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The AIH Transcript For March 31, 2022

Hosts: Gillian Findlay and Chris Howden

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Hello, I'm Gillian Findlay.

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

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

CH: Tonight:

GF: Hard to misinterpret. A former Afghan interpreter says Canada is breaking its promise to help the extended family of those who helped NATO -- and he's hoping a hunger strike will get his message across.

CH: Back to abnormal. A Shanghai-based journalist tells us what it's like living in China's financial capital right now, as the city is shut down to control a new COVID outbreak.

GF: The path forward. The Prime Minister pays more than just a visit to Williams Lake First Nation. And Chief Willie Sellars tells us what he's hoping that federal funding commitment will do for his B.C. community -- as it continues its search for unmarked graves.

CH: Every trick in the Facebook. A conspiracy theory about American-funded bioweapons labs in Ukraine is flourishing on social media -- and our guest says Facebook monitors seem disinclined to disavow the disinformation.

GF: A sore to help the sorest. sought to help the suppressed. If you're injured in England's Lake District, you may be rescued by a paramedic in a jet suit -- and we'll try to reach one before he takes off for the day.

CH: And… it's out of ideas, so it's resorting to violets. A Kentucky hotel announces it will welcome guests who are travelling with their houseplants, so people can enjoy their stays with their leaves.

GF: As It Happens, the thursday edition. Radio that suggests you make the most of your visit because time flies when you're having fern.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Afghan Interpreters Hunger Strike, Williams Lake First Nation Visit, U.K. Jet Pack Tests

Former Russian Lawmaker

Guest: Ghulam Faizi

CH: Ghulam Faizi has called Canada home for many years. The former Afghan interpreter arrived in 2011. His wife and children live here too. Today, Mr. Faizi began a hunger strike at Parliament Hill, on behalf of extended family members that he still hopes to bring to Canada. Family members he says Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada promised him they'd help. And Mr. Faizi is not alone. He's joined by more than one hundred fellow former interpreters, who say the government is not doing enough to protect the loved ones they were forced to leave behind in Afghanistan. We reached Ghulam Faizi in Ottawa.

GF: Mr. Faizi, a hunger strike is a dire measure. Why have you decided it's necessary?

GHULAM FAIZI: It is necessary because we had left no options. And IRCC promises are all broken. We had 27 meetings IRCC staff, and we also had a meeting with Honourable Sean Fraser, the minister of immigration. So he himself promised us once the application and the process is open for extended family on December 9th, we will be able to process your application and assign them our case numbers within two weeks. However, we still do not have case numbers for more than 65 per cent of the application we submitted three or four months ago.

GF: Tell me about your family. How many of your family members are still in Afghanistan?

GHULAM FAIZI: My family, eight of them, made it to Islamabad, a third country in Pakistan, two weeks ago. And 22 are still in Afghanistan. They are stuck, so they are hiding. They moved to another location after half my family went to Pakistan because people were asking where the half of the family are? Are they escaping? So we had to change the location again.

GF: And I understand this includes your parents, right?

GHULAM FAIZI: That includes my parents. My parents are still in Afghanistan. Only my three brothers and their partners and two kids so far made it to a third country.

GF: Yeah, as you said, it was back in December that the federal government launched a new program specifically to help families like yours. Why hasn't that worked?

GHULAM FAIZI: It started in a good direction. However, they are not responding to emails. They are not responding to the application that has been received. And also, we are telling them all the problems we’re facing. For example, not everybody has Afghan passport. And if we want to get a family passport, we have to go through the Taliban, from whom we are escaping. And their first question: why do you need a family passport? Where are you going? Who did you work for? And IRCC said we will not need a passport. However, when we told them to provide us a single travel document, they said, we cannot do that. So with our single travel documents, we might have a problem in Pakistan. For example, 10 to 11 families, including mine, half my family, made it to Pakistan on a legal visa. However, their visa is about to expire in a month.

GF: Right.

GHULAM FAIZI: And we ask them many times this one question: why are you telling the Canadian public that if a family with a case number can make it to a third country, the IRCC will take care of them. In reality, they are not willing to do it for our families.

GF: Well, and as I understand it, of the 300 applications that were made under this particular program, not a single extended family member has succeeded in arriving in Canada?

GHULAM FAIZI: That is 100 per cent correct. Yes, none arrived to Canada under this program as of today. I don't know tomorrow.

GF: The Immigration Minister, Sean Fraser, you mentioned, you know, he acknowledges that part of the challenge is ensuring that applicants have the right documents, securing flights to Canada and both of those things require dealing with the Taliban government that's not inclined to be cooperative. Do you understand? Do you have some sympathy for his position?

GHULAM FAIZI: Not at this moment. We do not want Sean Fraser to talk to the Taliban. We understand that Canada does not recognize Taliban as a legitimate government, which it is not. However, Sean Fraser and his staff can talk to Pakistan, which is an ally to Canada. And if Sean Fraser has this problem, we understand that, however, we provided their staff many other options that is possible, however, they are not interested or not willing to do it for our families or extended families.

GF: And, of course, all of this is happening at the same time Canada has promised to… to resettle an unlimited number of Ukrainian refugees. What do you… what goes through your mind when you see those promises?

GHULAM FAIZI: In that case, I would say Canada is a generous country, and I love this decision. They made it about the Ukrainian because Ukrainians go through very hard stuff today, and my heart is with Ukrainians. However, we are also those Afghan Canadians, former interpreters who work through in the mission with the Canadian military in Kandahar, in Afghanistan, and put our families, our siblings, our parents at risk and the country in the mission that we grouped with them against the Taliban. And the same Taliban has power today. So we should not be ignored either. Otherwise, our families moving one province to another and hiding, they cannot hide forever.

GF: Yeah. How worried are you about your parents and… and your siblings now?

GHULAM FAIZI: I'm totally shocked when I see… when I see messages from my family till I read or hear it to make sure they're still alive or their place has not being compromised. We all… like, the 300 or more former interpreters in Canada, we are very stressed. We have sort of mental problems now to see our families getting through. Some of our friends lost their brothers and parents already. And the more they wait, the higher risk goes against our parents and siblings.

GF: All right. We'll continue to monitor this, Mr. Faizi, and... and see what happens. Good luck to you.

GHULAM FAIZI: Thank you so much.

CH: Ghulam Faizi is a former Afghan interpreter who is embarking on a hunger strike to encourage the federal government to do more to help extended families like his. We reached him in Ottawa. In a statement, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada said, in part: "If this was a matter of will, there would be at least forty-thousand Afghan refugees here already. But the reality is that this is a multi-year commitment, and the number of factors that we do not fully control remains significant... There's no lack of effort on the part of the Government of Canada. The bottleneck is not the processing capacity ... It's situational and environmental factors on the ground in Afghanistan."

[Music: Ambient]

Williams Lake First Nation Visit

Guest: Chief Willie Sellars

CH: For the first time since Williams Lake First Nation announced that it had located 93 potential burial sites near the former site of Saint Joseph's Mission Residential School, Ottawa has come to visit with a funding commitment. Yesterday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Marc Millar visited the British Columbia community. And the prime minister announced $2.9 million in funding to support healing for B.C. First Nations communities, whose children were taken from their families and sent to the school. The politicians attended a welcoming ceremony and met with elders and survivors, as well as the chief and council. Willie Sellars is the chief of Williams Lake First Nation.

