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 May 5, 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: Youth movement. Health Canada green lights the Pfizer vaccine for people as young as 12. So we'll get details from the company on what that does and doesn't mean for doses.

CH: Face time management. When a Calgary doctor isn't helping COVID patients in Alberta, she's using her off hours to see COVID patients in India, providing what support she can via video calls.

CO: Building to something better. More than two years after a massacre at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue, architect Daniel Libeskind is chosen to build a place where the world can learn about confronting hatred.

CH: Trash landing. A Chinese rocket is hurtling towards Earth, which our guest says is a step in the wrong direction and amounts to reckless driving in space.

CO: Swap the presses. A Chicago Tribune columnist hopes someone rich will save his paper from a hedge fund takeover, so he appealed directly to his wealthiest readers in his latest column.

CH: And here's looking at you squid. A town in Japan has people across the country up in arms after it spent part of its pandemic emergency relief money to build a gigantic statue of a squid. As It Happens. The Wednesday Edition. Radio that guesses there are other projects fell between the krakens.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Pfizer Adolescent Vaccine

Pfizer Adolescent Vaccine

Guest: Fabien Paquette

CH: Health Canada has given the go ahead to start vaccinating adolescents as young as 12. In Ottawa today, agency officials said they'd reviewed the evidence and found it safe for provinces to start offering the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to people aged 12 to 15. In Alberta, officials immediately announced they would take them up on that offer as they try to slow the growth of their record setting wave of infections. It's a day that Pfizer scientists have been working towards since the pandemic began. Fabien Paquette is Pfizer's Canada vaccine lead. We reached him in Montreal.

CO: Mr. Paquette, what makes you sure we are ready to start vaccinating kids?

FABIEN PAQUETTE: Actually with the announcement made today, we believe that there's a nice opportunity to look into the adolescent group and with the information provided, this could be starting as soon as the provincial health authorities are ready to go with that.

CO: How is Pfizer able to do trials on these young people?

FP: Well, actually, part of any clinical trials there is, of course, a very strict guidance about how these trials need to be conducted. And this one hasn't made anything different than all the previous trials and the future trials that we're going to be doing. So there was clear criteria to follow. And in this particular case, it was done in the United States with over 2200 adolescents aged from 12 to 15. And of course, you need to get the parents consent. But from a research protocol standpoint, this is pretty standard to what we usually see.

CO: And did you have any different outcomes with vaccinating these young people compared to the trials you did on adults?

FP: No, actually, the results were very similar or very strong results and very little safety or tolerability elements captured. So from a results outcome standpoint, quite similar to what we've seen with the adult population.

CO: So if Canada is to start vaccinating people from the age of 12 all the way to whatever, that's a lot of vaccine. Is Pfizer able to provide that?

FP: Oh absolutely. Right now we are providing increased volumes of vaccines. And actually, if you take the month of May, we will be delivering over 2-million doses in Canada per week. In June, we will be delivering 2.4-million doses per week. So that is a significant volume of vaccines to be deployed for all the age groups that would require it.

CO: The ability to vaccinate all these people from 12 up is based on having one dose, not the two doses. Is that right, as Canada is recommending for the time being?

FP: Well, actually, I believe that with the current volumes in place, the public health authorities across the country should be able to provide two doses to the vast majority of Canadians. If you look into the Pfizer/BioNTechy vaccines and in addition to the Moderna vaccines that will also be coming in and the AstraZeneca and eventually the Johnson and Johnson, there should be enough vaccines for sure. And particularly for the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID vaccines, there will be a total of 48-million doses that will be delivered by the end of September. So technically, that means that you can cover at least 24-million Canadians with this.

CO: And that's based on Canada's decision that the second dose would come four months after the first, right?

FP: Right. Yes. This is actually the recommendation. It's actually up to four months that the recommendation has been made by NACI. However, each provinces have the opportunity to adjust the intervals between the first and second dose based on what they see is happening in terms of vaccine deployment and the requirements within their own province. So some provinces, considering the volume of vaccines coming in, considering the maybe some particular areas where there could be a higher risk of of of contaminations, they may decide to immunise this court earlier than in other parts of the country.

CO: But correct me if I'm wrong, Pfizer did say and has said and still says that it recommends that these trials are based on the second dose coming 21 days after the first one. Is there any more data and more evidence you've got that says that this is acceptable as far as your own trials go?

FP: Well, that's a good question Carol. And you are absolutely right. Right now, the scientific evidence that we have remains that the best interval for the first and second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine be 21 days. So that is what we have been able to assess in our clinical trials. Now we understand that considering the public health strategies to immunise as many people as possible, it was in their decision to make that recommendation to extend the intervals. I have to say that four months is a pretty long interval -- the longest that we see around the world. And hopefully we are now going to bring enough vaccines into Canada to reduce that interval significantly.

CO: But reduce it enough to bring it to where Pfizer's scientific evidence shows it should be, which is 21 days apart?

FP: Well, technically, that should be the goal. And we have data that could be a little bit higher than this. But nothing is being demonstrated clinically to be, I would say over the 42 days.

CO: So the trials that you did that showed that adolescents can benefit from the Pfizer -- that's based on your studies, the trials with the second dose being 21 days after the first, right?

FP: Exactly. Yes. Same protocol as we've done with the other trials in place.

CO: So how do we know this is effective, given that your own evidence shows that the second dose would come so soon after the first?

FP: Well, it's hard to say at this point in time because it's going to be the real world evidence that will identify if it's the right interval that we see right now. What Pfizer is seeing in their clinical trials and what we've communicated to Health Canada, which is what has been approved by Health Canada from an interim authorisation standpoint, is an interval of 21 days between the first and second dose. Now, we do realise that the public health authorities might look at this differently based on their epidemiology data. But from a Pfizer standpoint, we still believe that the best interval is 21 days.

CO: Mr. Paquette I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

FP: Thank you Carol. Bye bye.

CH: Fabien Paquette is Pfizer's Canada vaccine lead. We reached him in Montreal. And you can find more on that story on our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Chinese Rocket

Guest: Jonathan McDowell

CH: Generally speaking, if you hurl tons of metal into space, you try to make sure it stays there. Or if it doesn't, that you have a pretty good idea of when and how it won't. But right now, somewhere in Earth's atmosphere, a rocket called a Long March 5B is making a rather fast march towards our planet. It was used to carry part of an in progress Chinese space station into space. And now it's just falling, leaving space agencies around the world to do what they can to predict its point of re-entry. The trouble is, they can only do so much. Jonathan McDowell is an astronomer with the Harvard and Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. We reached him in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

CO: Jonathan, let's start with the million dollar question, what's the likelihood anyone listening right now might be hit by a piece of this thing?

