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The AIH Transcript for October 1, 2020

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

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

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: A way out of the trap. A senator says a solution to the conflict between Indigenous and non-Indigenous loves to fisheries in Nova Scotia is for the feds to cooperate with Mi'kmaq nations and start managing the catch.

CH: Data off base. Internal documents suggest some Ontario police departments misused what was supposed to be a private collection of personal information about people who tested positive for COVID-19.

CO: Gaming the system. Police say they found money, guns, booze in a stuffed polar bear after breaking up an alleged illegal casino at a mansion north of Toronto.

CH: Cygnet-ure move. Potential buyers are flocking to the city of Lakeland, Florida, which is selling off some of its swans because all the bills are getting a bit much.

CO: Living for the fat of the land. Organizers of Alaska's annual Fat Bear Week contest says it's always a delight, but this year's election is an especially welcome diversion.

CH: And something's wrong, you can feel it in their buns. Ireland's Supreme Court decides that for tax purposes, the bread in subway sandwiches is not actually bread. As It Happens. The Thursday Edition. Radio that's afraid they got off on the wrong foot long.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Mi'kmaw senator says he has a 'win-win' solution to the N.S. fishing dispute

Indigenous Fishery Senator

Guest: Brian Francis

CH: For weeks, Indigenous and non-Indigenous fishermen have been at loggerheads in Nova Scotia. It started after a First Nation launched its own lobster fishery about 250 kilometres west of Halifax. In response, hundreds of non-Indigenous fishermen hauled up Mi'kmaq lobster traps and attempted to block boats from leaving the harbour. And today in Cape Breton, Mi'kmaq lobster harvesters were hauling in lobsters outside the regular commercial season. Now a group of Indigenous federal lawmakers are proposing a solution to the dispute. They want a new body created to allow First Nations on the east coast to work directly with the federal government to manage their fisheries. Brian Francis is a Mi'kmaq senator from P.E.I. who's putting forward the plan. We reached him in Rocky Point, P.E.I..

CO: Senator Francis, as you know all too well, the situation is very tense in the maritime lobster fishing community. What makes you think you can find some way to solve that?

BRIAN FRANCIS: Well, I think, you know, Senator Christmas, Member of Parliament Battiste, and I are the only Mi'kmaq parliamentarians in the history of this country. And really, this is a fact that is not lost on us. We know we're in a position of very privileged. And I think we have a responsibility to ensure that the interests of our people and communities do not continue to be disregarded by the Crown. So we got together and looked at, you know, possible solutions that would help given the current situation.

CO: And what are you proposing?

BF: Well, basically, what we focused on, we had meetings last Friday with various stakeholders, including, Minister Jordan. And we focus on negotiated solution that recognizes treaty rights and includes a significant and meaningful role for Mi'kmaq management of our own fishery. We thought this could occur to a co-managed fishing system, which we had discussed in terms of a Canada-Mi'kmaq fishing authority.

CO: And when you say co-manage, the federal government would be the overseer of this and become managing their relationship, well, the lobster industry and relationship between the Indigenous lobster fishermen and the non-Indigenous commercial fishermen, is that right?

BF: Well, this would be a co-managed fishery between the Crown and the Mi'kmaq people who have the treaty right to exercise their moderate livelihood.

CO: And what would be the connection with those who are non-Indigenous? Would they be part of this plan at all?

BF: Well, they will be included as needed. But let's be clear that the Mi'kmaq people have a treaty right to the fishery, and it hasn't been going very well for the last 21 years. And, you know, First Nations cannot wait any longer for the constitutional treaty rights to be fully recognized and implemented.

CO: When you refer to 21 years, you are referring to what's known as the Marshall decision -- that was Donald Marshall Jr., a Mi'kmaq fisherman, who went to the Supreme Court where it was ruled that the Indigenous people have a right, a treaty right, to earn a moderate livelihood. But then the court also said just weeks later that it would be something that should be managed by the federal government. That never happened, right?

BF: Absolutely, never happened. No. And that's the disappointing part, is the 21 years of waiting with growing populations, looking to, you know, implement what is rightfully theirs under the treaty.

CO: So you say that, I mean, this is long overdue. Why has it been so difficult? Why hasn't the Crown taken that responsibility before?

BF: Now that's a good question to ask the Crown, actually, because we always thought it should have happened right away and we worked for years to try and make it happen. But it just didn't happen.

CO: But I mean, any theories? I mean, this is something that has been an ongoing irritant and sometimes even beyond an irritant, as we're seeing now, it's breaking into a lot of tension, potential for more violence. Why hasn't the Crown stepped in before and taken on the responsibility the court said it had?

BF: Well, like I say, to be honest, that's a question to ask them. But you know, I agree, when you say the situation is quite dire, especially those who continue to experience high levels of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, and the list goes on. You know, so we're at that stage now where something really meaningful has to happen here.

CO: We spoke with a lawyer for Mi'kmaq a few weeks ago who said that their issue is not with the commercial fishermen, the other fishermen, it's with the federal government. That they decided to manage their own fishery, to give their own tags out, license their own people because they were working in a vacuum, it was the absence of the federal government. Do you think you have an idea or formula that will work for them and also be accepted by the commercial fishermen?

BF: Well, we think we do with the Canada-Mi'kmaq fishing authority, we think it's an option that, you know, if parties come to the table and there's a willingness on the part of the Crown to go the extra steps and implement our treaty rights, which they should have done 21 years ago, we think that it will work, you know. And it's not that every First Nation will necessarily come to the table. That's up to them, you know. But we think if there's a collective moving forward and people see the positive outcomes that this fishing authority could have, we think that it could be a win-win for everyone.

CO: You know that, of course, the non-Indigenous fishermen in the Maritimes and the area that you're talking about here is they've been very angry about watching Indigenous boats go out to do this lobster harvesting. And do you think that they will be satisfied -- they will live with a new body and different rules set up for Indigenous fishermen?

BF: I think it's important that people are educated. And when I look at the history, you know, of our Indigenous people in Canada, I don't think Canada has been kind in terms of how it's told history. And I think there's people that maybe haven't got a full understanding of how we got here as Indigenous people. I think if people understand it through education, they'd be better prepared to look at, you know, what we're trying to do and why we're trying to do it.

CO: As a former chief and someone who's been around the fisheries for a long time, what's it like for you to see the Indigenous fishermen, I guess putting their foot down and saying 21 years after the Marshall decision, it's time to get this right?

BF: Well, I fully support them. You know, I fully support them. And it is time to get it right now. And I think now the time has come. And I'm proud of our people for taking this stand.

CO: And we'll be watching. Senator Francis, thank you.

BF: Thank you for having me.

CH: Senator Brian Francis is a Mi'kmaq member of the Senate. We reached him in Rocky Point, P.E.I. And you can find more on the story on our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Mansion Casino Bust

Guest: Andy Pattenden

CH: If you drove past the opulent gates of the massive home in Markham, Ontario, you might wonder how people who own a mansion like that live. And what you would imagine likely wouldn't even come close. York Regional Police alleged that a high end illegal casino and spa has been operating out of that residents north of Toronto. Sergeant Andy Pattenden is a media relations officer for York Regional Police. We reached him in Aurora, Ontario.

