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The Current Transcript for October 16, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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Fisheries dispute in Nova Scotia turns violent

Guests: Nic Meloney, Colin Sproul, Cheryl Maloney

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VOICE 1: We made it.

VOICE 2: Oh we made it.

VOICE 1: We made it.

VOICE 2: It's been an honour to share this almost eleven hours, but we did it.

MATT GALLOWAY: Why would somebody have to wait 11 hours to vote? This is a question that many Canadians might be asking after watching people south of the border lining up all day to cast a ballot in this unprecedented U.S. election. We'll head to the long lines in Georgia to speak with those waiting to vote. Also this morning, what's for dinner? Are you like many of us? In a bit of a cooking rut, lacking inspiration, running through the same boring recipes, the celebrated chef Yotam Ottolenghi has the answer. And it is vegetables. He'll be here in 30 minutes. And later.

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I think I'd be pretty safe to say that I think we are all genuinely relieved that the person actually responsible for this has finally been identified.

MG: The murder of Christine Jessup shocked this country in 1984. The nine year old Ontario girl stepped off a school bus and vanished. Her next door neighbour was charged, then acquitted, then convicted, then cleared of her murder. And now, after decades, police say they have identified her killer. Kirk Makin wrote the book on this story. He'll be here in just over an hour. We start, though, in Nova Scotia, where a dispute between indigenous and non-indigenous lobster fishers has exploded into violence and where people fear the worst is to come. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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They proceeded to vandalise my van. They slashed the tires. I watched one guy pee in the driver's seat of my truck. Another guy poured a jug of something, an egregious something down inside of my gas tank. Not one RCMP even tried to stop them. I said I wouldn't leave with lobster. And the police forcibly removed me and said that I had to leave and let them take my lobster. They booted the door and grabbed me by the arms and told me to get out.

MG: That's Jason Marr, a Mi'kmaw lobster fisherman with a civic a negative first nation in Nova Scotia. Late Tuesday night, about 200 non-indigenous fishermen raided two facilities where Mi'kmaw fishermen were storing their lobster catches. The crowd trapped Jason and another fisherman inside. This comes on the heels of weeks of unrest following the launch of a lobster fishery by the Sipekne'katik Band. Outside of the federally mandated commercial season, the band cites a 21 year old Supreme Court of Canada ruling known as the Marshall Decision, which allows the Mo'kmaw right to operate a moderate livelihood fishery. Nic Meloney is a reporter with the CBC Indigenous Unit. He's based in Halifax. Nick, good morning.

NIC MELONEY: Good morning.

MG: Walk us through briefly what happened on Tuesday night.

NIC MELONEY: Yes, well, you can hear it in Jason Mar's voice. It was pretty tense. He'd been up fish and lobster with his daughters that day and was on his way back to store them at a facility in a place called New Edinburg, Nova Scotia. This facility operates within the new Mi'kmaw [unintelligible]of fishery. But on his way there, Marr heard that there was a mob of non-indigenous fishermen surrounding the building, that they were threatening to burn his boat and take his lobster. So he took everything off his boat, called a friend to a lobster pound in a nearby village and drove down the store lobster there. And then, as we heard, what he was inside with another fisherman. And this is what was captured in this long live stream he made. Another mob, a few hundred people attacked that building. They hurled rocks at the windows where the meat were watching. They cut the power, vandalised the exterior. He says that they threatened to burn the building with the men inside and then eventually forced their way in a cave carrying out the crates of lobster. And then by the next morning, Jason's van was completely torched. Crates and crates of lobster dumped out on the ground and destroyed, some of them covered in chemicals. It was truly chaotic. And despite a small presence from the RCMP, the tension and the mob remained well into the next day.

MG: You mentioned the RCMP and Jason mentioned that, too. There are allegations that the RCMP did not intervene and what was going on?

NIC MELONEY: Yes, the Lifestream itself and actually dozens of Lifestream that came out after many more Mi'kmaw and other fishermen arrived at the dock. It did show that the RCMP standing by the RCMP as has constantly maintained that it's just there to keep the peace and to ensure people's safety. But there are instances where it appears that in the video there are people throwing rocks at the building, at the fishermen, with the RCMP, you know, a few yards away from them.

MG: The tensions are over this issue of the moderate livelihood fishery. This term comes from the 1999 court decision. I mentioned it's known as the Marshall decision. In a nutshell, what is this case really about?

NIC MELONEY: It's a big nutshell. But the case revolves around a Mi'kmaw fisherman named Donald Marshall Junior. In 1993, he was charged for catching and selling Yeo's outside of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Defoe's regulations for six year, six years. Marshall argued and insisted all the way to the Supreme Court that he had the right to do it under the Peace and Friendship Treaty. So that's a string of 18th century nation to nation treaties between the Maritime First Nations and the British crown. And those treaties laid out the agreement that the land and all its resources were meant to be shared and that the Mi'kkmaw would not be hindered from fishing, hunting and gathering for their own survival. And they also establish a trading relationship with the settlers. And Donna Marshall Junior maintained that the intention of those treaties never change. And that Mi'kmaw, his treaty rights and its inherent title to the unseeded land allowed him to fish and catch and sell his catch to live. And that's what the Supreme Court agreed on in 1999. The decision affirmed the right to harvest natural resources and trade them to obtain necessaries, as it said. In the 1700, that might have meant trading fish with settlers for cloth or tools. But in a modern context, the ruling explained that it meant trading fish to make a moderate livelihood, but didn't define what a moderate livelihood actually should mean.

MG: What's the response been like from non indigenous Nova Scotians to the idea of a small scale indigenous fishery?

NIC MELONEY: Well, since the 90s, most have argued that the term moderate livelihood is too big and that to Mi'kmaw right could lead to something more than just a small scale fishery. And they fear for their own livelihoods. The Marshall decision came in the wake of the infamous codfish collapse of deal flow is already regulating and restricting fishing industries based on the idea that the lobster stock is limited. The federal government couldn't simply add more fishing licences to the mix without taking others away. So for Nova Scotia fishing communities whose livelihoods have relied on large scale and small scale commercial fishing for generations, it adds another level of risk to a trade authority vulnerable to market changes and commercial monopolies. Nova Scotia fishermen have always taken a firm stance and advocated for the road. So indigenous or non-indigenous in the Maritimes, we all kind of understand that every day they go out to make a living, fishers put a lot on the line.

MG: How has this just finally been able to spiral out of control and get and get to the point that we saw on Tuesday night where a mob attacks a group of people? And people wonder what is going to come in the days and weeks ahead?

NIC MELONEY: So that's a question that most people are actually directing to the federal government. Five previous federal governments have touched on this particular situation and the regulations at issue haven't changed to reflect the treaty right at a fundamental level. Donald Marshall Junior died in 2009. But if he was alive today and went fishing [unintelligible] again to make living, he could face the same charges he was acquitted of 21 years ago.

MG: Do we know, I mean, just briefly, whether the Department of Fisheries notions, which is ultimately responsible for what happens on the water, has that department responded to the conflicts?

