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The AIH Transcript For October 13, 2021

[hosts]Carol Off, Chris Howden[/hosts]

CAROL Off: Hello, I'm Carol Off.

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

[music: theme]

Prologue

CO: Tonight:

CO: Adding fuel to the fire. Iqaluit's water system was already in crisis -- but now that the water has been contaminated by fuel, one Inuk city councillor tells us it is now a full-blown emergency.

CH: Keeping a re-open mind. The owner of the only grocery store in a small Washington border community says she's cautiously optimistic about the news that her country will ease travel restrictions for her Canadian customers.

CO: Star trick. William Shatner was thrilled to fly to space on Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin today -- but one Trekkie says riding on a billionaire's rocket doesn't do much for the galaxy.

CH: Fortified swine. Invasive, shockingly rugged wild pigs have been spotted for the first time in an Alberta national park, and one wildlife biologist tells us he's not surprised -- but he is concerned.

CO: Streaking it rich. After winning 38 consecutive games, Matt Amodio finally lost on Jeopardy! on Monday -- tonight, we're hoping he'll answer our questions in the form of answers.

CH: And... 2021 a space oddity. Scientists detect a weird, unpredictable object sending erratic signals from the centre of the Milky Way, and they know what it's not -- but they don't know what it is.

CH: As It Happens, the Wednesday edition. Radio that figures sometimes you reach for the stars, and sometimes the stars reach for you.

[music: theme]

Part 1: Iqaluit Water Emergency, Alberta Wild Pigs Found, Jeopardy! Win Streak

Iqaluit Water Emergency

Guest: Sheila Flaherty

CH: Iqaluit's water problems have gone from a crisis -- to a state of emergency. The Nunavut government is flying in 80,000 litres of water over the next three days -- after the mayor of Iqaluit said the water was unsafe to drink. Staff found evidence of fuel contamination in the treated water supply. That leaves nearly 8,000 residents unable to use the water from their taps to drink, cook, or bathe their babies. Sheila Flaherty is a city councillor in Iqaluit.

CO: Councillor Flaherty, where are people getting their water to cook and drink at this point?

SHEILA FLAHERTY: Yes, Carol, there are people like myself and my husband, Johnny, who have jugs. And they're going to the Sylvia Grinnell River to fill their jugs. There's also two city water truck depots, one that's closer to the seashore at the library and another water depot at the Arctic Winter Games complex. These are people who have jugs. There's a... there's a concern that I have that I raised at the city council meeting last night is that there are, you know, there's a lot of families and households who don't have food-grade jugs to actually carry water away, whether it be from the river or from the water truck depots.

CO: And then you have people who were trying to buy the water. But I mean, already it's a litre of bottled water in Iqaluit is nine dollars, I understand?

SF: I did see a post on social media. My husband's niece, around 11 a.m, she posted that they just had bought the last case of bottled water in town.

CO: Wow! And we... we... we... we know many stories. We hear about the boil water advisories for so many Indigenous communities. But this is a place you had water. So what happened? What is your understanding as to why the water is not drinkable?

SF: There... we have... we have a reservoir, and the... the... one of the wells appears to have a petroleum substance. From what I understand, the latest tests were flown south yesterday on yesterday's flight. And from what I understand, it'll take about five days to get the results.

CO: But there were people in Iqaluit who were reporting that they could smell something like fuel or gas days ago, maybe earlier this month. The city responded that it... October 4th, saying the water was safe to drink. So how are people reacting to this change of news?

SF: Yes, there are frustrated residents from what I... what I've seen, again, on social media. You know... you know, why did it take as long as it did? For myself, Sheila, I'm... myself, you know, I'm a resident as well. I'm just glad that we've gotten to the point where no, tap water can... you know, should not be consumed or cooked with or babies bathed in tap water at the moment. We need... we... we're working really hard on… on fixing this.

CO: But what's that like, especially for... for mothers of infants and pregnant women who are... need that hygiene? This is really a crucial time for them and very... and also, very worrisome when you have a baby, or you're pregnant. What are you hearing from them about... about how difficult this is?

SF: I have seen a couple of young women, one who's… who has a high-risk pregnancy currently. And I've seen another young mum who... who has a toddler saying, you know, remember people. You can't bathe your babies, you can't make baby formula with tap water. It's good to see that, you know, from what I gather that the messaging that people are sharing with one another is correct. And I really see the community coming together. I mentioned earlier that there's some households without food-grade drugs. There's people starting to buy jerry cans. They're not necessarily food-grade. There's efforts towards securing jugs in the south. You know, it's... it won't be anywhere near a normal level that a household can access water. But... but surely, you know, babies can get a sponge bath, you know, in the meantime. So, you know, we're doing... we're trying to manage as best we can with what's... what we have faced in front of us.

CO: But... and I appreciate you're saying the community is pulling together and they're helping each other and are getting what you need in order to get through this. I understand it would be maybe as many as five days, maybe longer, before they can go to the taps again. But, I mean, is there an infrastructure issue here? Is there... I mean, what... what is the... what are the underlying issues that have to be dealt with to restore the system and also restore confidence in the system?

SF: Um-hmm. Those are all very good questions, Carol. We are in a water crisis. The city is at about 8,000 residents, give or take, and it's the amount of water that is needed for a growing, exponentially growing city like Iqaluit. But it's also that our infrastructure is... is very dated, and we need a... we need to upgrade the infrastructure in order to get out of this water crisis that we're in.

CO: Well, I hope that that comes soon, Councillor Flaherty. And thank you for speaking with us.

SF: Thank you, Carol.

CO: Bye-bye.

CH: Sheila Flaherty is a city councillor in Iqaluit, Nunavut.

[music: instrumental]

Alberta Wild Pigs Found

Guest: Ryan Brook

CH: They are huge, invasive, incredibly destructive, and somehow also very hard to catch. Also, there are a lot of them. And now, for the first time, wild pigs have been found inside a Canadian National Park. Elk Island National Park is about 40 kilometres outside of Edmonton. This week, park officials confirmed that at least one sow and her piglets have been venturing inside. Ryan Brook is an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan and a wildlife biologist with the Canadian Wild Pig Research Project. He's been studying, chasing, and warning about the dangers of wild pigs for years. We reached Professor Brook in Saskatoon.

CO: Ryan, what is your biggest concern now that these wild pigs have been discovered in Elk Island National Park?

RYAN BROOK: Well, I guess my biggest concern, to be perfectly honest, is that this is another major red flag about this global problem we have, and indeed Canada-wide problem we have, with wild pigs spreading out of control. And so, unfortunate reality is this is something that I predicted many, many years ago and been rather challenged in. And, you know, sometimes you... you're happy to say I told you so. But in this case, it's really, really frustrating.