JONATHAN MCDOWELL: Well, the chances that someone could be hit by it are a little concerningly high. But the chance that any one person is going to be hit by it is sort of one in billion. And if you're in Canada, zero, because the rocket stage is in an orbit that takes it from 41 degrees north to 41 degrees south. And so it stays over places like the United States and Europe and so forth, but it doesn't get to the northern countries.

CO: Okay. Well, we do have a lot of listeners in the United States. So where where might it land?

JM: We don't know. And here's why. It's a pretty circular orbit skimming the top of the atmosphere. It's going to re-enter. It's flying horizontally at 18,000 miles an hour. And eventually it's going to warm up and break up and come down. But exactly when that happens depends, amongst other things, on the density of the earth's atmosphere, which changes from day to day due to things like solar activity. And so we can't predict precisely when. Now, by the weekend, we should note within a few hours when it's going to come down. But remember, it's travelling at 18,000 miles an hour. So even in a few hours, it goes round the earth twice. And so trying to get a precise location of where it comes down, we're actually not going to know that until after it happens.

CO: Okay. Now, this is not the first time that bits of a Long March 5B rocket have landed on earth. What happened last time?

JM: Yes. So this is the second launch on the first launch, which was almost exactly a year ago, the stage re-entered the atmosphere over Africa and parts of it crashed into villages in Cote d'Ivoire, in the Ivory Coast, in West Africa. And so a couple of buildings were damaged. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but it certainly got our attention. I mean, we're talking sort of 10 metre long metal rods flying through the air and crashing into your village. That's not great.

CO: And there's all that debris, did China go and pick it up afterwards? Or is all that lying around the Ivory Coast?

JM: As far as I know, it's still there. And there is a liability convention, a space treaty, whereby if China's space debris lands on you, you can sue them and they can come and get it back. You have to give it back to them. But as far as I know, the Ivory Coast wasn't a signatory to that treaty and hasn't invoked it.

CO: Okay. So, I mean, was this acceptable practise in the space agency business then to allow bits of your rockets do fall to earth in this way?

JM: Not really. It's sort of acceptable for much smaller rockets, which are expected to burn up completely, although they don't always. A Falcon 9 rocket stage re-entered over Washington State a couple of months ago and some fairly big pieces reached the ground. But it's certainly not standard practise for such a big rocket stage to be left to re-enter in this uncontrolled way. Apart from the Long March 5B, that hasn't happened in 30 years. And in fact, space agencies go to quite a lot of trouble to design their bigger rockets so that they don't leave these stages in orbit. So it's very surprising that the Chinese chose this design.

CO: Has this ever happened to rockets the United States launched?

JM: Back in the day, for example, the Saturn 5 rocket that launched the Skylab space station in the 1970s. Famously, Skylab itself crashed into Australia in 1979. So, yeah, it's happened in the past. But then we went, 'no, this is bad. We shouldn't do it.' And more recently, we've designed the rocket so that this doesn't happen.

CO: Okay. I mean, it's obviously discourteous to allow your bits of your rockets to fall in people's countries, but it's not illegal.

JM: It's not illegal at the moment, that's right. There are various recommendations for minimising space debris, but nothing about uncontrolled re-entry at the moment. And I think that's going to have to be something, a topic for discussion at the Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space at the United Nations.

CO: So what has China said this point? I mean, has it recognised that it's had little oops?

JM: No, it really hasn't said anything as far as I know. The only relevant thing that I heard was during the launch commentary of the rocket. They were ever so proud that their new rocket didn't drop its lower stages on Chinese villages like the older ones did. And that it used, you know, less toxic fuels and things like that. So they're certainly thinking in environmental terms in a way that they weren't some years ago, but they completely didn't mention the fact about leaving their core station in orbit. So based on past experience, I expect that they won't be saying anything.

CO: And any evidence that they might take measures to ensure this doesn't happen a third time?

JM: Well, that's the big question. And I'm not optimistic, to be honest. I think we'll have to be quite a lot of pressure on them to persuade them to do a major redesign of their rocket.

CO: The rocket was to take up contribution to this space station, it's actually called Harmony of the Heavens, ironically. And so they're obviously going to continue doing this, right?

JM: That's right. This space station is sort of a copy of the old Soviet Mir space station that flew in the 80s and 90s. And it's going to have, in addition to the module that this rocket launched, it's going to have sort of side modules that stick on. It's a bit like space Lego assembling this thing in pieces. And so they're going to be launching more of these big rockets to help assemble the station.

CO: All right. Well it's a good thing that Lego doesn't require this kind of hardware in order to make it happen. But anyway, it's good to talk to you, Jonathan. Thank you.

JM: Thank you very much Carol.

CH: Jonathan McDowell is an astronomer with the Harvard and Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. We reached him in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

[Music: Synth Music]

Newspaper Owner Sought

Guest: Rex Huppke

CH: Calling all rich people -- well, Rex Huppke is. He has a proposition for them, and if they take him up on it, he will even mow their lawn or lawns. His pitch is this: Buy the Chicago Tribune and with it a number of other American papers owned by Tribune Publishing. You become a proud media magnate. And if Mr. Huppke's predictions are correct, you save local journalism from the, "reckless pruning of hedge funds," one of which hopes to take full ownership of Tribune Publishing later this month. Rex Huppke is a humour columnist at the Chicago Tribune and author of this week's installment Dear Rich Person. We reached Mr. Huppke in Chicago.

CO: Rex, why are you hoping that a rich person buys your newspaper?

REX HUPPKE: Well, we are poised to be taken over by a hedge fund, Alden Global Capital, which has a rather notorious record of getting hold of newspapers and strip mining them down to virtually nothing. So we feel concerned about that, both obviously for our own profession but as well as for the city of Chicago at large. It just feels like it would be a real blow for the city. So we are eager for someone civic minded, somebody who actually cares about journalism and recognises the role it plays in any community and interest in democracy in general to swoop in and and do the right thing.

