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The AIH Transcript for July 12, 2019

Hosts: Robyn Bresnahan and Chris Howden

ROBYN BRESNAHAN: Hello, I'm Robyn Bresnahan, sitting in for Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

CH: Tonight:

RB: Don't spare the horses. So far at this year's Calgary Stampede, three horses have died — but 12-time chuckwagon-racing world champion Kelly “The King” Sutherland remains a staunch defender of his controversial sport.

CH: Sprucing things up doesn't mean improving them. We love Sitka spruce is here in Canada — but a rural councillor in Ireland is doing a real hatchet job on the program that's planting thousands of them in his country.

RB: It went without saying. He served 17 years for murder; then a court order prevented him from talking about what the government called a miscarriage of justice. But tonight, Glen Assoun is free to speak.

CH: It was a dark and stormy knit. Heads banged and fingers flew yesterday in Finland — and competitors were scarving for attention at the first ever heavy metal knitting world championship.

RB: The devil horns of a dilemma. After the abrupt cancellation of the multi-day Roxodus Music Festival in Ontario, disgruntled ticket holders hit rock bottom — before getting their own bottoms in gear to organize an event called “Roxobust.”

CH: And… the biggest hobo. An off-duty police officer explains how his Great Dane named Lewis helped save the day and send two escaped convicts back to jail — essentially just by being remarkably huge.

CH: As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that wasn't there for the climax, but is enjoying the Great Dane-noue-ment.

[Music: Theme]

Part one: Stampede fine, Glen Assoun case, police dog

Stampede fine

Guest: Kelly Sutherland

CH: Another horse has died at the Calgary Stampede. That brings this year's total to three — so far. It seems to happen every year. But this is believed to be the first year a driver has been disqualified. Chuckwagon racer Chad Harden faces a potential lifetime ban, and a 10-thousand dollar fine, after cutting off another driver. That led to a collision — which led to a third driver's horse hitting the guard rail, and then the ground, last night at Stampede Park. Stampede officials say they don't think Mr. Harden meant to do it, but that the accident was preventable — and therefore, punishable. Kelly Sutherland is a 12-time chuckwagon-racing world champion. We reached him on his ranch near Provost, Alberta.

RB: Mr. Sutherland, can you describe what happened during yesterday's chuckwagon race?

KELLY SUTHERLAND: There was a mistake made by a competitor — as there can be in any sporting event. And there was an incident where there wasn't enough racing room left for the inside competitors. And as a result, one of the horses touched the wheel on a competitor and fractured a leg.

RB: And what went through your mind when you saw that horse slam up against the railings there?

KS: Well, I think you could see how the incident clearly was setting up for a disaster. And although I have not talked to Chad Harden — a competitor I know well — I think that he did not realize that there was another competitor in the back end and did not see him in there. And clearly felt that there was lots of room for the guy that was there. And that was just a human error mistake that that happened you know at competition at very high speeds.

RB: The chair of the Chuckwagon Safety Committee says this is the first time that the Stampede has disqualified a driver. Do you think that that was the appropriate response?

KS: I think so. Those events naturally, we have meetings with the judges and the officials, and there they clearly made a point that people could be suspended, disqualified for preventable errors in racing. I think it was a response that did not shock me.

RB: Two other horses were actually killed earlier this week. What do we know about the deaths of those horses?

KS: Well, I think they're not preventable. One would be what I would term to be natural would be a heart attack. Lots of horses die in the pasture of heart attacks. They don't necessarily have to be out in competition to have it happen. The second one was a stress fracture under competition. I think nobody likes to see that. I've purchased over a thousand thoroughbreds in my lifetime as I was competing. Those thoroughbreds are purchased between the ages of three and six years old — which basically, their alternative when they're done is thoroughbred racing is slaughter. Very few of them can go into other disciplines. The last time I won the Stampede in 2010, my lead team was 17 and 18 years old. And the one horse I bought is a three-year-old — who was, by the way, destined for slaughter. And he’s currently retired at 26 in the pasture. So that horse has 23 years at my place. So as you can understand, there's a tremendous bond with the driver/competitor and his livestock.

