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The AIH Transcript for December 01, 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: Line edits. It's been hard to get a straight answer lately about Canada's spot in line for a vaccine — so we'll ask a member of Ottawa's COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force where we truly stand.

CO: Force of nature. A young Bahamian activist who litter-ally changed a country's attitudes toward single-use plastics wins a top environmental prize.

CO: Same Page, new chapter. The star of "The Umbrella Academy" and "Juno" shares the personal news that he's transgender, and non-binary — and wants to use his celebrity privilege to help make a safer world for everyone.

CH: As It Happens, the Tuesday edition. Radio that guesses when you have ample eggs, someone needs to set an eggs-ample.

Part one: Vaccine rollout, Goldman Prize winner, organist buys Nova Scotia church

Vaccine rollout

Guest: Alan Bernstein

CH: Dr. Anthony Fauci speaking to the BBC today. Alan Bernstein is a virologist and an advisor on Ottawa's COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force. We reached him in Toronto.

CO: Alan, we just heard Dr. Fauci there. He was saying that Americans are a few weeks away from getting their first vaccines, how far behind is Canada?

ALAN BERNSTEIN: Well, I don't think we honestly know, Carol. I think we're waiting for approval of the vaccines by Health Canada, and they haven't received approval yet by any country, including the United States. But I think we can expect approval, you know, within weeks, maybe by mid-to-late December, and then we'll start to see delivery sometime in January. So we will probably be behind the U.S., but it'll be by weeks, I think, not by months.

CO: OK, so if it's January, then Dr. Fauci is expecting the first shots in December, and he actually said on CNN as well that he thinks that the majority of Americans will actually not be getting vaccines until April. How would Canada compare with that?

AB: I don't think we honestly know. I think that a lot will depend on two major factors. One is how quickly the shipments will come to Canada from the suppliers, from the manufacturers, either whether it's Moderna, whether it's Pfizer BioNTech or some other company by that time. And secondly, the logistics here in the country, we really don't know how quickly that's going to happen until it actually happens. So there are still some unknowns. We're going to have to just live with those unknowns until it happens. But I think as Dr. Fauci was saying, I think the great news, and we shouldn't underplay this, is we have two vaccines now that are giving 95 per cent efficacy in phase three clinical trials. That is a remarkable result in a blistering period of time. We went from discovering a new virus in January of this year to a vaccine in December of this year. It's remarkable. And even the most optimistic projections by scientists who know, including Dr. Fauci, back in the spring, was it would be at least two years before we'd have a vaccine. From that time, it's been less than eight months.

CO: OK, so good news about vaccines. The news people want to know is about vaccinations and when that is going to happen. And so this is why we need to clear up some things, because there's an awful lot of information out there [chuckling] that seems quite politicized. Some politicians are saying that Canada is at the back of a long line, that I think there have been lists of European countries, Asian countries that we're behind. Where are we in the line?

AB: Well, I don't know where we are in the line. I doubt if we’re at the back of the line, but I don't think we're the number one in the line. Again, the reality is, and the president of Moderna said this the other day, so I would take him at his word that we were one of the first countries to sign deals with Moderna and therefore, as he put it, we’ll be one of the first countries to get the vaccine. So when exactly that is, we'll just have to see. You know, I know there's uncertainty. I know people are anxious to get this nailed down because of the pandemic and the impact it's having on all of our lives. So, yeah, this is just another bit of uncertainty, unfortunately, but we just need to be patient.

CO: Again, another Conservative leader, Erin O'Toole, has said that Canada put, quote, all our eggs in one basket, and that was in a failed bid to partner with a Chinese company. That had we had we not done that and been more on top of things that we would have been farther ahead and being able to have our people vaccinated. Did that attempted partnership slow things down?

AB: When the Vaccine Task Force first met back in the end of May, beginning of June, one of the very first things we decided is sort of in the abstract was we were not going to put all our eggs in one basket. We were going to develop and recommend to ministers a portfolio of vaccines representing the three major scientific platforms for vaccine development, RNA vaccines, adenovirus vector vaccines like the AstraZeneca vaccine and protein subunits. So the protein subunit vaccines are so waiting in the wings. We're still waiting to get those data, which we will get soon. So our recommendations were for the six and ultimately seven different vaccines representing the three major platforms. The CanSino arrangement, I think, was unfortunate. It was held up by politics, I think. But there's obviously much better vaccines. Now, you can't get better than 95 per cent efficacy in a trial.

CO: You mentioned that seven different pharmaceutical companies approached for vaccines. A total of it looks like 358-million doses of COVID-19 vaccine of one kind or another as a kind of insurance policy to be able to whichever one is the strongest and comes out the soonest. But at the same, each time each of them has their own issues, right? With storage, with the numbers of shots you have to have. As far as dealing with Pfizer and Moderna, the front runners, are they actually in the long run, the two best as far as how we might get people inoculated?

AB: Well, [chuckling] it depends how you define best, OK? It sounds simple, but it's not. For example, we don't really know yet outside of a trial whether age matters in terms of efficacy of the vaccine. The other major variable that you really can't find out from a trial is how long does protection last? What's the durability of the vaccine? So we don't know that for any vaccine, including these two, because the trials of, you know, just completed. So the ideal vaccine would confer protection for a year or more. So the other vaccines, for example, the protein subunit vaccines which are on deck, they might confer protection for a longer, even though the efficacy might be only 90 per cent. I’m making up numbers here, just for argument's sake. So which is a better vaccine, a vaccine that gives 90 per cent protection for five years versus one that gives 95 for five months. But what we have now, these are, you know, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. So these are what we've got. We should go with them. And it's a remarkable result.

CO: Well, thank you, Alan, for depoliticizing some of this for us. It's much appreciated.

AB: You're welcome.

CO: Bye.

AB: Bye-bye.

CH: Alan Bernstein is the head of the research organization CIFAR, and an advisor on Ottawa's COVID 19 Vaccine Task Force. He was in Toronto.