NIC MELONEY: You know that it's kind of unclear what their position is on the legality here. I've been dropping lobster traps outside of [unintelligible] for regulations. Opposing fishermen have been destroying those traps and letting them say to the bottom of St. Mary's Bay. Both of those situations have led to, you know, previous convictions in other areas of Nova Scotia in 2020. But as far as we know, no charges have been made related to this moderate by the fishery. And Minister Burton that Jordan has maintained since September that the federal government is going to sort it all out through dialogue. Unfortunately, I think that's landed kind of poorly, given that there's been dialogue taking place since the early 90s.

MG: So complicated story. I really appreciate you walking us through it. Nick, thank you.

NIC MELONEY: Yes. Thanks so much.

MG: Nick Meloney, reporter with CBC Indigenous Unit. He's based in Halifax. Colin Sproul is the president of the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen's Association. He is near Digby in southwestern Nova Scotia calling. Good morning to you.

COLIN SPROUL: Good morning, Matt. Thanks for the opportunity.

MG: Thanks for joining us. When you heard of what happened on Tuesday night, a mob attacking people. What went through your mind?

COLIN SPROUL: Well, I was horrified, to be honest. And let me be clear that myself personally in the Bay of Fundy insurer Fishermen's Association condemn all acts of violence in the fishery. And I think as Canadians, we shouldn't expect that the only way forward is through dialogue. But I think that that also points to the fact that there hasn't been a dialogue process and we've been reaching out repeatedly to the minister and presidents and their predecessors for three years now. For just that.

MG: Just to be clear, though, I mean, these fishermen belong to your union. Do you accept any responsibility for what happened Tuesday night?

COLIN SPROUL: Yes, I think that's a bit of a mischaracterisation. There are at least five fishermen's groups represented on the ground in southwest Nova Scotia.

MG: Some of these men, fishermen belong to your union. I guess the question is just about responsibility and where that...

COLIN SPROUL: Yes, for sure. Well, in response to that, I would say, you know, that I wasn't there and we weren't really association wasn't part of that. So I can't speculate on who was there. It wasn't I've only seen the live streams in the same as the same as you. But this is what I'll say is that it's never appropriate. And while what is taking place in the fishery in St. Mary's Bay is wrong, ecologically, morally, socially wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right and St Mary's Bay and they don't make a right in my world.

MG: So they make more fishermen say that they are exercising their Trieu rights based on the Marshall decision that we just walked through. What's the issue that you take with what they're doing?

COLIN SPROUL: OK. What I would say about that is what's largely been lost in the wash here is that on the inshore and the rest of the fishing groups on the ground respect and support indigenous fishery access rights. But what with the gulf between us is this is that Article 40 of the Marshall decision clearly states that the paramount regulatory objective is conservation and responsibility for it falls squarely on the minister responsible, not on the Aboriginal or non Aboriginal user of the resource. Full stop. So the gulf between us is that our commercial decision offers a path forward here for mutual coexistence. But the minister needs to exercise her authority there. It's going to take courage that no government has shown for the past 21 years. Every good negotiation ends with everybody going home angry. And that's what's going to have to take place here. We need a minister who has the political courage to anger the commercial in-season fishery and to anger the out of season fishery as well, because that's the kind of courage it's going to take to find an equitable, coexistent position in the middle.

MG: Sipekne'katik First Nation chief, Mike Sack said yesterday that this isn't about conservation. This is an example of systemic racism. Do you believe that?

COLIN SPROUL: Look, I would be the last guy to deny the presence of systemic racism within Nova Scotia or the fact that racism, originally displaced and colonialism displace the Mi'kmaw fishers from their legitimate right to fish. And I wouldn't and I wouldn't be legitimised Chief SAC's views on that. But our only concern here is conservation and rights don't exist in a vacuum, which is also stated in the Marshall decision. And let's also be clear. It's not appropriate for anyone to fish in a claw, closed lobster breeding molten ground during the close season. It's not ecologically sustainable.

MG: I guess, at that point is important because the number of lobsters that the first nation's fishermen are catching is said to be relatively small compared with that of commercial fishermen. So, why is there daylight between those two positions?

COLIN SPROUL: Well, I would say because although Chief Zack has recently issued some licences that he created on his own under no existing Canadian law framed legal framework, there has been the presence of more than 40 commercial lobster boats fishing extensively in St. Mary's Bay for the last three or four years. And that is having a serious consequence, which is evidence through DFO Zone Landing's data, which shows 65 percent decline in lobster landings within St. Mary's Bay. That's not evidenced in the wider lobster fishing area.

MG: What do you want from DFO and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans right now?

COLIN SPROUL: Well, I think that we all want clarity. You know, one thing that Chief Zach and I have agreed on all throughout this crisis is that our issues are not with each other in the shouldn't be an indigenous versus non-indigenous issue or issues are with the minister and her lack of action to reconcile this issue for anybody. And so I think that no matter no matter how you slice it at this point, it's incumbent on the minister to act in the interests of public safety and sustainability and reconciliation. And we feel that she's done none of that.

MG: But it has become an issue between indigenous and non-indigenous fishers. And I guess the question is, what happens now? Do you expect more violence? The chief said yesterday being concerned about the RCMP not stepping in. That his members would defend themselves. So do you expect more violence?

COLIN SPROUL: I am. I'm, at the point of violence, but I've been scared of that possibility for more than three years, which led us to try and find dialogue processes. I will say that I can see that there can be truth in the statements made by Mr. Marr and by the chief of the RCMP is standing by allowing violence to happen. And the reason I say this, because I've witnessed it myself and the other aspect I've seen violent attacks on non-Indigenous fishermen and I've seen the RCMP turn a blind eye walk away. And I think that that should really needs to be a focus here that Minister Jordan and her department have created an incredible political hot potato that Minister Blair and his department are not going to catch even at the expense of public safety. And it makes me very ashamed that my government this week calling sprawl.

MG: It's good to speak with you this morning. Thank you.

COLIN SPROUL: Thank you very much.

MG: Colin Srpoul. Is the president of the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen's Association. Cheryl Maloney is an activist, a member of the Sipekne'katik first nation and a direct descendant of John Baptist Cope who signed the original peace treaty in 1752. She's been listening in. Cheryl, good morning to you.

CHERYL MALONEY: Good morning.

MG: This Marshall decision came about in 1999. It was reaffirmed that they may well have a right to fish to make a living. It's 2020. What's really going on here? Do you think?

CHERYL MALONEY: Well, you know, there's been concern from 1999 when we went on the water the first time and there was the same response from the commercial fishing industry in 1999 as they're seeing now as our efforts to get on the water have been increasing. So and I told her, I think I did an interview with Pam Fomenter and she said, well, why are they behaving this way? And my answer was bad behaviour. In 1999-2000, got them the second Marshall decision. So every effort we've had to make steps to get into the fishery have been met with violence, opposition, concern about losing their livelihood. And these are commercial fishermen are making three, four hundred thousand dollars. They have 375,00 trucks and they go on eye in the winter on taxpayers dollars.

MG: The commercial fishermen say that this is illegal out of season fishing and that is harmful. You just heard Colin talking about that it's harmful to stocks and it's not permissible under the Marshall decision.

CHERYL MALONEY: Under the- stocks are fine. And the minister of DFO, it does have jurisdiction over conservation. If the stocks are not fine, it's her responsibility to manage the commercial fishing industry. She has the power under the Canadian division of powers and under her mandate as the DFO minister. She doesn't have free powers over the Mi'kmaw. If conservation is an issue, she first has to limit the commercial licence holders.

