Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2021

The AIH Transcript for March 26, 2021

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: Bad rap. After the governor of Georgia signed new voting restrictions into law, a state lawmaker protested by knocking on his door. And her shocking arrest has just galvanised resistance to the bill.

CH: Paying more than lip service. Evanston, Illinois, becomes the first city in the United States to approve a reparations program that will compensate Black residents for racist policies of the past.

CO: Gaining crowned. A bronze sculpture of a king, which was looted by British soldiers is on its way back to Nigeria after years of negotiations aimed at repatriating artefacts that should never have been depreciated.

CH: Leaps and bounds. Perdita Felicien and her mother join Carol for a feature interview about the World Champion hurdler's new memoir, which describes how their relationship gave her career a jumpstart.

CO: Bumper sticker. Last night, a Toronto woman told us how a dump truck pushed her Mini Cooper along the highway, which sent us to our archives for the tale of a man whose smart car got stuck on a truck on the autobahn. A classic boy meets grill story.

CH: And last wool and testament. A new study suggests parchment made from sheep skin was the best choice for mediaeval legal contracts because it was the best way to ensure you wouldn't get fleeced. As It Happens. The Friday Edition. Radio that knows how important it is to make sure your documents are in tip-top sheep.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Georgia State Lawmaker Arrested

Georgia State Lawmaker Arrested

Guest: Renitta Shannon

CH: US President Joe Biden says a new law restricting voting access in Georgia is, "Jim Crow in the 21st century." That stance is shared by a number of Democratic state lawmakers who oppose the bill, including Representative Park Cannon, who was arrested yesterday while knocking on Republican Gov. Brian Kemp's door while it was being signed.

VOICE 1: [SOUNDCLIP: Yeah, you said, you would give her one more time like you're going to do something. Are you serious?

VOICE 2: No, you are not... She's not under arrest.

VOICE 1: For what? Under arrest for what? For trying to see something that our governor is doing, our governor is signing a bill that affects all Georgians and you're going to arrest an elected representative?]

CH: Democratic state legislator Park Cannon's arrest was captured by activists yesterday. She had joined them in protesting the state's passage of a nearly 100-page measure to restrict voting access. Renitta Shannon represents Georgia's 84th District and is a close friend and colleague of Ms. Cannon. We reached Renitta Shannon in Atlanta.

CO: Ms. Shannon, first of all, how is Park Cannon doing today?

RENITTA SHANNON: She is fine. She wants everybody to know that she is doing well and she wants everyone to keep knocking.

CO: And she's out of jail?

RS: She is. She was released late last night from the Fulton County Jail.

CO: You were not there. We heard some voices. You're not amongst those people. But you saw her arrest. You saw the video of it. What went through your mind when you saw Park Cannon being arrested?

RS: Well, I was not completely surprised because the state troopers in the capital have had a history of putting their hands on Black women legislators. We know that Senator Nikema Williams, who is now a congresswoman, was arrested in 2018 for standing with her constituents after the midterm elections where Georgia's voters were coming down to the capital to say count every vote. So they arrested her for standing with her constituents. So I was not very surprised. And then I was also forcibly removed from the well in 2019 speaking against a bill to outlaw abortion. So the state troopers have been used in a very political way in the Georgia capital. And I was not surprised to see that here they are again, putting their hands on an elected state representative just for doing her job.

CO: Okay. Let's just talk about what she was doing at the time. She was arrested because she refused to stop knocking on the governor's door?

RS: Well, no, she didn't refuse to stop knocking. So the way it works is whenever there's a bill signing, we are alerted as state representatives that if you want to attend a bill signing, you can attend it. So there was an alert sent out that this bill that basically would move forward with lots of voter suppression in Georgia would be signed in the evening time. And she went down to watch. I would add that you see pictures of the governor signing the bill. The men standing around him are also elected state representatives in the same position as Representative Cannon. So why were they allowed in the room and she was not?

CO: The statement says that not only that she was charged because of knocking on the governor's door during this session, but there's a felony of obstruction because she stepped on the feet of the officers who were arresting her. Can you tell us a bit about that?

RS: I mean, I can't tell you much about that because we've seen the video from beginning to end of what happened. And at no point do you see Representative Cannon touching officers or stepping on anybody's foot. So, again, I mean, I'm not sure why they arrested her, because we can all see the video that she's trying to enter into the bill signing room, which is a part of our job.

CO: Tell us a bit about this 100-page measure that would restrict voting access. Tell us some of the things that are in there that would make it more difficult for Black voters to vote in Georgia.

RS: Sure. So, yes, while the bill is targeted at making it difficult for Black and Brown voters to vote, I have to say that it will make it difficult for everyone to vote. Some of the new provisions in this bill include things like reducing voting hours from -- making it to 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., which typically, I know you all are in Canada, but here in the US generally polls across the country are open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. It's something people are used to and many folks will go to work and then they stop on their way home to go and vote. There are some other very harmful things in there, like reducing the early voting period, especially during runoff elections. It makes it illegal to turn in an absentee ballot -- to drop it off at a drop box, which if you think about it, that's something as simple as, let's say if you have elderly parents who want to vote by absentee mail, if they fill out an absentee ballot and they ask you to go and drop off that ballot to a dropbox, you've now committed a crime. Some of the other things include not allowing water and snacks to be passed out while people are standing in line waiting to vote. So all of that is being criminalised now. And there's also a provision in the bill that basically has the state taking over local elections and removing those responsibilities from counties which we know when it comes to voting counties know their residents best, and they know the best ways to run elections.

CO: As you point out, some of this criminalises behaviour, such as approaching voters in line to give them food and water. And a lot of this seems to be, well, a reaction to what happened in the presidential election. How much of this is designed to try and prevent the kinds of voting we saw in Georgia during the Senate elections, especially?

RS: Oh absolutely. What your listeners in Canada should know is what is going on across the country right now is that the Republican Party previously [inaudible] committed White supremacist to the presidency of the United States. And when he failed to win re-election, they have done nothing but spend their time attacking Black and Brown voters who largely are connected to these wins. So they have told a big lie that our elections are fraudulent across the country and now they're doing all they can to just make it harder for people to vote. I will tell you that many civic organisations have already filed suit against this bill and it will be handled in federal courts. There's a federal lawsuit. I'm confident that many parts of this bill will be struck down in court, if not the entire thing.

CO: And what now becomes the charges against your friend and colleague, Park Cannon?

RS: One of them is that she was disturbing chamber business, which is basically disturbing the state legislature during proceedings. Well the House of Representatives had already adjourned for the day and the Senate was just finishing up some business. That is a misdemeanour in our code. So, again, these charges really don't make a lot of sense, and I'm confident that she'll have no problem being acquitted of charges.

CO: Just finally, the video, the image of seeing Park Cannon and being arrested, handcuffed behind her back, two burly state troopers loading her into a car. What does that image, that video now represent?

RS: Well, I think to anybody in America watching these videos is horrific because we watched Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, the D.C. Capitol, on January 6th. They killed officers. They beat up security guards and desecrated the Capitol. And those people were not even arrested until much later. A lot of them were allowed to go free. Some officers even helped some of them down the steps. So they were treated with so much grace during that period. But here you have an elected state representative trying to do her job, who was treated in a fashion that they really should be the folks on January 6th who desecrated the Capitol.