[Music: Carnival music]

Goldman Prize winner

Guest: Kristal Ambrose

CH: In most of our lives, sea turtles are, at best, secondary characters. But in Kristal Ambrose's life, a sea turtle played a central role. And vice versa. Ms. Ambrose was a high school student in the Bahamas working at an aquarium, when she took part in a two-and-a-half day operation to get plastic out of a sick sea turtle. She vowed then and there never to litter again. More than that, she became an environmental activist — successfully campaigning to ban single-use plastic in the Bahamas. Now she's been awarded a Goldman Environmental Prize. We reached Kristal Ambrose in Malmo, Sweden.

CO: Kristal, first of all, big congratulations on winning the Goldman Environmental Prize.

KRISTAL AMBROSE: Thank you so much.

CO: You decided, as I understand, to become an environmentalist, thanks in part to a sea turtle. Can you tell us that story?

KA: I always knew I wanted to pursue marine science ever since I was little. You know, growing up in the Bahamas, growing up around the ocean, it sparked curiosity of wondering what was beneath the blue. So in my career, when I worked in an aquarium, it was a sea turtle who had ingested plastic. And we called in the marine vet, and he went in and had to go into the rectum of this turtle and remove all of this plastic. So my role was to hold down the front flippers while this procedure was being done. And just the agony and pain on this turtle's face really pushed me to not litter because we pulled out plastic candy wrappers and fragments and, you know, strips of plastic bags. And it was just like, jeez, I throw mint wrappers on the ground all the time. So seeing that really connected me to the fact that, all right, plastic has a negative impact on animals, especially the ones that I love and that I work with. And it wasn't until some years later that I went on an expedition to the garbage patch, the Western garbage patch, and I saw firsthand what plastics were doing to the ocean.

CO: Describe what you saw, please.

KA: So for about 20 days, we sailed from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific to Japan to study the Western garbage patch. And this area of the ocean had been surveyed in nearly a quarter of a century. And while we were out there, we were isolated from land, from other vessels, from airplanes. And it was just us, wildlife and waste. And we came across something called a netball, which is a huge conglomerate of plastic fishing nets and ropes and different plastic fragments. And looking through that and seeing things like the toothbrushes and the combs and plastic forks, I realized that these are all things that I use in my everyday life. And it was then when I had the realization that I was a huge part of the problem. I was the biggest plastic offender that I knew. And equally so, I could be a part of the solution.

CO: At what point did you realize that your home, the Bahamas, was suffering a kind of double whammy, that not only you and others had these habits [chuckling], but that you were because you're in the ocean, you're islands, you could see the garbage of the world? That you were getting from both ends.

KA: Right, it was definitely after that expedition, which is around 2012, and once I got back home, I realized the narrative of locals polluting the beaches wasn't entirely true because you could go to any isolated beach in the country, and it would just be slammed with different types of plastic and other marine debris that washed in from a foreign source.

CO: You are Black. You come from a working-class family. You said elsewhere that when you began to campaign against single-use plastics and plastic bags that somebody mentioned to you, you've been around white people too long. What was the message there?

KA: Well, at the time, I worked at an environmental organization that was predominantly the majority of people, there were white Americans, you know? And they were all eco-friendly and, you know, planet-based. So the idea on the island was that if you are a Bahemian working there, you will start to adopt their ideals, so that was the idea that you've been around those white people too long, come back to what we do as locals. So that's where that came from.

CO: And what was your answer?

KA: No, I haven't. This is a problem that I've witnessed, I'm from this country, this is my island, and I have a stake in protecting it. Why does it have to be a Black or white issue? It's an environmental issue.

CO: When did you begin your campaign against single-use plastics? Just tell us a bit about that, your efforts to try and get the Bahamian government to actually ban those kinds of plastics?

KA: So everything started by doing the research first and understanding how plastic was moving over space and over time. And through that research, it was all citizen science-based. So I got our local students to come to the beach with me and collect this data. And there was there where we created the movement. So from there, every summer, I would host these free summer camps or plastic pollution education. They would be at the centre of being solutions. And then we started working on the policy change. And that turning point was seeing that other countries in the Caribbean were enacting these bans. It was something that was happening globally. We had the data to support it. We had the education strategies. And these young people who are from the Bahamas, whose voices are often unheard, they finally get a seat at the table. So for them, they felt, heard and seen and proud to be a part of history, you know, something historic.

CO: So, you inspired them. But I'm wondering, how do you keep your spirits up? How do you keep from feeling overwhelmed? You've seen that Western garbage patch. You see countries of the world, including Canada. You went to Dalhousie, so you know that there's push back all the time against these rules or laws to try to limit these single-use plastics? How do you keep your enthusiasm?

KA: The children, the youth, they are the ones that keep me going, and they're the ones that remind me that more than anything, this isn't just my fight, you know, this is our fight and that I'm not in this alone. Also, they're the ones that keep me sparked. And when I'm at my lowest, you know, I get a call saying, Miss Kristal, I have an idea. We should do this! They are the ones that really keep me going.

CO: Well, it sounds like you are their inspiration as well, and you are an inspiration, Kristal. It’s great to talk to you. Thank you.

KA: Thank you so much.

CO: And again, congratulations.

KA: Thank you.

CH: Kristal Ambrose is the founder of the Bahamas Plastic Movement and one of this year's winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize. She was in Malmo, Sweden.

Q/UQ: Elliot Page and his mission

Organist buys Nova Scotia church

Guest: Xaver Varnus

CH: Xaver Varnus just bought a house in Brooklyn. And by Brooklyn, I mean Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. And by a house, I mean a church. Mr. Varnus has been called the Glenn Gould of the organ. The Canadian-Hungarian organist is known for performing the works of Bach in massive cathedrals in Europe. And given his vast experience in vast rooms, it had to be the right church, and the right organ. We reached Xaver Varnus in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia.

CO: Xaver, how are the acoustics at your new home?

XAVER VARNUS: Actually, it's quite unique because the church was made in the 19th century, but the form is very unique. I never saw anything like this like in the Old Castle. So we have some kind reverberation. So it's very good for the organ because you can hear everything very clearly.

CO: What led you to buy a church?

