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The AIH Transcript for October 21, 2021

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

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

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: The terrible strain of the terrible strains. In Saskatchewan hospitals are at a breaking point with COVID patients, and an intensive care physician says the province needs to start transferring dozens of patients to Ontario to keep up.

CH: Flag on the play. A former NFLer tells us the league spent years evaluating Black retirees compensation claims differently from their white peers based on the racist assumption that they had lower cognitive function to begin with.

CO: None standard operating procedure. After decades of struggle, doctors achieve a scientific breakthrough. Taking a kidney from a genetically modified pig and successfully attaching it to a human patient.

CH: Brave New World. A group of respected doctors and health experts say that climate change will soon be a much greater risk to your health than COVID. And if action isn't taken soon, millions of lives are at risk.

CO: Stages of grief. Ontario's Stratford Festival and theatre lovers across Canada are in mourning following the death of the great Martha Henry, Colm Feore tells us what her mentoring meant to him.

CH: And crime doesn't play. A child in New Zealand calls emergency dispatchers to urgently request police come and see his super cool toys. And if you want to know what happens next, don't touch that miss dial. As It Happens, the Thursday edition. Radio that hopes he didn't get in trouble because there's no point in plaything blame.

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Part 1

Saskatchewan COVID transfers

Guest: Dr. Hassan Masri

CH: Saskatchewan's chief medical health officer is telling it to people straight. Unless their behaviour changes fast the future is very grim. Yesterday, Dr. Saqib Shahab released the COVID 19 modelling for the province. It showed that there could be more than 200 COVID patients in the ICU by the New Year. That's more than double the current number, and hospitals are already overwhelmed. Then Dr. Shahab broke down.

SHQIB SHAHAB: [SOUNDCLIP:]You know, I think in the past I've been there's mention that, you know, Dr. Shahab just pleads to the public and he doesn't direct an order. But I have no shame in pleading to the public that, you know, we've gone so far. And, you know, we just have to pull along for the next few months. And you know, it is distressing to see what is happening in schools and hospitals. And I'm sorry, you know, it's a very challenging time, thank you.

REPORTER: No, that's OK. This wasn't the question I was planning on asking, but Dr. Shahab, are you ok?

SHQIB SHAHAB: I'll take a minute [inaudible].

REPORTER: No, take all the time you need, please.

SHQIB SHAHAB: Let's just say that, you know, all the evidence is out there, and it is very distressing to see unvaccinated, young, healthy people ending up in ICU and dying, you know? And you know, I'm watching this from a distance, but the pressure this puts... We talk about burnout, we talked about burnout and stuff, you know, to see young lives lost to a vaccine preventable disease. How can we accept this?

CH: Saskatchewan's Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab in tears yesterday during a news conference to share COVID modelling numbers. Dr. Hassan Masri is an intensive care physician at the Royal University Hospital. We reached him in Saskatoon.

CO: Dr. Masri, we just heard Saskatchewan's chief medical officer of health break down in tears, talking about the situation in your province. Just how bad is it at your hospital?

HASSAN MASRI: The situation is certainly quite terrible here in Saskatchewan in general and certainly here in Saskatoon, in our hospitals. ICU have been at maximum capacity for the last few days. Almost now, we're going to two weeks at full capacity and we're talking about surge capacity, meaning that our regular capacity, but our expanded capacity, many patients that deserve to be in the ICU are not in the ICU due to the fact that the ICU is full. There are actually a laundry room that's converted to an ICU room in Saskatoon. And so I am not surprised about the reaction of the chief health officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab, because the situation is just as that bad.

CO: And in Ontario, doctors, hospitals in Ontario, were hoping, were offering, willing, able to help you with those ICU patients. And Saskatchewan sent six ICU patients to Ontario. And then what happened? Then why haven't there been more transfers?

HM: The government is certainly playing politics with this. So the original announcement out of the Saskatchewan government was for six patients. The actual arrangements were for about 40 to 50 patients. And even the hospitals in Ontario were told that they will get 12 patients immediately in the first few days. And so the Saskatchewan government, I think, found itself in a bad situation where it is on the press that the citizens of Saskatchewan are being transferred to Ontario. What really happened is yesterday, myself and my colleagues were planning for patient number seven, eight and nine to leave Saskatchewan today when we suddenly heard from doctors in Ontario and not from our own government. What we heard from doctors in Ontario, that the transfers have been cancelled and then later on it was confirmed that it was cancelled. This is... this is a reckless, dangerous behaviour, we need to move these patients. We need to move another 30-40 patients in order to really make sure that people who are being cared for, not in the ICU who deserve ICU care are in the ICU. We need to make sure that all serious cancer, heart, brain surgeries go on. This is something that would really help Saskatchewan quite a bit and relieve the pressure that our ICUs have been handling for the last few weeks.

CO: I imagine when you're preparing people to transfer, these are critically ill people who have families who have support who are... There's a lot of fear around their health at that point. Everything about that, the transfer to a long distance to Ontario must be very fraught. So how do people respond? Especially when you find out at the last moment through a tweet that people who... that you're anticipating are going to get the care they need suddenly can't.

HM: When I sat down with the families of the patients who are being transferred to Ontario, they were gracious. They were kind. They were understanding. Families understand that we are in trouble. I mean, they walked into the ICU to visit their loved ones. They understand they see it. And really, everyone in this province, with the exception of the premier and his office, have a good understanding of what's going on. And so, you know, when I sat down with a few families in the last two days, they were very gracious. They were thankful, they were grateful and they were reassured by our words that these patients will be taken care of before they leave, during their transfer and after. And all six patients are doing well today in Ontario and receiving a standard of care or better because of the fact that Ontario ICUs are not under pressure.

CH: The Saskatchewan government, though, is saying that they have not confirmed whether more patients will be transferred. When asked about Ontario, these transfers Marlo Pritchard at the emergency operations centres said that they don't know where that number came from, that there will be six more transferred. So where is the confusion in this?

HM: There's really no confusion whatsoever. The Ontario ICUs were told upfront that they will be receiving 12 patients. In addition to that, if there are no plans to move six patients, more than six patients, then that tells you a lot about poor planning on the side of this government. It is very obvious that in order to make even the slightest difference, we need to move 40 to 50 patients. So if the government would like to maintain their talking points about confusion, then that's quite embarrassing for them. Because of the fact that moving six patients is not really... is not enough at all. There has been zero difference made to the system by moving only six patients. So certainly this is… unfortunately this government is mastering the game of politics over mastering the responsibility of taking care of people and certainly the number was not meant to be six. That was just the beginning.

