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The AIH Transcript for November 4, 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: Signed, sealed, delivered. With U.S. President Donald Trump baselessly accusing Pennsylvania of making thousands of his votes disappear, an election commissioner in the state tells us how she and her colleagues are dealing with that scrutiny.

CH: Herd mentality. Donald Trump dashes Democratic hopes of securing Florida's Electoral College votes. And a Republican organizer says that's because the U.S. president listened to what conservative Latinos had to say.

CO: Mixing messages. In Ontario, COVID cases are on the rise, but restrictions are being eased. And Ottawa's medical officer of health believes it's time to take a new approach.

CH: There's a 100 percent chance American pollsters will keep getting it partly wrong, which means our Democratic pollster guest will keep living in a seeing red state.

CO: Against his wishes. An Indian doctor goes public after he is subjected to a non magic trick, paying a lot of money for a lamp that doesn't contain the genie he was promised.

CH: And beet poet. A chef in Kyiv argues persuasively that borscht is without a doubt Ukrainian and definitely not Russian. Now he just needs to convince UNESCO that the soup deserves official recognition. As It Happens. The Wednesday Edition. Radio that just hopes it's not too ladle, too late.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Chef says borscht is '100 per cent' Ukrainian — and asks UNESCO to back up his claim

U.S. election: Pennsylvania Democrat

Guest: Marion Moskowitz

CH: In the wee hours of this morning, US President Donald Trump had his say, falsely claiming victory despite the votes still being counted. This afternoon, Joe Biden addressed the situation.

JOE BIDEN: Power can't be taken or asserted. It flows from the people. And it's their will that determines who will be the president of the United States and their will alone. And now, after a long night of counting, it's clear that we're winning enough states to reach 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. I'm not here to declare that we've won. But I am here to report, when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners.

CH: That was Joe Biden speaking today. President Donald Trump is fighting back in three battleground states. His campaign has filed a lawsuit to halt the vote count in Michigan, despite The New York Times calling that state for Joe Biden this afternoon. The Trump campaign is also demanding a recount in Wisconsin and in Pennsylvania, where mail-in votes are still being counted President Trump has cried foul, erroneously accusing poll workers of making his, "500,000 vote advantage in Pennsylvania disappear." State Governor Tom Wolf sought to reassure his constituents. Here's what he said.

TOM WOLF: Make no mistake, our democracy is being tested in this election. This is a stress test of the ideals upon which this country was founded and the basic rule of one person, one vote that still carries and it has to carry here. Our democracy has withstood challenges before. And for over 200 years, we have upheld and strengthened our commitment to basic fairness and due process. And I have full faith that we will similarly meet this moment. And I will do everything within my power to ensure that the results are fair and that every vote is counted. Pennsylvania will have a fair election and that election will be free of outside influences.

CH: Marion Moskowitz and her staff are working around the clock on the vote count in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

CO: Commissioner Moskowitz, do you share your governor's view that Pennsylvania's democracy is tested in this election?

MARIAN MOSKOWITZ: I absolutely do, and in so many respects.

CO: What's he referring to when he says that we have to uphold the principles of one person, one vote, resist outside influences? What is he suggesting?

MM: What he is suggesting is that we are allowed to count ballots that have come in by mail up to and including Friday, as long as they're postmarked by November 3rd at eight o'clock. And the Trump campaign is filing suits to keep us from counting those votes. In fact, the last report I have is that they want us to stop counting now, and that's just not legal. Every vote, either by going to a precinct or by mail-in or absentee ballot should and will be counted.

CO: I understand it is the case that the Republican led state legislature refused to allow counties in Pennsylvania to begin counting the mail-in ballots until the morning of Election Day. And then at the end of the day, President Trump has said that they have to stop the count because it can't go on beyond Election Day. So are you feeling squeezed between those two?

MM: Oh, we absolutely are. I mean, it's so contradictory because in one sense, they're saying they want the results by November 3rd at eight o'clock. But to count hundreds and hundreds of mail-in ballots is time consuming. No matter how much equipment you have, there is a manual labour component to it. We had 149,755 ballots returned. We have been counting in Chester County for three shifts nonstop, 62 people per shift and we are still not done.

CO: What Donald Trump says that there's something kind of fishy going on. He said, oh, don't be surprised if they find votes lying around on the floor at 4:00 a.m. Suggestions that there are nefarious things going on in polling stations like the one that you're running. What do you make of that?

MM: Oh, it's really craziness. I mean, in our instance and in most counties, we have filmed everything. We have 24 hour a day surveillance on what we're doing. We even had body cams on the individuals that were picking our ballots up from the ballot box so that everything would be able to be viewed later. This race in Pennsylvania is very secure. There are no funny games going on. There's just none. I haven't heard of any. We've had some interesting incidents, but nothing major. I did hear just about an hour ago that there was some issues with the post office not delivering mail-in ballots. And I'm waiting to see the result of that, that they found that people were withholding those ballots. And I am concerned about that. But I think we're doing very well in Chester County and we'll see how that plays out in the next two days.

CO: Can you tell us a bit more about what's happening at the post office, what you've learned?

MM: Yes, I just read just about an hour ago that there were over 300,000 ballots that are missing. The court had ordered our post office here in the United States to make sure that every ballot that they had was put forth and sent to the county administrators.

CO: Well, we'll just say that you don't know at this point, and so these are allegations and we will check back with you at some point to see if you found them to be true.

MM: We've had, like I said, little incidents that would lead me to be suspicious of the Trump campaign's methods.

CO: When you refer to these incidents that suggest that this is possible, what incidents are you referring to?

MM: Well, we had an incident in Chester County where a man came in and he voted and then he disguised himself and came in and wanted to vote as his son, then we caught him. But it was more of a test than anything. He wanted to see if he could vote twice. It's those kind of strange things like that are going on now.

CO: Going back to what you're dealing with. Do you feel some pressure has been removed from Pennsylvania now that Michigan has been declared for Joe Biden? Because before we heard Donald Trump was pressuring Pennsylvania and suggesting that was the one who's going to take to the courts. Do you feel some pressure has lifted from you?

MM: I think it helps, certainly. But I don't think it'll take the pressure off of us. And we put the pressure on ourselves, in all honesty, to make sure that this is done right.

CO: I understand you've had to put the mail-in ballots in a separate pile. Why is that?

