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The AIH Transcript for December 17, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and Karen Gordon

CAROL OFF: Hello, I’m Carol Off.

KAREN GORDON: Good evening, I'm Karen Gordon. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

KG: Tonight:

CO: Over more than just the barrel. The families of two teenagers who survived a deadly shooting in Toronto sue Smith and Wesson — saying it failed to include "smart gun" technology that could have rendered the weapon harmless.

KG: Criminal element. A lawsuit accuses big tech companies, including Apple and Microsoft, of knowing children in Congo are being forced to mine cobalt, but still profiting from using it in their products.

CO: Making a withdrawal. Goldman Sachs says it will stop investing in oil and gas projects in the Arctic — and our guest is hoping to convince Canadian bankers to do the same.

KG: The actors hit the high notes, and the dialogue sang. But "The Sopranos" wasn't an opera or a soap opera — and 20 years after its premiere, a new book reflects on how Tony changed the tone of TV.

CO: Wax poetic. Animator Theodore Ushev spent eight years painting 15-thousand frames with boiling-hot wax — and now, the short film that emerged from that long process has been shortlisted for an Oscar.

KG: And...poetic injustice. How Health Canada wound up tweeting, and deleting, a version of the classic "Jack and Jill" nursery rhyme — in which both got sexually transmitted diseases.

KG: As It Happens, the Tuesday edition. Radio that knows that poem pretty well — and this is beyond the pail.

[Music: Theme]

Part one: Danforth shooting lawsuit, Gwich’In bank meetings, Jack and Jill: Health Canada

Danforth shooting lawsuit

Guest: Patrick McLeod

KG: Skye McLeod couldn't have known what would happen when she and her friends were out on Toronto's Danforth Avenue on July 22nd, 2018 — when a gunman shot and killed 2 people, including her friend, Reese Fallon. But now, she and her family are part of a group that has filed a new lawsuit. It alleges that Smith & Wesson knew about the risks — and could have done more to prevent the shooting. The group is suing the gun maker for 150-million dollars. They say the company was negligent for failing to implement "authorized user" or "smart gun" technology. Technology they say might have stopped the gunman from firing a stolen handgun that night. Patrick McLeod is Skye's father — and a retired police officer. We reached him on the road outside of Belleville, Ontario.

CO: Patrick, what do you think this gun manufacturer, Smith & Wesson, what could they have done to possibly prevent the attack on Toronto's Danforth Avenue?

PATRICK MCLEOD: Well, the gun that was used on the Danforth Avenue was a Smith & Wesson 40 calibre pistol. And back in 2000, Smith & Wesson was kind of pushed towards coming up with smart gun apps to make sure that if they fall in the wrong hands, it would be inoperable.

CO: Why would it matter for this gun? The fact that it was stolen, is that the issue?

PM: Well, any gun. What the issue is is if they’re manufacturing guns, they're putting the smart gun technology into them, if they are stolen, the person that’s stealing them doesn’t have the compatible software or whatever — like a magnetic ring, or the palm print imprints on the pistol grip, or the fingerprint technology that's on the trigger. So they wouldn't have that, so the gun would be inoperable.

CO: And so the shooter would not have been able to use it then?

PM: No, it would be useless to him.

CO: And why has this technology not been used?

PM: That's a very good question. The reason it hasn't been used is because most of the handguns that are being brought into Canada for sale are manufactured in the States. And they have a lot of laws to protect gun manufacturers from being sued. And therefore, they have no reason to improve their guns or make them safer.

CO: So I understand it was the Columbine High School massacre that led to Smith & Wesson saying they would implement this kind of smart gun technology. But then President George W. Bush came to power, and he signed a law that protects gun manufacturers and dealers from any liability for crimes committed with their products. So has that become the problem for actually being able to sue manufacturers like Smith & Wesson?

PM: Yeah, that's correct. They were supposed to come up with their technology to have it in place by 2003. And then they had a change of government, and the NRA was leaning on Smith & Wesson hard as well. So they backed away from the whole plan. And the smart gun technology, it still exists, it’s still being developed, but it's not been widely implemented yet because of the figure that the customer wouldn't want the added cost or the inconvenience of having this safety procedure that's attached to their weapon now.

CO: So you and others are seeking to Sue Smith & Wesson for this because of what happened to you and your family. July 22^nd, 2018. When did you first learn that your daughter was out in a place where there was a shooting going on?

PM: She was out with seven of her friends for a birthday celebration. And they were having their ice cream right around the Alexander Square. And that's when the perpetrator started opening fire. And my daughter and three of her other friends ran into the basement of a restaurant nearby. And then she called me on her cell phone, and we made our way up to the Danforth.

CO: How quickly did your police instincts snap back?

PM: I don't even think it had to snap back. It was still there. Skye could not tell me what restaurant they were in. And they were hiding in a bathroom. So I went down to the first restaurant that I saw from the square, and I heard whispering. So I continued along that dark hallway. And then I saw the men's bathroom door, and it was covered in blood. So I knocked on the door and coaxed them to come out because they're all terrified.

CO: Did you call out your daughter's name? Is that how you knew it was Skye in there?

PM: Yes, Skye, Skye, are you there? Are you there? She said, oh, it's my dad. It's my dad. Some of the people inside didn't even want her to open the door, said, no, no, no, don’t open the door. They were terrified.

CO: And for you, what was that moment like to find your daughter?

PM: I was quite relieved to see her, and that her knees were all scraped up, but she was fine. My secondary instinct was trying to find out where Reese Fallon was — because she's our neighbour that lives right across the street from us. And they were friends. I’ve watched Reese grow up on the street her whole life. So I was saying, where's Reese? Where's Reese? I said, well, we have to find her because her parents are on the way. And there's a police officer standing there, and he asked for a description of her. And he pulls me aside, and he said we have a girl outside that’s been killed that fits that description. So I said, well, take me and let’s have a look. He took me out took me out into the square and pulled back the blanket, and there was Reese. It was a devastating moment for sure.

CO: [sigh] And then you were the one to tell Reese's parents?

PM: Yes. I was left kind of holding the bag when they arrived, and I had to tell them, yeah.

CO: I'm so sorry.

PM: Thank you.

CO: She was one of two people — another ten-year-old was also killed. And there were about 13 others who were wounded by gunshots. And I think one of your daughter's friends was also wounded by gunfire as well, was she not?

PM: Well, out of the group of eight kids, one was killed, and two were shot very badly. And Samantha, she was shot in the upper hip. But then we had Reese, of course, who was fatally shot.

CO: I’ve spoken with Samantha's father. He describes how much this changes everything.

PM: Absolutely. Like, yeah, I've seen a lot of death and destruction. But nothing prepares you for seeing an 18-year-old-girl that you’ve seen grow up, you know, lying on the street deceased — when you saw these before all happy and cheery, graduating from high school, and looking forward to her new career as a nurse. And it was very devastating. And as hard as it was on my family, I can't imagine how, you know, Reese's parents how they're dealing with us. It's just devastating.