CH: We heard from Dr. Shahab in that tape, and he yesterday was talking about how he can only give advice. He can only say what should happen, and then it's up to the government to decide to go beyond that. When you saw how shaken Dr. Shahab was yesterday, what went through your mind about the situation?

HM: You know, Dr. Saqib Shahab, a few weeks ago in a town hall meeting with his fellow physicians, indicated very clearly and hinted at the fact that he is not being listened to by the government, that really does not surprise me at all because this government has disregarded all of our opinions. It has disregarded the advice of every infectious disease and ICU doctor in this province, and so it would only make sense that they would also disregard the recommendation of the public health officer of the province. So this government is now chartering on very, very dangerous territory where it's putting pride and politics ahead of the life of the people here in Saskatchewan. The people in Saskatchewan do not deserve to be cared for in laundry rooms, and the people in Saskatchewan deserve to get the exact same ICU care that every other ICU in the country is giving them. And when you force the hands of physicians and nurses and the medical system to care for more patients than they can, then patients don't get the care that they deserve. This is an astonishing behaviour from this government.

CO: Dr. Masri, we'll leave it there. Thank you.

HM: Thank you.

CH: Dr. Hassan Masri is an intensive care physician at the Royal University Hospital. We reached him in Saskatoon. In a statement to the CBC after our interview, the Saskatchewan government said that it will be transferring three ICU patients to Ontario on the weekend, but did not clarify the confusion about transferring patients out of Saskatchewan over the last 24 hours. You can find more on that story on our website, CBC.ca/aih.

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New York pig kidney transplant

Guest: Dr. Robert Montgomery

CH: For decades, research on transferring an organ from an animal to a human has proven one thing, that it's incredibly tricky. Not only the science, but the human factors as well. Now there's been a big step forward involving a pig organ and a human patient. Dr. Robert Montgomery led the study and performed the procedure. We reached him in New York City.

CO: Dr. Montgomery, this has been reported as a very extraordinary breakthrough. What kind of response are you getting from your transplant community?

ROBERT MONTGOMERY: The response from the transplant community has been very positive. There's a sense that, you know, that this sort of breaks the ice that we've been kind of stuck in, you know, pre-clinical primate studies for a long time. And, you know, moving this into humans has... that has really been a slow and arduous process, and the fact that it's been done now, I think, will give everyone more comfort moving forward.

CO: The difficulty of finding human patients who would accept a transplant of an animal's organ has been your issue. And now this human patient that was used, she was brain dead and the family agreed to have her body donated for this. And so what did that allow you to do that you couldn't do otherwise?

RM: Yeah. So you know, the question has always been, you know, the promising findings that we've had in the primate recipients of pig kidneys. Does that necessarily translate into success when applied to humans? And up until now, we really haven't been able to answer that question. And there's been enough concern about that. That going to, you know, a living human with that uncertainty has, you know, just hasn't happened until now. So we found this kind of intermediate step where in an individual who had wanted to be an organ donor but was unable to. There are a lot of different reasons that that can happen. This provides another avenue where the family can realise their altruism by donating their body to this type of high stakes breakthrough research where we were able to, you know, test to see how one of these organs would perform in a human.

CO: But this kidney from a genetically modified pig was not transplanted into the patient, right? Can you tell us what you did?

RM: Yeah. So we just modified the operation a bit and we did that so that we could, you know, continue to look at the kidney throughout the study period and also do biopsies to ensure there wasn't rejection going on. So rather than putting the kidney in the typical case which would be in the pelvis where it would be hidden, you know, behind the contents of the abdomen and the skin we left it exposed, but basically did the same thing you would for a regular transplant, which is to join the artery in the vein from, you know, the pig kidney to the artery and vein of the... in this case, the [inaudible]. So the kidney was being pursued by the [inaudible] blood in the same way that it would normally with a, you know, a human transplant.

CO: With transplants often the issue is that there's a rejection of the organ. This didn't happen. But is it still possible that might happen? I mean this was not over weeks or months, but over a longer period of time. Do you think it would still be accepted by a human body?

RM: Yeah. So you know, there are limitations to the study, and one is that it was a relatively short period of time that it was conducted. So we really don't know the long term, you know, consequences and you know exactly what would happen rather than, you know, two and a half days, two and a half weeks or two and a half months or two and a half years. So that still hasn't been answered. What we were able to answer is that a pig kidney transplanted into, you know, a human can function normally and do all the things that the kidney is supposed to do. And it's not undergoing this very rapid rejection that you would find if we hadn't genetically modified the kidney. So it's really sort of proof of concept that it's very likely that at least, you know in the short term that this would function well and do what it's supposed to do in a living human. So it's not everything, it's not all of the information, but it allows us to really feel that nothing terribly wrong, that's not predicted by, you know, what we know from the animal studies would happen in a first trial in living humans.

CO: So this is at this point, a scientific breakthrough, medical breakthrough if it's possible to use animal organs transplanted into humans. What does that present in the way of a public health breakthrough?

RM: Well, I think, you know, the biggest problem in transplantation right now is organ supply. And so this addresses that. So, you know, almost half the people who are waiting for a transplant either become too sick or die before they get one. So there's not enough organs. And so this really addresses that problem. So the idea is that we should be able to provide organs for anyone who needs them.

CO: The ethical issues here are that raising genetically modified pigs to harvest them for humans when humans are not willing to donate their organs. How are you going to respond to those ethical issues?

RM: We have done, you know, many things to try to optimise the number of human organs that are available. And you know, we've made certainly some progress, but the incidence of the diseases that cause end stage kidney disease have continued to increase and continually outpace the organ supply. And you know, this paradigm where somebody has to die for somebody to live, I think it's a paradigm that really kind of has failed. And so we need another source of organs or people will continue to die waiting for a transplant. As far as pigs go, you know, we use them as a food supply. The valves are used in heart surgery and different pharmaceuticals, so there certainly is a precedence for pig pork and tissues and things to be used for the benefit of humans. And in this particular case, it's saving a life. It's not like testing a cosmetic product, it's really saving a life.

CO: Dr. Montgomery, thanks for speaking with us.

RM: Bye bye.

CH: Dr. Robert Montgomery successfully attached a pig kidney to a human patient. The first time that's ever been done. We reached him in New York City.

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Correction for Tuesday’s Show

CH: Time now for a quick thank you and a correction. On Tuesday, we told you about charges that have been laid against Husky oil in connection to the 2018 SeaRose spill off the coast of Newfoundland. The spill was the province's largest and was estimated at 250,000 litres, which is not 250,000 barrels, which is what we said. Our apologies for the mistake and our thanks to the listener, Clark Southoff of Didsbury, Alberta, who caught that for us.

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Martha Henry obit

Guest: Colm Feore

CH: When the great Canadian stage actor and director Martha Henry was 80 years old, she thought her final curtain call at the Stratford Festival had arrived.