MM: So the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has allowed us to accept ballots that have been postmarked by November 30th, 8:00 for three days after that time. So until Friday at five o'clock, we are allowed to receive and count ballots that have been postmarked timely. The Trump campaign has indicated that they think that's illegal and that that should have come from the legislature and not the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. So they appealed that decision to the US Supreme Court and it came down with a four to four split. We do understand -- we've been asked to keep those ballots segregated, counted but segregated, because we do understand that the Trump campaign is going to file another appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

CO: So those votes might be disqualified?

MM: They could be, yes.

CO: I know you told The New Yorker reporter that you've had stress, dreams and nightmares about the vote count for many months.

MM: I have. I have. Yes.

CO: What worries you most? What's your worst nightmare at this point?

MM: Well, we're getting close to being finalized on our particular vote count, but my nightmares have been that we are counting and they stop us -- they file an injunction and stop us. And there are so many legal ramifications of that. What do you do? Are they allowed to do that? This is a strange time we're living in right now.

CO: Commissioner Moskowitz, we will be watching in these days to come in your state. And I appreciate that you'd speak with us. Thank you.

MM: Thanks so much. Have a great day.

CH: That was Marion Moskowitz, the Democratic chair of the Board of Commissioners in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

U.S. election: Florida Republican

Guest: Santiago Avila Jr

CH: Meanwhile, Florida's Electoral College votes have once again eluded U.S. Democrats. Joe Biden and his team had hoped that a win there would help them secure an early victory, but that didn't happen. And one of the reasons appears to be a shift of Florida's Latino vote towards Donald Trump. Santiago Avila Jr. is with the Republican National Hispanic Assembly. We reached him in Deltona, Florida.

CO: Santiago, how does it feel to have helped secure Florida and its electoral votes for Donald Trump?

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: It feels really good. It feels really good.

CO: How do you think he did it?

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: Well, obviously, a lot of hard work. We spoke to the voters. We talked to them about the differences between the candidates and it was honestly a big push and a big team effort.

CO: The consensus seems to be that the appeal of Donald Trump was that he won over Latino Americans in Florida and was able to tell them what they wanted to hear or what they needed to hear. What was that appeal? What was the pitch?

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: The fact that under President Donald Trump, right before this COVID-19 situation, the Hispanic-Latino community was doing so good as far as business -- regarding economic development, regarding entrepreneurship. We were having an amazing year. And it's not a talking point. I mean, we had record low unemployment, so a lot had to do with the economic spirit that the president had brought.

CO: Was there not a lot of talk as well comparing Joe Biden in the campaign to socialist leaders past and present in Latin America, suggesting the comparisons with Venezuela, with Hugo Chavez, with Fidel Castro. What appeal was that?

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: There was some comparison. But Hispanics are not dumb. I mean, Joe Biden's been in politics for 47 years. You know, you just don't wake up after a career in politics like that one day and say, hey, you know, I have an idea now and now I want to implement that. You know, it wasn't only this appeal that he tends to be extreme to the left or he hangs out with extremists like Bernie Sanders or AOC. It's just the fact that 47 years in office and now you have an idea to do something. I mean, why didn't you do something before?

CO: Okay, let's just say that there were many occasions when Donald Trump could have said that Joe Biden was a socialist. Talked about him in the context of other socialist leaders and he portrayed in that way. Was that fair for the Republican campaign, for the Trump campaign to have painted Joe Biden as a socialist?

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: I mean, it pretty much was fair. I mean, some of the plans that that Joe Biden had do have socialist tendencies, you know, Medicare for all. The guy couldn't even garnish any support from the law enforcement community. Yeah, I mean, I don't see why it would not be sure.

CO: But Mr. Biden does have a history of support from police associations. There were obviously challenges in this case, but also the efforts to paint the Black Lives Matter campaign as an extremist movement was successful in Florida, wasn't it?

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: It was.

CO: And do you think that was fair?

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: Of course. I mean, look the Constitution grants us the right to peacefully assemble, to petition our government for grievances. It doesn't grant us the rights to create riots and destroy property.

CO: Okay wait wait wait, I'm not going to let you say that of the Black Lives Matter movement. There were elements, there were moments that did turn violent on both sides. But for the most part, overwhelmingly, the Black Lives Matter campaign has been peaceable, except for several times when the police have attacked it, including, if we recall, in Washington, D.C., when they were pepper sprayed as they were standing outside the White House. So a lot of cases where the Black Lives Matter campaign did have elements of violence -- we don't know where it came from, but we have to say the Black Lives Matter campaign has been, for the most part, quite peaceable.

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: That not true, I mean, I'm not trying to be disrespectful or anything, but I'm trying to answer your question that you interrupted me and then you tried to defend a different position. I mean, am I answering your questions or am I debating you?

CO: Well, I'm pointing out, when you get things wrong, when you say things that are patently false, it's my responsibility to actually do that.

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: With all due respect, that's not correct. I mean, this is the same issue that the president has with media outlets. He makes a comment, then the media tries to fact check him right there on the spot when they're incorrect and they try to portray a picture of something that we Americans know it's not true. And that's partially part of the problem that Joe Biden has.

CO: We can move on from this, but the media does fact check on spot because they have the facts and they will always correct on both sides, whatever candidate, they will correct the facts on the spot. So that is the responsibility of the media. I just want to ask you also, Donald Trump has made disparaging remarks about Mexicans. He's described them as rapists and drug dealers. He insulted a Latino-American judge. We know that his administration separated children from their parents, locked those children up. Did people in your community, did they have a problem with any of that?

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: Okay, so right there, you just made a...President Donald Trump did not lock kids up.

CO: I said his administration locked up the kids.

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: No, it was President Obama's administration that was locking up kids and built the cages.

CO: No, no, sorry it was the Trump administration that did that. The evidence is there and pictures are there.

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: No it's not. The pictures were from the Obama era.

CO: These are facts...

SANTIAGO AVILA JR: I'll tell you what, your opinions don't make it a fact, okay? If you're going to be interviewing me, you give your guests the courtesy of being able to answer a full question. So since you don't give me that courtesy, I will tell you, thank you for the opportunity. I do hope you have a great day. Have a good day.

CO: Thanks, Mr. Avila.

CH: Santiago Avila Jr. is with the Republican National Hispanic Assembly. He's in Deltona, Florida.