CO: Ms. Shannon I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

RS: Thank you. Have a great day.

CH: Renitta Shannon is a Democratic state lawmaker in Georgia. We reached her in Atlanta.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Stolen Statues Returned

Guest: Victor Ehikhamenor

CH: The fight to restore looted antiquities from Nigeria is about to get a major boost from a bust, as in a sculpted bronze head from the country's Benin kingdom. Like thousands of artefacts in museums around the world, the bronze head was looted at the height of the 19th century colonial period. But soon it will be on its way home as part of a landmark deal between Nigeria and the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Victor Ehikhamenor is a Nigerian artist and the trustee of the Legacy Restoration Trust. We reached him in Lagos, Nigeria.

CO: Victor, as you know, hundreds of objects, beautiful artefacts were looted from the kingdom of Benin. I want to ask you about this one that the University of Aberdeen in Scotland is actually going to return. Can you tell us about this head of Oba?

VICTOR EHIKHAMENOR: It's one of the most exquisite things you can lay your eyes on. And it's great to see it again, the public, because it's actually the first time I've seen that particular one.

CO: Can you describe it?

VE: It's made from brass, which is also bronze. And this is kind of predates the 1897. So we are probably looking at maybe a 17th century creation or maybe even further way back. It's a bronze busts. And it shows the crown and the leopard ear kind of representation of the ears which are made from like coral beads but it is represented in bronze. And so the lower part and also the coral beads that Oba wears that bedecks his neck from his upper back up to his kind of chest level. So when each Oba is casting bronze is setting a representation of the demarcates going back to the other, to the other, to the other, you know. So even though they look similar, when the bronze caster in Benin sees them, they know the difference between the head of the Oba because each one is like a portrait of each king that represents that king.

CO: Do you know which king, which Oba this is?

VE: No, I don't. I haven't studied it enough to look at it. But some of the bronze casters in Benin, once they see it, they will be able to like know what differentiates it from others. And they'll be able to tell which of the past kings from time passed that this particular one represents.

CO: These objects have been in Europe for, well, since the late 19th century. The University of Aberdeen says it's returning it because it was acquired immorally. It was blatantly looted. Maybe tell us a bit about how all of these works of art ended up in Europe.

VE: A large part of it, I would say about 99 percent of them that ends up being European and American museums were acquired or looted in the first place. The main origin of it is the British attacking the Benin Kingdom in 1897, which is February 1897, when they attacked the kingdom, burned down the whole palace and sent the king then back to exile in another city in Nigeria, in modern day Nigeria. So it was a blunt hunt like they have rightly said, colonial destruction of a kingdom that was in the resistance that was doing pretty well all by itself. So this is how after the whole burning down of the palace and burning down large part of the cities, they began to like harvest all the works that they can lay their hands on and pillage all of them, put them in the ship and send them to Europe, send them to Britain, where they now put them in auctions and start selling them off. Because when you look at history, you realise that it is premeditated -- they send back message home that the Britain don't have to worry about how to finance the attack on Benin because the amount of artwork that they have seen during their previous visit is enough to offset the war budget.

CO: Just an absolutely extraordinary story, isn't it, of what the British Empire was doing because not only did they go in there with 1,200 men -- there had been a massacre of people, they sacked the Benin city, they destroyed everything and then took all these artefacts back to Europe to sell them to pay off the cost of having destroyed the kingdom. It's extraordinary, isn't it?

VE: For them, you can describe it as extraordinary. But for the people that suffered, the blunt hammering of the war it's something that is quite traumatic. I can imagine you understand what I'm saying. I mean, we have seen modern day warfare where certain places are overpowered by more sophisticated war weaponry. So the awe and shock that the kingdom received in 1897, even the after effect of the people that were tried because they resisted the war and found guilty and hung all by British Colonial Court. You know, so I think that there was a lot of damage that can't even be fathom, if you ask me, you know, because for about 14 years the palace was empty, there was no king up until much later. So they really did a number on the kingdom, psychologically, culturally and historically. And history was burnt down. The library was burnt down because this was our way of archiving our culture. So a lot of things that can never be recovered were destroyed. Because what we are seeing now are what survived that carnage, right, that is what we are asking for. What about what did not survive? What was not documented?

CO: So you're right the word extraordinary doesn't begin to encompass, there is no word to describe what the British did in the Benin Kingdom. But now compounded by the fact that the British Museum has no plans to return these objects that were looted, it says they've been given to Nigeria to put on display as official loans. Why won't the British Museum return these objects?

VE: It is a continuation of that White supremacy and colonial construct that they came into the country -- when they first arrived to the Africa continent and began to divided amongst themselves, you know. So apparently Britain hasn't shifted from that mindset or their descendants of a shift away from that because they have the history to reference the pride of saying that this is our conquest, this our commonwealth.

CO: Victor we'll be following developments in this story. And I really appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

VE: Thank you very much Carol. I appreciate it.

CH: Victor Ehikhamenor is a Nigerian artist and the trustee of the Legacy Restoration Trust. We reached him in Lagos, Nigeria.

[Music: String Music]

Sheepskin Parchment Study

Guest: Sean Doherty

CH: It's the Middle Ages in Europe, you've just acquired a big plot of land or maybe you've just agreed on terms for an important military treaty, you need to write it all down. But how are you going to ensure that no one tampers with the text after the fact? According to new research, there would have been only one option for you, write it on sheepskin. Not cowskin, not deerskin, not even goatskin sheepskin. And there's a very specific reason why. Sean Doherty is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Exeter and the lead author of the study.

CO: Sean what makes sheepskin more fraud proof than other kinds of paper?

SEAN DOHERTY: Sheepskin has quite a unique structure, which is that, unlike other species, sheep lay down fat in between the different layers of their skin. And when the skin is turned into parchment, a chemical reaction happens that draws that skin out. So it leaves these little gaps in between the various layers. And so when you have your document, if you then try and scratch the text off a later date, say, after you signed your legal agreement, there's a really high risk that these layers separate and it creates a really sort of unsightly blemish on the surface of the skin. And so you can see a later day, well, it looks like someone's trying to erase this text and write over it.

CO: But it's more fragile, right?

SD: Well, yeah, I suppose. Compared to paper, skin is extremely durable. So I think that's one of the reasons why it was useful for legal documents, while paper might not have been used. But yeah, it's more delicate than, say, calfskin, which is often used for religious texts.

CO: Right. And so what kind of text, what kind of legal documents would they use, would they go to sheepskin in order to write?

SD: A real range of legal documents. So it covers everything from title deeds concerning the sale or the purchase of land or property, prenuptial marriage agreements, agreement when people were being apprenticed to masters, and even extends to acts of parliament and other sorts of parliamentary stuff. So a real real range of legal documents.

CO: Are there famous ones that are on sheepskin?

SD: Yes. Well, I believe the visual analysis suggests that the Treaty of Versailles that was signed after the First World War is written on sheepskin, and also the American Declaration of Independence.