RB: So in a way, do you feel like you're saving these horses from the slaughterhouse and giving them this alternative life?

KS: Well, there's no doubt about it. Currently, there's 20,000 thoroughbreds there about in North America that fold each year. And the chuckwagon industry, currently there's about 100 drivers, and they have about 30 horses. So there's about 3,000 chuckwagon horses at all times. And I guess what I would say is if you eradicate the sport, then there will be 3,000 more of these thoroughbreds that are destined for slaughter. Keeping in mind the cost is about $2,500 a year to feed them. So if you want to retire them all, then I think you should bring your checkbook.

RB: I don't think it's going to come as a surprise to you too for you to know that there are people who think that the sport of chuckwagon racing is extremely cruel. And when you talk about horses with bone fractures, having heart attacks, getting crushed by other horses like we saw last night, some people might say maybe the slaughterhouse is the lesser of two evils.

KS: Well, have they been in a slaughterhouse — because I have. Like have they actually witnessed you know the feedlots that they are fattened in and the slaughterhouse. Because I think of the less than .001 per cent of horses that so far have been injured racing at the Calgary Stampede, now that is that that is a risk that I don't know if you can get it any lower than that. Twenty-one-hundred-and-sixty horses will run in ten days at the Calgary Stampede. And if there is no more guests, knock on wood, that means that there's three. So that is less than .0014 per cent. I say what do you do? Do you slaughter 3,000 horses, or do risk a horse that that has that small percentage to have a fatality? I firmly believe that the horse wants to live like any living thing.

RB: Since the stampede started, there have been dozens of horse deaths, but there have also been drivers killed as well. Do you see a way to make this sport safer for both animals and humans?

KS: I think there's always going to be risk for both. And I think that's why it's appealing sport. I don't think it's any different than any other sporting event. There is a risk there, which is one of the reasons it commands worldwide attendance. I think the drivers know that there's a risk there, and they're willing because they love the sport, they love the horses, they're willing, at least I was, to risk my life. Like I think people kind of lose sight of what reality is in the world. I'm out here watching some McDonald beef patties run around. You know that's how McDonald’s gets their beef patties is from ranchers that grow cattle.

RB: Right.

KS: And I think that's a reality that people tend to lose every once in a while.

RB: Okay, we'll have to leave it there for now. Thank you very much for picking up the phone and talking to us.

KS: Thank you so much for inviting me, Robyn.

RB: Take care. Bye-bye.

KS: Bye-bye.

CH: Chuckwagon world champion Kelly Sutherland, arguing his sport is here to stay. We reached Mr. Sutherland near Provost, Alberta. And we've got more on that story on the As It Happens website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Spanish guitar]

Glen Assoun case

Guests: Glen Assoun, Sean MacDonald

CH: Glen Assoun is free to speak. Mr. Assoun served 17 years for the murder of Brenda Way. But in 2014, the Nova Scotia man was released on bail, after the Justice Department found evidence that he had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Earlier this year, the crown dropped all charges against him. Over all those years, a court order prevented Mr. Assoun from talking about how the police mishandled his case. This morning, a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge lifted that order. We reached Glen Assoun in Halifax.

RB: Mr. Assoun, how does it feel for you to finally be free to speak?

GLEN ASSOUN: It feels great. I waited a long, long time to have it happen. And you know, I'm glad that Justice Chipman made the right decision to release the information to the public. The public needs to know you know what happened you know in terms of my wrongful conviction. And I feel great about it.

RB: You have said before that all those years in prison were a living nightmare.

GA: Absolutely, they were a living nightmare. But I fought every day you know to prove my innocence in one form or another.

RB: The documents released today suggest not just that there were problems with this investigation into your case, but that there was evidence that another man was responsible for the murder of Brenda Way. What has it been like for you to know that after everything that you have been through?

GA: Well, it's a bit traumatizing to know that. And, hopefully, the facts come out, you know? If that's the case, then we have the truth. Because tit’s not about anything else; it's just about the truth you know who did the Brenda Way?

