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The Current Transcript for January 13, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: All the landmarks, I knew though growing up there, were gone. The cathedral, the national palace, the government buildings, all those things were gone.

MATT GALLOWAY: When Alezandre Dauphin flew into Haiti two days after the earthquake that killed close to 250,000 people, the island he grew up in was unrecognizable. A decade later, the Canadian doctor continues to assist in rebuilding. In 30 minutes, he tells us what's changed in ten years in Haiti and what hasn't. And then for all of our talk about harnessing the potential of millennials, Daniel Levitin says we're missing out on a golden opportunity.

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VOICE: When I say that oldsters are great untapped resource, they're often forced into retirement when they are still quite productive and useful and can remind us of mistakes that we've made in the past.

MG: The celebrated neuroscientist is here in an hour to talk about why we as a society need to rethink aging and what actually happens in our brain as we get older. Perhaps not what you think. That's coming up. But we begin with an admission by Iran, fury on the streets of that country and a demand for justice by the prime minister of this one. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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Maple Leaf Foods CEO's tweets slamming U.S. for PS752 downing reflects 'fury' Canadians are feeling: minister

Guests: Roland Paris, Payam Akhavan, Marco Mendocino

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[Sounds of protests in Tehran, Iran]

MG: The sound of protesters calling for the end of the regime took to the streets of Tehran this weekend. Iran has admitted that Flight 752 was shot down accidentally by one of its own missiles. 57 Canadians died in that crash. And as the investigation continues, Canada finds itself walking a diplomatic tightrope. Payam Akhavan is a professor of law at McGill University, former United Nations war crime prosecutor. He is in Montreal. And Roland Paris is a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa and a former foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He is in our studio in Ottawa. Good morning to you both.

ROLAND PARIS: Good morning.

PAYAM AKHAVAN: Good morning.

MG: Payam Akhavan, we spoke with you on Friday. A lot can change over the course of a weekend. What was your reaction to Iran's admission that it shot this plane down?

PAYAM AKHAVAN: I think it's quite astonishing. We have to remember that the SA15 surface to air missile system that shot down the aircraft is in the possession of the mighty Revolutionary Guards, who have virtually total impunity in Iran. And we are dealing with a country in which there is virtually no transparency, no accountability. So the fact that the Revolutionary Guards have admitted to this mistake is quite significant, as are the protests that we're witnessing in the streets.

MG: I want to get to the protests in a moment. Roland Paris, what do you make of this development?

ROLAND PARIS: Well, I was also, like everyone else, pleased and surprised. You know, for the first three days, the Iranian government seemed to be using the authoritarian playbook of denying and obfuscating and counter attacking. They were they were talking about the the the reports of Iran having shot down the plane as, quote unquote, psychological warfare, which is a phrase they've used many times in response to American sanctions and U.S. troop deployments, et cetera. So it really was a turnaround, an important step. But there are so many steps left going forward in terms of repatriating the remains of the victims investigating the accident and the questions of accountability and restitution and preventing this kind of thing from happening again.

MG: Payam, why do you think the regime admitted this? I mean, to your point, it's uncommon, to put it politely, for the Iranian government to admit any sort of mistake or wrongdoing. Why would it say that it had done this?

PAYAM AKHAVAN: I speculate that it's because of the regional context, currently the escalation of the conflict between the United States and Iran following the assassination of Qassem Soleimani and I would assume that the regime came to the conclusion that it had more to gain than to lose by making this admission rather than a persisting in its deceptive narrative. But I think that the significance within Iran is that just a few weeks ago, about 1500 protesters were killed by snipers because they were protesting fuel price increases in Iran. And there is a wider context here of a deepening anger and frustration by the Iranian public against a regime which they associate with political repression, with massive economic mismanagement and corruption. So I think that this may well be Iran's Chernobyl movements, just as Chernobyl represented the lack of accountability and incompetence which helped contribute to glasnost and liberalisation in the Soviet Union. This could very well be a turning point. We now have Iranian media, government controlled media that are openly condemning the Revolutionary Guards and this is something that's totally unprecedented.

MG: So just to be clear, when you say that it's a turning point, do you believe that the protests we're seeing on the streets, we just heard the sound of that at the beginning of the program. Do you believe those protests could actually threaten the Iranian regime?

PAYAM AKHAVAN: Well, had the same protests taken place a few weeks ago as it did, there would be snipers on the rooftops killing the protesters. As I said, an estimated 1500 people were killed.

MG: We're already hearing this morning that the Iranian officials have used live ammunition and tear gas back at those protesters. So I wonder whether they're seeing this.

PAYAM AKHAVAN: It is possible that they may go back to the same violence. But what you see now, as I said, are a number of Iranian media, which, of course, are all government controlled, that are openly condemning the Revolutionary Guards for their incompetence for the. Disregard for human life. Even members of Press TV. So this to me is quite remarkable, an unprecedented. But obviously, the regime isn't simply going to liberalize overnight, but it is a big blow to the prestige of the Revolutionary Guards who perhaps don't have much regard for killing innocent people.

MG: Roland Paris, what do you make of this?

ROLAND PARIS: Well, Professor Akhavan is an expert on Iran, and I'm not. But based on Iran's previous behaviour, I certainly hope that this leads to a change, a fundamental change in the way that the Iranian government behaves, both at home and abroad. But the pattern has been one of severe repression and I fear that that's what we're going to see this time too.

MG: What do you make of how officials here are reacting? The Conservative Party put out a list of demands around the announcement that came from Iran, saying that the Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard needs to be named a terrorist organization, that there should be further sanctions. Is now the time for that sort of action?

ROLAND PARIS: No, no, no, it isn't. I mean, our priorities right now are to bring home the remains of the Canadians that were killed in that crash and also to be working to ensure that this investigation is a genuine one, that Canadians, that Canadian professionals are part of that investigation, and that we continue moving along the path that will hopefully lead to some kind of accountability, restitution, and even a discussion of how it's possible that planes could be flying in the air at that time. There, Canada has a longstanding list of irritants with in its relations with Iran. We have very serious concerns about Iran's support for terror organizations in the region, but right now, we have this priority of dealing with this crisis.

MG: There have been calls and contacts between Canadian government officials and the Iranian leadership. Does that suggest to you that there is the opportunity role in Paris for a reopening of diplomatic ties, something that we haven't seen in a long time and something that many people believe has led to real concerns about that investigation of the transparency of that investigation on the ground?