CO: What was available, though? Because we're talking about hundreds of years, right, of documents being put onto a sheepskin. What are the other kinds of paper or material they had in order to write things?

SD: The other animal species that were available include calfskin, which is a very very nice material for using. But unfortunately, it was nowhere near as available as a sheepskin. There was also goatskin, but goats populations are relatively small across most of Europe apart from maybe southern Europe and Northern Africa. So that again, wasn't overly used. Also sometimes deerskin was used for very elaborate documents. Paper was available in Europe from maybe the 14th century onwards, but very expensive. But I really think that the legal documents, animal skin had this added benefit of being able to show up alterations to the text, which probably wouldn't have been visible on paper.

CO: What got you interested in this study?

SD: Well, it all started on a visit to an archive. So I'm an archaeologist and I'm really interested in animals in the past. And so when I went to this archive, most people are really interested in documents and the calligraphy of the writing, the pigments that were used, the illustrations. But I was really interested in the animals. And what I realised was that people haven't really thought about that these are on animal skins. It's really been overlooked. It's just been treated as any other sort of material as if it was maybe paper. And so my analysis was looking at, well, what animals did they use? And it was really quite surprising. I was expecting to find a real range of animals that had been used for legal documents. But in fact, they were almost always written on sheep skin.

CO: And did you find any evidence where it looked like someone tried to tamper with the text?

SD: Yes, we did. Yes, we did find evidence of where people had certainly scratched off the text and written over it. And it was really really visible that you could see that someone had tried to change it. Of course, for us to identify that as a fraud, which would have required us to have the other side of the agreement to know if it had been changed for both parties, or to sort of get into the minds of the individual who had done it. So we can certainly see changes. But obviously it was a bit difficult to actually say it was fraudulent.

CO: Do you know if any court case was launched on this over the hundreds of years? Did someone say, I'm taking you to court, you've obviously doctored this document and I'll see you in court?

SD: I have looked for the evidence. At the moment, I haven't found it yet, so perhaps the sheepskin was so successful, that people didn't do it. But yeah, there's certainly more investigation in the archives trying to find out that.

CO: Now when you are using these other animals, what would happen if you tried to erase things on those kinds of parchments?

SD: If you tried to erase them on calfskin, for example, you really wouldn't see anything. The layers don't split like what happens with sheepskin. Those are just a slightly thicker material, you don't sort of see this sort of change in the thickness or the density of the light that's transmitting through it and the same for goatskin. Goatskin is very very tough. And so, again, you wouldn't see this blemish.

CO: And so what else are you going to research with this, now that you've figured out that sheepskin was king as far as doing legal documents?

SD: I think it would be to expand our analysis around the world. So we found out that in England, in Ireland, in Wales, and a new study has shown the same is true in Belgium, that they were always using sheepskin for legal documents. So it'd be nice to see what was being used in other regions and see perhaps if this influence was expanded to other countries with the British export, this idea to other parts of the world, including places like Canada.

CO: I guess well, there's a lot of frauds. So maybe we should get back to sheepskin. [Chuckles]

SD: [Chuckles] Perhaps we should.

CO: All right Sean, we'll leave it there. Thank you.

SD: Thank you very much.

CH: Sean Doherty is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Exeter and the lead author of a study on the ancient use of sheepskin. It's published in the journal Heritage Science. We reached him in Exeter, England, which is about 151,500 sheep lengths southwest of Reading.

[Music: Fiddle Music]

Birds

CH: They're easy to spot -- the clunky binoculars and the vests with too many pockets are your first visual cues. More subtly, you'll notice them trying to massage out the cricks in their necks from staring up into trees all the time. You've probably noticed that throughout the pandemic, birders have been flocking to parks. More and more people are picking up the hobby as a safe and fun distraction from the doom and gloom of COVID. And a new study suggests the happiness that birds offer has more value than you might think. In a study in this week's Ecological Economics Journal, researchers reveal that living in areas with high bird populations had a greater impact on people's quality of life than a boost in their income. The study analysed data from 26,000 adults across 26 European countries and found that people were over 50 percent happier with a raise in the number of bird species than they were with a raise in their income. In the end, having 14 more bird species in the participant's neighbourhoods was on average, the equivalent of their earning an extra 190 dollars a month. Now, if you're not a fan of birds, you may be inclined to treat the study like a pigeon treats a statue. But it's clear that whenever and wherever possible, nature is spiritually rewarding. Apparently, we are more enriched by bird's nest eggs than by growing our own.

[Music: Slide Guitar]

Part 2: Evanston Reparations

Evanston Reparations

Guest: Robin Rue Simmons

CH: Evanston, Illinois, is a diverse and vibrant city. But like so many places in the United States, it has a long history of racist policies endorsed and enacted by its government. As of the mid-19th century Black Evanstonians faced the harsh reality of Jim Crow laws, as well as the Black Code, which exploited the labour of Black Americans. And throughout the 20th century, city zoning ordinances restricted land ownership for Black residents. Now Evanston is about to become the first city in the US to pay reparations for those discriminatory policies. Robin Rue Simmons is a city councillor in Evanston, Illinois.

CO: Ms. Simmons, why are these reparations important? What is the wrong you hope might be righted here?

ROBIN RUE SIMMONS: Well, this is a specific case for our city, Evanston, Illinois, that, like many other American cities, has a history of anti-Black policies above and beyond federal policy like redlining. Our case is a case of racial oppression, desperate conditions in the Black community as a result of housing policies that restricted the Black community to live in a particular area of the Fifth Ward that was then disinvested in intentionally, it was disenfranchised, it was stripped of important amenities like our hospital and our neighbourhood schools that we still do not have today. So although redlining has been outlawed and fair housing has passed and Jim Crow does not exist anymore, the damages and the consequences of that practise continue today. And the evidence is we have a 46,000 dollar household income divide between Black and White Evanstonians. And we have, for example, 13 years different in life expectancy between Black residents and our White neighbours and friends. And so we have not done enough in our ordinary public policy and equity in diversity and inclusion efforts to bridge the racial divide that we have here, that was the result of our anti-Black policies historically.

CO: So what will these reparations actually look like for Black citizens of Evanston?

ROBIN RUE SIMMONS: We actually have a 10-million dollar commitment that is being funded from our cannabis sales tax. So we have only passed the initial first -- only four percent of our program -- 400,000-dollars has been set aside by consensus from the community and the city council. 25,000 direct housing benefit for qualified residents. That's going to be Black residents that lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969. That is the period in which we had racist policies on our books that we enforced and their direct descendants. So I would qualify for reparations through my parents and grandparents that were Evanstonians. That benefit is an immediate opportunity at building wealth. 25,000-dollars of home equity is wealth that can be passed down, it can be accessed for businesses or education. It could be used for seniors to age in place and it could be used for home improvements. We have many residents that have deferred maintenance and substantial property standard violations and other cosmetic improvements that they would love to enjoy. It could just even be cosmetic. But it's 25,000-dollars of home equity, which translates into wealth. That is our first remedy policy. Again, there is 9,600,000-dollars left for us to program, implement and disperse our funding. But that's what we passed, the eight to one vote, and the overwhelming support from our stakeholders and allies in Evanston.