[Music]

Ukraine official borscht

Guest: Ievgen Klopotenko

CH: When you eat a good bowl of borscht, it might transport you to another place. But where? For some Canadians, it might be Winnipeg or Edmonton. But of course, the beet soup's origins are in Eastern Europe. And now a chef in Ukraine wants UNESCO to officially recognized borscht as part of his country's cultural heritage. Some people in Russia, however, think the soup belongs to them. We reached Chef Ievgen Klopotenko in Kyiv.

CO: Ievgen, why do you want borscht recognized as being Ukrainian?

IEVGEN KLOPOTENKO: Because I think that it should be so and it is so. We don't much dish which are really Ukrainian. Or better to say we have a lot of dishes but when USSR came to our territory, it took everything. It took our religion, took our language, and they took 90 percent of our food. And when I discovered that information, when I discovered a lot of our almost dead dishes, I found out that we should fight for our -- not fight, but okay, we should save our dishes, which are part of us.

CO: When you say we should fight and you changed your mind quickly because in fact there is fighting between Ukraine and Russia, that's taken a lot of lives. But the Russians are claiming that borscht is theirs.

IK: It's not about fighting. It's about how it is that this dish is ours. It's not Russian. But Russians, they want to take that because they think that there is no such a nation as Ukrain. You know, it's like, funny, ha ha, who is that? Ukrainian? It's just about nothing.

CO: There are, though, some people quoted since you have launched this campaign with UNESCO to recognize borsht, there are Russians who are saying that, you know, Ukrainian borscht is the best. So some Russians are admitting that this is really a Ukrainian dish, right?

IK: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it is so. And you can find a lot of historical documents. Where the Russians write down about that. But it's 100 percent that it is Ukrainian. But if Russia will recognize and will say, yeah, okay, this is Ukrainian borscht it will mean that a lot of Russians will eat something Ukrainian and then we'll understand and say, okay, now we feel that we eat something Ukrainian and Ukrain is a nation. So it's a very philosophical thing of why I want to do this.

CO: There are other nationalities, though, that think that borscht is theirs. I mean, my Polish grandmother made a mean borscht. You know, the Poles have some claim to this, too, don't they?

IK: Yeah, it's okay. But my mother made to me pizza, so what I should say [Laughter] pizza is Ukrainian? No. Polish, Russians, Latvians and I don't know, maybe a lot of Chinese people, maybe some of Mongolian, maybe some of Georgian people, they can eat borscht. And Ukrainian nation as it is Ukrainian country, we have only [inaudible]. And before that was a different country, like a big Polish country who took all our territory, then it was USSR who took all of our territory. And this is why each of them can think that when they come to our territories, they took our best dishes. Then they went from territory, but they left the best what they took. Yeah, it's like normal thing. And that's why they can say that 100 years ago, borscht was in Poland. Yeah, it was right. But in Ukraine it was much more earlier.

CO: Ukrainians also brought borscht to other places because in Canada, especially in a city called Winnipeg, where there's a big Ukrainian population, anyone who has been there knows borscht. But maybe for those who don't know the essence of this tremendous soup, what are the most important ingredients to make borscht?

IK: It's actually beetroot soup. And we should do very nice bullion from veggies or from beetroot. There is no more of the classical recipe, but what it should be intense taste of beetroot. It should be some sourness. You can put vinegar, you can put some pickles, you know, some pickled everything, pickles, you can put in the borscht. It should have some sweetness -- in Ukraine, we use honey, or sometimes we jam or sometimes just sugar. And it should have like this wooden aroma. So before these elements are should be in borscht. And in the borscht, the authentic one, we should add some beetroot -- like there is ginger beer, but in Ukraine we have beetroot [inaudible].

CO: Right. And in Winnipeg I know that people often have sour cream on top of their borscht, is that traditional as well?

IK: Half of Ukrainians say that if there is no sour cream, there is no borscht. And the other half says that we can eat without sour cream and it's okay.

CO: Do you think you will be successful in getting UNESCO to recognized borscht as Ukrainian?

IK: This is about information. One country will say that it's very Ukraine or very Russian and they will make a lot of new facts in history. They will rewrite history. It will be a very big and hard job. But the truth is on our side, because we have a lot of information. Yesterday even I found the letters of Princess Diana, they just opened yesterday and it was written that she went to South Africa and she wrote down that she wants to eat Ukrainian borscht. So there is a lot of such very interesting moments which will say that Ukrainian borscht is ours. I think we can win. We can win. But if not, we have a second way what we will do. But I don't want borscht in the whole world to call the Russians.

CO: Well, you reminded people of that great dish. And since beets are in season right now or the root vegetables, people are going to their cookbooks right now to come up with a recipe and cook traditional Ukrainian borscht. Thanks very much Ievgen.

IK: Thank you. Take care.

CH: Ievgen Klopotenko is a Ukrainian chef. He was in Kyiv.

[Music]

Genie

CH: It's a terrible feeling when you realize that you've been scammed, like when it occurs to you that the real prime minister probably wouldn't have called you to ask for 170 dollars and that the guy on the phone called himself Jason Trudeau. Or when you try to summon a genie from a very expensive lamp and nothing happens. Just imagine how doctor Laik Khan of Meerut, India, felt recently when the lamp he'd bought for the equivalent of 122,000 dollars Canadian, failed to produce a supernatural wish granting apparition despite the convincing evidence that it would. There had definitely been a genie when the two guys showed it to him. They told him the lamp and its magical resident could make him a billion dollars, even though they didn't seem to have a billion dollars themselves. Now, naturally, he was skeptical. But what sold him was that somehow, in a way, none of the news articles described clearly the two guys could make a genie seem to appear from the lamp. Unfortunately, after he bought it, Dr. Khan realized that he couldn't. Also that the so-called genie had actually just been a third non-magical guy. So he went to the police and now the two guys have been arrested. And it has to have been embarrassing but give Dr. Khan credit for coming forward. He realized the lamp was a scam because after he rubbed it the right way, something rubbed him the wrong way.