ROLAND PARIS: Well, it's been a disadvantage not to have formal diplomatic relations with Iran since 2012. And we've seen what the disadvantages are. When you have people on the ground, you have a channel of communication, you have a way of responding to consular emergencies. That is Canadians in trouble. And frankly, you also have a means of being able to collect intelligence and understand what's going on and report back. And having diplomatic relations doesn't mean you agree with what a government is doing. We had an embassy in Moscow at the height of the Cold War, and most of our allies have embassies in Tehran right now. Even those who view Iran like we do as as a very problematic country, I don't know if this is ultimately going to lead to any kind of restoration of formal diplomatic relations with Iran. That is a prolonged process. It has opened channels of communication at the highest levels. That's good. Right now we, I think, need to be using those channels to move forward on this particular issue.

MG: Payam Akhavan what does accountability look like in light of Iran's admission that it shot down this plane?

PAYAM AKHAVAN: Accountability involves giving the families of the victims a truth. And as Professor Paris indicated, there are still many steps. The first instance I think it's important to continue the investigation. The admission of fault is important, but insufficient. There are still many details that need to be investigated. The remains of the victims, of those who wish to bury their loved ones in Canada need to be repatriated. And beyond that, I think there is a question of compensation for the victims. In fact, that is exactly what's happened between the United States and Iran. When a U.S. warship shot down Iran Air 655 over the Persian Gulf in 1988 at the height of the Iran-Iraq war.

MG: The suggestion is that Iran's admission leaves the door open for that country to pay dearly because of what has happened.

PAYAM AKHAVAN: Well, yes, hopefully Iran will follow through in negotiations with Canada, the Ukraine and other countries in respect of compensation. But if they refuse to do so, Canada can have recourse to procedures under the International Chicago Convention and the Civil Aviation from 1944. The International Civil Aviation Organization, which is a U.N. agency headquartered in Montreal, has certain procedures and it is even possible to bring that claim to the International Court of Justice, which is exactly what Iran did against the United States in the 1980s and in 1996. The United States agreed to settle and to pay compensation to the victims. Interestingly, the United States did not admit its faults. It was, if you'd like, an extract statement without any admission of fault. Whereas Iran has already admitted that it is responsible for the mistake.

MG: Roland Paris, what should Canadian officials be doing to ensure that accountability on the part of the Iranians, to ensure that the families here see some measure of accountability?

ROLAND PARIS: You know, I think that we need to be pressing Iran every step of the way, and it's going to take a long time. You know, the the the U.S. compensation for the shooting down of the Iran air flight took more than a decade. We can't wait that long. And so I think pressing Iran to continue cooperating on all these all these dimensions of the investigation and restitution and also accountability, what did what was the chain of command? What was the chain of events, all of those questions, they're going to be difficult for Iran to deal with. We need to be pressing on each one. But here's what's important is that they acknowledged they have already acknowledged culpability, whereas in the case of the Malaysian Airline that was shot down over Ukraine, the Russians have denied, denied, denied, and that's caused enormous suffering for the families. That's something that additional something suffering is something that that our families, fortunately, are not going to have to experience.

MG: Roland Paris, thank you. It's good to talk to you. And Payam Akhavan, same. Good to have you on the program again. Thank you.

ROLAND PARIS: Thank you.

PAYAM AKHAVAN: Thank you.

MG: Payam Akhavan is a professor of law at McGill University, former United Nations war crimes prosecutor. He was in Montreal. Roland Paris, an associate fellow of Chatham House, former foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He was in our studio in Ottawa. Well, for some answers from the federal government and joined by Marco Mendocino. He is the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Refugees. Minister, good morning to you.

MARCO MENDOCINO: Thanks for having me Matt at the beginning of this very tumultuous year. I wish it was under happier circumstances.

MG: How many Canadian diplomats have been allowed into Iran to start the investigation into this crash?

MARCO MENDOCINO: Well, we have a number. We have three confirmed who have gained access to Iran. And there are a number of others that are going to be allowed access for the purposes of facilitating the investigation. We believe the investigation has to be thorough, timely and transparent, and it needs the full active participation of Canada.

MG: What do we know about what sort of access, if at all, the Canadians will have to the crash site and also to the flight data recorders?

MARCO MENDOCINO: Well, those are precisely the questions that Canada is going to continue to press to get answers for a minister. Champagne is heading up an international response group that's made up of a number of countries who have been specifically and directly impacted by this tragedy. And let me just take a moment to say that it can't be overstated, the pain, the anguish that is being felt by the families here. I attended a vigil in at Mel Lastman Square. The outpouring of emotions is very raw. You saw the prime minister yesterday in Edmonton, today in Vancouver with the families. It's like an open wound, Matt. And the message to the impacted families is that we are with you.

MG: But so we don't actually know yet whether Canadians will actually have access to that crash site?

MARCO MENDOCINO: Well, that's certainly our expectation. And, you know, you heard the prime minister say in his readout of the call with President Rouhani that our expectation is that there be full cooperation by the Iranian authorities to ensure that we're getting access to that site so that we. Conduct a timely, thorough and transparent investigation because it cries out for answers and the families are asking those questions and they are entitled to have the answers to them.

MG: Iran says that this was human error. Is there any evidence that Canada has to support that claim?

MARCO MENDOCINO: Indeed. That's at the very crux of the investigation, Matt. And that's why we have sent a team who are made up of officials who will be looking at the evidence, the physical evidence of the digital evidence, getting access to the black box, getting access to DNA, getting access to witnesses. We need to take a look at every single one of these questions so that there is a thorough, comprehensive and transparent investigation.

MG: But at this point, it doesn't sound like we have a lot of answers beyond the fact that, as you say, there are three Canadians on the ground right now.

MARCO MENDOCINO: Well, I think that's a fair characterization. But in the meantime, we have been pressing for access. We have seen now that a number of visas have been issued and now that there are Canadians that are on the ground who are going to be actively contributing to this investigation, including it is our expectation getting access to that site. We will continue to make progress on that. As the prime minister has said, we are resolute in this process. We are going to continue to make the case because this this this cries out for justice. This is a singular event. And and it cannot be overstated how important it is that we get the accountability that the families are asking for, that indeed, all Canadians are asking.

MG: And the prime minister said that yesterday at the vigil in Edmonton, saying we will not rest until there is justice and accountability. What does that mean? What does justice and accountability in a situation like this?

MARCO MENDOCINO: Well, in the short term, it begins with a devastating admission that Iran provided that it's responsible for unintentionally shooting down this plane and but it certainly doesn't end there. And there are many more questions. It requires that there be a timely and a thorough investigation. As I have said. It also requires that there is some timely access for families who would like to repatriate the remains of those that they have lost. My department is going to be playing a role in that. We've set up a dedicated hotline for the families.

MG: Do you see any for any issues in the process of that in the part of Iran, perhaps around the issue of dual citizenship?

