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The AIH Transcript for September 09, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and Ali Hassan

CAROL OFF: Hello, I’m Carol Off.

ALI HASSAN: Good evening, I'm Ali Hassan. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

AH: Tonight:

CO: The ill will of the people. Catherine McKenna was used to taking some heat for her role as Environment Minister — and then came a chilling incident that prompted the RCMP to provide her with a security team.

AH: An anti-anti-symbolic gesture. Former PQ leader Jean-Francois Lisee says it's not enough for the PM to criticize Quebec's law restricting religious symbols in the workplace — it's time for a plan of action.

CO: One-track mindfulness. Bianca Andreescu's coach says she's fearless, inventive on the court, and a real street-fighter — but what really sets her apart might be her penchant for meditation.

AH: The corridors without power. The lights are still off in parts of Eastern Canada after Dorian — and our guest says he hasn't seen a storm like it in 65 years living in Herring Cove, Nova Scotia.

CO: Pair-a eyes by the dashboard light. Jason Bantle waited for years to get a particular photo of a raccoon sticking its head out of an abandoned car — and then came his window of opportunity.

AH: And...all in the same bloat. When I see the bucket containing puffy, drowned rats, I feel the need to drink -- but when our guest sees it, he sees a trap that's the future of rodent control in Brooklyn.

AH: As It Happens, the Monday edition. Radio that guesses we have different ways of drowning our sorrows.

[Music: Theme]

Part one: Catherine McKenna, Bianca’s coach, NYC rats

Catherine McKenna

Guest: Catherine McKenna

CH: Catherine McKenna is going to have some extra company during the upcoming election campaign. The RCMP is ordering a security detail to join the Environment Minister. That's a measure that isn't usually required for Canadian cabinet ministers. The force made the change after an incident where Minister McKenna was accompanying her children outside a theatre in Ottawa. We reached Environment Minister Catherine McKenna in Ottawa.

CO: Minister McKenna, can you first of all tell us what happened outside this Ottawa theatre?

CATHERINE MCKENNA: Well, I was just doing what many people do. I was going to see a movie with my kids. I had my youngest and oldest; they’re on their skateboards, I was on my bike. But we were walking towards the theatre. And a car just stopped, and I thought they were gonna ask for directions or just say hi. And this guy just started yelling at me and swearing, and he just called me “Climate Barbie.” But worse, he also videotaped it. And I'm with my kids. I try to keep my kids out of politics and images as much as possible. And I was just trying to have a break from politics. And so it wasn't great, but there have been other incidents like this, and that's what really is a bit worrying.

CO: So he was hurling this at you, and he was the one that's filming it?

CM: Yep, that's what happens nowadays. I guess everything is for social media. And as I say, you're there with your kids just trying to go to a movie theatre. And look, I'm used to getting some abuse. I mean sometimes there's you know you have great debates with folks, and we don't always agree. But it's a signal a lot worse. And not just for me but for lots of people. And certainly online I've been used to it, and people just say don't look at the comments and try not to. It's just when it's in person. And there's been other incidents. I was in Hamilton with my brother on a Sunday morning. He was pushing his baby, and some guys stopped, and he also did the same thing. He’s like are you Minister McKenna? And then just started yelling at me, and you know it's just a bit weird that things are now going from what's online — which is not really acceptable online some of it, to be honest — to jumping offline.

CO: And how old are your kids?

CM: My kids, I actually feel really uncomfortable talking about them. [slight unease in voice]

CO: Okay, but they’re young kids?

CM: I've got two teenagers, and I've got a son who's ten. And so you know it's funny cause your kids get a bit used to politics. And you know you run, but you know your kids are running with you to a certain extent. And you know in some ways they were okay. They're just like you know why is that person being an idiot? [slight laugh] But for me as a mom, it was not great. And I think they worry about it. I had my you know my daughter even, she's like are you okay, Mom? Like she said that to me recently. And you know part of me I love politics, and I think what we're doing is really important. But it is getting to a point where you know it's not great. And I really don't love it. I don't even love talking about it. But I think it is important that we have a discussion about what's going on — including online because I see the abuse people get. And look, you saw Jagmeet Singh’s brother having to go through that. You see women who are involved in climate they go through it all the time. It's a whole range of folks getting hit with this. And I think it's really like what kind of country do we want to be? We see this polarization around the world. We see these attacks, and hatred, and divisiveness, and I don't think it's okay. I don't think it's what Canadians want either. The majority of Canadians are awesome.

