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The AIH Transcript For July 15, 2021

[hosts]Duncan McCue, Chris Howden[/hosts]

DUNCAN MCCUE: Hi, I'm Duncan McCue, sitting in for Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is “As It Happens”.

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Prologue

CH: Tonight:

DMC: A tribal chief tells us he thought of his mother as Kamloops residential school survivors shared their stories today -- because she too was forced to attend the school where so many children were lost.

CH: Putting the "done" in "Dundas". The city of Toronto votes to rename a street named for a Scottish politician who helped prolong the slave trade.

DMC: Occupational hazards. Ten years ago this week, Adbusters put out a call for a peaceful occupation of Wall Street. Tonight, we revisit a conversation with the magazine's co-founder about the movement's staying power.

CH: Picture imperfect. When she saw something odd in a photo of her infant son, a Georgia woman took action -- and now, she's being credited with saving his life.

DMC: What the shell is that? A researcher finally pieces together how one snail species in Tahiti survived an invasion that wiped out so many others -- by putting a tiny computer on their backs.

CH: And... getting their heads around getting it around their heads. At the Tokyo Olympics, athletes will have to hang their own medals around their necks -- the latest anti-COVID measure the IOC probably hoped to avoid.

CH: “As It Happens”, the Thursday edition. Radio that knows they would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.

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Part 1: Kamloops Report, Camera Flash Cancer, Tahitian Snails

Kamloops Report

Guest: Wayne Christian

CH: It has been less than two months since Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that a preliminary investigation had revealed unmarked graves near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in BC. Members of the community had known about them for years, but the confirmation of the existence of undocumented deaths instigated a national conversation about residential schools, the government, and the Church -- and led to similar findings in other parts of the country. Today, Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc shared the findings of the ground-penetrating radar work. Here is Chief Rosanne Casimir:

SOUNDCLIP

ROSANNE CASIMIR: So we are here today because Indian residential school survivors and intergenerational survivors who were unrelenting in carrying those painful truths about missing children forward. From those who witnessed the abuse and neglect that could have led to death, to those who were required to dig graves. We are forever thankful for your willingness to carry this burden of truth forward so that we can verify that knowing, confirming with science and where some of the missing children's current resting place is located on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. You are ensuring that Indian residential school survivors are finally being heard about the deaths of children in the residential schools after so many years of silence and disbelief.

CH: That was Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir today. Three residential school survivors also shared their stories, including elder Evelyn Camille.

SOUNDCLIP

EVELYN CAMILLE: For me, it is very hard to talk about it. I didn't even talk about the abuse in residential schools to my children. [breaking into tears] And today, they're shocked to hear all of what is happening, especially the frightening of the babies. And I told my youngest daughter, no, I didn't want you to know what happened to me. I was ashamed to be Qelmucw [Indingeous]. That's what residential schools taught me to be ashamed of my identity. Their residential schools were specifically built to take the Indian out of us. To take away our language, culture and traditions. But it did not work.

CH: That was residential school survivor Evelyn Camille today. Wayne Christian is the tribal chief of Shuswap Nation Tribal Council. He was at today's event. We reached him in Kamloops.

DMC: Chief Christian, what was going through your mind as you were sitting there listening to the residential school survivors, listening to them share their stories today?

WAYNE CHRISTIAN: Well, it's so difficult because my mother went to residential school, to... actually, to Kamloops Residential School. So I was just thinking of my mom, actually. So that was going through my mind as... as the survivors were talking because they were children when this happened five, six, seven years old. And I was thinking, wow, that they had no... nobody to protect them and look after them. Just think, there's got to be justice done for these children that have revealed themselves, you know, the 215-plus that are missing not only here, but right across Canada.

DMC: And I understand even your mom didn't tell you this story until recently. So what was that like to... to hear that from her?

WC: Well, that's the thing. Actually, my mom never, ever did tell me her story. I just learned... she actually has passed on, and she never did have that opportunity to tell me what happened. But I learned she went to the residential school and it made a lot of sense to me in terms of her behaviours. And my aunts and uncles went, and it made a lot of sense to me, especially around our language. Because she spoke four Qelmucwtsin languages -- four Indian languages, but she only taught me English.