CO: So who qualifies for that 25,000 dollars? Is it per household or what about individuals?

ROBIN RUE SIMMONS: Per household two residents can qualify. So per household, 50,000 dollars per household. So if there is a husband and wife or a mother and daughter or any combination of friends, if they are cohabiting in a primary residence, they can both use their benefit. So it would be up to 50,000 dollars.

CO: How far do you think that will actually go to bridging that gap, to making a difference between what they would have had had they been not discriminated against in the first place?

ROBIN RUE SIMMONS: Well, I'll tell you what, it'll take you 25,000-dollars closer or more in wealth in your household. Is it enough? Is it significant? It's not enough and it's not significant. It's also not a settlement. We're in our very early stages of implementing our program. The good news is there's many more opportunities and more funding that's coming in above and beyond our 10-million dollars from residents and businesses and faith institutions, including local synagogues and local churches, that have been helping us increase the fund so that we can do even more. But one thing that we should keep in mind is this is one single local initiative, one government agency, one institution. The practises of anti-Blackness in this nation have many accomplices in every city, including in ours. So our hope is that our commitment to reparations is a nudge and is a recommendation to our partners, including universities and large businesses and foundations, for them to join us in their own reparative justice initiatives or help us fund the work that we're doing, because we know that we will not get to justice and repair as a Black community with only one local initiative.

CO: So Evanston now becomes the first lead in your country with this reparative justice. Many are wondering if this will have an influence on other other municipalities, but also on federal policy, having a snowball effect perhaps, that there proposed federal laws that would try to address the decades of policies and practises of discrimination, segregation. Do you think that's possible?

ROBIN RUE SIMMONS: We have seen that it is in fact possible and it is actually happening today. We have already heard from other cities that look to model something similar. And we've actually heard from the congresswoman herself to say how our local initiative in Evanston has inspired her leadership and built momentum amongst Congress and has helped them begin to advance and prioritise the work of H.R. 40, which now has under Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee's incredible, fearless leadership, over 170 co-sponsors.

CO: We will leave it there. Mr. Simmons we will be following the developments on this story. And I appreciate speaking with you today. Thank you.

ROBIN RUE SIMMONS: Thank you.

CH: Robin Rue Simmons is a city councillor in Evanston, Illinois.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Bluenose 2

CH: Today, Canada's most famous ship celebrates its 100th birthday, the queen of the North Atlantic and of maritime memorabilia. The Bluenose appears on the Nova Scotia licence plate, she's depicted on the dime, and she's a massive tourism draw for her hometown of Lunenburg -- or more accurately, a modern day replica of the Bluenose attracts those tourists. That ship was first built in 1963 and restored in 1994 in an effort that drew surprise condemnation from another Canadian icon, Alex Colville.

ALEX COLVILLE: The Bluenose, as some of you know, is a reproduction of a once famous fishing schooner built by a beer company as late as an advertising device. And I'm astonished that this ship is now terribly rotten. Was even rotting in 1968. Imagine what it's like in 1994. It's going to be restored at a cost of something like 700,000 dollars. And the idea is that when the G7 meet in Halifax next summer, they'll be taken out on this rotting vessel and taken around the harbour. And this will somehow, you know, be a wonderful thing. And I think this is simply, you know, to me, it just sickens me.

CH: From our archives, that's celebrated Canadian painter Alex Colville scuttling the 1994 restoration of the Bluenose 2. Our listeners, did not appreciate Mr. Colville's shot across the bow. We heard from a number of them at the time. And we asked Lunenburg's then mayor, Laurence Mawhinney, what he made of Mr. Colville's comments.

LAURENCE MAWHINNEY: No, I don't buy the argument that this is just a reproduction. This is the only portable symbol that Canada really has to take to other parts of the world to show the kind of life that we once had, but the kind of skills which we still possess. So I believe that she is a drawing card because it speaks to something that Canadians have taken great pride on since 1937 when she appeared on the Canadian dime. She has been talked about in song and story and pictures and paintings of all kinds. There have been those who have captured something on canvas and it's worthwhile what they've captured.

MICHAEL ENRIGHT: Obviously, I guess Mr. Colville hasn't captured anything on canvas of the Bluenose.

LAURENCE MAWHINNEY: No, but I suspect he does sell reproductions.

MICHAEL ENRIGHT: Touche. What about the Coleville argument that it's nostalgia and that it's sickening?

LAURENCE MAWHINNEY: I don't find nostalgia a sickening element. In fact, I find that in this country today, we need those forces working, which I believe are unifying forces. And I see the Bluenose, despite those who may be detractors, as being a symbol that still speaks to all Canadians of a time when life was challenging and we faced the challenges.

CH: Longtime Lunenburg, Nova Scotia Mayor, Laurence Mawhinney, speaking with former host Michael Enright in 1994. And if he seemed ready to rock the boat in defence of the Bluenose, our listeners were doubly so. Here's what one of them told Talkback.

DAVE HAMBLE: Dave Hamble. I am calling from Nova Scotia, regarding Alex Colville. I take great exception to his comments regarding the Bluenose too. I think he is one of the nasty unity problems we have in this country. People who mock tradition, who want to put it down and ignore the past and our great history, especially in Nova Scotia. Mr. Colville, the Bluenose will never sink. The only rot in your rhetoric about a ship apparently you know nothing about. Don't ever go to Lunenburg and speak that way about the Bluenose. You may wind up sleeping with the fishes. Then again, no doubt the fish would throw you back.

CH: An As It Happens listener responding to Alex Colville's condemnation of the Bluenose 2 restoration in 1994. Today marks 100 years since the schooner first set sail.

[Music: Brass Music]

NL Cove Discovery

Guest: Anne Hildenbrand

CH: Cephalopods, your octopuses and your cuttlefish for instance, aren't overly concerned with their family trees. They're too busy swimming and eating, plus which they don't even know what trees really are. But human scientists are extremely impressed at a discovery by palaeontologist Anne Hildenbrand and her team. They've unearthed one of Newfoundland and Labrador's whose oldest secrets, a fossil of a very old creature that may just reveal some cephalopod wisdom about evolution. We reached Anne Hildenbrand in Heidelberg, Germany.

CO: Anne first of all, just how old are these fossils that you have found?

ANNE HILDENBRAND: They are around 522-million years old.

CO: And what creatures do you think they are?

AH: Well, we think these are potentially cephalopods, so we are not quite sure. But it looks like cephalopods.

CO: Present-day cephalopods include creatures like squid and octopus. So what makes these creatures part of the cephalopod family?

AH: Well, they have a hard shell and they are chambered inside. And outside you have a soft body. And inside of the last big chamber, there's the real animal -- so the organs. And outside, they have like limbs and so on.

CO: And how big are the creatures in these fossils?

AH: The fossils we found were 15 millimetres long. So the biggest was 15 millimetres long.

CO: What's the significance of this discovery?

AH: Well, the oldest cephalopod scientists have known before are 30--million years younger. So we go back 30 million years in time. And that's the extraordinary thing. If it's really cephalopod, that will give a totally other picture of the evolution maybe.