MG: It's also about defining what that moderate livelihood issue.

CHERYL MALONEY: Don't you can't even talk about moderate livelihood yet. If they stay with conservation, if there's a conservation issue, the minister's authority and the courts have said the first priority is to Mi'kmaw [unintelligible]right. And then the second would be sport. The first to go would be the commercial privileged licence system. She would have to impose quotas, close season, limit traps. She has all those things within our power that she can do. And the commercial industry is so much more bigger and billions and eight hundred two thousand trucks they're putting in the waters off of those shores in Nova Scotia. If conservation is the real concern, then these fishermen, inshore Bay of Fundy fishermen and everybody else should be looking within and limited in their first.

MG: So you don't believe that the issue of the moderate livelihood is at the centre of this?

CHERYL MALONEY: No, they don't want to share their living, their resources with anyone. We've never, ever been able to get on the water in 21 years. And so and when we talk about moderate livelihood, that was 21 years ago. This is treating fishermen for a livelihood, the loss. In this country and every court case, we had 300 consecutive court wins in this country since then, since the 1980s. The law is clear on the Mi'kmaw rights to self regulate, the Mi'kmaw right to self govern, the Mi'kmaw right to set their seasons for their species. Their time a year. The methods they choose, the minister's power only comes after. When if conservation is an issue and if she's done everything she could on her side of things, which would be to limit the commercial industry.

MG: As you say, your chief, Mike Zacks, spoke with the CBC yesterday about the issue of the federal government and what the federal government could or should be doing. Have a listen to what Mike Zacks said.

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The prime minister, any minister, whoever could put a tweet out or Facebook message, whatever it may be. Actions speak louder than words. You know, they're sitting in their office, safe as can be saying we need safety out here. Send enforcement down. Like do your job, protect Canadians for all Canadians. Come here, protect us and don't just tweet about it.

MG: What specifically would you want from the federal government, from the prime minister?

CHERYL MALONEY: Well, you know, I think the reason I'm going to Province House today is that the prime minister and DFO minister can do some things. What I'm focussing on and I just talked to the chief not long ago, and he used to focus in on the boats going on the water and the media to talk to our members. And I told him, I'm going to focus on the three issues that is within the provincial jurisdiction of the premier of Nova Scotia. And yesterday he said that Nova Scotia has no jurisdiction to fix this. And I said that's wrong in three areas. One, it's provincial legislation that hasn't changed to make it legal for us to sell our lobster here in Nova Scotia. So there's a regulation that needs to be changed and amended. So we're going the province house today and call on them to change that because the fishermen are saying it's illegal to sell and buy which it is, according to Nova Scotia, it's regulation. So that has to be struck down. It's going to be struck down by either the premier goes and changes the act on their own. Or maybe they want to charge me. Today, we go to court. It's going to get struck down. It is a regulation that's inconsistent with the treaty rights and the Constitution. The other two areas the premier has authority over is the Nova Scotia actions of the RCMP. They are under the mandate of the attorney general of Nova Scotia, not Trudeau, even though it's a federal body. Nova Scotia attorney general is directing the RCMP here or the inaction. And the third thing the province can do is racial discrimination and human rights violations and denial of goods and services from Nova Scotia businesses.

MG: Cheryl Maloney, we will be watching this very closely in the meantime. I really appreciate your time this morning. Thank you so much.

CHERYL MALONEY: You're welcome.

MG: Cheryl Maloney is an activist and a member of the Sipekne'katik First Nation in Nova Scotia. Bernadette Jordan, the federal minister of Fisheries and Oceans, declined our request for an interview. The CBC News is next. And then a conversation with the chef, Yotam Ottolenghi. We'll be talking about eating your vegetables and why cooking vegetables in an interesting way could be the answer to getting out of the food rut you might be in. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current and CBC Radio one.

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Is it time for a fusion cuisine comeback? Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage think so

Guests: Yotem Ottolenghi, Ixta Belfrage

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

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MG: Still to come.

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We positively confirmed the identification of the person responsible for the DNA sample. If he were alive today, the Toronto Police Service would arrest Calvin Hoover for the murder of Christine Jessup.

MG: It was a cold case that gripped Canada for decades and yesterday, the Toronto police revealed the identity of the man they say murdered nine year old Christine Jessup. We'll speak with former Globe and Mail justice reporter Kirk Makin, who wrote the definitive book on the murder investigation and the eventual exoneration of Paul Morin. But first, eat your vegetables.

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MG: Did you know that you can grill a whole cauliflower that's crunchy and crispy on the outside, fluffy and juicy on the inside? Well, if you did know that, there's a pretty good chance that my next guest showed you how to do it. For nearly two decades, Yotam Ottolenghi has been coming up with creative ways to get people to eat their vegetables through his cookbooks, his new newspaper columns and his restaurants. He's been changing the way we eat, encouraging diners to explore both the flavours of his hometown of Jerusalem and many points beyond. His latest book of recipes is called Simply Flavour. It is written with Ixta Belfrage, who works with him in his test kitchen, Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage, hello.

IXTA BELFRAGE: Hi.

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: Hello.

MG: For a long time it felt as though vegetables were looked at in some corners as kind of a necessary evil, Yotam. You have changed that and changed that in big ways. Why do you love vegetables so much?

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: Well, the short answer is because they're good. And the long answer is that they are just full of potential. And you know what? You could get out of the vegetable, which if you treat it well and look at it in a creative way and spend time getting the right ingredients and cooking it properly, you really get a lot back. And the transformation that a vegetable can go through is quite incredible. And that's why I think both Ixta and I love vegetables so much for all this stuff that we can do to them.

MG: Ixta, do you buy that idea that they used to be poor? Perhaps in some corners still are seen as sort of a necessary evil. We are always told, as kids, eat your vegetables and that was kind of like punishment in some ways.

IXTA BELFRAGE: Absolutely. I mean, I personally have actually always grown up eating vegetables because my mum is a nutritionist. But I remember when I was younger living in London or going out to restaurants or eating in school vegetables and pretty much just steamed or boiled. And I think we say in the book that, you know, if you steam or boil a vegetable, it's only going to taste like a hot version of itself. And that's boring and basically and not showing the full potential of that vegetable. So, yes, I think we've well, Yotam, over the years has brought all these vegetables a very long way. And we will continue to do that in flavour.

MG: What's the first step and thinking differently about something that perhaps people didn't love?

IXTA BELFRAGE: I think the first step is to sort of throw away any preconceptions that you have about it. And that might be a preconception about how you cook that vegetable. But if you throw away those preconceptions and just think to yourself as actually an endless list of ways that you can cut that vegetable, and that's as long as the list as ingredients that you compare that vegetable with. And that's as long as the list and the ways you can cook the vegetables. And honestly, there's millions of ways, and especially there will be ingredients you compare it with. The possibilities are endless.