MARCO MENDOCINO: What I can tell you is that certainly in the short term that we're taking a whole of government approach to ensure that the families get the support they need to facilitate that travel. It involves making sure that they get their passports, visas can be extended. We want to be sure that they're able to be with their families, that they're able to bring their fallen home. And so we're going to do that. We're taking a whole of government approach here. If there's one lesson that I think that has been learned over time is that in these instances that we break down the silos between governments branches and that we really work together so that we can provide the support, the critical support that the families need.

MG: How would the government like to see the families of those victims compensated?

MARCO MENDOCINO: Well, that's certainly one of the questions that now I know that that the prime minister has indicated already that that the question of compensation has to be in the mix and we are going to be ensuring that that question is answered and Iran will have to be take full responsibility.

MG: How are you going to do that? How are you going to hold Iran responsible if we don't have diplomatic ties with that country?

MARCO MENDOCINO: Well, we're going to continue to engage Iran. And I think that it is a significant step. As you heard, your last two interviewees acknowledge that Iran has begun by acknowledging that it is responsible for the shooting down of this plane and for the loss of innocent life. There were 57 Canadians whose lives were extinguished based on a senseless act. There were 176 total on this plane. And so it is our complete focus right now that we continue to get the answers that the families are entitled to get so that we can get accountability and justice for them.

MG: This tragedy comes just days after the United States killed General Soleimani. Last night michael McCain, the CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, one of the most prominent CEOs in this country, put out a series of tweets, his corporation, and he lost a colleague, wife, 11-year-old son in that crash. He's very angry. He blames, in his words, "a narcissist in Washington, unconstrained by checks and balances," and says the Canadians needlessly lost their lives in the crossfire. Is Michael McCain, wrong?

MARCO MENDOCINO: Well, I think his statements certainly taps into and reflects the anger that is being felt by the families and by Canadians right across the country. And we're taking that anger and we are channelling it into something constructive by providing support to the families who have been impacted.

MG: Do you believe the United States has any responsibility for this tragedy?

MARCO MENDOCINO: Canada and the United States are among the closest of allies in the world, Matt, and we share intelligence, we share information, and indeed, the members of our military serve side by side in that region for the purposes of advancing the cause of peace and so it's imperative that we continue to cooperate. But getting back to the statement, which I saw as well, I think that Mr. McCain's statement does really reflect the anger and as the Prime Minister said himself, the fury that many Canadians are feeling, were using those emotions to really channel our efforts to provide justice and accountability for families because they're entitled to it. And we will not stop and we will not rest until we get it.

MG: In the meantime, families are hurting and they want to know what exactly the government can do. It just seems as though there are more questions than answers at this point when it comes to actually finding that accountability and that justice.

MARCO MENDOCINO: Well, let me just begin by outlining some of the steps that the government has taken.

MG: Just briefly.

MARCO MENDOCINO: In the short aftermath. First of all, we have a task force that's been headed up by the clerk of the Privy Council. There's a Web site for families. There's a consular services who've been dispatched both in Canada as well as in Iran. There's hotlines that are set up by the global affairs branch as well as my department. We have the International Response Team, which is being coordinated by Minister Champagne and of course, most, most immediately. We have Canada's participation now in this investigation. And at the very centre of all of these all of these functions must be the families there squarely our priority. And we will continue to provide them with the critical support they need, because as I said now on a number of occasions, we need to provide them with justice.

MG: Marco Mendocino, good to speak with you. Thank you.

MARCO MENDOCINO: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Marco Mendocino, the federal minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Well, the CBC News is next. And then Alezandre Dauphin arrived in Haiti shortly after the massive earthquake of a decade ago. The Hamilton doctor didn't recognize where he grew up. Nothing was left. A decade later, he'll join us to talk about his work in rebuilding that country and the hospitals there. That's coming up in about six minutes time. My name's Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

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How Quebec MNA Dominique Anglade carried on after 2010 Haiti earthquake killed her parents

Guests: Alezandre Dauphin, Dominique Anglade

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin's parents are active and working well into their 80s, but when they wanted advice on how to keep going strong. Daniel couldn't find a book to give them, so he decided to write it himself. Advice on aging well and preparing for what's to come in half an hour. But first, we look back a decade to when a devastating earthquake hit Haiti.

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VOICE 1: The first thing I saw was the dust. The dust and then the sound of people really crying, crying out, help in Creole.

VOICE 2: I could hear people screaming and he just kept saying, oh my God, he was telling me what was happening and things were falling around him and then the phone lines cut.

VOICE 3: There was people lying in the courtyard with the most horrific injuries that I've ever seen. You know, I don't consider myself to be squeamish at all being in medicine and, you know, this is enough to even stop the most seasoned veteran in his or her tracks.

VOICE 4: I'm very sad because a lot of people died. A lot of people are suffering. I'm very sad because. my country is in great difficulty, but I'm very happy also to see how the world is with us, is helping us.

MG: Haiti has been trying to rebuild for 10 years after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake left its capital in ruins. Close to a quarter of a million people died in that tragedy. Many more were injured. And in the days that followed, doctors from around the world rushed to Haiti to help. Alezandre Dauphin was among them. He's an anaesthesiologist who works with St. Joseph's Health Care in Hamilton, Ontario. Doctor, good morning.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Good morning.

MG: When you first arrived in Haiti in 2010, a couple of days after the earthquake, describe to me what you saw.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Well, first of all, in getting there, it wasn't possible to imagine what one would see, except picking through the window of the other plane, all the landmarks I knew growing up there were gone and there was a kind of a dust in the air. The cathedral, the national palace, the government buildings, all those things were gone. So it's when you get there, then you discover the city you knew no longer existed. And it was just rubble, you know, pounds of concrete everywhere.

MG: How did you process that, knowing that city as well as you did and as you said, not seeing the landmarks that anybody would expect to see as they fly into the city?

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: The first approaches that you have a sense of being overwhelmed. But at the same time, this call of duty is there. That's you. That's the reason for coming. I'm from Haiti originally. So it's very close to home. They are my brothers, my sisters. And that's really hard. But we had to do what we had to do and accept the reality of what we had.

MG: What do you mean, call of duty? What was it that drew there in the first place?

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Well, the first question of what can I do? How am I going to help this and how to approach this? As an anaesthetist, we are pretty good at critical appraisal and setting of priorities and trying to process and prioritize. But the limitation also it's what do you have to work with. Everything has been gone. So it's tough to imagine on site how to solve this.