MARTHA HENRY: Shakespeare didn't write any parts for women my age and I've played all the ones that, that are kind of up there. There are a number of them that are mothers and, you know, countess's and so on. And so I had sort of exhausted those. So I kind of thought, Well, that's it for me, that's the end of my acting career.

CH: But the festival wasn't going to let her go that easy. 60 years after her debut as Miranda in The Tempest, Ms.Henry was asked to return to the stage in that play, this time as Prospero, the lead male role. At first, she said no, but she had a change of heart.

MARTHA HENRY: And then I thought, now listen, this scares you, doesn't it? And I had to admit, yes, this scares me quite a lot. And then I thought, well, if it scares you, then you have to do it.

CH: That was in 2018, and that wasn't her last performance either, that came just 12 days ago in Stratford's production of Edward Albee's "Three Tall Women". Martha Henry died today. She was 83 years old. Before the pandemic forced Stratford to cancel its 2020 season. Ms. Henry was rehearsing to play the mother of Richard the third opposite, Colm Feore. We reached Mr. Feore in Stratford, Ontario.

CO: Colm, first of all, I'm sorry for your loss.

COLM FEORE: Thank you so much.

CO: What's it like to hear Martha's voice there and saying, if it scares you, you have to do it?

CF: Well, that's the kind of inspiration she was. She's exactly right. She was one of the brave ones who was willing to look at herself in the mirror and say, of course you're terrified. That's why you have to do it. I'd run away screaming.

CO: You were first introduced to Martha Henry as a student, and what did she teach you?

CF: You know, she was extraordinary. I went to the National Theatre School in Montreal, where Martha was one of the first students. She was a legend before we'd met her when we came to Stratford en masse. She was very gracious, took us in, did workshops, and the first thing she said to us, If you are not giving to this enterprise, you are by definition taking away. That's what you have to understand about all of us being in the room together, and we all leant forward in our chairs or leaned forward standing up, saying, Yes, ma'am. Absolutely, we got it. You know, this is the 70s. And I'd seen her acting before. I was a theatre student in the early 70s. The remarkable "Three Sisters" John Hirsch did with her and Maggie Smith and Marty Marizanne. Absolutely definitive, heartbreaking stuff and to imagine going from a student to being a colleague. It was extraordinary.

CO: When you describe her as you just did. It was electric to see her on stage, wasn't it? What was it like to be on stage with her?

CF: It was terrifying. It was absolutely terrifying. But paradoxically, at the same time, I've never felt so safe. Now partly, that's because I knew I was in the presence of somebody so much more experienced, so much more calm in the face of 2000 people expectantly looking at us. But she just said, We know what we're doing. Look at me, do what we worked on and be as honest and truthful and as good as you can be. And I'm hoping to be a little better than you were yesterday because, you know, yesterday wasn't quite. And she's played my mother twice and directed me. And so we have a bit of a history.

CO: And she was about to become your mother again on stage, wasn't she?

CF: Well, indeed she was. We'd worked on it. We got shut down in the Richard the third in early 2020, but we were well on our way to the rehearsals. And what I was reminded of while doing those, first of all, she was the senior player in the room, right? She was also willing to take notes from the seven year old playing one of the disagreeable princess that I would luckily kill later on. And, you know, if she paused for thought he'd prompter and she'd very graciously say, This is acting. Let me show you how this works. All of us just thought. Just sit back and watch how this is done. This is for all of us if we can learn, memorise and inwardly digest the lesson and the legacy of Martha Henry. We may have a chance at continuing. At 83, she died way too young, decades too young. I had every feeling positively that had we gone back to Richard the third, she would have said yes and showed up. However, we could have got her there. But when I looked in her eyes in a rehearsal, she said, Look, I've got your back. You can be as horrible to me as you need to be, as Shakespeare suggests, because that's our job. And I felt so relieved. I felt so safe in a very uncomfortable and usually unsafe environment, you know, standing up in front of people pretending to be somebody else. It's not the safest place, but with her it was.

CO: She was an American who came from the states, from Detroit and with the talent she had, she could have easily gone to New York and had a tremendous career in the United States. What was it about Canada and especially Stratford, why was it so important to her?

CF: Well, you have to keep in mind that professional theatre was in its infancy in those days. She graduated from what is now Carnegie Mellon in '59. She went on to the National Theatre School in Canada. The Festival Theatre here had only been open since '53, and that had cobbled together all of those quasi-professional actors who were beginning their careers in what was professional Canadian acting, which was touring, usually with international stars. So Chris Plummer and Doug Campbell and all those guys who came over to help out, it was beginning. But there was nothing like it in America, and she committed to here and because of her commitment, and this is perhaps the most important part of her legacy. She understood what it would take to become any good at this and that in order to convince people to stay, giving us a couple of years to see if the classical theatre was for you. She threw everything she had at encouraging people to do it, so she supported. She nudged. She kicked. She did everything and she believed. Listen to her, do a whisper of Shakespeare from any play at any time, and you understand why. She was simply gifted.

CO: That's Martha Henry on stage, and I just wondered what she was like offstage. And there's one story I know that you might tell us that you once followed her into Shoppers Drug Mart right?

CF: So embarrassing, it's so embarrassing. But you know, I had to know if she was full of it or not, because I remembered 44 odd years ago. You know, she said, I pick things for the character. I flesh out the biography. They have a scent, they have this, they have that. So one day, I'm in Shoppers Drug Mart and I'm disguised. I'm in actor dress, I got a hoodie and a baseball cap and she's in the makeup aisle. I thought, just watch. I hope my memory serves. It was for Boe Stratagem, for Lady Bountiful. She was choosing nail varnish and lipstick colours and trying on bits of scent, and I knew they weren't for her. And I could see her exploring going, No, not her. No. Almost. And I spent some considerable time watching her do this work, which was part of our work, slightly shamed and humbled, I slunk away and made some notes and thought she's never lied to me.

CO: She poured everything into her work, didn't she? And I'm just thinking, just less than two weeks ago, still performing and doing that role in Three Tall Women, Edward Albee's play. That's how she wanted her last days to be, right? It must have been so hard to actually act in a wheelchair when she was doing the last ones.

CF: Well, she actually she was braver than you think. She progressed from showing up with a cane, to a walker and then said, I need a chair so that the audience can see me because if I'm bent over, I'm looking at the floor. I need to look at the light. And I know that she pushed and pushed and pushed to make sure that she didn't disappoint anyone. And I'm sure her fondest wish was to finish that run as successfully as she did and say, [inaudible], thank you so much. I've had enough. Apparently my time is up, but as I say, decades too soon.