RB: I'm going to come back to you in just a moment, Mr. Assoun. But you were there with your lawyer, Sean MacDonald. And I wonder if you could just pass the phone over to him for a moment, and we'll come back to you in just a moment.

GA: All right.

SEAN MACDONALD: Hi.

RB: Hi, Mr. MacDonald. How would you characterize what the RCMP did in Mr. Assoun’s case?

SM: Shocking, I think would be the simplest sort of characterization of what the RCMP did to Glen. I've been around the wrongful conviction world for about the better part of 20 years now. And this case in particular, and what we now know about what the RCMP did, is beyond the pale of anything I've ever seen. This is in a category of its own.

RB: At some point, an RCMP analysts conducted a review that suggested that Glen Assoun was not guilty. Basically, that they did not have the right man. What happened there?

SM: Well,I don't think it was just a review. Based on my read of the documents is that he performed an analysis and formed that preliminary conclusion. And then he went lot further than that. He spent months, and as I understand it, maybe even over a year undertaking an investigation that compiled hundreds and hundreds of documents. And God only knows how much digital information on the RCMP servers. So at the end of all that, as I understand it, this officer was compelled to write to his superiors in Ottawa to speak to other law enforcement people in and around Halifax saying look, there's something wrong with this conviction. We may have got the wrong guy. This guy may be innocent. We need to do something about this.

RB: And when he raised it repeatedly with his superiors what happened?

SM: Nothing. In fact, he was essentially demoted from the squad that he was on. And the banker's boxes full of the fruits of his investigation were either destroyed or lost. I'm not sure which one. And the digital information that he had compiled was either deleted or altered. And I don't know why.

RB: In fact, there was evidence that the serial killer Michael Wayne McGray was responsible for Brenda Way's murder. What was the evidence there?

SM: Well, I don't know. And then that's the big question. I mean the evidence has disappeared. And it wasn't just one suspect. There were a number of suspects that the RCMP were looking at that time. And the truth of the matter is that we don't know because the information is gone.

RB: Is there any explanation for that?

SM: No is the short answer to that question. We don't know. And I don't think we've received a satisfactory answer. And I think that the response by the RCMP was to impugn the reputation of the officer who conducted the investigation. And I don't think that's an adequate response. And I don't think that even comes close to answering the question that you just raised.

RB: You were quite emotional today outside court. What was behind that emotion?

SM: You know, I've been on this case for a little over 13 years. And I've seen and seen its ups and I've seen its downs. And today was a culmination of all of those emotions sort of bubbling up to the surface — where finally you know all of the information was coming out. And the Canadian public was going to get an opportunity to get to know what happened in Glen's case. So you know it was an emotional afternoon or morning for me.

RB: Mr. MacDonald, would you mind handing the phone back to your client?

SM: Not a problem.

RB: Thank you.

GA: Hello.

RB: Hi, Mr. Assoun. Just to pick up what I was talking about with Mr. MacDonald there, the RCMP released a statement today acknowledging that materials in your case had been deleted in 2004. But that while, quote, the deletions were contrary to policy, and shouldn't have happened, they were not done with malicious intent. What's your reaction to that?

GA: Well, my reaction to that is that's what they're saying. That's what they're alleging. But I certainly don't believe them because of what has happened to me, you know? Being wrongly convicted, I don't have any trust in the RCMP or the police anymore.

RB: Meanwhile, I was talking to your lawyer about this other man, this serial Michael Wayne McGray, he's serving seven life sentences. He's going to be 72 before he can apply for parole. What would you say to him if you met him?

GA: I don't even know how to answer that of what I would say to him if I met him. He's a piece of work. That's the bottom line.

RB: The last time we spoke to you on this program, Mr. Assoun, you said that you were looking forward to spending time with your grandchildren. If at some point they ask you what impact all of this has had on your life, what will you tell them?

GA: Well, I would say it was devastating. It was had a devastating impact on my life. And it will the rest of my life. It will devastate me till the day I die — because it scared me that bad.

RB: Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today.

GA: Okay, thank you.

RB: Take care.

GA: You take care of yourself.

RB: Bye-bye.

GA: Bye.