CO: You found these on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland. Can you describe the place, the area where the fossils were discovered?

AH: Well, the place where we've found it is called Bacon Cove -- it's a small village and it's next to the coastline so really rough, you can say on red rocks. And you can just walk on these fossils and there are a lot of them. Yeah. And it's pretty nice, the area next to the ocean.

CO: Were you looking there because you suspected you might find these kinds of fossils there?

AH: That's a good question. No, it was like we come over to Newfoundland quite every summer with students from our university for doing a field trip. And we stumbled over the fossils and they looked really promising for us. So we cut out some rock pieces and brought them to Germany, in our lab and had a closer look to them.

CO: And at the moment, when you realised what they were, what was that like?

AH: It was like winning in the lottery. We are sitting in front of a microscope, looking at the picture, and my colleague and me were looking at each other laughing, screaming, and the colleagues around us in the office next to us, they come over and said, what is happening here? And we were so happy and amazed about it.

CO: You were happy and amazed to have discovered them. But did you immediately know how old they were?

AH: Yeah, kind of. We knew how old the rock layers are above and beneath the fossils. So we could say it's around 522-million years old.

CO: What's been the reaction amongst other palaeontologists since you've released this knowledge that you have found these things that are 30-million years older than the previous discoveries?

AH: The people who are doing scientific stuff in this time period, they are amazed. And they all said, well, it's really amazing that you published such extraordinary finds.

CO: And so what's the buzz in the palaeontologist community?

AH: The reaction is if it's really a cephalopod and we can find it out in the future, that would be extraordinary for the evolution because it's 30-million years older than we first thought. So maybe we have to write the textbooks in another story right now.

CO: And what does it change about the story about life and its evolution?

AH: Well, in this time period happened so much because all the stem groups of the animals we know today evolved in this time. So that's really changing everything.

CO: Why do you think they were in that area of the Avalon Peninsula?

AH: That's a question we are not really able to answer because well Newfoundland itself is a really amazing spot for geologists and palaeontologists, we know you call it The Rock. And there are so many amazing spots where you can find now preserved fossils. So we don't know what is going on in Newfoundland, but it's really amazing for palaeontologists of course.

CO: Now, what happens to these specimens you discovered?

AH: They are now in Germany, but they will come back to Canada, to Newfoundland and yeah, maybe they will show it in the museum.

CO: And are you going to head back to Newfoundland to do more research?

AH: Yes, we try to. We are in contact with the government of Newfoundland and Labrador because we are also interested to protect these areas that more scientists can come over and find more these fossils or more of other fossils.

CO: All right. Thanks for speaking with us Anne.

AH: Thank you.

CH: Anne Hildenbrand is a palaeontologist with the Institute for Earth Sciences in Germany. She and her team discovered what they believed to be cephalopod fossils in Newfoundland and Labrador dating back 522-million years. She's in Heidelberg, Germany.

[Music: Calm Music]

Car and truck

CH: When you say things went sideways, it's usually just an expression, but this week things went very literally and very dangerously sideways for Courtenay Erhardt. As she told us on last night's program, on Tuesday, her morning commute in her Mini Cooper went bad and then got harrowingly worse.

COURTENAY ERHARDT: This dump truck just slightly bumped my kind of back end and then that caused me to turn sideways. And then he just continued to go up the ramp and onto the Gardiner.

CO: He bumped you. You turned sideways. And then where was your car?

COURTENAY ERHARDT: In front of him, completely sideways. So my driver side was right against his engine, pushing me and my Mini up the ramp.

CO: Well, did he know that he was pushing you?

COURTENAY ERHARDT: That is a really great question and I don't know the answer to that. He claims he didn't see me and just didn't know.

CH: That dump truck pushed Ms. Erhardt's small car up the ramp onto a busy highway in Toronto and continued to push it for half a kilometre before another car pulled out in front and brought the ordeal to a screeching halt. She felt she was lucky to be alive. It's still not clear how the dump truck driver failed to notice he was pushing a car, even a small one, for that distance. But it is true the drivers of giant vehicles can sometimes miss the tiny vehicles around them or trapped helplessly on their front bumper. In 2005, As It Happens spoke with Andreas Bolga, who had his own terrifying experience in Germany. His small smart car wound up stuck on the front of a gigantic, not especially smart, truck going about 100 kilometres an hour on the Autobahn. And Mr. Bolga told our former host, Mary Lou Finlay he did not appreciate being grilled.

MARY LOU FINLAY: Mr. Bolga.

ANDREAS BOLGA: Hello. Yes.

MARY LOU FINLAY: Yes. How are you?

ANDREAS BOLGA: Oh, I'm well.

MARY LOU FINLAY: How did you get hit by this truck?

ANDREAS BOLGA: I was driving with my car on the highway nearby Cologne with a high speed on the right lane of the highway. And on my left side is a big truck. And he wanted to change the lane. And he didn't see me. And he took me on the left side and I turned around 19 degrees before the truck. And I stand on the brake, but I don't lose my speed. And the truck picked me up and I drove with the truck, before the truck, about 1000 metres.

MARY LOU FINLAY: You're hooked onto the truck?

ANDREAS BOLGA: Oui.

MARY LOU FINLAY: In front of it?

ANDREAS BOLGA: He pulled me and pulled me very quickly.

MARY LOU FINLAY: How did he discover finally that you were attached to him?

ANDREAS BOLGA: The truck driver thought wheel has exploded. And he had not seen me. And he didn't know that I'm before his truck. And after 1000 metres, he stopped the car to change the wheel and saw me in my car and asked me, where do you come from? It's a very crazy story. And I'm always saying I have a dream. Yeah.

MARY LOU FINLAY: So what did he say when you told him what had happened?

ANDREAS BOLGA: The driver, he stopped the truck and saw me in my small car. I have a very small car that is smart and he looked me and he had a shock and tell me, where did you come from? I've never seen you.

CH: From our archives, that was Andreas Bolga speaking with Mary Lou Finlay in May of 2005. Mr. Bolga's smart car got stuck to the front of an oblivious truck on the Autobahn. Luckily, he was not injured at all. The truck driver later told the press he noticed the bump when Mr. Bolga's car got wedged into his grille, but he thought he'd probably just run over a stone.

[Music: Calm Music]

Part 3: Olympian Perdita Felicien's memoir is an homage to all the hurdles her mother faced

Perdita Felicien Feature

Guest: Perdita Felicien & Cathay Felicien Browne

CH: Perdita Felicien is one of this country's greatest ever hurdlers. She's a 10-time national champion, a two-time world champion, and a two-time Olympian. But many Canadians will remember her for that one hurdle she couldn't get over in the finals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

VOICE 1: [SOUNDCLIP: Felicien gets a great start! So does...and Felicine goes down! Felicine hit the hurdle and went down. Now it's Hayes leading the way and Hayes is going to run to a gold medal. Felicien hit the hurdle and went down]

CH: Perdita Felicien's fall in that race wasn't the end of her career on the track or in the public eye. And though it's been years since her retirement, she still holds Canadian records. But she never would have made it to the level she did without the support of her mother. In Ms. Felicien's new memoir, My Mother's Daughter, she traces her mother's journey from Saint Lucia to Canada, and describes the struggle and abuse she faced here as she tried to make a new life for her family. We reached Perdita Felicien and her mother, Cathy Felicien Browne in Ajax, Ontario.