CO: Colm, thank you. Thank you for telling us about her, and thanks for speaking with us.

CF: Thank you so much for asking.

CH: Colm Feore, is a Canadian star of stage and screen, we reached him in Stratford, Ontario. Where he performed at the Stratford Festival alongside the theatre giant Martha Henry. Ms. Henry died today, she was 83.

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Part 2

NFL race-norming document

Guest: Ken Jenkins

CH: In theory, the NFL's concussion settlement program is simple. Retired players take a cognitive test to assess damage inflicted by the game. Score low enough and you're eligible for counselling, treatment and potentially financial compensation. The program made its first payouts in 2017 and has provided more than $850 million in compensation. The trouble is, it's also denied more than two thirds of dementia related claims, and it's done so using a practise called race norming, which assumes Black players start with lower cognitive function. Now, the NFL has reached an agreement to end those race based adjustments. Ken Jenkins is a former NFL running back and one of many Black retirees who've spoken out against race norming. We reached him in Mitchellville, Maryland.

CO: Ken, how does it feel to have this practise so-called race norming dropped by the NFL?

KEN JENKINS: This is a victory, absolutely for us. But I think we all have to understand that it's hard to celebrate the reversal of a blatantly racist program. It's as though... it's as though they set the house on fire and then said they would come help you put it out.

CO: Because this is an astonishing policy. I just wanted to get a sense of... give people a sense of what this policy was. And this was that to get a settlement or to get assistance you had to show that your cognitive test score was lower than normal, but for your demographic group. And so under this methodology, Black players were assumed to possess a lower level of cognitive function than White players. And so where did that reasoning come from?

KJ: Well, you know, you really have to kind of look at the history of race norming. There are certain diseases and perhaps chronic diseases that are more prevalent in one community than another. Right? But in this instance, it's just really crazy that they assumed they could use those race norms to assume that out of the womb, a Black player has less cognitive ability than a White player, and that is what really hamstrung the process for many Black players.

CO: But the NFL has defended this practise until you finally got them to drop it, and they said this is a quote: "they relied on widely accepted and long established cognitive tests and scoring methodologies". Why do you think that they have... I mean, is it entirely... is it about the money because we're talking about large sums here. Is it because of that that they were trying to resist dropping this from the policy?

KJ: Well, you know, I haven't been in the negotiating rooms, but you know, circumstantial evidence says that if they can limit the largest subclass of a class, if they can limit those claims, then they can save significant amount of money. There's a billion dollars out there that is available for players that can prove that they have experienced cognitive decline over the years. And you know, that's not a, that's not a small sum of money. Again, there are estimates that White players have been approved about two thirds more than Black players. But it is difficult to confirm that because the NFL has been sitting on this information and they say they don't have it. So it's difficult to confirm.

CO: And so why do you think that if they have that information, why aren't they releasing it?

KJ: Well, I would say it this way. If that information was in their favour, they would have gladly released it.

CO: Right, gotcha. And so you're a former player yourself, how many families do you know have been dealt with in this way? What is the impact on people's lives?

KJ: So this is why we're doing this. There have been significant number of families who have been at first approved for compensation under the settlement, and then the NFL challenged the results and made the doctors go back and apply race norms. We also know of players who have died while waiting for resolution to their cases and their families get nothing. So it's had a devastating effect on several men and their families.

CO: And so what will it actually mean? If race norming isn't allowed anymore, what happens do you go back and start from the beginning?

KJ: So it's supposed to be retroactive and proactive. And what they've said is that the most egregious cases and this is according to Ken Belson, who reports for The New York Times, says that there will be some players whose cases that were most egregious in their denial could be paid quickly. And what they're saying is the classes that get paid for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, dementia. Chances are, if those diseases existed when they first tested, they should be worse now because these are progressive diseases.

CO: We know the NFL has resisted all claims that there are consequences from playing this game and that... But even the lawyer representing former players, Chris Seeger, he, himself said this practise wasn't discriminatory until earlier this year. So what does that tell you?

KJ: It tells you that the only thing that moved the needle was the determination of the wives and significant others who brought this to the media's attention, started a petition that got 50,000 signatures. That's the only thing that moved the needle and then class counsel who we are extremely disappointed in. We think we've been underrepresented and misrepresented for him to allow this race norming to be a part of the original suit tells us that he didn't really understand the ramifications and was actually outwitted by the NFL lawyers.

CO: And your wife was one of those involved in putting that petition together, wasn't she?

KJ: She absolutely was.

CO: You have not faced a cognitive impairment yourself, but I wonder, is that something you worry about that you think is something that's ahead of you?

KJ: So we came up through the game during the years where, you know, if you get your bell rung, you know, you came over to the sideline to get some smelling salt and you went back in the game. And what we know now is that there are long term effects of concussions, especially if you have them close to one another. So do I worry. I absolutely worry and I can tell with my knee hurts, but I don't know if I'm just sort of getting older and keep forgetting my keys if that means something.

CO: Ken, it's a remarkable story and congratulations for getting this race norming dropped. I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

KJ: Oh, it's been. It's been my pleasure. Thank you very much for bringing this to light.

CO: All right. Bye bye.

KJ: Bye bye.

CH: Ken Jenkins spent five years as a running back for the Philadelphia Eagles, the Detroit Lions and the Washington football team in the 1980s. We reached him in Mitchellville, Maryland.

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Robot stuck at airport

CH: It's always a little troubling when officials search your bag at the border. It's much more troubling when they search your robot, especially when they suspect it of nefarious intent. Last week, Ai-Da, a lifelike machine that looks like a woman, was detained by Egyptian authorities who are concerned that the A.I. robot could be part of an espionage plot. Ai-Da was on her way to work with human artists at the Great Pyramid of Giza to showcase what she's known for, which is not spying but creating abstract artwork. It took 10 tense days before Egyptian officials were finally convinced of her innocence and agreed to let her go. In 2019, Aiden Meller was a guest on As It Happens. He's a British gallery curator and the creator of Ai-Da.

AIDEN MELLER: She does look human in the face and with face recognition. She is able to look across to you when you walk into the room, and in actual fact, she even follows you as you go across the room. So it is slightly unnerving when you first see her.

CO: How did you decide on how she would look? I mean, she's modelled on an attractive young woman. One would say, even looking a bit Barbie doll, how did you decide and how she would look?

AM: Basically, we wanted to have an engaging persona, and we are also well aware that women are massively underrepresented in the art world. So those two elements came together to create Ai-Da robot.

CO: And what does her art look like?

AM: Well, she does a range of work. She does drawings. When she actually sees you, she can draw. We've also been able to take those drawing coordinates and put them into some A.I. algorithms, which enables her to do some paintings, some outputs of images. And we've used those coordinates also to do some sculpture work. So there's a direct relationship between the output that she does that goes into painting and sculpture. She's also a performance artist, so there's some video work you'll be able to see online, which shows again, some aspects of where she is able to perform.