CO: Sergeant Pattenden, we're not talking about a few card tables in someone's basement here, are we? So what was the operation going on in this house?

ANDY PATTENDEN: Well, yeah, we've busted a major organized crime illegal gaming house here in York Region, in the city of Markham. And this house was a 20000 square foot home that was basically not lived in at all, that was turned into a high end, high stakes casino. I can tell you that the basement of the property was loaded with a full high-end bar. We seized more than 1.5-million dollars worth of top shelf alcohol. And the basement was full of card tables and slot machines and just opulence throughout this entire house that also housed people. There was a spa running there. And I can tell you it wasn't a spa that was doing people's hair and nails. We are still investigating human trafficking that was likely to have taken place there. But just, you know, a high end at every level and a lot of money being moved through this location.

CO: Okay, so many laws being broken here, including you mentioned you're still investigating the human trafficking. Also weapons, right? Can you tell us about that?

AP: What was most concerning to us as we began to unravel this investigation were the number of guns that we believed were at this house. We believe that there were security guards that were armed with handguns as well as dogs. But when we did the search warrant back on July 23rd, we had brought in over 90 tactical officers to execute the warrant because this place, 20,000 square foot mansion, was fortified by a wall again with armed security guard dogs. And what we found inside was 11 loaded guns not stored safely. In fact, one of the guns up in the bedroom where the owner of the house would stay from time to time was a loaded day AR-15 gun that would have been pointed right out the front window over the place in the event that someone had tried to rob it or someone had tried to get in who wasn't invited to be in that casino.

CO: Many of these weapons, were they prohibited?

AP: All the weapons were restricted weapons. Some of them had been owned lawfully, but the storage of them definitely was not lawful. And some of the guns owned completely unlawfully. One of the guns was a stolen firearm. And a couple of the guns, we do believe, did come up from the United States.

CO: This is a 53 room, 20,000 square foot mansion. Can you just describe what it was like inside?

AP: Absolutely. Just from the gates, when you enter this, I'll call it a palace, because that's really what it was -- oftentimes, people would see high end cars parked out front, Bentleys, Rolls Royce, BMWs and such. Opening the double doors to the main floor. People were greeted by a stuffed polar bear, a full sized polar bear and a number of other stuffed animals right inside the doors. They would be led downstairs to where the gaming occurred. As well on that main floor, though, there was also a full chef's kitchen, a commercial kitchen serving a variety of items. One of the items we pointed out were shark's fin soup to people that were there. And then upstairs and there was a spa where, you know, patrons of the place would go as well as rooms where people were staying. So everything just over the top. It was truly walking around. And it was truly like something out of, you know, of a movie set, really.

CO: And well, who was arrested? Who owns this place?

AP: Well, the owner of the place is a gentleman by the name of Wei Wei. He's been charged criminally with a number of offenses. When we'd executed the search warrant on July 23rd, we arrested 45 people who were inside the residence at the time. It was a mixture of staff members as well as patrons that were there gambling. Many of those people, actually, 29 of the 45 people were charged with criminal offenses. But this is just an ongoing investigation. So we know that this location is just one of many operating in the Greater Toronto Area. And it's the work now of our Organized Crime Enforcement Bureau to be out there and dismantle more of these operate.

CO: This is Project End Game, you are looking and have looked at other places where there's illegal gaming going on. Is that right?

AP: Oh absolutely. There was a location on Midland Avenue, a warrant was executed there. There's been a couple of other locations. What we're finding now, though, is while this was the high end palace of gaming, what we've also seen are commercial units that have been turned into casinos where essentially the people there that are running the place are giving alcohol and methamphetamine and other things to the people gambling to keep them at the machines as long as possible. And while you have a palace on one end of the spectrum, you have absolute squalor on the other end of the spectrum where they're just working to, you know, get as much money out of people as they possibly can. And what we know ends up happening is that when it's time to collect a lot of that money because people are overspending, that's where we see the violence that's occurring in York Region. And we have had a number of shootings that have taken place in the city of Markham that have been connected back to illegal gaming and some of the debt collection that's been taking place.

CO: We know that in Ontario, probably other places as well, there has been the lottery houses. The casinos have been shut down because of COVID. Does that give an extra incentive to organized crime to get involved in these kinds of operations?

AP: Absolutely. And we know that those involved in organized crime are opportunists and they have seen COVID-19 open up a variety of different opportunities, this being one of them. We do believe that the illegal gaming was going on well before COVID. But, you know, they saw this as an opportunity with the casinos closing down in the province to attract some more people and bring in people. And I can tell you at this location on Decourcy Court in Markham, the buy in at the tables was 10 to 15 thousand dollars just to get started. So high stakes, a lot of money going on here. And they were definitely exploiting the restrictions of legalized gaming and taking advantage of people where they could.

CO: We will leave it there. Sergeant Pattenden thank you.

AP: Thank you.

CH: That was Sergeant Andy Pattenden with the York Regional Police. We reached him in Aurora, Ontario.

[Music]

Fat Bear Week

Guest: Sara Wolman

CH: It's the only U.S. election campaign that's actually bearable. And the question on the ballot is simple, albeit controversial: who is the fattest bear? Alaska's annual Fat Bear Week is back. Before the bears at Katmai National Park disappear into hibernation, the unctuous signs compete for the top prize, and this year the votes are pouring in. Sara Wolman helped organize this year's Fat Bear Week. We reached her in Fairbanks.

CO: Sara, just how much interest is there in Fat Bear Week this year?

SARA WOLMAN: Well, it's become quite the sensation. I think this year has really grown in popularity, especially because we're all kind of stuck inside and we get to see these really huge and amazing bears just at the touch of our phone or computers. So I think it's really blown up this year. [Chuckles]

CO: People are watching on the live bear cam, right?

SW: Oh, yeah -- explore.org. Yeah.

CO: And so how many people do you think are actually online watching it?

SW: Oh, you can actually see every once in a while, if you pop on there, you can see. But I mean, sometimes we have like thousands at a time. And I know just in the past two days with our voting for Fat Bear Week, we've had, jeez, close I think 100,000 votes we're getting closer to -- oh, I think we're almost there as of today. [Chuckles]

CO: Are you worried that the whole thing will just collapse under its own weight?

SW: [Laughs] That's a good metaphor for that. Actually, it's funny you say that because yesterday I think people were so excited to vote in this contest that they crashed the website. You know, everyone loves breaking the Internet. They actually did that for this [laughs] for at least a couple minutes. Everyone had to scramble to get that back up and running again. But I'm glad you know, that's a good thing.

CO: How did these bears get so fat? I mean, is it healthy to be that fat?

SW: Oh, yeah. For bears, it's a mark sign of health, I would say. Where they are located, where Katmai National Park is located is part of Bristol Bay. And Bristol Bay has the largest and last sustainable sockeye, which is a salmon fishery, in the world. And we're talking millions of salmon come up this watershed area up the Brooks River. And these bears spend their days hanging out and eating fish. And this time of year, they are going through something called hyperphagia, and this allows their body to just keep consuming and like not just stop. They just want to eat-eat-eat so they can prepare for hibernation.

CO: They never feel full?

SW: Well, I mean, they get tired. [Laughs] You'll see them napping periodically, I think that's kind of their, like, break. But then they just get right back into it and keep consuming the massive amounts of salmon.