GF: Chief sellars, you talked yesterday about how proud you were of the way your community presented itself to… to the prime minister and to the rest of the country. What made you proud?

CHIEF WILLIE SELLARS: You know, we are very proud people. We're a very proud First Nation. We wanted to hold up our culture and language in our ceremony yesterday. And really showcase just how resilient we are in light of, you know, the history and legacy of residential schools in this country. And I think we were able to put together a really good ceremony and powerful contingent of survivors, of elders, of community members, of staff that showcased our region in a way that we can be proud of.

GF: Yeah. Was there a particular message that you wanted to get across to him yesterday?

CWS: That we're still here, you know? And that we are still thriving and surviving as First Nation people in light of that history. And the goal of the residential schools in this country was to strip the Indian from the child, and they failed. But there's still a lot of hurt, and there's still a lot of anger around the history of those schools in our communities that we're continuing to deal with to this day. Yesterday, we were able to showcase our community and, you know, the success and the positives. But, you know, we are still learning, and we are still healing as a community at the same time. You know, having the leader of our country in Williams Lake First Nation traditional territory, speaking and holding us up and supporting us in this journey is another one of those positive steps towards reconciliation. But just like we told the prime minister yesterday, there is still a lot of work to do.

GF: I want to ask you about the discovery of those 93 potential burial sites. Yesterday, the prime minister made a commitment of $2.9 million to continue the work. What will the new funding be used for?

CWS: It will be used to support the ongoing investigative work that's happening over at the Saint Joseph's Mission site. So it is a massive area. It's over 400 hectares that potentially needs to be tested. Our first phase of investigation covered the historical residential school site and then also the outbuildings that came with that parcel. But as we continue to identify areas of interest through traditional use data, through the archives, through our research, through our interviews with survivors, we've been able to identify these other areas of interest that need to be tested where there could be potential gravesites, and that work is going to be ongoing for potentially years to come.

GF: Is the ultimate goal to… to excavate?

CWS: The ultimate goal would be to excavate, but that's a bigger, broader discussion. We have… of course, Saint Joseph's Mission is in the caretaker area of the Williams Lake First Nation. We've taken the lead on the investigation works, identifying those potential unmarked graves. When we start talking about excavation, it's a bigger, broader discussion because there are multiple nations that are impacted from that school. And when we start talking about an excavation, we're going to need to be engaging with those communities to making sure that we're following proper protocol around ceremony culture and holding them up because they are hurting just like us.

GF: Right? Because they all sent their children to that school as well, didn't they?

CWS: That's right.

GF: But you mentioned the leaders from the Tsilhqotʼin communities. And yesterday, as you know, chiefs from those communities put out a statement. They didn't attend the ceremony yesterday, and they… their statement said that they didn't feel that they had been meaningfully represented in this process.

CWS: Yeah, I mean, which is unfortunate. I mean, we send regular updates. We continue to invite them to meetings. We continue to reach out and hope that they will come to the table and voice these concerns and have a dialogue around what they would like to see with an investigation as we move into potential excavation, community engagement of those nations, we're really hoping that they're going to do step forward and actually want to have that dialogue.

GF: Have they not been consulted to date?

CWS: Well, they've stepped away from the table, and that's the discouraging thing that I was getting at. I mean, if they want to have a dialogue and provide input to what's going on over there, I mean, they have to sit down with us, which they refused to do.

GF: What is the issue?

CWS: I mean, you… you would have to ask them because we continue to want to sit down with them, and they… they won't, so.

GF: Right. It makes it difficult, doesn't it, to… to move forward? You mentioned reconciliation, and, of course, yesterday Minister Marc Miller says, you know, that's something that he thinks about a lot and continues to ask himself the question: what does a healed country look like? What's your answer to that question? What does a healed country look like?

CWS: I mean, it's a variety of things. The balance and the healing component of our communities is… is different, I think, across the board. You know, I mean, look at Williams Lake First Nation, you know, we need to be able to provide opportunities for our membership to go to work and provide for their families. We need to be able to provide housing, clean drinking water. But at the same time, we also need to be able to hold up and really make an effort at the revitalisation of our language, of our culture, of our ceremonies because that's an important part of it as well. But I mean, there's still a lot of work to do in our community, and we're more further along than most. But then we're also, you know, behind in some other aspects of our healing journey. I mean, trying to find that balance is going to be tough. But we continue to say in regards to Saint Joseph's Mission in the works that are happening over there, for true healing, we're going to need the truth.

GF: Well, right. Well, good luck to you, Chief Sellars. Thank you so much for taking the time today to talk to us about it.

CWS: Hey, no problem. Thank you for taking the time, and you enjoy the rest of your day.

GF: Bye-bye.

CWS: Bye.

CH: Willie Sellars is the Chief of Williams Lake First Nation. He's in Williams Lake, British Columbia.

[Music: Acoustic guitar]

U.K. Jet Pack Tests

Guest: Andy Mawson

CH: Andy Mawson has learned how to fly. All it took was a lot of training. Oh… and a jet suit. Mr. Mawson and other paramedics in England's Lake District, and hoping to use these high-tech suits to help those in need in the near future. He's the director of operations with Great North Air Ambulance Service. And we reached him in Newcastle, England.

GF: Andy, you reached a milestone in your training two weeks ago. What exactly were you able to do?

ANDY MAWSON: Following sort of very progressive training to build up to a free flight, I flew just a quite a short distance, but we did it off the safety rope, so it was great to finally feel what it would be like to... to fly freely, albeit for about 10 metres.

GF: ten metres. Okay, which took you how long?

AM: Oh, like a second or two, really. But I think it was… it was more that I guess the milestone is sort of less around the distance and the speed and more around actually just operating the suit without any safety devices.

GF: What does it feel like, even just to go that short distance?

AM: Yeah, it feels amazing, really. I think it's a bit like that first time when you… when you kind of ride your bike without stabilizers, maybe and just feel that… that almost extra dimension of movement, maybe that bit more excitement and freedom, I suppose. But, you know, we're very confident, really, Richard and the team down at Gravity, you know, have flown the jet suits for years now and they're very, very good at what they do. We were in very capable hands.

GF: What sort of training did you have to do to… to get to this point?

AM: So essentially, it's your on a kind of a frame attached to a safety rope. And you start operating the suit at sort of low power settings, but you just get used to the feeling of how each of the engines essentially pushes against you. And then, you just incrementally sort of increase the power to the point where you become a little bit more weightless, and you start to sort of hop around on the ground a bit like a baby chicken. And… and then just carry on increasing the power and really just sort of just finding that… that kind of sweet spot into a controlled hover. And then, rotation and movement. So it's a very sort of intuitive and very tactile sort of feeling. It's difficult to describe. You've got a sleeve essentially on each arm with two engines, and then I guess, a bit like a backpack with a fifth engine providing the rear thrust. All of the flight, all of the controls and direction and everything, is… is done through your own body. So it's a… it's a very… it’s difficult to say, really. It's captivating. It's a very personal experience. You know, you're very much part of the machine, and the machine is part of you.