CO: How's your daughter Skye doing?

PM: She's doing better. She took a year off to travel. And she's now in her first year at university at Guelph. She's got some anxiety issues, but for the most part, the kids are doing okay.

CO: And do you think that if you could successfully sue Smith & Wesson that it would help?

PM: You know, the monetary stuff is not an issue for me really. It's trying to make our streets safer. And if all handguns were manufactured and implemented with the smart technology, we’d have a lot safer streets. I can open my phone just by looking at it, and my phone is not a dangerous product. So the Canadian government should be stepping up to, you know? They make sure the meat coming through the border is clean, you know? If there's an outbreak of salmonella, they pull all the lettuce in the country off the shelves. Well, people are being killed left right and centre on the streets of Toronto and all over Canada, and nobody seems to be doing anything about it.

CO: Patrick, I really appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

PM: Oh, no problem. Thank you.

KG: Patrick McLeod is a former police officer and the father of Skye McLeod — who survived the shooting on Danforth Avenue in Toronto in July 2018. We reached him on the road to Kingston, Ontario. The McLeod family is part of a lawsuit filed this week against Smith & Wesson, alleging the company was negligent when it didn't implement "smart" gun technology. The company did not respond to a request for comment from CBC News.

[Music: Ambient]

Gwich’In bank meetings

Guest: Cheryl Charlie

KG: Indigenous groups in the Arctic just helped convince one of America's biggest banks to make big changes in their oil and gas investments. The next step is getting Canadian banks to do the same. On Sunday night, Goldman Sachs announced it would stop investing in fossil fuel extraction projects in the Arctic — including in the sacred Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. That announcement was the result of months of pressure from many groups — including the Gwichin First Nation, who were trying to protect the refuge from resource extraction. Goldman Sachs made this decision just as Cheryl Charlie was flying out to Toronto. She has meetings scheduled this week with Canada's four biggest banks — to make the same argument she made to the giant American bank. Ms. Charlie is a councillor with the Vuntut Gwichin First Nation, and she lives in Old Crow, Yukon. We reached her in Toronto.

CO: Ms. Charlie, could you have imagined just days before these meetings with the Canadian bank executives that Goldman Sachs would make this kind of a decision?

CHERYL CHARLIE: No. I mean, I believe that with the Goldman Sachs announcement it is quite fortuitous. It brought momentum to our week here in Toronto. It just all happened at the right time.

CO: Did you feel it in the room today when you were pitching the banks to divest or do not invest anymore in fossil fuel production?

CC: Yes. I was quite proud to have that as part of our meeting today with CIBC to have that announcement for the Gwichin people — and for that support on a global scale. And we really do hope that they make the choice to not invest in the Arctic refuge area for oil and gas.

CO: Is that what you're specifically pitching is in the Arctic area specifically or, in general, trying to stop them from investing in any oil and gas production?

CC: No. What we're asking is specific to the region of the Coastal Plain and the 1002 lands within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

CO: And that's what Goldman Sachs, in the announcement it made on Sunday, that it will not fund any extraction projects in the Arctic — including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Why did they do that? What's your understanding as to why Goldman Sachs made that decision?

CC: I know that in part, it has to do with the Indigenous rights of the Gwichin people. I believe that has that played a factor for the Gwichin people from Alaska, Yukon, and NWT. That's a win for us.

CO: But these banks like Goldman Sachs, they are businesses, they’re corporations. They have responsibility to shareholders. So there must be some investment reason why this makes sense to them. What do you think that is?

CC: Well, perhaps that the actual business part of it, they did the due diligence. The oil and gas program within the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may not make sense — the level of consciousness that's raised by the public at large for climate change, the backlash, the reputational risk, the financial risk.

CO: Do you think the overall costs of developing in the Arctic are just so prohibitive, and in so many different ways?

CC: Yes. I believe so. I mean just recently, the NPRA within Alaska, the lease sale, there was known to be selling at eleven dollars an acre. When really, ideally, the federal Treasury would like to have the acreage sold at a thousand dollars an acre — which would bring in a billion dollars to offset any oil and gas programming within the Jobs And Tax Acts from 2017 that was introduced by Trump. So having it eleven dollars an acre just doesn't make financial sense. When, really, they wanted a thousand dollars an acre.

CO: At the same time, you know that the Trump administration wants the Arctic and at that that refuge open for business. The Bureau of Land Management has offered leases on the one-point-six-million acre Coastal Plain. And they're ready to do quite aggressive leasing licenses to start developing that area. So what are you up against?

CC: Well, like you said, it's an entire U.S. government that we're up against. And having our voices heard at the government level — as well as the corporate level that we're doing this week — we are up against a lot. But it doesn't stop us from speaking out.

CO: But the Trump administration, they said that they're going to go ahead with this because they've said they have made, quote, “a rigorous review of the environmental impacts”. And said that it's not a safe and necessary, but it's a program that they say people in Alaska have wanted for over 40 years. What do you say back to the Trump administration?

CC: I don't really believe what they're saying. And having rigorous checks, you know, I don't believe that. It's simply not true. And it's proven that it's not true. Like, with simply Bureau of Land Management and the environmental assessment, and the review around the environment, it's proven that they haven't done their homework on it. And that the scientific analysis behind the oil and gas program and the risks and all of that is more strong when you look at it versus what the Trump administration is saying.

CO: Can you give people — our listeners — a sense of what's at stake here. What are the threats that you perceive on the ground if this kind of exploration continues?

CC: If the U.S. government introduces the oil and gas program in the Coastal Plain area, you know, the caribou will be lost. And by definition, the Gwichin people way of life and culture and identity. And the very least blood that we depend on will be at risk.

CO: You're on the front lines of this, aren't you?

CC: Yes, that’s right.

CO: We're getting a little sense of climate change in this part of Canada, but you're up there seeing it. What are the firsthand climate change effects that you have seen?

CC: For one, there's permafrost melting all around us. There's the weather that's changing. And the caribou, the migratory route is changing due to the snow or the lack of snow or too much rain — which means if it rains on top of the snow that there's a crust there that they can't travel on or that they can't get at their food. So those are just some things that are examples of climate change.

CO: Did you tell that to the people at CIBC today? And will you tell it to the people at TD Bank and RBC Scotiabank tomorrow?

CC: Yes, I will. [laughing] And I have.

CO: What effect does that have when you tell them those stories?

CC: Well, I believe that when they hear a more personalized story, it may resonate because it's more real. That is our story, our life, the truth as we know it.

CO: Ms. Charlie, we'll be watching. Thank you.

CC: Thank you.

KG: Cheryl Charlie is a councillor with the Vuntut Gwichin First Nation. She lives in Old Crow, Yukon — but we reached her in Toronto.