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: And if I could just interrupt here, I'd say we look at things that we think we know how to cook, like culturally. You know, the typical one is the Brussels sprouts. You know, I've come across it so many times since it came here on, you know, on Christmas or holiday tables. And people really didn't have that kind of idea that you steamed or boiled brussel sprouts and served them pretty neat, neutral, you know, with butter or even without that is something which is common here in Britain. And then once people discovered you can actually roast Brussels sprouts or grilled them, there's all all of a sudden there is this kind of sense of realisation. While you can actually get a bit of smoke going on, some charring, some crunch soft bits with hard bits in the experience, and all of a sudden it becomes something so exciting. And the same with a cauliflower. You know, again, if you roasted, if you grill it, if you turn it into a fritter, these are all incredible ways to really, you know, discover the vegetable. And once you know that there's no going back, really, then you could still boil the cauliflower. But then I'd just mix it up with lots of aromatics and maybe fry it, you know, like it would be on a journey on the way somewhere else rather than just boiling it.

MG: There's some science in the book, which is neat. And I mean, you talk about grilling or roasting vegetables. What happens, Yotam, if you grill or roast a cauliflower? I mean, scientifically, what goes on to change the flavour of that vegetable?

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: So we were talking about we're talking about the book about different ways in which you can cook your vegetables. And we talk about particular technique. One of them is grilling in which on the surface starts to char and you've got the flavour of smoke coming through that charring and you've got a slightly burnt flavour, good burnt flavour, those kind of bitter notes that are so complex and interesting. And that's one thing that happens. And then deeper in longer cooking, you've got Browning and there's all sorts of fancy terms for it in my art process, et cetera. You don't really need to know all these terms to understand that something just becomes sweeter when you start cooking the starches and turning them into sugars. And we have a recipe that really exemplifies that really well, it's a whole head of celeriac celery root, which is cooked for about three hours with just some olive oil and salt. And by the end of this process, something which is, you know, hard and starchy and pretty one dimensional becomes really wonderfully sweet. You don't add in the sugars, but those are the natural sugars coming to the surface. So we just stop it in this section openers and just talk about all these things that we know happen in the recipes with some people just are not aware that this is what's going on these days.

MG: Is this what happens in the test kitchen all the time where you're trying to kind of, I don't know, on unlock the flavour or something that you think you know what it tastes like?

IXTA BELFRAGE: I'd say yes and no. A lot of the time there isn't. There's obviously a lot of thought about it. And I'd say that some of the best recipes that come out also come about by mistake or in in wanting to create something, you end up creating something better or something different. Sometimes there's a lot of thought process behind it and sometimes it's sort of a happy, happy mistake.

MG: Yotam, what do you like about working with Easter? And in that test kitchen in particular, I mean, it sounds like a laboratory in some ways.

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: It sounds fancier than it actually is. It's not the normal lab with, you know, with all this science of, you know, all the advanced equipment and all the rest, we're trying to keep it very similar as possible to someone's modest home kitchen, because the test kitchen is where we test mostly recipes for home cooks and not for the restaurant. So, you know, we love working in the test kitchen because it is a wonderful place to to work in. But it is very, it's kind of simple. And when Ixta joined the test kitchen about four years ago, I noticed that she's talented and passionate and, you know, very clever and in the unusual flavour combinations that she does. You know, some of my favourite recipes in this book are really wonderful examples of that sense of adventure and creativity in Ixya's cooking, one of them. And just to give you one example is the recipe that we suggested for Christmas celebration. It's a turnip cake. It's inspired by something that you have in dim sum and Chinese restaurants on the weekend. But it's a vegetarian version where the Chinese pork sausage and the drug shrimps are replaced with [unintelligible] mushrooms and pine nuts and sesame seeds. And it's just wonderful and luscious and it becomes a real celebration of flavour. And I think putting that together is only something that Ixta can do.

MG: And she's just full of those wonderful ideas as to what was the food you grew up eating when you were young?

IXTA BELFRAGE: Well, mine my mother is Brazilian and I have a lot of family in Mexico, so a lot of Latin and South American food, fontaine's and black beans and rice with nearly every meal that my and my mom is a nutritionist. I grew up eating very healthily. I was I grew up in Italy, so I was exposed to incredible Tuscan food from a very young age. And yeah, I think having exposure to all of those different cultures and the food of those cultures is probably what spurred me to cook because I knew what incredible food tasted like. And I didn't really get that at home because we ate extremely healthy at home. My mom's not the most fantastic. That's why I taught myself at an early age.

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: Something that I learnt over the years. You cook either because your parents are wonderful cooks or because they're terrible.

MG: You have a story in the book, Yotam, about a potato that you remember like the first, not that the first memory of food. But in some ways, one of those memories, it's like actually burnt in your fingers because it was hot as you are appealing the potato. What was that?

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: Yes. So there is a Jewish holiday that is celebrated widely in Israel. It's called [unintelligible], which is well, part of the tradition is to light fires, bonfires all all over to kind of symbolise enlightenment. But in a way, it is about those are the lights. For me it was just all about the fire and it was kind of the earlier experience for me, a transformation through heat and cooking. I was throwing potatoes into the embers of those fires and then as a very young child, picking those potatoes out of the [unintelligible] at the end of the bonfire and peeling the very thick, charred skin and having this steaming hot potato that's just being cooked without anything else. You know, there's no no water, no butter, no oil, nothing. Just that just the day that was just so delicious. And it's something very basic and primitive. And we all recognise these moments where you really, really have a realisation how wonderful it is that what happens when you cook. And I quote that example, because it really stuck in my mind since my childhood.

MG: What has changed, do you think, in term how we eat since you started publishing cookbooks and these recipes in newspapers. How do you think if you take a look at the sweep of time and it's not meant to age you or anything of that, but. But how do you think? How we've eaten has changed over that time.

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: So I think there's been a lot of change, but also not in some quarters, but maybe not enough change in other quarters. So, you know, the excitement and fascination and creativity that involves cooking vegetables is really spread. I feel it's a real thing that people are eating more vegetables, whether they pronounce themselves as vegan or vegetarians or whether they just do it whilst eating less animal protein. This is a thing. And, you know, I see it in the restaurants and in books sales that there is a real passion for eating more vegetables. Are restaurants always have many more vegetable dishes than meat or fish dishes, because that's what we like to cook, but it's also what our customers want. So that's definitely happening. But on the other hand, I feel that although there is a lot of interest in cooking and cooking vegetables and learning new techniques, I realise that all those, you know, eat getting food so easily to your door via all those delivery services that actually made people cook a bit less. So you kind of see things. You see both trends happening. People definitely know more about food than they did 20 years ago or 50 years ago. There's no doubt about that.

MG: Do you take pleasure and pride in that? I was going to say do take responsibility for that. But in some ways, you think of we're talking about food memories. There are a lot of people, myself included, who have food memories that are associated with either eating in your restaurants or cooking from your cookbooks until the pages are stuck, you know, with oil between them. Do you take pleasure in knowing that you've helped shape how people eat?

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: It's the greatest joy, really, that I have to know that people have added one of my recipes to their repertoire. I think it's an incredible thing. It's just because it's long lasting. You know, it's something people take with them and then it sticks. And it's a huge privilege to know that this is actually happening. And I don't always believe that it is. But I also see what people put out there, you know, and so that's a good proof that people do cook. And it's a wonderful feeling.

MG: Ixta, he's being modest. How do you think Yotam has gradually. Do you think he has changed how people eat?