CO: And given that the shape you have provided her when she's doing her art is she or it's art are the eyes camera eyes that are actually taking the image and then interpreting it?

AM: That's right, so the technology is incredible. When you actually realise what is going on, she has cameras in her eyes that are able to take in the image, which will then translate to real world coordinates that enables her to then draw with her hand.

CH: From our archives. That was Aidan Meller telling Carol about Ai-Da, the robot artist who was just detained by Egyptian authorities for 10 days before being released at the Egyptian border this week.

[Music: women singing acapella]

Lancet COP26

Guest: Dr. Renee Salas

CH: A group of leading doctors and health experts wants you to know that climate change isn't just bad for the health of the planet, it's a grave threat to your health as well. In fact, they're warning that it's set to become the defining narrative of human health and that if nothing is done, the death toll will dwarf that of the coronavirus. The stark message is published in the medical journal The Lancet, and it comes just days before the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Renee Salas is an ER doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital. She helped write The Lancet report. We reached her in Boston.

CO: Dr. Salas, when you and your colleagues say climate change is set to become the defining threat to human health. What would that look like? I know it's a large question, a big scope, but can you give us a sense of that?

RENEE SALAS: The global report clearly shows that the key trends that we've been monitoring for health and climate change are getting worse, and they are already exacerbating inequities. This report gives us a code red for health. And so as I think about the future, I can think that there is nothing that could benefit my patients more in my communities than bold action on climate change.

CO: When you say you're patients... I mean, because this report gives a sense of what is happening in so many parts of the world where people have marginal existence, where there's been crop failures, where there's been heat waves, been fires, been floods. But when you say your own patients, your own community, how is it going to affect that small group, people you actually know?

RS: So we, as humans, are the face of climate change and climate change is first and foremost a health crisis. We have seen and this report shows things happening around the globe, but that is happening everywhere and I am seeing it in my patients in the emergency department, whether it is heat related illness or worsening of allergies or struggling to breathe because of wildfire smoke that has travelled across the country. So climate change is impacting my patients, and as a doctor, I have an oath in order to protect their health. And in order to do that, the best prescription is bold action on climate change.

CO: The thing is, is that all those things that you have listed, people might not associate them with climate change. So how does the world become alerted to what you and others are saying in this report?

RS: Yes, I think as health professionals, we are used to educating our patients on things that harm their health. And so it is our job in order to show patients and our communities on how climate change is harming their health in order for them to understand what these connections are and see what the benefits of reducing greenhouse gases truly will be. And it's going to be cleaner air and a better future and a healthier future.

CO: You mentioned of the ill effects that people in your country, in Canada as well, this summer the extreme heat on the west coast of our countries led to... we saw in Canada the hottest temperatures ever, and we saw an entire town go up in smoke. These are things that we have not seen before, but it's difficult to get a collective sense of where the source of the problem is. So what do you want? What is the message you want people to take from this report?

RS: That climate change is first and foremost a health crisis, and we can have immense benefits by implementing a prescription on climate action to improve health and equity. And we all have a role to play. And so we all need to step forth together in order to accelerate us towards the climate action we urgently need in order to improve our future and ensure that we have health.

CO: Right, but you mentioned earlier that there are inequities. And so when we talk about people being at risk, here's something that people, perhaps in your country are not and in mine... tend to think, well, it's going to happen someplace else. It's not going to be us. It's going to be people who are closer to oceans or people closer to drought areas. They don't see it as something that is going to affect them. How do you convince them otherwise?

RS: The ways in which climate change harms us, harms our health is really broad, and it varies depending on where you live. And I can guarantee you that there are ways that climate change is worsening health in the areas that you live. Whether that is again, wildfire smoke or worsening heat or climate intensified hurricanes. And so no matter where you are. Climate change is harming your health. And as we make those connections, then we can begin to see why we are the faces of climate change and that we are the reason that we should act and that health and equity needs to not only be the reason that we act, but guide our response.

CO: You said in the report that this is something that is a bigger threat than the coronavirus and the pandemic we're facing right now. You have seen over this past year and a half how difficult it is to rally societies, rally communities’ response to this disease. How much more difficult and complicated is it to rally that same response to what you're describing in this crisis?

RS: The health community is waking up we're the sleeping giant on this and nothing scares us in the health community. We lean into dire diagnoses and we have just and we still are facing the coronavirus COVID 19 pandemic. And as we face this, we have learnt lessons that we want to make sure are implemented in our response to climate change so we can do it. The health community is awakening and will help carry us forth towards what we need and it is going to take all of us. But I have no doubt that we can get there as long as we can help people see what we have to gain.

CO: There's no doubt that this report is done...rs is published in advance of what we're going to see in Glasgow in the coming weeks, and that there is this opportunity there to come up with a global plan. But at the same time, we're seeing countries, including our own Canada, are not on track to meet even the current climate goals. We're far behind and so is your country. So what hope do you have that world leaders will pull us back from the brink?

RS: Bold, ambitious commitments in Glasgow will be the greatest prescription for improved health and equity that the world can write, and this report calls on policymakers to write this urgent prescription before it's too late. But if the action isn't done, that needs to be done. We in the health community will continue to amplify our voices and let people know what's at stake until we achieve the action that we need.

CO: Dr. Salas, I appreciate speaking with you, thank you.

RS: All right. Bye bye.

CH: Dr. Renee Salas is an E.R. physician who teaches at Harvard University. She's in Boston.

[Music: Guitar instrumental]

Sharing toys with police

CH: Occasionally, emergency services around the world find they need to issue gentle reminders such as say, don't call 9-1-1 because your cat has been gone for two days and you're concerned it's been apprehended by the police or because a moose has been standing in the same place in a field for two days or because you just bought a cup of coffee and it's cold. Those are all real cause. RCMP Saskatchewan got last year all important issues for sure, just not emergencies, and those misguided calls can lead to large fines and penalties. Or, in this particular case, in New Zealand, to sheer delight.

[SOUNDCLIP: Young boy talks to 911 dispatcher]

CH: In case you didn't catch that, the young caller says, "Police lady, can I tell you something? I've got some toys for you. Come over and see them". Which is when a confused sounding adult comes on the line to confirm that there is, in fact, no emergency. And then, police made an unexpected move.

[SOUNDCLIP: Dispatch calls police about the boy]

CH: The attending officer was reportedly shown an array of toys by the young perp. The officer later confirmed that the toys were super cool.