CO: And do the right thing and plus get their grass cut, I understand, from you?

RH: Exactly. As sort of the Tribune's resident goofball, there's not a lot that I can offer necessarily outside of perhaps something in the strong back weak mind kind of category. So I offered I will mow the lawn of any billionaire and I'm assuming it would be a large lawn, so I feel like that's a pretty generous offer on my part. And if they have yacht parties that they need people to attend, I'll go to those. Happy to play whatever role I can to coax anybody with the money to buy the paper to get on in here and get the job done.

CO: You want this to happen ahead of May 21st. So what is it about that date that's got you spooked?

RH: Tribune Publishing, which is the company that owns the Chicago Tribune along with a number of other papers like The Baltimore Sun, Hartford Current, Orlando Sentinel, they will be having a board meeting on May 21st where they will accept the offer from Alden -- the hedge fund -- and then Alden will gain full control of Tribune Publishing.

CO: And you don't trust this hedge fund to do the right thing? Is that what I'm hearing?

RH: Correct. And again, I don't know this hedge fund personally. I've never met for coffee with the hedge fund.

CO: You've never been on anyone's yachts in the hedge fund. You've never cut the grass of anyone in that fund.

RH: [Chuckles] Yeah. Honestly, I don't even know if I know what a hedge fund is at the end of the day, but...

CO: [Laughs] It sounds like something you would do gardening wise. I mean, since you're in that business.

RH: Clippers -- fund for clippers. But they have taken other newspapers -- The Denver Post was an example where they came in and they just eviscerated the newspaper. I mean, they cut 60 plus percent of the staff and just gutted it. And that's the track record that they have established. So we do not feel that there is any reason for us to feel confident that they would come in and do something like what Jeff Bezos has done with The Washington Post, where he invested heavily into the paper and made it better, made it more profitable, produced better journalism, you know, did all the right things.

CO: There is a potential suitor for you, Stewart Bainum Jr., who is not only seems to be a successful businessman, but runs something called Sunlight for all Institutes. So sounds promising. What are the chances that he might step in?

RH: Well, he's trying very hard. He was very interested in getting hold of the Baltimore Sun. And then it sort of transitioned from that to trying to take all of Tribune Publishing. And then his idea, as I understand it, is, if he can, to get the capital together, to take the chain, to put in a better offer than what Alden has put in, get hold of the chain of newspapers and then effectively sell the different newspapers off to people in the different communities. So he's near Baltimore. He wants the Baltimore Sun and he's talked about possibly using like a non-profit model to run it, which is something that's been proven very effective already. And then there are people with interest in Virginia and interest down in Florida and other places. And unfortunately, the one place right now where there doesn't seem to be a suitor is here in Chicago and we are the largest paper in the chain. So that's creating a roadblock for him to pull this off.

CO: Tell us why somebody should step in and save the Chicago Tribune when people claim this is a dying industry.

RH: Well, listen, we're in a moment in this country, certainly, and you could argue certainly globally as well, where information and facts and the truth are in short supply sometimes. And there's also a real, I don't feel uncomfortable calling it, a battle between truth and fiction. The role of newspapers and just media outlets in general is to give people information that they need to go about their day to day lives to make decisions and elections, to make decisions in what companies they invest in and all these other things. That role is, I think, more crucial than perhaps it's ever been. This is a moment. And to let a legacy newspaper like the Chicago Tribune, a real anchor in the Midwest portion of the United States, to let that get severely depleted or damaged or possibly just knocked out is going to strike a real blow to the ability for people to get reliable, smart, helpful coverage.

CO: And you should also remind these potential suitors of some of the stories that the Chicago Tribune has broken, including what's going on with the tax system and how unfair it is, that you expose, what's going on in schools, what's going on with all those buildings that caught fire and killed so many people, right?

RH: Exactly. My colleagues, the investigative reporters, street reporters, people who are are out there grinding every day to work that quite literally changes lives and saves lives. I mean, they have led to changes in the laws surrounding the way prescription drugs are doled out. They've done things to expose a seemingly unending stream of corruption in Illinois politics. They've led to governors going to prison. They have saved people from death row. I mean, you know, it's really -- I feel like I should cue some kind of, you know, dramatic music in the background now. But it's really inspiring. I would like to think somebody out there with a reasonable amount of disposable income would see that and see a chance to, you know, kind of build a legacy and and show the world the right thing to do. But at the end of the day, it's like I said, all I can offer is my lawn mowing skills. [Laughter]

CO: [Laughter] Great pitch there, Rex. And it's good to talk to you. Thanks.

RH: All right. Thanks so much. Have a great day.

CH: Rex Huppke is a humour columnist at the Chicago Tribune. He was in Chicago.

[Music: Pop Music]

Squid

CH: Hello, I'm here from the government of Japan to see how you've allocated the emergency pandemic relief money we sent. Why do you keep pointing at that huge statue of a squid? Oh, I see. The thing you spent all the money on is behind the huge statue of a squid. Phew! I briefly thought you meant you'd spent some of the money on this huge statue of a squid. What?! Oh. Noto, Japan is a picturesque seaside town which was already known for its squid, but will now be known mostly for its squid. I mean that before the pandemic, it was famous for serving squid. But now it's more famous for spending nearly 300,000 dollars Canadian in pandemic relief money on a 13 metre long pink and white statue of a flailing, bulging eyed squid. In December, the Japanese government approved hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus money to boost local economies. It didn't stipulate not to use it to build a huge statue of a squid. So Noto exploited that loophole. People in Japan are a little upset about it because everybody wants a huge statue of a squid, but they're not going to spend pandemic money on it. Still, a local official in Noto assures us it's part of a long term strategy. It will be a tourist attraction when the pandemic is finally over. So a huge statue of a squid seems like a bad call now, but eventually it will be a call to arms.

[Music: Piano Music]

Part 2: Calgary Doctors India

Calgary Doctors India

Guest: Bhavini Gohel

CH: You'd think Alberta doctor, Dr. Bhavini Gohel, would have her hands full treating covid patients in that province, and she does. But Dr. Gohel is also spending some of her off hours connecting virtually with patients in India, where hospitals are overwhelmed and people are dying at rates unimaginable in Canada. She's part of a group of Canadian doctors and nurses who are helping take the load off the overwhelmed Indian health care system and trying to get much needed medical supplies to the worst hit areas. We reached Dr. Bhavini Gohel in Calgary.