[Music: Indie rock]

Jack and Jill: Health Canada

Guest: Tom Spears

KG: On any given day, Health Canada issues a stream of well-intentioned — if slightly bland — tweets, promoting healthy lifestyle choices. For example, "Planning a grocery haul for the #holidays? Remember to keep meat, poultry, and seafood separate from other food in your cart to prevent contamination from bacteria." You get it — fairly meat and potatoes — and poultry and seafood. But back in October, the department had a bright idea to try something fun: a re-imagining of the classic nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill". Except in this version, Jack and Jill get sexually transmitted infections from unprotected sex. I'll give you a second. The tweet was pulled down soon after it went up. And now, an Ottawa Citizen journalist has acquired behind-the-scenes documents detailing the plan, and backlash, to that ill-considered tweet. We reached Tom Spears in Ottawa.

CO: Tom, we have saved this for you that you should be the one to actually read the poetic tweet that the government of Canada put out. Can you give that to us?

TOM SPEARS: [laughing] Lucky me. Jack and Jill did the deed. But they forgot something they need. Should have wrapped it up, oh my. Now Jill has an STI. [CO laughs] It actually got changed and now both have an STI to be more equitable.

CO: [laughing] because if one has an STI, the other one probably has it already, right?

TS: Actually, yeah, the medical people got to work on that. I've got some Access to Information papers on it.

CO: [trying not to laugh] Okay, so among the many things that you've checked into is that this is a terrible rhyme. And the whole rhythm of it is completely off. It doesn't match. But besides that, everything else is wrong to, right?

TS: There's so much more, yeah. It's a dreadful little rhyme. It's telling people to be funny and poetic when they don't have a poetic bone in their body.

CO: How long did it actually last before it was taken down?

TS: Not quite an hour.

CO: Okay, so you made an Access to Information request to find out what happened behind the scenes. And what was the first issue they were dealing with when trying to come up with this Jack and Jill poem?

TS: Well, we'll start off with what you just mentioned a minute ago. Here's an email that says, “for your approval, comms has provided a social media message on STI for approval. The main concern is that it infers only Jill had an STI when both would have had an STI. The other concern is that it's not inclusive by using a heterosexual couple. However, if we use gender-neutral names, we will lose the catchy reference to a nursery rhyme”. brackets [Jack and Jill] just to be clear. [CO laughs] “A couple of options are provided for your consideration, due at noon today”. Because, of course, it's the government — if you have a nursery rhyme, there have to be policy options and there has to be a deadline, right?

CO: Right. So the options were Jack and John or Jack and Max.

TS: Yes, those were the three options, or Jack and Jill. And if we do Jack and Jill, it says little asterisk, but, you know, when we reissue this later on, we'll use a same-sex couple the next time.

CO: Right. Okay. The next issue they had was with getting it translated, right?

TS: Well, yeah. You have to translate it. And they say that if we put it into French, you can't use the names Jack and Jill. You'll have to use French names, and then it will not in their phrase resonate with Canadians. They're all about resonating with Canadians. That phrase comes up more than once. They're also wondering whether it will rhyme or not? They do eventually get a little rhyming four-line ditty — which as Paul and Pauline [speaking: French] — they go all the way. And they run into the same problem as Jack and Jill. They should have read the English rhyme first.

CO: Okay, so at what point did anyone start to question that they had basically two children who were probably brother and sister who were having sex together?

TS: Never, never gave it a look, in fact, they're really doing the due diligence thing. Here's another thing, memo to about ten people. “Good morning, could you please review the content — meaning of this rhyme — for scientific and factual accuracy. And let me know if you have concerns before 11:00 a.m. Thursday”. So they're really bending over backwards to be scientific and all the rest of it and nobody mentions child sex and incest.

CO: [laughing] There were ten health professionals — staffers — that the assistant deputy minister sent this to just declared to make sure that we're not getting anything wrong here. That this is actually this is factual as well as a cute and amusing. And nobody called them on it?

TS: Not a thing. And I guess it just doesn't occur to them. And then it goes online, and things occur to them very, very fast.

CO: Okay, after it finally shows up as a tweet, who points out? Because, again, you continue with your access request to find out the reaction after they realize that this is actually gone public.

TS: Okay. Email comes out with the subject line, “OMG” This doesn't happen much in government circles. Another one says, “I've just had three managers email me about this one”. Another one says, “Yes, people are pointing out the Jack and Jill are supposedly brother and sister”. Another one just says, “Dying”. And then there's a link to comments that, unfortunately, have since disappeared from Twitter readers. And then there's an announcement comes up that says, “The team has pulled both — but I guess that means English and French — from Twitter and Facebook”.

CO: And so at what point did the Privy Council Office step in.?

TS: Oh, well, they were clever enough not to in writing. They phoned. But there's an email from one Health Canada person to another saying that the PCO is phoning to inquire if we have received any media calls on the Jack and Jill tweet that went out earlier today. She also asked if we had prepared anything in case we get questions? [CO laughs] So it's the Privy Council Office, as I said, not putting anything in writing, but certainly asking pointed and probably awkward questions. You know, they've just been called down to the principal's office on this one.

CO: I mean, how many people signed off on this before it went out to the Twitter world?

TS: Ballpark, 20.

CO: Twenty people, and there's not a single letter, not a single note, not a single do you want to revisit this? Nobody said that?

TS: No, no, nobody gets the idea that children's nursery rhymes and sexually transmitted infections should be kind of kept apart.

CO: As a starter. And then also, to take one that's about Jack and Jill — a brother and sister who are children — and turn them into sex partners who are transmitting sexually transmitted diseases to each other. No one figured that out?

TS: I think it just never came up. You know, I guess each of them has their own little assignment. And you do your assignment, and you look, and you say, “Yep, I've checked all the boxes. I've sent it for scientific and factual accuracy checks. I've got the proper translation. I've met the deadline. We're all good. And they weren't.

CO: Good work, Tom. Thanks.

TS: Thank you very much.

KG: Tom Spears is a reporter with the Ottawa Citizen. We reached him in Ottawa.

[Music: Ambient]

Veggie meat

KG: Shrimp made from algae. Pulled pork that's actually jackfruit. Veggie burgers juicy with crimson beet blood. If the sound of these herbivorous alternatives has your mouth watering, you're in good and growing company. It's been another big year for meatless meat makers — with new brands introducing their own imitation products practically every month. And this month brought still more good news for a 'Beyond Meat' movement that seems oddly fixated on meat. Earlier this year, the state of Arkansas passed a law banning those manufacturers from using meat-oriented words to refer to their non-meat products. Meaning "burger", "roast", and — well, "meat", would have been off the table. But now, an Arkansas judge has issued an injunction against that law. In her ruling, District Judge Kristine Baker pointed out whatever the product is called, consumers are capable of, you know, reading the rest of the label. That's a relief to companies who feared they'd have to resort to disturbingly literal descriptions of their "protein tubes" and "veggie discs", or face unsavory fines. But Republican lawmaker David Hillman had been craving a different result. As he put it, quote, "You can't sell a Chevy and call it a Cadillac." Unquote. Well, that's a nice homespun analogy, Mr. Hillman. But I guess that ruling means you're not the only one who's still allowed to ham it up.