XV: Actually, I was just looking for some place in Ontario with a bigger room to make my organ room there. And somehow, on the Internet, I found this church. This time recalled me one of my old memories, because 25 years ago, I had a very nice friend here in Nova Scotia. His name was Bob Stead. He was the mayor of the city of Wolfville. And actually, he tried to seduce me to move to Nova Scotia. But 25 years ago, I was too young for Nova Scotia.

CO: [laughing] And now you're at the right age for Nova Scotia?

XV: Yeah. [CO chuckles] Yeah, because, you know, Nova Scotia is very Victorian. I think here in Nova Scotia, Queen Victoria is still alive. Old ladies in the streets, all the way of the conversations are very Victorian. But now this is perfect because somehow, at the base of my spirit, I think I'm an old Victorian lady.

CO: So you're a world-renowned organist, in case people don't know that. And you bought this church to play the organ. Did it come with an organ?

XV: No, actually, not. This church never had any pipe organ before, but at the time when I bought the church, I was putting some kind of question for the organist Facebook Association of Facebook. And I asked, do you know any organ for sale in Canada? And just in 30 minutes, I got the answer that, yes, in Nova Scotia. So I said I'm the luckiest person on this earth because the new organ and the church distance was no more than 100 kilometres. So I was very lucky about that.

CO: So the First Baptist Church in Truro is where the organ came from, is that right?

XV: Yeah. And on the same night, I called to the music director, can I have your organ to buy? She was so surprised because she was not expecting that night that someone is coming and buying the organ, you know.

CO: But this is not just any ordinary organ. This is a pipe organ — 3000 pipes, some of them huge pipes.

XV: Actually, the biggest pipe is nine feet, and the smallest is only three millimetres.

CO: OK, now I want to know the moment when it was installed, you're in your church, you sit at the keyboard. What was that moment like when you struck the keys?

XV: It was magical. Somehow, it was the same like when Mary Poppins is coming back to the Banks family.

CO: [laughing] This is a strange analogy. But so that was the magic moment. Why is it so special? Like, you play in cathedrals, you play for huge audiences, and there you are alone in a small-ish wooden church in Nova Scotia, rural Nova Scotia. What was different about that experience?

XV: Because it's my organ and my church, and somehow that is completely different because I was more emotional with this.

CO: Was it a spiritual moment?

XV: Yes, of course, of course. For many years I lived in Leipzig, in Germany, where is the grave of Bach in the St. Thomas Church. When you're playing on the organ in that huge almost cathedral, and you know that the remains of Bach is only 15 metres from you, that's a very magical moment as well. But I can say that when I first played here, on that night, I felt that Bach here.

CO: We're going to play some of you playing Bach. Can you just strike a chord for us if you can because I know you're there. Just to let us know what it sounds like.

XV: OK, but then I have to go to the other side of the building. OK, I try to make some kind of sound for you. [sounding out of breath] I have only two kilometres left. [CO laughs] OK, now I'm in the church. OK, I'm here. Can you hear me?

CO: Yes!

[Music: The national anthem on an organ]

XV: So?

CO: [laughing] I wasn’t expecting you to play the national anthem. It felt like a hockey game, actually! [laughing]

XV: No!

CO: Now, what does it look like? You’re in your church now, look up and tell me what it looks like inside your church?

XV: Actually, the church is very tall. Just over the organ, there is beautiful stained glass window. And on the side of the church windows, I can see the ocean. You know, this is one of the most amazing thing.

CO: You can just go there anytime you want to, it's your church?

XV: Yes, of course. Sometime during the night, I wake up and I coming down. No one is controlling me anymore. Because, you know, in my childhood, it was quite difficult to go to practice to some churches in Europe because we have always dressed up to go to the church, ask for the key from the priest or the minister, or we have to argue with some old Catholic nuns who were responsible for the church. And they always said, oh, you paying organ so loud, we can’t live here. So now I'm alone and I can play as loud as I like.

CO: I understand you sometimes show up there in your pajamas.

XV: Yeah, sometimes I bring in pajamas, of course, but there is not any rule that we have to play Bach only in tuxedos. So fortunately, I could bring in any other dress like that.

CO: And, of course, we know that with all the restrictions, with COVID, I'm sure the entire community wants to just pack in there and hear you play. When will you be able to have a performance for your fellow villagers there?

XV: It's very beautiful that almost every day, five, six, sometimes ten people are knocking on the door. Everyone was so excited when the organ came here, you know, it was almost like some huge accident because a great crowd came around the church when the organ arrived. Even the people who were more interested in rock-n-roll or pop music before, they here almost day-by-day, and they are asking different Bach pieces to play.

CO: That is so wonderful.. Well, Xaver It's a fabulous story. And I think you'll get lots of people showing up there to listen and see your church. And it's good to speak with you. Thank you.

XV: Yeah, thank you very much. Thanks.

CO: Take care.

XV: We reached Xaver Varnus in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia.

Part two: SCOTUS chocolate child labour, British village pubs

TC: Yes, back in the time that they were child slaves, this was, like, from 1999 to 2002 or so, things were even more brutal in this industry than they are now. All of the kids were trafficked by false representations. They were told they were going to be getting a very good job. They were going to get paid. And then, when they arrived in Cote d'Ivoire, they were taken to plantations in the middle of nowhere. And then they were prohibited from leaving, and they were literally slaves. Three of the six were beaten severely for trying to escape. One of the six had the bottoms of his feet slashed with a machete and had pepper rubbed in it to punish him for trying to escape. They were regularly beaten for not working fast enough, even while they were sick. So this was real slavery. They all emerged very scarred when we first met them. They were afraid of everybody. But I'm happy to say that today, they're thriving and have really, really done well for themselves, particularly in the context of Mali.

CO: That’s certainly what I witnessed when I was investigating it. But as far as you know, does the practice continue to this day of forced child labour, slave labour in the cocoa trade in Ivory Coast?