MG: Describe the scene that you encountered when you got to the hospital.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: It was no longer a hospital. It was a building. Parts of it badly damaged and people on the field everywhere. There were tents everywhere. Sick people were everywhere. But one scene I can never forget is there was a young lady there and as I'm passing by, she called me. She speak Creole. Both arms were broken. And she had chest tube and covered with flies. And she tells me, please try to cover me because I'm not dead yet. I don't want the flies to eat me alive.

MG: Oh, my goodness.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: That's the kind of first thing you get and see how I'm going to deal with this.

MG: When you it when you see something like that, I mean, what goes through your mind?

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: The first thing is immediate care and how do what can you do to help the people immediately here? And you tried to do some triaging, see whom you can help us with what and try to set up things. And also being part of the whole team, that death is another difficult things because the Haitians themselves thought they were physicians, nurses and so on. They all have been affected by this and somehow being overwhelmed. They were not easily drawn into being part of this. It's like the world was taking care of them, pushing it aside. So I had to say, hey, wait a minute here. I belong to this thing here. And how can I just bring this together? And I please give them a sense of purpose by setting up some place for them to work, which we did.

MG: To that point, where did you find space to work in a building that has been destroyed by the earthquake and where there is such chaos kind of all around you? How did where did you set up your base of operations?

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: So what we did was at the university hospital, there were tents everywhere from the other nations, but there was non Haitians. So what I did was to find a building. One of the buildings that was still standing and to set up operating rooms for the Haitians. And by the end of the first day we got there, which were both third for the day. We managed to have at least a comprehensive approach, Haitian approach to it, which is interesting enough that that room lasted for over six months after the earthquake providing the same care.

MG: You're also there at a time when there is great loss. And so there are people that you can help, but there are a lot of people who have been affected because loved ones, friends, family have been killed by the earthquake or the effects of the earthquake. What was the mood like? But also just the sense around the hospital at that time?

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Well, it was very hard because the people, you know, on a first name basis. And I remember one of my one of the colleagues there who lost his wife, his surgeon, lost his wife, lost his children. And the hospital where he works collapse. His home is gone. His office is gone. They stood in the hospital with nothing left to look. Have him and to see how stoic he was in approaching God and all you can do is just be there. But one thing with the Haitians, it's the resilience they have to do so with the natural environment of Haiti. Not having much to start with, but also a belief system, very spiritual, rich people. But all you have to do is just you can do more than being there with them then and be of support.

MG: You were there for two weeks initially.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Yes.

MG: Did you did you sleep at all? I mean, I can imagine, given the scale of things and the fact that you're there and you can offer a valuable resource and assistance that you would be wanted 24/7.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Well, the first thing when I get there, I couldn't sleep inside the homes because there was a panic with the aftershocks. So we sleep outside. But after a week coming, going to two weeks, I started not to feel well. I started to cry a lot. And then being very emotionally connected with the people. By that time, I was fortunate enough to recognize these. And that's what would be called pictures of things like this. So I just left Haiti and took the plane and came back here to have it done. And I slept for two or three days or so and then fly back to Haiti.

MG: Can you tell me about when it hit you, when the reality of what you were seeing hit you and as you mentioned, you would start to cry?

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Well, I think it's a process that build-up, with the exception of working all day and into the crude reality of sometimes you can do anything for the person with whom you could help. If we're in another place, it builds up up to a point where really you will crack.

MG: After leaving and as you said, sleeping for a little while, returning back to Hamilton, you decided to return to Haiti. Why would you do that?

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Well, first of all, I've been going to Haiti this since 1990. So though the earthquake was just a bump along our program. And after the earthquake, I personally continue to go and I'm still going now. Right now I go three times a year and I spent three months there, a month at a time. And the reason I go is because the job is not finished. And I'm not sure that anything was done to help should something like this happen again and we know it's possible because of the location of Haiti's earthquake.

MG: Tell me about the work that you've been doing in the time that you've been returning.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Well, immediately after the earthquake, what we did was we stayed in Port au Prince. And for two years we. We built a hospital where we were going to go with McMaster and centres of health care system with the Ministry of Health, we're going to create a hospital that will be a model for university teaching hospital in Haiti. After the earthquake we continue with this program and with the help, the fund we had from Hamilton area, we rebuild their hospital that was 40 percent destroyed and brought it to a good standard and create other programs.

MG: What are the difficulties being that you faced in trying to make that, I mean, that sounds like real progress, but in trying to make further progress in your visits there.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Well, presently, we're no longer in Port-Au-Prince. And this has to do with the political stability of Haiti with change of political regime. So we're no longer welcome to that hospital so that.

MG: Sorry just to be clear, you're no longer welcome at the hospital.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Yeah, that's right.We were no longer welcome to that hospital.

MG: Despite the fact that you helped rebuild the hospital.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Yes. Yes. And that's okay. That's fine. We move on and and what I have done, I have moved to the northwest part of Haiti presently in the area where I was born, in the same hospital where I was born. We were building that up to become a hospital. That to be a good regional hospital. It's a catchment area of 800,000. And there's not really much care there. So we are building that up. And what I like with that hospital is it's a religious affiliated hospital. It has a Canadian flavour to it. We provide care to everyone coming whether they can pay or not. And that's the only hospital there with a 24 hour emergency care. So we're very thankful for that. That's a very good, good thing. And we are hoping to develop there and continue with that what we couldn't finish in Port-Au-Prince.

MG: You talked earlier about how this is personal for you. That yes, it's a calling as a physician to go and save people and ensure that suffering is alleviated, but as a Haitian, that this is personal for you. And I'm just wondering how you see the country now personally, not as a doctor, but personally a decade after this earthquake.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Well, it's a country is still struggling to define itself politically, socially, economically. And somehow I'm saddened by the fact that with all the great minds that have come from Haiti, that are in Haiti, there hasn't been a sense of where people can sit down and reflect. And for the whole world to embrace that, there's a comprehensive approach to help this country. I think they must hope they have come to this country has been disappointing in that because they have never delivered truly good out of something that will be helpful to the people and the people themselves are still in the same rut they've been forever.

MG: When are you heading back?

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Oh, God willing, first week of March.

MG: I wish you the best of luck. It's a great pleasure to talk to you. You're doing important work.

ALEZANDRE DAUPHIN: Well, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity. I thank you for what you do and continue with the good work yourself as well.

MG: Dr. Alezandre Dauphin is an anaesthesiologist with St. Joseph's Health Care in Hamilton, Ontario. Quebec politician Dominique Anglade's parents, George Anglade and Mireille Neptune Anglade, were among those killed in the earthquake. She also lost her uncle and her cousin last month as the 10th anniversary approached. She spoke in Quebec's national assembly and told the story of her sister calling her 24 hours after the quake.