[Music]

Part 2: 'You couldn't be that wrong if you tried,' pollster says of U.S. election forecasts

Ottawa medical officer of health

Guest: Vera Etches

CH: The line graph tracking the average daily number of new COVID-19 cases in Ontario looks like a ski jump with no drop off in sight. Today, the province hit an all-time high for its seven day average, reaching 972 new daily cases. That record comes a day after the province announced that it is lifting restrictions in COVID-19 hotspots, including Ottawa, where Dr. Vera Etches is the medical officer of health. Dr. Etches wrote to Ottawa's mayor and the province, suggesting a different approach to the pandemic. In a letter she wrote, I am recommending that we learn to coexist with COVID with care. We reached Dr. Vera Etches in Ottawa.

CO: Dr. Etches what do you mean when you say that we need to learn to coexist with COVID with care?

VERA ETCHES: What I mean is we need to find a way to bring back some of the things that are important to the health of the community while we also tackle the level of COVID infection, because it's going to be here for a long time. And the methods we're using right now that involve closures, they are causing significant harm. We need to pay more attention to the potential long term effects that are happening due to unemployment, mental health challenges that we need to minimize by keeping the control measures very tight when it comes to our personal actions.

CO: So basically you want to see a better balance between risk and caution.

VE: The balance is to recognize that we can't judge how we're doing by only looking at the COVID numbers. We need to look at hospitalizations and death. We must continue to bring those down. But we also need to look at what else is happening. And there are many stories of distress. We need to make sure that those things are part of the picture. Our goal here is the whole population's health, all of these elements. And it means we continue to do the things that work to control the virus. We have to actually use masks because that will provide more protection as we get back to more of the workplaces and services that we need.

CO: Okay, so tell us in some more practical terms, what you would do differently? You say more masks, but less of what?

VE: Less closure. For example, fitness centres, older adults need to be able to do strength training to prevent falls. We need to have places for gathering for youth. We want people to be able to do that in a setting that's got some controls in it where people are using masks and they're using distance rather than gathering in a private setting without any controls.

CO: Why would it be better to minimize the contact we have with people within like a household, social gatherings within our homes, and feel more confident that we can socialize in public settings?

VE: The household and the private gatherings is where we are seeing people are too relaxed. It's driving most of our transmission. People are thinking it won't happen to them, it can't be their friends and their close contacts. But it is because that's where people are indoors, they're not wearing masks and they're within two metres of each other.

CO: But isn't it possible that if there's less COVID transmission in those public settings, it's because of the controls, because of the reduced numbers, because of the closures? It's hard to compare something that one area is closed down, the other area is open.

VE: We've only been closed recently for the last 28 days. And so the pattern of household transmission has been throughout this pandemic. And certainly it's both closures of businesses contribute to control of the virus, but it's a very high price to pay.

CO: Is it fair to say that you're suggesting that for the sake of our mental health and our social health, our social cohesion, that we need to take more risk?

VE: It's not about taking more risk. It's about proceeding to access services and to access supports with caution. We've seen it in schools, for example. People were concerned about schools opening. That's a risk. But with multiple layers of protection in place, we are able to control transmission of COVID in schools. And we know that model could be followed by.

CO: Lots of people are wondering since kids have gone back to school, that the transmissions have increased, though the kids don't get the symptoms that they're bringing them home?

VE: It is certainly possible. We saw, of course, the rise in transmission and numbers happened after school started in September. But this is about what is important for us, what are the goals for us for the next year. If our goals are the health of the population, we have heard loud and clear from parents that they need schools open. And so it is about making sure we continue with the things that are important for health. And it's not just about COVID control, though we need to do that.

CO: There are statements made in different places in Europe and elsewhere that maybe it's necessary to take the consequences of more exposure for the sake of opening things up, that maybe that's the price we have to pay. Would you agree?

VE: I believe that we're saying a very similar thing, except that it doesn't have to be either or. We have tools that we can use to control COVID transmission, and it's been done. In Ottawa, our experience is, three times we've turned the curve and so we know it can be done. I want to encourage people this is possible -- we will get through this pandemic and it will be easier on the health of the population if we can do it with a focus on what we can do so that people have hope and they have opportunities and they can see the way forward.

CO: Okay, but I still think we need to understand is whether or not you believe that we have to accept that there might be consequences, there might be infections and even deaths.

VE: I think it is fair to say with businesses open, with more activities where people have the risk of coming into close contact, we will see COVID transmission. Unfortunately sometimes that leads to death. And so it is still important for individuals to avoid higher risk settings if they are at higher risk.

CO: But what level of illness and death do you think is acceptable in order to strike the balance you're describing, in order to have this hope and openness that you think is important?

VE: Well, I think that is not for me to decide. And it is our elected officials who are accountable to the public who have set out frameworks for how to respond to the pandemic and what should be open, what should be closed. We will follow those frameworks. And I'm just arguing that we need to take into account the other things that are causing death. There are other things leading to death right now because of the situation that people are in distress and the unemployment and the violence in the homes that people are experiencing.

CO: We will leave it there. Dr. Etches thank you.

VE: Thank you.

CH: Dr. Vera Etches is the medical officer of health in Ottawa.

[Music]

Aaron Genest

CH: What would you do if you learned your neighbour was living in a very dangerous situation? Aaron Genest and others on his street in Saskatoon faced that question. A year ago, the group quietly helped a woman and her children flee domestic violence, but their efforts came at a cost. Aaron Genest spoke to CBC Regina's The Morning Edition this week. Here's part of that conversation.

AARON GENEST: We had been aware of the abuse in various ways and unable to intervene other than being ready to call the police if there was ever any evidence that was happening at the moment. So we worked with our community to make it possible for our neighbour to flee her husband with her family, and she did. And shortly after that criminal case was opened into the abuse, it was deemed to be quite terrible. And we were asked by the police if we'd give a deposition and so we did. Turns out that when you give a deposition, the person who's been accused of the crime also gets to read that deposition. And so the remaining neighbour, the man, became aware that we had been involved.

STEFANI LANGENEGGER: What happened?

AARON GENEST: This fall as his court date started coming closer, we ended up with an incident a couple of weeks ago where he came out of the property and threatened us with abusive physical threats -- if we weren't good neighbours to him, at which point we called the police.

STEFANI LANGENEGGER: What's this been like for you and your family?

AARON GENEST: So our kids don't go outside the front anymore and we don't park in the front. Basically, we're just trying to avoid anything else. So it's not pleasant. But frankly, it's been a lot less pleasant for the woman who has had to flee with her family. We're still very glad that we intervened.

STEFANI LANGENEGGER: What it did teach you this experience about what it is like for a victim of domestic violence to get away?