DMC: Let's talk about the discussion today. The ground penetrating radar specialist who spoke today said her investigation found 200 targets of interest is what she called them. But she stressed that that was a preliminary finding, and said there's... there's still 160 acres that... that need to be searched. Do communities like Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc have the resources to do this huge amount of work?

WC: Well, I think that's a discussion with the federal and provincial government right now to get those kind of resources because what's happening on the ground with the survivors, many groups that are coming forward and saying, well, there are people, children buried here, children buried here. Because, again, the oral history of how our people transmit information, right? And it's been passed on. Some of the children they went to school with went missing. So they kind of can point out areas where they can help the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc pinpoint their work and where it goes. But those are going to take resources. And I think that that's the important part, is that it's a combination of Western science, which is the ground penetrating radar, and then our oral history of people actually telling these things because some people have never, ever told these stories. And I think that's the interesting part for me is that people are just beginning to speak. And it's horrific. It's hard to explain to people a trauma, especially if it happens to you as a child, never leaves you. And it'll take... it'll go with you to the grave, so to speak.

DMC: Elder and residential school survivor Evelyn Camille spoke today, and she said she wants the site to remain undisturbed once the science is complete. What kind of conversations are happening, Chief Christian, amongst community members about how to treat these sites moving forward?

WC: Um-hmm. Well, the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc have a family council. There's a family council of 13 family heads, and they haven't had that opportunity to have that discussion. They're actually having a special general meeting this evening with the experts and talking about the information. The information was kind of released before the members actually saw it. But I think they’re going to have that discussion as to what they need to do because the... it's not just people from this community, Tk'emlúps. It's also children from other communities and other Nations. So there's got to be talk about how is this going to be managed? If you want to repatriate and take those children home, how do we do that effectively and with ceremony and all the things that are required.

DMC: What are you hearing from community members outside of Tk'emlúps who would like to have their children brought home?

WC: Well, that's what it is. It’s bring the children home. How do we do that? And I think a big part of it is because some of them have never told their story. And another part of this is we're going to do an oral tellings where we’re going to take, you know, the stories that the survivors have and record them. Again, for their own use and whatever they wish to do with it, but to get more information. And I think that's really an important part of this, is how do we then work with them to look after them and support them for up to six months to a year to check in with them? So I think that's a discussion that's going on out there. People that want to tell their story somehow, but they don't trust, like, that the open process that was done during a Truth and Reconciliation, people were terrified of that. Why would I, you know, literally spill my guts in front of strangers? And that was one of the comments that people say is we need a different process. And that's kind of what we're looking at right now.

DMC: Chief Rosanne Casimir called on the federal government to share attendance records from the school. What message would you have for Prime Minister Trudeau today?

WC: Well, Prime Minister Trudeau has been really artful, if you will, at media and talking about reconciliation. I think there's a real opportunity for the prime minister and the cabinet to actually do something because one of the things that I raised with these two ministers -- Minister Miller and Minister Bennett -- is that in the context of what's going on with the remains being uncovered and found, you know, recovery right across the country is that the cabinetry set up a committee that talks about a national plan of how are they going to manage this? They have to take it much more seriously, put their words into action and really help us reconstruct the things that they destroyed through their legislation. I've always called Canada as a place where they use their laws to kill us, legislative genocide. And I think that the prime minister has a responsibility to live up to his commitments in terms of the most special relationship is with the indigenous people? Well, show us.

DMC: Some call this a dark chapter of Canada's history. But you're a Sixties Scoop survivor, Chief Christian. I wonder, how do you see the legacy of residential schools playing out today?