CO: You mentioned that there were other women who are involved in environment — environmental activists — who have come forward since you have talked about what happened at the Ottawa theatre and said that they get the same thing. Frightening messages, not just that they oppose their political views or their environmental views, but that violent and vitriolic things you said to them. What is it about the file do you think of environment that you are the minister of that that perhaps is behind some of these kinds of attacks?

CM: You know, that's a really good question, Carol. I think about that a lot. Like Gretta, take what happened — which was completely unacceptable beyond the pale — Maxime Bernier — who was almost leader of the Conservative Party, a cabinet minister — attacking a 16-year-old girl for standing up for science and her beliefs. I really don't know. I mean look, I understand that this is a transition, and you know people are worried about jobs and the economy. I worry about that all the time too when we talk about climate change and try to figure out what's the right policy. But the misogyny that seems to be part of people who don't believe in climate change is a real thing. And it's not just that people have talked to me about this recently. We've had this discussion. The women that are involved in climate there's a great woman, Katharine Hayhoe, who's out of Texas, who's a Canadian. She's involved in climate. She gets the same things. She often tweets them about these comments. Past environment ministers that you know have talked about it. I mean you saw you know many female politicians just generally getting it. But I don't get the climate piece and the massaged piece [slight chuckle]. It's perplexing.

CO: The RCMP are taking this very seriously, aren't they?

CM: Well, I mean luckily, you know the RCMP always looks at security threats all the time. And luckily I have had 24-hour security. You know it just depends on the level of threat. It has increased. Yeah, like look this is now a fact of life. And as I say it's not just me. I think it's just you know this is we're getting into a bit of weird space out there where you know strong woman — and I consider myself a strong woman — that you know are feeling this. Now, I want to be clear this isn't gonna stop me because I think that's what people want. It's not going to stop you know doing important work that we're doing and talking about issues that may be challenging issues and where people are going to have different views.

CO: Where does this slur “Climate Barbie” come from?

CM: Well, if you really want to know, it comes from Rebel Media. It's a it's a so-called media company that came up with it. I think they thought it was quite funny. Initially, I didn't say anything about it for a long time because I didn't want to give any oxygen to it. It's kind of funny because I didn't really play with Barbies as a kid. [CO and CM chuckle] But then Jerry Ritz, you know not to pick on him because other people did it, but he is a former cabinet minister who’s a Conservative, he used it on social media. And I was really mad because I was at climate negotiations in New York, and I saw it, and my team literally said to me don't do anything, don't do it. And I just went out. I did a tweet. I said would you use that kind of language for your mother, your sister, your girlfriend, your daughter? And I wanted him to have a little reflection on that. But now it's out there. And so whatever, you know there's not much I can do about it. And you know what? That's okay. With my daughters also, they're awesome, my kids are they said well, you know what? There's an astronaut Barbie. There's a scientist Barbie. There can be a climate action Barbie too.

CO: [laughs] Minister McKenna, thanks for speaking with us.

CM: Thanks very much.

CH: Catherine McKenna is the federal Environment Minister. We reached her in Ottawa.

[Music: Ambient]

Bianca’s coach

Guest: Sylvain Bruneau

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: A volley of a tennis ball bouncing off rackets and the court ends in a roar of cheering and applause]

ANNOUNCER: It’s an extraordinary day. Can you believe it? Bianca Andreescu is a U.S. Open champion

AH: That was the moment Bianca Andreescu made history. When the 19-year-old beat Serena Williams at the U.S. Open final on Saturday, she became the first Canadian to ever win a Grand Slam singles championship. One year ago, Ms. Andreescu failed to even advance in the U.S. Open qualifiers. She was ranked 208th in the world. Most Canadians didn't even know her name. But Sylvain Bruneau knew she had potential. He's been coaching her for the last year-and-a-half. We reached him in Montreal.

CO: Sylvian, first of all, big congratulations.

SYLVIAN BRUNEAU: Thank you. Thank you very much.

CO: We were just playing some of the tape for our listeners of that moment. You have to see it to get the full impact of Bianca and her reaction. How did you feel at that moment?