KG: That was Glen Assoun — who served 17 years for the murder of Brenda Way, before he was found to have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Before that, you heard his lawyer, Sean MacDonald, of the Innocence Project. They're both in Halifax.

[Music: Piano]

Police dog

Guest: John Ferguson

CH: Great Danes are known for being gentle. They're known for being playful. And they are, of course, known for being gigantic. They are not, however, usually associated with solving crimes or apprehending suspects, partly due to their total inability to work undercover. And Lewis, a five-year-old Great Dane in BC, is no exception. But earlier this week, he played a key role in helping his owner, off-duty RCMP sergeant John Ferguson, track down two suspects who were on the lam. We reached Sergeant John Ferguson in Victoria.

RB: Sergeant Ferguson, when you took Lewis out for a walk on Tuesday, did you have any idea of what you were getting yourselves into?

JOHN FERGUSON: [chuckling] None whatsoever. We thought we were just going for an leisurely walk and to give Lewis a little bit of exercise.

RB: What does Lewis look like?

JF: He's about waist-high to me, and I’m six feet tall. He's 145 pounds. He's a premature gray, so he looks very distinguished. He's got a great muzzle, but the rest of him is jet black.

RB: Mm hmm.

JF: And yeah, quite noticeable. He's a big boy; 145 pounds. He's a big fella.

RB: So what happened on this walk?

JF: Well, I took him down to a beach where he goes for his runs. And then we were just walking up the stairs. Just as we got on the boardwalk, there was two young fellows walking towards us. The one fella said oh, big dog. And he says oh yeah, great dog. And I looked at them, and they laughed, and I said yeah, he's a big baby — and immediately recognized them as two fellows I seen earlier that morning on a police bulletin. So I let them pass, I kept walking in the opposite direction, stopped called, 911 right away. I told them I'd lost sight, but that I would go looking for them. And they said to call them back if I see them.

RB: Just to back up for a second. These two fellows who escaped, and you had seen this bulletin about them, who were they?

JF: They were two fellows that escaped from William Head Correctional Centre.

RB: And one was serving time I believe for second-degree murder and assault. The other one was convicted of several offences, including aggravated sexual assault. Did it seem a little odd to you that they were kind of so relaxed and walking along the boardwalk together?

JF: [slight laugh] Yeah, it actually it really did. It was like we have a lot of tourists on that boardwalk, and they were wandering around like they were tourists in Victoria, and just enjoying a leisurely stroll.

RB: So after you called 911 and spoke to your fellow officers and said you would keep an eye on these guys, you would tail them, did you think that Lewis might be a bit of a liability in that case?

JF: [laughs] Yes, he definitely doesn't have a stealth mode. So I was a little worried about that. But I was hoping that at enough distance between us they would just think that I turned around start walking back the direction I came.

RB: Do you think that Lewis had any kind of clue that he was all of a sudden from like beach walk mode to all of a sudden on a mission?

JF: It's certainly possible because he was tired and he was wondering why we turned around and started walking back. And he kept looking over his shoulder towards home wondering why we weren't going home. And I started picking up the pace a little bit. So I think he may have known something was up.

RB: What happened after that? How long was it before the police came and apprehended the suspects?

JF: You know, it's hard for me to judge given the adrenaline and stuff. I would say maybe 15 minutes. I asked a couple if they saw the young fellows, and they said yep, they just passed me. And then I was able to get a good view of them for a long period of time. And then just as he went over a hump, the cavalry came. Four Victoria Police cars raced by me, and I mentioned to the telecom operator I would stay on the line in case the two turned around and tried to backtrack. And within a minute, they said they had two in custody — and that there was no problems whatsoever in taking them into custody. So that was that.

RB: How did you and Lewis celebrate this big arrest?

JF: [laugh] Well, his mom, my wife, gave him a big Milk Bone — that was his celebration. Mine is going to happen now that I'm on holidays. So I was on-call actually, so I couldn't really celebrate.

[both laugh]

RB: But did it even go further that that? I think Lewis got some kind of special citation from the police department?

JF: He did. Yesterday, West Shore RCMP actually made him an honourary member, and gave him a badge, and he was an honourary member for the day.