CO: Of course they've got all winter to catch up on their sleep, right?

SW: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. They'll be heading off to hibernate here in the next couple of weeks.

CO: Okay, I understand the defending champ of the Fat Beat Week is one named Holly, who is known as the Queen of Corpulence. What does she look like?

SW: Yeah. So Holly is a more blond bear. And something that's really telltale about her is that she's got very blond ears as well. And she tends to get particularly round this time here. Although last year she did not have cubs so she was able to kind of just dedicate eating all the fish herself. [Laughs] But this year she did have cubs so didn't gain quite the amount of weight that she did last year.

CO: Okay, who are the other contenders, the leading contenders in this race?

SW: So I think some of the fan favourites, including one of my favourites personally is 747, who is a really large bear -- I daresay the largest bear at Brooks Camp. I believe last year they estimated his weight to be about 1,400 pounds, which is kind of incredible. But I think another big fan favourite this year is Bear 32, his nickname is Chunk -- again, aptly named because his belly is practically dragging on the ground at this point.

CO: I was just on the bear camp just a while ago, the live feed. And I think I actually saw Chunk. I mean, he was just dragging his belly behind, wasn't he?

SW: Yeah, it's very impressive. [Laughs]

CO: And now who is Otis?

SW: So this is one of the older bears at the falls, another fan favourite too mostly because of his just real Zen way of going about fishing. So he's kind of got this one spot on the far side of the falls where he just kind of hangs out and waits for the fish to come to him, basically. He'll just sit there and feel around for fish with his paws and grab a fish. He's not usually like in the main part of the falls. He's kind of to the side, and it works. It's worked for him for years.

CO: And what about a Grazer, he seems to be a contender as well?

SW: Yeah, Grazer is actually a lady bear. [Chuckles] I mean, she's very well-known for her kind of being one of the more daring bears at the falls. So there's a whole hierarchy of bears out there so the big massive bears, which are the male bears, sit like right at the bottom of the falls, which we like to call the Jacuzzi. It is not warm like the Jacuzzi. But, yeah, she'll sometimes just bust right in there and fish even when she's got cubs too. It's really fun to see her interactions with her cubs. But yeah, she's another one that's gained a significant amount of weight. So she'll be another cool one to watch.

CO: What are the voters looking for?

SW: So it depends. You know, obviously, it's a little bit subjective. People have their favourite bear and they root for their favourite bear. But what I like to tell people is it's not just about overall weight because, I mean, someone like 747 could easily take that, but it's about how much weight they have gained from the beginning of the summer towards the end. So if they started off like looking pretty lean after coming out of their dens from hibernation, but now look just like these massive tanks, that's a very successful bear. [Chuckles] Bear did their job well.

CO: And you provide photos -- before and after pictures then?

SW: Yeah. Yeah. You'll see some of those on the conservancy's website, on Explorer's website, and Katmai's as well.

CO: And you can also see what they're going to look like next spring when they emerge from the den?

SW: Yeah. Yeah, they lose a significant amount taking that hibernation time.

CO: How long before they'll be heading to the cave?

SW: Probably a couple of weeks. Usually, you know, mid or late-ish November. The biggest thing is they will hang around so long as there is a food source. And once the food sort of starts to be depleted, that's when they'll start heading to the hills to dig their dens.

CO: All right. Well, we'll be following. And thanks for telling us about it.

SW: Yeah. Any time. I'm so glad to be able to share this.

CH: Sara Wolman is the project manager for the Katmai Conservancy and helped organize Fat Bear Week this year. We reached her in Fairbanks, Alaska.

[Music]

Subway

VOICE: [SOUNDCLIP: It's rising, it's baking, it's the new bread at Subway, baked fresh daily. Try it on your favourites. After all, if the bread tastes better, the sandwich will too. Subway the way a sandwich should be.]

CH: There's some weird things about Subway: it makes submarine sandwiches, but subways are trains, not submarines. The people who make the sandwiches have no creative input at all, but they're called sandwich artists. Plus, the sandwiches are on buns, but they don't call them buns ever. They call them bread. But that's not what Ireland's Supreme Court calls it. You've probably heard that the court decided that subway bread is not actually bread at all. But to clarify, the bread is bread -- it's just not bread, according to the strict rules of Ireland's value added tax law of 1972. See, what's interesting is no wait...okay, most of you are gone. But for whoever's left, in Ireland, foods are considered staples are subject to zero percent value added tax or VAT. More discretionary indulgences are subject to much more than zero percent tax. Well, an Irish Subway franchisee argued that Subway bread was bread, therefore a staple -- therefore, it shouldn't be taxed. But the court found that according to the tax rules, Subway's bread has too much sugar in it to qualify as bread. Therefore, it isn't bread or a staple under Irish tax law. Therefore, it should be taxed. A Subway spokesperson has since issued the kind of statement you don't love issuing when you sell bread products, "Subway's bread is, of course, bread." Seems clear. But now, thanks to Ireland's Supreme Court, that subtext has subtext.

[Music]

Part 2: Police COVID Privacy

Police COVID Privacy

Guest: Christine Van Geyn

CH: Earlier this year, police and other first responders in Ontario were given a new tool, a searchable database with the personal health information of everyone who had tested positive for COVID-19. Officers were told to use the data carefully and only when absolutely needed. But it appears some departments threw those rules out the window, that database is already the subject of a privacy lawsuit by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. And now another group has found out just how much the private data was being misused. Christine Van Geyn is the litigation director at the Canadian Constitution Foundation. We reached her in Toronto.

CO: Ms. Van Geyn, first of all, what was the rationale in the first place for giving police and first responders access to this database?

CHRISTINE VAN GEYN: So the rationale was to protect officers' safety. The database existed so that officers and dispatchers could look up an address or a name of a person related to a service call and find out if they had COVID so that police could take appropriate measures to protect themselves.

CO: Okay. So what was the information that was actually available to them on this database?

CHRISTINE VAN GEYN: The database was limited in what it included. It just included if you had tested positive for COVID, your name, address, postal code, and date of birth.

CO: But isn't that personal information?

CHRISTINE VAN GEYN: Well, of course. And when it comes to personal health information, there can be large stigmas associated with your health status. So people had who had tested positive, had never consented to having that information shared with police.

CO: It's like having a big X on your door.

CHRISTINE VAN GEYN: Yeah. So, I mean, people are entitled to keep their private health information private. And our Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects us from an unreasonable search and seizure. And that includes, you know, informational access. And we also have personal health and information protection legislation that prohibits the unauthorized use of data. And in this case, police, it looked like they had been conducting broad based searches without specific addresses. They'd been conducting searches of municipalities outside their own service area. And they had actually done searches for specific names that were not related to any active call for service.

CO: How often were police actually using it?

CHRISTINE VAN GEYN: Reports showed that while the database was active, there were 95000 searches that were conducted. And this didn't happen in every police division. Actually, 40 percent of the searches were conducted by Thunder Bay or Durham Regional Police. And Durham in particular, had conducted so many searches in what was described as a wild card search technique, where they just searched for random information that Durham had their access to the database cut off early.

CO: So what were police looking for? Because you said it was flawed, the information wasn't that good, it wasn't helpful for the reasons that have been set up. What were police using it for?