CO: Dr. Gohel, the stories that are coming out of India are just overwhelming and tragic. What's it like for you to be trying to help there?

BHAVINI GOHEL: You know, it's been heartbreaking. The scenes are actually horrific. I have been speaking to not only our team at the hospital, but to family, to friends who've lost loved ones. And it just breaks my heart. I just can't even imagine this is going on. It's unbelievable.

CO: We spoke with a doctor in Gujarat the other day, he was already burned out before it became so overwhelming and describes what it's like inside the hospital, but also what's going on outside the hospital where he has to turn people away or where the people actually crawl to the door looking for oxygen and can't get it. And so what are you able to do from that far away in Calgary?

BG: So, you know, just to speak to that, the decisions that these doctors are having to make is things that I would never have thought I would have to make in my professional career. And the fact that they're having to do that is just unbelievable -- to have to turn patients away because they just don't have the ability to care for them. We understand that these doctors are extremely burnt out. So the time that they are able to spend with these family members and patients to discuss what's going on and the trajectory, they just don't have it. So what we're trying to do is sort of work out a way that we can provide virtual consultations from here to support the physicians. And right now, a lot of patients don't have access to physicians. So what we're hoping to do is using these kits right now, we're also going to provide some sort of medical support. And that could sometimes even be in the form of education about when they actually need to seek hospital care, because a lot of people are going to the hospital too early and it's overwhelming them. So I've already been sort of trialling some of this with family and friends and friends of friends to sort of see how it's going to work. We've now secured a platform called ICE Platform, which will be using to actually do some of our tele-consultations. And we're going to be trying to work with some of the physicians on ground to see where we can help them. You know, we don't want to overstep boundaries. And we want to be there as a supporting tool for them.

CO: Now, can you give us some sense of the patients that you are virtually seeing in this way?

BG: A few of the patients who we've been managing, one actually is in the hospital and right now is now at a hospital which has ICU capabilities. That consultation was sort of more of an educated role about the medication they're using, what is the trajectory. And really the biggest conversation I had, which was really challenging was this individual was at a hospital but didn't have ICU capabilities. And that was an hour and a half away. And the ambulance journey for that, again, it did not have a physician. It only had a technician. So what did that look like in itself and how could we do that? And so we had a conversation about, well, if you can find an ICU bed, it's better to sort of move when you're stable versus when you're unstable, because that journey, it's going to be very challenging. And so actually educating them through that and also what some of these dips in oxygen level means and what the medications they are using. So luckily this individual was holding and is near an ICU bed and we're following closely. The second patient was actually at home on five litres of oxygen concentrator. And again, it was a matter of going through and making sure that they were on appropriate treatment, which they were. And it sounds like the doctors there are doing an amazing job of treatment. But the discussion about is there are true need for labs, is it going to make a difference or CTs? Because really we know that doesn't really add much to the management of COVID. And then we talked about proning. We don't often do that on patients that are on five litres here. But when you don't have options, this is one of the options. And we educated through and provided images of actually how to prone that patient.

CO: And this means flipping them over, so that they're face down right -- which people have found is helping with COVID. The doctor we spoke with talked about what he's dealing with, which is this vicious new variety of COVID, the double mutations that he is now having to treat people with. And within 10 minutes people can be infected, entire families are being infected. And how much more difficult is this to actually deal with at this point?

BG: The problem that we have right now is that India has a population of 1.4-billion people. How do you socially distance and how do you control that? So this variant, is it spreading quickly because, you know, people are just in close proximity or is there an aerosolizing component to this? That we don't know. And it sounds as though, from what I'm hearing, the strain is quite virulent. Patients are getting infected quicker and they're getting unwell quicker. But, you know, this is an evolving situation where we're sort of learning more and more about this variant. But we have to think about how India and its population -- I've been out there so many times, it is very difficult to socially distance, it's near enough impossible for families. You have 10 people in one household at times. How do you socially distance?

CO: You have family in India. Is that the case?

BG: Yes, I do. I have family out in Gujarat and I have a lot of connections in Delhi as well.

CO: And what are you hearing from them? Are they afraid of what they're seeing?

BG: I definitely am hearing they are afraid. You know, the biggest concern for me is, health care professionals that are worried about, "Well if I work and I take this home, then I take this to my family but there's no option of hospital treatment." I have heard of family members who have passed away because of the lack of oxygen and the lack of access to health care as well.

CO: You said that you would like to be in India if you could. Is that something you're considering that you might do?

BG: You know, I physically couldn't go there. I have a lot of work to do here. And if Alberta or Calgary wasn't where it was, if we didn't have travel restrictions, and this was just an independent issue for India right now, I think it'd be different. But I still feel that I can reach from here as well and do as much as I can to support.

CO: Well, I'm glad that you're able to do that. It sounds really essential at this point. And I appreciate that you gave us some time to talk Dr. Gohel. Thank you.

BG: No problem at all. And thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

CH: We reached Dr. Bhavini Gohel in Calgary.

[Music: Bass Music]

Update: Same Sex Pension

CH: Now an update on a story we told you this week. Ken Haire will receive a survivor pension for the rest of his life. Mr. Haire is the man in Harbour Grace, Newfoundland you heard on the show on Monday. He had just gone public with his fight to access CN Rail pension benefits belonging to his late common-law spouse, Gerry Schwarz. For years, Mr. Haire had been denied that money because when Mr. Schwarz retired in 1991, CN Rail didn't recognise same sex relationships like theirs. Mr. Haire told us that policy took a relationship of 33 and a half years and just threw it in the garbage. But now CN Rail has changed its policy. In a statement to the CBC, CN Rail apologised to Mr. Haire and others affected by what it called a regrettable lag in updating the rules. The company says the life partners of state employees like Mr. Schwarz will not only receive benefits now, but retroactively. And CN Rail will contact those who are eligible. In Ken Haire's case, the change means he'll receive nine years worth of missed payments plus interest.

[Music: Piano Music]

Pittsburgh Synagogue Attack

Guest: Jeffrey Myers

CH: The Tree of Life Synagogue has given Daniel Libeskind a daunting task. It's been more than two years since a gunman murdered 11 worshippers during services at the Pittsburgh synagogue. In the aftermath, the community decided not to abandon the location. And now they're rabbi, Jeffrey Myers, has announced the Daniel Libeskind will be the architect who will build the Tree of Life's members, not just a place where they can worship, but also a place where the world can learn about confronting hate. We reached Rabbi Myers in Pittsburgh.