TC: Absolutely. I was last there in 2019. I have recent photos from that 2019 trip of kids that I interviewed from both Mali and Burkina Faso who were trafficked. And now, however, when they get there, they take them again to the middle of nowhere. The kids don't know where they are. They speak a different dialect. They're not using such visible punitive measures anymore. They're essentially telling the kids, you either work or starve. And usually, the kids will work for two or three years, ‘till they figure out how they're going to get back home. The U.S. Department of Labor funded a report by the University of Chicago. They revised their estimate based on pressure from the governments of Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana. But they admit still that there's one-point-six million child labourers. And unfortunately, they don't try to distinguish forced versus just normal abuse of child labour. But it is still a very common phenomena. And every time I go there, I meet more kids who are trafficked.

CO: There's, of course, so much evidence now. It’s so well-documented. The big chocolate companies, like the ones in this case, Nestlé and Cargill, they don't deny that this is going on, but they say it's not their fault. They are just buying cocoa from farmers, and they're not responsible for how that cocoa comes to be. Just want to play a bit of what the attorney for for the companies said. This is Neal Katyal. And this is what he had to say in court today.

NEAL KATYAL: The claim plaintiffs bring alleges something horrific. That locaters in Malawi sold them as children to Ivorian farms where overseers forced them to work. The defendants are not the locators, not the overseers and not the farms. Instead, they are two U.S. corporations, Nestle USA and Cargill. The plaintiffs do not allege that these two owned or operated any farms, and they do not allege that the companies bought anything from farms that use child labour. Instead, the companies are an afterthought, a few of 101 paragraphs in their complaint.

CO: All right, that's the argument from Nestle and Cargill. What do you say to that?

TC: The answer is very simple that the fact is. First, we don't allege that Nestle or Cargill sent over an employee to in any way traffic and move these kids over to force them as slaves to work. What they did instead is they're essentially paying other people to do their dirty work in setting up this system. But I think the most important aspect of the facts that Neal Katyal declined to go into is that there is a system of cocoa production that is dependent on child labour, that Nestlé, Cargill, Hershey, Mars, they all set up the system. They have known cooperatives they deal with that have known farmers that have been in the system for years. And they would not exist if these companies had not set them up in such a way as to create a regular chain of production so that the companies get their cheap cocoa that is produced by children. And if we're fortunate enough to return to the trial court, we're going to prove with facts we already have that this is a system that it depends on the support and participation of these large companies.

CO: And they can trace the beans back directly to the farms where the abusive practices are taking place?

TC: Absolutely. Absolutely. And the other great lie that they tell is that their participation in the Harkin–Engel Protocol, which they all joined back in 2001, where they promised the Congress that if you don't pass a law that prohibits the importation of our cocoa, we will voluntarily comply with Convention 182 and stop using the worst forms of child labour. They initially promised to be done by 2005. So 2005, we sued them. And they've since extended their own deadline three times. And now it is the year 2025. And so what they've cleverly done is legalized child slavery because they're admitting they're using it and they're promising they're going to stop. So in the interim, they're allowed to do it.

CO: Over the years since this was revealed, these abuse of child child labour practices, there have been efforts to pass laws in Congress, in the U.S. Congress, to get the companies to stop the practices. Those restrictions were watered down and left up to the companies themselves to police. They have very strong lobbyists, don't they, in the cocoa industry. So what are you up against? I mean, you’re taking this to Supreme Court, what are the chances that you could actually be successful?

TC: Well, unfortunately, our Supreme Court is the most conservative court that we've had since 1934. A solid six-to-three conservative majority. So it's going to be difficult. But I think the argument went very well. I think that at least some of the conservative justices, I think they stepped back and said we can't be the court that legalizes child slavery for corporations. That's just too much. That's too far to go to help corporate America out. So that's our hope, is that some humanity will emerge from this. But you're absolutely right generally that when Nestlé and Cargill appealed to the Supreme Court, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Council for International Business, all of the global cocoa associations, they joined Nestle and Cargill in saying this lawsuit should not go forward. That is mind-boggling to me that they're afraid that if they are going to possibly be held responsible if there's child slavery, that they'll fail that test, that they know that they're using child slavery. You think that at least a couple of companies would say, yeah, child slavery is wrong. We will join with the plaintiffs here and make sure that anyone who uses child slaves will be held responsible, but instead, they all banded together to try to kill the law.

CO: We will be watching this case as it goes through the courts. And it’s good to talk to you. Thank you.

TC: Thank you. Good to talk to you, Carol.

CH: Terry Collingsworth is one of the lawyers representing a group of six plaintiffs who were trafficked out of Mali as children to work on Ivorian cocoa farms. We reached him in Washington, D.C.

British village pubs

Guest: Steve Callaghan

CH: Over the years, the village of Stonesfield, England has seen its pubs slowly disappear — sold, turned into homes, or redeveloped. Until there was only one. And then, a few months ago, the White Horse pub was put up for sale for 395-thousand pounds. Well, some community members are keen to prop up the bar. So they're fundraising to try to save the pub, by offering people a chance to own a part of it. And they've just extended their deadline after a surge of new support. Steve Callaghan is the chair of the Back the White Horse campaign. We reached him in Stonesfield.

CO: Steve, just how close are you and the others to actually being able to save the White Horse Pub?

STEVE CALLAGHAN: Well, we are doing really, really well. It's beyond our expectations, really, how the community has got behind us. And we've had share sales from 600 people now who have bought shares in the pub, which is amazing. Not all of them from Stonesfield either. [chuckling] We started having sales from all around the world, which is unbelievable.

CO: And you're trying to... the price, the sale price of the pub is 395-thousand pounds, which is about 686-thousand Canadian dollars. So that's a lot of little shares.

SC: That’s right.

CO: And you're selling these shares for 50 pounds apiece, right?

SC: That's right. Yes, 50 pounds apiece. So we started there. But we've got some people who are spending tens of thousands of pounds on shares. So we've got a whole range.

CO: Wow! How much money have you raised, do you think?

SC: Well, we've raised a good amount. We’ve round out the asking price now, but we've got, as I say, still a long way to go. There'll be other expenses with all the legal fees, and we've got taxes here to pay. And also, any work that we want to do on it. We were planning to stop the share sales yesterday, but we've actually extended that on through Christmas, and we're hoping to get the rest of the way.