GF: Now you mentioned Richard. Who is he?

AM: So Richard Browning is the… the chief executive officer of Gravity Industries and the founder and chief test pilot. So the machine really is his invention from absolute start to finish.

GF: And when we spoke to you back in 2020, I think Richard had just done his… the first test flight. What's happened in the meantime?

AM: Yeah, that's correct. So 2020, we brought Gravity up to our… one of our areas of operation, which is the Lake District in the U.K. And it was the first time that Richard had really flown in that mountainous environment. So it was a really, really big learning experience for everybody, really. But then COVID happened. You know, we're… we're a charitable air ambulance, and so we had a lot of work to do internally to kind of prepare ourselves for the pandemic and the differences in how we would have to respond. And then the other aspect of that with being a charity is that we were keen to find a sort of sponsor for the project. So it took some time to find that chosen partner, and we chose a Danish renewable energy company called Ørsted. See, the same application that we do, but in the offshore industry, basically delivering rescue personnel and medical personnel in the offshore industry.

GF: So… so tell me a bit… a bit more about this. And because all of this is being driven from your perspective about being able to improve paramedic access to… to people in need in the Lake District. How do you see this is going to be an asset to your work?

AM: So really, there's two situations. The first of those are those… those critical cases. So somebody that's fallen great height or suffered potentially like a cardiac arrest. Our aircraft currently is… is based in Cumbria, and it's most definitely the current fastest asset to get to somebody in dire need. We think the effects of operationalization of the jet suit would mean we might be able to save some crucial minutes in those particular cases. But the other, less serious patients that we're looking to target are those that don't require a helicopter. You know, a mountain biker that might have dislocated shoulder or somebody that's got a simple ankle fracture. These are people who benefit from, like early paramedic assessment and treatment. But delivering that in the mountains so far has… has not been possible. And those patients will wait for one of the local, very, very heroic mountain rescue teams to get to them on foot, but that might take an hour, sometimes… sometimes longer. So a paramedic on, like, a bicycle, or paramedic on a motorbike. We're just wondering whether this… this technology would give us a similar capability in a mountain environment?

GF: And what would the range be, though? You mentioned 10 metres you did a couple of weeks ago. [both chuckle] But what kind of distances will you have to do to make this actually effective?

AW: The suit is being developed continually, and we're up to around an eight-minute endurance, which doesn't sound like a lot. Well, the Lake District is obviously a relatively large area, but the more frequent accident spots, if you like, are in a slightly more concentrated area. And so, by operating a short blue light response to, like, to a launch site and then and then flying means that an eight-minute range would get us to the top of all of the fells that we would need to cover.

GF: Well, it'll be fascinating to see what happens. We'll talk to you again, Andy, when you do your first trip.

AW: Thank you very much. Thank you. And thanks to all of you listeners.

GF: Take care. Bye-bye.

AW: Bye-bye.

CH: Andy Mawson is with Great North Air Ambulance Service in the U.K. We reached him in Newcastle.

[Music: Calypso]

Houseplant Hotel

CH: In an age of Airbnbs, house swaps, and Hotwire it can be tough for a hotel to stand out from the crowd. But boy, do their marketing teams try. There's the DogHouse Hotel inside an Ohio brewery, which boasts in-room beer taps and in-shower fridges. The View Hotel in Switzerland, which lets you match your room's colour palate to your mood -- toilet paper and all. Japan's Nakanoshima, which briefly let tourists in Osaka sleep inside a converted public toilet. And Austin's Aloft and Element Hotels, which provide complimentary cowboy boots to guests. But none of those are helpful if you're afraid to leave your orchid for a weekend. Which is where the Elwood Hotel and Suites in Kentucky comes in. It's proving anything grows -- by encouraging its guests to bring their houseplants along. Lexington, Kentucky's visitors bureau says it stems from people's changing habits. Quote, "Thanks to a years-long pandemic and the rising costs of parenthood, pets are the new babies. And plants have been promoted to the new pets." Unquote. Okay. Well, that's a take we would have let die on the vine. But the hotel clearly believes it has moss appeal -- and is pairing the promotion with the promise of botanical toiletries and garden-inspired cocktails. Well, I guess this promotion will weed out the less-than-serious plant parents. And if it doesn't work, I assume they'll just nip it in the bud.

Part 2: Shanghai Lockdown, Facebook Ukraine Disinformation

Shanghai Lockdown

Guest: Rebecca Kanthor

CH: At this point in the pandemic, everyone everywhere feels like they've had enough of lockdowns. But as we've learned over and over again, the coronavirus has no feelings -- and it doesn't care about ours. Over the weekend, officials in Shanghai announced that the city would be going into a mass, phased lockdown -- effectively splitting the city in two. That's in response to China's worst COVID outbreak in two years. Rebecca Kanthor is a journalist, reporting for the American trade publication Plastics News. She's also the China correspondent for the public radio show The World. We reached her in Shanghai, just before a lockdown took effect in her area.

GF: Rebecca, I understand you've just come back from your last walk before this lockdown. What's the city looking like?

REBECCA KANTHOR: Well, I just walked out onto the street from my apartment, and it's just eerily quiet. I saw a bus go by, an empty bus, [chuckling] but nothing else. No people. There's police tape sort of strung between trees along the side of the road to prevent people from walking around. So the streets are blocked off. And it was just an empty street. So I walked in the middle of the street and took a selfie [both chuckling] because it's never, ever that empty.

GF: I was going to say. Shanghai as a quiet city is something I think most people can't really fathom.

RK: [chuckling] No, it's a city of, I think, almost 26 million people. So usually, you always see somebody.

GF: You have just come off another lockdown because there have been smaller lockdowns, I understand. What are you preparing yourself for this time?

RK: Well, I and most everybody on my side of the river, Shanghai is divided by a river, and the lockdown has been carried out in two phases. So, the other side of the river, they've been on lockdown for four days now. And now, it's our turn. And so in the past couple of days, we've just sort of been running around trying to get groceries, get supplies. Because they say that the lockdown is going to be for five days, but I have a feeling it could be much longer.

GF: Yeah.

RK: So, you know, just trying to get vegetables, you know, necessities, just try and stock up.

GF: Which has not been so easy, I understand. We've certainly seen lots of postings on social media of people standing in long lines and empty supermarket shelves. What's it been like?

RK: Yeah. No, I went out a couple of days. I was just looking for some basics, like potatoes and onions. I was going around all different places, trying to find just basic vegetables, and it was really hard to find the first couple of days. Towards today, I think finally, you know, supplies started coming in. But there… yeah, there were a lot of empty shelves, and that was partly due to people just sort of panic buying, but also partly due to supply chain issues. Because some of the wholesale markets had been closed down.

GF: shutting down or locking down a city of 26 million people, even if you do that in… in halves, is still a huge undertaking. And on top of that, there's mass testing going on as well.