RB: So you did all the work, but it seems like Lewis is getting all the praise and the accolades here.

JF: [laughs] You know, yeah, I find the whole thing actually quite funny cause police officers do their job day in and day out, every day. And me and Lewis call 911, and we’re getting a lot of attention. But I think it's cute. We're thinking of putting them in witness protection, actually.

[both laugh]

RB: It's tough being a hero.

RB: Sergeant Ferguson, it was great to talk to you. Thank you so much.

JF: Great talking to you too, Robyn. Take care.

RB: Bye-bye.

JF: Bye.

CH: John Ferguson is a sergeant with the RCMP. We reached him in Victoria.

[Music: Elevator music]

DL: Heavy metal knitting

CH: Dateline: Joensuu, Finland.

[Music: Dateline theme]

CH: What you're about to hear in this clip is a heavy metal band playing Motorhead's "Ace of Spades". What you can't see is that, instead of one person singing at centre stage, there are five people; two pretending to play guitar, two sumo wrestlers, sumo-wrestling, and one guy in a kimono. Knitting.

SOUNDCLIP

[sound: This is a thing]

CH: Those five people made up the Japanese team Giga Body Metal. The winners of yesterday's inaugural Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship in Joensuu. Listen, I said what I said: Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship. Out of all the Finnish things, maybe the most Finnish. As one of the event founders told the Associated Press: "We have such dark and long winters. This really gives us lots of time to plan for our short summers and come up with silly ideas." There were entrants from Russia, the U.S., Latvia, and Denmark, among other countries. Each joined the band "Maniac Abductor" onstage, and knitted furiously while headbanging and jumping around. The performances were impressive. The actual knitting was less so. But what matters is that the competitors kept the audience in stitches. And the fact that they got any knitting done was a triumph of wool power.

[Music: Indie rock]

Part two: Sitka spruce trees, Roxodus

Sitka spruce trees

Guest: Justin Warnock

CH: Near Kitimat, British Columbia, there's a provincial park dedicated to a single, glorious, centuries-old, 15-story tall sitka spruce. Meanwhile, nearly seven thousand kilometres away in northwestern Ireland, Justin Warnock is campaigning against what he calls an "invasion" of the same sort of tree. Mr. Warnock is a member of the Leitrim County Council. He's also one of the leaders of a group called "Save Leitrim". It's dedicated to stopping the plantations of sitka spruce that have been going into Leitrim and other parts of Ireland, as part of the government's plan to fight climate change. We reached Councillor Justin Warnock in Leitrim.

RB: Councillor Warnock, here in Canada we have parks celebrating centuries-old Sitka spruce trees. How come you don't want them in Leitrim?

JUSTIN WARNOCK: Well, to have Sitka spruce trees in Leitrim it's at the expense of the people that are living here. in County Leitrim, we have almost 20 per cent of our country under Sitka spruce. So we have lost 20 per cent of the farmland. And it is having a detrimental impact on our rural communities.

RB: Is the problem then that it is taking up farmland?

JW: Well, in most countries in the world, in Europe, and northern Europe, and your own country Canada, and parts of America, you would have had large forest regions. But this is a new phenomenon. This has been enforced on us. They're being brought in, they’re planted, and it's no longer the farmer or the people of the county that’s getting any benefit from it. We have Canadian pension funds. We have funds from all over Europe coming in, buying tracts of land, planting, and drawing Irish taxpayers money in the form of a subsidy. It would be far better if we were planting broadleaves — native woodlands — rather than the Sitka spruce. It's a cash crop. It's a crop that is going to be lifespan of 30 to 40 years, and it's cuts down, and it's harvested, and then it’s replanted again. But there are no subsidies for the second plantations. It’s only the first plantations.

RB: When you call it a cash crop that sounds quite negative. But I suppose the Irish government would come back and say well, this is for the greater good. This is to fight climate change.