WC: That's the interesting part. There's a connection between the residential school and the Sixties Scoop. It’s the same process of child removal, whether it's under federal law, whether it's on provincial law. For myself, as an example, I was removed, you know, I was 13 years old, actually. I was down in Washington State because my mum sent me down there to work with her friend’s family. And I'd returned home. And when you have, you know, five... four brothers and five sisters, the place is pretty noisy. When I got home, there was no noise. It was just quiet. I was wondering to myself as I got out of the car what's going on here? And when I walked into the house, my mum. [pause] Excuse me. [beginning to break down] My mom was sitting on the bed with my younger sister, Linda, and my sister was only about a year old. And then I asked my mom what happened, everybody? And she said the welfare came and got them all. They’re coming for you and your sister. And that was my introduction to child removal, so to speak. And then I had a very difficult time, you know, to the point of, you know, I was that age where I was moved from foster home to foster home. I contemplated taking my life, actually. And the reason for that is every time I ran away and went back to my mom, the RCMP would show up and pick me up again and take me back. And then what it did to my mother as a... that was her whole world was her family, her children. She was never an alcoholic and never was involved in any of that kind of stuff. After we were removed, she turned to alcohol, and she had a really rough time after we’re all removed from her and the rest of our children, you all the brothers and sisters, we had a very difficult time to the point where one of my brothers actually took his life. So that's the legacy of the residential school living on in the Sixties Scoop. That's what's going on. And it's still going on today with the child removal system of Canada. That's what people don't understand. There is a link in here. And it's hard to speak about. But that's the reality that I've lived in, like I said, my lifetime. And really, it's about changing the process for the children.

DMC: Chief Christian, kukwstsemc. Thank you.

WC: Mé7e. Appreciate it.

DMC: Take care.

W: Bye-bye. Have a good day.

CH: Wayne Christian is chief of Splatsin First Nation and the tribal chief of Shuswap Nation Tribal Council. He spoke to us from Kamloops. And you can find more on that story on our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/aih. A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support to anyone affected. That 24-hour hotline number is 1-866-925-4419.

[music: indie rock]

Camera Flash Cancer

Guest: Josie Rock

CH: Like pretty much every parent, Josie Rock took thousands of photos of her baby boy Asher in the first few months of his life. All were adorable. But one, which she took when he was three months old, stopped her in her tracks. That photograph -- and Ms. Rock's sharp powers of observation -- probably saved Asher's life. And this week, the pediatric hospital that treated Asher featured his remarkable story on social media. We reached Josie Rock in Gainesville, Georgia.

DMC: Josie, it was seven years ago. You were taking photos of your infant son, which is pretty normal for a new mom. Why was that time different?

JOSIE ROCK: That time was different because when the flash went off, it was not supposed to go off, but the flash went off and it kind of startled Asher. And it had his... made his eyes open pretty wide. And when I went to go and delete the picture, looking back at me were two eyes that one was like a gold... the pupil was a goldish white, and the other had the red reflex. So that indicated to me, per my nursing school studies, that something was very off. And that was a huge warning sign for a rare childhood cancer called retinoblastoma.

DMC: So you saw whitish gold glow in his eye.

JR: Yes.

DMC: How much time did you spend studying this kind of cancer when you were in nursing school?

JR: Let me tell you, it was... it was probably three sentences in my pediatrics book. It just... we briefly touched on just different forms of childhood cancer, and that happened to be one of them. And it literally in a book of a thousand pages, it took up three sentences. [chuckle]

DMC: And you just started nursing school?

JR: I had been in nursing school. It was my second semester.

DMC: So what went through your head when you saw that in Asher's eye?

JR: My stomach dropped. I just... I just knew deep down that... that... that's what my son had, even after, you know, showing it to my husband and taking it up to work and on the unit that I was working at at the time, a mother-baby unit, that nurse practitioners were like, oh, this is probably just a lighting issue. It happens all the time. And I was like, you know, it's just not normal for one eye to be one colour and one I'd be the other colour. When we went to the pediatrician the next week for his well visit, she turned off the lights and pulled out her scope and looked. And when she turned the light back on, the... the colour drained from her face -- and again, confirming my... my suspicion.

DMC: My goodness! What was your reaction when... when you saw her reaction?

JR: I just kind of went into fight mode. I was like, all right, let's... let's get us up the chain, which is what she wanted to do. I was... I was also angry that it had not been spotted earlier. And I earned some bitterness towards that certain pediatrician at the time because that exam had not been done earlier. But she got us up the chain of command. We went to a pediatric optometrist. Who in turn referred us to one of the... Georgia's top retinoblastoma specialist who is also an ophthalmologist at Emory in Atlanta. And that's who we saw. [chuckle]

DMC: Your son, Asher, has a confirmed... a cancerous tumour in his eye. And I understand this has gone on in terms of treatment for... for months and years. What's that looked like for Asher?