CO: What kind of damage can these wild pigs do?

RB: Well, they really are an ecological train wreck is the exact, I think, correct term here. They consume almost any kind of food, and so they eat lots of plants, but they also rip up the environment. So they get their nose into the ground, and they tear up the soil and rip out roots and insect larva. And so they... they create a huge mess. So it's not just a matter of eating some... something and leaving, but they also... in the spring, they really hit nests hard and eat eggs from any number of ground-nesting birds. They'll eat ducklings and goslings in the spring and even, you know, adult animals; anything up to and including an adult white-tailed deer is food for them. And so, this... the range of impacts they have is truly remarkable.

CO: And they also foul water systems and wetlands, don't they?

RB: Pigs don't have sweat glands like us humans do. And so, to stay cool, they wallow in mud and wetlands and lay in the water, and they contaminate that water with E. coli, with salmonella. And yes, water quality suffers. And they do tremendous impacts on wetlands as well.

CO: Just give us a background as to where these... these animals come from, how they've come to be here?

RB: In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a push to diversify agriculture and get away from sort of conventional approaches, and... and we had elk ranches and emu farms and wild boar farms. So these were brought over from Europe to be raised inside a fence for meat production primarily. And unfortunately, they escaped a lot. And even worse, they were released on purpose. People just got fed up. The market collapsed in sort of 2001 was the peak, and after that, it really just collapsed. And so without ability to sell them, people just cut the fence and let 100, 200, in some cases, over 300 animals go in one shot, and that's... that's where it started. And some experts said, well, that's not a problem because they'll never survive a Canadian winter. You know, it's minus 30, 40 below. We see, you know, howling wind chills, all of that. But, of course, they are very well adapted to the cold. They're very large, incredibly large, and they do really well in our winters and survive just well, thank you very much. And indeed, actually, the hot spots in Canada are places where we have among the coldest and longest winters.

CO: Do you have an estimate as to how many of these animals are in Saskatchewan and Alberta?

RB: That is definitely the most common question I've been asked over the last decade is how many? And we just don't have the resources to do that yet. But at some point, I think that having a handle on numbers is just absolutely essential.

CO: But these animals are huge. So what is it about them that makes them so difficult to find and to capture?

RB: They're incredibly smart. They're incredibly evasive of people, and so they know if there's trouble, they start being active almost exclusively at night in total darkness. And they will hide under the heaviest, ugliest cover and willows that you just can't find them. And so they're really smart. But as you say, massive animals. The biggest one we've handled is about 300 kilos, which is 638 pounds. So really, I mean, that's the extreme, of course, but certainly many, many animals 200, 300, 400 pounds is not uncommon by any stretch. And so... and then these will travel in groups, what we call a sounder, often six, eight animals, but certainly as many as three or four dozen. So the fact that they can hide and be so hard to reach is... is amazing. And part of that is they spend a lot of time under the snow and under the soil and sometimes under large spruce trees as well, so they... they do use hiding cover incredibly well.

CO: What do you have to do? What needs to be done in order to... to get a handle of this invasive species?

RB: Well, I think that we really need to take that mindset that is the cornerstone to a lot of issues, whether it's COVID or forest fires or... or cancer cells and other things is that you need rapid detection and reporting, and you need very aggressive and very... and immediate action. Most importantly, we need leadership, and we need someone to tackle this, some agency or group to really lead the way on this and start to pull everybody together because there is no one agency that's going to get this done. It has to be everybody rowing in the same direction and have a science-based plan. For example, Alberta is the only province I know that has an actual wild pigs strategy in place. I know Ontario is working quite hard on getting theirs finalized. But we can't even consider moving forward without good leadership. You know, science-based strategies. And then looking at that whole host of things that we can do. There are a lot of things like trapping and capturing with helicopter that can be effective. But if you just sort of throw those in without plans and cooperation and all that, then... then you're getting nowhere fast.

CO: Trapping, capturing them and destroying them?

RB: Yeah, that is really the only effective strategy is mortality-based efforts. There's no place to move them to. There's nobody that wants them. And so, there... you know, there's really no way to move the problem. And we have talked about, and there is quite a lot of research actually going on globally looking at, sterilization methods. But the challenge with that is these animals can live for 14 or 15 years, and spread disease and cause crop damage and put humans at risk and that. And so, I would say that anything that's not on mortality-based is probably, unfortunately, not much of a distraction. But obviously, that would be the ultimate goal. If there's ways to achieve this without having to actually euthanize animals, that would be an ideal.

CO: Ryan, we'll leave it there. I appreciate you telling us the story. Thank you.

RB: Very good.

CH: Ryan Brook is an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan and a wildlife biologist with the Canadian Wild Pig Research Project. We reached him in Saskatoon.

[music: acoustic guitar]

Jeopardy! Win Streak

Guest: Matt Amodio

CH: This player had the second-longest winning streak in the history of Jeopardy! If you guessed, "Who is Matt Amodio?" you are correct. If you guessed, "What's Matt Amodio?" Then you were obviously watching Matt Amodio.

SOUNDCLIP

MAYIM BIALIK: Matt Amodio, with $43,800. Did you say duck-billed platypus? Yes, you did! And what was your wager? Seven thousand dollars for a total of $50,800. You are our Jeopardy! champion, Matt, with a 38-day total of $1,518,601. What a fantastic week. Well-played, congratulations.

CH: He finally lost on Monday -- but the PhD student at Yale will take home more than 1.5 million dollars U.S., after winning 38 games straight. We reached Jeopardy! champion Matt Amodio in Medina, Ohio.

CO: Matt, just tell us what it was like at that particular moment? What was going on in your head and heart?

MATT AMODIO: Oh, I was ecstatic. So, I won quite a few games of Jeopardy! in my run, but everyone felt like such a rush because, you know, it can end at any given moment, so you just have to soak it all up. I went in hoping to win one game, so I can call myself a Jeopardy! Champion. And when it just kept rolling, it just was unbelievable, day after day.

CO: How did you get into it?

MA: I have always loved trivia, and I've always loved Jeopardy! specifically. My family watched it since I was a young kid. Eventually, I started to know some answers myself. And still, to this day, I go to a bar trivia. We play Trivial Pursuit. I'm just a trivia nerd.

CO: Well, lots of people are trivia nerds, but they couldn't do what you accomplished on Jeopardy! So how did you prepare yourself for this?