JW: Well, we'll all do our bit more for climate change. And we've no problem doing our bit. But a county that has 20 per cent planted. Like we all talk about the buzzword at the moment is biodiversity. Everything has been destroyed. They are green dead zones. Surely to say you have a few bird nesting around the edges of it. But you walk into one of those one those plantations, the deafening sound is actually frightening. There's nothing living in it. So let's plant the broadleaves. But let's have a geographical spread of it. But at the same time that these companies are coming in from abroad planting in Ireland, they’re deforesting in South America — the Amazon, you know? So like we’ll do our bit — there is no problem there. The farmers of Leitrim and the farmers of Ireland will do their bit for climate change. But for God's sake don't be putting one section of population off the land to benefit climate change. And you're destroying another part of the world by cutting down trees. Let's have a proper discussion here. Because it's the same people that’s getting the money — the big companies that’s getting the money whether it's from South America the land clearing or the planting in Ireland or other places in Europe.

RB: When you say it is destroying your communities, you talked about the farmland that it is destroying. And that's personal to you because you're also a farmer. But what else do you mean when you say it's destroying communities?

JW: When the trees are planted see, the Sitka spruce is alien to us. When it’s planted, you know your neighbour has planted his land, it grows 60 foot high. So then you're overshadowed. You’re losing your light. You're losing your connectivity with your neighbour. Because 20 hectares that's the average farm size — so your neighbour has always been visible to you. So then you know when the trees are planted after five, or six, or seven years your neighbour is gone. You're living in isolation. That should not be the case. And there's little or no regard when companies come in from abroad. Actually, some of the companies wouldn't even know what's going on.

RB: You mentioned that it would be more palatable to you if there were broadleaf trees, but what about if it was the exact same number of trees? Is it more about the species, the number, or could you just clarify that for us?

JW: Well, as I said here, our county has got to a stage it can take no more trees nearly of any description. We have no problem once they clear all these Sitka spruce forests to replant them would broadleaves. We've no problem whatsoever with that. But it's just that we are trying to save the remainder of the land. Like I said to you, 20 per cent of our country is under trees. That's 20 per cent of the agricultural land. We don't plant the mountains and we take take the rivers and the lakes out of it. We're talking about 40-45 per cent of the land of Leitrim is plants. So we're gonna have nothing left for future generations if we allow this to continue. And that's why we've been fighting this for the last 18 or 20 months.

RB: Who do you feel most let down by?

JW: The government. Their policy is all wrong. And using Irish taxpayers money to displace people isn’t nice in any country. And that's what's going on in this country at the moment. People are starting to wake up and see what is happening, and they’re calling for an end to it. Yes, we agree we have to do a bit for climate. But just let me put this on the record that for years there, they planting peat lands, bogs, and one acre of bog is four times better than four acres of forestry, do you know what I mean? So it's a race to the bottom. So if we’re going to do it, we've got to do it and do it right. But when you bring the mercenaries, and that's what I would call them these companies from overseas, they're just come in and all they want is the money. And all these big companies and all these pension funds and that, that's all the bottom line is. They want money. They don't care how to get it whether it's trees, we had property booms here, we've had different booms and busts, and it’s the same all over the world, and it's the same kind of companies that are all in this. The bottom is the dollar or the euro — that's all they're worried about.

RB: Councillor Warnock, you said you worry for future generations. Do you have kids?

JW: Yes, I have. I have a daughter and two sons. The two boys are agriculture graduates, and my daughter is into science, but she loves farming as well. So she’s talking about buying land.

RB: What is your worry for your kids then?

JW: We're going to lose the social fabric of our county has been destroyed because our small schools are closing. It's everything that we stand for in a rural area. They're small schools, the shops, the pub, you know the church, the football teams, we’re losing all that. We're losing our identity. This big plan of urbanization and getting people in and living in town. The towns are there’s many problems in them. So children that are reared in the country or reared in rural Ireland it's a great upbringing for them, and they want to stay here. But we have to stop what's going on — this is extreme thing of forestation. We have to stop it.

RB: Councillor Warnock, it was good to talk to you. Thank you.

JW: Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

RB: Bye-bye.