[Music: Instrumental]

Part two: Cobalt mines lawsuit, The Physics of Sorrow film

Cobalt mines lawsuit

Guest: Siddharth Kara

KG: In a lot of our electronic devices, there's a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. And an essential part of that battery is cobalt. About two-thirds of the world's cobalt supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. That's according to Siddharth Kara, who has been looking into the conditions at mines in that country for years. Now, his research is the foundation of class-action lawsuit. And the defendants named in the suit are some companies you'll recognize — Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Tesla and Google's parent company Alphabet. The suit alleges these companies are, quote, "knowingly benefiting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children in DRC to mine cobalt." Unquote. We reached Siddharth Kara in Los Angeles, California.

CO: Siddharth, has anyone ever tried this before: suing a tech giant on behalf of children working in mines?

SIDDHARTH KARA: No, this is a landmark case. No one has ever — at least prior to December 16^th, 2019 — tried to sue the largest tech companies in the world on behalf of the children in the Congo who mined their cobalt.

CO: Can you tell us some of the stories you have heard, some of the things that you have found out about these children who are mining cobalt in the DRC?

SK: Well, the research I've done in the DRC — and the cobalt sector in particular — has yielded some of the most heartbreaking, appalling, and utterly unimaginable levels of exploitation and suffering of any sector that I've researched in almost two decades of research into slavery and child labour. The peasant population — and the children in particular — are eking out a subhuman existence, caked in toxic filth and grime, as they mined for the cobalt that is used in every lithium ion rechargeable battery in the planet. And I think the worst stories I heard — and I heard far too many of these — involved young children and young men who would dig tunnels to find a larger cobalt deposits — some of these up to 100 feet deep. And then these tunnels just would collapse and bury alive everyone inside.

CO: And you were actually there doing your research at a time when one of these tunnels collapsed on a bunch of people — including children. Is that right?

SK: That is correct. Yes, Carol, it's probably one of the most haunting and painful days of all my research. I was doing research near Lake Malo — which is not too far outside of the city of Kolezi — and documenting some children. When we received word that a tunnel had collapsed barely 100 metres from where I was standing. And we rushed to the site. It had already been blocked off by Congolese military. Family members were swarming in, swooning and howling with terror for any word of survivors. And it didn't take long before we received word that there were 63 people in that tunnel, and 63 people buried alive that day.

CO: The children who are working, it’s not just the children, but what you're focused on here are these kids. And how much money do they actually make from working in these cobalt mines?

SK: Well, the children — even the adults — barely eke out somewhere between 80 cents and maybe two dollars a day, depending on the kind of work that they're doing. Obviously, the youngest children earn the very least amount. And when you add to that the context that they're producing this cobalt that's used in the gadgets sold by companies that are worth hundreds of billions of dollars — if not more than a trillion dollars — run by executives who are all billionaires — that complete degrading and debasing amount of wealth and income that is shared at the bottom of the chain by the top is unconscionable. It's unacceptable. It's completely indecent. And that's the remedy above all that I'm after with my research and this lawsuit in particular. Fix the conditions on the ground, and pay these people decently.

CO: As you know from your other research in abusive child labour practices that the hardest thing to do with the kind of suit like this is to prove that the companies themselves are connected to the abuse of child labour practices — that you can actually prove that the cobalt that is mined by the children that you're talking about is actually ending up in the supply chain of products made by Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Tesla. Is there evidence that that exact cobalt is ending up in their supply chain?

SK: Well, we would not have filed the lawsuit unless we did not have definitive evidence that these children are plaintiffs, and thousands of other children and poor people in the Congo were mining and suffering cobalt at mining areas linked directly to the supply chains of the largest tech and automakers in the world. You see, two-thirds of the global supply of cobalt comes from the Congo. So already right there, you cannot avoid Congolese cobalt.

CO: But I'm asking you is it possible that these companies can claim that you can't prove that they're actually linked to the cobalt? Because cobalt comes from other kinds of mining, right? So this is going to be the most difficult thing I would imagine is to prove that, right?

SK: Well, it's certainly the supply chain is it's opaque. It is complex. But the plaintiffs all were injured and killed at mines owned by companies that have been publicly disclosed as sellers of cobalt to our defendants.

CO: One of those companies is a mining company called Glencore. Glencore has put out a statement to say that, quote, “It does not tolerate any form of child forced or compulsory labour”. What do you say to them?

SK: Well, I say words are all fine and good. But what you say you tolerate and what's actually happening on the ground are two different things. And I would encourage the people at Glencore to take this seriously, to work constructively on solving this problem. It's been all too easy for these companies to proclaim their zero-tolerance policies and then continue business as usual. There are children — there are peasants — being injured and being killed on sites they own every day. That is a fact. And that is a fact they need to come to terms with and to and to address in an honest and constructive fashion.

CO: How much more would it cost them to actually be paying these labourers living wages or putting in safe labour practices for the children and workers in these mines? How much more would it cost for them to buy that cobalt?

SK: Perhaps the only tragedy greater than the criminal destruction of the environment and the lives of the people of the Congo by these companies is the fact that it would be a rounding error on their income statements to fix the problem. It would not take much at all by way of resources or attention to sit down and genuinely and constructively and permanently bring decency, dignity, safety and security to the people and the communities in the Congo where there cobalt is mined.

CO: Siddharth, we'll leave it there. We'll be following this story. Thanks so much.

SK: Thank you.

KG: That was Siddharth Kara in Los Angeles, California. He's an expert witness in a new lawsuit against a number of big tech companies. He's also an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. And we've got more on this story on our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Ambient]

FOA: Musharraf

KG: Pervez Musharraf used to be a dangerous man to challenge. But today, a court in Pakistan sentenced the former military ruler to death. General Musharraf was convicted of treason for declaring a state of emergency to extend his hold on power in 2007. But today's death sentence is unlikely to be carried out. General Musharraf has been living in comfort in Dubai since leaving power. And Pakistan's powerful military seems unlikely to support an effort to hold one of its own to account. In 2006 President Musharraf spoke with Carol about his memoirs. At the time, Canadian soldiers were fighting across the border in Afghanistan. Carol took the opportunity to ask Pervez Musharraf about British reports that Taliban insurgents were getting help from Pakistan.

SOUNDCLIP

PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: Who in the British? They don't know anything. I'm afraid they don't understand the environment. They are very new. This is a very complex environment. Where is the money coming from? They think the money is coming from Pakistan. You think Pakistan has the money to waste on this, on the Taliban? You think that is the case? It is trough poppy sales. We must know that it's through poppy growth.

CO: Drugs.

PM: They are the biggest poppy growers. Who were the Taliban? Do they understand who were the Taliban? for six years — from 1995 to 2001 — they controled 90 per cent of Afghanistan. Were they from Pakistan? Where were the from? They were affluent. They were Afghans, locals.

CO: Hamid Karzai disputes that. He says that you have to take responsibility for some of this.