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[Speech in French]

MG: Dominique Anglade is saying and I said dad and mom? And it was at that moment that I understood that in one blow I had lost my father, my mother, my uncle and my cousin. Dominique Anglade is the Liberal member in the National Assembly for the Montreal riding of Saint-Henri-Sainte Anne.Good morning.

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: Good morning.

MG: Tell me about that moment in the National Assembly, that's incredibly powerful.

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: Oh, it was it was very emotional. And, you know, two days beforehand, I didn't know whether I was gonna do it or not. I didn't know whether I was capable of speaking about this at the National Assembly. But then I thought that I also have the responsibility to do that. My parents were the two first Canadians to be identified in the aftermath of the earthquake. And I think this story is not only my story, but it's the story of hundreds of thousands of people that have been impacted by this earthquake. So I thought I had to do it and I didn't know exactly what I was going to say, howit was going to come out. But I just shared the story like it happened, how I felt and remembering my sister calling me, and my sister not being able to tell me dad and mom had passed away. She was only able to tell me Malou who is my aunt, she's alive and Frederic is alive. And then I was saying "And Dad?" And she was like, and Malou is alive and Frederic —" so she was repeating all those lines of the people that were alive. She was incapable of telling me who had passed away. And that's how I understood what was going on.

MG: You make that speech, and then what happened? Politics can be a pretty divisive participation to be in. We know that people have different sides that they're involved in. What happened in that moment after?

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: When you go into politics, regardless of what party you're from, you go in because you think you can change the world, change things. And I think we're all human at the end. So I had people from different parties coming to me and hugging me and and I could see people being emotional across all parties. Although it was a very sad moment, it was also a very moving moment because people were all touched by the story. And we have a significant diaspora, a Haitian diaspora in Quebec. It is very hard to be a Quebecer and not to know one person that originally comes from Haiti.

MG: Take me back a decade ago. When you first heard that there had been an earthquake in Haiti, what did you think? What went through your mind?

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: Well, you know, I was in a restaurant and I was having dinner and somebody called it or there was an earthquake in Haiti. And I go, "OK. My parents are there because they're on vacation, but I'll call them later." It was nothing for me, because an earthquake is not something that is necessarily terrible. But almost like five minutes later, somebody called back, said, "did you see the earthquake or did you hear about it?" And then I started realizing, "OK, it's more serious than I thought". And we started making phone calls. I didn't have news, but it was not surprising, the lines were cut, and I had to wait until the next day to have news. We thought we had good connections to some people giving us information and it was all — it was all wrong. And four members of my family had died. So 24 hours of not knowing of a certainty, of stress, fear, and then the news.

MG: I was going to say, what were those 24 hours like? I can't imagine seeing images, hearing about it, but not knowing the state of your family. What was that like?

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: Yeah, it was terrible. It was terrible. But, you know, we are very, we're a very resilient family. So I was trying to stay very active, calling people, finding solutions, reaching out. So it was also very busy. So you didn't have time to think too much about all this — I was in a mode of trying to find solutions, but you can only imagine what it's like and then the news. But then a few hours later, I spoke with my aunt who had lost her son, my cousin, who was 24-years-old and passed away. I spoke to his mom, my aunt, and she said, you know, Dominique, the dead are dead. There's nothing we can do about that. There so many more things that you need to do for the people that are alive. So she was so strong that I told myself and here I am in Montreal and able to have the positive influence despite everything that we're going through. So I'm gonna try to find solutions for the other people that are in need and we'll deal with all this afterwards. But if we can actually get some food, get people over there to help out and get back on their feet, at least we'll be contributing. So it's a personal tragedy within a national or international catastrophe.

MG: Tell me about your parents. They sounded like remarkable people.

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: So both my parents were from Haiti. They moved to Quebec in 1969. I was born in 74. And the reason why I was born and raised in Quebec is because my father was a was a political prisoner under Duvalier. And he had to leave the country. And he came to Quebec and he co-founded the University of Quebec in Montreal. My mom became a teacher and they were very involved in their communities. And when I say community, like Quebec Haitian communities in Montreal. My mom was very involved with female groups and my dad always involved in some some kind of politics because he ended up being a minister in the end in Haiti. And I think it's their engagement values that have really — they were able to transfer that or to convey those values to us. We are following, we're walking in their footsteps.

MG: Tell me, your mom wrote a thesis. What was the thesis?

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: The thesis was The Work of Women, or How Men Become Rich. So basically, Le Travail des Femmes: Comment les Hommes Deviennent Riches.Basically illustrating that a lot of the men in Haiti had some money, but because of the work of the women supporting them. She was a feminist. And the book was all about the impact of the work of women in the country.

MG: How did the work — you talked about the impact that they had on Quebec society. How did their work shape who you are now? Because you were involved in engineering before their death, right?

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: That's probably the reason why I'm in politics today, because they've always encouraged me to think about what difference I can make in the world. And politics is one way of doing that. So that's certainly the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing today.

MG: And that advice, that motivation that your aunt gave you about the work that you can do to help the living. What did that mean to you in terms of where you are now?

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: It's something that I carry with me all the time. And even at the National Assembly, I shared the fact that he had, after exile after being sent to jail, and finally, he was he was sent to Quebec, but he wrote a letter to my mom and he said, you know, "we're going to go and build ... I'm just going to translate it as I can right now. But 'we're going to build tomorrows that that look like our dreams.' So I thought, this is exactly what they've been able to give us as values, is despite what's going on, you always have to stand up and and fight for what you think is right. We also with the with the singer of Arcade Fire, Régine Chassagne, founded a foundation called KANPE, which means "stand up" in Creole and to support people in Haiti. So I think these are values that are very, very alive and that I'm trying to convey to my own children.

MG: That quotation that you mentioned from your father, I mean, that was that was in a letter that you found that he wrote to your mother.

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: Yes.

MG: Tell me about that letter.

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: So the letter was written the year I was born and it's also the year where he was sent to jail and then sent back to Quebec. And after they had passed away, I was looking at all the papers and documents and I found that card for Christmas. It's on December 24th. He's writing this letter. My mom is pregnant. So he goes "To Mireille" — my mom — " to Dominique and to you, who doesn't have a name." And he writes this card. And at the and he says, "Despite everything, we will build tomorrows that look like our dreams." It's very moving. It's it shows the strength that he had and the courage. And I think we need to be inspired by this every day.

MG: When you look at the situation now in Haiti, a decade after the earthquake. What do you see?

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: Of course, Haiti is going through a difficult situation right now. It's a complex country because of the dictatorship and because of everything that went wrong afterwards. Haiti is in is in this current situation that is very hard. But there are some initiatives. There are clearly working at the local level and KANPE is a good example of that, where you see communities that are becoming financially independent and creative, standing up for themselves, working in agriculture, working in education. But at the end of the day, like in any place in the world, you need a stable government to make things happen.