MA: I like just trying to learn things. I read all the time. I like history, but I like history of everything. I like the history of culture, the history of science, the history of literature. I just want to absorb every fact about the world I can.

CO: Knowing history and loving history is certainly a way to do well in Jeopardy!, but you can actually get caught up in some other categories. What are the ones that spooked you when they came up?

MA: I'm not so up to date with my pop culture, I would say. There are a lot of famous people who I think everybody else in my age group knows like the back of their hand. But I had to learn a lot of celebrity marriages and famous names on television.

CO: There's also a fair bit of stamina, right? Because people might not know that Jeopardy! records five episodes per day. So that's... that's pretty intense. How did you manage with that?

MA: Yeah. So it's a combination of stamina and then also being able to go in cold. So we taped five episodes in a day. But then it could be two weeks before you tape again, and you have to be ready to go from square one in the morning on the following day. And so, I had a rush, an adrenaline rush, that would help carry me through the day. I would get there at 7:00 in the morning, and it would be 7:00 at night, and I... I would have felt like it was a half-hour that passed at most.

CO: Oh my! And was there a technique? Did you have a strategy?

MA: Yeah, you know, I had a lot of different strategies in mind that I thought I might want to try going in. One of the things is to go from one category to another. And I found I was pretty successful at context, switching really quickly. And I think that that helped keep my challengers off their feet because that might have been harder for them. And so that was one thing where I definitely embraced that strategy.

CO: You also did something that people were a bit miffed with, which is that you pose a question, right, as an answer in Jeopardy! So when... and you'd use what for every single one of those. And so tell us about that strategy?

MA: So you have to respond in the form of a question. And generally, people take the time to decide if it's a person or a thing. And if it's a person, you say, who. Is it a singular or plural? And you say is or are. And so there is just a lot of... a lot of thinking that has to go on. And Jeopardy! is hard enough, as is. I didn't want to think about anything I didn't have to. And so the rules just allow you to say what for... for everything. And so I went in with that strategy and embraced it. So if asked about the current president, I would say, what's Biden? [chuckle] And it sounds awkward, but it's allowed.

CO: Wow! Where did you... where did you figure this out?

MA: There isn't really like a rules document or anything online. But you get individual rulings here and there. And when you watch every episode of the show the way I do, you can start to build a... an understanding of what's allowed and what isn't.

CO: OK. And there's a lot of things you have to do just to be a graduate student in computer sciences at Yale. So were you doing this at the same time?

MA: Yeah, I've been very busy. So, I haven't taken off any from work. I'm starting to write my dissertation. I'm nearing the end of my tenure here at Yale. And... and so it's been a little stressful combining Jeopardy! on top of all that, but it's been a lot of fun.

CO: What do your colleagues and friends at Yale think?

MA: Oh, they're all so proud of me. I imagine there's some jealousy and some negative emotions like that, but they've done a good job of hiding them, and they all seem very genuinely happy for me. So I appreciate that. [chuckle]

CO: I know it was your dad who kind of coaxed you into going online and doing the test to get on to Jeopardy! What does he think of this?

MA: Oh, he is so proud and feels totally vindicated, as he should. I was reluctant to go take the test and try out, and he pushed me too, and I did it mostly out of obligation to him. And, OK, you know what? You're right, dad. Thank you. [both chuckle]

CO: Now, this... your Final Jeopardy! clue. People were puzzled as to why you didn't get that because it's up your alley, isn't it? The clue was Nazi Germany annexed this nation and divided it into regions of the Alps and the Danube. The Allies later divided into four sectors. And so the answer is what?

MA: The answer is Austria. [laughing]

CO: Why didn't you get that?

MA: There's so much going on in the game at once. What I often do is just quickly skim the question and then immediately start thinking. And when you do that first skim, if you misread things, it can be hard to recover in such a short time. So I remember seeing the episode on television afterwards, and for the first time, I saw the word Alps in there, and I said, oh, I had no recollection of that being part of the clue.

CO: because it wouldn't have answered, "What is Poland?"

MA: That's right. [CO chuckles] I'm aware that the Alps are not in Poland. [both chuckle]

CO: That's your first clue. OK, and so you've won one-and-a-half-million U.S. dollars on this. Will you continue on to be among the alumni? Are you going to still be a contestant in some other kind of competitions in Jeopardy!?

MA: Yeah. So thankfully, I've won my berth to the Tournament of Champions, which is their... their annual postseason, if you will. And, hopefully, there will be some other tournaments down the line that I am still fortunate enough to get an invitation to. I would love to be part of the Jeopardy! family for as long as I'm invited.

CO: Well, big congratulations Matt, and thanks for speaking with us.

MA: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for taking the time.

CO: Bye.

CH: Matt Amodio had the second-longest winning streak in Jeopardy! history -- 38 straight games. We reached him in Medina, Ohio. The longest streak, of course, still belongs to Ken Jennings -- with 74 consecutive wins. You can find more on that story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[music: "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" as sung by Fred Penner]

Milky Way Radio Signal

CH: National treasure Fred Penner, with "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". A song that -- in terms of the science -- is frankly garbage. Stars are not little. And we know exactly "what they are": massive balls of hydrogen and helium that produce heat and light because of nuclear reactions deep in their core. If anyone's interested in writing a more astronomically rigorous song about an actual space mystery, though, here's a subject: ASKAP J-one-seven-three-six-zero-eight-point-two-dash-three-two-one-six-three-six. Admittedly, a little challenging in terms of rhyming and meter. But also a little challenging in terms of what it even is. A new paper in Astrophysical Journal describes a pattern of radio signals, coming from a source somewhere deep in the heart of the Milky Way. That source is extremely bright, except when it's dim, or invisible. It goes on and off seemingly at random. Scientists saw it six times over nine months last year, and then it vanished, and when they found it again, it behaved completely differently. They don't think it's a star. They don't think it's a pulsar. It may be a Galactic Center Radio Transient but also it may not be whatever that is. In conclusion, the paper's lead author says, "We've never seen anything like it." Cool space mystery. But I think I speak for everyone on Earth when I say: not now, ASKAP J-one-seven-three-six-zero-eight-point-two-dash-three-two-one-six-three-six. Okay? Just -- not now.

[music: instrumental]

Part 2: Border Community Reactions, Blue Origin Critics

Border Community Reactions

Guest: Ali Hayton

CH: For families that were separated, business owners in border communities and countless other people for countless other reasons, it's the best news in a long time. The United States Secretary of Homeland Security has announced that next month, the country will open its land and ferry border crossings to non-essential, fully-vaccinated travellers from Canada and Mexico. Which comes months after Canada eased its border restrictions on non-essential travel in the summer. We're still waiting for some of the details from the U.S., but Ali Hayton is already relieved. She runs a grocery store in the Washington state border community of Point Roberts, which relies heavily on Canadian customers. We reached Ms. Hayton in Spokane, Washington.