CHRISTINE VAN GEYN: So some police departments have responded to increase from another civil liberties organization, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association -- they said that they were testing the system. For example, they would put in the name of the municipality and see if they got results or the information they did a search for by error. But there's been no explanation about why there were searches for other municipalities or why names that were not related to a service call were conducted. So with those two, we can really only speculate about what dispatchers and officers were using the database for.

CO: I mean, for people who are going to get tested, it's very sensitive, isn't it? I mean, if you find yourself to be positive, you could be in all kinds of situations. And so if people know about this, is it not something that could discourage people from actually going and getting tested?

CHRISTINE VAN GEYN: Certainly I think that's one of the problems with this is. It undermines trust that we really need to have in our institutions right now. And it's why privacy by design needs to be inherent in all data.

CO: Do you have any specific examples of how police abused this this access?

CHRISTINE VAN GEYN: The most specific that this letter gets into is the broad municipal searches without specific addresses. It says that there were broad municipal searches of other municipalities outside of individual departments, service areas, which the solicitor general's office said. It's unknown why a member would conduct such a broad based search. And the letter also said that there were searches for specific names unrelated to an active call. But there was not more detail than that. And that's why we've asked the privacy commissioner to conduct an investigation, because if there were people who had their individual medical records gone through by officers or dispatchers, those people are statutorily entitled to notice of that privacy violation.

CO: Was it at all useful to first responders?

CHRISTINE VAN GEYN: So access to the database has ended because in part, not just because of the privacy violations, but because of how useless the database is. And a lot of police departments actually said it wasn't very useful. For example, Toronto never got access to it because they thought it wouldn't be useful. It's actually in the interest of police safety not to rely on inaccurate and incomplete information because you don't want an officer to say, you know, this environment and this person is safe for me to interact with when because I'm relying on the database when the database is not up to date. It might not know that there are other people in the home who have tested positive.

CO: The government is trying to encourage everyone to download that app, that it's actually something that the privacy protections are really quite strict in that. I mean, among other ways of people feeling concerned about their privacy, that people will be even more reluctant to join that app when it's been proven that it actually is quite useful?

CHRISTINE VAN GEYN: I'll tell you that as a civil liberties advocate, I do have faith in the privacy protections of the COVID alert app, which I have looked into extensively, and I have that app on my phone. I'm comfortable that the information on the app can't be accessed or abused. So what we need is to design our data the way the COVID alert app was designed with privacy at the heart of how it's created. That was lacking in this police database and it's how it was so easily abused.

CO: We will leave it there. Ms. Van Geyn, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

CHRISTINE VAN GEYN: Thanks for having me on.

CH: Christine Van Geyn is the litigation director at the Canadian Constitution Foundation. She's in Toronto.

[Music]

NXIVM Update

CH: Yesterday, a New York judge sentenced Clare Bronfman to nearly seven years in prison for her role in the NXIVM cult. The judge chastised the Seagram's liquor heir for using her wealth to silence critics of the group. For more than a decade, NXIVM offered what it described as self-fulfillment training to the women it recruited. Then came the whistleblowers. Last year, NXIVM's founder and leader Keith Raniere was convicted of sex trafficking, racketeering, fraud and other crimes. In 2017, Carol spoke with NXIVM whistleblower named Sarah Edmondson. Ms. Edmondson began by describing how she came to have a NXIVM symbol permanently on her skin. And a warning: the details are disturbing.

SARAH EDMONDSON: The night of, once my blindfold was removed and I stood naked with four other women, they used a cauterizing iron and the symbol was drawn on one line at a time. For me, I did it in about 20-25 minutes. Other women took longer, like 40-45 minutes depending on how much they moved, squirmed or squealed.

CO: When did you first get involved with this group known as NXIVM?

SE: I got involved in 2005, after meeting a director Mark Vicente, who made the film “What the Bleep Do We Know!?” And I told them that I liked his film. He said if you like my film, you'll like this program and I just took. And he referred me to Executive Success Programs. And a few weeks later, I took the program and very much enjoyed it.

CO: What did you like about it?

SE: I liked that I had the opportunity to dive into my psyche. And I had the opportunity to work through quote/unquote: “issues that I had wanted to in my life.” And this seemed like a fast-track to that type of growth I was seeking.

CO: When did red flags start entering into your sight?

SE: To be honest, from day one there's been red flags. But one of the very manipulative, in my opinion, things that Executive Success Programs does is it tells you right from the beginning if you fee uncomfortable with something it means that you're doing it right — so I never really addressed those things, and that's 100 per cent my responsibility looking back. Mainly with the red flag as soon as Lauren started talking to me about this group Lauren invited me to in January. But before she invited me to it, she asked me to provide her with collateral that she would keep forever to ensure my secrecy around the group.

CO: Now, you mentioned the word collateral. What are the collaterals? What are the things you told them in order to I guess create this bond?

SE: Collaterals or something in the last three or four years an Executive Success Programs that became quite common. That people would put collateral down towards their commitments. So when Lauren asked me for collateral, it wasn't that obscure. It was sort of normalized already. So my collateral that she asked me to give, initially, when she asked me I said like what? And she very flippantly said I don't know like a nude photo or you know a secret that you'd never want anyone to know. I passed on the nude photo. Secondly, I said I don't really have any secrets. And she said well, you can make something up. And someone who has known me for a long time, she knows what things have happened in my past that I may or may not want people to know. And she encouraged me to write it down on a piece of paper, which I did. She took a photo and sent it to what I understand now to be her master, who got back to us and said it wasn't damaging enough and asked me to redo it.

CO: But did it really only turn into something that you now want to tell the world in this last stretch?

SE: Yes. You know, frankly, over the past 12 years, there's been all sorts of media. If you do any research on NXIVM or Executive Success, there's very damaging things said about it over the years. We were also taught very strictly that there is a smear campaign happening against us. But when you have the firsthand experience such as I did with the branding and then finding out three weeks later that the symbol was not in fact the four elements. It was a combination of Keith Raniere and Alison Mac's initials.

CO: And when you say Keith Raniere, he is the founder of NXIVM, right?

SE: He's the founder of NXIVM. He's the founder of all the companies. And, frankly, there's nothing that happens within the NXIVM bubble that happens, in my experience, without his approval or him signing off.

CH: That was the NXIVM whistleblower Sarah Edmondson speaking with in 2017. Last year, Keith Raniere was convicted of sex trafficking, racketeering and fraud, among other things. And yesterday, a New York judge sentenced Seagram's heir Clare Bronfman, to nearly seven years in prison for using her wealth to silence critics of the cult.

[Music]

Florida Sells Swans

Guest: Bob Donahay

CH: It's coming on autumn, so you may find yourself in the market for a gently used swan. Well, a city in Florida is having a sale. Prices are decent. And the bird-chandise is top notch. Back in 1957, Queen Elizabeth herself gave a gift to the city of Lakeland, Florida, a pair of royal swans. And that gift has kept on giving. The local lake has exploded with the picturesque but ornery white birds. In fact, the swan explosion is so extensive that they need to find some of them a new home. Bob Donahay is the director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Lakeland. And that is where we reached him.

CO: Bob, are you getting a lot of calls from people who want your swans?