RK: That's right. So Pudong shut down early Monday morning. And then there were several mass-testing… you know, once they did that testing, the results came back and there was, you know, a huge uptick in cases. It's a huge undertaking. There's a lot of people involved in this effort. I think they're bringing in support teams from outside of Shanghai as well to… to carry out all the testing.

GF: And what happens to people who test positive?

RK: In Shanghai, or in China, they differentiate between an asymptomatic case and a symptomatic case. If you're a symptomatic case, you… you go to a COVID hospital. You can only get out of that hospital if you get two negative COVID tests. And that's sometimes very difficult. So people can be feeling much better, but they're still testing positive. If you're an asymptomatic case, it really depends on where you are. Sometimes, you're being sent to a centralized quarantine facility. Those have been set up in hotels, but also in gymnasiums, exhibition centres, these just massive places that people are staying. But then also some people are quarantining in their home for 14 days. But that also means that their entire community will also have to quarantine for those 14 days as well. So… so it's really… it's uneven sort of what happens when… when you test positive?

GF: And what's so interesting about this is… is the COVID numbers in Shanghai compared to some places in the world now do not seem that high. While much of the world is trying to learn to live with the virus, China's policy is still aimed at trying to stamp it out. Is that a source of frustration?

RK: I think it is. You know, the policy here really is about, you know, stopping the transmission of COVID. That [chuckling] does not take into account that, you know, there are people with underlying health conditions, people who are trying to seek medical care, people with pets. [chuckle] You know, there's a lot of different populations of people. Homeless people. There's a lot of different people who are negatively impacted by this policy and by this strategy.

GF: Shanghai, of course, is a global financial hub as well. How is all of this shutdown, lockdown, affecting business there?

RK: Well, for small businesses, I mean, it's having a hugely negative impact. You know, I went to a convenience store. Convenience stores in Shanghai, they're… they're ubiquitous. They're all over the place -- 24-hour convenience stores. They're always open on every single corner. And they were shutting down early in the afternoon today. And I talked with employees there, and they said, well, you know, we can't work during this time, and we're not getting paid.

GF: And what about the financial industry, though? We've been hearing stories of, you know, traders and fund managers sleeping underneath their desks that work.

RK: [chuckling] Yes. Yes, right. Because if they go home, they will get locked in at home. So different industries, including the financial industry, they have come up with… with their solution, which is to have some people on staff just staying in… in the office.

GF: And then, of course, there's… there's the human impact of all of this. I understand you have children. What's it like to be going into yet another lockdown with a family?

RK: All the kids in Shanghai went back to online schooling. I think it was… Oh God, time seems to stand still. I can't remember how long it was. I think it was two weeks ago we went on to online schooling. And that's the first time kids in Shanghai went on online schooling since 2020. So it's still a new thing because they don't really remember two years ago. There's a lot of anxiety with my little kids because, you know, they're seeing us preparing, getting food ready. They're hearing us talk about the lockdown. But we're just… we always tell them, you know, we're so lucky we're still together. We're all healthy because my daughter has classmates who tested positive and went to the hospital and were not able to be with their parents. And that was a really tough experience for both the parents and the child.

GF: No kidding. All right. Well, good luck to you, Rebecca. I hope it goes well.

RK: Oh yeah. Well, it will go fine. We'll get through it.

GF: Thank you. Bye-bye.

RK: Okay. Bye.

CH: That was Shanghai-based journalist Rebecca Kanthor. And we've posted more on that story to our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Folk]

B.C.-AB Train Derailment

CH: Pam Fraser has been waiting for this day for a long time. Three years ago, her son Dylan Paradis was killed when a train making an emergency stop derailed near the B.C.- Alberta border. Two other men, engineer Andrew Dockrell and trainee Daniel Waldenberger-Bulmer also died that day. Now, a new report from the Transportation Safety Board confirms what the families' own investigations foretold: that old, untested brakes and extreme cold contributed to the train's derailment -- and that several CP train crews had previously submitted reports complaining about braking issues at that location. But, according to TSB Chair Kathy Fox, "No risk assessment was conducted, and insufficient corrective action was taken." For Pam Fraser, that's not surprising. And it's also not terribly comforting. Here's some of what she told the CBC about waiting three years for today's report.

[sc]

PAM FRASER: I didn't realize how… how much I'd been waiting for the report. I collapsed. I collapsed. I guess that for three years, I've been stuffing this because it was beyond my control. There was nothing I could do about it. And, you know, we just played a waiting game. The last three years for me have been… each year has been a little bit different. The first year, or maybe a year and a half, we were, myself, in shock, true shock. So it was hard to think straight, hard to keep details straight and there was so much coming at me, ways that Dylan was killed, the manner of his body, different aspects of the crash. For instance, when I received the call, I was apparently screaming. I screamed and screamed and screamed at the person on the phone. So shock is a very powerful and… and a pretty weird thing, actually. My mom and dad couldn't figure out how to use the phone. They had to go and get neighbours to help them use the phone to make flights to come here. Again, shock. So when you're in shock, you… really, it's hard to digest. Your mind plays tricks on you. So it wasn't all the questions that people had for me. It was basically trying to walk and operate in the world, kind of like a soup, in a soup. [sniffle] I do not believe that the recommendations that came out of this report will help prevent a single thing. And the reason is: they're all… they're all good recommendations. They look very, very good on paper, and that's where they're going to stay until CP Rail or possibly Transport Canada or our prime minister, in fact, and his government enforces action. Because the TSB, all they do is give recommendations. That's it. They have no… they have no actionable powers. It's just recommendation. And if they're not used, if they're not implemented, it doesn't matter how good they were.

[/sc]

CH: Pam Fraser's son Dylan Paradis was killed in Feburary 2019, when a train derailed atop the Field Hill near the B.C.-Alberta border. Ms. Fraser spoke with CBC's Erin Collins today.

[Music: Light rock]

Facebook Ukraine Disinformation

Guest: Imran Ahmed

CH: It first took shape on the fringes of the internet in the lead-up to the war: the bioweapons conspiracy theory, which falsely claims that the U.S. government is funding biological weapons programs in Ukraine. And since then, it's spread much farther and wider -- including on social media. A group that monitors online misinformation has taken a hard look at how the bioweapons conspiracy theory is being treated on Facebook. And it says the company is allowing the vast majority of posts to go unflagged. Imran Ahmed heads the Center for Countering Digital Hate. We reached him in Washington, D.C.

GF: Mr. Ahmed, why did you want to look into the spread of this particular conspiracy theory about bioweapons?

IMRAN AHMED: Well, we've been studying Russian propaganda for some time, not least because they've been implicated in climate disinformation, disinformation about vaccines and other spaces. And when we saw that Facebook was claiming to label articles from Russian propaganda that fuel conspiracy theories, we thought we'd check the most prominent one and see how they're doing. And to our surprise, although there's evidence that this has been going on for some time and there are failures here, only two in 10 articles with bioweapons labs conspiracy theories were being labelled.

GF: Right. So just take us back for a minute, though, and tell us, you know, about the conspiracy theory. What are the false claims that are being made?