CO: Ali, how much have you missed seeing Canadians in Point Roberts these past 18 months?

ALI HAYTON: Oh, more than I ever thought possible. [chuckling] Our local residents have been wonderfully supportive, but it's been hard to survive without that Canadian influx.

CO: So you have a lot of attachments to Canadians, but just for people who haven't been in Point Roberts or don't know of it, you have some pretty strong geographical connections [chuckling] to Canada as well. Can you just explain what the map looks like?

AH: Yeah. So if you're, say, in Seattle, Washington, you drive north like you're going to head... go to Vancouver, British Columbia, and as soon as you cross the border, you take a hard left and drive over to the coast, and then you take another hard left and drop down onto a little peninsula. So you have to go through two international borders to get to Point Roberts from the rest of the United States.

CO: And why is that?

AH: Um, it falls below the 49th parallel, so it's just a tiny, tiny piece of land. And when they divided the United States and Canada, they used the 49th parallel as a divider, and Point Roberts falls beneath it, so it is part of the United States.

CO: And as a peninsula, you use your water on three sides, right?

AH: Water on three sides and Canada on the fourth.

CO: [laughing] OK, so that's the geographic connection. And tell us some of the... because there's really strong relationships, right, between Canadians and Americans and in your community?

AH: Oh yeah, 75 per cent of the homes in Point Roberts are owned by Canadians. They're a vacation home. It's a beautiful little spot, and land is typically cheaper in the United States than Canada. [chuckle] So a lot of Canadian people have bought... have purchased homes there. A lot of our residents are also dual citizens. We have a lot of that. So they usually just come down, spend a long weekend, spend all summer there. So when they announced the border closure back in March of 2020, you know, my first thought was, Oh God, thank you, it's not July! Because the summer is when we make all of our money to get through the winter. So as April and May and June, July rolled along, we're like, OK, this is getting difficult. So we made it through a year. And then when it got to June of this year and they continued the closure, we got desperate. And at that point I... I kind of said you know what? I can't keep suffering these losses by myself because my store is built to service all of those Canadians that were no longer allowed to come down. And so it was really hard to keep it functioning with only 800 people living in Point Roberts. So we... we had... we had some really scary times where we thought we weren't going to make it. But this shows us it's like the light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, we still have a hole to dig out of to recover the lost revenue from the last two years. But at least now we have a chance.

CO: And we told people at the beginning that you run a grocery store in the community.

AH: Yeah, I'm the only grocery store in Point Roberts. So when people were locked in, I was their only source of milk, fresh vegetables, meat, Tylenol, Band-Aids. I mean, unless they had wanted to drive all the way around to the other part of the country and try to get through the border because it was up to the border guard if he deemed their trip essential or not. I'm it for... for the people there, so it was really important that we were able to stay open. It was really important for me to keep my employees employed and covered with medical insurance and those types of things. So it's been super, super stressful. Nothing, anybody... if you ever told me that was even possible, I wouldn't have believed you, so. [chuckle]

CO: So you survived. Were there shops that didn't?

AH: Oh, almost every restaurant in Point Roberts is closed. There's one, I think, that's open three nights a week, maybe four. We have a lot of parcel businesses. Like, people get goods shipped to Point Roberts and come down from Canada to pick them up. So those businesses have really struggled. There's a little gift shop, Auntie Pam's, she was down to two days a week, and I think really, really struggling. The gas station... the gas stations have been devastated. You know, people usually just drive down and fill up their tanks, come to my store, buy milk, cheese and meat and go back home. And we haven't had any of that for 19 months.

CO: So now we're facing the news that the border is going to open. Fully vaccinated Canadians will not have to get a negative test, but there... there are some concerns over whether the U.S. will even allow their vaccinations, right?

AH: I saw a news piece yesterday that said they will approve any vaccination that the W.H.O. approves. So even though in the United States, AstraZeneca wasn't approved, as long as it was approved by the W.H.O., they will allow them to come in.

CO: But there's some... some concerns on the part of Washington still is that they would not accept people with mixed vaccines. So if you have AstraZeneca and Moderna that it's not... they won't let you in with that.

AH: Oh, you know, that's a bigger problem, and hopefully, they'll figure out a way to resolve that. But for me, as a business owner, and for the residents of Point Roberts, we'll take anything. [both laugh] We'll... we'll take… if you said it's only the Pfizer people, I would say, bring them in. Figure that out later. Just give me somebody. Give me some customers back. I mean, obviously, I want them all in, but to just at least get a few of them in to get us through the winter. I'll take it.

CO: So... so does it feel like your bad dream is over?

AH: Ah, yeah, but I'm... I'm guardedly hopeful because I've thought I'd seen the light at the end of the tunnel before and ended up realizing it was just another freight train coming to knock me over.

CO: There are still hassles, though, right? Canadians... travellers re-entering Canada have to show proof of a negative test that's not more than 72 hours old, but would that discourage Canadians, or do you think just enough of them will say everything's OK. I'm coming to Point Roberts.

AH: You know, I think it'll discourage some. It definitely will. But on the flip side of that, the Canadian media has been... they've been rock stars in following our plight down here. So I'm hoping that there are enough people that have learned about Point Roberts that there's going to be a lot of people that are... that have their vaccinations that are going to want to come down and help our community. Hopefully, they get all the logistics worked out. You know, I've asked my senator, and I'm going to speak with the governor this afternoon. I'm going to ask them to fund a rapid testing site at the border so that the Canadians don't have to have that expense so that they can come down, get a rapid test and go home. Because adding $200 for a Canadian to get tested in Point Roberts so that they can return to Canada kind of is prohibitive for a lot of people. So I'm hoping that they're working on things like that to make it easier for this to happen.

CO: All right. Well, we'll see what happens when this happens. And I think for a lot of people, not just in your community, but across the border are pretty happy to see this finally happen. And it's good to talk to you, Ali. Thank you.

AH: You, too. Thanks, Carol.

CO: Bye.

AH: Bye.

CH: Ali Hayton owns the Point Roberts International Marketplace, near the border with B.C. Today, she was in Spokane, Washington.