BOB DONAHAY: Oh, my gosh, you aren't going to believe all the calls we have. I mean, we've never gotten a response like this before. And from all over the nation, Maryland, Texas, North Carolina. I mean, it's been unbelievable.

CO: Why do they want your swans?

BD: I have no idea. I've been with the city for 43 years. And the last one we did was back in 2014. And they're gorgeous creatures. We maintain them very very well. But I mean, it's not like we advertise this. I mean, somebody picked up on it and before you know, I'm getting calls from CNN and everywhere else about our swan sell in Lakeland, Florida.

CO: You're selling them for 400 bucks a swan?

BD: Yeah, 400 a swan. 800 for the pair. We usually always sell as a pair because as you knows swans, you know, mate, for life. The only reason that we would sell a single one is if, you know, the mate was something happened to the mate and the swan is by itself. We have them check year round. They're all chipped so we know which ones goes which. They're maintained extremely well. But yeah, 800 bucks for a pair.

CO: Why are you selling them?

BD: I tell you what, it's really funny. I saw one headline, they were selling it like we needed the money. Trust me Lakeland, we own our own electric department. We don't need the money. We're selling them because we basically keep them on one lake in Lakeland, which is downtown called Lake Morton. And when we started getting over 40 because of the traffic around the lake and you know, their nesting habits, they start going across the street -- trying to cross the street to nest in people's yards and actually on the lawn of our Chamber of Commerce, you name it. So we always worry about, you know, occasionally they get run over because they become more very territorial and they just feel that they can kind of walk wherever they want. So we just try to keep the number down.

CO: Right. So how many swans are you selling?

BD: We anticipate selling up to four. I think we're at 82 right now. So we're going to probably try to sell around 42 to get down to 40.

CO: Right. And again, selling them buy pairs. And so how do people in Lakeland feel about that?

BD: Well, the swan is our city seal. It's on all of our trucks, on city hall, on our police station, you name it. And so, you know, they're very attached. The neighbourhood around is a historic neighbourhood. And they almost care for them like they're their own kids. You see the people come out and actually keep an eye on them. And it's really kind of cool to be honest with you. But, you know, obviously they don't want to see the swans leave, but they understand why we need to do this.

CO: Now, they're not native birds to where you are. You acquired these in the 1950s, right?

BD: Yeah. We acquired them in 1957. The two original ones came from the Queen of England -- Elizabeth the Second. We had some way back then, they died, and then we didn't have any for a few years. Then a private citizen that was over from Lakeland that was over in England made contact with the Queen's office and she sold this person two swans, then we had them air shipped back to Lakeland.

CO: Well, we've done a number of stories with people talking about how aggressive swans can be. I mean, they're beautiful and they seem so peaceful, but they can be pretty nasty. So do you have any problems of that nature?

BD: Not really. We have more out of the duck population than anything. Swans are just like people: some are very dormant, very nice, and some are not. They have their own personalities. And what governs that? I have no idea. Yeah, kind of like people, I guess. But for the most part, you know, they're actually pretty docile. And we do swan roundup, which we'll do October 6th or 7th when we actually use a boat, use a net, and put them in a cage and take them to a swan pen so we could weigh them and the vet could vaccinate them. Actually some are very easy to catch. Others are, they're special -- they're a little bit tougher.

CO: And who feeds them, takes care of them, beyond the pen?

BD: The city of Lakeland, we do, Parks and Recreation Department. We have swan feeders set up all around the lake that we purchased We spend up to ten thousand dollars a year in swan food. And I have a staff that now looks after them seven days a week. Every day we check on them.

CO: So how far and wide do you think you'll be shipping these swans?

BD: Actually I had a guy from Texas call twice today. He said, I'll buy everyone that you have for sale, I'll send somebody to come pick them up and I'll ship them back. I've had a guy from Maryland, North Carolina. I mean, it's been incredible, the response that we have. We've never had this before.

CO: And where do they hope to keep their swans?

BD: When you talk to them, they have lakes, private pond, areas that they live in and they want to have some in their backyard.

CO: You've told them that they do breed?

BD: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We told them that they do breed, which those people usually get very excited about. They love the possibilities of it. But, you know, it's kind of like, you know, until you have a pet, you know, you don't realize all that's entailed in it. But I say the response -- and we're getting other cities calling us. Like the city of New Port Richey, Florida. There's a place in Sarasota County that's not too far from here that wants some. You know, so we're getting other municipalities that are also reaching out to us because they want to start a swan program in their city, which is kind of cool.

CO: Now, do you want any Canada geese?

BD: No. The geese, ducks, whatever they come and go and they usually eat the swan food. But I mean, they're just whatever -- we don't really regulate them because they do come and go. But, you know, the swan is the one that gets all the special attention.

CO: We do know that Americans have a real problem with Canada geese, they can make quite a mess.

BD: [Chuckles] Yeah. Geese could be pretty aggressive too, you know, whatever, and ducks. But it's become a norm in this part of our town where, you know, all these birds are congregated at. And you can go down there seven days a week, people are constantly feeding them, taking pictures. I mean, it's really kind of a neat thing, to be honest with you.

CO: We'll swap you geese for swans anytime you want to.

BD: [Laughs] We're good. Thank you. [Laughter]

CO: Good to talk to you Bob. Thanks.

BD: My pleasure. You have a good day.

CH: Bob Donahay is the director of Parks and Recreation for the city of Lakeland, Florida.

[Music]

Audience of One

CH: Back in March, when the pandemic started ruining everything, it was hard to see how businesses would adapt and survive. And for businesses that depended on packing in huge crowds under one roof like theaters, the picture looked especially bleak. But the arts are nothing if not creative. Theatre Outre in Lethbridge, Alberta, is proving that this week. Its new show, Confessional, opens to the public tomorrow. And crowds won't be a problem. Kathy Zaborsky is the co-artistic director of Theatre Outre. She explained the concept on the CBC program, Homestretch.

KATHY ZABORSKY: Well, we have a performance that is for one person at a time. Now they're going to come into our lobby and they're going to fill in a questionnaire that's centred around the seven deadly sins. And then they are going to be led around by a plague nun who is going to take them through the seven deadly sins. So we've created this dreamlike labyrinth where you got to see a tableau that becomes alive. So each sin is its own play. But the thing is, is that there's plexiglass, there's plastic between the performer and the audience. So everybody's completely safe.

DOUG DIRKS: So is this an interactive performance? What does it look like?

KATHY ZABORSKY: So it is a little bit interactive, but it's a really safe, fun way for the audience to be a part of it. So it's almost like you're walking into the play, but you're not quite in it. But some of the tableaus that you come in and experience, they are affected by your questionnaire and some of the answers that you gave us. And even by your body posture and what's your vibe is, how you're feeling.

DOUG DIRKS: So one person at a time. How long is the show?

KATHY ZABORSKY: The show is about 22 minutes. And then we do a quick changeover and we do it all again. So we're essentially doing six performances a night.

DOUG DIRKS: How does it feel to be back to putting on live performances again, even in this limited capacity?

KATHY ZABORSKY: Oh, it just feels incredible. And to do something special like this for the times and get in a room with six people and just create something and kind of poke fun at the crazy times or in. It feels so wonderful. So, you know, it's not viable to make a lot of money to do a play for one person at a time, but it definitely is good for our souls.