IA: Well, there's a number of interlocking claims, and conspiracy theories are really powerful because they're malleable. They can adapt to whatever the news is. And, of course, one of the things that some of the anti-vaxxers have been pushing, alongside some of those pro-Putin propagandists, is that there are bio labs. That they've been manufacturing bioweapons. Of course, that's in the context of COVID that has some salience. And increasingly have been saying, well, in fact, that's there in Ukraine, and that's why Putin really invaded. It's really wrapping the news narrative into the conspiracy theory. And so, finding a way to connect the two in order to parasitically take advantage of the energy and attention that's being placed on Ukraine. And Russia saw this propaganda, this… this conspiracy theory and thought, well, this one could work to serve our interest too.

GF: Did they see it, or were they behind it? Or do you know?

IA: Well, I mean, who knows. The problem is that, you know, Russia has been extremely sophisticated in creating an architecture of conspiracists who both initiate and amplify propaganda that serves the Russian interest. Now, the Russian interest may be, for example, to interfere in the U.S. elections. And we know that Russia today was part of the disinformation architecture that's been doing that. It may be to literally kill American citizens by pushing untruths about vaccines and untruths about alternative remedies. We've seen that happening in the past couple of years. Now we see that they are seeking to justify their legal, illegitimate and brutal invasion of the Ukraine through creating confusion, creating uncertainty by pushing multiple narratives as to why they did so.

GF: And how widespread did you find this conspiracy theory on Facebook?

IA: Look, the truth is that this conspiracy theory is probably the most frequently cited that we see. It's incredibly widespread. And there may not be millions of people that believe it, but millions of people have heard it. And a significant proportion of people, you know, sort of think, well, maybe there's some truth there. You know, we've all heard the phrase where there's smoke, there's fire. Well, that's the problem with conspiracy theories. Quite often, they can create smoke. And there is… there's no truth behind it at all.

GF: So, so in your survey, then remind me, how many posts did you find that had not been flagged by Facebook?

IA: So extraordinarily, we found that 80 per cent of articles --

GF: Eighty per cent?!

IA: Containing… containing conspiracy theories about the Ukrainian bioweapons labs. And keep in mind, we were looking at the most prominent media outlets pushing them. So these aren't tiny, abstruse accounts with very few followers. These are known bad actors, who are serial super-spreaders of disinformation, who Facebook have failed to deplatform because of their breach of their rules. Who even, you know, in the most basic thing they can do, which is label their propaganda, they're not doing that. Eight out of 10 times, they're failing.

GF: So, is this a question of technology? I mean, if you could find them, presumably Facebook could find them.

IA: Well, you know, I have 22… we have 20 members of staff. And if we could find them within 24 hours of searching, put together a comprehensive bit of research and get it to the attention of policymakers and journalists. You know, a company with 50,000 employees and whose owner is worth $100 billion could surely do the same, if not better.

GF: So… so is it a case that they can't or they won't?

IA: It's simply the will to act. They do not have the will to act because, for them, it actually… every bit of content is potential money. Every bit of attention, even to a conspiracy theory, is something they can monetize and put ads on. And it is really about the fact that they put profits ahead of people every single time.

GF: Facebook says that they actually have a special information desk that monitors content about the Russia Ukraine war around the clock. They also say, and this is a quote, we're taking extensive steps to fight the spread of misinformation and implementing more transparency and restrictions around state-controlled media outlets. What do you make of that statement?

IA: Well, look, I'm a great believer in that we should be judged by our actions, not by our words. And the proof is in the pudding here. They really have failed to act. Every time we've looked at whether or not they followed through on the claims they make to be taking these things seriously, they've been shown to be failing.

GF: And I mean, you, as you have pointed out, we know that Russia's disinformation efforts have kicked into high gear, especially around this invasion. Is it possible for anybody to… to stay on top of it all?

IA: Look, the key when it comes to disinformation is understanding that a small number of bad actors produce the vast majority of the deliberate disinformation, which is then further spread by… by lots of people that read it and fall for it. And if you focus on the super spreaders, you can do an enormous amount of damage to disinformation networks and to the spread of disinformation.

GF: So you've called them out on this now, Facebook, I mean. What are you hoping will happen?

IA: What I hope would happen is that Mark Zuckerberg would have a change of heart and put people before his own pocket. But I suspect that won't happen until there is serious attention from legislators, which we are seeing around the world. What we really need is for those to be turned into hard legislation so that there is some way of holding accountable those companies who are happy to profit while millions suffer in the Ukraine.

GF: All right, we'll leave it there. Thanks so much, Mr. Ahmed, for joining us today.

IA: My pleasure.

GF: Bye-bye.

CH: Imran Ahmed heads the Center for Countering Digital Hate. A Meta spokesperson responded: "This report uses a flawed methodology to make it seem like we aren't applying fact-checking labels when in fact, we are. They ... misrepresent(ed) the scale and scope of our efforts. In fact, we have the most robust system for fact-checking false claims of any platform and our fact-checking partners have debunked dozens of claims about the Ukrainian bioweapons hoax..."

[Music: Ambient]

Ottawa Barber Chair For Sale

CH: There's a lot on your mind when you take your seat in the barbershop. You're wondering how much you should get taken off, and why you didn't prepare any small talk, and what that blue fluid is that the combs are in. You're not necessarily wondering who has sat in that chair before you. Unless you're at Victoria Barber Shop in Ottawa. Over the decades, politicians, judges, and hockey legends have plunked themselves down on its classic red leather chairs. They've seen a lot. Well, they've felt a lot of butts, anyway. And now, Robin Seguin -- owner of Victoria Barber Shop -- has put one of them up for sale.

[sc]

ROBIN SEGUIN: It's a barber chair that has had many, many, many famous Canadian people sit in it. Well, first off, to name people that you'd know now, Marc Garneau, Bill Blair, Nik Nanos, Chuck Demers, Frank Malevich, Al Charron and my god, the list goes on. We have Russell Brown, who's a sitting Supreme Court judge, you know, and many, many other party members that come in as well.

HALLIE COTNAM: That's a lot of famous derrieres in your chair.

RS: Absolutely!

HC: So why sell it now, Robin?

RS: Well, we're going to replace the floor in the shop because it's been about 12, 13 years, I guess, since they fixed the tiles. And we're not using the middle chair anymore. Since COVID and restrictions and our six… six-foot distancing, you know, where we're comfortable just two of us. And we don't really need the middle chair now, and it'd be nice to see it go somewhere where it will be loved and appreciated.

HC: Do you care who buys it? I mean, do you mind if this turns up as a sort of an objet in a bar somewhere?

RS: No, I wouldn't mind at all. I think the worst thing that I could possibly see happen to it is for somebody to take it somewhere, just recover it, you know, or sell it somewhere, you know, to somebody, and it doesn't mean anything because this chair means a lot to a lot of people. And it's… and it's an important part of Canadian history. I mean, many things have been discussed in these chairs. I know things about --

HC: Do tell, Robin!