AARON GENEST: I was frankly shocked. There were numerous points at which if there hadn't been really solid community support and I mean, like lots of time, lots of money and courage from the community members, she would have not been able to leave or she would have had to return. She's an immigrant with poor English language skills. The abuse isolated her and made her unable to integrate or to make friends. And so she just had no resources. We had to pay for and find a hotel room for her because there were no shelters available. We had to provide her expert advice in managing her cell phone, making sure that it didn't have any spyware on it. And we had to do all of the work to find her a shelter, including marathon calling to try and find an opening. We had to work with the social workers to try and find her a longer term place. I mean, there isn't a single point where it's gone smoothly. Granted, this was a difficult situation. We have a newcomer to Canada without the cultural and linguistic background necessary to navigate the system. But for goodness sakes, I think it would be really hard for somebody who did have that background and it basically is impossible for her. So, yeah, it's shocking and upsetting.

CO: That was Aaron Genest, a Saskatoon man who helped his neighbour and her children flee domestic abuse last year. He was speaking with CBC host Stefani Langenegger on CBC Regina this week.

[Music]

U.S. polling accuracy

Guest: Chris Kofinis

CH: In the lead up to last night's U.S. election, there were a lot of warnings that things could be close, but plenty of battleground states would likely remain in play long after the polls closed. But there was also this.

REPORTER 1: The poll average is high single digits. Our NBC Wall Street Journal poll has Biden ahead by 10.

REPORTER 2: Michigan, Wisconsin...

REPORTER 3: In the latest New York Times, Siena College poll gives Joe Biden an eight point lead, 49 to 41.

REPORTER 4: Our final NBC News Wall Street Journal poll completed overnight shows Joe Biden leading President Trump by 10 points among registered voters.

REPORTER 5: New polling tells us Biden does have the opportunity for a statement map changing win.

CH: The sound of poll after poll predicting big gains for Joe Biden. And while things do look promising for the former VP, the electoral map today is not all that different. Texas state red and so did Florida and Ohio. And people mad at pollsters for getting it wrong back in 2016, they have stayed mad. Chris Kofinis is a Democratic pollster and the CEO of Park Street Strategies. We reached him in San Francisco.

CO: Chris, the last time we talked, you were feeling anxious despite polling that should have been comforting to you. How are you feeling, though?

CHRIS KOFINIS: [Chuckles] Well, I mean, I guess I shouldn't say I told you so, but I told you so. I mean, listen, you know, I've done this for a long time, and unfortunately, I think what we saw was a pretty dramatic collapse of polling and a lot of pollsters who simply failed to do their jobs.

CO: Why so? Why did they fail? How did they fail and why?

CK: I think we talked about this last time where there was this, you know, the phenomenon of the silent Trump voter. There has been a lot of debate about it. And I've seen it in my research that was real. The only question I couldn't answer was how many of them were there. So I think that was one problem. I think the other problem was I think people were assuming that a certain voter was always going to turn out to vote Democrat. And what we saw, for example, in places like Florida was Trump was over performing with Hispanics, we saw that in our polling. He was over performing with African-Americans, we saw that in our polling. And I think pollsters just ignored that reality or simply weren't doing their jobs right. You know, I have to say, as someone who does this for a living, I'm pretty upset about it because I'm tired of having to defend people in this business of mine who clearly should not be in the business.

CO: That's certainly what people are saying today, is that well we just can't trust the polling, the polling is useless in the United States.

CK: I mean, to be honest, if you listen to pollsters who polled, for example, and I'll give you two examples, Kentucky Senate race and the South Carolina Senate race. Between those two races, over 150-million dollars was spent for the Democrats. In both races, the candidates lost by about 15 points. In both races, polling showed the race either tied or close. You couldn't be that wrong if you tried.

CO: So that was wasted money.

CK: 100 percent waste of money. You know, I would say people who are in the media and people who do what I do for a living, we need to step back and stop being so arrogant and maybe start listening to people who you may not personally like their views -- like when I do focus groups. I don't agree with a lot of the people in the group, but I listen to them. I try to figure out, why do they think that way? What I don't try to do is change their minds. That is not my job. And I think what you're seeing is pollsters who are trying to change people's minds, because I cannot explain this simply by the idea that polling was off. No, this is two presidential elections in a row that were a disaster.

CO: Is it also possible, though, that the campaigns themselves are listening to the pollsters and the wrong pollsters and they shouldn't be so much because you mentioned how the pollsters had got it wrong as far as the Hispanic vote, the African-American vote, that there was trends there that the pollsters weren't picking up. And then what we've seen was the complaints that Florida was lost because the Biden campaign did not read Florida. They were reading Florida according to what the pollsters were telling them. That's a problem, isn't it?

CK: Yeah, there's no question that's a problem. There's this tendency with, you know, in consulting, we call it pleasing the client, by giving the client what they want to hear. I don't care whether my client keeps me or not. I'm going to tell them what the reality is as I can best understand it. And I think what's happened here are campaigns, and you pointed out Florida is a good example, Florida, Texas and Ohio, three states that clearly were lost long before Election Day where the Biden campaign spent money, resources and time going to instead of going to places like Pennsylvania, you know, Wisconsin, Michigan, these states were states where they were polling plus 12, plus 10. You can't be that wrong. It's not possible. I think what's happened is they tried to create this impression that there was a huge battleground like Texas was in play. Texas was never in play. You know, Ohio was in play. Ohio was never in play. You do not have a state in play, being competitive, if you lose it by eight points. So pollsters have got to start being more responsible or get out of the profession.

CO: Right. But pollsters are already saying that, well, wait a second here, FiveThirtyEight, as you know, that's a one that many people follow online. Nate Silver, who's the founder, says the polling models predicted a Biden win because they showed he could survive errors in polling. So he says that if Joe Biden wins this election, then it proves that he did survive the errors in polling. So what do you make of that argument?

CK: Yeah, it's a very convenient rewriting of history. So let's assume for argument's sake, that Nate is right. What he's ignoring and this is the convenient part of his analysis to make himself look better is that we lost -- meaning Democrats lost seats in the House, we will probably, most likely, almost certainly not win the Senate race. By any measure, this was not a Democratic tsunami. In fact, when you consider how massive the turnout was and most people would tell you, you know, that if it's a massive turnout, Democrats are always going to win big. That didn't transpire. And in every one of these, by the way, key battlegrounds, if you look at real clear politics, the average by which Biden was supposed to win, it was approaching double digit. We're going to have to wait until the next cycle to see if anybody learned their lesson. It depends on what's going on in the country. But if you think as a pollster or as an analyst that you are the smartest person in the room, you could never be wrong, you're infallible. You're going to be wrong.