CO: Why is this so important to you and the others to keep this pub as a pub, to keep it open?

SC: Well, we feel that every village needs a pub. It's the hub of the community. It's where people go and get together. If you don't really know anybody in the local area, you can go to the pub, and you’ll bump into somebody and meet people that way. And people go there after they've done things like if they're playing a sport or amateur dramatics or anything that goes on in the village, the natural thing after that is to go off to the pub to have a debrief.

CO: And a pint! [laughing]

SC: And a point, of course! So, it's very important.

CO: Okay, so also there are those real estate reports that actually real estate values of a village go down when you lose the pub. So that's an important part of it.

SC: Well, that's very true because there are lots of villages around here. And that when you go and look, I know I remember myself when I first came and looked at this village 25 years ago when I moved here, you look for the pub and the school and a shop. And if a village is missing any of those things, it's quite a big thing. You know, if you run out of milk, you don't want to not have a shop. If you've got kids, you want to send them to the local school. And if you want a good community, you need a pub.

CO: There are, though, British pubs closing everywhere, right? they’re up for sale. They're being made into condos or levelled for other kinds of buildings because they're usually in pretty good locations. And so I know that the pandemic has certainly cut into business. But why are the pubs failing in Britain?

SC: Well, the trouble is, a lot of pubs are now owned by “pubcos” — they’re called pub companies. And they charge a big rent, and they also charge a lot of money for the beer, which they insist that the pub company sells them their own beer at an inflated price. So a freehold like the one that we're buying, we can go anywhere for our beer. We'll be able to buy the beer from the same company cheaper than their own tenant's could, which seems crazy.

CO: Now, you're confident this sale is going to go through. Just the New York Times did your story, the story of this pub on the weekend said that the pub owner, John Lloyd, didn't think that you were going to raise the money and he already had a buyer, and he was ready to go with this with a property developer. So you're confident that John Lloyd is going to sell you this pub?

SC: Well, we're hoping he is. If we can raise the money, then any property developer who wants to buy the pub would have a problem. Because he would then not be able to prove to the council that the pub was no longer viable, which is a requirement if you're going to have a change of use. So if you've got a pub and you want to change it into a house, you have to say, well, this pub doesn't work. Nobody wants to buy it. They can no longer do that. So it is quite a difficult thing to change the last pub in the village, in any village into houses.

CO: What's the White Horse like? Can you describe it for us?

SC: Yeah, it's an old building. It's been serving beer since 1853. The oldest parts of the building are probably older than that. It's a stone-and-brick-built building. It's very traditional, but it's a lovely old place, a bit tacky, needs a bit of work, but we're all very fond of it.

CO: What are your memories of going there, I guess, for a pint after work?

SC: [chuckle] It's more than that. I've been to so many parties that people have had, you know, big birthdays there. There's been music in there, fantastic times. And in the summer in the garden, there's been live bands in the garden. There's a lot of light music and folk music and that sort of thing. It's a lovely place to be.

CO: What do you think it's going to be like if, and I’m going to say if or when, you actually acquire the White Horse, what's that reopening going to be like?

SC: Oh, [bright laughter]I think we're at the moment, thinking that we're going to need a bigger pub [CO chuckles] because we have so many people involved in it now.

CO: What are you planning? What's the party, do you think, going to be like on your opening night?

SC: Oh, I'd say messy. Messy, Carol. [CO laughs] That's what it's going to be like.

CO: [both chuckle] And there's a local band called The Village Idiots, so I suppose they'll be performing?

SC: Oh, we hope so. Yeah, got to have the Village Idiots there, yeah. They’re a really, really good band.

CO: Well, best of luck to you then.

SC: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on, Carol.

CO: Bye.

CH: Steve Callaghan is the chair of the campaign to save the White Horse pub. He was in Stonesfield, England. If you want to read more about the fight for the White Horse, go to our website, at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Electronic]

Scotch eggs

CH: It's not just about being a good egg. It's about whether you can serve certain kinds of good egg as well. The U.K. is about to institute new COVID rules. Basically, there will be three "tiers" of lockdown. About 60 per cent of the country is in the middle, medium-danger tier, Tier 2. And under Tier 2 rules, pubs can only serve alcohol alongside a quote-unquote "substantial meal". Which has led to a surprising amount of discussion about one meal in particular: hard-boiled eggs covered with sausage meat and fried. Otherwise known as Scotch eggs.

HOST: Do you a Scotch egg as a substantial meal? There does seem to be a degree of debate about this.

MICHAEL GOVE: A couple of Scotch eggs is a starter, as far as I'm concerned. [Host laughs] But I do recognize that there is a pickle on the side.

HOST: A side salad as well, sir? [chuckle]

MG: But there is a --

HOST: Would you like to see the wine list? Sorry, do go on!

MG: [both chuckle] But to be serious, there is a well understood definition of what a substantial meal is. If you're taking your nephews, nieces, your sons and daughters, and they’re 16, 17, out to the pub, they can have an alcoholic drink provided it's with a substantial meal. So it's already a definition of law.

CH: That's Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister with Boris Johnson's Conservative government. A man you'd imagine would provide total clarity on the new Tier 2 lockdown rules. And a man you really wouldn't imagine ever having eaten a Scotch egg, let alone two. Well, wrong on both counts. First: he's not great on the total clarity part. And second: he eats Scotch eggs for breakfast.

REPORTER: Is it a substantial meal.

MG: A scotch egg is a substantial meal.

REPORTER: It is a substantial meal, even though some people would say it’s a bar snack?

MG: Well, I myself would definitely scoff a couple of Scotch eggs if I had the chance. But I do recognize it is as substantial.

CH: You may have noted a contradiction there — insofar as Mr. Gove said two opposite things. In the first interview, the Scotch eggs were "starters", and therefore not a "substantial meal". And in second interview — given 45 minutes later — that Scotch eggs are unequivocally a substantial meal. Yeah, it's just Scotch eggs. But the confusion over that starter, or substantial meal, is now symbolic of the U.K.'s COVID strategy. So to pub owners — and to the general populace — the British government's lockdown policy is starting to seem less hard-boiled — and more scrambled.