MG: And so if you think of those words that were in the letter that your father wrote to your mother, that idea of building days that resemble our dreams or building days that resemble our futures. What are your dreams for Haiti?

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: They finally get a government that is stable and they can actually focus on building this new generation of leader. Half the population is under 20 years old. It's a wealth, an unbelievable wealth and I really hope that there is a leader or group of people that will be able to create opportunities for this new generation.

MG: It's a real pleasure to talk to you about this. If I wanted to say thank you in Creole, how would I say that?

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: You would say [thank you in Creole].

MG: Dominique [thank you in Creole].

DOMINIQUE ANGLADE: Thank you so much.

MG: Dominique, is is the liberal MNA for the Montreal riding Saint-Henri-Sainte-Anne. Coming up on the program, the neuroscientist Daniel Levitin wants to change the way we talk about aging and the value of oldsters in society. That is his words, not mine. He's next. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music]

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A neuroscientist's tips for helping the brain age well

Guests: Daniel Levitin

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: This is a game called Briscola. You have to make up, it's a hundred points, each of them. So 500 points. You win. And what are you going to do?

MG: The men are sitting around a table in the entry area of a Toronto recreation centre. Briscola is a popular game. The table's too small for the group, so a second row of chairs is actually behind the first and the men in the back crane their necks to see the cards on the table.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I coming over here about every day. Yeah because I got all friend from my country, from Italy, Italy people.

VOICE 2: How old I am? 87.

VOICE 3: How often do you come to the community centre?

VOICE 4: He can't be 87.

VOICE 2: 30 years.

VOICE 3: Every day?

VOICE 2: Not every day. When I have time, because I got nothing to do at home. Play card and talk with friends and pas the day. Yeah, I am happy. Really happy. Everything's great? So I can't complain.

MG: My favourite part of that maybe is the bit where the guy in the background says he can't be 87. That game of cards and the socializing that goes along with it might be part of the reason why he can't complain. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin has looked into what it takes to age well. Daniel Levitin is the James McGill Professor Emeritus of neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, and his new book is called Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives. Daniel Levitin, good morning.

DANIEL LEVITIN: Morning, Matt.

MG: Those men sound pretty happy. What do you think they're doing right?

DANIEL LEVITIN: The thing that they're on to is that socializing with other people is about the most complicated things that we humans do. It requires all kinds of mental operations, empathy, compassion, turn taking, knowing when it's your turn to talk. Really, social negotiations are difficult and they keep our brains well oiled. So, you know, I think it's less about playing chess or bridge or preschooler. It's more about the social interaction.

MG: Why did you want to write this book now about getting older and about how what happens in our brain as we get older, but also how we can age in a way that ensures that our full potential is realized?

DANIEL LEVITIN: Well, two reasons. One was just curiosity. As a neuroscientist, I had noticed that there are some oldsters at age 99, age 100, and still be as sharp as ever. And then there were other people in their 50s and 60s who seemed to be losing it. That's a puzzle. You know, why are some people doing better than others? My own parents are 85 and 87 now. They're as sharp as ever. They're very much engaged with work. My father is a professor at USC and they just signed a four year contract. So he'll be teaching until he's 91. It's amazing. My mother's been writing plays and staging them and painting ten canvases a month and they come to their son, the neuroscientist, and asked for advice about how to keep going. And so I looked all around for a book to give to them and I couldn't find one.

MG: You talk in the book about three things, three questions that I guess we all should answer as we're looking ahead to old age, what are those three questions that we should be thinking about?

DANIEL LEVITIN: Well, we need to be thinking about our health span. You can think of your lifespan as being divided up into these two parts of the health span and the disease span and a lot of medical research and money goes into extending life. But we don't look very much at quality of life. I'm not sure I want to live to be 200 if I'm going to spend the last hundred and ten years catatonic. Another thing we should be asking ourselves is how we want to spend our time. As we get older, we tend to narrow our focus and want to just keep doing the same things we've done before. And it's important to fight that, to fight the complacency and to experience new people and new ideas and new things. And the third thing that we should ask ourselves is how can I change whatever habits I hold now to maximize my chances for being healthy, not necessarily for living longer.

MG: And if you're living healthier, I mean, whether it's longer or not, you're going to have more of that lifespan is to say, rather than just a longer life. You're going to have a more enjoyable lifespan.

DANIEL LEVITIN: Yeah. Think about the narrative of two people who lived to be 95. Maybe one of them gets sick at 55 or experiences. Cognitive decline has to quit her job. Really, the last 40 years of her life were characterized by depression and sorrow and low activity. Consider somebody else who lives to 95 who maybe gives up her job finally at 90, but continues to volunteer with her church or holds a book club at her house and then dies within a week. At the end, equal lifespan, very different lives.

MG: You also quote a colleague who raises a handful of things. Three things that I guess I mean, if you look at it from the surface, might seem trivial, but are actually really important. It's about ice cream. It's about light bulbs and about lunch. What are those things and why are those three things in particular important?

DANIEL LEVITIN: So those are three questions we could ask ourselves that sort of encapsulate all this. As you age, who is going to change your light bulbs? Now, that may sound like a trivial question, but I don't think I want my 87 year old dad up on a ladder trying to get the recessed bulbs in the ceiling. If he were to fall, it would be catastrophic at 87, whereas falling at 57 is not. So it's about who's going to help you out around the house, who's going to chop your vegetables if your vision is bad or your hands are trembling? Ice cream. Are you living in a place where you can be spontaneous and enjoy the community? Are there places you can go or are you isolated? Although many oldsters enjoy living in. Rural and suburban environments. It can be isolating, particularly as your social circle shrinks and just knowing that you can get up, walk down the street, get an ice cream, coffee, a beer at the local pub. Those are important considerations. And finally, lunch. Who are you going to have lunch with? It's no good to just stay at home no matter how much you like CBC Radio, you got to get out and be with people. Are you living in a place and have you arranged your life in such a way that you have somebody to have lunch with once or twice a week?

MG: How have those questions framed? How you think about aging? Because again, they're all things we're trying to project forward how we want to live our lives as we get older. But do you find that it challenges some of the things that you thought about when it comes to aging? I mean, the idea of how you're going to get ice cream. To your point, there are a lot of people who might want to age in a quieter community, but if you can't walk somewhere, where does that leave you?

