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The Current Transcript for June 18, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: We changed the criterias and put in place a new system that is making sure that the immigrants we choose are the one we need in companies of the different regions in Quebec.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Quebec's premier says his new immigration bill, Bill 9 is pretty straightforward, tied to the needs of the labour force and yet he had to force a vote on it before dawn on a Sunday. There's a provision that would allow for the creation of new conditions and what's been mused about is a values test, which raises concerns, given its other new law, the so-called secularism law. The bill also negates thousands of immigration applications, including some for people already in the Quebec labour force. We are asking about all of that in just a moment. And then it may be the second largest rodent in the world, but the Canadian beaver may not always be the brightest.

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VOICE: It's definitely crazy. It's definitely eye-opening that like if I was trying to be a beaver and live out here, I don't think I would do this. You know it doesn't make any sense.

AMT: It seems whole colonies of beavers are living in salt water with dams adapted for the tides and a saltwater lifestyle few of us know much about. It also seems salt water can kill a beaver, which brings us to the problem that Jessica Linzey discovered when she stumbled across this little beaver subculture. Hear what she found in half an hour. Also today, their's were collectively some of the most disturbing stories of the war that raged in Bosnia in the mid-1990s, when rape was used, as it often is, as a weapon of war. Twenty years after covering that war I went back to Bosnia to find the women who had been so compromised and were now mothers.

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VOICE: I did ask a nurse after I delivered, if it was a boy or a girl. I was glad when I heard that it was a boy because I was afraid that it would be a girl and that what happened to me will happen to her.

AMT: Their experiences resonate in every country where women are victimized by conflict they cannot escape. In an hour, we revisit my story of the mothers of children born of war. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Quebec's new immigration law could be attempt to win more powers from Ottawa: expert

Guests: Fernanda Perez-Gay Juarez, Kathy Megyery, Mireille Paquet

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VOICE: The motion is adopted. Bill 9, an act to increase Quebec's socio-economic prosperity and adequately meet labour market needs through successful immigrant integration.

AMT: The sound in translation of the Quebec National Assembly passing controversial immigration legislation Bill 9 in the wee hours of Sunday morning. The law grants the Quebec government more authority over who receives permanent residency in the province. The government says it will help at Thai immigration to the needs of the labour market. It also gives the government power to establish more conditions to the process to obtain permanent residency conditions such as a values test though it's not clear what a values test would involve and what it could decide. The legislation also cancels approximately 16,000 applications already in the pipe from people wishing to be accepted in Quebec as skilled workers. Fernanda Perez-Gay Juarez is one whose application may now be scrapped. She is a medical doctor from Mexico. She speaks French, English and Spanish. She's been living in Montreal since 2013 where she completed a PhD in neuroscience and she joins us from Montreal. Hello.

FERNANDA PEREZ-GAY JUAREZ: Hello Anna Maria. Good morning.

AMT: What did you think when you heard that this Bill 9 had been passed into law on Sunday morning?

FPGJ: Well I had kind of been expecting it because I had been following the discussions in parliament since since the law was proposed, but I felt frustrated nonetheless. I felt well it's unfair and it's a tributary for me and for many other people it means starting all over again.

AMT: How long have you been living in Montreal?

FPGJ: For almost six years.

AMT: And what have you, what kind of application did you have in the pipe?

FPGJ: So he was an application for a certificate of selection of Quebec, which is like kind of the previous steps for a permanent residence in Canada. So you get accepted by the province and it was through the regular skilled worker program.

AMT: Okay and what happens to that now?

FPGJ: Nothing it gets cancelled.

AMT: And you start again?

FPGJ: Yes.

AMT: What does that entail? What have you done already to get to that point with the application? What did you spend? How much money? How much time?

FPGJ: Well I would say I spent around $2000. $800 only for the application, which we're supposed to get back. They say they're going to reimburse us. Although we haven't got any messages specifying when and how. But there's also the fee for English and French tests that you have to do to put your application in. Each one costs approximately $300, so that goes up to $1400 plus the translations and certifications of each one of the documents that went into the application and the time and effort to put all that together of course.

AMT: And do you know for sure that your application is cancelled?

FPGJ: I mean that's what's included in Bill 9 I think. Article 20 of Bill 9 was that all the applications under the old system would be cancelled and people would be invited to apply hrough the new system they're putting in place.

AMT: And in the meantime can you work? What can you do?

FPGJ: I have a, I mean in my case I'm one of the lucky ones because I recently finished my PhD, so I have a work permit that lasts until 2020. So for one more year I can stay here working. I already have a job and I have an offer for a doctoral stage so I can stay here working but that's not the case for many people who work permits will expire and then they have to either apply for a new one in some cases and in some cases they just can't apply for a new one. They were waiting for permanent residency because they needed the status to stay. In my case they can stay but in one year I have to reapply and repay for another work permit.

AMT: And what does that do to your life?

FPGJ: Well it kind of changes things a little bit. It puts on hold some things I have been preparing for such as the validation of my medical credentials, which is a long process and also a costly processing, which you have to do a series of exams. But you cannot apply to any job or anything in the medical world without a permanent resident. So even if I finish my exams this year, which I will probably do, I won't have access to start any clinical work here.

AMT: Now the government says those who are already living in Quebec like yourself will be prioritized under a new system and that the overhaul will actually reduce the immigration application waiting time from about 36 months to down to six months. Does that give you any hope?

FPGJ: Not really I don't believe this will be the case. Maybe the waiting time will be reduced, but that system will take time to start working properly and I've already lost 18 months. So I don't want to wait like send my application into another black box and see when how it starts rolling and what will that give me. I don't really trust the new system and I think that's the case for many of us.

AMT: Okay. And so just to clarify, so you are classified as a skilled worker and you actually have full time work waiting for you as a skilled worker, but now you're in limbo.

FPGJ: Yes exactly.

AMT: Do you want to stay here? What are you thinking?

FPGJ: Yeah I mean I do want to stay here. I have my life here. I have settled here. I have a network here now. I finished my degree. I have prospective offers. I do want to stay here.

AMT: But you can't plan until you know.

FPGJ: Yeah. I mean that's the thing right. When I put in my application in 2000 18 January 2013 it was looking for some certainty right. A may take. I know it may take time because that's often the case but I thought well in one year and a half from now I'll have advanced in my studies and I'll be on my way to becoming a permanent resident a resident and that changes things and helps my professional career because they're not only the clinical work but many grants in research and jobs give a priority to Canadian citizens and permanent residents. And some things are only for Canadian citizens or permanent residents. So it's just leaving me out of like some options.

AMT: Even though the people who want to work with you are happy to have you there?

FPGJ: Yeah exactly.

AMT: Yeah. Okay. Well thank you for speaking with me. I hope it sorts out for you. Thank you.