CH: Justin Warnock is a member of council in Leitrim County, Ireland. We reached him in Leitrim. And we've got more on that story on our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Guitar]

FOA: Electric cars

CH: Electric cars will soon no longer be able to sneak up on you — at least, not on streets and roads in Europe. Now, all new models of electric and hybrid vehicles in the European Union must include an acoustic sound system. And will have to make a noise when reversing or driving slowly. That's an important change for people who are blind or visually impaired, who are particularly vulnerable to being hit by a car they don't hear coming. In 2011, Paul Jennings of Warwick University in England spoke with Carol about a project testing sounds in electric cars. Here is part of their conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

CO: We have some of the sounds that you've recorded and put online. So we're going to play some of the possibilities here. So it's first of all, we have a combustion car. Let's just hear that.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Sounds like a normal car]

CO: [slight laugh] And if I can describe what's happening in the little video you have with that sound is that it’s obviously a pedestrian point-of-view at a corner, and this car is coming up behind, and then turns in front, right?

PJ: That's right, yes. So it's trying to show the sort of situation where there might actually be a hazard in the real road.

CO: Okay, so that's kind of more of a kind of a traditional sound. But now they had another one — the electric car sound. Let's hear this?

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: A spaceship?]

CO: [laugh] All right, one for the truly annoying category.

PJ: Yes, I think that certainly people would be aware of presence. But I think you're right it would be annoying. But I think one thing that that sound sometimes reminds people of is the UFO maybe from a science fiction movie. And even though that might come across as being frivolous, and it is a little bit. There actually is a serious point underlying there in that if you imagine sounds, we're almost programmed to identify them. And with future vehicles, maybe electric vehicles, a lot of what we've learned through experience maybe comes from the movies and TV and games. And therefore, it may be that those sounds are a little bit outlandish, but we recognize that was coming from a vehicle. The other people who are interested here are the manufacturers because the sound of a car is almost part of his personality. It's part of his character. So we need to have a little bit of creativity for them so that it's representing their brand in a positive way.

KG: That's Warwick University's Paul Jennings speaking to Carol in 2011. One manufacturer, BMW, recruited film score composer Hans Zimmer to create its own unique sound for its next generation of electric cars. It sounds like this.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Sounds like Hans Zimmer]

CH: Dude! That is the possible sound of a future BMW electric vehicle.

[Music: Hip-hop]

Roxodus

Guest: Melissa Haskett

CH: This weekend was billed as a "once in a lifetime experience" — a four-day outdoor music festival north of Toronto, featuring acts like Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd — and Nickelback. Turned out to be a zero times in a lifetime experience, though: just days before it was set to kick off, the Roxodus Music Festival was abruptly cancelled. At first, organizers blamed the weather. Then we learned of millions of dollars that went up in smoke. Now, some are calling it Canada's Fyre Festival — named after the infamous music event that crashed two years ago. Well, the whole mess has left plenty of ticket-holders upset. But last night, dozens of them staged their own event, which they called "Roxobust". We reached organizer Melissa Haskett in Wasaga Beach, Ontario.

RB: Melissa, who was the headliner at Roxobust last night?

MELISSA HASKETT: A band called Bootlegged.

RB: [laugh] So you still managed to have music, even though this was kind of a festival for a non-festival.

MH: Exactly. They were amazing.

RB: How many people showed up?

MH: I think at the end, the owner of the restaurant counted about 75.

RB: What made you do this?

MH: I didn't want to see anybody bummed out yesterday thinking about where they were going to be. And I just wanted to make the best of a bad situation.

RB: How excited were you when this lineup first came out for Roxodus?

MH: Oh, so excited. Extremely excited. I have a little crush on Billy Idol, so I wanted to see him so bad. And Alice Cooper too was top of my list. So it was a big bummer.

RB: How much did you pay for tickets?

MH: Five-hundred-fifty-five dollars for two tickets.

RB: Wow!

MH: Yeah.

RB: Did you get your money back?

HH: I did, actually, yes. I got my money back actually yesterday morning, which was great. It made it even more of a fantastic day.

RB: I understand that there was a Facebook group for all the people who were gonna be attending Roxodus from all over the world, and they were chatting about this. When did you start to get the sense that something might be wrong?