CH: Kathy Zaborsky is the co-artistic director of Theatre Outre in Lethbridge, Alberta. She was speaking with the CBC's Doug Dirk's about the new show Confessional, which will play to an audience of one.

[Music]

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond

CH: Last month, staff at a group home in B.C. filed a missing persons report for a 17 year old First Nation's teenager. A few days later, he was found dead inside his closet at the facility. This week, Indigenous leaders shared that story and called for a thorough investigation. Judy Wilson of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs said, "The decision of the police to not investigate thoroughly into the circumstances of his death is affirmation of the systemic racism that devalues the lives of Indigenous peoples." Abbotsford police say they've finished their investigation and suspects no criminality. But the B.C. Coroner's Service is still looking into the death. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond is the former representative for Children and Youth in B.C.. She told the CBC that the case warrants further investigation.

MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND: I think anytime there's a death of a child or youth in care especially when it's in a residential care setting, like a group home setting, and it's an Indigenous youth, I think it's essential that there be thorough reviews. And, you know, Stephen, in British Columbia, back in 2005, the whole system had to be retooled to make sure we paid attention to these circumstances. And although the numbers of fatalities have gone down and there have been many system improvements over the last 15 years or so, cases like this are deeply disturbing. And the fact that he was in that group home in a closet, you know, possibly for multiple days and not located, these are deeply problematic circumstances. And I certainly support the call from the family and the community for a thorough review.

STEPHEN QUINN: And what would that investigation look like at this stage?

MARY ELLEN TURPEL-LAFOND: In British Columbia, we do have that role, which I played for a decade as the representative for children and youth. And Jennifer Charlesworth, the current officeholder, she has ample legislative authority to conduct an independent investigation. You know, every death of a child or youth in care needs to be reviewed. This incident has got a lot of suspicious circumstances. And I hope Ms. Charlesworth will conduct a full independent investigation and report to us on what she finds. You know, if you don't keep the pressure and the focus on lens and ensure that we amplify and shine a bright light on what's going on with Indigenous youth in care, you know, these things follow the view. And the pressure is not on the system to do the work, because, again, we know that for Indigenous youth in a group home, you know, there's not a lot of natural advocates. They may have family, but they have a very challenging relationship with the family at that time. So it's really critical that the systems in place, coroner and other processes of review happen, but also there be good communication with family and community about what's happening.

CH: That was Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond speaking with Stephen Quinn on CBC's The Early Edition yesterday. B.C.'s current child and youth representative has said she cannot investigate the teenager's death until the coroner's investigation is complete.

[Music]

Part 3: Scientists develop 'super enzyme' that breaks down plastic faster than ever

COVID Vaccine - Black Community

Guest: Tina Carroll-Scott

CH: A vaccine for COVID-19 is somewhere on the horizon. But will those who need it most be willing to take it? Black doctors in the United States are raising the alarm about fears in their community around a potential vaccine. They say their Black patients are already wary of the shots, even though the Black community has been disproportionately affected by the virus. Dr. Tina Carroll-Scott is the medical director of the South Miami Children's Clinic. We reached her in Miami, Florida.

CO: Dr. Carroll-Scott, I know you asked some of your patients about whether they would take the COVID vaccine when it's available. What did they tell you?

TINA CARROLL-SCOTT: I would say overwhelmingly the consensus was that they would not take the vaccine. And I think primarily many patients were or are afraid of the speed. And I think with everything that has gone on and the current administration, that there's a lot of mistrust with the whole process and whether or not this would actually be a safe vaccine.

CO: A majority of your patients are African-American?

TINA CARROLL-SCOTT: The majority are. So I work in a low income area of Miami. And in this particular neighbourhood, it's primarily Hispanic and African-American. But for me, I specifically wanted to know about the African-American patients, because I know that there is a long history of mistrust with the medical system when it comes to trials in general, and that they would probably be less apt to participate not only in the vaccine trials, but to get the vaccine when it does come out.

CO: We know that President Trump has suggested that there'll be a vaccine by the end of this month even. He's overruled his own medical advisers on the pandemic. His administration has tried to vet and rewrite releases from the Centres for Disease Control in your country, and has accused them of working to defeat President Trump. A whole bunch of reasons of why perhaps a lot of people in the United States would be skeptical about the safety of the vaccine. What in particular, though, has made Black communities so much more worried?

TINA CARROLL-SCOTT: I think primarily because of the history in this country when it comes to medical trials, and probably the most infamous study is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which a lot of Nlack Americans still refer to that. So I think that...

CO: Can you remind people of what that was?

TINA CARROLL-SCOTT: Okay, so it was basically a study where Black males were enrolled into a study to look at the effects of untreated syphilis and they were unaware that they were not going to be treated. They thought they were going to be treated for, "bad blood" but they actually received no treatment at all. And even after penicillin was discovered and shown to be a safe treatment option, the majority of the men did not receive it. So that's the kind of history that we're talking about. You know, because of that long history, I think it's very difficult to get people on board. And I think we as physicians will have to educate, it's going to take a long time to do that and kind of unwrap that history, you know, before we can make people feel confident in this process.

CO: Would you take the vaccine when it comes out?

TINA CARROLL-SCOTT: So I would only get the vaccine if I felt like all of the checks and balances that are put in place for any vaccine that has come out in the past are followed with this vaccine. I would not feel comfortable taking this vaccine before Election Day. And so for me personally, no, I would definitely not take it before Election Day. And I would also want to see the data. I would never recommend anything that I wouldn't take myself or I would not recommend to my own family.

CO: And what about other Black doctors you've spoken with? What do they say?

TINA CARROLL-SCOTT: The same. The same. And for me, I think -- and not only me -- but with my Black colleagues as well, it's less of an issue with the race history. I think, you know, we all feel that at this point in time that hopefully that that could never happen again, you know, with what happened with the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. But for us, I think it's more the concern about the political influence on these agencies, the FDA and the CDC, which should be independent agencies without political interference. And especially for the CDC. We've upheld the CDC for many years as physicians and have always had the utmost trust in everything that came out. And the fact that we're questioning certain things that, you know, possibly the messaging is being vetted, gives me pause.

CO: Okay. So then who do you trust? If you don't trust the Food and Drug Administration or the Centres for Disease Control because there's been a lot of evidence that they are politicized or there's a lot of political influence coming to bear on them. What agency would you trust?

TINA CARROLL-SCOTT: Well, I'm hoping that with the uproar from physicians that the FDA and the CDC will do the right thing. And I'm also holding that, for example, with the National Medical Association. And I know that there are other organizations as well that are hoping to vet this whole process and to make sure that they are releasing data. And that it's transparent.

CO: I know that the Black physicians group is waiting, they want the National Medical Association to look at that vaccine before they're going to approve of it for their patients.

TINA CARROLL-SCOTT: Yes. And they've asked for that data to be released so that they can look at it and make sure that everything is being done correctly, so that when we go to our patients that we can go with confidence to say, yes, you know, this has been done correctly and you can trust the process.

CO: But you're dealing with a disease that is disproportionately affecting the Black community. Your patients are needing to get a vaccine so they can get back to work, they can pick up their lives again. How troubled are you said in the midst of a pandemic, you're now faced with not being able to trust the agencies that you need to turn to?