PM: Who takes responsibility?

CO: Hamid Karzai is saying you're blaming us — blaming Afghanistan — for producing the Taliban and the insurgency. And you're saying it's Afghanistan. I mean, at what point do you and President Karzai have to work together and agree that you both have a problem here?

PM: Yes, we should work together. But I’m afraid he is not being honest about everything. He is concerned more about himself than about Afghanistan. He knows the reality is what is happening on the ground. He knows what is happening in the in the ethnic belt. I have never refuted that there is support from our side. There is no doubt there are sympathizers because of the ethnic connectivity. There are sympathizers. They sympathize. They even go across. I have never said they don't go across. We need to check them. I have been suggesting many things. I have said let's put a barbed wire fence. Let’s fence the area. Or let us mine the area, so that nobody crosses. Nobody is accepting that. Now, this is our sincerity.

CO: You talk about yourself as a soldier. And from reading your book, you're a soldier’s soldier. You've been an extraordinary warrior and a leader in the military. But are you a political leader?

PM: Well, I don't have any such wrong notions. [both laugh]

CO: Wrong notions to be political leader or what?

PM: Wrong notions to be a political leader. I'm not cut for politics. I'm trying to run a country. I thought the country is in total doldrums. And you are a failed state and a defaulted state. And I've corrected that. But politics is not my cup of tea.

KG: That was Pakistan's former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, speaking with Carol on As It Happens in 2006. Today a Pakistani court sentenced General Musharraf to death in absentia. He has been living in Dubai since losing power.

[Music: Horns!]

The Physics of Sorrow film

Guest: Theodore Ushev

KG: Even the easiest version of hand-drawn animation is nowhere near easy — which is part of what makes a new NFB animated short film, so extraordinary. For starters, Theodore Ushev painted the frames for his film, The Physics of Sorrow, completely on his own. On top of that, he didn't use watercolours, or oils, to paint those thousands of frames. He used hot wax. The technique is called "encaustic painting," and by using it, Mr. Ushev pioneered a whole new animation technique. Now, his film's up for an Oscar. We reached Theodore Ushev in Paris.

CO: Theodore, I understand that you had to paint 15-thousand frames for this film. How long did that take you?

THEODORE USHEV: Well, the all the time for making the film was around seven years. I started doing the film in 2011.

CO: What is it that kept you going? It sounds like a lot of work?

TU: I'm going to tell you. I've never felt so happy doing that film. Because, somehow, I found my technique — because basically I was doing very personal film. I was doing a film not only about me, but about my generation, and about my family, and about all my fellow immigrants in Canada because I came in 1999 from Bulgaria. So that was the main motivation of doing this film.

CO: The images are beautiful. They're warm. It's a very melancholy film, and it works very well with this technique. Do you want explain what how you use hot wax to animate the story?

TU: It’s done with beeswax. And I also wanted to make a time capsule film. The first time capsules in the history of humanity were done by the Egyptians. And also, the Egyptians invented painting technique which is called encaustic. Encaustic means complex. It was done by beeswax melted and mix it with pigments. So that's how I got the idea of using this technique. It's never been used for making animation before. So I had to reinvent the technique. And what helped me lots and very old recipe that my father gave me — because he's a painter as well. So I've used that one, and this is how the film happened.

CO: Wow! And there's a video of you making the film. And you have a paintbrush in one hand and a hairdryer and the other.

TU: Yes, it was the technique that I've used. This technique is very physically demanding. So I was like doing my workout every day. And, yeah, I'm gonna tell you even the film is called The Physics of Sorrow. It was a pure happiness for me. I could call a sequel probably of that film could be The Chemistry of Happiness.

CO: Tell us a bit about this story, The Physics of Sorrow, what's the story you tell in this film?

TU: As I mentioned, it's a time capsule. So I have tried to gather all my memories or my objects. It's a story about an immigrant in search of his identity. And trying to find a new home because you're home it's not the house. And my father passed away during the making of the film. He's never seen the film. You know, every immigrant has a nightmare. It’s that he's never gonna see for the last time his parents. Because we are separated, we far away, and we're over expecting that they're gonna hear this call that our fathers and parents are sick. And we are not be able to see them for the last time and say the last word. And so that's basically the story. The story is of this joint family and separated family from far away. Many people are telling me that it's a very common story. And, somehow, everyone finds himself into this story because, you know, everyone has been moved from where he used to live — where his childhood was. And everyone has abandoned his favourite places and rooms and toys and objects.

CO: Do you think using wax helped you capture a certain mood in the film?

TU: Definitely, because when you work with this technique, you have to work very fast. You have to paint very fast. You don't have a time to go into details. So it's really like building your memories. Because when you remember a memory, it's never clear. You lose details, and it becomes blurry. And that's what I’ve tried to use making the film.

CO: At the same time, you are pioneering a technique as you were trying to tell this very honest story. So did you have moments when you just regretted it [laughing] — thought maybe this isn't the best way to be trying to create these pictures?

TU: Oh, definitely. It was very difficult — especially at the beginning. Well, at some point, I had doubts that I'm going to make it at the beginning because it didn’t work at all. The first scenes that I did were a complete disaster. So it was not before I found this recipe that my father gave me that I kind of figure out and adopted this technique as mine.

CO: But it's also interesting that the technique came from your father — from a recipe your father had — that's almost as though that is part of the story. It's passed on in like a time capsule.

TU: Yeah the line father-son it's very present in the film — which was underlined. And we just put it together using voice actors who were son and father. For example, the English one is done by Rossif Sutherland and his father, the famous actor Donald Sutherland. And, of course, I would like to thank the National Film Board of Canada for helping me with this risky adventure that I took with this film. So without them, I couldn't make the film.

CO: It's not unusual for the National Film Board to have risky adventures in animation. It's one of them one of their hallmarks. And so I'm glad that you had that chance, Theodore. Thanks for speaking with us.

TU: Me too. Thank you so much.

CO: Bye.

TU: Thank you.

KG: Theodore Ushev is the animator behind a new NFB short film called The Physics of Sorrow, which was just shortlisted for an Academy Award. We reached Mr. Ushev in Paris. And to get a sense of what painting — and animating — hot wax looks like, go to our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: World music]

Part three: Encore: Sopranos anniversary, Encore: John Coltrane album

Encore: Sopranos anniversary

KG: If you've watched much TV over the last two decades, this song will immediately conjure up a place and a face.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music: Theme to The Sopranos]

KG: The character, of course, is Tony Soprano. The place, New Jersey. Earlier this year marks 20 years since The Sopranos debuted on HBO. In 1999, when the series first went on the air, it changed the medium. The mobsters it depicted did ugly things, but it was also funny. You were repelled by the characters, but you liked them. They were complicated in other words — especially Tony, the head of the mob family played by the late James Gandolfini. Here he is at the very start of the series.

SOUNDCLIP

SPEAKER: Mr. Soprano.

JAMES GANDOLFINI: Yeah?