MH: Hmm, I believe it was last Tuesday or the morning that the cancellation took place. It was early in the morning. I started getting a feeling that something was going to happen — either a cancellation and maybe a move to Burl’s Creek is what we were hearing on social media. But we weren't really sure. So we were kind of just hoping the best that again it was just a rumour.

RB: And then when you finally did hear last week that the concert had been canceled for good, what did you think when organizers said the reason for that was because of rainy weather meant that they couldn't get the festival up and running?

MH: Heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking as a lot of us had purchased our tickets back in November, so we had all those months to look forward to it. And the countdown was on. And oh, absolutely heartbreaking — upset and heartbroken.

RB: And what did you think when it was rainy weather because there was footage of the site where it was supposed to take place, and it looked pretty dry?

MH: It is bone dry. I actually live not too far from where this was supposed to take place, and I felt that that was kind of maybe what they had just told people that maybe didn't live around the area that maybe would have believed that. But no, it was actually begging for rain.

RB: Well since then, the two co-creators of this festival have been blaming each other for this mess. It's been reported that police are actually investigating a former employee of Roxodus’s parent company. And we're hearing that the local conservation authority is actually looking into whether environmentally sensitive wetlands were damaged in preparation for this festival. I wonder if did it remind you of this whole Fyre Festival?

MH: Oh, absolutely. Actually, that was the first thing that came to mind. Because I had actually just seen that documentary a couple of months prior, and it really was pretty much the same exactly that happened to them. Except you know we didn't have the models and the aqua blue water. But it really was actually very, very similar. So we started calling it Fyre 2.0. And yeah, it’s such a shocker. I mean I think a lot of us read a lot of words. We really didn't even know what to say and what to think about this whole situation.

RB: You said you have received your money back. What about other people that you've talked to?

MH: About 85 per cent of us have received our money back. There are a few that haven't right now. But as far as I know, they will be receiving their money back.

RB: What about flights, accommodation, all that kind of stuff? How would people be reimbursed for that?

MH: Oh, I know that's absolutely heartbreaking too. Because we had people out last night from the U.K., from Alberta, from Montreal. You know they definitely aren't going to be getting reimbursed for their flights and their cottage rentals and stuff like that. So it's very, very disappointing when I was listening to the stories last night of people telling me what they had actually spent — not just on tickets, but to get here, and again their accommodations while being here.

RB: Are you a naturally glass-half-full kind of person? Because a lot of people would have just stayed home and listened to Nickleback at home. But you went out and organized a whole secondary festival.

MH: Yeah, I am. I always try to see you know the best in a bad situation because I lost my son seven years ago. And I've learned from there that you can't really hold on to bad energy or negative things or just be mad for a long time because nothing's really going to come of it, right? There's not much we could do in this situation other than kind of come together and give each other advice and stuff like that. So I was really kind of the one too that wanted to enlighten people, make them happy, make them laugh. I didn't want everybody to be bummed out.

RB: What was the best thing for you about last night?

MH: Seeing their faces, seeing the smiles, the laughter, us hugging together. We had actually made a lot of shirts that said Roxobust. And everybody wore their wristbands. So we wanted good use out of our wristband since we weren't gonna be using them. So it was just watching, again, everybody just smile, laugh, sing. They were singing along with the band. Everybody was interacting like as if we had known each other for years.

RB: Maybe you could make this into an annual event?

HM: That's funny. We were actually talking about that last night. And people were actually saying that they would still even be willing to come from Montreal, and Alberta, and the U.K. just to come down for this weekend, and maybe even make it a four-day event where maybe we go to you know the same bar the one night and gather at somebody’s house the following night. And again, just make the best of it. So yeah, actually we were talking about making it an annual event, which is very nice.

RB: There you go. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right?

MH: Absolutely. Absolutely.

RB: Melissa, it was lovely to talk to you. Thanks so much.

MH: Thank you very much.

RB: Bye-bye.

MH: Bye.

CH: Melissa Haskett is the organizer of Roxobust — an event that took place last night, in place of the Roxodus Music Festival, which was cancelled earlier this month. We reached Ms. Haskett in Wasaga Beach, Ontario.

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July 12, 2019 episode transcript

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