Part three: Old poinsettia, Rome artifact returned

Old poinsettia

Guest: Frankie Allison

CH: On yesterday's program, we told you about a Montreal couple whose sad supermarket poinsettia has blossomed into a plant so large they can't get it out of their house. Which brought to mind Frankie Allison and his poinsettia. Mr. Allison's late wife Maxine won it in a radio call-in contest over two decades ago. A few days later, Maxine died suddenly. Through his grief, Mr. Allison tended to the plant — which has unexpectedly thrived. We reached Frankie Allison in Halifax.

CO: Frankie, how is your poinsettia doing?

FRANKIE ALLISON: My poinsettia is doing good.

CO: How big is it?

FA: It’s five-foot because I cut it down. It’s five-foot-two high, and it’s about 12-by-nine around. [CO laughs] So I got it on four wheels now on a dolly. It was too hard to move.

CO: Does it fill up the room? I mean, how much space does it take up?

FA: Oh, it takes up a lot of space. I was thinking about putting it out in a bay window, but they said, you got to watch out putting it in a bay window because they can leak.

CO: Right, right. And I guess you wouldn't be able to see out your window if you put it there?

FA: Oh, I can’t see out the window now anyway. [both laughing] when I'm laying on the chesterfield, you can’t see out that window because I got it right in the picture window.

CO: Now, how have you done it? Because usually, we just talked about this last night. Most of us who get poinsettias for Christmas or whatever, they just end up in the trash after New Year's. What's your secret?

FA: Now, I had mine out in the Halifax feed, and they said this must be an odd one because it's like a apple tree limb. If you put it in water, you can put it in water for days, it won't grow. But put it in water for a day and then you just go and put it in ground. Because my niece, my two nieces, they got one about two feet high now.

CO: Wow!

FA: And they only took a piece that only was about five inches. And they started in a pot, and now they got big ones now.

CO: So you've taken some cuttings from it and shared it with your family?

FA: Yes. I should try to sell some. [both laughing]

CO: Now, it sounds like you're thinking it's the poinsettia that is the reason why. So are you doing anything special to keep this plant thriving?

FA: No, no, I don’t put anything on it. Just food plant and water every two or three days. But other than that, I don't do anything else, just keep it in the sun.

CO: When did you get it? How old is the plant?

FA: It'll be 24 years old. We got it Christmas Eve 24 years ago, and my wife passed away Boxing Day, she only lived two days.

CO: I'm sorry to hear that.

FA: Yeah

CO: And what's the story? How did you come to have the plant? How did she get the plant?

FA: Well, she used to play on the contests on the radio. And she won it. Like, they give away prizes, and she wanted on Country 101 with Denise Sedley.

CO: What was the contest?

FA: I forget now, but whatever it was, she won the plant, and we went in Halifax and picked it up at the flower shop. And after a while, like I say, Boxing Day, she was down in the basement washing ‘cause I had to go to work on the next day, and she just took a heart attack, and she didn't even fall. Well, she had a old ringer washer. She didn't like the new ones. And yet when I went down the basement, her head was against the washing machine. She didn't even tip over anything.

CO: Wow, Frankie. I'm sorry. Her name was Maxine?

FA: Maxine, yeah, it was ten in the family, now with only one left. One sister left.

CO: When you look at that plant, it's now it's now in bloom, I presume, is it?

FA: It's starting to turn red. By Christmas, it should be pretty red, quite red.

CO: And when you look at it, when you see it in bloom at Christmas, what comes to mind for you about Maxine?

FA: Well, I always think I wish she was still here. That's one thing. Yeah, that's the way it goes today. You never know when you're going to leave here.

CO: What was she like, Maxine?

FA: Oh, she was nice. Yeah, we used to love to go fishing. She loved fishing. I get up in the morning, 4:00, 6:00, we'd be back in the lake fishing. [warm chuckling] So I miss that.

CO: And did she like Christmas?

FA: Oh, yeah, she liked Christmas too, yeah. Yes.

CO: So what would she think? What would Maxine think of this plant if she could see it?

FA: Oh, she’ll say that this is amazing plant lived that long. ‘Cause like you said, they only live sometime after Christmas for a couple of weeks. But we had it after she passed away, I guess, about two or three years after, I put a Christmas tree up in the window and I put the poinsettia in the corner. About two weeks, they start to die. So I keep it right in the picture window. I don't even have to close the curtains for me. [ both laughing] Yeah. So I have no problem. I got to get on a bench to water it. [CO chuckles] Yeah, it's quite the plant.

CO: I understand some of your friends have told you they think that Maxin’s spirit might be helping it thrive?

FA: Yeah, it's still there. Yeah, it could be. They say she's still with me. That's what everybody say that comes in.

CO: So it must be lovely to have that at Christmas in bloom?

FA: Oh, yes, it is, yes. I'm going to put some tree lights on it to hold it up, ‘cause the leaves and stuff has falling over.

CO: Well, I hope you have a great Christmas, Frankie, and thanks for telling us about your plant.

FA: OK? And you too. Whereabouts are you?

CO: Toronto.

FA: Oh, you’re in Toronto? I got two cousins up there.

CO: All right. Well, tell them you're going to be on “As It Happens” tonight.

FA: OK.

CO: All right. Thanks, Frankie.

FA: OK, then. Bye.

CO: Bye.

CH: Frankie Allison talking about the poinsettia won by his late wife, 24 years ago this month. We reached Mr. Allison in Halifax.

[Music: Ambient instrumental continues through update]

Update: Arecibo telescope damage

CH: How the mighty have fallen. Last week, we told you that the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico was being shut down. Two cables that hold the instrument platform suspended over the huge reflector dish snapped recently. And the National Science Foundation, which owns the observatory, decided it had become too dangerous to remain in operation. But among the scientific community, especially in Puerto Rico, there was still hope the observatory could be saved. Then, early this morning, that 900-ton instrument platform collapsed, crashing down onto the reflector dish, and crushing much of that hope. A scientist who lives near the site described the sound of the collapse as like a tremor or an avalanche. And waves of grief rippled across the scientific community on social media. The Arecibo Observatory — the site of firsts in planetary discovery, astrophysics, asteroid detection, and attempts at communication with alien civilizations — had been in operation since 1963. It was 57 years old.