Elijah McClain Update

CH: It's been more than two years since Elijah McClain, a 23 year old black man in Colorado, died after he was put in a chokehold by police in 2019 and given a shot of ketamine by first responders. Mr. McClain died a few days later. Last month, a grand jury indicted police officers and paramedics in the case. And now it's been revealed that Mr. McClain's family has reached a settlement with the city of Aurora, Colorado. Details haven't been revealed, but a lawyer for LaWayne Mosley, Elijah McClain's father, says that while nothing will bring Elijah back, he's hopeful that settling their lawsuit will help his family heal. In February, we spoke with LaWayne Mosley following the release of a report on his son's death.

LM: He was a very special guy. Like I said, made everybody smile, made everybody feel good. Didn't like violence. Would give you the shirt off his back. Just a true, true, sweet, sweet young man. Ah, man, yes, he was very, very special and he's missed very much every day, every second, every... But we're still here and we're going to get justice and we're going to work, we're working.

CO: I'm so sorry about your son.

LM: Thank you very much. I'm glad you guys are covering it, because more needs to hear it, more needs to know it. So we can get this taken care of.

CO: What lessons do you think the police department should take from this extraordinary report about the death of your son?

LM: I think they need to do a better job at policing themselves and hiring background checks and checking these guys' Facebook pages, if you're a racist when you work as a police officer. Now you're a police officer and you're not a racist. But if you're a racist, you're going to be a racist when you're a police officer. And like I said, they can't hide it. They can't hide it. We want to make sure we get all of you racist police officers away from the good cops. I'm a veteran, so we had to do basic training, AIT training. We do everything. We train. So they need to do training. More training, quality training.

CO: At the time the district attorney decided not to bring any charges against the officers involved in the death of your son because he said there wasn't enough evidence to prove that the force they used was unjustified in light of this report, which shows that the force they used was not justified. What should happen now?

LM: He should be fired, everybody should be fired, everybody who tried to cover up fired. Everybody should get criminally prosecuted. They did wrong from the top to the bottom, so they all need to be held accountable, not just the three officers that had put their hands on him and all the police officers, all the paramedics, all everybody who put their hands on my son or had something to do with it or didn't do something that they should have did. Fired. That's what I want, but I know that's kind of a long stretch, but you asked me and I tell you, yes, fired, everybody fired.

CH: From our archives, that was LaWayne Mosley. Elijah McClain's father speaking with Carol in February.

[Music: guitar instrumental]

Part 3

World vaccines

Guest: Brittany Lambert

CH: If you're in Canada and you wanted a COVID 19 vaccine, you probably got one by now. And if you didn't and you wanted one this week, it'd probably be easy to find an appointment. That's not the case in other parts of the world where vaccination rates are very low, and a new report issued today is laying blame on pharmaceutical companies and rich countries, including Canada, that it says are failing to deliver billions of promised doses. The report was put together by a coalition of organisations and activists called the People's Vaccine Alliance. Oxfam is a part of that. Brittnay Lambert is the policy lead on the vaccine inequality file for Oxfam Canada. We reached her in Ottawa.

CO: Brittany, this report is titled "A Dose of Reality", is that what you think the leaders of countries like Canada needs right now?

BRITTANY LAMBERT: Yes, I do. You know, it's nice to be at the stage here in Canada, finally, where vaccines are offering protection and the ability to resume our lives. But sadly, this is far from the case in developing countries. You know, as long as the rest of the world isn't vaccinated, this pandemic will go on, right? It creates fertile ground for the virus to mutate. So it's really in everybody's interest to vaccinate the world as soon as possible so that we can just move on once and for all from this pandemic.

CO: And we've heard that from the World Health Organisation and others since the beginning that it's not good enough just to do each country unless everybody is vaccinated and it's just not ever going to go away. Now we know that 83 percent of eligible Canadians are fully vaccinated. What's it like in low income countries that you looked at?

BL: Well, there's a huge discrepancy between wealthy nations and low income countries. In many countries, even the frontline health care workers aren't vaccinated yet. Across all of Africa, for example, five percent of people are vaccinated. And since the start of the pandemic, only a very tiny fraction of all vaccines have gone to low income countries.

CO: And we know that countries like Canada and the wealthy countries moved very quickly, bought up huge supplies of vaccine as soon as it was available to have it for their own people, and promised that once they had done that, they would make it available to other countries. They made those commitments. What can you tell us about what happened to those commitments?

BL: Yeah. So we've seen that wealthy countries and pharma companies alike have made big promises to donate vaccines to the rest of the world, but have universally failed at these commitments. They're falling way short. Wealthy countries so far have only delivered 14 percent of the doses they've promised to low income countries. And pharmaceutical companies the big four AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer and J&J only delivered 12 percent of the doses that they've promised.

CO: Let's look at some of the individual countries too, the United States has delivered the most doses to other countries. But that's still only 16 percent of what it had promised. The U.K., United Kingdom, about nine million doses, which is just another fraction. Canada has delivered eight percent of what it promised. It said it would give 40 million doses and has delivered about three million. And so what do you say to those countries?

BL: That's right. No matter what country you're looking at, it's pretty consistent across the board. It's just not nearly enough. You know, the core of the problem is that there just aren't enough vaccines being made. The big companies basically have a monopoly over vaccine production, and they've refused to share their recipe with other manufacturers who could scale up production. And they want to do it themselves because they want to reap the profit. And so I would say to those countries you know, governments have a responsibility to use their legal and policy tools to force companies to share their knowhow and their technology and to waive intellectual property rights in this clear emergency situation.

CO: But this discussion about a waiver on copyright has been the discussion since... well, for about a year now. And so what has failed? Why have they not delivered on that? I mean, where are they not getting the pressure that would make them deliver on that?

BL: Well, there's a proposal before the World Trade Organisation right now called a trips waiver, which would basically be a temporary waiver on intellectual property rights. And it's been backed by over 100 countries, but there are some wealthy countries that continue to block it. And so until we can get a global consensus, this is probably going to continue to be held up.

CO: Which countries? Are these the countries where the pharma companies are based?

BL: Often, yes. So the U.K. and a few countries in the EU are big blockers. Canada has been silent. They haven't actively blocked it, but they haven't, you know, proactively endorsed it, either. So I would urge Canada, you know, to show global leadership. I know they like to be a principled voice on the world stage to back this waiver because it would really open up new paths for manufacturing fast, which is really essential right now.

CO: On the issue of sharing the vaccine, we just have a statement from the Canadian government from the Ministry of International Development. They say basically that it's not correct to imply that for some reason, Canada is delaying delivery of its surplus vaccine doses. It's committed to making them available as quickly as possible. But they said they've made it clear since day one its priority is to take care of Canadians first. What do you say to them?