CO: Well, I think this is good advice for pollsters. And also you're giving good advice for the media and for us journalists. Chris I appreciate getting your analysis today. Thank you.

CK: Thank you so much. Have a good day.

CH: Chris Kofinis is a Democratic strategist and CEO of Park Street Strategies. We reached him in San Francisco. For more on this story, visit our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Reading: How To Pronounce Knife

CH: Stories about the immigrant experience are often tinged with tragedy. Souvankham Thammavongsa knows this and there's truth to it, she says. But the short stories in her Giller nominated collection, How to Pronounce Knife, are tinged with a lot of other emotions too. After all, immigrants are also, as Ms. Thammavongsa puts it, fun and ferocious and hilarious. And so is her book. It's a lot of territory to cover, but according to the Scotiabank Giller Prize jury, the result is a collection of stories that serve as vessels of hope, of hurt, of rejection, of loss, and of finding one's footing in a new and strange land. In one of the stories, the narrator reflects on her immigrant mother's inexplicable love of American country music star Randy Travis. Reading from How to Pronounce Knife, here's Souvankham Thammavongsa.

SOUVANKHAM THAMMAVONGSA: The songs my mother loved most were by Randy Travis. My father was nothing like Randy Travis. No one noticed who he was or what he did for his living. He never used the word love or showed much sentiment. For my mother’s birthday, he gave her a few twenty-dollar bills. Not even a birthday card or plans for a night out. He thought that because he was there, that was all that was needed to show his love. He thought his silence was love, his restraint was love. To say it out loud, to display it so openly, was to be shameless. He thought it was ridiculous to be moaning about love so much. What kind of man was Randy Travis, with his health, his looks, his fame, and his money, that he should ever have anything to cry about? One morning, my mother gave me some money to buy one of those teen Bop magazines so we could find a mailing address for Randy Travis at the back of it. She brought out a card printed with a pink heart on the front, but because she couldn’t read or write English, she told me to write a note to him for her. I did not know what to write. I must have been about seven. What could I know then about the language of adult love? While she curled a few strands of her hair around a finger and broke out in small fits of giggles, I stood there, unable to decide how to even begin a sentence to him. I didn’t like how she was acting, and I was afraid of what would happen to my father if Randy Travis ever wrote back.

So I wrote, I do not like you.

My mother would never know what I had written.

I told her I’d written I love you forever and ever, just like his song.

She smiled, and then signed her name underneath.

CH: Souvankham Thammavongsa reading from her Giller nominated short story collection, How to Pronounce Knife. The winner of this year's 100,000 dollar Scotiabank Giller Prize, will be announced on Monday on CBC Radio and television. For more details, visit: cbcbooks.ca.

[Music]

Max Ward

CH: Max Ward was a trailblazer. He started his own airline in Yellowknife in 1953 with a single float plane. In a matter of a few decades, he turned that business Ward Air into the country's third largest airline. Max Ward died on Monday. He was 98. Before he came along, the Canadian airline industry was tightly regulated and travelling was not cheap. But Mr. Ward was persistent and spent years fighting to get the rules changed. In 1977, he tried to convince Ottawa to allow Ward Air, which was already selling charter flights overseas, to go head to head with his larger competitors at home. Here he is speaking with Barbara Frum on As It Happens.

BARBARA FRUM: Mr. Ward, you're coming on like a great big sport on this story. Can we examine it, please? What is it that you want to do? And who are these bad guys that are preventing you?

MAX WARD: Well, we would like to operate domestic charities within Canada.

BARBARA FRUM: Is there any country in the world that allows that?

MAX WARD: Yes. United States, for instance.

BARBARA FRUM: Where do you want to operate in Canada?

MAX WARD: We would operate basically on the more distant runs because our equipment at this time is really long haul equipment. We would operate Vancouver-Montreal, Vancouver-Toronto and Edmonton-Calgary or Montreal, Toronto and not so much the shorter runs.

BARBARA FRUM: But I can hear Air Canada executive saying, oh, good old Max Ward, all he has to do is wait till he's got a plane full and take off, he doesn't have to run people from Moncton to Halifax in the middle of the night.

MAX WARD: But that is not how charter works. We establish a schedule for flight and we operate that particular schedule without any variation. But we contour our demand and our capacity so that it works and it gets a good load factor. If there's no demand for the product, well we don't have the aircraft on there, but nor do we charge twice as much money for the transportation.

BARBARA FRUM: Well, I don't think anybody wants to defend how much it costs to fly around this country. I just wonder if your solution is truly equitable or if all you wouldn't be doing is just taking off the best part of the business and then letting the government airline pick up all the messier bits?

MAX WARD: Well, heavens no. We could do the same thing domestically as we've been able to do internationally. We could provide a low cost transportation to the leisure travel public. And we feel that there's a tremendous market out there that has not been tapped because the price of air transportation in Canada is too high. It must be remembered that the Canadian government philosophy and the Canadian government regulations respecting air transportation have been really predicated on creating an industry and not upon competition and not upon the rules of supply and demand. Now, of course, with the advent of the charters, this has come into the equation and as a result now the schedule carriers have priced themselves out of the market. They are priced themselves out of the leisure travel market. There's no way they can move into it because of their cost.

BARBARA FRUM: Mr. Ward, thanks very much.

MAX WARD: Nice talking to you.

CH: That was Max Ward, the founder of Ward Air, speaking with Barbara from on As It Happens, in September 1977. Max Ward died on Monday. He was 98.

[Music]

Part 3: HIV self-test will remove barriers that keep people from getting diagnosed: scientist

Christine Todd Whitman

Guest: Christine Todd Whitman

CH: When we spoke with Christine Todd Whitman back in September, she told us it was mind boggling to her that any Republican could support President Donald Trump in this election. And while it's not certain yet who will be the next commander in chief of the United States, anyone who was hoping for a speedy and decisive rebuttal of the president last night was left disappointed. Christine Todd Whitman is the former Republican governor of New Jersey. She's been leading a group called Republicans and Independents for Biden. We reached her in Oldwick, New Jersey.