JR: Asher is is doing great. It's... he's, you know, been a trooper this entire time. Sadly, he's grown up in a hospital, and he knows way too much as a seven-year-old. And he… we passed by the hospital, and he's like, that's my hospital. And, you know, he... he doesn't have a lot of the same fears as a... as a child would have. He had to grow up really quick and earn bravery really fast. But he's doing great. He's blind in his right eye. We were lucky enough that we have salvaged his eye even though he is blind in it. But throughout all the treatment that he's had these past seven years, which has... has been a lot, he's... he's doing great. He's thriving.

DMC: It sounds like your quick action to stop the cancer from spreading. What have doctors told you about that?

JR: I mean, it could have been a lot worse. It was graded... they grade retinoblastoma as from a grade-A to a grade-E. A being the easiest to treat, E being the eye has to be enucleated or taken out. And Asher was at a D, a very advanced D. And luckily, it had not metastasized or moved to any other parts of the body or the brain, which would have been, you know, a whole nother ball game. It would have been a lot different. It could have been caught earlier, which I don't know what would have happened, but... I don't know if treatment would have been as intense. But, you know, he... he's been through the wringer. [chuckle]

DMC: Oh, it sounds like it! I mean, how is... how is he doing now? Is he cancer-free?

JR: Since that, he still has his eye, and there's a calcified mass in his eye. I've been told that he'll never really be termed cancer-free, even though that there's no active cancer in his body. But he is no evidence of disease at the time. And he has been for the past, you know, couple of years. And he's got no active tumour anywhere in his body. And we stay on top of that, and we make sure that… and we will his entire life to make sure that there is no tumours growing or any recurrences of any secondary cancers. He'll be followed his entire life.

DMC: Josie, why did you want to tell people about the story now?

JR: Me being a labour and delivery nurse, you know, I'm dealing with newborns all day long. And we've even gotten... the doctors at work that work with the infants. They do eye exams on day one, you know? And these things can be spotted on day one. And so it's important to have regular eye exams with your children. And even, you know, something as simple as a photo could save your child's life. Just that, you know, if you see a wrong reflex, you know, just ask your doctor if you see one eye white, one eye red or both eyes white. You know, it's worth taking your child to the doctor and getting them checked.

DMC: Josie, thanks so much for telling us about Asher and his story.

JR: Absolutely. I'm glad to get the word out.

DMC: Take care.

JR: Thank you. Bye-bye.

CH: Josie Rock is a nurse in Gainesville, Georgia. That's where we reached her.

[music: sombre acoustic guitar]

Tahitian Snails

Guest: Cindy Bick

CH: Hundreds of species of snails in Tahiti have done one unfortunate thing with uncharacteristic speed: they've gone extinct. Which makes one species -- called Partula hyalina -- a mystery. How did it survive when humans have wiped out the vast majority of their fellow indigenous snails? To solve the mystery, researchers made a plan and stuck to it. They found dozens of the snails and stuck tiny computers to them. Cindy Bick is an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Michigan. She is one of the researchers. Today, we reached her in San José, California.

DMC: Cindy, how on earth do you attach a computer to a snail’s shell?

CINDY BICK: The first thing you have to do is you have to make a computer that's small enough to be able to be attached on a very small snail. We're talking about a snail that is about the size of the tip of your finger. Think of it that way. So you want to make a computer that small so that you can attach it to the shell of the snail. So that's the first thing. Second thing that you would probably want to do is make sure it sticks. So one of the things that we had to do was figure out how on earth are we going to put this on a snail that's that small? And also, a snail that is going to be crawling around on the forest floor. It's going to be running into leaf litter, logs. It's going to be in the undergrowth. So we wanted to make sure that it would stick. We wanted to make sure it's waterproof because we were going to be taking it to Tahiti, where it's basically raining most of the time. So we wanted to make a computer that was waterproof.

DMC: This computer, I mean, is amazing. And I want to... I want to ask you about that. But before we get there, let's talk about the snails. What can you tell us about the rosy wolf snail and what it did to the other snail populations in Tahiti?