RS: [laughing] Like I've said before, men only really need three good things in their life: a good wife, a good bartender and a good barber. And, I mean, I know personal things about a lot of these people. And the reality of it is, is every one of these people are just people like you and I. And they have lives outside of these jobs and outside of their... their personality and their, you know, their what's… good morning, senator, how are you this morning, sir? Thank you, sir. That's okay.

HC: Well, that's so cool. Maybe you could.

RS: Absolutely. Maybe you can entice that senator in. [everybody laughs]

[/sc]

CH: That was Robin Seguin, owner of Victoria Barber Shop in Ottawa, speaking with the CBC's Hallie Cotnam.

[Music: Folk]

Part 3: Hong Kong Supreme Court Folo, Baltimore Security Guard Exhibit, Koala Released

Hong Kong Supreme Court Folo

Guest: Mark Daly

CH: The British judges are blaming China. And China is blaming Britain. Yesterday, two judges from the U.K. resigned from Hong Kong's top court. The president of the U.K. Supreme Court, and his fellow judge Patrick Hodge, said they didn't want to appear to endorse the Chinese-controlled administration in Hong Kong and its undermining of political freedoms. But in Hong Kong, the departure of those judges means the top court will have fewer of the foreign jurists who were supposed to help defend the rule of law. Mark Daly is a human rights lawyer in Hong Kong.

GF: Mr. Daly, Hong Kong officials are blaming politics for yesterday's departure of the British judges. What's the reaction of the Hong Kong legal community?

MARK DALY: Well, I think we're still seeing what the reaction is. There's… there's new… there's news coming out, you know, [chuckle] every method on this. It's caused quite a stir. The Court of Final Appeal does invite eminent judges from other common law jurisdictions to sit on… on its court. That was a mechanism that was put in place when the handover took place as a safeguard to keep us linked, anchored, to the common law world. And unfortunately, with changes that have gone on in Hong Kong, unfortunately negative, these eminent judges from the U.K. have thought it's been a tipping point here, where they can no longer sit on the highest court in Hong Kong.

GF: And this all relates back, as I understand it to the 2020 national security law that was passed. What has been the impact of that?

MD: Firstly, you need to know. I mean, the rule of law can't be seen as… as a narrow, superficial or thin concept. It includes preserving human rights. And, more importantly, a meaningful voice of citizens in making the rules. So I think the national security law was not made in Hong Kong through the normal legislative process. It was kind of foisted upon Hong Kong from the… from the opaque mainland process.

GF: Mm-Hmm.

MD: So these judges specifically referred to that as… as, you know, being a… being an important issue. It's not the only issue, though. I mean, there's… you know, there has been a number of other issues and… and other erosion of human rights in Hong Kong. So we don't know. And we don't know exactly what… what has made them decide to do this. So just one, you know, seems to be obviously critically important.

GF: Well, Robert Reed, the president of the U.K. Supreme Court, explained the departure by saying that they didn't want to appear, quote, to endorse an administration which has departed from values of political freedom and freedom of expression.

MD: Right. It was obviously carefully crafted. The… the judge's statement did not criticise the judges in Hong Kong. They… and they said that the court will continue to be internationally respected for its commitment to the rule of law, and I think that's important. Commitment. But they think they can't do justice because the… the… in my… my way of saying it, the legal infrastructure has changed such that they can't do justice. Look, they're trying to ultimately be the national security law is interpreted by a mainland body. It was drafted by a mainland body. They think they can't do justice.

GF: Can you just give us a sense, though, as to how that law has been interpreted and who has lost out because of it?

MD: Well, you know, non-violent, community-minded stars, in my view. Lawyers, social workers, intellectuals, they're being, you know, persecuted by this law. So… and there's no restraint by the local government in… in, you know, going after people that happen to be opposition people and people who are non-violent people, you know, opposition to the things that the government are doing. So that's another indicator of the, you know, the environment that we're living in here.

GF: One of the other justices, of course, who serves on that court is former Canadian Chief Justice Beverley McLaughlin. She was asked yesterday. She said that she will continue to serve. She described the court as perhaps the last surviving strong institution of democracy in Hong Kong. What would you say to Madam Justice McLaughlin?

MD: I love it. I'd love to have a sit down discussion with her. One of the other things she… she said that was quoted in the Globe & Mail was that the court has no connection with the regime at all. Well, I don't don't know, you know, again, whether that was taken out of context or what. But, look, we're constitutionally connected. The interpretive power is with the National People's… NPCSC. The law. The security law was drafted in the mainland and in many mainland vague terms. So we are connected. And they take an oath to the PRC. So for her to say that, I think you know, somebody needs to ask her what she what she means by that.

GF: She… she denied also that her presence was lending legitimacy to… to the administration, to the regime.

MD: Mm-hmm.

GF: Would you… what would you say to that?

MD: You know, I think… I think there are… there are arguments both ways on this. We certainly regret that these judges think they can no longer sit on it to be seen to be supporting the system here. However, you've got three or four now who three have resigned. Another one, Lady Hale, said she won't extend her contract. And then you've got others who say they will, so you're already eroding the rule of law. The confidence is being questioned. And, well, we hope it doesn't go any further.

GF: All right. Well leave it there then. Thanks very much, Mr. Daly, for joining us today.

MD: Bye.

Mark Daly is a human rights lawyer in Hong Kong.

CH: Mark Daly is a human rights lawyer in Hong Kong.

[Music: Ambient]

Squirrel App

CH: As you know, we at As It Happens are suspicious of squirrels. We’ve repeatedly covered stories of their attempts to sabotage our electrical grids by gnawing through wires, and our vehicles by cramming them full of nuts. But University of Guelph student Elizabeth Porter loves squirrels. And she wants to share that love with other people. So she's developed a community science app, called Squirrel Life Community Project. She's asking people to go out on a walk, look for squirrels, and record what they see. There's no set purpose yet for the data, but Ms. Porter believes the possibilities are endless. And that's because -- and we agree with her here -- squirrels are full of surprises.

[sc]

ELIZABETH PORTER: One interesting thing that I learnt recently about squirrels is that they'll actually forage for… for fungi like mushrooms. So mushrooms are often when they're found by the squirrel, they're very… they're very moist. They have a high moisture content. And so, that's not going to store very well in their food cache for… for the winter or whenever they're putting it away. So they'll actually take the mushroom and they'll stab it onto a branch or something to hang and dry it. And one of my friends, who is a squirrel walker, shared that with me. They found a mushroom or a fungi that had been just stabbed onto a branch in the forest. Super weird. [chuckling]

PAULA DUHATSCHEK: What's a squirrel walker?

EP: So the whole idea of Squirrel Life is to go outside and… and watch squirrels. So I call them squirrel walkers. You literally just go for a walk. And if you see a squirrel, you can use a data collection tool that we have to record that squirrel. And you are asked a few questions like what kind of squirrel is it? Does it have any unique features? So maybe its coat colour? Or does it have any missing patches of fur? Or maybe it has an injury? You can record all of that information and then you can talk about what it's doing. They get to practice their animal observation skills. They get to be involved in science and research in an interesting way that is hopefully fun. And squirrels do really funny things sometimes. So it's… it's just enjoyable to go and watch them.