DANIEL LEVITIN: Most of what I write about in the book is how to start adopting practices in your 20s and 30s. That will give you a much greater probability of being happy and healthy in your 70s, 80s and 90s. And it's never too late to start adopting these practices. The three questions we asked about ice cream and light bulbs and lunch really apply to people who feel that they're towards the end of their life and trying to figure out what they're going to do with the last five or 10 years or however much time they have left. And it often applies to a decision about whether to stay in your house or to move, you know, when choosing an assisted living facility or a memory care unit or just an adult community. It's important to think about these things. What does the community offer me? My uncle is thinking that it's time for him to move out of his big sprawling house in the middle of 100 acres of rural Northern California. He is quite isolated. He's got a drive, 15 minutes to get a quarter built. And so we went and looked at an assisted living facility together. And it was marvellous. I kind of wanted to move there. It was was kind of like a fun big college dorm. Everybody had their own apartment and they had a dining hall with scheduled meals. But you could order what you wanted. They had a lot of recreation. They had a book group that met twice a week. They had lecturers come in. That's the kind of stimulating environment my uncle, a former attorney and playwright, would gravitate towards.

MG: There isn't a huge industry that exists to tell us what we should be doing about how to live our lives so that as we age, we will live healthier lives and will live more productive lives. If you take a look at the science that exists. How important are things like diet and fitness to aging well?

DANIEL LEVITIN: It's kind of a trick question. Diet and exercise are critically important, but most of what we hear or are told to do by purveyors of different expensive products and gym memberships have no scientific basis at all. There are a thousand different diet books at least, and they all contradict each other. You'd think that if one diet was clearly superior to the others, we'd know it by now. The truth is, with diet, it does matter what you eat. You know the onion rings and french fries diet is not going to help you. The basic advice is eat a variety of foods. You shouldn't cut out carbs completely. You shouldn't cut out animal fat completely. Eat a variety of foods in moderation. You try to avoid fried foods, but you can have them once in a while. You can have ice cream once in a while and eat more plants than you probably you're eating.

MG: What about I mean, that's what you're taking in as food. What about what you're taking is information. We're told that I need to, you know, be doing Sudoku puzzles relentlessly so that my brain will stay sharp as I get older. Is that necessary?

DANIEL LEVITIN: Well, there's a billion dollar industry devoted to brain enhancement and a lot of computer games. There's no evidence that these brain training games actually make you smarter or improve your memory or stave off Alzheimer's. If you do Sudoku puzzles or passwords, all that you get better at is Sudoku puzzles and crosswords and doesn't transfer to anything else. One thing there is though, if you've never done crossword or Sudoku, there is a value in doing something new that oils the neural circuits. It creates new synaptic connections, and that exercise of your brain getting out of your comfort zone is very important to successful aging. Now, the other thing you mentioned was exercise. We've also been sold a bill of goods. I think about the value of exercise. Exercise is important and aerobic exercise in particular is heart healthy. But all that aerobics exercise isn't nearly as important for brain health as simple movement, particularly movement that involves navigation, navigation in open countryside. If you can. I went on a hike last summer in Quebec. We were hiking in this public park on a dirt trail and there were all kinds of tangled roots and things in the middle of the trail. You had to be careful to step over them and not trip. A light went off in my head that connected the research literature on what we called embodied cognition and what was really going on on this walk, which was that I was exercising my hippocampus, the part of the brain that is devoted to navigating and spatial memory. And turns out the hippocampus is the seat of memory, so all of that movement in natural surroundings is very challenging for the brain and it's consistent with how our hippocampus evolved. It didn't evolve to remember the lyrics to songs. Your memory evolved to help you navigate, to remember where you are in space. Standing on a treadmill doesn't do that. Getting out and taking a walk in the country or in the city, if that's what you've got. Very important.

MG: Can I ask you a further question about memory? Just because you've raised it? One of the things that comes up in the book is that you reference something that I think a lot of us have experienced where you go to the grocery store or you go to the closet, you arrive there and you can't remember exactly why you ended up there in the first place. And as you get older, do you think this is a sign of something? And it's a sign of something ominous and I should be concerned about this. Should we be concerned if we have those moments where our memory fails us?

DANIEL LEVITIN: Well, it's interesting, Matt. This is sort of one of the myths of aging. It's true that some people do suffer memory loss as they age, of course, but far less of us are experiencing that than we think at McGill, where I've taught for many years. I see 19 and 20 year olds who are having memory lapses all the time. They raise their hand and I call on them immediately and they forgot what they wanted to ask. The difference between the 20 year old and the 70 year old is the stories we tell ourselves. The 20 year old says, Oh jeez, I drank too much last night or I gotta get more than five hours of sleep. The 70 year old standing in front of the hall closet, not knowing why he's there, says, oh, jeez, this must be Alzheimer's.

MG: That's reassuring to a lot of us, I think, who've had that moment, who wondered whether it was some sort of catastrophic moment as we're standing there not knowing what we're supposed to be doing.

DANIEL LEVITIN: It isn't necessarily. And the other thing is that as we get older, we tend to spend more time in our heads. And so, you know, we've got a lot of thoughts going on in between the bedroom and the hall closet. You're thinking about three or four things and they kind of push out the why do I need to go to the hall closet part?

MG: Briefly, one of the other things that you raise is the issue of sleep, something that's top of mind for those of us who wake up early in the morning to come to work. What do we need to know about sleep and aging and how aging can affect our sleep patterns?

DANIEL LEVITIN: Well, this is another myth, Matt, that old people don't need much sleep. You've probably heard this. That ain't true. They only get five and a half hours of sleep, but they still need eight or nine like the rest of us. The difficulty is that as we age our biological clock in the supercars, MC nucleus and the brain begin to degrade. And we're not getting the neurochemical signals for waking and for sleeping that we ought to be getting. That means we have to be particularly scrupulous about sleep hygiene. When we're young, we can stay up late and we don't really feel it much after about the age of 60. If you stay up maybe just two, three hours later than normal, say, to celebrate New Year's. It can take you a couple of weeks to re synchronize your clock. You have to go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time. It often means not doing anything with a screen or a blue light within two hours at bedtime, avoiding alcohol because alcohol disrupts the sleep cycle, although it might help you to fall asleep. Most people have a kind of kickback effect where it wakes them up a few hours later and in the morning, possibly get one of those blue lights, those daylight lamps. And when you first wake up, let it shine on you for half an hour.

MG: Much of this book is about how we need to think differently about aging and how we think about the oldsters as you refer to them. What has to change in terms of society's thinking about aging to ensure not just that we do it well, but that we take advantage of an aging population in the best case scenario.