SPEAKER: My understanding from Dr. Cusomano, your family physician, is that you collapsed — possibly a panic attack. You were unable to breathe.

JG: They said it was a panic attack. Of course, all the blood work and the neurological work came back negative. And they sent me here.

SPEAKER: You don't agree that you had a panic attack? [JG sighs] How are you feeling now?

JG: Good. Fine. Back at work.

SPEAKER: What line of work are you in?

JG: Waste management consultant.

KG: From the first episode of "The Sopranos", Tony and his therapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi. In January, we took a look at the legacy of the show. In a few minutes, we'll bring you an interview with Steve Van Zandt, who played Silvio Dante. But first, to begin this encore broadcast, is Alan Sepinwall. He's the co-author of a book called "The Soprano Sessions" and chief TV critic for Rolling Stone. We reached him in New York in January.

SOUNDCLIP

CO: Alan for everyone who has watched The Sopranos and remembers it over generations, everyone has their moments, their favourite places, in The Sopranos -- what's your all-time favourite?

ALAN SEPINWALL: Favourite moment ever? My goodness. It's a small one, it's a relatively obscure one, where Tony is driving and a song comes on the radio -- Oh Girl by The Chi-Lites, and he had heard it earlier in the episode right before he found out that his ex-girlfriend Irina was dating Assemblyman Zellman and he starts singing along with the song and he's just happy to hear it and suddenly like he just starts crying out of nowhere and he doesn't know why. And he gets really upset and he drives over to the Zellman's house, takes out a belt, and beats him up for daring to date Tony's ex-girlfriend. And it's not a grand moment or anything in the scheme of the series but it's a reminder of just what an incredible actor James Gandolfini was that he could pull this out of thin air and make it as powerful as it was.

CO: The book you have written about it. It's just encyclopedic. And you and your co-author -- you know every episode, you know what happens to them. Why was this show so important to you?

AS: Well Matt Zoller and I -- we were the TV critics at The Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey, which is the newspaper Tony would pick up at the end of his driveway at the start of every season. So we were the hometown paper. So even if the show had been terrible we would have had to cover it exhaustively because a show set and shot in New Jersey and explicitly New Jersey in that way like we would have had to deal with that. Instead it wound up not only being the hometown show but one of the great shows ever made and we were essentially embedded in it -- Matt for the first three years, me for the rest of it -- and you know we interviewed all the cast. We talked to David Chase, the creator, a lot over the run of the show. When the show ended I was the only reporter Chase was willing to talk to. And even that was kind of reluctantly. So I mean A) it's a great show. B) it's the show that made both of our careers. So when the 20th anniversary came up it seemed like an obvious thing to revisit it and do this book.

CO: But you also have an understanding of what the show is really about. That it wasn't just the plot. It wasn't just the story of it. It was this whole weird idea of waste management which was the company that Tony Soprano was allegedly involved with but the whole idea of what this represented about not just New Jersey but about America. What was The Sopranos really about?

AS: The Sopranos was about -- I mean it's like Tony says to Dr. Melfi the first time he sees her, when he says you know I came in at the end. It's really about a reckoning moment you know for the American experiment -- for sort of civilization as a whole -- just where have we come, how have we become these people capable of doing a lot of the things that Tony does, and if anything you know a lot of things have slid much further downhill since he was you know complaining about whatever happened to Gary Cooper.

CO: You had interviews with David Chase, the show's creator and a man who created something that no one had seen before on television, what did he say about what he was trying to do with this series?

AS: Well originally he was just trying to tell a story about his mother. Tony's mom Livia was based on Chase's own mother and he would tell stories all the time to friends and family about just how difficult she could be and everyone would always laugh and his wife Denise says you should make a show about that. And he realized you know if it's a show about a screenwriter with a difficult mother, who's going to watch that? But he'd also grown up loving gangster movies and he thought like that would be able to graft enough on there to make it work. And so it started as a very personal story about you know a man going into therapy, a man dealing with middle age, dealing with sort of a sense of disappointment, and then it expanded out into this much larger examination of the American experiment as we approached and then past the turn of the century.

CO: Do you think that we would have the various series that we binge watch now -- would have come into place -- I mean starting with Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, and then later shows like The Wire, Breaking Bad, even Game Of Thrones?

AS: It's the single most influential TV show, at least scripted, since I Love Lucy. TV comedy as we know it does not exist without Lucy. TV drama in the 21st century does not exist as it does without The Sopranos. You know every show on Netflix, any serialized show, any you know show with an anti-hero, any even any comedy with less than lovable characters, all of those can be traced back to things that The Sopranos did. Not that it was always necessarily the first one to do these things but it was the first one to do all of these things and be a really big hit. It broke all of these rules that the television business had you know unofficially held for decades saying, you can't have an unlikable character, you can't have moral complexity, you can't have narrative complexity, you've got to dumb everything down, you've got to make it simple, you can't have stories continue from one episode to the next. All these things that we take for granted in 2019 when we pick our favourite shows and we're going to binge something you know those are they are because of Tony Soprano.

CO: I don't think I could have binge watched the I Love Lucy show.

AS: [Laughs] Well when I think about bingeing a comedy is A) the episodes are shorter, and B) you know I had to binge some Sopranos for doing this and there were stretches of the show that great as they are like you really feel like you need to take a shower when you're done with them.

CO: [Laughs] Oh yes. Is there any line from The Sopranos that sticks with you after all these years that you find yourself quoting or exchanging?

AS: Oh all the time! Many of which I can't say on your show. [Laughs] But my goodness there's -- some of them are only funny because of the delivery of the performer. Steve Van Zandt who is you know much more famous for being Bruce Springsteen's guitar player -- you know he would do these line readings as Silvio the consiglieri of the family. And just on the page it's not a joke, and when he would say it, it would be brilliant. You know when Tony Sirico would say is Paulie Walnuts. He talked one time, I forget the set-up of it, but he's talking about how you know he's obsessive compulsive about cleanliness and just like his bathroom is so clean like you could eat maple walnut ice cream off of it. And it's like the specificity of maple walnut that makes that a great joke.

CO: [Laughs] Alan it's good to talk to you. Thanks.

AS: My pleasure.

KG: That was TV critic Alan Sepinwall speaking with Carol in January. Steve Van Zandt played Silvio Dante. He's also a member of the E Street Band. We reached him in New York in January as well.

SOUNDCLIP

CO: Steve we just heard from the writer Alan Sepinwall and what he says about you and about your ability to turn some of the lines in The Sopranos into the funniest moments in that show. How did you do that? How did you make those lines funny? They're really dark.

STEVEN VAN ZANDT: Well that's the whole essence of the show isn't it? It is sort of dark and funny simultaneously [chuckles]. It's just really really good writing. You know that's what it comes down to. You know and the incredible ability of David Chase to create these characters that have so much depth and are so distinctive with very little information really. You know that's a real craft. That's the highest level of that craft of screenwriting. You know I think it's what distinguishes the show really in many ways from so many others and it makes it extraordinary show it is. You have you know 12 or 15 regular characters -- every one of which you could spend the entire hour with and probably have a good time and it would be very entertaining [chuckles].