CO: Ms. Whitman were you expecting a decisive defeat of Donald Trump?

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: No, actually, as we came to the end of the election, you could see the momentum building for Donald Trump. And as he continued to press these incorrect, is a polite way of saying, statements about what Biden would do. You could understand how people were getting scared and were reacting to it.

CO: What was the momentum based on? I mean, yes, there were the attacks on Joe Biden as a socialist, as someone who is going to destroy the economy. But what else was in that momentum?

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: The fervor that you felt. I mean, it's really interesting because the vote for Biden to a large extent, not to take anything away from the man, but it was anybody but Trump. That isn't the same intensity as people are saying, I believe in this guy, he is different than everybody else, and he's going to turn things upside down and make changes, never mind that he doesn't tell the truth all the time we really don't care. And you could see that starting to develop, which was, you know, I don't understand how people can feel that way and still vote that way, but they do. And they do.

CO: But people know exactly what they are getting with Donald Trump this time. And then they voted for him in droves. What does that say about your country that so many people voted for him?

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: Oh, it's discouraging. I'm still trying to figure out why they did, but I get it to a degree. It's because Congress has been so dysfunctional for so long that they have said, I want somebody who's just going to turn things upside down. And then they bought into the lies. I mean, the man has been lying from day one. But when you have the bully pulpit and you repeat things over and over again, they become truths and they then it's us against them. That's what a lot of people, I think, felt -- it was us against them. It was the Donald Trump, people against the nasty lying media, the Democrats, the elites. It was everybody that they don't like or they think are responsible for their problems. And they were willing to say, look, he didn't start the coronavirus, which is absolutely true, and the economy was going great before that -- and so therefore, it'll be great if he's reelected. When the truth was that he had inherited a very good economy and had let it go for a bit and it was starting to go down even before coronavirus. And his mishandling of the coronavirus has made it difficult to get the economy back, because until you get that under control, you're not going to get the economy back.

CO: So how much has Trump-ism now become part of your party, the Republican Party?

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: Right now, it's his. The Republican Party is his, except that it appears that Joe Biden is going to win this election at the end of the day. And when that happens, then there's going to be a serious rethink on people's parts. And I believe that the Trump people over time will become more of the outliers, or at least I know that there are a group of prominent Republicans and former Republicans who have every intention of trying to get the party back to the centre.

CO: Is it possible for the Republican Party to take back its movement from Donald Trump? Is it possible to reinvent itself?

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: I think so. I mean, it started as a third party. There's nothing to say that it can't do that again in a sense of reinventing itself, as it were. But it's going to take a while because Trump supporters are going to be around for a while. They haven't gone away right now. They're still fighting for this election. But it looks now more and more that they're going to lose that fight. Of course, it depends on what happens if the Supreme Court decides to take it up, if there's any way that they actually get involved in it, which I don't think they will. But I've learned you can't count anything out these days. And so it's something we have to be a little careful about that. But I absolutely think the party can reclaim what it was.

CO: And is there a place for those Trump supporters in that party?

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: The ones who aren't way, way, way off to the right, the ones who weren't the QAnon supporters, the ones who don't believe that the earth is flat. And believe me, there are those within the Trump camp. I don't think they're ever going to be happy with anything other than Donald Trump.

CO: Are you satisfied with the results in the Senate?

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: Yes and no. We fortunately didn't toss out all the centrist Republicans, I mean, Susan Collins won, and that's good because she's someone, even though she's made some choices that certainly discouraged me, it wasn't what I expected from her on some of her votes. But on the other hand, she is sensible. She's a centrist. She's someone with whom the other side can work and she can work with the other side and we need those people. My problem is that Mitch McConnell has in the past been so partisan and has indicated that that's where he's going to be pushing through a bunch of judges, and I just hope that with Joe Biden as a president, he doesn't decide that he's going to just stop everything and try to keep anything productive from getting through to give Republicans a chance, his version, winning the next cycle.

CO: You have been in politics for a while. How are you feeling today about this election?

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: Well, as I said before, I still have a hard time understanding how 60 million people could have voted for Donald Trump, have thought he was okay, that the way he is disregarded the Constitution and undermined the rule of law, that that was in any way acceptable. But having said that, I am glad to see that, in fact, it looks as if Joe Biden is going to win. There were enough of the other side who said, no, this is wrong. And in fact, it's going to be interesting to see the actual vote count because, as you know, Donald Trump was a minority president. And I suspect that in this case, Joe Biden will be a majority president, that he will have had a majority of the votes that were cast. And that's different than we've seen in a long time. And that's a good sign.

CO: We will leave it there. I can hear your voice is tired as you are. [Chuckles] And I really appreciate you found time for us. Thanks Ms. Whitman.

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN: No problem. Take care.

CH: Christine Todd Whitman is the former Republican governor of New Jersey. She also headed the Environmental Protection Agency under George W. Bush. And we reached her in Oldwick, New Jersey.

[Music]

Self-test HIV

Guest: Sean Rourke

CH: Health Canada has green-lit a tiny test that could have huge implications for HIV/AIDS. The Canadian made finger prick blood test provides results in just one minute. And maybe even more importantly, it's a test you can give yourself. Canada has lagged behind in self-testing even as the number of new HIV infections in the country began to climb. Scientists and advocates hope the new tool could help reverse that trend. Sean Rourke is one of those people. He's a scientist with the Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto and the director of a Canadian health research centre for HIV/AIDS. We reached him in Toronto.

CO: Mr. Rourke, I know you have been working to get this test in Canada for a long time. So how does it feel that it's finally been approved?

SEAN ROURKE: It's very exciting. It's a proud moment for Canada.

CO: Why is it so important?

SR: Oh, it's tremendously important. I mean, I would start by saying first that, you know, HIV treatments have come a very long way. You know, part of that, though, is to make sure people get tested and diagnosed when they're positive. There are significant amount of people in Canada that are undiagnosed with HIV. These are people living with HIV that don't know it. And they're not coming forward for testing and and for a variety of reasons. Having now a lower barrier option, a self-test, that's simple, that's safe, that's highly accurate, convenient, confidential -- it can be done at home or where you live. Just provides options for people who aren't coming forward.

CO: But this self testing, this home test has been available elsewhere for some time now. Why has it taken so long to arrive in Canada?