CO: Rabbi Myers, what makes Daniel Libeskind the right man for this task of reclaiming this place of worship?

JEFFREY MYERS: Several things I would say. His portfolio of work around the world demonstrates not merely his architectural genius, but his ability to internalise the story of a place he's at, and to translate that into a building that indeed tells a story. Secondly, he immediately connected with the horror of the day at Tree of Life, and understand this from a personal point of view. It's internal to him. It doesn't need further explanation because he gets the story. When you combine that with his genius as one of the top architects of the world, he's the right person. Plus how humbled we are that one of the world's leading architects is so moved that he wants to be our architect.

CO: And this is really extraordinary because as you point out, his work is around the world, not just in places like Berlin's Jewish Museum. But he was the master planner for the commemoration for the World Trade Centre, one of the most difficult things to try and pull all the emotions together to commemorate in some way. So were you somewhat surprised when he submitted that he wanted to be the person to recreate this place?

JM: Absolutely. We had no preconceived notions of who might submit. And when his came in, my jaw dropped like, "Oh my goodness! Daniel Libeskind. Really?" I was just astounded but simultaneously delighted.

CO: There are people who think that they never want to go back, that this is a place of such blackness, the terrible act of violence against worshippers on that day. So how did you come to the decision that this should be in some way reinvented?

JM: Well, let me say that I respect all points of view. And I have come to learn not merely from conversations we've had here in Pittsburgh, but from conversations we've had with other communities who also have been impacted by mass shootings, that there's going to be a wide range of opinion on how to proceed, every point of view has to be respected, which we believe we have done. However, over a period of many months, we held a series of fora. But it became clear after all of these foras concluded that there was the desire of the vast majority of the congregation to return to the Tree of Life because we are making a statement that evil did not win, it did that chase us out of our house.

CO: Can you give us a sense of what Daniel Libeskind is going to do?

JM: We haven't gotten to that step yet. So I could not answer that type of question other than to say, he's our architect because we have confidence that he will be able to transform a site of tragedy into a beacon of hope for the rest of the world.

CO: And you want it to be not just a place that's a beacon of hope for the people who lost their loved ones, for people in the communities that were attending Tree of Life Synagogue, you want it to be have a much broader meaning for more people?

JM: For the whole world. A place not merely for worship, but a place to study, a place to gather, a place to learn that's open to all, that's welcoming, that is the antithesis of what the attacker on that day did.

CO: And what is it that you want the police to say? What's the statement that you want to be presented to the world from this recreation?

JM: Well, I don't use what I call the "H" word. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that. And if you listen yourself, I took a pledge in the early part of November of 2008, and I used the word once -- the word is: hate. When we use it, it becomes an extreme part of language which inevitably leads to violence. I took an oath that I don't use that word and basically say, if you don't like something, I just say I don't like it. But that being said, out of the H that spawned the massacre in our building will come to a place of understanding, of respect for all people, a place to build bridges, a place to work together, to make our community, our area, our state, our country, the world a better place.

CO: And so that H word that you don't want to use is now a different H word it is one of: hope.

JM: Precisely. That's a much better four-letter word.

CO: How are people coping? How are people who were there, who know the people were there, how are they dealing with this since two years ago when this horrible murder happened?

JM: I would say there continue to be a vast range of responses. I've come to learn that we will forever be healing. We never fully healed. I say that because the reminders constantly surround us. Someone, for example, who loses a parent, there's a period of mourning. You grieve the loss. Over a period of time one learns to accept that loss, and adapt to the absence of that parent. In the case of the Tree of Life, the reminders are around us wherever we go. A neighbour you meet on the street, signs in stores that still remember. Any time there's another mass shooting, the world doesn't let us forget. Whether it's anti-Semitic events that occur, they don't let us forget. So on a regular basis that things occur that rip the scab right off.

CO: And what are you hoping that Daniel Libeskind can do? What can he possibly do to help that healing?

JM: I think he has the skill sets to be able to take our stories and transform that into some sort of architectural structure that helps tell the story, but that can also be a place of hope and healing and uplift. And from the things that we've seen him do throughout the course of his career, he certainly has shown his skills to do that.

CO: And we all look forward to seeing what he is able to do. And I thank you for speaking with us, Rabbi Myers.

JM: You're most certainly welcome.

CH: Jeffrey Myers is the rabbi at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

[Music: Piano Music]

Presidential Photo

CH: During a photo op with a former president and first lady, certain US presidents I can think of, at least one, might insist that they tower above everybody else in the picture. But that extremely simple explanation doesn't seem to apply here. On Monday, the Carter Centre shared a photo of US president Joe Biden and his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, posing with former US President Jemmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn. Everyone is smiling. The perfectly bland room is glowing with Democratic Party pride. The president and first lady are kneeling on the carpet with their arms around the Carters. It's the height of normalcy. Except for the heights. The photo quickly morphs into some kind of Alice in Wonderland esq bad trip. It looks like the Bidens are giants kneeling next to a miniature dollhouse figurines. And Twitter. It was full of desperate attempts to make sense of it. One person tweeted, "At least one of the following things is true. One, the Bidens are nine feet tall. Two the Carters are three feet tall. Or three, I'm losing my mind." Another added, "This looks like that scene from the Fellowship of the Ring, where Gandalf is visiting Frodo's house." Some claim distortion caused by a wide angle lens is to blame. Let's hope so because it is a nightmare. And finding some definitive answer shouldn't be a tall order.