CB: Oh, the rosy wolf snail is from the southern part of the United States. In the 1970s, 1980s, it was used as a biological control agent to control for other snails that have become invasive in the Pacific islands. And so that's why it was introduced. And so what has happened is that, unfortunately, it got out and started eating everything else, not just the... the snails it was brought in to control for, but it was eating its way through everything, even native land snails. And so, this is a predator that can grow up to fit right in the palm of your hand. It basically lives up to its name. It's kind of like a wolf. It's a very voracious predator. And there are two ways that they actually eat their prey. So they would rasp away at the soft tissue of a snail. So like piecemeal. So they would use their sharp teeth on their tongue, and they would basically kind of eat away [chuckling] at the soft tissue -- so rasping away. The other way that it does it, it’ll just swallow a snail whole -- shell and all.

DMC: So this predator snail that was introduced by humans is... is eating its way through all the other snails. But I guess there was a mystery. There's one species of snail that managed to survive. Can you tell us about that?

CB: These Partula hyalina, the survivors, were predicted to go extinct decades ago, but they were still hanging on. And so I was wondering what's going on there? What's the story? I found that their reproductive rates were pretty high, but it wasn't the complete story because it had a much higher reproductive rate compared to its other relative that's also still surviving, but not very well. And so one of the things we… [chuckle] we thought of basically going back to historical records, it had a lot to do with its shell colouration because Partula hyalina has a distinctly white shell colour. And also, in earlier malacologists, their records show that these snails are able to hang on or hang out in very sunlit environments on forest edges.

DMC: And why did you find that odd?

CB: Well, I found it odd because I think it's another factor that aids in their survival. And so that coupled with the higher reproductive rates might have been. One of the reasons why it's differentially surviving in the valleys of Tahiti, where other snails have gone extinct.

DMC: This is where the tiny computers come in, is that right?

CB: Right. So in order to, like, test that, I wanted to develop a way in which I can quantify the solar radiation that these snails were actually being exposed to. And I wanted to, like, compare that to the predator. That's why we ended up attaching solar sensors onto the shells of the rosy wolf snail. And then on the leaves where the Partula hyalina are estimating or where they're sleeping during the day, yeah.

DMC: And so what kind of data were you able to get from them? What did you learn?

CB: We were able to get solar data for both the predator and the survivor. So the predator, rosy wolf snail, and Partula hyalina. And as our study showed, is that Partula hyalina is able to withstand higher levels of solar irradiation during day compared to Euglandina rosea.

DMC: They can hang out in the sun?

CB: Yeah. So think of it as like hiding in plain sight, hiding in the sun. And think of the Euglandina rosea as a vampire. It can't really come out during the day [chuckle], or it's very limited during the day. But then, at night, all bets are off.

DMC: It sounds like there are some very big lessons in these little tiny snails?

CB: Right, right, right.

DMC: Thank you so much for telling us about it, Cindy.

CB: Thank you for your time. Have a good day.

CH: Cindy Bick is an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Michigan. Her research on Tahitian snails is published in the journal Communications Biology.

[music: surf rock]

Part 2: Dundas Street To Be Renamed, FOA: Occupy Ten Years

Dundas Street To Be Renamed

Guest: Melanie Newton

CH: His name graces one of Toronto's busiest east-west streets. But not for much longer. Last night, city council voted to rename Dundas Street. Proponents of the change point to Henry Dundas's opposition to ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It's also a curious choice for a street name, they say because the Scottish politician never actually stepped foot in Canada. Melanie Newton is an associate professor of history at the University of Toronto. She's been pushing for the street name to be changed. And we reached her in Toronto.

DMC: Professor Newton, how did you react when you saw the city council vote to rename Dundas Street?

MELANIE NEWTON: Well, if you told me a year ago that the city of Toronto would vote with a significant majority to rename Dundas Street, I would have said, yeah, in our dreams would that happen. So I was really actually kind of stunned for a moment that it really had happened.

DMC: Many people, even those people that grew up in Toronto, may not have an idea who Henry Dundas was. So can you talk about why the city would want to rename this street?