DANIEL LEVITIN: The society we're living in is agist. It as a narrative that old people are maybe in the way of younger people, that they're unpleasant to be around, that they're cranky. And certainly some old people are cranky. But I'd like to start a new conversation about how to view old age as just another developmental stage. It's certainly marked by its own challenges, as is toddlerhood and adolescence and young adulthood, but it's also marked by some unique strengths. Oldsters are better at a number of things and there a great untapped resource. What do you mean? Old people have more experience? Oldsters are better at solving certain kinds of problems based on pattern matching, which are components of wisdom, particularly good at seeing patterns in things and saying, Oh, I've seen this thing before where a younger person hasn't seen it before. If you have to get an X-ray read, you want to have a 70 year old radiologist read it. Not a 30 year old, 70 year old has had a lot more pattern matching experience. I think corporate boards, even for young start-ups, should have a couple of older adults on them. When I say that oldsters are great untapped resource, they're often forced into retirement when they are still quite productive and useful and can remind us of mistakes that we've made in the past.

MG: And if you force them into retirement, I mean you, again, you tell the story of your father that can have long term effects, not just on that individual, but then on the cost of treating that individual if they suffer from depression or what have you.

DANIEL LEVITIN: Well, that's absolutely right. And, you know, with our Canadian national health care system, this affects us all. A 62 year old or a 67 year old who is maybe not forced to retire. But, you know, it's strongly suggested they should make way if they lose their sense of worth in society. A number of physical ailments start to show up and aches and pains, and maybe they were there all along. But when you're actively engaged and you're feeling valued, they take second chair to your goals and your engagement. And as you say, depression sets in and then you're draining the health care system as opposed to working and contributing to it.

MG: What about for people, though, who they do everything right? They continue to work. They continue to contribute to their society. But then something happens. They break a hip. They become very ill. They get Alzheimers. If you change the attitude or the lifestyle, can any of that change the outcome for those individuals, the individuals who, as I say, do everything right, but things still don't line up their way?

DANIEL LEVITIN: Well, sure, we can't control a number of things like disease and accidents. And there are some people that, despite their best efforts at healthy living, don't achieve that. What we are seeing and this is just preliminary evidence you're talking about advanced Alzheimer's, where a person has lost the sense of where they are. They don't know what year it is. They may not recognize a spouse of 40 or 50 years. Someone like that is tremendously disoriented and isolated and they often become violent and angry. Of course, because they look in the mirror and they don't recognize what they see. They look around and they don't know why they're there or where they are. And we found that music, especially music of their early teen years, can reorient them. It comforts them because that musical memory is one of the last things to go. And it allows the people to connect with themselves. And it's soothing for them as well as for their families and loved ones who get their old grandparent or spouse back again for at least a little bit of time.

MG: Music is a really powerful thread through this book. You I mean and people will know you have written books about music and you're a huge music lover. You make music as well. You reference musicians like Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder in this. You've just released a new album yourself. It's called Turnaround. Let's have a listen to one of the tunes with some.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song: "Turnaround" by Daniel Levitin]

MG: Put a line in there, Daniel Levitin, age can masquerade as youth. Tell me a little bit about this album and why at this point in your life, something like this is significant.

DANIEL LEVITIN: I'm 62 now, and when I turned 60, which is kind of a time of reckoning, I thought I need to put myself out of my comfort zone. I need to do things that make me uncomfortable. One of the things I did was I took flying lessons and I got my private pilot's licence and I did that because I'm scared of heights.

MG: Yikes. Not the natural thing that somebody would do.

DANIEL LEVITIN: Well, the research says you have to fight complacency. And look, I believe in science. I believe in art and I believe in science. And the science says push back. Rage against the machine. And the machine in my brain was telling me, stay out of heights. And it was also telling me, stay out of the musical spotlight. I've spent a kind of side career producing records and and playing on records, but always in the background. Whether it was working with Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder and Steely Dan. ThesSpotlight was never on me and I found the idea of being front and centre very uncomfortable. Joni Mitchell and I had been friends since 1996. I decided that I should take my songwriting more seriously than I had been. I'd been writing songs since I was a teenager, but I'd write them and then just set him down. And Joni helped me, too. She didn't actually change lines in songs, but she taught me how to think about editing them and revising them. And she said, You gotta record these. I said, I can't do that. It's too uncomfortable. She's not. No, no, you've got to do it. And so.

MG: If Joni says do it, you have to do it.

DANIEL LEVITIN: Exactly. That's why I made the record. I made it to get out of my comfort zone. The other reason is that I found it increasingly hard to find music I wanted to listen to.

MG: Fair enough. That's one example of a change in your life. Having gone through the process of writing this, what's one other thing that you've done differently because of what you've learned in writing this book.

DANIEL LEVITIN: With respect to diet, there's an emerging body of evidence that caloric restriction might be helpful. We mostly know this from animal models. It's too early to say whether it helps with humans. I tend to skip dinner two or three times a week and basically I don't eat if I'm not hungry, which was a revelation to me. I read your book coming from a family with a Jewish mother. You know, eat, eat. Now I eat when I'm hungry. I don't eat when I'm not hungry. That's one thing I've changed. Another is I'm doing resistance training, not to build muscle, but because there's early evidence that resistance training, weightlifting basically exercises different neural circuits than, say, aerobics, exercise or other activities. I think the other thing I do that's different is try to make more time for the people in my life that I care about and to meet new people and put myself in new social situations.

MG: You're 62 now, as you mentioned. If you think of life at 100, what would an ideal life be at age 100?

DANIEL LEVITIN: Nobody's ever asked me that. I think I'd like to be on a bandstand somewhere in Toronto. I'd like to be performing in Massey Hall, songs that I wrote with musicians who I love. Let's see, 62. That's 38 more years. I'd like to have written another 12 books.

MG: Anything is possible. And Massey Hall, we'll be standing there waiting for you to hit the stage. Daniel Levitin, it's great to talk to you. Thank you.

DANIEL LEVITIN: Great to talk to you. Thank you.

MG: Daniel Levitin is the James McGill Professor Emeritus of neuroscience at McGill University and the author of Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives. And that's it for our program for today. Stay tuned to CBC Radio One for Q. Neil Peart, drummer for the Canadian rock band Rush, died last week. And friends and those he influenced dropped by to remember a fascinating human being. Somebody who was wildly literate, wrote a couple of really interesting books about travelling by motorcycle and of course, was perhaps the greatest rock drummer of his generation. That's coming up on CBC Radio One. Earlier in the program, we spoke with Dominique Anglade, who lost both of her parents in the Haitian earthquake a decade ago. Dominique co-founded the charity Kanpe, which means stand up in Creole, and she co-founded alongside Arcade Fire singer Regine Chassagne. Here's the Arcade Fire and their tune, Haiti. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current and talk to you tomorrow.

[Song: "Haiti" by Arcade Fire]

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Jan. 13, 2020 episode transcript

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