[Music: Banjo Music]

Nellie Pokiak

CH: Nellie Pokiak was a trailblazer. Ms. Pokiak and her husband, Frank, worked for years on research into beluga whales in the Northwest Territories, monitoring the animals and collecting samples. The Tuktoyaktuk elder was one of the first Inuk people to collaborate directly with government scientists. Nellie Pokiak died last week. She was 66. Lisa Loseto describes Ms. Pokiak as fearless. The pair met through research work at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Here is Ms. Loseto remembering her friend

LISA LOSETO: [SOUNDCLIP: Nellie's love for the land and wildlife, translated into science through her incredible depth of knowledge and her passion for wanting to share that and see it be used in science. And so Nellie and her husband, Frank, were beluga research monitors based out of Hendrickson Island for 10 years, which is incredible. So together they were this team collecting samples from hunters for research. Most of the time they were out there without scientists by their side. They were doing their own thing. They would receive instructions. And I didn't start the program with them -- Lois Harwood and Gary Stern did. And so there were times that we scientists were out there with them. So all to say, independently they were awesome. But when we were with them at Hendrickson Island, it was such a special learning experience to be there sampling the whale with someone who knew so much and would share a new window, a perspective on how to see the whales within the system and how it connected back to them. But what was neat, I think about Nellie was her passion for sharing and wanting to let people know more about beluga and how beluga related to Inuvialuit. Back in 2008 I had asked her to join me at this like little, you know, meeting, conference, talk about what she did. And she was like yeah, let's do it. And she made her own kind of posters and she had brought photo albums. But then we spoke together on stage and she really just stole the show. And then following that, I just had so many people ask me, can bring Nellie again or I'm having this other meeting and it'll be really great to have Nellie. And she really drew people in. And she was kind of like the centre or the gateway of trying to translate what it is to be Inuvialuit and to have this knowledge about the belugas and to translate it back to the scientists, to give them this viewpoint or perspective from her own words. And she was such a good communicator and she was an educator. So she was just a centre point in that. Nellie would walk into a room and there would be a herd of people around her.]

CH: There was federal government scientist Lisa Loseto remembering her friend Nellie Pokiak in an interview with CBC reporter Mackenzie Scott. Ms. Pokiak died last week at the age of 66.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Part 3: Okla Prepaid meals

Okla Prepaid meals

Guest: Jennifer White

CH: If you're in need of a free meal in Miami, Oklahoma, just grab a receipt. Restaurants all across the close knit town have set up receipt walls where customers can prepay for a meal -- stick the receipt up on the wall and the next person in need can cash it in. And since the idea started over the winter, it has taken off. Jennifer White owns the gourmet hot dog spot, The Dawg House, the first restaurant with a receipt while we reached her in Miami, Oklahoma.

CO: Jennifer, what does the receipt wall of The Dawg House look like right now?

JENNIFER WHITE: So right now it's definitely taken a huge leap forward and we've had to expand into having two walls. So the entire front of our restaurant at the moment on the inside is covered with tickets.

CO: How many do you think? Can you give an estimate?

JW: I counted yesterday and there was just over 100 tickets.

CO: Good heavens. How many meals do you think you handed out in total at this point?

JW: I would say over a thousand at this point. And we only have eight tables in our restaurant, so that's something really awesome.

CO: Now, where did this idea come from? You're not the first to do it, right?

JW: That's correct. I had a good friend named Sandy Williams who tagged me one night on Facebook in a post that was similar. And she said, this seems right up your alley. And I said, I'm doing it tomorrow. And came in and wrote a handwritten sign that I was able to replace later with a typed one. But for the moment, I just wanted to get something up and get it going.

CO: What does the sign say?

JW: And it just says, you know, that this is a prepaid meal ticket, that you're welcome to, no judgement or questions. If you have the ability to give, it's appreciated. And if you need, feel free to take one and have a seat.

CO: And how did it get started? How did people start to make these purchases and put these receipts up?

JW: Yes. So Sandy was one of the first people -- I took a picture once I got the sign up and I donated a meal and she said, I'm on my way. And she came in and donated a meal. And then throughout the day, the customers were the ones who saw and asked about it and how they could help their neighbours. And most people who have dined in choose to add at least one meal. We've had a few people who have done larger donations to the wall. The mayor, Bless Parker, was one that donated. One of the first people to donate as well as our city manager. So that was pretty cool.

CO: How much does it cost to buy one?

JW: So our average spend here is 10.72. So what I've been having people do is purchase a meal up to 10 dollars, which would cover anything on our menu. I'll cover the extra 72 cents as well as the soft drink so that somebody can truly enjoy their meal.

CO: And what can they have? What's on the menu?

JW: Anything they want from our menu. We serve gourmet hot dogs, paninis, sliders, soups and sandwiches, all sorts of good stuff.

CO: And if these are people coming in, this is a meal in a nice restaurant, right? Do other diners know who is there with a receipt and who isn't?

JW: Most of the time people just have a seat and ask if they can have a ticket from the wall and the server just takes their order business per usual. We try and make sure nobody feels judged or afraid to come in and take advantage of the program that's meant to help them. So no judgement, no questions asked. We just take their order like any other diner.

CO: And the people who are sitting down, what do they tell you? Do you have any conversations with them about what it means for them to be able to sit in a nice restaurant and have a meal?

JW: Yeah. So we don't pray or ask any questions, but I've had a few people that I've waited on myself that have, you know, explained their situation. One gentleman said, you know, I don't get paid until Friday, and I was really hungry. And I told him, no, I'm glad you came in, come back for dinner even, you know, this was at lunch time. And he got paid that Friday and came in and actually bought two more meals than what he had originally eaten off of the wall and replaced them. And we were actually really busy the other day, and one of the gentlemen that was in here getting a free meal, who is homeless at the moment, he actually got up and started helping clean tables and bag up to-go food, which was very sweet. Kind of an interesting moment.

CO: Not just the people who are affected by the pandemic, but you had a pretty awful winter storm this year, right?

JW: Yes. The winter storm back in February -- we started the program just in time because it really devastated our small town with that winter weather. I'm sure you're more accustomed to, but we, unfortunately, are not being in the south. So our mayor actually went and tried to find as many people living on the streets as he could and put them up in a hotel and in a church. And so during that week, most of our town was completely shut down. But I have a four wheel drive and had the time. So I came up here and cooked off meals myself along with my cook, and we took them to those places to make sure that they were being fed during that time.

CO: These people are needing and appreciating having a meal in your restaurant, do you have any idea how they're able to feed themselves otherwise?

JW: Well, we actually within about six hours of starting the wall, we had another restaurant in town that jumped on it and started the wall there. And the next day, a third restaurant actually started their wall as well. And it's really not anything that we're doing, it's just our community. We gave them the opportunity to give and help their neighbours. And I'm mind blown by how they've taken up the torch and really ran with it.

CO: Do you think that government might be picking up some of the slack? Would you expect to see a bit of support from the state or from the municipality?