FPGJ: Thanks a lot.

AMT: That is Fernanda Perez-Gay Juarez. She's in Montreal. The Quebec Premier says Bill 9 was designed to meet the needs of Quebec's labour market. To explain more about those needs is Kathy Megyery. She is the vice president of strategy and economic affairs at the Federation of Quebec Chambers of Commerce and she is in Montreal. Hello.

KATHY MEGYERY: Yes, good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: So how do you see this law working?

KM: So we welcome Bill 9. As you said in a context where a labour shortage is really the number one issue facing businesses and in a context where immigrants are and will continue to be an important part of the solution. You mentioned labour shortages it touches businesses all across the province and all economic sectors we're hearing you know business are eliminating shifts they're reducing services or reducing working hours in service sectors. They're not using their assets to the maximum because they don't have the required employees to do the work.

AMT: So which businesses are we talking about? What kinds of industries?

KM: It cuts across all businesses, manufacturing service sectors. Really every business sector is concerned.

AMT: And how is what's coming into place different from what exists in terms of the actual legislation?

KM: Yeah it's going to allow employers to more quickly and more rapidly recruit the immigrants that are really best qualified their needs. So the way we're hoping there is going to be a selection criteria adopted fairly quickly which will ensure a better alignment between immigrants and the needs of businesses.

AMT: OK. Now our last guest actually has a job. I mean there must be, are there not people who who are in her position who are already in skilled positions working in some of the industries? What happens to them now?

KM: Well that's why the announcement that came out my guest yesterday to the fact that the 3700 immigrants who are currently already working and come back we'll be able to have their files processed as we understand it without reapplying, but that's my understanding. And what's really important for us is that they their families their employers be really quickly reassured that this these files will be treated fairly very quickly and favourably.

AMT: Is that part of the problem in getting skilled workers that they haven't been able to get that permanency?

KM: I think I don't know exactly what the problem has been. There's been a slowdown in the process. Perhaps the change of government as well but I think now what's really important is for employers to be much more active in the process in ensuring that that they can reach out and recruit employees very quickly and align to the needs of their businesses.

AMT: And with that legislation that should answer some of the business issues that you raise, it also sets a framework for what's being called a Quebec's values test, but it's not defined. How concerned are you about that?

KM: Again what we're hoping for is really that from the time people receive their certificate of selection and they go into employment here in Quebec, that period should be as short as possible.

AMT: But are you concerned that some of those people that the people you represent who might be hiring have to pass a values test? We don't know what it is yet. What if they fail it?

KM: Well we would want the requirements on the employers to be as minimal as possible.

AMT: And what guarantees do you have of that right now?

KM: We do not have any guarantees. We're just very hopeful that the purpose of the bill was to reduce the labour shortages and address those issues and that therefore the implementation will follow that philosophy.

AMT: Right. I understand that, but if that's the intent of the bill, why even have a values test?

KM: I don't, I'm not even sure there is going to be a values test to be honest. I don't know. I can't really speak to that. Again what we're trying to say is that from the moment that someone has received their certificate of selection and has received an offer an employment that process should be really really fast and the person should be able to stay in Quebec and work.

AMT: How long do you think it'll be before you see changes that the industry wants as a result of this bill then?

KM: As soon as possible for the sake of the businesses who are you know trying to stay in business and continue to grow.

AMT: Okay Kathy Megyery, thank you for your time today.

KM: Thank you. Bye bye.

AMT: Kathy Megyery is vice president of strategy and economic affairs at the Quebec Federation of Chambers of Commerce. She joined us from Montreal. For a little more perspective on what the Quebec government hopes to achieve with this bill, I'm joined by Mireille Paquet. She is the Concordia Research Chair on the Politics of Immigration at Concordia University and she joins us from our Montreal studio. Hello.

MIREILLE PAQUET: Hi.

AMT: Do you understand what this values test is and why it's in there? Why they're musing about it?

MP: So to be exactly precise, we actually don't know what it's going to be a values test. It could also be a language test. It could also be a test that asks about whether a person has been looking for employment seriously. The law only sets out the condition for the Minister to put condition on permanent residency so it doesn't actually spell out the content or consequences associated with the test.

AMT: Why would they bring in a law at dawn on a Sunday when this is an issue and not clarify it?

MP: Well I mean the easy answer to that is that I am not sure and most people aren't sure either whether this is legal and whether the Quebec government is going to be able to actually implement such a test. So permanent residency and mission are jurisdiction of the federal government so a law that would limit permanent residences or put conditions on permanent residency not only goes against a Canadian Charter of Rights and value articles sex but also kind of calls into question the constitutionality of the law. So it seems to me in one of the way we could think about this is the government of Quebec actually trying to set out this law as a way to go and ask for more power to Ottawa.

AMT: And would it get more power, do you think?

MP: Oh my God this is such a hard question to answer.

AMT: Cause it already has more power over immigration than any other province, right?

MP: Absolutely the province has a lot more power than other provinces in Canada. Has a lot more power when it comes to selecting immigrants. But it remains really unclear whether Quebec will be able to get those powers. It seems it would be surprising though I'm not really at liberty to to tell you based on what we don't know about the result of the federal election.

AMT: Okay so it's still more questions. From a practical standpoint then, what changes with this law?

MP: So in addition to this potential test, there is an increased power when it comes to the ministers and the minister gets more power to make laws to make regulations that can change this system. And there is also a lot of kind of interesting language that makes it seem like in addition to the test there might be more demand for more power for the province to decide who can actually become a permanent resident in a province so not only skilled workers but also potentially family family migrant or even refugees. But that remains very unclear. So we've talked a lot about the files that are going to be flashed and people that are going to lose their application and that's really really important. But what we're seeing also is kind of an attempt to re hold the whole immigration system in Quebec give more power to employers are also moved to a quicker system. Doe I want to kind of emphasize something that was said by both of the previous interviewees which is that we actually don't know how it's going to be implemented. We have no way of knowing how it's going to look like when it's going to unfold and what really is going to be the difference in the life of newcomers.

AMT: So is that normal that we would know so little about this bill?

MP: I mean in immigration there's rarely anything that's normal. I think that what we know is that the province of Quebec is trying to implement a system that looks a lot like the federal system of express entries so they call it the system, which would be an expression of interest system. But that system has already been into work and was actually created by the previous government. It's still not operating super in a lot of transparency but apart from that we have to note and I have to note as an observer how quickly they've decided to move on this bill and how surprising it is that they're moving forward with a bill that we actually aren't sure is going to pass a courts challenge.

AMT: And it's interesting too because this bill is coming at the same time as it has brought in Bill 21, which bans the wearing of religious symbols by certain public servants. Is there a connection there?