CO: Perdita and Cathy, welcome to As It Happens.

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Thank you.

PERDITA FELICIEN: Good to be here.

CO: Perdita, when you decided that you were going to write this book, did you right away realise that you were going to have to tell your mother's story and really not just yours?

PERDITA FELICIEN: I knew my mother's would be intertwined in there. I didn't know it would become My Mother's Daughter in the way that it is where it truly is her foundation story, which informs my story. And I thought, could I just tell the sport piece? Could I just tell a sports story? And there's no way, because who I was and who I am as a woman, as a world class athlete was only because of my mother's story and because of who my mother is. And I had to tell that so you know who Perdita, this world class champion, is.

CO: And also I think you decided to do that because your mom's story is amazing.

PERDITA FELICIEN: [Chuckles] And there's that. And there's that. Yeah.

CO: Cathy, you're the mom. What did you think when Perdita told you that she would be telling your story in a book?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: I was happy when she asked me because I wanted to put my story out a long time ago and I didn't really know how to go about it. But when she came to me and asked me permission for her to write the story, I agreed with her.

CO: So your story, which begins in Saint Lucia as a kid growing up quite poor. What was the hardest part of childhood for you?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: The hardest part of childhood for me was I'm a young girl who loved going to school. And because my parents were so poor and I was very an obedient child -- my mom used to work as a labourer doing gardens, and my father was a fisherman, and then worked in a different job digging sand and sell to the government to make bricks and cement. So each time when the trucks came to buy sand from her, she would always tell me that I am not going to school today because she have so many others for the truck drivers come and pick up the sand, and I used to cry because I really wanted to go to school. But then at the other hand, as a child growing up, I realised that that's what they need to put food on the table, is the money.

CO: What kind of work did you do for your family?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: What other job I used to do -- afterwards, my mom stopped selling those seashells and then shell necklaces. And then I used to be the vendor going to the beach every hotel and sell them, especially when a cruise ship would come in, I am who would go out there and sell.

CO: So you were selling to these tourists who are on the beach. They were buying your shells, sometimes other things, souvenirs you had. But then you met a couple, you met a family that brought you to Canada. How did you come to meet the Baxters?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Well, the husband was by the beach, was by the hotel pool. And then I saw him with the little baby on his chest. And then I walked towards him and asked him if I could be the baby sitter for the baby. And then I became friends with them and that's how I came to Canada.

CO: You spent time with them on that holiday, they went back, it was quite a while before you heard from them. And what did they ask you to do?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: They had told me that when I turned 20, they would bring me to Canada. But then I know so many times people who promise you so many promises and then they never kept the promise. And then I was surprised when years after, two years after, I heard from them. And they kept the promise.

CO: You didn't stay with the Baxters after you came to Ontario. What happened?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: I spent five months with them, but things didn't work out. But they did help me to stay in the country.

CO: But you were discovering, even though you were able to come to Canada, that the people who employed you had a great deal of power over your life, didn't they?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Yes. The thing is you came in this country for a better life for yourself and your family and your children so you do what you have to do. You take whatever that comes your way and work with it. And I always have my little prayer book and talk to Jesus and ask God to make the way for me. And that's what he did. He helped me along the way. And I see, you know, I need the help. I need the bread from them. And I take it like it comes.

CO: You moved in with another family, the Harry family. And Mrs. Harry, she really put you to work, didn't she?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Yes, she did. On the other hand, she was a loving lady. She helped me in certain ways that I thought she wouldn't. To be honest with you, she was in between. She was good and on the other hand, she was not that great.

CO: You're being very generous, I would say.

PERDITA FELICIEN: I know. You're being so pc mom. Tell exactly how you felt momma. They're making Harrys seem so great. She was a wretch.

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: She was like somebody who was half racist. At that time, I am new in the country and I didn't know much. I didn't know the rules. I didn't know that I have my rights. And because I was working -- I was in a contract with her, and she was always threatening me that she would call the immigration for me. And all that was a threat.

CO: There are many things that Perdita writes and I'm sure that came from you about how you were treated. This is also the house where you were pregnant with Perdita.

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Yes.

CO: Some of the details that Perdita writes are just -- my jaw was on the floor reading some of the things she did to you. One of the worst was when you're going to the hospital, you're ready, you're having shooting pains. You're going to the hospital with Perdita. And she tells you that, well, you have to make some sandwiches to go -- she's going to drive you, first she's not going to then she agrees but only after you make lunch for her. Were there times when you just wanted to tell her where she could whatever?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Well, the thing is, I had planned to take two weeks off to go and have my baby. And another time in the morning, I planned to tell her about two weeks off. That's when right away I was in pain. I was feeling contractions. And then I went and knocked on her door and told her that I am feeling pain, I think I'm going to have the baby. And then she said to me, how come it's now that the baby's coming? How come it is now the baby is coming? And then she told me that I have to go and do the sandwiches. And I didn't know much. Like I said, I didn't have much friends. I only had one friend. And I called and I told her what happened. And then she told me, don't do nothing, just go and shower myself and get myself ready, call a taxi, which I did. And then she realised that I did call the taxi. And then she came and she told me that she will drive me to the hospital.

CO: This is an awful time for you. But now Perdita is in your life pretty. Perdita at what point did you realise how difficult this was for your mother? You were not just a child, you were an ally for her, weren't you?

PERDITA FELICIEN: Yeah, I was. Well, through my life my mother would say things as I was young and growing, you know, "When you came into my life Perdita, you gave me hope," or you give me purpose and a reason. And so as a six year old or a 10 year old or 12 year old, I mean, that's just mom being mom. I didn't really understand what she meant. But as you grow old and you gain understanding and perspective, it just became loaded. And I thought, well, what kind of life did mom have and what kind of hope and purpose did I give her? It wasn't until I started to write and piece my mother's life together and I saw all the things that she had to endure to give me the experience and the richness of the life that I have. And I was my mother's ally in many ways in that I would try and not be on her list of problems because I saw my mother's problems. I wiped her tears physically with my hands, literally with my hands. And I did not want to be one of those people that made my mother cry because it seemed my mother was always crying. My mother was always being taken advantage of. And I didn't know what that was when I was young, right, it's just our life. But I just could tell it was heavy for my mother. And I didn't want to contribute to that heaviness.

CO: You never knew your father, your biological father, David, but you had somebody you called dad. Can you tell us about Bruce?

PERDITA FELICIEN: Bruce -- my mom said she had me by herself in Oshawa, Ontario, in 1980. And she met Bruce, who is my dad and who would take me on by chance one day when she was pregnant with me. He was a vacuum salesman on the streets of Oshawa. And then they'd see each other downtown here and then and say hi. But after she had me, she encountered him again at the bus stop and helped with the stroller to get on the bus. And they started dating sometime after that. But Bruce was the father I never had. You know, like you said, I've never met my biological dad. I couldn't pick him out in a crowd. I can't tell you what he looks like. And Bruce is the only dad that I know.