[music: ambient]

Unvaccinated Nurse

CH: Nathan Friedland calls unvaccinated nurses a disgrace to the profession. Last night, the Quebec ER nurse told Carol he was happy that the province requires all nurses to get the shot -- and that their licences will be suspended if they don't. But today, Quebec's health minister delayed the vaccine mandate for another 30 days. CBC Montreal spoke with several unvaccinated nurses about their reasons for not getting the shot. One works at the hospital in Shawville, Quebec. The CBC agreed not to reveal his identity because he's worried it will hurt his career.

SOUNDCLIP

NURSE: So for me, honestly, I just feel like ethically, it's just wrong for a, you know, governmenting body to enforce some form of medication or vaccination against people. You know, like, I'm not against vaccines, you know, I work in the health field. We give... well, we used to give the flu shot. We give vaccinations against measles, mumps, rubella, all those types of things. Polio, you know, polio is gone now because of vaccinations. But, you know, like, this just feels so, like, different, the fact that it's being forced. And like, if you don't comply, you won't be able to work, you know, it's just a little too far in my opinion. I understand the whole social aspect may be being taken away from you. You can't travel, you can't go out to restaurants and eat. But even to say you can't work and earn money is preposterous. I find with the people that aren't vaccinated, there's two groups in general, there's the people where they think that the government's going to track you or that you're going to turn into a zombie or whatever. You know, there's conspiracy theories, and I'm really not about that. Like if the government wanted to track you, they would literally just tap into your phone whenever they wanted or just check your bank statements and see where you made your last purchases. You know, there's a lot more sophisticated ways for them to track you. And I'm just more like, look, I come from a background where, like, I've been a sick person my whole life too, from asthma, eczema. Like, I had cancer when I was 16 years old and went through three-and-a-half years of treatment. And I'm just so... like, I'm just so over medication. And finally, now, for the last three years, I feel like I've just been healthy, gaining weight, doing my own thing, not on medication. And I'm just so happy the way I am. And I just feel like why even are vaccinated people so afraid of the unvaccinated people? Like, you're protected already. Just relax!

CH: A nurse from Shawville, Quebec, speaking to CBC Montreal's Jay Turnbull.

[music: ambient]

Blue Origin Critics

Guest: Ted Anthony

CH: As Captain Kirk, 55 years ago, he was on a five-year mission to explore space. As himself, this morning, his mission was closer to ten minutes. At about 7:50 a.m. Pacific Time today, William Shatner made the short trip on Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket. After returning to Earth, he had this to say to his multibillionaire fellow astronaut.

SOUNDCLIP

WILLIAM SHATNER: What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine. [beginning to cry] And I’m so filled with emotion about what just happened. I just... it's extraordinary, extraordinary. I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now. I don't want to lose it. It's so… so much larger than the me and life, and it hasn't got anything to do with the green man in the blue orb. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the enormity and the quickness and the suddenness of life and death. And the… oh my God!

CH: William Shatner speaking after his flight on Blue Origin. For many people -- especially Trekkies -- Mr. Shatner's adventure today stood in contrast to the kind of utopian approach to space travel depicted in Star Trek. Ted Anthony is a huge Star Trek fan, and a culture writer for the Associated Press. We reached him in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

CO: Ted, you just heard William Shatner speaking with Jeff Bezos about his emotions and experience, what do you make of that?

TED ANTHONY: Well, it is not surprising to me that that's what we saw from Shatner. I mean, he is always someone who has come across as someone who lives large, and I think that's certainly part of what he infused into the character of James T. Kirk. That was a character who well a man of action was also very much a man of thought and of contemplating larger things in the infinite. And well I don't want to make too much of a connection between an actor and his role, it seems clear to me as someone who's watched Shatner a lot over the years that there's a lot of him in his roles, and being moved by the infinite is in some ways very much on brand for him.

CO: Now, he was... he didn't pay for this trip. The others who are there apparently paid some undisclosed but undoubtedly very large amount of money to be in that capsule with him. What does Jeff Bezos get out of this? Why do you think it was so important to him to have William Shatner there?

TA: I think that Jeff Bezos gets the aura of Star Trek surrounding his space endeavour. You know, it's an interesting sort of overlay in that as we look at the increasing sort of privatization of some of space travel, at the same time, we're bringing in this modern myth about what space travel could be. That is something that, as Star Trek has represented, has generally been good and positive and humanistic and ethical. And I think that, you know, Bezos stands to benefit greatly from having those traits associated with his own business. And so it's, for him, it's definitely a marketing victory.

CO: What is... for people who... that might not know, what is the kind of vision of space travel that Star Trek represents?

TA: Well, it posits a future where people have learned to get along. Where inequality is largely a thing of the past, not entirely, but largely. And where people recognise that, you know, exploration and the pursuit of knowledge and things like that are in the front seat when it comes to space travel and exploration. And I think that over the course of more than a half century and multiple television shows and movies in different iterations, sometimes darker or sometimes lighter, but it always comes back to the notion that human beings moving into space is a good thing for human beings and a good thing for space, and that that's a very strong message to bring to proceedings like these this morning.

CO: And how does it compare? What is the contrast between what you've just described and what this flight... Blue Origin flight represents?

TA: I think that in the United States, at least, that we're trying to figure out what place space travel occupies in the culture? And I mean, certainly there are elements of both the romance and the competitive nature between nations that space travel represented in the 1960s. There's certainly an element of the privatization of a lot of things in the culture and the fact that this is not necessarily a mission for a country, but a mission for company. And as Bezos frames it, a mission for people. And so I think that there are some contrasts there. And I think that it's worth noting that, you know, we do not... I spoke to... to someone for a piece I wrote about this who said that, you know, governments and countries lack a narrative for space travel right now, whereas corporations and companies have a good one. And I think that when we ask ourselves, you know, what should space travel be? How should we approach it in this country and in this... on this planet? And you know, what priorities does it assume among things like, you know, the environment and climate change, like inequity, things like that? Those are questions that we're grappling with very much right now. And in Star Trek, those things seem to have largely been solved, at least until they aren't for the purposes of dramatic tension in any particular episode.

CO: So Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world and wealth comes from Amazon, where we have done many stories on this shows, as your agency has, about the exploitation of workers, how they're treated, how they live, paycheque to paycheque. At the same time, we know Jeff Bezos, we did the story that ProPublica had exposed that with all the tax records they obtained that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have paid little to no taxes, personal taxes. That their wealth is enormous, and yet, [chuckling] they contribute very little to the finances of the country as they live in. So does this compensate for it? By putting all his money into this kind of space travel, does... does that represent any contribution or is just another way of exploiting his wealth?