MP: I can't comment on what are the motivation of the governments, but clearly there is a risk that I can tell you, which is that people are going to conflate both laws right. That the Bill 21 is accurate is attracting a lot of attention and that people are going to identify the government as taking action on these on both of these fronts with the same swerves. But we have to realize that there are very different bills which would very different kind of constitutional rooting. But I can't help but notice that the government has been trying to really show that they're taking action on all of these fronts at the same time.

AMT: Yeah and I hear what you're saying about the conflating their separate bills, except that they were both passed on a Sunday that the vote was forced on this one. So the question is why? If it's so straightforward and the opposition actually agrees that the immigration system does need reform, why would it have to be forced that way?

MP: Well I think that the opposition was very it was trying to defend file holders for one thing. So they both the Liberals, both Quebec Solidaire really wanted the government to review its decision not to treat to files that it's going to cancel as of soon or now. So there's some of that for sure. But I think there is also a real desire by the CAQ government to be seen as taking action on the immigration front there. That was a really important promise during the election and there is also I think some perspective or strategic planning here seeing as the border issues might actually come up again this summer. So to be seen as a government that is taking action that is taking a strong stance on these issues and is dedicated to reforming immigration system I think is important for them. But I also just want to add one thing which is that it's not entirely clear whether this bill was necessary to review the system. So I really hear what the representative of the Chamber of Commerce asked that previously, but already existed and it was already in place so the bill was not integrity necessary to implement a lot of the reform, business all owners and employers have been asking for and it's not. You're also wetter this law will make it more easy for employers to select immigrants.

AMT: Well thank you for your insights. I guess we have more questions now for government. Mireille Paquet, thank you for your time.

MP: Thank you.

AMT: Mireille Paquet is the Concordia Research Chair on the Politics of Immigration at Concordia University. Stay with us. The news is next and then a salty tale. Our producer Jessica Linzey wades into a salty marsh in search of saltwater beavers. This is The Current.

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Are saltwater beavers a thing? Scientists observe Canadian critters in potentially deadly habitat

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

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AMT: Still to come during the Bosnian war of the 1990s the women of Bosnia Herzegovina became targets of systematic rape. The scope of the atrocity is not known because those stories are often so very difficult to share. In 2012 I returned to Sarajevo and spoke with two women about their experiences. We will revisit my documentary Born of War in half an hour. But first, A Salty Tail.

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AMT: Some stories don't need a lot of introduction, so suffice to say this next one is about a curious phenomenon involving Canada's national animal. We are talking about the beaver and a beaver behaviour that has scientists puzzled. Here's The Current's Jessica Linzey with her documentary, A Salty Tail.

JESSICA LINZEY: Canadians can be arrogant. It's not a trait we like to admit to, but it's true. There are certain kinds of things we are super confident about too confident maybe, stuff we think we know all about, but we actually don't know. Take beavers for example, I thought I knew just about everything there was to know about beavers.

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VOICE: There was a time when beaver lodges like this one and the busy beaver that built them had almost disappeared from Canada.

JESSICA LINZEY: I was one of a generation of Canadians who grew up with those iconic black and white TV interstitials. Those little vignettes on our country's wildlife.

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VOICE: And it's made a successful comeback.

JESSICA LINZEY: Hinterlands' Who's Who ran seemingly constantly through the 60s and 70s and pulling it up on YouTube. I was reminded of just how many episodes were about the beaver.

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VOICE: Beavers may be the most prepared creature in the wilderness.

JESSICA LINZEY: One was nothing but fun facts.

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VOICE: Their eyes have clear goggle like eyelids for underwater protection.

JESSICA LINZEY: They have orange teeth that never stop growing.

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VOICE: And are extra strong thanks to enamel rich.

JESSICA LINZEY: Beavers live in freshwater systems. They can hold their breath for 15 minutes. The inside of their lips are lined with fur tubing and of course we all know that the beaver is our national symbol, officially recognized as such in 1975. It's on our nickel. The one guy I'll introduce you to here in a bit thinks that the beaver was actually ripped off there. Should have been the quarter. Mind you others might counter that it's curious a country would recognize the second largest rodent in the world on its currency. So all this to say nothing about the beaver has surprised me. Of course not. I'm Canadian.

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BRIGETTE BROUILLARD: This is the first beaver that I have rehabilitated.

JESSICA LINZEY: And like any good Canuck, I am up on my international Beaver news, especially when it involves an orphaned Beaver rescued in Louisville, Kentucky and lovingly named after Canadian pop star.

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BRIGETTE BROUILLARD: Something happened to mom, dad and all his family. JB is short for Justin Bieber.

JESSICA LINZEY: Little Justin Beaver was adopted by the founder of the Second Chances Wildlife Centre.

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BRIGETTE BROUILLARD: People went berserk over him for a couple reasons. I think everybody really loved his name and people really don't often get to see beavers in general. JB does make some oftly cute noises.

JESSICA LINZEY: Brigette Brouillard took Justin Beaver into her home when he was just a kid and she's gotten used to living with him. Though he does get up to some odd things.

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BRIGETTE BROUILLARD: He's very particular about what he wants do. He has something in his mind and he is going to do it. He's going to do it his way. It's a beaver thing. Where you go with that JB?

JESSICA LINZEY: In this video that beaver thing manifests itself in the young JB, dragging stuffies, magazines, shoes, a lacrosse stick. Santa hat, the front hall carpet through Brigette's home with purpose. He's building a dam.

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BRIGETTE BROUILLARD: Sometimes he does, well actually pretty regularl he does the bathtub. He likes to dam that. Every once in a while dishwasher.

JESSICA LINZEY: But not everything he does is so adorable.

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BRIGETTE BROUILLARD: JB has done about $500 or $600 worth of damage to my house. It's frustrating for me that I really can't get angry because well he didn't ask to be orphaned. He just did the best he can be received to he that needs to in my walls and my baseboards, my furniture, they're wood. He gets his favourite type of trees.

JESSICA LINZEY: It's been two years of this. So Brigette Brouillard is ready for Justin Beaver or JB to move outside into the pen she's been building him and what she hopes will be ready for him this month. And while she'll be glad to reclaim her baseboards, she will miss the bedtime routine and those little breathing sounds JB makes when he's drifting off.

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BRIGETTE BROUILLARD: It slows down his regular [imitates beaver sounds]

JESSICA LINZEY: It may be strange keeping a beaver in your home, but JB's behaviour is anything but strange when you consider he's a beaver. So I still thought I knew everything I needed to know about beavers, until one morning last summer when I came across one swimming in a tidal pond, a body of saltwater on the island where I live just west of Vancouver. I didn't think much of it at the time, but then sometime later I happened upon a story with a headline that caught my eye. The nine question of saltwater beavers and I wondered Is this really a thing. Saltwater beavers? It seemed impossible. The first thing we learn about beavers after all is that they live in freshwater. Baffled, I told my mum about it. I thought I'd amaze her. Instead she told me something even crazier. A story on CBC on As It Happens back in 2014 and artfully introduced by Jeff Douglas.