BL: Well, I would say, you know, ideally we shouldn't be in the situation where we have to choose who gets the vaccine first, right? The whole point that we're trying to make is that we need to scale up global production so that everyone everywhere can have access to a vaccine.

CO: But to approach this with the World Trade Organisation or to try and put pressure on legally to say what the legal commitments have, is the issue really an ethical one? Is the failure an ethical failure or a legal one?

BL: Oh, I would say I mean both, but especially an ethical failure, right? It just seems so, so wrong and so morally reprehensible to have huge swaths of the world unvaccinated just because they have less money. And for these companies to be able to, you know, continue prioritising the wealthy countries that are going to pay lots of money for these vaccines. And over developing nations right? People in developing nations don't have any less right to life and to health than the rest of us.

CO: Brittnay, we're going to leave it there, and I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

BL: Thank you very much.

CH: Brittnay Lambert is a policy specialist at Oxfam Canada. She's in Ottawa.

[Music: windwood instrumental]

Woman outraged after late sister's photos used in Ontario MPP's anti-vaccination posts

CH: Ammarah Navab was already mourning the death of her older sister. Now, on top of that grief, she's dealing with anti-vaccination posts by an Ontario MPP that falsely suggest her sibling died from a reaction to the COVID shot. Farisa Navab died in September of a rare autoimmune disease at the age of 20. Her sister told the CBC. But MPP Randy Hillier has used Farisa's name and photo as part of his ongoing anti-vax campaign. Here's what Ammarah Navab said about that online campaign.

AMMARAH NAVAB: I came home from work and my mom showed me that post in the car, and I was so upset because it's not only like regular people making assumptions, it's somebody in power who's posting to thousands of followers that my sister... like lying about my sister's death and using it as like proof. It's disgusting. It's like, this is somebody who died, somebody who passed away and somebody who is young and has... like, I have so many good memories of my sister, and I think that like she would not... if she was in this situation right now and she saw what was happening, she would not be very happy. If I was to put this post in words. It is like straight up lies. It is just somebody who is taking information that is not even true and trying to create a story out of it. It's complete fake news. His post is ridiculous. I don't even think that should be legally allowed to post information that isn't correct online. And he didn't ask us for consent to use her pictures. And it's not right for somebody to post something about... especially about someone who has passed away without consent. It breaks my heart and makes me, it makes my family upset, but more than that [inaudible] it makes me very angry. I understand that people are having scepticism about the vaccine with like everything that's going on with COVID, but it is completely wrong and like it seems that people don't have morals these days. It just makes me upset and it makes me lose faith in humanity. It's like somebody passed away and you can't even offer condolences like you're questioning, you're questioning the vaccine instead of saying, Oh, I'm sorry for your loss. I'd prefer for our family to be given the space to just grieve in peace without all these other issues coming in. Like, I don't think there's been one day where I can just look at my phone and not be upset by a message I see. Him taking it down is not enough for us, like my mom and my dad and my sister. We all agreed that he's gone past the point of like taking it down and apologising, like he's done so much damage to our family. We're very upset over it.

CH: Ammarah Navab speaking to the CBC's Hala Ghonaim about the death of her sister Farisa. Ontario MPP Randy Hillier did not directly answer questions from CBC News about the posts featuring Farisa Navab, instead sending a general statement about his activities.

[Music: Piano instrumental]

Alberta mayor working hard to save local bank

CH: Karl Hauch is pulling out all the stops to save his local bank. Mr. Hauch has just been elected to his third term as the mayor of Bruderheim, Alberta, a small but growing community of about 1300 people. Issue number one for many of them is the decision of ATB Financial to close the only bank in town. ATB is a provincial crown corporation and it says the closure is part of its move to begin serving Albertans digitally. But Mayor Hauch says that's going to leave a lot of locals in the lurch or send them out of town to track down a bank teller.

KARL HAUCH: All of our not for profits. The town itself, myself, we personally, our family banks there. The senior men's hockey team that I look after, we bank there and a lot of seniors from our community and businesses, and it's going to be a shock for our community. Yes, sir.

MARK CONNOLLY: Now Lamont is about 11 minutes away by car. Why is that too far to go? In Edmonton an 11 minute commute would be pretty reasonable.

KARL HAUCH: Yeah, that's certainly a valid reason. The idea that our community is growing and some other communities have not maintained the same kind of growth is one of the reasons why I'm upset. When you're choosing a place to go and say, your husband has to work out of town and the wife doesn't have a car and you don't have a bank in your community... they're going to choose a different community. For example, yesterday evening, when we took the photo of ATB with folks that are gathered up in from town to send to you folks, there is a older couple that chose to move to Bruderheim last year, and one of the reasons was because there was a ATB and that's who they banked with. They liked the idea of being able to go into a branch and talking to the same people every time they're there.

MARK CONNOLLY: Now having ATB, you know, being a Crown Corporation wholly owned by the province of Alberta. Do you think that should be taken into account that you know, they should have an obligation to service small town Alberta?

KARL HAUCH: I agree totally. And I think that was one of the pillars of small town Alberta, ATB promising to serve the people for a long time. And so we've engaged our MLA. I've spoken to the chief of staff, of the Finance Minister, Mr. Toews, and I've spoken to UMA because I think this is a warning call to all small communities in Alberta that ATB is looking to embrace the digital age. And I think this is coming for all small towns in Alberta.

CH: Karl Hauch is the mayor of Bruderheim, Alberta. He was speaking to Mark Connelly, host of Edmonton AM.

[Music: Lo-fi instrumental]

Iqaluit water supply update

Guest: Dr. Francois de Wet

CH: For more than a week now, Iqaluit has been under a state of emergency. Last Friday, the city confirmed that the water supply is contaminated with fuel and until they can flush the system, people have been getting their water from the river or bottles. But the Qikiqtani [kiki-tani] General Hospital doesn't have that option. Dr. Francois de Wet is the chief of staff for the hospital and the territorial chief of Staff for Nunavut's health department. We reached him in Iqaluit.

CO: Dr. de Wet, can you give us a sense of what this water emergency in Iqaluit, how it's affecting your hospital?

FRANCOIS DE WET: In the beginning, there was a lot of concern just around how we were going to get water to our patients and to our staff. But the town was really supportive and so was the government of Nunavut, provided us with enough bottled water to be able to satisfy that. The other big issue for us, of course, was the sterilisation of our equipment. We had a meeting with CPHO Dr. Patterson on Thursday evening, last week and at that time, Health Canada had suggested that we not use the steriliser because we didn't know what was actually in the water. So the biggest disruption in service for us was the fact that we had to postpone our surgical lists.

CO: And now that we know that it's fuel in the system, one of the concerns was that they... that no amount of boiling water with fuel in it is going to make it so that you can consume it. So but does it affect your sterilisation? Can you now use that water to sterilise?