JW: I mean, it would surely be nice. But in the moment, you know, see a need, fix a need. And we knew that that was a need in our town. So we said, you know, if I have the extra 10 dollars, I want to make sure that I don't walk past anybody in a gas station or down the street that hasn't been fed.

CO: How is this year been for you and for your restaurant?

JW: It's been interesting with the pandemic and everything. We were a food truck last year. And my fiancee and I, fortunately, we have a dairy farm and his business really took off during the pandemic. And he said, I'm not going to be able to pull you around. And we found that brick and mortar spot and opened up in September. So it's been interesting. We've had to limit some seating, and, of course keeping social distancing, making sure we sanitise everything, just being more mindful of all of that.

CO: And now having all these people coming in and people get a meal, which they couldn't otherwise.

JW: Yes.

CO: Good for you Jennifer. Thank you.

JW: Oh thank you. Like I said, it's not me. It's our amazing community.

CO: I can hear that. Bye bye.

JW: Bye bye.

CH: Jennifer White owns The Dawg House, the first restaurant with a receipt wall. We reached her in Miami, Oklahoma.

[Music: Pop Music]

Geoffrey Barrow

CH: A retired BC judge has come up with a court system for repeat offenders in Kelowna, and it isn't just about penalising those who break the law. Geoffrey Barrow did it because he wants to help repeat offenders in his community break out of a cycle of arrest, prison, and release. Mr. Barrow has teamed up with the city to provide support services to people who struggle with drug addiction, homelessness, and mental health problems -- as part of what's called an integrated community court. Here's former Justice Geoffrey Barrow today explaining to the CBC how it works.

GEOFFREY BARROW: [SOUNDCLIP: First of all, it's not a trial court. It's a court in which individuals who want to plead guilty are able to plead guilty and have their sentences administered, if you will, by that court. Some people have the view that if you incarcerate people frequently enough or long enough when they've committed an offence, that will give rise to a change in behaviour. But what happens frequently is that if individuals are incarcerated and then released, if they've made progress inside the institution, for example, in managing or overcoming an addiction issue, and also there's a comprehensive plan in place to support them on the release -- many times they find themselves back in the very same situation room and frequently the conditions in those circumstances can give rise to reoffending. It's an effort to try to integrate community resources into the necessary support systems to help people avoid that unfortunate cycle.

CHRIS WALKER: Now, Kelowna did have a community court about 10 years ago, but it only lasted a couple of years. What changed over the past decade that makes this viable now that when it wasn't viable then?

GEOFFREY BARROW: A couple of things. The approach that we've taken this time is somewhat different. The Interior Health Authority, who has implemented a number of program supporting individuals where they live, that is to say, on the street or in the residential facilities that they find themselves. Other agencies like the Canadian Mental Health Association and the John Howard Society have made similar advances in the programs they offer, primarily through the housing facilities that they operate across our community. So it's our hope that we will have addressed the issues that arise to the rather premature termination of the program 10 years ago.]

CHRIS WALKER: That was retired BC Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Barrow speaking with Chris Walker, host of Daybreak Kelowna today. The Kelowna Integrated Court opens tomorrow.

Ivor Gurney Obit

Guest: Kate Kennedy

[Music: Ivor Gurney's "Sleep"]

CH: This is Sleep by Ivor Gurney, the British poet and composer wrote the music just before he enlisted to fight in the First World War. He continued to write from the front lines, and he's widely considered to be one of the greatest war poets. But his work after the war has largely remained unknown. Mr. Gurney lived with mental illness, likely suffering from bipolar disorder, and spent his final 15 years in an asylum. He continued writing, though. And now Kate Kennedy hopes to share the hundreds of poems and compositions he wrote there that were never published. Ms. Kennedy is a fellow at the University of Oxford and the author of Dweller in the Shadows: A Life of Ivor Gurney. We reached her in Oxford, England.

CO: Kate, when you hear those first few bars of that beautiful composition, Sleep, what does it tell you about Ivor Gurney?

KATE KENNEDY: It tells me about a man whose life was characterised by yearning -- those inflections, and the piano, and the shapes of the melody that never quite settle. He was someone who was restless. He was somebody who used to walk through the night, just decide after yearning to sleep and rest, and he never had that. And that's what I find so terribly poignant about that song, which is his most famous. But he was a man who was endlessly seeking and searching, and never did find satisfaction and find rest. And that's what that song is all about.

CO: He wrote so many poems, songs, music before he was put into an asylum. How well-known was his work?

KK: Well, during his lifetime, it was really well known and it actually still is. But what's extraordinary and what people really don't know is that he wrote even more poetry and even more music once he was in the asylum. So he was locked up in 1922 and he died in 1937. And those 15 years were the majority of his adult life. And he spent most of them composing and writing in a kind of white heat of creativity. He had nothing else to do and he was writing for his life. It was his identity and it was his defence against madness and against anonymity. So actually, the majority of his work that isn't at all known is from those years, and that's still hardly seen. It's in an archive. It's unpublished. And so there's a treasure trove there of incredible documents.

CO: And you had this very rare access to that unpublished work, all of that tremendous amount of output that he created during that time in the asylum. How does it compare with the work that he had before he was institutionalised?

KK: Well, I mean, first of all, it's an enormous privilege and really moving to be one of the first people to hold these manuscripts in my hands. And particularly letters that were never posted knowing that the first person to open these envelopes, this voice that was silenced by the asylum and it just wasn't heard in the outside world. But there were some gems there -- there really are. You can pull a handful of songs out at random and find some masterpieces. There are many, many, many songs and poems that could stand up against some of the real canonical favourites that we have. He's right up there and he doesn't deteriorate in terms of his quality. In fact, I think he gets better in his asylum years. It's his mature voice. He's finding his feet. He's technically very fluent, very able in both words and music by this point, and he writes some astonishing stuff. He was also writing so many letters, this kind of strange hybrid genre that is half a letter and half a poem. Letters of appeal for release or chants of death. And he churns out these letters every day. He's writing to somebody saying, get me out of here, my friends could take me away, rescue me. And they are like autobiographies, in fact, that they are like posthumous autobiographies, if you will -- if there such a thing were possible because he's rehearsing his life story over and over and over again and picking out the points that are most important to him to justify his existence.