SR: For several reasons. But I think it's leadership. It's, you know, bringing the right people together, not just thinking about the problems and the barriers, but finding a path to bring it to market, getting the funding that's needed, the right team, building a case for why it's important and effective intervention and making it happen. And so I think that's where we stepped in. You know, our study was in three provinces and it had the data that was needed for Health Canada and the manufacturer then to be able to consider this test for license and approval in Canada.

CO: You know, it's easy to forget other public health problems when we're so obsessed with the coronavirus. But for those who remember what it was like in the 80s and 90s to lose friends, to lose family members, to see people just ravaged by this disease, that it's just so extraordinary that we have so many treatments now that we can work with it. But I understand that the HIV rates in Canada have been going up.

SR: That's correct. And it shouldn't happen in a place like Canada. So this is where we need more testing options and a better connection between health and public health and really the frontline sector to fill in the gaps of where people fall through the cracks. I mean, the key here is to get people tested and linked to care and on treatment if they're positive. But obviously, we want to keep people negative if that's the case. And so, you know, part of the work that we're doing is to ensure that, you know, through reaching out into the communities and, you know, having lower barrier options for people to get tested if they are negative, connect them to prevention services and public health, that'll keep them negative. I mean, we're hearing about that in COIVD right now, like there's these health inequities that are driving why certain populations, key populations are more at risk. We need to do a better job at filling in those gaps and making sure people have the tools they need for their health.

CO: So what does this mean -- because there are communities, as you mentioned, there are people within large cities, but also in remote communities who have very little access to the kind of testing you're describing. So what kind of a game changers is this for those communities?

SR: Well, first, I mean, it's a game changer to have it licensed, but you're right. Canada is a very vast country. How do you make sure it gets to everyone, regardless of who you are or where you live, what your background is? And so we're building a program that will be able to be accessed online for people to order a test kit, have it sent to their home or to pick it up somewhere, and then also have an opportunity to get counselling and support for that testing. And as I mentioned, intentionally linking people to care because that's so important.

CO: But you mentioned that giving people the kinds of counselling they need, because that's really been key to what those in the HIV treatment have been able to do. When people come in for tests, come in to learn if they have HIV, then you can advise them on things, you can give them information, you can help those along. So are you still going to be able to do that if people are able to just get a free test and go home?

SR: That's right. So there's a couple of programs around the world, in countries like the UK and Brazil that you can get a free self-test kit online, but there hasn't been much worked to ensure that people get access to care, to connections, to services that might be really helpful for them. And so we're doing this intentionally. But we're also recognize that people want choice. They want opportunities for deciding the intensity of that service. And as part of our program, there'll be an app. People can do it yourself, you know, use that app, to get a test kit, but actually have the right information at their fingertips to know about the counselling, the supports and the videos that might help them through it and where they can be linked to prep services to stay negative or to treatment services for HIV and then have access to care navigators, peer navigators who will help them with that support or in that assistance if needed. We're building something that's going to be adaptable and, you know, really with the user in mind. And that's something that we don't have to think about in our health system. We build it to be, you know, everyone's needs. But I think in this particular case, we want to reach those who are undiagnosed, those people who, you know, aren't coming forward because of stigma and other things. And and we want to, you know, really have the right supports in place that people will feel that that's a safe and culturally appropriate way of getting the access to the services they need in the ways that they want it.

CO: Now, what chances are that this will go a long way to helping to eradicate HIV in Canada?

SR: Well, certainly it's our plan by implementing this we're now working on bringing the second HIV self-test to Canada with these test devices with novel interventions that are very pragmatic, we can end HIV in Canada by 2025 if we bring the right people together, do the right things and get governments to work together, much like they're doing now with COVID, it's going to take some work, but we're confident we can get there.

CO: Well, it's great to get some good news on one front. Mr. Rourke I thank you for telling us about it.

SR: Thanks Carol for talking with me.

CH: Sean Rourke is the director of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research of Health Research Centre for Research in HIV/AIDS. You can find more on the story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Martinus Pool

CH: In a press release, actor Drew Barrymore says this piece is so beautiful and at first glance, you would never know that it's actually made out of recycled skateboards. How cool is that? Well, it's very cool, which is why Ms. Barrymore helped select that piece, a multi-coloured credenza as the grand prize winner of this year's ETSY Design Awards. The 15,000 dollar U.S. grand prize will be going to Adrian and Martinus, a Calgary based studio started by two brothers with an interest in carpentry and skateboards. Martinus Pool is one of those brothers. He spoke with CBC Calgary this week.

MARTINUS POOL: We knew that we were pretty well positioned just because with the fact and is really are one of a kind like show piece that is like a combination of all of our work that we, like, really feel proud of. So we knew that we sort of had a chance of winning was really surprising, especially after seeing all of the other finalists that were in it.

DAVID GRAY: Now, I have the advantage over our listeners right now in that I have a photo of thee credenza in front of me. Would you describe it for our listeners please?

MARTINUS POOL: It just looks like similar to a regular credenza, but with a tambour door, which is like a sliding door that goes around the side and back of it. And that tambour has a lot of, like, colourful vertical lines which are made out of recycled skateboards.

DAVID GRAY: Did you laser cut them? How do you stack so many skateboards in a row?

MARTINUS POOL: We basically turn this into a veneer and then make that on the front of the tambour. And so skateboards are made of seven layers of maple that are dyed different colours, and they're also different between each company. So when you cut the boards in half, you get to see those seven layers of colour. And then when we add that to the front, then cut it into the tambour and put it as the doors.

DAVID GRAY: You've turned old skateboards into a beautiful thing. How many hours does it take to build one of these?

MARTINUS POOL: About two weeks to build one of those.

DAVID GRAY: What inspired you to do this? Was this just sitting around doodling or what? How did this come together?

MARTINUS POOL: This credenza -- we started messing around with the skateboards after, there is a Japanese like fine art sculptor Haroshi who works with skateboards. And so there's a bunch of people who do it now. But anyone who might work with skateboards might have saw his work first and was like, oh, wow. So he does like fine arts sculptors. And we've sort of wanted to move into the furniture and design part of it, so that sort of where we diverged.

CH: That was Martinus Pool speaking with David Gray on The Eyeopener this week about his company's award-winning credenza made out of skateboards.

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November 4, 2020 Episode Transcript

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