FRANCOIS DE WET: So the short answer is no. You know, until we have tests that show that there isn't any fuel anymore in the water. Unfortunately, we were advised that we should continue to not use the steriliser. We were also not able to use the washers that we used to clean the equipment with before we put them in a steriliser. The reason being was that the process could concentrate the chemicals that was in the water, and that would be a risk for, you know, possibly... which is a remote risk, I'm sure. But they talked about a possible explosion in the autoclave. And also it would be a risk for anybody that opened it up because of the concentration of the fumes. So currently, until we have a clear, clear test, we won't be able to use the machine.

CO: Good heavens. And so what have you had to cancel? What kinds of procedures can you not do?

FRANCOIS DE WET: So we looked at what we have, so we have enough equipment and enough instrument kits to continue to provide emergency services so that has continued. But unfortunately, you know, our day to day running of the operating room had to be discontinued. So we were cancelling approximately three to six general surgery procedures a day. Unfortunately, we also had to cancel the dental procedures that we're scheduled for that week and also for this week. So in all total, I think it was about 28 dental cases. There were 30 surgery cases and eight urology cases. The urologist from Ottawa was in the community as well last week, and we had to cancel their O.R. Procedures as well.

CO: This report from the city's deputy mayor, she said on Twitter that her mother had to be medivaced out of the territory because she couldn't have a procedure done at the hospital in Iqaluit. So how stressful has this been for residents?

FRANCOIS DE WET: I mean, it has, you know, like we, the Department of Health prides itself in trying to provide as much of the day to day care and procedures for Nunavummiut in the territory. And of course, any time that we have to send somebody out of territory that we potentially could have treated in territory, you know, it's not something we like to do, but in this case, we want to err on the side of safety. We also want to protect people. And you know, some procedures you need to have specific equipment that has to be sterilised. And because we can't do that right now, we've had... There's been very few people that were sent out, but there has been cases for sure.

CO: The announcement, the or the confirmation that there is fuel contaminating the water supply. When they finally announced that, it had already been some time, that people were suspicious, that there was something seriously wrong with the water. At what point did you... did people in the hospital, your hospital realize that there was something wrong in Iqaluit?

FRANCOIS DE WET: I mean, you know, we've heard rumours and we've seen stories on social media that people had smelt fuel or smelt that the water was smelling funny. So it came to us. But, you know, we did not experience that at the hospital. So the only time really that we realised, well we have to do something now is when the town confirmed that there was an issue with it. You know, we have not seen people coming to the emergency room with side effects or complications that could be attributed to the water so far, which is a good thing. But I know there was a lot of rumblings in the community for a week or two before, but it seemed random and it wasn't, you know, there wasn't no specific rhyme or reason to where this was happening. So it was very difficult to know if it was a local problem with a house or a building, or if it was actually a problem with the water supply.

CO: It's taking a long time, isn't it, to get these pipes flushed out and the city says now don't expect water to come back. Good water to come back until at least next week. And so what does that mean for your hospital, given that you've got probably a lot more days to deal with this?

FRANCOIS DE WET: So we've had meetings on a regular basis with the CPHO office, and I know that Department of Health has meetings with the town as well. And so, you know, we're fairly confident that we'll be able to resume the O.R. schedule on Monday. We're going out from the assumption that we will be able to start up with O.R. on Monday. But, you know, it depends on what the testing comes back over the weekend. So we're hopeful.

CO: All right. Well, I hope that hope is well placed, Dr. de Wet and I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

FRANCOIS DE WET: No problem anytime. Thank you for doing the interview and putting a light on this.

CO: You bet. Bye bye.

FRANCOIS DE WET: Take care. Bye now.

CH: Dr. Francois de Wet is the Chief of Staff for the Qikiqtani General Hospital and the Territorial Chief of Staff for Nunavut's Health Department. He's in Iqaluit.

[Music: calm banjo instrumental]

Black Bear Rescue Manitoba

CH: It's been a record breaking year at Black Bear Rescue Manitoba, the not for profit group rescues and rehabilitates orphaned bear cubs, and this year staff have had a record 30 cubs in their care. Owner Judy Stearns spoke with the CBC about how it feels to finally start releasing the bears back into the wild and why she thinks there were so many orphaned cubs this year.

JUDY STEARNS: We've got provincial biologists here, we've got our veterinarian here, we've got volunteers, so we've got it down to quite a science. It's like an assembly line. You do one cub and then the next cub, and we just move them through the whole process and they end up being placed into their transport boxes and then away we go.

MARCY MARKUSA: I've been reading and following the Black Bear Rescue Manitoba Facebook page. I mean, it's hard not to love looking at the animals, they are so cute and the stories, but you do describe a special bear named Xena, who arrived at the rescue in May after being hit by a car near Gypsumville. What is she like?

JS: Xena was released, actually. She was one of the first to go and she did amazingly well. She was one of the great stories from this summer. So yes, her mother was struck by a car. She was also hit and she was dragged under a car down the highway and she made an amazing recovery and she had to be probably the sharpest, smartest cub we've ever had here. She was so alert and smart, and the other two that come to mind would be Freya and Floki, that the little blondies, as I call them, their little blonde, golden coloured cubs that came in from the Manigotagan area. They spent two weeks on their own, surviving without their mother. She was hit by a car and they were separate in the woods. They weren't together and they came in a couple of days apart and they were quite emaciated, just skin and bones and tiny little things. They were seven pounds in the middle of June, which is very underweight. And those two, I'll be putting pictures of them coming up soon. But they're also very rotund and they're, yeah, they're doing well. You would never know. You can't even recognise them. So they're going in very good shape.

MM: What's it like for you to see them go?

JS: Bittersweet. Very bittersweet. Obviously, they can't stay here, don't want them to stay in captivity. But when you care for an animal for months like that, you're just 24/7. They're in the back of your mind that they're fed and safe and then you have to let them go. And I worry about them after they're gone. You know, it's a dangerous world out there for bears, as we saw this year was a hard year on them with the drought and forest fires and whatnot. So all that led to bears being on the move. They were going into communities and people's yards and places where they're not normally seen. So that resulted in bears being shot. We had a lot of cubs come in because their mothers were hit by cars because they were more on the move and they were grazing on dandelion leaves and the lusher grass that's behind some roads this spring and that led them to being hit. We know that human activity is the main cause of orphaning. There's just a whole bunch of bad conditions that led to more bear sightings and bears going towards people this summer.

CH: Black Bear Rescue Manitoba owner Judy Stearns speaking with information radio host Marcy Markusa in Winnipeg this morning.

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October 21, 2021 Episode Transcript

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