TINA CARROLL-SCOTT: I am incredibly troubled by this. And, you know, it's going to be a delicate balancing act. It is really a difficult position that we are in as physicians and especially Black physicians that are, you know, treating a majority minority population.

CO: Dr. Carroll-Scott, I hope that we soon have what we need in order to fight this infection. And I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

TINA CARROLL-SCOTT: Thank you so much.

CH: Dr. Tina Carroll-Scott is the medical director of the South Miami Children's Clinic.

[Music]

Fresco

CH: In Montreal, there's a church that has a fresco of Mussolini. The church is the Chiesa della Madonna della Difesa in Little Italy. And the Mussolini is that Mussolini, the genocidal fascist who served as a model for Hitler's Nazis. Visitors to the church can see a pamphlet which explains that the fresco was painted before the worst of Mussolini's crimes. But Cassandra Marsillo doesn't think that's enough. Ms. Marsillo is a history teacher at Montreal's Dawson College, and she's part of a group that has launched a petition calling for more to be done to inform Montrealers about the horrors of Il Duce's rule and about fascism's Canadian links. This morning, Cassandra Marsillo told CBC Montreal about the literature currently being handed out at the church.

CASSANDRA MARSILLO: It basically justifies the presence by saying well Mussolini didn't had an alliance with Hitler yet and that he was, you know, popular at the time and...

MIKE FINNERTY: He wasn't such a bad guy at the time is kind of what they're trying to say in the pamphlet.

CASSANDRA MARSILLO: And it raises a lot of the reality, of the very complicated reality, of fascist ideology here in Italy, of the complex relationships people had with fascism here in Italy. And, you know, it makes it seem like, well, it's okay because, well, everyone liked him anyway, which is not true.

MIKE FINNERTY: Do you feel like people are willing to have this discussion about the fresco?

CASSANDRA MARSILLO: We have people that are willing to have it, and I think we have a lot of people who are scared to have it. And it's not an easy conversation to have. I mean, I'm nervous to talk about it too sometimes, when I need to remind myself this is important to have this conversation.

MIKE FINNERTY: Why are you nervous to have that conversation?

CASSANDRA MARSILLO: Because of the complexity of the history and because of, you know, the pain, there was the internment, there's the trauma of the internment wrapped up in all of this. There are feelings of shame and feelings of guilt in the community. So I know that it's hard, right.

MIKE FINNERTY: Why don't you just be quiet about it sort of thing?

CASSANDRA MARSILLO: Well, we have been quiet about it. And that's the problem, right, is that this is a national historic site of Canada, the church -- like you said -- it's a cornerstone of the Italian community and its history is completely intertwined with the history of the community. So we need to do better.

CH: That was Cassandra Marsillo speaking with the CBC's Mike Finnerty. Ms. Marsillo was petitioning to change the way that the fresco of Mussolini inside Montreal's Chiesa della Madonna della Difesa is presented to visitors.

[Music]

Jonathan Poh

CH: Value Village is a lot of things, a place to score an incredible bargain, a place to send used clothes that isn't the landfill, a place to be astonished by the collars of yesteryear. But for Jonathan Poh, it's one thing above all: a place with that unforgettable thrift store smell. And for Mr. Poh, that smell and all the memories and feelings it evokes were the beginnings of an award winning piece of writing. Today, Jonathan Poh's submission to the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize came out on top and he came away with six thousand dollars from the Canada Council for the Arts, enough for quite a few trips to the closest second hand store. But his piece was informed by firsthand experience with thrifting, with racist bullying, and with a childhood coloured by both. Here's an excerpt.

JONATHAN POH: By Grade 4, I'd internalized the reality that, if I wanted to look cool, I would need to start thrifting more strategically. That meant scrutinizing the racks for acceptable brand name logos: Swoosh (Nike), three stripes or trefoil (Adidas), leaping cat (Puma), "C" mark (Champion) or double diamond (Umbro). I held those logos close to me, like symbols of my salvation.

Of all the thrifted things in my wardrobe, the undisputed holy grail was a Puma track jacket I scored at Value Village in the summer of 1996. I wrested it one evening from between a worn leather jacket and a Cowichan cardigan and held it up to the fluorescent lighting. I considered, with admiration, the logo taping that ran down each sleeve, the black-and-white colour-blocked design, the large leaping cat logo on its left breast. It was $10. I walked it proudly to the cash register.

Emboldened by my new jacket, I was brimming with confidence when I entered Grade 6. Dennis, the best cross-country runner in our class, must have noticed because one afternoon, he approached my desk and stood there, staring, until I looked up. I tried not to piss myself. Once, in second grade, he used his speedy legs to jump-kick me so hard I felt my soul leave my body. I later learned that his other favourite sports were soccer and tormenting coloured kids like me. The fallen leaves, where I hit the ground that day, smelled musky and sweet.

"Cool jacket," Dennis said. He had almost artificially blue eyes and the blonde, nearly platinum hair he'd inherited — along with his racism — from his mother. He and another boy had been on their way to use the pencil sharpener at the front of the classroom.

I wasn't sure what to say. The room, likewise, fell silent.

"Yeah, cool jacket," parroted the other boy, Timothy. Who, I realize now, wore the same Michael Jordan T-shirt to school at least three times a week.

"Um, thanks," I said. "It's new."

I didn't register then, as I basked in the glow of their validation, that I had overlooked something important. That, in my excitement at unearthing this gem, I had failed to inspect the front zipper, which was missing paint in places, exposing the metal hardware beneath. That the back of the collar, too, was slightly frayed and there was a tiny hole near the front right pocket from a cigarette burn. I just didn't expect it would be my best friend, Jordan, who would expose me.

"Where'd you get that — Value Village?" he asked, much too loudly. He pointed to the mottled zipper of my jacket. To its many minute imperfections. And then he pressed his nose to my sleeve — inhaling deeply — and confirmed his suspicion.

I don't know if anything I could have said that day would have spared me from the embarrassment or the thundering, soul-crushing laughter that would resound, like a never-ending echo, over the next two decades of my life. From that moment, I was known in class as "Value Village": the kid who bought his clothes from a thrift store, who tried to pass them off as new. The kid whose immigrant parents had jobs, but still picked pennies from the school parking lot and bought their kids knock-off sneakers. The next year, to my great relief, my parents sold our house and we moved across town, closer to the high school I would enrol in that fall.

I thought about Value Village (and that jacket) one evening, in 2012, from the 16th storey of an office building in Hong Kong, where I'd accepted a job writing about — what else? — clothing and sneakers. As I stared out at the steadily darkening mountains behind the city, the sky looked enormous, endless, eternal. Earlier that day, my application for a work visa had been rejected and I had no choice but to return to Vancouver. I wondered if this was some hilarious joke God was playing on me, setting me unknowingly on the trajectory of one, big invisible circle that was bringing me back to where it all started. I wondered, at that moment, if you can really run away from something you carry inside you.

CH: Jonathan Poh reading an excerpt from Value Village, his winning submission to the 2020 CBC Nonfiction Prize. To hear how it ends visit cbcbooks.ca.