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JEFF DOUGLAS: Gnarly old bark is no. For its bite so it's usually best for us vulnerable soft humans to steer clear of vengeful beavers. Not that that warning means much to anybody because beavers almost never attack people, but you will notice that I said almost never and almost never is not never, is it? Last week Jeremy McNaughton was snorkelling with his friend Paul Scary off Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore when he encountered a truly enormous beaver. That caught them off guard because they were diving in saltwater and beavers are freshwater folk.

JESSICA LINZEY: I love that introduction for so many reasons. You notice how in Canada we can even refer to beavers as freshwater folk. But the real drama is of course that you've got to beavers paddling around in Canadian saltwater one of which is attacking people. I reach out to Molly Alves. She's a wildlife biologist with the Tulalip Tribes in Washington state and the head of the Tulalip Beaver project. I ask her if in her research she's seen signs of saltwater beavers along the coast.

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VOICE: Well I didn't even see signs of beavers. I initially saw a beaver swimming through an estuary channel and just thought. What are you doing here. This is not very typical habitat for you. I thought it was kind of just misguided.

JESSICA LINZEY: But it turns out it wasn't just misguided and Molly wasn't the only researcher who'd begun to notice strange beaver activity in saltwater habitat including one just up the coast from Tulalip.

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JESSICA LINZEY: Greg?

GREG HOOD: Yes.

JESSICA LINZEY: Thanks for having me.

GREG HOOD: Sure, my pleasure.

JESSICA LINZEY: Greg Hood is a senior research scientist with the Skagit River System Co-operative in La Conner, Washington. He's not a beaver guy, but back in 2009 he was out looking for a shrub in the Skagit Delta and he found something that made him what he calls an accidental beaver guy.

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GREG HOOD: I kept stumbling across these beaver dams that were kind of weird looking beaver dams. They didn't fill up a channel entirely. They're kind of low in the channel and I'd never heard of beaver entitled marshes. So it just was a puzzle for me and I was curious about it.

JESSICA LINZEY: And when you first saw them did you know immediately they were beaver dams?

GREG HOOD: Well I was kind of reluctant to to come to that conclusion is because for one thing I didn't like to see them in tidal marshes. And so I just had to see them repeatedly and just convince myself it couldn't be anything else. And then there was the clincher and I just finished the work for the day I was walking back towards the boat and I was walking down the channel and the water was about, it was about thigh deep and a beaver was swimming towards me. And I just stopped and I had my hands full of things I was trying to put them down and grabbed my camera before the beaver noticed me and unfortunately noticed me before I could get to the camera and it turned around swam the other direction, but that was pretty exciting. The beaver got within about I would say about three meters of me.

JESSICA LINZEY: The conclusion saltwater beavers are actually a thing. Back in Tulalip, Molly's colleague wildlife biologist David Bailey has offered to take me into the tidal marshes where he's met saltwater beavers of his own. I really have so much here and I don't have any work kayaking there. It's low tide, I'm wearing chest waders and I've waterproof my microphones and recorders with duct tape. David seems born for this kind of fieldwork. It's a hot day and he regrets leaving his cap on the dash the pickup a trucker hat with a drawing of a beaver below the words. Beaver Hunter. Still he is nothing but dimples out here and his boyish enthusiasm and sense of wonder at everything we see birds in order. It's infectious. We've paddled 20 minutes of the estuary. When we finally pull our kayaks back through the mud and pick our way into the brush. David was out here tracking birds when he first came across these little tidal creeks. We're now jumping across channels made by beavers. Then he found some unusual dams.

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DAVID BAILEY: And then, but then they have these structures that we're looking at here, which is like the world's smallest dam. That's pretty much right.

JESSICA LINZEY: Most of these dams aren't even knee height. At high tide they disappear entirely. They're built low to keep the power of the tides from breaking them apart. And when David realized what he was looking at he thought these are beavers with intention. They've settled here.

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[Clip running through brambles]

JESSICA LINZEY: As he leads me towards the lodge, I keep getting hung up on brambles and falling into channels I can't see because of how thick the brush is. David jokes that this is why no one knows anything about these beavers.

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DAVID BAILEY: The lodge is over there and this would be kind of like the front door, the porch to it all I guess. Different ways of accessing that lodge.

JESSICA LINZEY: The lodge David is pointing out has multiple entrances as all beaver lodges do. But here are the entrances are different heights again to accommodate changes in tidal floods. It's all seasonal scrub and shrub out here. Not much in the way of the usual Beaver building material trees like Alder and Willow and you see that in this large parts of it are actually alive with spring growth suggesting there would be lots to chew on in the summer. But David he can't imagine how these beavers could possibly have had enough to eat in the wintertime and when he first discovered all of this. David was as surprised as Greg had been. He still is.

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DAVID BAILEY: It's definitely crazy. It's definitely eye opening that like me as a beaver like if I was trying to be a beaver and live out here I don't think I would you know do this. You know it doesn't make any sense.

JESSICA LINZEY: David's now standing on top of the lodge bouncing gently. He's hoping for a snore or a grunt from the beavers that he believes are sleeping inside.

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DAVID BAILEY: Sometimes the same year you can hear them actually moaning like the the kits and stuff will go. And it's hard for me to hear it most of time but like when we. How is the Beavers at the fish hatchery where before relocation you can go, they'll moan and stuff which is a sound that I feel like most people don't ever get to hear or even think that they make. So if you were out here a night or something you might be able to hear them actually gnawing on a tree and the sound of them you know just like them [imitates beaver sound] Now I feel like I'm a beaver.

JESSICA LINZEY: I meet Greg Hood the next day. He's agreed to take me out into the Skagit River Delta to where he first ran into that beaver in the intertidal zone.

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Sound of boat.

JESSICA LINZEY: We're in a boat with an outboard motor aptly named the Beaver Tail. And by now Greg's changed out of his Crocs sandals ,which he'd been wearing with socks, despite it being almost 30 degrees out. Now he stands behind me at the back of the boat in rubber boots. He's careful not to run us into any shallows if the tide retreats. He looks like an overgrown boy scout in his camouflage hip waders and straw hat. And we pull up to a channel drop anchor and Greg produces a map from his tan vest.

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GREG HOOD: We came down we came down this channel, passed this inlet.

JESSICA LINZEY: It's been many years since Greg's been back here. There is no money for intertidal beaver research, so there is no reason for him to visit. He's not sure what we'll find. But within minutes we come across our first dam and Greg is beaming.

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GREG HOOD: Look at that. I feel happy to see them.