SB: Oh, a large spectrum of emotions. Joy, a lot of joy, a lot of pride, a lot of satisfaction, feeling mission accomplished, and just a little bit overwhelmed.

CO: And what do you think was going through Bianca Andreescu’s mind at that point?

SB: I think the same [Laughs]. I think she showed that yeah. And she did amazing. She stayed collected and calm, and she's been since then. But I know she's at the same time a little bit overwhelmed. Just over the last three weeks, she's been doing exceptionally well, focusing, working hard, getting ready every day for the next day, and I feel that when she actually won the tournament, there was a little bit of release harsh you know for her. And it's just normal that she grabbed the moment and did what she did.

CO: She wasn't just playing an opponent, was she? She was playing a legend.

SB: She was playing a legend, a monument for sure, yes.

CO: And what did she have to overcome in order to beat Serena Williams?

SB: So much, so much, because since she's a kid, she's looked up to Serena Williams. You know Serena has been playing well for so long. So you prepare for the biggest match of your career, and you're going to play someone that you've been looking up to all your life. And you need to go in there and believe that actually, you can do this. Her semi-final was a good match. Her for quarterfinal was a good match. But she didn't start the match well. She had to play catch up tennis, and find her groove as the match was going on. And she could not afford to do this in the final against Serena.

CO: There are a lot of people talking as you know and writing about what it is. What is the thing that she has that that Bianca does in tennis that makes her what she is? And some say it's that she plays like a man, someone said to us the other day. That she varies her strikes. That she has so many different ways of playing that's not like other players. What is it for you, do you think, that really sets her apart?

SB: Definitely the mental aspect; she is a warrior. She is the ultimate fighter. The way she handles key moment pressure moments in a match — how she responds to them — is incredible, and that's you know a true trademark of a champion, and she's got that.CO:

CO: And this is really key — and what people are saying a lot about — is that she doesn't just play an incredible physical game. She plays a remarkable mental game. And that where that came from — how she developed that visualization — and some say that her mother helped her learn how to meditate, and how to visualize. Did you see that develop in her?

SB: Serena called her an old soul, so she snuck into the spiritual side a little bit. And so meditation, and visualization, and connection, and all of that that's part of what she does. We've had multiple conversations on that topic. It's not something that I'm part of when she does that. I know sometimes I see that she's doing it, but it's not something that I have anything to do with. This is something she decided to do on her own, and it's been working for her. And I'm very supportive of it.

CO: But what is it?

SB: Well, it's just that she takes the time to work on her mind. And we saw the adversity she encountered in the final, Serena coming back from 5-1. She was touching victory. And then 20 minutes later, it's 5-all; the crowd is going crazy. There's basically 24,000 people rooting against her, rooting all for Serena and that's where you need to be able to go somewhere where most people might not be able to. And she's got that talent.

CO: You talked about Bianca having a high tennis IQ, and you have to keep her stimulated. How do you do that?

SB: Well, you know she loves playing that game style of hers that is a little bit different, and where she mixes things up. And she goes a bunch of different things on the court. She's got a lot of tools in her toolbox. I've said that already many times. So she's got a lot of options out there. And I want her to be really smart with them, and she wants to be really smart with them because sometimes when you have too many options, you start making the wrong choices. So this is something we've been focusing on, and I'm happy to see that even now at 19 — which is you know quite young — she's able to go over there and play very powerful but yet very smart tennis.

CO: We saw her parents in the stands. You see she saluted them. They were very happy obviously. These are a family that immigrated to Canadam and gave her everything they could to support her in her tennis. What role have Bianca's parents played in keeping her so grounded?

SB: They have a great, great relationship — very close family. I really like them. I mean we have very good constructive conversations on Bianca, what's next, and what's going to happen. And I just feel that they've been really there for her. I think she recognized that. She's extremely respectful and grateful for what her parents have done for her. And that needs to keep going.

CO: She competed against a legend, and won against a legend, and now she is her own legend. Where does she go from there?

SB: Well, we'll see. I mean, I've heard a lot of people compare her to Serena. But let's be humble, and she's got one Grand Slam win, and Serena has 23. So there is a long way to go. I know that Bianca doesn't want to stop there, obviously. So we need to keep our head down, and work hard, and keep her grounded, and keep doing what we've been doing. But obviously, she sits at five in the world today in the ranking. So she's only going to look ahead and try to get better, and hopefully, she can. I think she can.