CO: And yet, even though you were living with Bruce, Bruce was someone you called dad. You and your mom ended up in a women's crisis shelter. What led to that?

PERDITA FELICIEN: We fled to Auberge at the time, which is now known as The Denise House, because by that time, I'm about seven years old, maybe six years old, and it is the mid-80s. And my mom and dad and sister had gotten into an altercation. Usually my dad was upset about something that my mom had done that he didn't like. Maybe the dishes weren't washed or food wasn't cooked or there's not enough groceries in the cupboards, even though he didn't give her a lot of money to buy any groceries. But he was always upset about something. And then the night of this altercation my sister confronts him because my mom was able to bring her to Canada. And so the defender that I could never be because, you know, Bruce was my dad and it was complicated, I didn't know how to choose between the two. Wanda had -- she wasn't his ally, right. She had no connexion to him. And her loyalty was to our mom. So she would stick up for mom and confront him the way my mother could not. And that would always cause tension in the house. And so on this particular night, they get into it. All I remember is my mom was very pregnant and they were wrestling. They were falling down some stairs in a heap. My sister calls the police and of course, the police get there and my dad decides he's not staying. He leaves so he doesn't get arrested. And we are taken to this woman's shelter and we show up at the door basically with not much maybe garbage bag of some clothes. And my pregnant mom and my sister and me.

CO: Now, Cathy, one thing that I understand from the book is that once you were in that shelter and then eventually they helped you get a townhouse, you had for the first time, you came to know some independence, some control over your own life. What was that like?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Well, to be honest with you, it was a godsend when the shelter called me to get that place in Pickering. I did things that I thought I couldn't do. I wanted to make my children proud. I went to school, learn how to drive, get a job because I didn't have any -- no money, nothing at all. And I went to school and make something out of myself. And it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

CO: It's that one thing, someone holds out a hand for you and says we don't have to live like this. And then that help with the grit that you have in your own being, you just made so much of that, didn't you, Cathy?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Yes, I did. Yes, I did.

CO: You're listening to As It Happens. And I am speaking with Cathy Felicien Browne and her daughter, Perdita Felicien, well-known world champion hurdler, Olympian. And we're talking about Perdita's book, My Mother's Daughter. Cathy, I want to ask what you remember about the first time you ever saw your daughter, Perdita, do those hurdles.

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: [Laughs] Oh my gracious. Oh, it was wonderful. I never thought that Perdita could jump over the hurdles because I never saw her run hurdles. When she became a hurdler, I could not believe it. I was overjoyed. I was a proud mom -- 10 hurdles. [Laughs] I can't even jump on one.

CO: Perdita, what kind of a spectator was your mom?

PERDITA FELICIEN: Listen, you would have to have earplugs in your ear whenever my mom showed up at the stadium. To the point where her voice was so shrill and saw that it was like this boom box that just went woah, right. I think she equated the volume to how fast I could go. So the louder she was, faster I would be and the more it meant I could win or I would win. To the point where in high school I was so embarrassed by it, that I banned her. I think you cannot scream this out for me in the stands, it's embarrassing. But what did my mom do? Oh, she found a way because my mom is very, very, very crafty. So she goes to the Pickering Town Centre, our local mall, and she gets a custom made t-shirt. And the day of this race where at first band or she shows up at the stadium and of course she's not screaming or yelling, which is like, oh, that's interesting. Good she learnt. But then she zips off her jacket and she has this t-shirt that says "Go Perdita Go." And she would continue [laughs] Perdita's mom, continued that tradition of making t-shirts to cheer me on like forever.

CO: You know, you had many great coaches, everyone recognising that you are outstanding, that you had a talent, all who saw you knew there was something very special. But there was one thing that -- I think your first coach, Ms. Hurst -- she told you why it is that you were so good at the hurdles. And she said, because you are not afraid.

PERDITA FELICIEN: Yeah. She was my very very first coach in hurdles, and she doesn't get tons of credit or billing for it. I'm so glad to talk about her right now because she didn't coach me for very long, grade six to about grade eight. So that's not a really long time in my life span of hurdling. And it was just the very beginning. No one knew me. But she did notice that I wasn't afraid. Whereas the day that I was introduced to the event, the athletes that were there with me would kind of stumble in front of it and pause or they'd go around them or they'd knock them down. They just couldn't muster the nerve to go over it, right. Where I just steamed right through and over. And that was my superpower. That was my superpower in the event. And I didn't know it at the time. But she told me. And looking back, I'm like, yeah, I was never afraid to face the first hurdle or any ten of them ever.

CO: There are just pages of lists of the awards that you won, the championships that you took, the records that you broke over and over again, building this extraordinary career that took you, of course, to the Athens Olympics in 2004. And I remember that. I remember just your picture was everywhere. Your spirit was everywhere. Every Canadian was just cheering for you. What do you remember about the hype that was around those games?

PERDITA FELICIEN: I remember that I loved the hype. I remember that I felt like I could handle it. It didn't feel like a distraction at all. It actually felt like something I knew I had earned. And I say that with all humility. You know, Nike wasn't putting me on billboards all across the country, neither was RBC, because they felt, you know, oh, this is a nice girl like and I am a nice girl. But I had earned that. I was a fierce competitor. I was the world champion. The nice thing about that, though, is I was training in Illinois at the time and we were in Europe preparing for the upcoming Olympics. So the intense, you know, gaze of it, I didn't feel the intense pressure of it. I really didn't feel because I wasn't in Canada leading up to the games very much. So I'd hear about it, you know, through my mom or I would hear about them and see the magazines and whatnot. But I didn't feel it. Also you have to understand what an Olympic bubble is like when you're at the top of the pyramid, which I was, you are very sequestered. Your team is there to protect you and keep you safe. So you're not really reading all your press. You and your team have a mantra and a mission. And that's what you're dialed in on and zoned in on. So everything else is really just noise.

CO: Your mom was not in the stands making her noise. She was back in Ontario. Cathy, tell us what happened that day, that moment when you were watching your daughter in that crucial race in August in Athens. What was that like for you?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: It was very hard for me. I had so many people in the house and I told them after everything went and Perdita failed and everything was over, I told them, let's everybody let's go next door and have something to eat and drink. So everything was okay that day. But the day after I felt all the pain as if somebody died in the family, I was lonely. If I had somebody there to cry on their shoulder, maybe I wouldn't take it that hard. But the fact is that I didn't have no one to talk to, no one to cry to -- it was just me and the children and they themselves now, they couldn't even say nothing to me. And it was hard. It was really hard.

CO: You also couldn't be with Perdita. You couldn't comfort your daughter.

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Well, that's the part too that was killing me. And especially when I hear her voice when she called me, that's the only time now I felt relief. I told her do not cry, don't shed no tears. I said, you are the gold. Don't shed a tear. Wipe your tears. I just wish that I was there to hold onto her and let her know everything going to be okay.