JESSICA LINZEY: Everyone else I've spoken with seems to think it's weird that beavers have established colonies out here in the tidal marsh, so I put the question to Greg.

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JESSICA LINZEY: Do you think it's insane that they're here?

GREG HOOD: No I think it's very sensible that they're here. I think.

JESSICA LINZEY: It looks very much like the area I visited with David just the day before, but maybe I'm wrong because Greg sees nothing but virtue in this habitat and he tells me that maybe beavers have always built lodges and dams in intertidal zones but in changing the landscape as dramatically as we have we're now suffering some kind of collective ecological amnesia.

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GREG HOOD: And so for that reason we don't. People aren't used to looking for them and they don't. And they haven't looked for them in these areas. But it's a great habitat for beaver. Of course the other issue for beavers the reason they're building them in these title systems. Is because the tide goes down and beaver don't like to walk. They like to swim.

JESSICA LINZEY: But unlike Greg, Tulalip biologists Molly Alves and David Bailey do have some concerns about what all of this may mean for the health of these animals.

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MOLLY ALVES: I think that those beavers are probably, yeah I don't know, not going to thrive certainly. Like it's perplexing.

JESSICA LINZEY: And while some beavers are clearly trying to make a go of it in these environs we know that saltwater is actually poisonous to them. I take the question of beavers living in intertidal zones to Breanne Glinnum, the senior animal care supervisor at the Critter Care Wildlife Society and Rehab Centre in Langley, B.C..

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BREANNE GLINNUM: I think that's really insane. I find that really insane.

JESSICA LINZEY: And this is coming from a woman who's seen beavers do a lot of strange things like the time she got a call about a beaver in Delta, B.C., down by the port.

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BREANNE GLINNUM: There was like a yard bin.

JESSICA LINZEY: And under that yard bin was a beaver. Breanne was called in to relocate it.

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BREANNE GLINNUM: We spent five and a half hours wading through this ice cold disgusting puddle trying to catch this Beaver and I just belly flopped onto the Beaver. It was gross. I don't know why this Beaver chose to live there but he did. But again he was a 2 year old trying to find his own body of water and he chose this puddle.

JESSICA LINZEY: And that is what most scientists I've spoken with actually think is going on here. Beavers kick their kids out of the family home at 2 years old. They swim off in search of their own territory and not knowing how dangerous saltwater can be to them. They can get themselves into trouble and end up in Breanne's clinic.

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BREANNE GLINNUM: So some of them are coming in just a little bit dehydrated. We give them fluids. Others are coming in completely disorientated walking like they're intoxicated some of them aren't even walking at all. They're cold and then we put them on heat. Some of them just as they warm up. They pass away on their own.

JESSICA LINZEY: Breanne says that in a two month stretch last year critter care picked up 13 sick beavers. More than half of which were suffering saltwater poisoning. She's been watching those numbers climb year over year and she figures it's because of decreasing freshwater habitat. She can only guess how those Washington State beavers have survived as long as they have.

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BREANNE GLINNUM: Are they acting like they're completely normal or are they swimming in straight lines or if maybe there's some kind of strange evolution going on with them.

JESSICA LINZEY: For his part David Bailey, the wildlife biologist, believes the beavers he's been tracking in Tulalip are not the ones to be concerned about.

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DAVID BAILEY: I worry about beavers that are I hear about like at the port of Everett. Like literally out in the sound and I'm like where you're going and where have you come from. It's beavers that are just carving out some little tension run off of. The city and you're just like well how are you even surviving and you're really not providing a of ecological benefits either.

BRIGETTE BROUILLARD: The beavers David is describing here are the ones Nick Page encounters all the time through his work as an ecologist with the City of Vancouver.

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NICK PAGE: They kind of, they seek out new habitat so they would have moved down.

BRIGETTE BROUILLARD: He's the guy I mentioned earlier. The one that thinks the beaver should be on our quarter, not the lowly nickel.

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NICK PAGE: In these patches of habitat they have like we're looking in this park here and it's tiny.

JESSICA LINZEY: I mean the wetlands like I've met him in a little park in the city's Olympic Village on the banks of False Creek. It seems to bring back a memory for him about a particularly resourceful beaver.

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NICK PAGE: Mowing down of course some nights rose bushes or something and I'm lik oh God, you know these are the emails about the next day about all the damage they're being done, but at one point the beaver was trying to pull the stick at it had eaten out of the patch of roses and it was stuck and so I was trying to help the beaver remove its branches and we're having like this tug of war. So you're like these things are so used to people. Like they are really within a metre of you. You know there's dogs and people and bikes around and they're just like whatever.

JESSICA LINZEY: Half a block to the east of where we're standing is a forest of condo towers and directly in front of us a beaver lodge.

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NICK PAGE: So what we're looking at is this mound of vegetation it's just a mound of sticks and mud that's accumulated over time that the beavers have brought in from different places. And you know not only are there sticks, but I see two by fours and there's some bird walks.

JESSICA LINZEY: Nick says yeah he was surprised when the beavers first appeared here five or so years ago but he says it's indicative of how beavers adapt to wherever they end up. This particular colony travels between the five parks that line the south side of False Creek. They eat from each of the parks. They keep homes in each and Vancouver is not unique in this. Nick sees it happening in coastal cities all over the world.

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NICK PAGE: You know we are re learning what beavers do and these these habitats. It speaks to that maybe you don't always understand what they really need or what they tolerate or what they can adapt to.

JESSICA LINZEY: Adaptation is one thing but.

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NICK PAGE: One of the sort of challenges now is where do beavers go next? What happens when the next generation comes along and there's no new habitats for them to colonize.

JESSICA LINZEY: And as you've likely gleaned from Nick's earlier story about the beaver and the rosebush at times it also pains him to see what these beavers are doing with this habitat.

[sc].

NICK PAGE: You have to think of that where those sticks came from though. That's like all the park vegetation and all the trees and things like that. Oh no beavers, can you give me a break sometimes.

JESSICA LINZEY: Back in La Conner, Washington, Greg Hood the accidental beaver guy sees an unexpected and potentially huge impact beavers are having in this intertidal landscape.

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GREG HOOD: The beavers are about quadrupling, tripling to quadrupling. The potential numbers of fish that are growing in these in the tidal marshes.

JESSICA LINZEY: Did you catch that? These beavers are helping fish, baybe not on purpose, but the way I understand it Greg's telling me that these intertidal beaver dams are creating ponds that are protecting the very fish we worry most about like the endangered chinook salmon.

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GREG HOOD: Another kind of bird that you see that preys on juvenile salmon would be Kingfisher and those are gonna be you know diving in deep water. They're not going to dive in these little shallow tidal channels. So these are potential predation refuges for juvenile salmon and beaver are providing that for them.