IXTA BELFRAGE: Well, absolutely. And I I really met with what you were saying before about having pages that were stuck together. And I remember my family always cooked from Yotam's first book, and my cousins always used to make Cauliflower salad from the first book. And there was another lentil salad, had blue cheese and I think an almond. But what else now? But that was another one that my family always used to make. And that was- so, yes, I've grown up eating Yotam's food and whether that's in the delis or cooking them. So yes, he's inspired so many others, especially me.

MG: Are there fugitives that you think you have added to the repertoire that perhaps people may not have purchased immediately? Maybe they would've walked by it in the produce section and now they pick it up because they know what to do with it and they know that it's not something to be frightened of, that it's something that you can play with.

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: You know, people often say eggplants, aubergines, you know, that they didn't know how to cook or what to do with until they cooked Ottolenghi recipes. So that is probably a fact that it has become much more approachable. Because it's just slightly less intuitive or it's not that simple to cook as it is, let's say, to cook a potato or even a cauliflower. But once you know what you're doing, it's super simple. But you just need to learn, you know, that you need to apply enough heat and enough fast you're roasting or frying. And also all these things you really do need to know. But yes. And then there is the end of the staple of the Middle East that I love, you know, the tahini and all the rest. And I love it that the world has discovered all those ingredients because I just think they're absolutely wonderful. I mean, there's nothing like zaatar or tahini or, you know, at least for me, growing up in the Middle East. And when people enjoy them, too, again, that's another source of great pleasure.

MG: I think some people might be surprised that there's a recipe in here in which you mentioned zaatar. You add za'atar to cacio e pepé, which is like the classic Italian dish. It's as simple as it gets pasta with cheese and pepper and then za'atar. You could imagine, you know, an Italian nonna who might say, watch what's going on here. How does that why does that work, do you think?

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: We were thinking about it a lot and this dish came about when I said to Ixta that, you know, there's not enough Middle Eastern ingredients in this book. I'm not in Italy and not enough with the Middle East. I said what do we do? And then the idea of adding za'atar to the cacio e pepe was something that Ixta suggested. And I have to say that I was ever so slightly sceptical because it's such a classic and, you know, it's like playing with classics comes at a risk. You can infuriate people, etc.. But I think the proof lies with in the pudding. And in this case, the pudding is that ketchup, which is really benefits a little bit of hard herby kind of flavour. And it does it so well. And because when you think about it, it's very rich and creamy and za'atar, like [unintelligible] like oregano like all these hard herbs goes so well with rich and creamy and buttery things. So in a sense, it's a no brainer, but it takes a little bit of courage to be able to do that. And I'm very proud that we did it because I think it's the result is pretty, pretty good.

MG: Ixta, this is the F word addition to fusion.

IXTA BELFRAGE: Yes. So it's a work that people don't really like. But I think Yotam and I are trying to embrace it, sort of trying to bring it back. It is sort of an unfashionable word, but it's really the only way to describe what we're doing until we come up with a better way of describing it. We have to use the word fusion. And I for one. And just as well, absolutely, love fusion cooking. I think it's the way forward. Of course, I love the classics and I'll always go back to them, but as a recipe developer creating recipes I think the only way forward is fusion. Doing that considerately, not just putting things together willy nilly, but really thinking about what goes together, breaking things down into flavours and mixing and matching considerately. And it really yields some of the best results.

MG: How do you do that, Yotam, in a considered way? I mean, one of the reasons why people steered away from fusion was because it was then this big movement towards you. This is authentic cuisine. And by authentic, it meant this is how people have eaten it for however long. And then if you play around with it, you could be accused of messing with someone's traditions, appropriating their traditions, what have you. How do you do it in a way that is great, but also respects where it came from?

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: Fusion. I think historically, because it was so popular in that, you know, in the late 90s and people just this dislike with so many other food trends, they discovered something and then everybody wanted to do a lot. Everybody did it in a considerate and clever way. And some people don't have the sensitivity to decide when combining things is the right thing to do or not. And I think this is what Ixta means when she said consider it because you can be considerate of someone's culture, which is important, but considerate is also considerate to ingredients and what works together and what doesn't. And sometimes it just feels totally wrong to mix things in and you just know it as soon as you taste it. So you need to be super hypersensitive to what goes on the plate during the pan and say, OK, that's one step too far or that just doesn't work, that combination. Set it aside. The other thing is whether when you mix things up and this is the more cultural aspect of fusion, you also need to be supersensitive to what are the cultural implications of what are you doing? Who are you crediting? Whose cultures are you using? And I think it's very- I would never want to not cook food or any other culture because I think that's what we've been doing from the dawn of cooking. And there's no reason why we should stop ourselves from cooking someone else's food, because that's just how great cuisines have evolved over the years. But on the other hand, it's extremely important to recognise whose food you're cooking, whether it's an individual or a whole culture or subculture, and give credit and, you know, inform your reader or the people that cook your food about the origins of a dish at super important.

MG: What's the opportunity there? I think of a book The Jerusalem that you wrote with your friend and your business partner, Sami Tamimi, who was on this programme not so long ago talking about his own new book. Is there an opportunity, if you do it right, to turn people's heads in a way that they might not otherwise because of politics or cultural barriers or what have you?

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: I think the opportunity is great because we can really spread knowledge through food. I kind of discover the world through food because that's what I'm interested in whenever I go to place, the first thing I do is find out where the interesting food is, where the restaurants are and they go. And it's a great tool because it's a language that everybody speaks, you know, even if you don't speak the verbal language, the culinary language you can experience through eating. So the potential is amazing. And, you know, for instance, there is a recipe and the flavour for a cucumber salad that is inspired by the food of Xian in China. And Ixta and I haven't been to Sian's, but we've both eaten in a restaurant that cooks that food from this region of China called Xian's Impression here in London. And we tried to emulate that cucumber salad that we love eating there. It's quite far removed from their original dish. But still, that was the impetus. And I feel like I know something. I learnt something that made me look go online and look about Xian and understand something about it. And I think this is an incredibly powerful thing. When you think about it, all of us or many of us are on social media and many of our online. So when you cook someone else's food, you definitely learn something about them. And it's a very powerful way to bring down barriers wherever they exist.

MG: Ixta in the US, as we call it, the before times, you'd been able to get on a plane and perhaps go to Xian and eat the cucumber salad there. You can't because of this pandemic and the lockdown's that we're still all under. Are you finding that people are thinking differently about food now that we're spending more time at home?

IXTA BELFRAGE: Yes, I think it's evident from social media that people are becoming more invested in things that take time and salt and bread. So, for example, Chenggang Needle, is that something that I spent a lot of time learning how to make of a lock down. And of course, people are more considerate of ingredients in the sense that they know that they're not as easy to get to chain supplies struggling at the moment. You can't get to the shops as often as you want. So creating recipes from what you might have sitting around in your store cupboard at the bottom of your fridge was something that we ate a lot during lockdown. And we actually created some really exciting recipes just using those ingredients and not going out to get more. We're actually out of lockdown here. There is rumblings of another one, but we can go to restaurants every now and then. But we've still taken some of that information that we learnt over lockdown about how to create delicious meals from a few ingredients.

MG: Yotem. Just finally, if people have been spending a lot of time at home and maybe they're in a cooking rut right now, they're tired of the repertoire. Aside from picking up this new book, what's one thing that somebody could do to get out of the cooking rut?