FOA: New Zealand WorkSafe

JM: Tourism operators, it's incumbent upon them to make the decisions, and to relay that risk to the tourists. We know with these types of stratovolcanoes, they’re capable of unleashing steam-driven eruptions within the space of a few minutes.

CO: So what would it have been like? You've been there. I mean, obviously, you weren't there when something like this happened. But can you describe what you think it was like for people who were there?

JM: Terrifying is what I'd say, you know? Just in the normal fence, I mean, I've described the island it's sort of like stepping onto the set of an old science fiction movie or some weird kind of alien moonscape. You know, there’s dramatic sulfur yellows and the iron reds and you've got bubbling streams. And a crater lake that usually is about as acidic as battery acid. When this happened, all I can imagine is there would have been this giant wet current of ash, you know, a hurricane basically of wet ash and particles that this would have blew out. And for those people that were near the vent, I'm sure this would have been an instantaneous event. For those people that were further away from it, they would have basically seen this giant column of ash. And they would have heard this bang, and seen this thing radiating quite quickly from the blast zone.

CO: So what happens now? What kinds of questions will the government be facing, and tour operators be facing, in the days to come?

JM: There will be questions over whether tours to this island can continue, given that this eruption demonstrated the fact that events can play out in a matter of seconds no matter what indication scientists have had in the weeks leading up to that. And also, just sort of what laws and what rules should apply for these sorts of ventures? Because this isn't the only example of its type in New Zealand where tourists can basically walk around on volcanoes that are capable of producing these sorts of eruptions.

CH: That was science reporter Jamie Morton, speaking with Carol last December. New Zealand's workplace safety agency has just laid charges in the volcanic eruption that killed 22 people last December.

[Music: Horns!!!]

Rome Artifact Returned

Guest: Carlotta Caruso

CH: We all have regrets. But a woman in Atlanta, Georgia did something about one of hers. She had taken something that did not belong to her. So she returned it with a note of apology. Carlotta Caruso's workplace received that package. She's an archaeologist at the National Roman Museum. We reached her in Rome, Italy.

CO: Carlotta, what did you find inside this bulky package that arrived from the United States.

CARLOTTA CARUSO: In this packet, we found a lot of paper that was probably placed in order to protect a fragment, a stone fragment, a Venetian marble fragment that was part of something. We don't know exactly from what the fragment was taken because it's a shapeless fragment.

CO: Right.

CC: But in any case, it’s for sure an ancient artifact, an ancient archeological item.

CO: Wow! And so this was a piece of this marble, and was it in good shape? I mean, what else can you tell us about what it looked like?

CC: Well, it was just a fragment. It was part of a column, of a statue, of an architectural element. It was in good condition, [chuckle] but it had also an inscription, a modern inscription. A girl wrote on it a dedication to her boyfriend.

CO: What did she write on the piece of marble?

CC: She just wrote her name, address to some, and the year that was 2017. So it was her dedication.

CO: Now, was there anything else in the package that could tell you about why she was sending this back to you?

CC: No, just the paper to protect it and the letter.

CO: Ah, the letter! What was in the letter?

CC: The letter was her guilty confession. She just wrote that she wanted to return this archeological find to Rome. She asked the museum to help her for this restitution process. So she didn't exactly declare where she took the archeological find. So we don't know exactly where? But she just declared that it comes from Rome. She understood in the years how disrespectful a gesture was. And she describes herself in a little vulgar expression that was very funny in comparison to the beginning of the letter that was very polite, “to whom it may concern”. Then she used a vulgar word to describe herself because she really wanted to express her sense of guilt.

CO: [chuckling] And I'll spare you what she said. But I understand she said she apologized, seeking forgiveness for being such an American a-hole, basically.

CC: [both chuckling] Yes, exactly. [laughing]

CO: Wow! Well, and so what had changed, do you think, with Jess that now she saw this was wrong?

CC: You know, we can have many interpretation. We know that sometimes these kind of restitution comes from the idea that these are a bearer of bad luck, it happens. It recently happened in Pompeii that some archeological items that were removed, let's say guiltily removed, because they really stole in that case, that they admitted that they stole these fragments. And after these theft, they had many.. they lived very difficult situations.

CO: And I think you're speaking of it was a Canadian woman, we known her as Nicole, who sent back to Pompeii a package with mosaic tiles and a piece of ceramic that she had taken. What was her explanation as to why she was returning it?

CC: In that case, she expresses very clearly that she felt that because of that theft, her family had so many problems. And this family was convinced that these objects had with them the terrible story history of Pompeii. So in that case, it's a sort of superstition that guides the restitution. But in this case, we have the impression that it was something very different. Maybe we are wrong. But the interpretation that we gave to the letter, and this is the reason for which we are talking about this, is that we really thought that this girl had a maturation process. So she decided to return because she really understood that this archeological fragments that was in any case, a document, it's also a symbolic act because she wanted to return it to the town. And I think she wanted to return this item to its original function. That an archeological find deprived from its context, has no possibility to talk.

CO: So you're making a difference between Jess, who sent this piece of marble back and felt regret for having done something wrong. You think that's different from what Nicole, the Canadian woman, did, who only is returning it because she thinks it's cursed and had brought misfortune to her and her family?

CC: I think that we read what she wrote and that we really felt the guilt and regret.

CO: Two very different women, eh? What would you say to other people who might think to take a souvenir of some ancient artifact from Italy?

CC: Well, you know, we hope that people can understand now, like Jess, that an archeological object, statue, or even a fragment, its value, it's not just beauty or its shape, but we can we can love something, but we cannot have just for us because we deprive society. We destroy an archeological document.

CO: Carlotta, it's quite a story. It's a good lesson. So thank you very much for telling us about it.

CC: Thank you.

CO: Goodnight.

CC: Goodnight.

CH: Carlotta Caruso is an archaeologist with the National Roman Museum. She was in Rome.