JESSICA LINZEY: For his part biologist David Bailey isn't quite as ready to give the beavers as much of a hot tip as Greg is.

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DAVID BAILEY: I go back and forth between giving beavers too much credit and not enough because it's like in one sense it's like it's just a fever. It's just like a rodent. It's just like driven. I just feel like I just need to find food. I seem to protect myself with water and build a dam. But the lodge and then other times they're building these impressive impressive landscapes these impressive structures and so it's like man maybe they are like they know what they're doing. But I think more than anything they're just like I just need to get to that tree over there and I need to build that little factory for myself to get over there.

JESSICA LINZEY: Whatever their differences, David and Greg agree. Nobody's interested in funding research into this phenomenon of the saltwater beaver. David figures that's because there's other wildlife people are more invested in it.

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DAVID BAILEY: It's a lot different than fish. So that's why I feel like if if Greg can find a way to do it and related to fish people would be all in for that.

JESSICA LINZEY: Breanne Glinnum may not want to eat them but she is very fond of them.

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BREANNE GLINNUM: They have really little ears for how big they are. .They're really weird looking creatures in all honesty. Yeah their ears are really cute. I always get caught up on them whenever I'm examining them the interns always make fun of me because I'll just be like looking at their feet making sure their feet are okay and then I always have to like poke their ear.

JESSICA LINZEY: Cute ears aside Greg says we should care for a whole bunch of reasons.

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GREG HOOD: It's a symbol of a forgotten landscape. A lot people I think assume even professional know habitat managers tend to assume that we know everything about these habitats and in fact we don't. And so how can you manage wisely if you don't really know what you're doing right. Discovering the beaver is a reminder of that. Discovering tidal beaver of our ignorance and that we still have a lot to learn.

JESSICA LINZEY: Brigette Brouillard of Kentucky's Second Chances Wildlife Centre told me that she sure learned a lot about beavers living with Justin Beaver as you would over these last two years. Even so, I had one more question for her.

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JESSICA LINZEY: Have you ever heard of saltwater beavers?

BRIGETTE BROUILLARD: I am not familiar with them.

JESSICA LINZEY: So you have in your wildlife centre, I mean I know Kentucky is inland, so you're not going to have coastal beavers wash up, but you've never heard of the saltwater beaver?

BRIGETTE BROUILLARD: No. I will do my research on that. That's amazing.

JESSICA LINZEY: Amazing. So says the woman who lives with the beaver.

AMT: Who knew? That's our who knew category. Jessica Linzey with the documentary, A Salty Tail. Our documentary editor is Joan Webber. Let us know what you think and go to our website. You can see pictures on our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. You'll see the tidal marshes Jessica visited in Washington State. Check out the ears. They are kind of cute. Stay with us. This is The Current.

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Anna Maria Tremonti's most memorable interviews: The Bosnian women who bore children of war

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. This is my last week as the host of The Current and we're revisiting some of the issues that we've explored that stay with me and hopefully stay with you, which brings us to a documentary you're about to hear. And I'll tell you now this is not an easy one to listen to, not really for children either. I covered the war in Bosnia for CBC News in the 1990s and the one story I could not let go of was the number of women who were brutalized, who were raped by fighters in camps, in villages that were taken over. I always wondered what happened to those women, especially the women who became pregnant and gave birth. What were their lives like twenty years later? What conversations did they have with those children? When our producer Laura O'Brien and I began working on this story, we were told no one's going to talk to you. Few women have ever talked about how they might be raising these children. In the end, two women did want to tell us about themselves and their children. And so from 2012, twenty years after that war began, here is our documentary: Born of War.

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Birds chirping.

AMT: At this time of year you can be awakened by the sounds of birds and in Sarajevo it is no different but 20 years ago you rarely heard birds. Sarajevo was a city under siege and the sounds of early morning were of heavy artillery incoming.

[Sound of bombs]

[Music]

AMT: Twenty years ago Yugoslavia was disintegrating. Competing claims for territory in Bosnia inflamed ethnic tensions. Serb Bosniak and Croat soldiers even neighbours were at one another's throats. The first shots fired in the Bosnian war were in April. And within weeks the four year long siege of Sarajevo began. It was a war to which I would return again and again. And now I've gone back to Sarajevo looking for insights into what lingers when a war is over. The war in Bosnia was marked by unimaginable atrocities. Bosnia became known for the systematic rape of women. Thousands were victimized. No one knows how many took their resulting pregnancies to term or how many kept the children to whom they gave birth. And please if you're listening today along with young children this is a warning. This is not for them. Few women in Bosnia Herzegovina have ever spoken about raising children conceived because of the brutality of that war. We found two who would both Bosnian Muslims. This is their story.

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VOICE 1: We had always been neighbours. Then they came for us. One day we were in a stone house hiding in the basement.

AMT: Safada is a big methodical woman. Even before she begins to speak she has brought us coffee. She's opened the window for the cigarette smoke. She settles into a chair on the third floor of a home for abused women in Tuzla in Northeast Bosnia. She cleans here. What else would I do. She asks. And she begins.

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The morning of May 25 a truck came. A yellow FOP truck and some other vehicles. They started collecting people people who could not climb on the trucks were shocked on the spot. They took us to a house. They packed us into the house and they continued collecting people from the area. In the end they were around 450 people including children and woman. That's where real abuse began and rapes. Luckily they hit on a seal on a Columbia yacht.

AMT: She holds her cigarette her big hands on her belly leaning back slowly in her chair then moving forward. Lost in thought.

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They took me out on the second night me and another woman fat. They took us to Hassan's house. There were other girls there. They took me to a room inside. There was a couch and it was stained with blood. I also saw blood stained women's underwear. I knew what was going to happen to me. The men ordered me to sit on the couch between them. He then ordered me to undress he pinched my breasts but just started biting me and tearing at panties. In the end he raped me.

AMT: It was the spring of 1992. Safada her was 29. After that she'd hide for nine days. She hid under a sink whenever the Serb soldiers came looking for women suffered I wiped her eyes and tries not to cry. Much later that same year. In another part of central Bosnia in a region called Yasmina was 21.

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VOICE 1: I had a beautiful life a normal life. I went to school and I lived like everybody else. It was a really normal life. I had dreams for the future more than anything. I wanted to go to the university and I wanted the car. I always wanted to drivers licence. I wanted to earn a salary because my dad always supported us with his meagre salary. But I had no chance to give him my first paycheque because he died before I could do it.

VOICE 2: First there was a war between Serbs and the Muslims and we were not affected that much because no Serbs were living near us. But Sudan the war with crowds began and our village began to split in two. The railway tracks separated us. We were on one side and crowds were on the other.