MN: Absolutely. So there are a number of reasons. So, Henry Dundas was a very powerful 18th-century politician. He was the secretary of state for war and colonies. So this was the person in charge of imperial policy. It was the period when the abolition of the slave trade became a huge issue in Britain itself as one of the first sort of mass civil movement in Britain was to abolish the slave trade. And he played a really pivotal role in thwarting the efforts of those who wanted to have a serious conversation about immediate abolition in the 1790s. In 1792, he intervened in a debate on the question of immediate abolition and inserted the word gradual. And this is where some of his defenders claim actually he was a supporter of abolition. He was just a pragmatist. That was not what was going on at all. This was about delaying any chance of abolition. It was really about hopefully delaying the abolition of the slave trade as long as possible in order to give planters enough time to import as many people as possible.

DMC: This may be an obvious question, but, I mean, Henry Dundas was... was clearly trying to prolong the slave trade. What kind of impact did that have on slaves?

MN: It was devastating. Those years between that debate in 1792 and final legislative abolition of the slave trade in 1807, with the last ships arriving in 1808, these years are the highest per capita years of transatlantic slave trafficking in the history of the slave trade. Consistently over the course of that period, you have averages of nearly 39,000 people per year being enslaved and transported across the Atlantic as human captives in that period. And that is a direct response to, quote/unquote, gradual abolition.

DMC: And Henry Dundas, I understand that he never even set foot in Toronto or Canada?

MN: No, not at all. In fact, one of the great ironies, so he was never here. It seems that John Graves Simcoe, he named a lot of things after Dundas. Part of it was a policy of erasure of Indigenous place names. So this is very much about the creation of a colonial settler state here in Canada and the imposition of imperial place names on the landscape as part of a policy of conquest.

DMC: So what's it like for you to walk down a street that's currently named for a man who opposed ending the slave trade?

MN: So when I walk down that street as a historian, I am just stunned, like, routinely. I drove down it today. By the way, in which power... those with power flagrantly use that power to, you know, make history, say what they want it to say. And I'm just struck by what an act of violence it is to everyone who lives here. This is not only about people who are the descendants of enslaved people, as I myself am. It's everyone. That the complex stories about who we are and what this country is built on, what the empire, in fact, the British Empire, in fact, was. You know, all of these things are really… because those conversations are stifled by the imposition of a name like Henry Dundas.

DMC: You've written that you're your first ancestor in the Western Hemisphere, came over on a slave ship, but despite all your... your training in archival research that you don't know that person's name. What's it like to know Dundas's name, but not... not your own relatives?

MN: It's painful. I mean, I've been doing this work a very long time. But I think in the life of every person of African descent, there is a moment when you sort of come to a real consciousness of what that historical fact means for you. Part of the sort of in many ways, legacies of settler colonialism here is that there is sort of a narrative of people who are the descendants of European settlers, you know, being able to trace genealogies and track family members and think about, you know, the first ancestor who came over from quite often in some cases, Scotland or other parts of Europe. As a person who is a descendant of the slave trade. You do learn to live with that sense of... of loss, but it is a loss that is so incredibly difficult to ever find that information.

DMC: Let me ask you about cost. The city of Toronto says the name change could cost upwards of six million dollars. What would you say to the argument that... that... that money could be put to better use and changing street signs?

MN: I would say that people have to understand this as a human rights measure. Do we really have a price for human rights? Like, is it not a human right for people who are citizens of a country not to have genocidal violence committed against their ancestors celebrated in the public spaces that they have to move through? Like, what's the price that you put as a citizen on something like that? And I also would say that people who are trying to set this up as some kind of juxtaposition, again, we have to think about, you know, the words Black Lives Matter. This is about Black life, about the fact that the legacy of the slave trade marks every aspect of Black life in the modern world. And in the grand scheme of things, is this such a big ask, really? Like, I think it's not a big ask to say that a figure this instrumental in what was understood in his own time, and that's also critical, this is not some modern sensibility. The slave trade was extremely unpopular in Dundas's own time. You know, why would we be setting up an opposition between, you know, quote/unquote, economic recovery and human rights? Those are not things that should be in opposition to each other.

DMC: Professor Newton, thanks very much. We'll leave it there.