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: They can roast the vegetable. They can. There's another thing which Ixta just pointed to a page in the book which has a bunch of we call them flavour bombs or condiments, which are bits from recipes that you could actually use in your future meal. So every time you create a marinade or a sauce or a certain part of a recipe, we often recommend to double or triple or quadruple the amount and keep it on the side. So we're talking about quick pickles or different chilli sauces or chilli oils or butters or mayos or any other marinades that end up being something that you can fill your pantry with in the fridge or on the shelf and then makes your life much easier next time you make your rice or you cook your pasta or your noodles or egg. You've got something to enrich it and make it more special and delicious. And it's an easy thing to do. And it's a wonderful thing to have, especially if you're cooking day in and day out.

IXTA BELFRAGE: It keep things exciting if you're getting bored of cooking.

MG: I look forward to this book being splattered with oil and grease and all of the things that I'm cooking like the rest of your books. It's a real pleasure to talk to you. Well, thank you.

IXTA BELFRAGE: Thank you.

YOTAM OTTOLENGHI: Thank you.

MG: Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage are the co-authors of FLAVOUR. We'll post a couple of recipes from the new book on Twitter. How to a sweet and sour onion pedal sound or maybe a berry platter with sheep's milk labneh and orange oil. Go to the Twitter account @TheCurrentCBC. And if you cook up anything, tweet us a picture and make us hungry. Coming up after your regional update.

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I'm a little discouraged with how long the lines are and how slow they're moving. But the positive part is everybody's staying in line.

MG: Record numbers of people are voting early in the U.S. and setting records for how long they're willing to wait to do it. We'll head to the lines. Coming up, I Matt Galloway. You're listening to the current on CBC Radio one. Back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

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Long lineups to vote in the U.S.

Guests: Emil Moffatt, Stacey Patterson, Carol Anderson

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

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VOICE 1: I think people are just really ready to vote and it doesn't matter how long it takes. We will stand in line to vote.

VOICE 2: I would walk through glass and put charcoal and bare feet to make this election.

VOICE 3: The last week or two has gotten me terrified about what's going to happen to mail in ballots. So no monkey business. I wanted to make sure my ballot was counted.

MG: A deep devotion to democracy or growing distrust. Whatever the reason, a record number of American voters have cast their ballots already compared to this point in previous elections, many states are encouraging voters to avoid congestion and get it done early. In Gwinnett County, in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, line-ups at advanced polls have been very long, all week long. Emil Moffatt is a reporter for WABE. It's the NPR station in Atlanta. He's outside an advance polling station this morning. Emil, good morning.

EMIL MOFFATT: Hi, Matt. Good morning to you.

MG: How are the line-ups looking today?

EMIL MOFFATT: They are long. They're probably over 100 people waiting in line here at the Gwinnett Registration and Elections Office isn't the main office where they're having early voting and the polls open just about a half hour ago. They officially opened and there was already that line lined up ready to get in. It is starting to move a lot as a as the morning goes along and people had brought their chairs to wait. But they're actually not sitting down much because they're moving so much down the line.

MG: How does that compare to what you saw the rest of this week?

EMIL MOFFATT: It is a vast difference from what we saw on Monday. On Monday, people here were waiting six, seven, eight hours to vote. So there have been some improvements. The turnout, I would say, has remained consistent throughout the course of the week. There were some problems on Monday with the state's election system that's used to look at voters when they check in the process. And that was snarling lines because it was taking three to four minutes just to process to cheque in the voter before they could actually go and cast their vote. So there was an issue and they have been able to speed up that process. And it seems to be making a big difference over the last two days as far as how long people are having to wait in line.

MG: You heard that little clip before we started talking of one of the voters talking about being concerned about monkey business, no monkey business. She's going to come and vote. There are concerns that that, you know, those problems can include deliberate voter suppression, that things are being put into place to keep people away or to keep the lines long so that people feel discouraged. If you talk to people. How concerned are people about that?

EMIL MOFFATT: There is concern it is a legitimate concern and people have expressed that to us that we've talked to throughout the course of this week. Georgia does have a no excuse. Mail in voting to where anybody, any registered voter can request an absentee ballot and vote by mail. But there are a lot of people that say they just don't trust it. They want to see their ballot go through the scanner and be counted in front of their eyes to make sure that their vote is counted. Some people just don't trust the mail in voting process. In others, you know, they don't want to wait until Election Day when it's the last day that it can happen. If you vote early, which you can for three weeks here in Georgia and something goes wrong where you have to wait seven or eight hours and you're not able to vote for whatever reason, then you could possibly go back the next day and try again to vote. And so I think people are just trying to leave no doubt that they will have the chance to cast a ballot in this election.

MG: How are people passing the time if they're waiting six, seven, eight hours in line to vote?

EMIL MOFFATT: I see a lot of phone scrolling. I see a lot of people bringing out their books. I see people with foldable folding chairs that they bring out to almost like they're going camping. They'll sit around and a lot of conversations in line to. I've heard a lot of people throughout the course this week say, hey, I met, you know, one of my neighbours or somebody that that I didn't know before. I just kind of passing the time and talking about things in line. So while voters have expressed some frustration with having to stand in line, they've also said, hey, it's kind of a good chance to get out and meet neighbours and talk to people that you might not ordinarily meet.

MG: But generally, people I mean, the attitude of people is I want to vote and I'm willing to wait in line to be able to exercise my democratic right.

EMIL MOFFATT: I think that a parent from people on the first day of early voting, waiting six, seven, eight hours when, you know, they can possibly come back in a day or two and be in and out in 30 minutes. I think that speaks a lot to the passion that people have. It's been an interesting couple of years here in Georgia and in the United States. So I think people are ready to make their voices heard this morning and throughout the course of this week in the next few weeks leading up to Election Day.

MG: An interesting couple of years, certainly. Emil, good to speak with you. Thank you for this.

EMIL MOFFATT: My pleasure.

MG: Emil Moffatt is a reporter for WABE Atlanta. That's the NPR station in Atlanta. Stacy Patterson is waiting in that line to vote. Stacy Patterson, good morning.

STACY PATTERSON: Good morning.

MG: Why did you say decide that you wanted to vote today?

STACY PATTERSON: Well, you know, we've traditionally voted day of election, but my wife suggested that we come out an early vote. And, you know, it's it's it's actually quite pleasant out here today. The weather's great and the folks are friendly and everybody's just having a easy time here. And, you know, I think I think it'll be easier than the day. It's less stressful. So we're just enjoying the morning.

MG: Did you worry that I mean, Emil was talking about these, you know, images and we've seen them here in Canada, as well as people waiting for hours and hours to be in line. Did you worry that you're going to get there and you need to bring a folding chair or something like that because you'd be parked in one place for a good period of time?

STACY PATTERSON: Well, we did bring a chair, but, you know, the lines moving well enough. We're not even bothering to use it. So, you know, the first day of early voting here was real busy. And so we we've waited a few days. And it looks like as a reporter I mentioned earlier that, you know, the system seems to be a little smoother now that the weeks moving on. And we're moving along here and it seems all good.

MG: I don't want to get too personal. They all say never talk to people about religion or politics. But if you take a look at this election, what's most important to you?