CO: The world you live in though as your character as "Sil" -- Silvio but Sil was the name we all know -- at the Bada Bing! strip club which is [laughs] a pretty awful place but everyone hangs out there. But also you're part of a number of murders of other characters including Pussy -- which is a scene I don't think I have ever got over that. What effect did it have on you to live in that character?

SVZ: Well you know the wonderful thing about acting is that you get a chance [chuckles] to do things that you normally would not do or should not do. You know I like the character quite a bit because it was pretty -- even though he's one of the more evolved characters in the sense of being a bit more of a diplomat for the family and a bit more open minded about business and doing business with people outside of the tribe so to speak -- you know he still lives in a very black and white world, you know? That's right and wrong, the rules are very rigid. And I kind of envy that kind of clarity to be honest. You know it's nice to know the rules you know and we live in such a crazy ambiguous world -- and most of life of course isn't like that and you constantly have to decide, make decisions that are difficult -- but you know his job was to look from when they were a kids -- from when they were young to watch Tony's back, his best friend, he's the only guy on the show that did not want to be the boss. He liked being in that second position of underboss, and consigliere, and best friends of the boss, and understood that job very well. He knew the rules [inaudible] you know very well and followed them. You know he is just a wonderful character.

CO: The character "Sil" didn't want to be the boss. He didn't want to run the mob. But the producer David Chase, he at one point considered you and not James Gandolfini to play that role -- but you weren't an actor before you took on the part of Sil were you?

SVZ: That's correct. You know at a certain point in the discussion I said to him, listen I having a bit of trouble right now, feeling guilty taking an actor's job -- these guys you know go to classes for years and do off-Broadway and everything else. And I felt kind of guilty and he said well you know in that case I'll write you in a part that doesn't exist so you're not taking anybody's job. [Laughter] He asked me you know what would you like to do? And I said well I had this treatment I had written about a hitman named Silvio Dante that had a club but it was more of a Copacabana type of club in a modern day -- but he is kind of living in the past, hence his look. And you know had big bands, and the chorus girls, Catskills comics and the whole thing, but in modern day. And then this treatment -- the drama all took place within the club, sort of like a mafia version of Casablanca in a way. So he liked that idea and he went away a couple of days -- came back and said HBO won't pay for it, so let's make it a strip club instead -- and you'll be you know Tony's consiglieri and best friend. And I was quite comfortable with that because I was able to really use my experience in real life with Bruce Springsteen as a sort of a model for the dynamic of what takes place between boss and the best friends you know.

CO: I just to ask you about this anniversary that we're now at -- 20 years since the show launched in this month. But this is without James Gandolfini to be around to share the moment. What is that like without him? Is it the same?

SVZ: Well no -- I'm in a funny sort of frame of mind with Jimmy -- I really have found at this stage in my life I find denial quite convenient and I tend to lean on it. You know we spent the first half of our lives sort of fighting denial and confronting everything that we need to confront. But at this point in life I think denial comes in quite handy and you know Jimmy is quite a presence in my life. I mean I think about him almost every day. We're very close offstage. And you know I just, in my mind, I just think our schedules are just not crossing at the moment. So I don't think of him as gone really. Of course he was missed at the reunion. But he is always around you know in my mind.

CO: Steve it's good to talk to you. Thanks.

SVZ: Good luck with the piece.

CO: All right. Bye bye.

SVZ: All right Bye bye.

KG: That was Steve Van Zandt, who played Silvio Dante on The Sopranos, speaking with Carol in January to mark 20 years since the show's debut. Look for that on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih. And now, we move from television to movies — specifically, a film that's not as well-known as The Sopranos, but was brought back into the spotlight earlier this year. It's called "Le chat dans le sac," and it was released by Quebec director Gilles Groulx in 1964. The film starts with a man and a woman introducing themselves to the camera. Then, the viewer hears this piece of music by a famous saxophonist.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music: “Naima” by John Coltrane]

[/sc]

KG: That's John Coltrane playing "Naima," in the opening of Le chat dans le sac. The saxophonist recorded music for director Gilles Groulx back in the sixties. But only ten minutes of what was recorded made it into the film. And afterwards, the tapes ended up at the National Film Board, where they were forgotten for decades. But this year, those John Coltrane recordings were released as an album for the first time. And the NFB's Frederic Savard played a big part in making that happen. He spoke with Carol back in September. Here's that conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

CO: Frederic where has this Coltrane recording been for all these years?

FREDERIC SAVARD: Well it's been kind of hidden in plain sight. Essentially it's been at the sound board since 1964. Essentially Gilles Groulx was able to get in touch with Coltrane and to convince him to score his film. He went down to New Jersey to attend the recording session and then left with the only master tape known in existence. So he came back to Montreal, edited the music into his film, and then the master tape including the entire session went back into the NFB archive and was there essentially collecting dust since 1964.

CO: And how was it finally discovered?

FS: It was discovered in the early 2000s by someone who used to work at the National Film Board. His name is Carol Faucher. He was in charge of what was called that collection memoir which was essentially this collection that would feature prominent filmmakers from the Film Board from the 60s and 70s mostly from the French production. And one of the first release from that collection was a series of Gilles Groulx's work -- essentially every film that he had directed for the Film Board. So while Mr. Faucher was doing research for this project he went into a deep dive into the NFB archive and was doing extensive research and he found this master tape under the working title of the film. The film is known "Le chat dans le sac" or the English version being "The cat in the bag." But when Groulx started working on this film the working title was "Chronicle of a breakup" or "Chronique d'une rupture." So some of the documents pertaining to this production including the master tapes from the Coltrane session was catalogued under that working title. So that's why it was a bit in limbo for all these years. But Carol found it in the early 2000. And we realized at that point that the music featured in the film wasn't only licensed music pre-existing recordings that were license for the soundtrack but exclusive new recordings that were produced at the request of Gilles Groulx -- and it was a pretty important discovery at that time.

CO: You have to wonder what's hidden in the archives of the National Film Board...that's is an extraordinary discovery.

FS: It's an extraordinary discovery. I'm a record collector myself and it's always a fantasy to come across something that's rare or something that's limited or a limited edition or a private press. But in this case finding the unique copy of an unreleased Coltrane studio session master tape it's something that's almost out of this world essentially.

CO: It's beautiful. It's moody. The bit we heard was "Naima" which is something he had recorded elsewhere but it works with the opening scenes of this Gilles Groulx film "Le chat dans le sac" "The cat in the bag." Maybe tell people what is that film about?