TA: You know, I think that anytime you bring something like this, like events like this into the debate, you're going to have people who are for it and who are against it. And in this case, you have a lot of people who are lovers of space and space travel who are going to feel like this offsets those things. And you're going to have folks who say, OK, there are a lot of indications that these companies and these billionaires could do a lot better with the world. I think either side gets a lot of fuel and ammunition for furthering their narrative by a project like this.

CO: And so the theatre of today and how it creates this kind of swashbuckling quality, what questions does that distract us from, perhaps?

TA: You know, that's I think that's the most important question of all. I mean, whether you approve of billionaires like Bezos and Musk and Branson doing this, whether you don't. I think that seeing through those narratives and assessing this with a colder eye is a very useful thing. We do tend to be seduced by the loud and the epic, and I think it covers up solid questions that are being asked about, you know, how does this stack up to other priorities in the world? Is it an either or? Do we have to have either space travel or attention to inequity and climate change? Or can there be some kind of a, you know, a system that evolves going forward that effectively takes into account the good things of one priority and addresses the things that are hurting the society and the culture in another. So I think what narratives like the big epic ones tend to do is they tend to tell us that something is either this way or it's this way, and it leaves very little space in between. And what I'm saying is that I think that asking the right questions about this type of endeavour makes us look at the in-betweens and say, How can we solve this in a way that isn't necessarily purely cinematic?

CO: Ted, we'll leave it there. And thanks for your insights.

TA: Sure, I'm happy to be here, thank you for having me.

CH: Ted Anthony writes for the Associated Press. He's in Pittsburgh. And you can find more on this story on our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[music: lullaby]

NL Floating Moving Home

CH: Moving day was particularly stressful for Danielle Penney and her family. The Newfoundlanders weren't just packing up their stuff -- they were moving their actual house. Not by hauling it up on a flatbed to be driven to its new location. But by floating it on the sea for about a kilometre. Here's Ms. Penney talking about the move.

SOUNDCLIP

DANIELLE PENNEY: It was pretty nail-biting, I got to say. I was pretty nervous. [chuckling] At times, I could not watch what was going on, and we had everybody there who was keeping me in the loop while I was turned round the other way.

LINDSAY BIRD: Why was this house so special to you that you wanted to do this? You know, was it possible to build a new house or what was it about this house in particular?

DP: It probably would have been easier to build a new house. But this house, to me, was something that I always loved and dreamed of... of owning. And it's just... I don't know. It was the little green house on the point that I just... I loved it. I talked about it to my friends, my family, everybody knew that I always... my heart always belonged to this house. And now that I was given the opportunity to take it and move it to our own location and make it our own family home is... is more than I could ever dreamed of.

LB: And you couldn't just buy it and live in it where it was?

DP: No, because the people who owned the house, they loved their piece of land. [laughing] I would, but they loved their piece of land. And we have a beautiful piece of land over there, too. So... so it was just... instead of... it was being torn down. So instead of it being torn down, we just said we'll take it and make it... make the best of it, see if it can withstand the water. And if it's meant to be over there, it's meant to be. And according to yesterday, it was meant to be. [laughing]

LB: What was that like to experience having... having this be the centre of commotion, I guess, in McEvers yesterday?

DP: For me, I wished I was like the bystanders who got to watch it, not witnessing your house coming across the bay, wondering if it was going to be at the bottom or it was going to make it the whole way.

CH: That was Danielle Penney speaking with CBC reporter Lindsay Bird about the successful floating and relocation of her house in Newfoundland.

[music: folk]

Part 3: Inuit Métis Land Claims, Nova Scotia Doctor Shortage

Slain Journalist’s Father Speaks Against Facebook

CH: On August 16, 2015, TV journalist Alison Parker was in the middle of a live broadcast in Virginia when a former co-worker shot her and her cameraman, Adam Ward, killing them both. Video of the murder was captured by a GoPro the gunman was wearing. It was uploaded and began circulating online. And despite repeated promises from Facebook and Instagram that they'd remove the video, the footage is still online. Now, Alison Parker's father, Andy Parker, has filed an official complaint against Facebook with the US Federal Trade Commission -- to remove that footage of his daughter's final moments from the internet. Here is Mr. Parker talking about his complaint.

SOUNDCLIP

ANDY PARKER: I've maintained for years that Facebook and Google profit from the video of my daughter Alison's murder in 2015. And violate what they advertise to the public: that they don't allow violent content on their platforms. Now, both these companies have denied it over and over again, but we know better. And it's one thing for me to say it and keep saying it. But when someone with insider firsthand knowledge like Frances Haugen confirms, as she did last week in her Senate testimony, that this is what they do, it validates what I've maintained for all these years. Posting content, violent content and murder on social media is not free speech. It's savagery. And as you all know, Alison's murder shared on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube is just one of the egregious practices that are undermining the fabric of our society. And just as we experienced with YouTube, Facebook wants the public to self-police. They want you to report, they want me to report, they want me to watch the videos and report them. And even when you do, they ignore you. Haugen told a Senate quote, "My fear is that without action, divisive and extremist behaviour, as we see today, are only the beginning," unquote. And allowing video of an execution, what's tantamount to an execution, is part of this danger. And what about Congress? Now, I don't know if you all caught it this weekend, but Saturday Night Live did a parody about the hearings, saying quote, "What Facebook has done is disgraceful, and you better believe that Congress will be taking action, right after we passed the infrastructure bill, raise the debt ceiling, prosecute those responsible for the January 6th insurrection and stop Trump from using executive privilege, even though he's no longer president. But after that, you better watch out Facebook," end quote. Sadly, that's a parody I've seen play out for real. The point is, it's time to act. I hope my FTC complaint gets traction, but ultimately, Congress is going to have to fix social media before it ruins our country and the world.

CH: Andy Parker is the father of Alison Parker, a journalist who was killed while reporting live on the air. Five years later, video of her murder is still online. Mr. Parker has filed a complaint with the FTC in the United States to have the videos permanently removed from Facebook.

[music: the mini update theme]

Mini Update: Nova Scotia Doctor Shortage

CH: Still ahead on As It Happens tonight: We'll take a look at a problem that plagued Nova Scotia long before the pandemic...and is only getting worse. The province doesn't have nearly enough doctors to treat its patients. In fact, there are tens of thousands of people looking for a family doctor right now...and many of them are like our guest tonight -- who has a chronic condition and can't get care without going to an already overburdened hospital. His story, coming up in just a few minutes on As It Happens.

