sense of belonging.

CO: Well, I hope the return of these poles goes as smoothly as beautifully as you're describing. And Ms. Neel, it’s good to talk to you. Thank you.

LAN: Thank you so much.

CO: Bye.

LAN: Ok. Bye-bye.

JD: Lou-Ann Neel is the repatriation specialist with the Royal BC Museum and a member of the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples. We reached her in Victoria, B.C.

[Music: Guitar strum]

Heart surgery doctor

JD: Ideally, open-heart surgery is not performed at the side of the road. But last fall, British doctor Mark Forrest had no choice. After a gruesome motorcycle accident left a man in cardiac arrest, Dr. Forrest performed one of the first successful roadside open-chest operations. Now, he's in Nelson, British Columbia, teaching the procedure to first responders. Here he is on CBC Kelowna's "Daybreak South", describing what happened last fall.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK FORREST: that was quite a day. This is something that we train for as free hospital care doctors. But it's something that you may never envisage doing outside the hospital. You might do it in the emergency department. But outside in the street, doing it is a whole different ballgame. The gentleman in question was a motorcyclist, so it’s what's called blunt trauma. Traumatic cardiac arrest is something that we see quite infrequently. If it’s due to stabbing, that's got a good chance of survival. And that's where we would normally consider it. But a blunt traumatic cardiac arrest involving a road traffic collision is something that's got a very poor survival — probably less than one per cent. The only time we would consider it is if someone literally has an arrest in front of you; it's a witnessed arrest. And that was the situation in this case. When I arrived on scene, the air ambulance from the Northwest was in attendance, and they were looking after this chap. And I was looking after another casualty, at which point I looked across, and I realized this guy had arrested. They were doing CPR and conventional advanced life support. That's never gonna work in this situation. So I went over and I joined the guys, and we effectively worked through a protocol that we have. We excluded various other things that a simple management in terms of giving you some more volume, in terms of decompressing the chest. When that didn't work, we knew what we had to do. And I opened the chest completely at the roadside. We gave everyone a heads up we were going to do it, but I don't think people quite realized what we meant. And then we manage the bleed in and the injuries inside. We managed to get an output back. He was alive again. We got him into the helicopter, and got him off to the major trauma centre. I think we were all quite stunned we'd managed to get this guy back. And what was amazing was literally seven months later, I was introduced to him when I received a commendation from the fire chief. And there he stood large as life. He just walked his daughter down the aisle two weeks before. He's made a miraculous recovery.

JD: That was Dr. Mark Forrest speaking with "Daybreak South." Dr. Forrest is currently in British Columbia to teach first responders how to do roadside open-chest surgeries.

[Music: Nylon guitar]

Dead puffins

Guest: Julia Parrish

JD: In the fall of 2016, something horrifying washed up on the shores of Saint Paul, a tiny Alaskan island in the Bering Sea. And for the local Aleut indigenous community, it was a sign that something was terribly wrong. Now, a study has found that a changing climate in the region is to blame. Julia Parrish was one of the researchers on that study. She's a professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. We reached her in Seattle.

CO: Julia, first of all, can you take us back to the fall of 2016, and tell us what washed up on the beaches of St. Paul Island?

JULIA PARRISH: Folks there started to see tufted puffins washing in. And, alarmingly, not just dead puffins, but ones that were weak and very sick just at the point of death.

CO: Is this a place where puffins congregate is around St. Paul Island?

JP: St. Paul is actually a breeding colony for many different species of seabirds, including tufted puffins. There are about 6000, we think, tufted puffins that actually breed on that island. But puffins are not known for congregating after the breeding season. And, of course, October is well after they've finished. So it was very, very unusual in terms of that species and that time of year.

CO: How many were there?

JP: The folks on the island picked up just about 350 — a little over 350 — carcasses. So that might seem like not a large number. But in ten years of monthly surveys prior to that month, we had only recorded three tufted puffins. And there, within a month's time, we saw 350. So that's a shockingly large change.

CO: When you say that this is not just the dead puffins washing up on shore. What condition were the ones who were still struggling to live?

JP: Well, they were weak beyond belief, so literally if you picked up one of those birds, they might die in your arms — really unable to be saved at that time. And otherwise, physically, there were no outward signs of something nefarious. They were literally birds that had just they'd run out of gas, they'd starved to death.

CO: Who are the people who live up there, and who were doing the research on this?