STACY PATTERSON: Well, I think stability and, you know, everybody wants to know what the future's like. We also want to know there's some stability and calmness in our world. And we I'm kind of a guy that wants to keep things calm and cool and not stir up things too much. So I think if we just work all work together and try to find a common ground, I think we'll all be better off. So, I'm hoping that we can just move forward through all this pandemic. And I'm kind of an optimistic fellow, so I want to move forward and get get going and not have so much. Issues going on.

MG: Good luck in getting through that. It sounds like you're not going to be waiting too long. So I appreciate you talking to us as you're waiting, Stacey. Thank you.

STACY PATTERSON: Yes. Yes. Thanks for calling.

MG: Stacey Patterson is a voter in line to cast ballot in Gwinnett County in Georgia. Long voting lines in Georgia and elsewhere have been called examples of voter suppression. We were speaking just briefly about that with Emil Moffatt efforts to stop people from voting are not new in America, according to my next guest. Carol Anderson has been studying the history of voter suppression for years. She is the Charles Howard Candler, professor of African-American studies at Emory University in Atlanta and the author of One Person No Vote How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy. Carol. Anderson, good morning to you.

CAROL ANDERSON: Good morning, Matt. How are you?

MG: I'm well, there is in Canada a bit of a parlour game. I think that some people play where they see these long lines in the United States and they'll ask each other here, how long have you waited to vote? And people will say 10 minutes, 15 minutes. The people here don't wait that long. Generally, some people do, but generally we don't wait that long to vote. What do you make of these hours long lines that we're seeing in Georgia and some other parts of your country?

CAROL ANDERSON: Those lines are part of the voter suppression technique. The way that it works, so like in the June primary here in Georgia, afterwards, they did a study and they found that in communities that had a 90 percent or more of the eligible voters were minorities, they had to wait 51 minutes in communities where the eligible voters, 90 percent or more were white, their wait was six minutes.

MG: How does that happen? I mean, what's going on in your say this behind the scenes that would create those disparities in waiting times?

CAROL ANDERSON: And it is the number of machines is like providing resources so that majority white precincts are basically over resource. They have more machines. They have more poll workers. They have larger spaces. So they're able to move people in and out quickly. In minority precincts, overwhelmingly fewer working machines, fewer poll workers, which is designed to create these long lines because long lines are designed to dissuade the voter from standing there. And long lines are also designed to send the signal to the broader community that voting is this thing that will make you choose between your paycheque and voting.

MG: And you believe I was just going to say you believe that that's by design, that this isn't, you know, the technology just happened to fail on that day, or what have you, that that this is done by design.

CAROL ANDERSON: This is done by design. This is done by design. There are numerous studies on this. And there are numerous studies that that really look at how do you effectively move a line through. So when you think about what happened here on Monday, what the election officials say was, well, you know, was a holiday. So there were a lot of people who were trying to vote. Well, state officials knew that October 12th was a holiday, but they didn't provide the resources to deal with that. State officials knew that people were engaged and determined to vote. We saw that with the high turnouts in the primaries and they didn't plan for that, so. And they had to know that with the increased determination and turnout that the three to four minutes that it takes to cheque in somebody because there wasn't enough bandwidth in the entry level polling place where you had to show your I.D. to make sure that you hadn't voted before in this election. They knew that going in and then it took the vendor about two to three days in order to increase the state's bandwidth.

MG: So we might raise an eyebrow here about this. But the message to those people that are voting in Georgia when they see those long, long lines is interesting. Michelle Obama was very, very explicit in saying pack a lunch, bring comfortable shoes, you know, bring it folding chair if you need to. The message, if you don't hear that from Michelle Obama is this is going to take a long time and you're going to need to make a choice, as you say, between your paycheque and casting your ballot.

CAROL ANDERSON: Yes. Yes. You know, and we've been encouraging folks to also bring their cell phone, but a battery pack, then an extra charger so that, you know, one of the lines here went for 11 hours.

MG: It was interesting. Tony Blair was going through her confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court earlier this week and was asked by Senator Amy Klobuchar about the issue of intimidating voters at a poll and was asked whether she would make a comment on that, saying whether it was illegal. She said that I can't apply the law to a hypothetical set of facts. What do you make of that answer?

CAROL ANDERSON: Oh, that was a garbage answer. And let me be more clear, one Senator Klobuchar was asking about the law, not a case, the law. And it is in the law.

MG: Under federal law it is illegal to intimidate voters at the poll.

CAROL ANDERSON: Right. And so the fact that she wouldn't even answer that basic law question and the Republican Party has been under a consent decree for like 40 years to ban voter intimidation tactics that the party had been using that consent decree that said, no, you can't do this was lifted in 2018. And since that time, the Republicans have been gearing up. So her vagueness, her deflection was really partisan.

MG: Do you think that these tactics that you have described will be successful to keep people away from the polls?

CAROL ANDERSON: No, I don't. I think one of the things that is happening because these past three and a half years have been absolutely horrific and we see how democracy in America is hanging by a thread and that the institutions that that Trump has shredded so many of the institutions and the guard rails in this democracy that people are standing up saying, we are the last guard rail and we will fight for this democracy.

MG: You would also think that these tactics. I mean, it's not just Democrats that would be affected as Republican voters as well. If the line is long, the lines long for everybody.

CAROL ANDERSON: Yes and no. So that in in districts, because precincts, they're not like statewide. So you can target- so in the June primary, for instance, well, we had five and six hour lines in a heavily diverse precinct in the [unintelligible] area in Atlanta, which is a predominantly white and wealthy area. They were in and out in just a few minutes. So you can really target.

MG: Have you voted yet?

CAROL ANDERSON: Yes, I voted. I voted absentee. And my son voted this week. He did early voting.

MG: So there was no long lines, you didn't need to pack a lunch or anything?

CAROL ANDERSON: No, we did. And we but we were ready. We had food packed. We had the battery pack. We had this comfortable shoes. We had the bottle of water. And, you know, and you think about how you have to think through those steps just to be able to vote.

MG: Carol, Anderson, it's great to speak with you. Thank you.

CAROL ANDERSON: Thanks, great to speak to you too, Matt.

MG: Carol Anderson, the author of One Person No Vote How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy.

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More answers needed after Christine Jessop's killer revealed: veteran reporter

Guests: Kirk Makin

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. It was a hideous crime that shocked the country. The murder of nine year old Christine Jessup in 1984.

SOUNDCLIP

The missing person's poster still hangs on the front window of the Queen's Ville General Store. Even though Christine Jessup is no longer missing, her body was found in the bush 40 kilometres away by a man walking with his children. Police are treating it as a murder.

MG: That case led to the years long wrongful conviction of Guy Paul Morin.

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GUY PAUL MORIN: I know I didn't do it. I did not kill Christine Jessup. It's as simple as that. And finally, as I said, DNA has exonerated me 100 percent.

MG: Guy Paul Moran was eventually exonerated in 1995 when DNA proved that he was not the killer. Yesterday, 36 years after her death, the Toronto police announced that with the help of DNA science, they have identified the real killer. Christine's brother, Ken Jessup, expressed his relief.

SOUNDCLIP

For 36 years, we'd never truly believed it would actually come about. We're relieved, we're happy to have seen closure and its just a whole wide range of emotions.