MN: Thank you so much for covering the story.

DMC: Take care.

MN: Thanks. Bye.

CH: Melanie Newton is an associate professor of history at the University of Toronto. And we reached

her in Toronto.

[music: jazz]

Outrage To Pallister Comments

SOUNDCLIP

ALAN LAGIMODIERE: The residential school system was designed to take Indigenous children and give them the skills and abilities they would need to fit into the society as it moved forward. So...

WAB KINEW: I was an honorary reference for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I listened to the stories of the survivors.

AM: Yes.

WK: And I cannot accept you saying what you just said about residential schools. It was the express intent of residential schools to kill the Indian in the child. [phone camera clicks] It is not cultural relativism. It is not revisionist history for us to say that that was wrong. Any right-minded person at the time should have known that it was wrong -- maybe did know and didn't speak up against it. And if you are to take your job that you've been appointed to by Mr. Pallister seriously starting today, you have to change that.

AM: I look forward to working with you in the future as a leader of the opposition.

WK: We'll give you a chance, but you can't be out here defending residential schools if you want to work with Indigenous communities. Killing the Indian in the child was wrong. That's what they talked about at the time when they were started when they were running. We all know that that was wrong. So you have to move past that.

CH: That was Wab Kinew, breaking in at a press conference today by Manitoba's brand-new Minister of Indigenous Reconciliation and Northern Relations, Alan Lagimodiere. The Minister has since said he misspoke, saying, "As an Indigenous Manitoban, I sincerely believe that residential schools were tragic and were designed to assimilate Indigenous children and eradicate Indigenous culture. That was wrong then, and it is wrong now."

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FOA: Occupy Ten Years

CH: The idea was simple. And -- for good measure -- it was alliterative: to "seize a square of singular symbolic significance." It came from Adbusters Magazine co-founder Kalle Lasn. In a blog post published ten years ago this week, he advocated that Americans take their cues from the occupation of Tahrir Square by Egyptian protesters -- and stage their own occupation of Wall Street. He called the district "the financial Gomorrah of America". And thousands of New Yorkers clearly saw it that way too -- turning up just a few months later with tents and camp stoves in the city's Zuccotti Park. That historic takeover of public space put the one percent on notice, and sparked a global movement. But by November, 2011, naysayers were already predicting its demise. Kalle Lasn spoke with Carol on "As It Happens" at the time.

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CAROL OFF: Mr. Lasn, since the Occupy Wall Street movement started, people have speculated as to when it will shut down, expecting it to do so any time. Instead, of course, as you know, it has spread. Why do you think that is?

KALLE LASN: Well, I don't think it's about to... to shut down anytime soon. I have a feeling that it's... it's done something quite miraculous over the last five weeks or so, it has launched a national conversation in the United States. It's creeping across into Canada now. And I think we've got the whole world talking about it. We’ve captured the imagination of the whole world. And I think now that winter is approaching, I can see this first wild, messy, crazy occupation phase kind of slowly winding down and the second phase will begin. And I think that the interesting times are still ahead.

CO: What do you think is the second phase?

KL: Well, it's hard to say, you know, movements or revolutions, they have their own dynamic and... and they're full of surprises. But... but I believe that the young people today that the core impulse behind this movement is this feeling that so many young people around the world have, which is that the future does not compute, that their future lives are full of ecological and political and financial crisis, that they won't be able to pay off student loans and they will have to live in a very hot planet down the road. And... and politically, they'll have to put up with systems that are corrupted by money. And young people realize that unless they stand up and start fighting for a different kind of a future, they're not going to have a future. And I think this is the second phase. The second phase will be people, you know, some people will continue to sleep in the... in the parks and, you know, sleep in the snow and inspire all of us. But in the meantime, many of us will go home and we will resurface next spring and we will start fighting for Robin Hood taxes. And in the United States, they'll... they'll fight for the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act and will try to ban high-frequency flash trading and... and basically will try to get that money out of... out of our political systems and start creating a new model of democracy that actually is exciting. And... and I predict down the road, you know, there'll be third parties in America evolving, you know, and that America will get beyond this kind of a Pepsi Cola, Coca-Cola, kind of a political system they've had there for a long time. And a third party will rise up and... and dare I say it, I think in Canada as well. I think there's a real potential that, you know, elements of the NDP, elements of the Liberals, elements of the... the Green Party will suddenly coalesce somehow. And this new excitement, young energy, will come in there and we will come up, you know, with a highly energised political system here in Canada instead of this boring, absolutely deadly boring thing that we've had for so many years now.