[Music]

Ideas Promo: The Mystery of Louise Labe

CH: Tonight on Ideas, The Mystery of Louise Labe. France is really serious about its books, so when one academic questioned the identity of a French literary heroine, outrage followed. Louise Labe is part of the country's literary canon. Her love poems are widely admired, and her writing about female desire is seen as ground-breaking. But scholar Mireille Huchon grew suspicious, so she engaged in some literary forensics, which included looking closely at a well-known poem. Here's freelance producer Ruth Jones.

RUTH JONES: As one writer on women and literature in the Renaissance says, the sonnet invites readers of the female sex and perhaps men as well to fantasize the perfect man, as if for the first time. It's kind of revolutionary, but Hunchon's take is considerably different. She decodes, a not so subtle sonnet.

MIREILLE HUCHON: So I think men in the 16th century would have read this very differently, as you'll soon realize. Take this sonnet that is a read. Really as the celebration of a lover. And yet I'm going to give you a very different reading. And this is how I think people would have read it in the 16th century. So you can see that the first eight lines start with "Q. Well 'q' to be clear, in the 16th century, the letter 'q' was to be read as 'cul.'

RUTH JONES: Cul, which as you may know, is French for ass.

CH: The controversy over a poet's true identity in a documentary called The Mystery of Louise Labe, tonight on Ideas after As It Happens.

[Music]

Fast Plastic Enzymes

Guest: Erika Erickson

CH: For decades, we've been using plastic -- a truly astonishing and unmanageable amount of plastic. Some of which gets recycled, but too much of which ends up polluting our environment and our oceans. And we just keep making more of it. Now, we might have a way to better deal with all this plastic waste. Scientists have engineered a super enzyme that can break down the most commonly used plastic up to six times faster than before. Erika Erickson is one of the researchers leading the work. We reached her in Golden, Colorado.

CO: Erika, why is it so difficult to break down plastic waste?

ERIKA ERICKSON: Plastics have been designed -- recalcitrants to breakdown. This is one of the things that makes them really useful for packaging and containers. But to do that, we have to give up this ability to break them down easily.

CO: How long does it take something, let's say a plastic water bottle, how long does it take for it to actually break down naturally?

EE: So there's lots of different tests that have been done to look at this. Some of the estimates vary widely from hundreds of years to thousands of years.

CO: Okay, so a good reason to be motivated to find shorter ways of doing it. So you have found a way to create a so-called super enzyme. What would that do?

EE: So in this case, we're looking at an enzyme -- we're looking at two enzyme systems, really that comes from an organism. So they are natural enzymes that have been evolved to break down plastic. If you think about that, it's quite extraordinary that an organism has been able to do this in such a short amount of time. I think PET was invented in the 1940s, so this hasn't been all that many years for an organism to develop the skill.

CO: Just remind people what PET is.

EE: PET is polyethylene terephthalate, which is the plastic that makes plastic water bottles.

CO: Most of the stuff that we use is made out of PET, right?

EE: Yes. It's one of the most commonly synthesized synthetic polymers.

CO: And so with this development of the super enzyme, how is it different from other ways of breaking down plastic?

EE: So the state of the art right now for plastic recycling, PET is one of the plastics that's the most recycled. It usually goes through a process known as mechanical recycling. And in mechanical recycling, the plastic gets ground down into small pieces and then melted and then reformed into a new product. But in the process of doing that, all of the contaminated dirt or food products or other types of plastic get mixed into that. So the quality of the recycled good is usually quite low compared to the original material. So for an enzymatic recycling process, the enzymes are really specific to certain types of bonds in the molecular structure of the plastic. This means that it breaks it down into the same starting materials that were used to make the product to begin with. So instead of having an inferior product, in the end, you could start with the same starting materials and come back to an equal value, plastic water bottle or food package, on the other side, without needing to use petroleum products to get there.

CO: How long would it take for this process to take place?

EE: The study that we've just released, none of this is done on a scale that is representative of a true process. So it's all been done at small scale to understand how the enzymes work. And so I'm going to have to estimate because I don't have a perfect answer here. But if we scaled up the size of the reactions that we reported here to use the first enzyme, the pectic enzyme alone, we're looking at a couple of months to break down a plastic bottle. Whereas what we found is that when you combine this with the second enzyme in the pathway, that would be more on the order of a few months, maybe a few weeks. And then when we've covalently linked the two enzymes. So this is when we begin to engineer these enzymes, they would be more like on the order of six weeks. So they are still a little bit too slow for a real recycling process. But again, these weren't optimized for this. They were optimized for the study.

CO: And also, you're saying that once they are broken down, they can then be turned into a new material without the pollutants that are a problem for other kinds of recycling, right?

EE: Exactly. There wouldn't be the same waste at the other side. And you could go back to the same material without having to downgrade the quality.

CO: So how much energy and how much money, what does it actually cost and what is actually take to break down this plastic? I mean it sounds great to be able to do that. But it's not going to happen, people are not going to turn to these kinds of recycling processes as long as it's actually cheaper to continue to make plastic with petroleum products, right?

EE: Exactly. So right now, mechanical recycling really suffers in the fact that the product that they're getting usually has to be collected from all over the country or the world and shipped to a central location. And that is actually just not very economical. And so even though this is the best case, these are the plastics that we currently recycle in the most volume. The price of doing this is really high relative to the outcome on the other sites, so the products you can sell that are recycled are a little bit artificially inflated right now because there's a lot of demand for recycled products. However, that's not necessarily reflective of what the process cost itself. As in a lot of other groups are actively trying to figure out what the economic situation would be for this. But right now it looks like it could be comparable in price and maybe even better.

CO: But you're also pointing out that the collection and shipping of the waste, uses fossil fuels, right? I mean, the trucks are using, the ships are using, all that takes energy. So all of these things are put into this recycled plastic bottle that people say, well, I can put this in the blue box because it's going to get recycled so I'm not really wasting anything, right?

EE: Absolutely. And that won't necessarily be a problem that disappears with a new strategy for recycling. The difference, however, would be that the embedded use of fossil fuels for the extraction of petroleum from the Earth, you would lose a lot of that, which is also quite costly. Then the greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel utilization would be lower.

CO: What kinds of incentives would need to be done in this society in order to make this viable?

EE: I don't have a really good sense for that. It's something I think about a lot. What I do know is that in states and countries that have a bottle-return incentive plan, they see much higher recycling rates and therefore have a much more concentrated availability for plastics, which doesn't require shipping from as far away. That's, I think, a really good inspiration for looking into new ways that we can incentivize recycling. There's a lot of aspirational recycling. But do we really do this to a high enough degree to make a difference for the environment?

CO: Well, it's commendable that you're working toward this and trying to solve this problem. But at the same time, do you worry that as you work so hard for this that people rely -- they think that technology will save us from ourselves, from our excesses and our consumption that say, well, I don't have to worry because technology will solve this problem -- do you worry about that?

EE: I absolutely do. Each of us can make a difference in our daily choices. But there have to be enough of us that make daily choices in the right direction to make a lot of momentum on a global scale. We're hoping we can make some big impacts and in good directions. But it still comes down to individual choices.

CO: Erika it's great to talk to you. Thank you.

EE: Thank you so much.

CH: Erika Erikson is a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. She's in Golden, Colorado. And you can find out more about the super enzyme on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

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October 1, 2020 Episode Transcript

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