AMT: Yasmina is not her real name. It's the one she's asked us to use. She's a smoker. She's got half a pack of Sarajevo drainer cigarettes next to her. And by the time we finish this conversation she will have finished that one and started in on another. She peels the tiny barcode tag off her lighter passing it back and forth between your fingers and as she speaks in a language I don't understand. Her voice becomes more urgent. Her fingers become so frenzied that I'm uncomfortable. I know she's about to break.

I was raped by five crusts. I don't know even whose child she is a million or so. Of course some no good for football. And all the air goes out of the room but it goes on to the comments of your politics he said. Yes they're wrong. Listen George Trudell specific one night to George Bush I met the girlfriend from school. She said Let's go for a coffee. Okay let's go for a coffee.

You don't really think it through.

I went to craft cafe with her and just as we walked in they dragged me by my hand and threw me into a car that had been waiting in front of the cafe.

There were two of them in the in front and another three in the back. It started in the car and they tended in the barns in the woods in the house.

What happened to your girlfriend.

I don't know. She was crushed. It wasn't a villain. It was a setup.

They only took her because she was on my side.

It appeared longer is that it wasn't all my fault. It's happened before because it is I would love it if similar things happened before. I know it happened to two or three more women. Why did I go. I mean why did I go. Don't worry. I know.

For sure I'm OK.

This is where I want to ask for Rita. A question how many women have you talked to who think it's their fault. Too much. Yes Mina can only talk about this with her friend and therapist for Rita decades. At her side.

For Rita was a nurse 20 years ago when the first stories of rape began to surface. Their stories collectively pointed to the use of rape as a weapon of the war of human rights violations that were part of the wider practice of what became known as ethnic cleansing. A U.N. commission determined soldiers from all sides raped women in the Bosnian war.

It said the vast majority of the victims were Bosnian Muslims. The vast majority of the perpetrators were Bosnian Serbs.

A Swiss and gynaecologist Monika Houser set up a safe house called Medical Zen pizza and traumatized women streamed in. But despite all the help.

Two decades later Yasmina still lives with shame no good when something negative or unnecessary and the worst thing is that people judge you.

Even today in my village where I live now the family that knows it I could never take you to my house. You could not come to my house and interview you. They would hang me on the pole. Men have never been there to rise up here.

By the time Yasmeen as trauma begins softer has been on the run for months in another fractured part of Bosnia.

Police are concerned not only did those lozenges article you only think you can think about is that your turn will come to be killed or burned alive. Their order does still leave the house and people began to run down the stairs. We were on the upper floor and there were people downstairs. The people who got out first were gunned down. I lived. I wish I were killed to.

Your vehicle or stolen some some had assembled.

Instead she was raped again. Picked up by Serb soldiers as she moved through the forests with others trying to find refuge. And when they found her.

The abuse began anew.

Style of humour not. All of our post focus on subtle General Rachel on a call arms.

They left me completely naked at the side of the road a woman told me that a man from comments found me and that he took me to her. She gave me some clothes. It was the next day when I regained my consciousness and when I became aware of every month or so.

That's until they suffered her realized she was pregnant.

Parker's small vehicle test called last September.

I think it was in September. I noticed that my belly button was stretching and I. I also realized that I missed my period in September. We tried to go to Tortola. I tried six times but without success. When I reached those low I was already six months pregnant. When I came to Tuzla I immediately went to the hospital and cried enough to try and have an abortion. But it was too late. I was six months pregnant and nobody wanted to risk my life for it or a job. I started jumping off high ledges to try and hurt myself so I wouldn't have the baby puzzle.

Tackled the song that did all that up in his life.

I lived alone until April. I gave birth on April 14th in the hospital and grab dinner before that I signed a document saying that I don't want to see the baby. I did ask a nurse after I delivered. If it was a boy or a girl she told me it was a boy. I left the hospital the next day. I did not see the child. I did not want to see it. I was glad when I heard that it was a boy because I was afraid that it would be a girl and that what happened to me will happen to her.

I really wanted to give her away or get rid of her. But then I realized that my pain would be even greater. I am grateful to God that she is a girl. That is why I kept her only because she's a girl. I am 100 percent sure I would not have kept the baby if it was a boy and now 20 years later I still say I would not have kept it if it were a boy's name.

Look at her so cute. Yes Meena takes out her daughter's picture we're calling her Aida. I can see it from the photo. Oh no she's 7 in the picture. All little girl smiles.

Kayak or WD department. This is very very good child. She's smart she's very very smart and very intelligent but I feel sorry for ADA because she is feeling my pain. That is why I am sorry because she doesn't have her own life, she lives mine. She feels sorry for me all the time.

I tell myself maybe maybe if she was somewhere else maybe it maybe it would be different. Maybe if she was with another family maybe she would. Not feel this pain. But nobody can love her the way I loved. It wasn't a good deal for me.

You never be multiple yes Yasmina never let Aida go but softer had walked out of the hospital without her baby boy.

Major mental cause not to cover sets was.

As time went by I still don't know if this was possible or it was just playing out in my head but I had a feeling a woman was coming to my door every night to tell me take the child take the child out I and those who did.

And that began years of trying to get him back.

He was in the orphanage and I visited him every day. As time went by he was getting attached to me whenever he saw me in the distance. If a nurse was holding him he was struggling to get out of her embrace and to run to me when he turned 7. I had finally saved enough money to build a house to get him out of the orphanage and I took him to my house to our house. Now he is with me. We live as best as we can but it's a fight.

Some pretty normal.

Two mothers neither one the mother she ever thought she'd be yes Miner's Daughter Aida is 18 now and for the last 10 years she's had a stepfather a man who has loved and supported both mother and daughter through a decade marked with intensity full of unspoken emotions suspicions and uneasy questions.

I know that's what you're all on. Look here babe I'll be like a Muslim scholar who is either suspected all the time. She would she would come home from school.

And ask me why don't I have a father. But then she watched the movie after. She came home and she said Mom I know mom I knew. My husband and I just looked at each other. He cried a lot. And he said You are my child. Later she told me I knew it. Mom I knew it before. She cried a lot and we weren't.

We were taking her to see a psychologist and she was getting better. Until last year I think that was the turning point. The person is gone. Punishment. My first cousins daughter goes to school with her. She was the first one to tell her. Why do you say that your father is your father and he is not. Well why are you lying to your friends. Why don't you tell them that you are in Worcestershire. Bastards. Can you imagine that. Can you imagine how it is for a girl her age. That is why everything in our country is still upside down because we are like this.

The love each mother has for her child doesn't erase the memory of the trauma they've experienced. Neither Yasmina nor suffer to speak of themselves with any hope Mendel's book which I feel no no pain for myself anymore.

I'm used to it. We'll live with it. Yes Americans are revisiting.

National march to the cause of history.