CO: That's a very, very large vision. [laughing]

KL: Yeah, well, it's you know, permit me for being grandiose for the moment, but I think I can feel it. I can feel this movement is the beginning of a deep transformation of capitalism. It's a game-changer. And down the road, you know, we're going to do things.

CO: But, you know, just wasn't that many years ago you were giving talks, speeches, talking about how you thought that humanity as an experiment had hit a wall, and you had a despairing picture.

KL: Yes.

CO: What do you think the factors are? I mean, there's so many things that contributed to this. The Arab Spring, the... Warren Buffett, perhaps a bit of that, the despair of Americans.

KL: Yeah.

CO: Why... why have you become so inspired by what you see and not despairing of it?

KL: Well, out of despair, revolutions are born. And yeah, for many years, I had a feeling that... that humanity was hitting the walls, that this very dark black hole future we were looking at was actually going to happen. But... but, you know, this movement has given me hope. And I think there's a new magic there, a new mystique. And I believe that... that these young people that are sleeping in parks all around the world and... and eventually in further phases of this movement, I think this movement has the potential to... to... to grow into something that is... that is truly sort of significant and possibly even historic.

CO: The mainstream media initially dismissed this movement. And now we're seeing increasingly that the media, including business media, trying to understand. And I actually include us in that, the CBC, as we try to understand. Do you think we're getting close? Do you think that we are covering this with an understanding of what's really behind it?

KL:I don't think so. I don't think you're even close. I think that this dimension that I'm trying to introduce right now, [chuckling] this idea that this could be a very significant movement, that... that's a game-changer and that we're going for a deep down systemic change, not just nationally, but internationally, and that we want to have a Tahrir moment, not just in America and not just in Canada, but we want to have a global Tahrir moment that we're actually going for a new model of democracy and a deep transformation of the current global system, where, you know, that has one-point-three trillion dollars a day of derivatives and credit default swaps and all kinds of financial instruments sloshing around the system, and which is 50 times more than the actual commercial transactions. That means something. So we're looking at a global economy that is fundamentally corrupt. It's basically run by a bunch of fat cats and financial speculators who make money off money off money ad nauseum. And... and then the whole whole scene is just like a Las Vegas kind of a global casino. And... and this has to change. And this is the sort of fundamental deep down change that we want to pull off. We want to dismantle the global casino. For one thing.

CO: Mr. Lasn, you are an inspiration.

KL: [chuckle] I'm so glad to hear that!

CO: It's good to talk to you.

KL: Adios for now. Bye.

CO: Bye-bye.

CH: Kalle Lasn is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Adbusters Magazine, which published his call to occupy Wall Street ten years ago this week. He spoke with Carol in November, 2011.

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Tokyo Athletes Put On Their Own Medals

CH: With COVID numbers rising in Japan, and some 11,500 athletes from all over the world about to converge on Tokyo, there's a great deal of concern. For one thing, a lot of those athletes will be in close proximity during events. For another thing -- if past Games are any indication -- a lot of those athletes will be in extremely close proximity in their off-time. As Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser wrote in a memoir, "Olympic morals are far more loose than any outsider would expect." So: competing or not competing, there will be a lot of heavy breathing. Well, not to worry. First came the announcement that no fans would be allowed at Olympic events. And now, the IOC has announced what it calls a "very significant change". One that will have medalists breathing easier. "The medals will not be given around the neck," IOC president Thomas Bach told the media today. "They will be presented to the athlete on a tray, and then the athlete will take the medal him or herself." On one hand: sure! Why not. The athletes are in prime physical condition, so they can probably manage the challenge of putting their own medals around their own necks. But on the other hand: if everyone's in masks anyway, this won't really make any difference whatsoever. Still, I guess the least the IOC can do is stick its neck out a little, so athletes don't have to stick theirs out at all.

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