FS: The film is quite complex. Essentially it documents the last days of a relationship -- of a romance -- between two young Montrealers. Barbara Ulrich who's the main protagonist who goes under the name Barba in the film who is an Anglophone Jewish Montreal woman. And Claude who is a French Canadian aspiring journalist. So essentially the film chronicles the last days of their relationship, the growing distance between them. But it's also -- I think for Gilles it was also essentially a way to address some of the Quebec politics of the 60s and some of the concerns of the French Canadians at that time. Of course it's 64 so we're ahead of what was going to be the Quiet Revolution. So the film does talk a lot about questions of identity. But also I feel it's a film that has aged extremely well talking about linguistic politics, talking about gender politics. So it's quite a complex film. Essentially it's a fiction film. It was slightly inspired by the French New Wave. A lot of the film was shot with non-professional actors, a lot of the dialogue was completely improvised as well on the spot. So it's bit of a romance film but also it's a very political film.

CO: And it's charming but has this depth because of the -- as he describes it, 'one man's view of the anxiety of French Canadian youth' -- which is the opening part. But how did Gilles Groulx go about getting John Coltrane to record the soundtrack for this film?

FS: This is a bit of a mystery. It remains something that's a bit of a myth. Essentially what we know is that before shooting "Le chat dans le sac" Groulx made another film called "Voir Miami" or "To see Miami" which he shot in Miami, Florida. And during the shoot of this film -- while he was making this film -- he came across a woman in Miami who was prominently featured in the film. She's a bit of a muse figure throughout this documentary. And this woman was one of Jimmy Garrison's friend. And Jimmy Garrison being the bassit in the Coltrane quartet. So through that friendship and through that relationship, Groulx was able to get in touch with Coltrane's immediate circle. He got in touch with Jimmy Garrison and he asked him if he would agree to put him in touch with Coltrane and that's how the connection was made. We don't know very much about this collaboration. Unfortunately there's no documentation of it. There's no correspondence between the two men. We don't have any footage. We don't have any photos. But we know for a fact that the session did take place. And as to why Coltrane agreed to record the soundtrack there's many possibilities to envision. First of all, Jazz was being used more and more for film soundtrack. For instance Miles Davis had recorded a soundtrack for Louis Malle's film. [Charles] Mingus had recorded a soundtrack for John Cassavetes film. So it's quite possible that Coltrane wanted to be part of this movement. So that's one possibility. We also know that Coltrane at that time -- his music was becoming a bit more politicized as well. He'd recorded a song called "Liberia" recorded a song called "Africa." So it's possible that the politics discussed in the film were appealing to Coltrane. Of course we don't have any confirmation of that but it would be quite possible that there is a connection there. For instance throughout the film there's a reference to American writer James Baldwin. There's also a reference to Frantz Fanon. So it's possible that Gilles Groulx politics appealed to Coltrane's politics as well. Something -- as I said -- we cannot confirm but it would explain why Coltrane agreed to score a film by essentially an unknown French Canadian director at that time.

CO: Now also we know that well basically Jazz is the soundtrack of Montreal. It has always been, but especially in the 1960s and the same is true of Paris. So it just fits so perfectly with this movie. But 1964 we're talking about, what was going on in John Coltrane's own life at that time?

FS: Well these recordings were made right before Coltrane recorded one of his masterpiece called "A Love Supreme" and right before the session for the soundtrack he'd recorded "Crescent" as well. So during that period what is now known as the classic quartet which is the band that we can hear on the soundtrack featuring Jimmy Garrison on bass, McCoy Tyner on piano, and Elvin Jones on the drums were a bit at their peak. So 1964 was a very special era. And what's interesting about these recordings too is that even though Coltrane re-recorded some existing compositions that he had previously released his sound was evolving so quickly at that time that the recordings featured in the film for instance "Naima" that we heard and that we've just discussed, the version that's featured in the film and on the record that's coming out are significantly different than the version that was previously released in 1959 for the record Giant Steps.

CO: So Naima is on this recording -- this album now that you're going to put out. What else is on it?

FS: While essentially there's eight tracks of five different compositions by John Coltrane. For instance for Naima there were two takes and the record label has decided to include every different take that were recorded for the session. So we can hear other tracks such as "Village Blues" "Training In" "Blue World" "Naima."

CO: Is there anything that's not been heard before -- anything that is an original cut from Coltrane?

FS: No -- these are all previously existing compositions. But as I said the versions are so different than what was previously released that it remains extremely interesting to be heard.

CO: Because he was always interpreting and reinterpreting his music, wasn't he? I mean he even talks about that -- just how fluid this was and how he was experimenting with sound. So what we can hear on this is -- this is quite unusual, isn't it, to have this completely different take in subtle ways of what he's already recorded.

FS: Absolutely. Because this is something he would normally do during live sessions or during concerts so he would freely reinterpret composition from his catalog. So this was not something unusual for Coltrane this is something that he would do extremely frequently and these songs were in constant evolution and they were constantly growing and changing. But the fact that he went back to the studio to rerecord this material is something quite unusual and something that he would rarely do. We should also mention the fact that this recording took place at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in New Jersey. And Rudy Van Gelder is one of the most prominent Jazz producer of the 60s and 70s recording for Impulse records but also for another prominent label called Blue Note. So to have studio versions of these songs five or six years after they were previously recorded is something quite precious and quite unusual.

CO: What's it like for you to be the person who's putting all this together?

FS: I mean it's a bit surreal to be quite honest. I'm surprised that no one else was able to achieve what I've achieved in the last few years that is to make these recordings available to the general public. It's something that I was very passionate about. A lot of people knew about these recordings especially in Quebec. In French circles and music and film circles it was not really a secret. But to me it seemed a bit odd and a bit strange that this was only known in Quebec -- Coltrane being such a pillar of jazz music. And it's something that I wanted to see corrected. Essentially I wanted these recordings to be recognized and the has history and I wanted the recordings to be recognized in music history as well.

CO: It also brings Gilles Groulx back to the surface too, doesn't it? For people who don't know his work and especially "Le chat dans le sac" -- these are works that have not been seen in years and years.

FS: Absolutely. And for instance as well we know that there is a new found interest for English speaking audiences so the NFB recently redid some of the subtitles. And for instance I was just back from New York City where the film was screened at the Lincoln Center and we had quite a good turnout and it was very exciting to see an American audience react to this film and to see this newfound interest towards this unknown and underrated film from 64.

CO: We played a bit of Naima at the top of this interview. As we say goodbye to you, what should we play for our listeners?

FS: I think Blue World would be an interesting track to just end the conversation since it is the title track of the record. But also when it was previously recorded by Coltrane it was recorded under the title "Out Of This World." So Coltrane rerecorded with this new band and changed some of the chord arrangements so it's very different from what we had heard. So I think Blue World speaks to the unique aspect of this record and of these recordings.

CO: Well Frederic thank you for bringing this film back to light and this music.

FS: Well thank you for your time. It was a pleasure.

KG: That was Frederic Savard speaking with Carol back in September. He works with the National Film Board, and was the director of archival research on a new John Coltrane album that was released earlier this year by Impulse! And Universal Music. It's called "Blue World." You can find that interview on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

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December 17, 2019 episode transcript

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