CO: Perdita, you have never shrunk from that moment. You have never tried to shield yourself from it. I heard you talk about it. I know from this book that you faced it. But what was the moment, that moment when your foot struck that hurdle, you stumbled into the next lane. You actually took out anotherm, one of your competitors. What was the moment like for you?

PERDITA FELICIEN: You know, I think -- and hearing my mom's reaction to it now [chokes up] I don't usually cry about that moment. And like you said, I talk about it, you know, very openly and I have for what 17 years this summer? To hear mother's reaction to it now, though, it breaks me open again. There's many hard things about that moment, but I think it was one of the last things I wrote in the book that I could just never confront it the way I had to so people could feel it, so people could live it with me and be there. And I think I do a really good job of that on the page. I think one of the hardest things for me is like the immediate aftermath of it. I'm on the floor and there's a hurdle, I'm wrapped around it, facing backwards to the finish of the race, you know, at the start line. And I could see this massive Jumbotron, I have a front row seat to this massive Jumbotron. And just the violence of the fall has me facing this race. I see the race going and going and going. And I'm seeing this dream just bulldozed down the track away from me like a runaway train. It's unbelievable. It's unthinkable. You've never seen yourself there ever. And I think the hardest thing for me in that moment, I needed someone to just help orient me. And I had no one. And I remember there's some friends of mine that were just right behind the start line. I walked to them to just get a hug and the official would not let me go literally four or five feet just to get someone with the Canadian flag, just to embrace me. And he would not let me. And I remember having the smallest voice and pleading with this man just to help me. And I said, I just need a hug. I just need a hug. And he wouldn't let me pass. And so, you know, you're alone in that moment. You know, you're absolutely alone. [Cries] There is nobody coming to help you. That is the most isolated I have ever felt. And I wasn't crying because I had fallen or this thing was gone for me, that would come of course, I was crying and I was devastated. I actually didn't start crying then, actually, but I was devastated in that moment because there was just nobody there. And this person who had just seen what happened a feet away from me, crumbling and crashing so violently, didn't have the humanity in him to just say, I'll let you pass. I wouldn't have broken any rules. I literally would have just gone to hug and moved on. And so when I finally did hear my mother's voice because I eventually did hear her voice, it felt like the first time I felt held. And she said, you are the gold, you are gold -- those are her literal words. And to this day, that gives me comfort. That gives me comfort. And I think we're both unpacking this moment, not for the first time, but we're unpacking this moment and it feels fresh again because we are truly, truly having to confront it for a long time. For us, it's just been a blind spot again, because that's where it's safe. That's where we're protected.

CO: Cathy, do you want to respond to your daughter?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Until today now, I cannot even look at her picture where she had all the hurdles all around her on the ground. It took me years before I looked at that picture. And even if I look at it right now, I will still flip the page. It is the worst thing for a mother to see.

PERDITA FELICIEN: Yeah, you know what? This is a realisation for me. I think in this moment and being a fairly new mom, like just two years in, when I hear my mom speak about this, just the two of us together on the phone, that doesn't happen often us talking about this particular moment together...[Cathy faintly speaks in background "I blame myself"] I actually...I know you do mom. I know you blame yourself. Don't.

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: I blame myself. And I never told Perdita. I think maybe it's my fault because I remember the first time when she called me, I told her, come out strong. And I feel that I make her come out strong. And that's why this happened and I blame myself. And I never told her all these years I blamed myself and I never told nobody. I kept it between me. But things always have a reason. And we do not know the reason why. It's only God knows the reason why. And I feel if she didn't fall, maybe people wouldn't know who he is today. And through that fall, look so many doors God open for her. And I think that's the reason why.

CO: And what you just said, Cathy, is what I was thinking is that the two of you have crossed so many hurdles, much bigger hurdles than that one that your foot hooked on. The hurdles that you describe in this book that you both surmounted are considerable and would have daunted many, many people. So I just want to say that I find both of you just remarkable in spirit and strength.

PERDITA FELICIEN: Thank you. Appreciate that.

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Thank you.

CO: Perdita, dd you have a sense of what your future would be like after you retired from hurdling?

PERDITA FELICIEN: Interestingly enough, I have pretty much every medal that there is in sport and the titles, you know, Athlete of the Year, record holder, world champion. The one I don't have that I truly wanted at the top of the pyramid is Olympian. So in 08, I chased it again. Didn't happen. I was injured that year. And I remember CBC calling me to go out to Beijing to do a little bit of broadcasting with them. I had no experience at all. They just wanted me to do some commentary and it felt so strange to go and be asked to do commentary on a race that I felt I could have won and it could have been in. And here I am, another Olympic like letdown, an epic fail. But I went and the 10 days that I spent in Beijing, had I not said yes, I don't know that I would have discovered what I was meant to do in this next chapter. And so I loved telling athletes' stories. I love telling stories, period. And to answer that question, I knew in 08 what I wanted to do next. And some athletes don't really get the fortune of knowing what their next chapter is. And we're always searching for something to fulfil us like sport did, and it's really hard to create that. So for the next five years, I wouldn't retire until 2013. I told no one really that I wanted to be a broadcaster, I wanted to be on TV, and I wanted to be in front of a camera. And when I retired in 2013, I knew that was my next thing and I chased it. I went to Seneca and I studied there and I did everything, things that paid me no money, things that paid me a 100 dollars, and just to get the experience. And I'm doing it now full-time and have been ever since I retired, but it feels so good to know what I want to do.

CO: Was there ever a time, Cathy, where you didn't know who you were? What you wanted? What was the biggest hurdle you had to cross?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: The biggest hurdle to cross was leaving my husband. He making me having doubts of myself by how he used to talk to me, made me feel as if that I am nobody. He used to say to me that I'm ugly and I used to feel that I am ugly. Until when I pick up myself, God help me. He is out of my sight and I build up myself. And God bless me now with a wonderful husband who appreciates the person that I am.

CO: You had five kids, right?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Yes.

CO: How many grandkids?

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: 15 grandchildren.

CO: And one great grandchild now.

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: One great grandchild. And this is what make me feel I am somebody, I have people who care about me, who appreciate me for who I am. And this is how I brought up my children, is to love because my parents never tell me anything wrong about other people or what they always said to me is to love one another, care about one another. And this is what I have in me, love and care. And I taught it to my children.

CO: We're going to have to leave it here, I think. Perdita I can certainly see why you wrote the title, My Mother's Daughter, because you surely are. And I know you're in the same house together in different rooms. I think there's a hug coming after this interview. Perdita and Cathy, it is a great pleasure to speak with both of you. Thank you.

PERDITA FELICIEN: This was a pleasure.

CATHY FELICIEN BROWNE: Thank you.

PERDITA FELICIEN: Thank you.

CH: That was Perdita Felicien and her mother, Cathy Felicien Browne in Ajax, Ontario. The Canadian hurdler's new book, My Mother's Daughter: A Memoir of Struggle and Triumph, will be released next week. It's published by Doubleday Canada. To read more and to see pictures of Perdita and her mother, visit our website: cbc.ca/aih.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

March 26, 2021 Episode Transcript

More Stories Like This