[music continues]

Inuit Métis Land Claims

Guest: Natan Obed

CH: The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, or ITK, is a nonprofit that describes itself as "The National Voice Of Canada's 65,000 Inuit." The NunatuKavut Community Council, or NCC, meanwhile, is a smaller organization, that claims to represent a subsection of that community. Specifically, about 6,000 Inuit living in south and central Labrador. Trouble is, ITK disputes that claim. And it's not alone. In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week, the group's president Natan Obed says neither his organization, nor the four separate land claims organizations that form ITK, recognize the NCC as an "Inuit" organization. And Mr. Obed says it's time the federal government stopped treating it like one. We reached Natan Obed in Ottawa.

CO: President Obed, what evidence do you have that the NunatuKavut Community Council’s claim to traditional Inuit land... why do you believe that claim is false?

NATAN OBED: First, this particular group didn't become Inuit until 2010. Prior to 2010, this group was the Metis Nation of Labrador. And they then changed their official title to Inuit. So that gives a sense of how new this particular group is within the context of Inuit self-determination and Inuit governance. It has taken about 10 years for the new Nunatsiavut Government, which has a modern treaty with the federal government to assess and to make its position known about NCC. And it has deemed that they are not an Inuit collective.

CO: So when you're saying this NunatuKavut Community Council, that's the group that, as you mentioned, were previously known as the Labrador Matis Council, and have changed their name to the NunatuKavut Community Council to reflect, they say, their mixed heritage of being both European and Inuit. So do you dispute that?

NO: Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami does not dispute that there are people within what is being called the NunatuKavut area that do have Inuit ancestry. Our concern is with NunatuKavut being an Indigenous collective, especially in relation to the constitution and then the rights that flow through legislation, through programs and services. The modern treaty process that the government enacted in the early 1970s demanded that all First Nations, Inuit and Metis who did not have settled claims with the government of Canada prove that they were Indigenous in order to then... for the government of Canada to then create agreements with outstanding Indigenous collectives who were seeking status.

CO: And thank you for that, because it's very... it's very key to this discussion, isn't it, as to what the language means and how it relates to disputes and resolutions? And so, this... the NunatuKavut are making a claim to a part of territory that they say is theirs, and they are entering into negotiations with the federal government about that. Can you tell us where this land is that they are laying claim to?

NO: From my understanding, the NunatuKavut claim encompasses the southern Labrador coast, the central Labrador interior and then some of the northern Labrador coast. So if their claim was to proceed, there would be overlapping claims with the Nunatsiavut Inuit and I'm a member of that particular group. There's also the Innu Nation. And a large portion of the Innu Nation’s settlement area would be overlapping with the NCC. This is part of the reason why representational organizations must take stands and must be very clear about our self-determination in describing who belongs within our community and who we feel does not belong within our community. A lot of the... the weight has been put on our shoulders as Innuit to describe how our community is, against quite a large wave of Canadians now choosing to define themselves as Indigenous peoples, whether on the individual level or on the collective level.

CO: Can I just say, they have reached out to you and said that they... multiple times, they say, inviting you to this region of Labrador that they are laying claim to. And they say... they ask you to learn about NunatuKavut, their stories of connection and belonging. Would you accept that invitation? Is that something that you could engage in?

NO: I have not, or the board of directors has not accepted that invitation. There are many different political considerations in the way in which invitations are handled, the way in which institutions work with one another or the way in which they do not. As innocent as that might sound, there are other factors at play that have made it very difficult for Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami or other Innuit regions to feel as though that would be a worthwhile endeavour.

CO: You have instead asked the prime minister to not proceed with these negotiations with the NCC. And the NCC is saying to you that you have no authority to deny them access to these kinds of talks. And they've called your letter to the prime minister appalling and repulsive. What's your response?

NO: The federal government has been an arbiter of who Indigenous people are or are not for a long, long time. And we, as Inuit, have worked very hard to create constructive arrangements with the Crown through modern treaties and land claim agreements. And we also have maintained kinship ties with Inuit across Inuit Nunangat. And that we are quite comfortable in understanding who we are, and we also know that we live in a nation state and in a time where we need to make these sort of decisions in order to protect our place as Indigenous peoples in this country.

CO: Have you had a response from the federal government?

NO: No, I’ve not received any response from the federal government

CO: President Obed, I understand this is extremely complex, and I'm sure that there are many things that we haven't done justice to this conversation. But I appreciate you speaking with us. Thank you.

NO: Well, thanks for the opportunity to speak to you.

CH: Natan Obed is the President of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. We reached him in Ottawa. We also reached out to the Office of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations. And the office issued a statement which reads, in part: "The goal of our discussions is to move forward together to find shared and balanced solutions that advance reconciliation in a way that respects the interests of members of NCC and all Canadians. Should an Indigenous group’s rights be adversely affected by the product of these discussions, the Government of Canada will consult as appropriate."

[music: world music]

Nova Scotia Doctor Shortage

Guest: Colin Heighton

CHRIS HOWDEN: Nova Scotia's new Progressive Conservatives won the last election in part by pledging to fix the province's strained health care system. It's becoming clear that's easier said than done. This month, the list of people looking for a family doctor hit over 77,000 names -- a 60 per cent increase from last year. Meanwhile, there are reports of patients waiting for hours and hours in the province's emergency rooms. Colin Heighton has epilepsy, and lost his family doctor in the summer. We reached him in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.

CO: Colin, do you have any hope that he'll get a new family doctor any time soon?

COLIN HEIGHTON: No, I do not. I have no faith in... in what's going on right now with... with our doctor situation in the province, and I honestly do not have any faith that this will... that this will change anytime soon.

CO: You know that since the summer, when you lost your doctor, that you have joined a very large group of Nova Scotians, more than 77,000, who are without a family doctor right now. What does that number represent for you?

CH: That number represents, to me, despair. I... because I see 77,000 people ahead of me in line looking for doctors that are not here. So we, you know, first need to get the doctors here and then get that process moving. So I see that as a... as able a long timeline for... for me to secure a family doctor.

CO: This is not a new problem for Nova Scotia and for Cape Breton. This has been coming for a long time, but it's just so huge now. And then, when your doctor retired in the summer, what did that mean for you? What were the consequences?

CH: The consequences of my family doctor retiring in the summer means that the medications that I need to take for... for my epilepsy, I’ll need to go to... to the... the emergency room to get those filled. And if... if I'm not going in, as you know, somebody who's... who's sick walking into the emergency room, I'm looking at what I've experienced on average eight hour wait times.

CO: And you're going into another system. Family doctors are such... on such a premium in Nova Scotia. But at the same time, the hospitals are overwhelmed. So you are going from one system that is broken to another, one that is in bad shape, right?