Well this life means nothing to me anymore.

I live because I have too much changed the world and each admits to struggling with violent thoughts about their children.

There had been moments even while he was still in your fridge when I would get ready to leave. There had been moments when I wanted to grab him and slam him against the floor.

It hasn't always been easy to be close with adults. Some struggled to forgive me but sometimes I would hit her only because of the way she looked at me or because of how she gestures with her hands the way she reminded me.

Sometimes she even asked me one why don't you love me.

Why couldn't you look.

Yasmina and her daughter Aida struggle some days. Aida asked her mother not to talk to us. She can't bear how sad she can become.

Fico Yeah he's my lookalike. He's good really good.

VOICE 2: And I think I can take credit for that.

AMT: But Safata and her son have never spoken of what happened to her in their village. Most women are widowed their husbands massacred at Srebrenica suffered a son she believes thinks he's just another kid whose dad died in the war next door to no oh no logical call line in a landslide.

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VOICE 1: She doesn't know anything yet. He never asked me anything. I will tell him one day but I'm waiting for the time when he will be able to think it through.

VOICE 2: He's like me. Like a picture of me. Like somebody split an apple in half. They're the same.

AMT: Safata is so proud of her son she can't resist bringing us home to meet him. Don't dare tell him she says. But she invites us to take out our tape recorder and talk to him. Just another mother proud of her son. We sit outside drinking more Bosnian coffee eating apples. In the end I ask him little. There is nothing to say.

[Music]

AMT: You have been listening to the documentary, Born of War produced by Lara O'Brien with help and translation from Sabina N.

[Music]

AMT: This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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VOICE: I find it reassuring knowing the rainbow comes and goes. It helps me accept the way things are off and I've. In every life you have moments of blinding beauty and happiness and then you land in a dark cave and there is no colour no sky. Then the rainbow returns. Sometimes only briefly but it always does come back. You have to believe that it will. Even in the darkest moments that belief is what is really important.

AMT: The voice of Gloria Vanderbilt, the American heiress and fashion designer reading from a book she co-authored with her son, the journalist Anderson Cooper in 2016. Yesterday Gloria Vanderbilt died at the age of 95. She had quite a life. Her 95 years included childhood fame multiple marriages family tragedies. Anderson Cooper joined me in 2016 to talk about the book they co-wrote. That book is called The Rainbow Comes and goes. Here's a little bit of that conversation.

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ANDERSON COOPER: Nice to be here.

AMT: You know that clip of the diss and the discussion around the rainbow coming and going in your book made me cry.

ANDERSON COOPER: Oh. Yeah it's interesting both the phrase The Rainbow Comes and goes is from a Wordsworth poem. And it's interesting in the writing of this because my mom and I both have a very different perception of what it actually means for my mom as you just heard her say she believes it's this very hopeful optimistic phrase which is the rainbow comes and goes but it's going to come it's going to come back. They'll be dark days will be difficult times. But the rainbow always comes back it comes back in nature and it comes back it'll come back in your life and you just have to wait for it to come back and be there when it does. I feel like it's sort of there's a little bit more of a hint of resignation in it. When people ask me like oh how's it going. I'll say. The Rainbow Comes And Goes meaning like you know there's good there's bad. And the rainbow may come back in my opinion but how do you know you're going to be in the exact spot where it comes back. You might come back like you know if you're in Toronto right now it may be in Ottawa and you're not going to see it. So I want to prepare for the darkness. I want to prepare for the winter that's coming and you know store my supplies where it was. My mom is the eternal optimist. I view myself as catastrophes. I want to prepare for the worst and if good things happen then I'm pleasantly surprised, but I'm not disappointed if they don't.

AMT: You know to write this book you and your mother emailed each other over the course of about a year and you learned so much about her. Why did it take this correspondence to open up that communication?

ANDERSON COOPER: Well I think you know a lot of us would like to change our relationship with a parent and you know really learn about them. And oftentimes it's we don't do it until it's too late. You know we don't think to sit down and actually ask questions and my schedule I you know I travel all the time and so we started when my mom turned 91 she got sick for the first time and when she recovered I realized no I don't want to wait any longer I need that we need to do this now. And when my dad my dad passed away when I was 10 and I used to imagine that he'd written me a letter that would come you know in the mail when I turned 18 or when I graduated college and would tell me all the things I didn't know about him and about what he hoped for my life and giving me life lessons. And of course there wasn't a letter and I didn't want had that same fantasy with my mom when she's no longer here. So we decided you know what we're gonna change the conversation. I'm going to start asking her questions and she was totally onboard with this and she wanted to learn about me and in a different way as well and and telling me about doing it over email not only made it more convenient but it it made it easier because there wasn't the awkwardness. You know a lot of these things are very awkward to talk about are difficult and something that e-mail is like writing a message putting in a bottle and sending it out only you know another bottle would return very quickly or sometimes days later with a response. And so that's really how it began. We didn't know was going to be a book but we just you know about three or four months into it it was having such a profound impact on our lives that we thought you know this is something we really like to encourage other people to be able to do this with whether it's an aging parent or somebody else in their life.

AMT: Not everybody's 91-year-old, now 92-year-old mom can email, so that was good too.

ANDERSON COOPER: Well that's true. My mom, I got a friend of mine to teach my mom email when she was about 89. So she's relatively new to it and but it's really it's totally changed her life. I mean it's the main way she communicates now and she loves it. My mom is incredibly optimistic. She's the most optimistic person I've ever met and she at 92 believes the next great love is right around the corner cetera. The other day you know you you still think there's a guy on a boat like off the coast of France like waiting to whisk you away don't you and she said a boat, a yacht. And I think it you know she does have this eternal optimism that around the next corner something is amazing is waiting and her whole life will change and the phone can ring and something great can happen.

AMT: Well she had quite the love life. She says in the book that at times instead of counting sheep she'd count her lovers.

ANDERSON COOPER: Yeah I know which is not exactly what you want to hear from your mom, but it's interesting.

AMT: I was just going to ask you about that.

ANDERSON COOPER: The fact that I was over email makes it a little easier, so it's less embarrassing, but you know my mom has has had an extraordinary life and I mean when she was 17 she went out to Hollywood and started dating movie stars Errol Flynn and Bruce Cabot and Howard Hughes and later on Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra and she's had sort of an epic life of love and loss and it's interesting to hear her perspective on it now at 92. She's able to kind of you know see it in the distance and laugh about it in a way that certainly she couldn't have when she was younger.

AMT: Journalist Anderson Cooper speaking with me in 2016 about The Rainbow Comes and Goes, the book he co-wrote with his mother Gloria Vanderbilt. She died yesterday at the age of 95. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. If you're not done with me, I'm going to be talking to Tom Power very shortly. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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June 18, 2019 episode transcript

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