MG: Kirk Makin was the justice reporter for the Globe and Mail for decades. In 1992, he wrote a book on the Christine Jessup case called Red Rum: The Innocent. The book has become a classic of investigative crime reporting. Today, Kirk Makin is the co president of Innocence Canada and he joins me now. Kirk, good morning.

KIRK MAKIN: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Growing up when this case was around, it's hard to overstate how much of an impact it had on kids, on parents. You saw Christine Jessup's face everywhere and then, of course, the ordeal of Guy Paul Morin. What went through your mind when you heard yesterday that police had identified the killer?

KIRK MAKIN: HM: It was, in one sense expected that this was going to happen one day. They had the DNA. It felt like sooner or later they were going to link it to the right person. But in another sense, it was stunning. I'm not the only one, I'm sure, who didn't sleep last night and whose spine is still tingling that this thing is finally over.

MG: Had you ever heard the name Calvin Hoover? This is the man that police say killed Christine Jessup.

KIRK MAKIN: It had a vague ring of familiarity. And I guess it's because he came up in a very peripheral way as the husband of a friend of the Jessups. And there was massive disclosure ultimately in this case, and that would have included names like that. But he was certainly not the target of any intensive scrutiny. And so it was a shock in that sense. It was a shock that it was him. And it was a shock that he was not properly investigated. It leaves many, many questions that have not been answered by one 20 minute police conference yesterday.

MG: As you understand it, how did police figure out that this was the man who was responsible?

KIRK MAKIN: Well, they had a DNA sample from the underwear. Christine was wearing when her body was found. There was semen on it. It had been analysed several times, including in the exoneration of Guy Paul Morin when he was excluded as being the donor of that semen. They were able to send it to a lab in the U.S. That does what is called familial DNA, genealogical. And they were able to come up with sort of a family tree of people who, you know, instead of the whole world being a suspect, shall we say, based on the DNA, everybody in this baseball diamond is a suspect. So now you've got a manageable number and you can start checking them out. So the police started checking them out and they came up with this fellow and then they sent his DNA, which they had a sample of, down to the lab, and they clicked and they matched.

MG: And he died by suicide several years ago. But there had been an autopsy and a sample of his tissue was kept on file.

KIRK MAKIN: Yes. As I understand it, it was a blood sample was kept.

MG: This is I mean, the story of this, as I said, is a mind boggling one and indeed you've written about it extraordinarily in this book that's become a classic. Why did police originally believe that Guy Paul Morin was the killer?

KIRK MAKIN: Well, I think it was partly because they had run out of suspects. The investigation was, by that point, eight months old and they didn't really have anyone in their sights. And the Jessup family next door happened to mention that Guy Paul was kind of a weirdo as they saw him. And there he was across the fence. They went over to talk to him. He has an interesting way of talking, sort of a lilting, unconventional way of phrasing things at times. And that immediately made the police think, hmm. And so they were on the track. They had a couple of more interviews. Things which could be seen as quite benign, were, in fact, seen as signs of guilt. And they began to, in effect, fashion a case around him. And that's what the court system dealt with for the 10 years that followed during two trials, one of them the longest in Canadian history, where every single piece of evidence was supported by very shrewd, smart prosecutors and very shrewd, smart defence counsel trying to counteract it. And in the end, the jury convicted. So it's still stands as a debacle that in many ways defies belief and explanation.

MG: He was charged and cleared, then convicted, then acquitted in the case. I mean, as you read about and others have, in some ways points to not evidence-based decision-making, but decision-based evidence making. Is that fair?

KIRK MAKIN: KM: Yes, I think that is probably fair. There was- the phrase tunnel vision became very well known after the public enquiry into this case. Police in many, many of these cases, if not all of them, once they alight upon a suspect, the case begins to fit around the suspect and others are no longer looked at. In fact, I mean, the hell of it is that you don't look for other suspects once you have charged someone. You can't afford to have other suspects. You have to have everything focussed on the one. And that, of course, was a massive benefit to Calvin Hoover. No one was looking for him once Guy Paul Morin was in the sights.

MG: Are the guard rails now in place to ensure that what happened to Paul Moran doesn't happen to anybody else?

KIRK MAKIN: There are many guardrails in place. There were many lessons learned from this. But to a significant extent, they're not really adhered to. Tunnel vision is always going to be with us and other other aspects of this wrongful conviction and others. At Innocence Canada, we have 60 or 70 cases on the waiting list that we can't get to. It takes years to get to them. We're chronically underfunded. We don't have a federal Justice Department with an independent commission that looks at wrongful convictions. So what we have is a very patchwork, piecemeal system of trying to find out when we have ruined somebody's life and put them behind bars for countless years. And it just it just cannot be that way. And I might add, if I could that we cannot leave this case where it is now.

MG: What are the questions that you still have having studied this so carefully? What are the questions that you still have around this?

KIRK MAKIN: Well, clearly, the prime one is why was this man not a suspect? What was his alibi? What investigative steps did they go about trying to confirm his alibi? And why, after Morin was exonerated and there was a reinvestigation, why did they not go right back at him? Why were hundreds of other people DNA tested in that reinvestigation, but he apparently wasn't? And we you know, we have no answers. We just have police saying we did a great job in the past few months. And they may well have done a great job, but there was a terrible job done for 35 years and more answers have to be given.

MG: Just finally, you wonder what yesterday means for the people who you talk about lives being destroyed, what this means for the for the people whose lives were destroyed by this case?

KIRK MAKIN: Well, the most obvious ones, of course, are the Morins and the Jessups. I've spoken to Guy Paul last night, and he is extremely sympathetic to the Jessups, which is in keeping with the person that he is and has always been. But I mean, it's an unbelievable burden that he's been under all this time. His father died without ever having known that this final proof of his innocence would come to be. And as for the Jessups, what do they think when they wake up today and think that a family friend did this, and because of the incompetence of police, they've been through three and a half decades of public scrutiny and private hell. It's just defies belief.

MG: Kirk, great to speak with you. Thank you.

KIRK MAKIN: Thank you.

MG: Kirk Makin is the co president of Innocence Canada and the author of Red Rum and the Innocent. That's The Current for today. Stay tuned to CBC Radio one for Q. Before his death, the Canadian songwriter and icon Gord Downie recorded one final album with his friend and long time collaborator Josh Finlayson. Josh is one of the singer songwriters with the great Canadian band The Sky Diggers. And this morning, Josh and Gord's brother, Patrick Downey, will join Tom Power to talk about that new album. The album is called Away is Mine. It's the last thing that gaudily recorded before he died. His legacy, you think of the music across this country. His legacy is still a strong one. And you'll hear more about that coming up on Q on CBC Radio One. That's it for The Current. If you missed anything, it's been a busy week. Despite the fact that it's been a short week for some people, a lot's going on. And if you can get caught up on some of the things that we talked about through the CBC listen app, it's free. Find it wherever you find your apps. Or just go to The Current Web site, cbc.ca/thecurrent. We mentioned the Twitter feed as well, where we've posted up some recipes from Ottolenghi. If you're doing some cooking this weekend, you might find some inspiration there. But then we want you to send the inspiration back. So if you cook any of the things that we posted up, send us photos and as I say, make us hungry. Food pictures can do that. I Matt Galloway thanks for listening to The Current. Take good care. Have a good weekend. And I'll talk to you Monday.

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Friday October 16, 2020 Full Transcript

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