JP: The folks that are doing the beach bird surveys are part of the community of St. Paul Island Ecosystem Conservation Office, and that's an environmental and science office that's employed by the tribe.

CO: At what point did you get involved?

JP: Well, I've been working with Ecosystem Conservation Office, or ECO, since June 2006, so quite a long period of time. And when they did the first survey that had lots of puffins in it, they not only, of course, sent those data to us because they're part of our larger beach bird program, but they called immediately to alert us that something was up. So we were working with them on a daily basis. Basically, from that first survey in late October.

CO: And so you have concluded in your study that climate change has played a major role in this tragedy.

JP: Yeah, we have. The lab that performed those analysis indicated that the carcasses they received for necropsy were very, very emaciated — extremely thin, no body fat. The flight musculature was literally being dissolved as a source of food, so lots and lots of indications of starvation. We also knew from other work that had been done by oceanographers in the waters surrounding St. Paul and all the way back to the mainland, so the Bering Shelf, that the food of birds and marine mammals had been changing to smaller fish of lower caloric value. And all of that associated with the warming of the water. So all of these pieces of the story indicate that the puffins in this particular case literally didn't have enough to eat in a very, very wide swath of ocean. There was nowhere they could go to get enough to eat.

CO: You are though looking at what does beach patrol was able to find. Were you able to calculate how many puffins may have died in this mass mortality event?

JP: We did, and we came up with a range of numbers. And so that's between about 3,000 and 8,000 tufted puffins. Eight thousand, of course, is larger than the number of puffins breeding on St. Paul. So that's a pretty significant mortality event.

The community who is doing the patrol, you've said elsewhere that it was it was really traumatic for them to see this. And they were out in pretty difficult conditions doing this research. What did they tell you?

JP: Absolutely. So when you are patrolling a beach, and there's not just one or two carcasses, a level we would consider normal for that time of year. There are tens to hundreds of carcasses. It's an overwhelming emotional feeling. You have to just set your emotions aside to try and collect the information and get the data. So there's an emotional toll as well as a physical and safety toll that these people had to go through to get that data.

CO: I can't help but take in your research and your conclusions in the context of what the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this month that the Arctic region and the climate change, the rapidly shrinking that was of sea ice, would present opportunity and abundance for exploitation for oil, for gas, for minerals, for fisheries, for a trade passage — that this was something that was an abundance of opportunity. What does that say to you?

JP: Well, I wouldn't want to disagree with the secretary. But what what I would say is the Indigenous communities, and many Alaskan western communities live very, very close to the sea. They depend on healthy fisheries for life and for livelihood. And I would hope that the secretary would also take that into consideration.

CO: All right. It's a very disturbing report, Julia. I appreciate you telling that to us. Thank you.

JP: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Carol.

JD: Julia Parrish is a professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. We reached her in Seattle.

[Music: Accordion]

Sky penis

JD: On November 16th, 2017, at twelve hundred hours, a U.S. Navy pilot described as a "whiz kid" began an unauthorized project he would almost immediately regret: drawing an enormous image of a penis in the sky above Washington, using the contrails from his plane. In a statement, the pilot wrote, quote, "Soon after, I realized the extent of our actions — that the contrails were remaining longer than predicted." So instead of vanishing, there it hung, for baffled, amused, and offended Washingtonians to see: a testament to brilliant air maneuvering, and sheer male idiocy. The U.S. Navy is not impressed by this kind of junk. There was a surprisingly in-depth investigation, and the pilot was reprimanded. And now, the entire U.S. military is on high alert about any further aerial genital shenanigans. Which is why, this week, Major Rebecca Heyse found herself telling the website Task and Purpose, that the contrails over southern Arizona on Tuesday were the result of "standard fighter training maneuvers" — and not a deliberate, giant drawing of a sky wang. Major Heyse, who is an adult with dignity, was forced to provide a detailed account of the precise F-35 training exercise, which produced what looks an awful lot like, but apparently isn't, a crudely rendered phallus. She concluded, quote, "There was no nefarious or inappropriate behaviour during the training flight." Unquote. And now I, an adult with some dignity, am concluding my tenure on this program with this ridiculous story about sky genitalia that supposedly isn't really sky genitalia, which in a way is kind of perfect. I guess you could call it the As It Happens retirement...package.

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May 31, 2019 Transcript

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