FOA: Jocelyn Bell Burnell portrait

CO: And yet you made this remarkable discovery at that time of what we now call pulsars. Can you tell us the moment that you observed them, what was that moment like for you when you first discovered or first noticed something that went on to this discovery?

JBB: Well, I first noticed something quite early on and that wasn't particularly exciting. It was when I finally managed to get the signal in more detail and it turned out to be pulses, regular pulses, the likes of which we had never seen before in radio astronomy.

CO: And what were those pulses?

JBB: They’re from a star that’s spinning round and it has a beam of radio waves which it sweeps around the sky as it spins, a bit like the way a lighthouse works. And if the beam shines on the Earth we see a flash, a pulse every time the star spins.

CO: How difficult was it for you to detect that and then actually be able to repeat that experience? How rare was that moment?

JBB: It was a very small anomaly that I was chasing up. We didn't have much in the way of computers then so I was using rows and rows and rows of chart paper, which flowed under pens which produced wiggles on the paper. And by the end of the exercise I had over three miles of paper — five kilometres — so there was a lot of it. And this little signal as we were originally recording occupied about five millimetres in every five hundred metres — five millimetres in half a kilometre.

CO: The fact that you were a female scientist at that time, did you have people have doubts in you? Did you have the same kind of response as perhaps a male scientist would have? Did you have doubts in your own work at that time?

JBB: I certainly had doubts. I was quite overawed when I arrived in Cambridge because until then I'd been in the north and west of the country and Cambridge was deep south and very affluent and civilized and suave. I was quite overawed by all this. And that was one of the reasons I was being very, very thorough. I thought ‘I’ve really got to do good work while I’m here. There’s a serious risk that they're going to throw me out because I'm not bright enough. Having found the signals, perhaps the most interesting was the interviews by press, newspapers, television when we announced the discovery. There’d be the two of us, Tony Hewish my adviser and myself, and the press with us Tony Hewish about the astrophysical significance of this discovery and then they turned to me for what they called the human interest, and they wanted to know my waist, bust and hip sizes, how tall I was, how many boyfriends I had at once, would I describe my hair as brunette or blonde — it’s neither. It was bizarre and it was offensive. And the newspaper photographers would ask me to undo some of the top buttons of my blouse, so I found that extremely difficult but I felt I wasn't in a position to kick up a fuss. I was still only a student, I had to write a thesis, graduate and get references.

CO: I'm listening to this description with my jaw open. This was what it was like and it was at the time for women, but this year this lack of recognition went further, didn't it? Because your colleague Tony Hewish was a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Science for this discovery and you were not included in that.

JBB: Yeah, I think that was because I was a student. I don't think they knew my name. I don't think they knew my gender. They just didn't consider students.

CO: And did they consider women?

JBB: Not often. There are very, very few women who have gotten science Nobel Prizes. Most of the ones there are in the life sciences I think.

CO: But, you know, lots of other people were angry on your behalf that you were not named in that and that your male colleagues were. Do you carry any resentment that you didn't get the Nobel Prize?

JBB: No, I don't, because one thing I've recognized is that when you get a Nobel Prize it's a big, big thing and nobody gives you anything thereafter because they feel they can't match it. Whereas if you don't get a Nobel Prize, you get everything that moves. So most years there's been some kind of award and a party and that's been much more fun.

CH: From our archives, that was Jocelyn Bell Burnell speaking with Carol back in September of 2018. This weekend, the Royal Society in London unveiled a portrait of the Northern Irish astrophysicist.

[Music: Ambient]

Viking house

CH: Some people have spent the pandemic renovating — upgrading their old homes into something new. And then there's Pedro Bedard and Wendy Speary — who made a new version of an extremely old house. They built a Viking hut in their backyard. They're a fixture of the province's annual Icelandic Festival — and they've been reenacting the Viking Age for over 30 years. They've sewn period clothes, shaped period tools, and cooked food the way the Vikings did. And now they've built the house of their Viking dreams. Here they are sharing their story with the CBC today.

PEDRO BEDARD: We came into this kind of blind, really. We really didn't know much about Viking building techniques. We've been reenacting, but mostly it's building and making personal equipment, clothes, shoes, you know, pouches --

WENDY SPEARY: Ironwork.

PB: Ironwork, things like that, like things for cooking. My wife does most of the cooking at Gimli at the Icelandic Festival in the Viking Village. So we had to start looking somewhere. A friend of ours, Nathan, gave me a link to a study that was done in the U.K. on Viking building techniques. Mostly, it was large buildings like --

WS: The longhouses

PB: Longhouses, things like that. But it did have a section on smaller buildings, things like chicken coops and little huts like this, which would have been used for artisan cabin, that kind of thing. And so that's that's what we went with.

WS: Yeah, we had to do some adaption, say like in England, they have, like, a reedstraw, which is like the size of your, you know, the width of your finger and eight feet long. We don't have it here. So we actually get to use the prairie tall grass that grows like around here. And wow, so much grass, more grass than you can possibly imagine. I'm so sick of grass.

PB: We estimate, like, every row of thatch has about 130 bundles. Each bundle has about 100 strands --

WS: Strands of grass.

PB: Individual strands of grass.

WS: and there's 12 rows.

PB: Yeah.

WS: And we had so much grass.

PB: Twelve rows, plus the extra that went on top. We estimate there's probably about 175-thousand individual blades of grass in this thing.

WS: A big part of it was giving us something to do, instead because, like, I own a store, and so, of course, we’re closed now. We were closed in March, and then we had limited hours in between. And it's just it's been really depressing and I don't want to go into that. Basically, we got it done just before it got too cold to stay outside. But we did get to sleep in it. We got to sleep in it at least once.

CORY FUNK: And was it a good sleep?

WS: It was OK.

PB: Actually, the noise of the highway is a lot more prominent out here than it is in the house, obviously. But you know what? You get used to it and called it the sounds of the ocean.

CH: That was Pedro Bedard and Wendy Speary speaking with CBC Manitoba's Cory Funk from their backyard in St. Francois Xavier, about a half hour west from Winnipeg.

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December 01, 2020 Episode Transcript

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