CH: Very bad shape and agree with that, yes. When I... when I went into the hospital, it just felt like... like nothing was moving, like there were people in the waiting room. But on the other side of the door, you know, I could... you could tell that everyone in there was busy. There just weren't enough people in there to... to assist those who are in the waiting room. So essentially, they were just taking people coming in by ambulance. And the people who were in the waiting room really didn't have much of a shot that day and most of the other days that I visited as well.

CO: You had one particularly bad experience when you were very sick and needing emergency care. Can you tell us about that?

CH: When I went into the hospital and I did need emergency care the first time, I had waited eight hours. While I was there, I was given a bag to... to vomit and inside the waiting room. And after eight hours had passed and I was still there, I had to leave and go home. I spent two more days at home sick and went back to the hospital and waited another eight hours to... to be treated that second time.

CO: And what did you see when you're there as far as the volume of patients coming through emergency?

CH: It was absolutely packed. At one point, people were just kind of standing around in places. There is kind of a corridor that's adjacent to the waiting room. People were lined up around that corner, sitting on the seats there. And people were coming in. And as those people were coming in, they were just kind of taking a look at the amount of people who were waiting and walking out and also witnessed some... some people who had taken in infants who had to leave as well due to the time constraint. And some senior citizens who were not able to get the care they need at

CO: At the same time in the summer when you were losing your doctor, you must have been hearing the... Tim Houston, the head of the progressive Conservative Party, now the government in your province, who campaigned on a promise that he was going to fix this and he was going to put more than $400 million, he said that he's going to do in the first year in order to rebuild from scratch your health care system. And he has noted that the situation for doctors is something he is going to address. Does that give you any hope?

CH: Hearing it gives me a little bit of hope, but due the past track record of the government here in Nova Scotia, I honestly... I honestly will not count on it until I am sitting in that doctor's waiting room.

CO: Thing is, you might not be sitting in the doctor's waiting room. One of the things that the government is proposing is that all Nova Scotians should get access to online doctors through Telehealth. What would that mean for you to be able to access a doctor by computer?

CH: That would be absolutely wonderful if they were able to implement the Telehealth system in a…. any organized manner. That would be... be extraordinarily helpful. It would mean, you know, not having to take a day off or to take a one dig at a prescription filled.

CO: But it is something that exists now, but it's part of the private sector, isn't it? It’s a user pays system. And so the government is saying that it will cover the cost of Telehealth. What concerns do you have that the only way that the Nova Scotia government can really do this is to some kind of privatization, at least part of the health care system?

CH: My concern is if it is going to start leaning towards the private sector is that, you know, for the time being, the promise is that it will be free of charge. But down the line, there is no saying, you know, if that rule will change or if... if that'll be coming out of our pockets.

CO: We'll leave it there, Colin, and I'm glad that things are a bit better now. And I hope you get the health care you need soon. But thanks for speaking with us.

CH: Thanks for your time. I appreciate it.

CHRIS HOWDEN: We reached Colin Heighton in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia.

[music: folk]

Robin Williams Impersonation

CH: Robin Williams was a master of impressions. And now, actor Jamie Costa has shown that he can nail an impression of the master. This week, Mr. Costa released a clip on YouTube called 'ROBIN test footage'. It's a fully-realized scene with Jamie Costa in costume as Robin Williams, getting the news in his trailer on set that his friend John Belushi had died. And now, people are clamoring for a biopic featuring Mr. Costa as Mr. Williams. Here is part of that clip, which also features Sarah Murphree as Pam Dawber.

SOUNDCLIP

JAMIE COSTA: Mork calling Orson. Come in Orson.

SARAH MURPHREE: Robin.

JC: What? I’m going to try another thing here. Mork calling Orson. [clears throat]

SM: There’s something I have to tell you

JC: Come in your fetitude! Mort? Hello, Orson. Falling asleep on the job again, Mort? No your minceness, just working on my report on dreams. [awkward chuckle] Dreams? Well, dreams are a beautiful aspect of human culture. In fact, it happens when you're at night and you close your eyes and all kinds of images happen, and it's really bizarre. Well, let's try this one. Well, it depends on who you ask. If you ask Cinderella, she might sing it to you and say --

SM: Robin.

JC: [singing] A dream is a wish your heart warming.

SM: Robin!Could you give us a moment?

JC: Dawbs? This about that fart earlier? It won't happen again.

SM: John Belushi died last night. They found him in his bungalow this morning.

JC: No. I told you I was with him. John's not dead. I was with him last night.

SM: I know you were. I'm so sorry, Robin.

JC: No.

SM: You know, you don't have to go out there.

JC: No, I think I do.

CH: That was a clip posted on YouTube of actor Jamie Costa playing Robin Williams. The clip has fans talking about the prospect of Mr. Costa playing the late actor and comedian in a full-length biopic.

[music: acoustic guitar]

Chicago Marathon Guy

CH: Andre Morgan just flew in from Chicago -- and boy, are his legs tired. On Sunday, the Hamilton man completed the ultramarathon Escape to Chicago. A dozen runners from Canada and the U.S. ran 10 kilometres at a time from Toronto to Chicago, 24 hours a day, for five days. They clocked about 875 kilometres, with Mr. Morgan running 126 of them. And then, to top it off, they finished with the Chicago Marathon. Their goal was to raise money for six different charities from Toronto to Chicago. Mr. Morgan spoke with CBC Hamilton about the run.

SOUNDCLIP

ANDRE MORGAN: In total, we've run 850 kilometres from Toronto to Chicago, and one day break. And then this morning, we went ahead and did the marathon. It wasn't easy because tired legs, but at the end of it, we all may have ended up with over 100k of running, the entire team. But yeah, we had some bumps in the States, but we worked it out. And the idea was just doing different lengths, legs overnight, in the morning, no matter where you get a nap and then you continued. It was always a very, very interesting chain of events. And everyone that was on the RV, everyone that was involved, knew that there was a bigger picture, so there was never any different energy there that would have, you know, pulled down everyone's morale. But believe me, even that night, people came out with poppers and like, let's go. And that was the chant for the entire trip. It’s a long distance. It is an ultra marathon. I've done three of these now in different formats. So a lot of them are ultra-marathons where you're able to do more than a marathon, but in different capacities. But this one resonates way more because how charities are at the forefront and the run is just the cherry on top.

CH: That was Andre Morgan talking about completing the five-day ultramarathon Escape to Chicago.

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October 13, 2021 Episode Transcript

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