CO: He was declared insane by his family in 1922 after the war where he had served in the war which must have been, as it was for so many soldiers, just so overwhelming. But then incarcerated in this psychiatric hospital until he died at 47. So was it not possible for him to have any of this work published during the time he was there?

KK: Yeah, it wasn't really. I mean, his family had very little money and also very little interest in what he wrote. They weren't particularly literary or musical. And so there wasn't that much goodwill from the family to try and support him. But he did have some very very good friends. And one of the extraordinary discoveries are made whilst researching his biography and asking around was that there was one man who was very very old who's now suddenly not with us, who had been a 17 year old apprentice in the asylum when Gurney was there and had become very good friends with Gurney. And said he remembered some musician or other called Vaughan Williams, who used to come frequently to the asylum to play through Gurney's compositions with him. Now, the chap I was speaking to you never really heard Vaughan Williams but he's actually one of the biggest 20th century British composers, and he taught Gurney at the Royal College of Music. And he was coming to visit him like some kind of outreach scheme regularly to work through these compositions, which is critically important because one of the reasons that so much of this material has not been seen is because it is so tarnished with the stigma of madness. And if we know that one of the greatest composers of the time was actually endorsing his music, was sitting with him, playing these things through with him, it's a whole different thing. It's a continuation of his studies at the college.

CO: This knowledge that Ralph Vaughan Williams was visiting Gurney in the asylum, this is something that you discovered, as you just point out. And this is part of this biography you have put together about Ivor Gurney. And so what else can we learn about him? What do you want the world to know about the Ivor Gurney that went into that asylum?

KK: What I want to achieve with the book is to give a full picture of the man, a sympathetic and nuanced portrait of what these very extreme circumstances were against, which he writes, because if we have this background, this context, we can situate this work, some of which is extraordinary, some of which is very eccentric. But we know why he might be writing like that. If we understand what it's like in the trenches, if we understand what the day to day with teams of the asylum were to try and give a really detailed sort of granular picture of what his life was like say that we've got a chance of understanding the work that's been forgotten for the last hundred years.

CO: No one could help get him out of the asylum. He was locked in there. Do you feel as though you're somehow liberating at least his voice all these years later?

KK: Well, it doesn't need to think too hard about it because the responsibility is enormous. But yeah, I think so. I think a great part of his tragedy was that he couldn't make his voice heard. And we find this in the early letters when he's really fighting against being locked up in the first few months where he keeps saying these phrases, "Believe words, hear my words, I'm a writer. I'm a musician. Get me out of here." And if nothing else, I really hope that my biography achieves that, a kind of metaphorical liberation when an actual one wasn't possible.

CO: Kate, it's absolutely fascinating and such an important work. Thank you so much.

KK: Thank you.

CH: Kate Kennedy is the author of Dweller in the Shadows: A Life of Ivor Gurney. We reached her in Oxford, England.

[Music: Piano Music]

KFC Yellowknife

CH: When the KFC in Yellowknife closed six years ago, it didn't just bum people out, it broke people's hearts. It was the only Kentucky Fried Chicken in Canada's north. Some argued it was part of Yellowknife's heritage. The loss even sparked some Canadian researchers to publish an academic study about what a loss like that does to a remote community. So you can appreciate the traffic pandemonium in Yellowknife on Monday when word went out that KFC had come back home to roost. Arguably, no one was more excited than Mikey McBryan. He's the general manager of Buffalo Airways. And he has fond memories of flying buckets of fried chicken to communities all over the territories. Since 2005, his planes have been noticeably devoid of that signature KFC smell. You might think that was an improvement, but no. Here's Mr. McBryan.

MIKEY MCBRYAN: [SOUNDCLIP: Well, right now, everybody I've talked to is super-excited that KFC is coming back. The reason I know it's coming back is because people have been calling already, trying to figure out how they can get chicken to all the different places that we fly. And if there's one thing we're good at is definitely being able to transport stuff. So we're going to be the go-to people to get your chicken delivered. This aircraft behind me is a Douglas DC3. LFR has being in Yellowknife since the 80s. It's literally flown tens of thousands of pieces of KFC chicken to communities all over the north and maybe she'll be doing it again. Hopefully if everything works out. The store's not open yet. But once it does, we'll be definitely getting orders to be able to ship chicken to all the lovely communities all around the north.

CHANTAL DUBUC: You were mentioning your dad has a policy with KFC.

MIKEY MCBRYAN: So Buffalo does have an unwritten KFC policy. The smell of KFC, which I like, is not favourable for a lot of people. So my father has a policy where all KFC has to go into garbage bags to help contain that smell, because once the door closes on the DC3, you're in there together. And that smell can be sometimes a little bit overpowering.

CHANTAL DUBUC: And just on a personal note, can you describe it a little bit about what you think about the connection between KFC in the north?

MIKEY MCBRYAN: Well, it's very strange. The KFC connection is something that is real. I grew up in Hay River and we didn't really have any franchises. So coming to Yellowknife and McDonalds and KFC were these southern things. And it really made Yellowknife a city. So losing KFC sounds very weird, but it really made Yellowknife a less of a city and more of a small town. So bringing KFC back is really putting Yellowknife back on the map for being a big town, big city, a place to go.]

CH: That was Mikey McBryan, general manager of Buffalo Airways, speaking to CBC reporter Chantal Dubuc about the return of KFC to the Northwest Territories.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Rock

CH: A Belgian farmer has pulled off the most rock and roll move ever by literally rolling a rock. The thing is, though, that rock was really meant to stay where it was being, that it marks the border between Belgium and France, which had been unchanged for the last 200 years -- until recently. The incursion was discovered by what The New York Times describes as, "A sharp eyed group of Frenchmen who for the past few years have wandered the countryside of their local area in northern France following the border and checking each marker they encountered against a map showing the stone's original locations." Okaty. Sharp eyed and maybe a bit bored and paranoid. Nevertheless, thanks to the Frenchman, it's now clear that the Belgian had, in essence redrawn the border between the two countries by just over two metres, making his own property and his own country that much bigger. Countries have gone to war over less. But authorities on both sides of the original border say they're confident the situation can be resolved peacefully. The unidentified farmer has been sent a letter telling him to return the marker to its original location, which is very civil. Then again, officials say they've also made it clear that if he refuses, he will find himself between his rock and a hard place.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

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

May 5, 2021 Episode Transcript

More Stories Like This