PD: Shall we go on a bit of a squirrel walk?

EP: Yeah, absolutely! Let's see what we can find.

[Sound: Crunching footsteps]

EP: I see one over here. Oh, it's by a bird feeder! So prime squirrel location. They like to forage underneath of bird feeders. I have a squirrel that likes to climb my bird feeder and hang from it by its back feet. And then it does kind of crunches in the air to reach up and grab the bird seed from it. So this is awesome. And you can… we have some doves here and some cardinals and I see some chickadees, and they don't mind that the squirrel is sharing the bird feed on the ground with them.

PD: Cool! Any final tips for squirrel walking?

EP: Oh, I would say slow down. Don't rush through your squirrel walk. I know I have a tendency when I get outside, I kind of start power walking. But if you just take a second to slow down and look around you a little bit more, you'll be really amazed, I think, at all the different things that you see. And not just squirrels. Lots of other cool stuff around you.

[/sc]

CH: University of Guelph Masters student Elizabeth Porter speaking to CBC Kitchener-Waterloo reporter Paula Duhatschek.

[Music: Poppy beat]

Baltimore Security Guard Exhibit

Guest: Dereck Mangus

CH: They have a lot more to say than "Don't touch that." This week, a group of museum guards in Baltimore stepped out of the shadows. Instead of watching over the paintings, sculptures, and drawings at the Baltimore Museum of Art, they've signed on as guest curators, and put together an exhibition of their own. Dereck Mangus is a security guard who contributed to that exhibition, which is called "Guarding the Art." We reached him in Baltimore.

GF: Dereck, how does it feel to finally have people seeing this exhibition that you helped to curate?

DERECK MANGUS: Well, in a word, exhilarating. It's very, very exciting to see all of our work up after a year-long project. And to see the reaction from the public, which has been positive, and you're very… you're through the roof.

GF: As I understand it, each of you got to choose a work to include in the exhibition. What did you choose?

DM: Yes, that is correct. Some of us chose three or four. I actually had three or four in the beginning, and I just settled on one. Ultimately, because I felt like it needed to get attention itself without sharing a space with other selections by me. So I ended up choosing or sticking with House of Frederick Cray from 1830 to 1835 by Thomas Ruckle, a local artist who I doubt too many people have heard of him. He's sort of under the radar. An Irish-born immigrant who came to the United States in the late 18th century and settled in Baltimore and was a house painter and a sign painter, and a self-taught picture painter. And he fought in the War of 1812, and what's depicted in the work that I selected is his war buddy's post-war home. That's the house of Frederick Cray.

GF: And what about it spoke to you?

DM: Well, so it's just sort of a unique-looking picture. As I mentioned, Ruckle is a self-taught painter. So it's a little off in some ways. His sense of perspective isn't perfect, but it's a quaint little picture of Antebellum Baltimore. And the one thing that always caught my eye is in the background appears the Washington Monument in Baltimore, in the neighbourhood of Mount Vernon, where I live. And I wait for the bus across from the monument every morning on my way to work. The monument, by the way, is the only thing in the picture that's still there. Everything is completely changed otherwise.

GF: Yeah, I mean, the novelty of this exhibition is the fact that they were chosen by… by guards like you. You spend a lot more time at the museum than any visitor would. What do you see that you think the casual visitors might not?

DM: Well, for one, we stand in front of these works all day long, and sometimes it can be very boring. But so if it's slow, there's nothing really else to do but to sort of look at the pictures and… or the sculptures. And that's one reason why I picked Ruckle. I think, again, he's an overlooked painter, I would say. A lot of people might not know who he is. And where the picture usually hangs is in the American wing, hung high in the salon-style, meaning, you know, among a sea of other pictures. So unless you're looking for it, you might not actually see it. And again, what drew me in is… is the fact that the Washington Monument is depicted in the background. So I would say one benefit of guarding is, you know, being able to look at artworks over and over again, which is absolutely necessary to appreciate artwork.

GF: Yeah, and you are an artist yourself, aren't you?

DM: That is correct.

GF: Yeah. And so, has… has that… has your work been influenced by the fact you do spend so much time looking at other works of art?

DM: Oh, definitely. Definitely, yes. I mean, the more I look, the more I learn. And I think that's… you know, that's… that's true of art, but also true of people. I think the more you engage with someone, the more you get to know them. And I think that's one cool thing about this show is that a lot of people, they know the guard is there right in the museum and they're standing there, but they don't necessarily talk to or consider the guard. But if you do stop and talk with us, I think you'll find that we know a thing or two about the art. And through this engagement, through the long hours of standing in the galleries and taking in the artwork, we have a lot to say. And if people… if it's slow enough, we can have a little chat with someone. You know, you can learn from us and vice versa. We can learn from you through… through a dialogue about the work.

GF: You say that this exhibition was a result of over a year of work. What was the process like of putting it together?

DM: So, in the beginning, we went through several rounds of selection. Some of the pieces we picked out first might not have been available. Whether it was… there's various reasons. Some works might be on loan for other shows or so… there was maybe a month or two long process of just, you know, finalizing our selections. So that was the beginning. But then we worked with different departments, education, marketing, conservation at different stages just to go through the whole process and to… to really see, you know, how much actually goes into curating an exhibition.

GF: Mm-hmm. It's thought to be the first show of its kind. And, you know, some people are already placing it inside a larger shift towards making museums more inclusive, more accessible to… to more people. How do you hope… what do you hope that this will do for the Baltimore Museum of Art?

DM: I think that's exactly right. Yes, I think this is a first step in the right direction that we… that other shows and other programs similar to this can and should evolve out of this prototype, if you will, this first step. And so, yeah, I hope in the short-term, other co-workers and the public alike get to know the guards better. And in the long run, like you said, the mission of diversity, equity and inclusion will be more fully realized through projects like this.

GF: All right, Dereck. Well, thanks so much for telling us about it today. Good luck with it.

DM: Thank you. Take care.

GF: Bye-bye.

CH: Dereck Mangus is a security guard and guest curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art. We reached him in Baltimore. And you can find more on that story on our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/asithappens.

[Music: Bright piano]

WPG Home Time Capsule

CH: Home renovations can be surprising. But these surprises are generally bad -- like your surprise at how long it's taking, or how many mouse skeletons are in the walls and how much more expensive it's going to be than you were initially told. But one family in Winnipeg got a pleasant surprise during their renovations: a time capsule that belonged to a family that lived in their home nearly a hundred years ago. Ginger Gill is the homeowner.

[sc]

GINGER GILL: Part of the renovation plan at my house was to remove the old original brick fireplace, mantle and facade. During that demolition, Ed, who was the contractor doing the work, came across some items that had been behind… behind the fireplace. And he kindly put them aside for me to… to clean up and look through. There were a few Christmas cards, some raffle tickets dated way back in the 20s and a photograph of a group of people. And there were also some other kind of little pieces of paper. And, like, an Eaton's credit note and there was a very personal item addressed to Mrs. Mary Sweasy from her sister, Emma.

MARCY MARKUSA: Now, you now know this because some of the names on the postcards I understand one of the postcards from the 20s was addressed to the first owner of the house. And… and then you mentioned some of the things found. So the raffle tickets… St. Edward's Church. So there were some names associated with things. The Eaton's company addressed to Mrs. Harris. You know, know who some of the people are and stitched together because did you reach out to a historian?

GG: Yeah. Well, partly. Like, I had taken some photographs of all the items altogether. And then I… we have a West End neighbourhood Facebook group, and I posted the photograph on there and hopes that, yeah, I would get in touch with someone who I had heard kind of does this. So by posting on our neighbourhood Facebook group, I was connected with a fellow named Christian Cassidy. And from there, he curated a history of my address, which linked one of the more personal items found behind the fireplace, that postcard address to Mrs. Mary Sweasy. So what I… what I did, and Christian had a great… great idea, is I printed his thesis of his research on this property and then put it in an envelope along with all of the items I found of Mary's. And I also put in kind of my own time capsule items in with that. And I put it into the fireplace and it's been since closed up. Hopefully, maybe in another 100 years, who knows might find that.

[/sc]

CH: Ginger Gill is a homeowner who found the time capsule during renovations. She was speaking with Marcy Markusa, host of Information Radio.

[Music: Carnival music]

Koala Released

Guest: Steve Johnston

CH: It can be hard when your little one leaves home. But when Steve Johnston said goodbye to his joey -- he was feeling pretty optimistic. That's because his joey is an actual joey. That's what you call a baby koala. And Mr. Johnston is part of the team that bred and raised the koala -- named Jagger. Jagger's departure marks the first time a koala bred in captivity has been released into the wild. And according to researchers, that marks a new approach to koala conservation in Australia. We reached Steve Johnston in Brisbane.

GF: Professor Johnston, what have you heard about Jagger since he was released? How is he handling his newfound freedom?

STEVE JOHNSTON: Very well, in fact, I got in contact with my colleagues who were following him yesterday, and they've given him the big thumbs up. They've removed a little fence that surrounds him, which they normally put in when they first put the animal out into the wild. And he's now happily munching away on a whole range of eucalyptus trees and in the reserve that we put him into.

GF: Well, that's wonderful. What was it like for you to… to watch him go?

SJ: Oh, it's fantastic. It's really very much a sort of the… I guess the culmination of a lot of hard work and very much the proof of concept for us that, you know, what we're doing is adding a positive in terms of koala conservation.

GF: Yeah. I want to come to the breeding program in a moment, but maybe you could start by telling us why it's necessary? What are the threats to koalas in Queensland?

SJ: Well, in Queensland, there's a lot of urban development, particularly in southeast Queensland. Unfortunately, koalas and humans like living in the same areas. And as a consequence, it's fantastic when that does occur, and we can co-exist. But it also puts a lot of pressure on koala populations. And so the biggest threat that we have in this part of the world is habitat fragmentation, which leads to roads being built. It means that cars have accidents with koalas as they cross the road. There are domestic dogs which they come in contact with. And, of course, also there's a whole range of diseases that we've got like chlamydia and also koala retrovirus, which also put an impact on koala populations. Not to mention, of course, living in Australia, there's all these natural disasters like droughts and fire that also impact them, so that they have a tough time.

GF: And what has been the drop in the population over the years?

SJ: Oh, certainly in this part of the world in southeast Queensland, there's been a massive drop in the thousands of animals that have, you know, suffered because of this habitat fragmentation.

GF: Yeah. And most conservation efforts do focus on that. On… on habitat protection. So how can breeding programs like this one make a difference?

SJ: Well, you're absolutely correct. And a lot of the history here has been based upon monitoring koalas and also treating koalas in koala hospitals as they come in because of the diseases and things like that. But this approach that we've been taking is a much more hands-on approach. We've developed a pilot program where we're looking to actually breed koalas for release back into the wild. That has happened in other marsupial species here in Australia, but not for the koala. Because we've never seen the koala at this sort of level. Very recently, the animal's been listed here in Queensland, New South Wales and ACT -- the Australian Capital Territory -- as endangered, which is a real big wakeup call for us here.

GF: So the ones that you're now breeding and then releasing, are they better able to withstand the kinds of dangers and the habitat degradation that you talked about?

SJ: No, not necessarily. I mean, certainly, one thing that we are making an improvement on is that we're vaccinating these animals for chlamydiosis before they go back into the wild, so we can at least protect them from the disease aspect of it. But there's still going to be the issues of cars and dogs and… and the lack of habitat. So what we're doing has to be in parallel to other more traditional conservation programs of land conservation and restoration. So those two things have to work together. But in that process of preparing for that and also, you know, getting ready for reintroduction, we're hopefully going to maintain the genetics of the populations sufficiently high enough to put… to put good quality animals back into… into the wild.

GF: Yeah. How big a role do you… do you think this program will play in protecting koala populations going forward?

SJ: I think this type of conservation effort will be important, particularly in areas where there's a high concentration of people living with koalas. You know, there needs to be a much bigger, broader view, as I say, with… in terms of habitat management. But in some of these locations, particularly in the southeast corner and also parts of New South Wales, there are a number of these sorts of programs that people are starting to think about. In the past, they were sort of frowned upon, but they were not preferred compared to the other, more traditional approaches. But I think now people are starting to realize that, no, it's getting a little bit desperate and we need to do something a little bit more hands-on. And that's why this program is going to be important. We do a lot of that work on the Gold Coast region, and that's a really high growth area in terms of development. And there needs to be really good management of those sort of human processes or, you know, where people live and where koalas live. Because here in Australia, we still have the wonderful scenario that you can have koalas in your backyard. I mean, that still happens.

GF: Hmm. Yeah. Local zoos are playing a role in this as well, I understand?

SJ: Yes. This particular grant that we got for this work actually came about because of the university's relationship working with the zoos. And we work with Dreamworld, which is a wildlife park here on the Gold Coast. And they had all the skill sets in terms of producing koalas, in fact, in the southeast Queensland area, we have four large zoos and they collectively has over 400 koalas, captive koalas. So they can breed koalas really well. But also, they are very good at managing very small populations, which is what we were sort of dealing with when it came to some of the wild populations.

GF: Yeah. Finally, I have to ask you about the name. You called him Jagger. Does he sing? Does he dance?

SJ: Well, you'd be surprised. But koalas, particularly in their breeding season, have this really guttural bellow that they let go when they were trying to attract the females. And so, yes, all of the animals that we produce, Jagger, the first one is released. But also, we have Freddie, Freddie Mercury. And also, David Bowie. [GF chuckles] All of which will be released in the next couple of weeks. So, yeah, that was where the name came from.

GF: [chuckling] Right. Well, good luck with the work, and thanks so much for telling us about it today.

SJ: It's a real pleasure. Thank you.

GF: Bye-bye.

SJ: Bye-bye.

CH: Steve Johnston is an associate Professor in the School of Agriculture and Food Science at the University of Queensland. We reached him in Brisbane, Australia.

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March 31, 2022 Episode Transcript

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