CO: Sylvain, once again, big congratulations to you and to the remarkable Bianca. And thank you.

SB: You're welcome. Thank you very much.

AH: Sylvain Bruneau is Bianca Andreescu's tennis coach. We reached him in Montreal. We've got more on that story — including video of the moment she made history — on the As It Happens website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Instrumental]

NYC rats

Guest: Eric Adams

CH: New York is one of the most densely populated cities in North America — and not just when it comes to people. For centuries, the city has battled a burgeoning rat population. And, in recent years, a number of methods have been tested to tackle the rodents. This week, Brooklyn's Borough President unveiled a new trap that he hopes will do the trick. We reached Eric Adams in Brooklyn.

CO: Eric, first of all, just how bad is the rat problem in New York these days?

ERIC ADAMS: It is at a crisis level, and we are experiencing a substantial increase in the rat population. We receive close to 446 rats citing complaints in Bed-Stuy alone. And sometimes people don't understand is significant diminish of a quality of life when you're dealing with rats. I always remember when I was a child, my neighbour had a baby who after the baby vomited a little overnight she woke up hearing and a baby screem, and there was a rat gnawing at her mouth.

CO: Ah!

EA: From the vomit. You never lose sight of that, and it really impacts the quality of life of everyday people when you have a rat-infested building or a block.

CO: You’ve now given me an image I will never get out of my mind.

EA: Understood, and that’s how I feel. I still think about it from when I was 7 years old, so you could only imagine if every day you’d open a cabinet and rats jump out. It is traumatizing.

CO: Now, I want ask you about this latest device. How does it work?

EA: It's a very interesting device, and we're spending 32 million dollars on rat mitigation annually. We use everything from the dry ice, to poison, to the black boxes where rats go inside, and even almost five-point-six million dollars was spent on mint-scented bags. And all of these devices and items are unsuccessful. And so I wanted to search far and wide, and find out all the new methods of dealing with an old problem? And we were able to discover this new device, which is environmentally-friendly, humane, and it could hold up to 80 rats. What happens is there’s a small flip that when they step on a contraption, they fall down into a solution that's made out of alcohol and vinegar, and they drown in that solution.

CO: So they're landing they're landing in this fluid, is it like they're pickled in this stuff?

EA: Yes, it's a seal canister. And when we showed this off last week, we had up to 107 rats in one location of Brooklyn Borough Hall, and we were seeing rats going through the trash, hiding under cars, running over the feet of people. It became really a rat-infested location. And this really resolved that problem.

CO: Now, you said it was humane. How is this humane?

EA: Well, there's several ways we deal with rats now in the city. One, you can use poison. That takes days before the poison takes effect. The rat goes to a great deal of suffering. You can use a trap that would break the neck or the body — very painful encounter. Some animals, there tail or parts of their body is caught in a trap, and it could take a great deal of time before they die. This contraption, within seconds, the rat drowns. It doesn't bring the same level of torture that poison and other methods have been used in the past. And really, you look at the dry ice method that is being used, they normally suffocate from the dry ice. You have to repeatedly do it. It's not always successful.

CO: I just want to tell people, the dry ice they pack their burrows with it, and the carbon dioxide actually suffocates the rats. Just because it speaks to how large the rats are in New York. One of them was so big that it actually broke the device, right? This rat trap.

EA: Yes, yes. And that was a rarity. It probably was the king rat, and king rats normally lead their colonies. It was a very large rat, and it actually broke the flipper part of it, which is not a major issue. You can replace the top.

CO: Somebody mentioned that if you are actually able to reduce the rat population significantly, it actually might even have the opposite effect because then the rats don't have as much competition for food and then their population explodes again. Is that a concern?

EA: I haven't heard that. But right now, I have an urgency that I must address. And it would be irresponsible that I would ignore the cries of the public, who are really traumatized by the number of rodents that are impacting the quality of their lives. And if we don't do something to get it under control, we're not only going to need a bald president, we're gonna need a pied piper.

CO: [dry laugh] Just finally though, I mean people have some responsibility for this too, right? Rats love garbage, and people are pretty sloppy with their garbage habits too. What responsibility do citizens have in trying to control this rat population?

EA: And that's a great question. This initiative is part of an overall rat mitigation plan. It is not the only two that we should be using. We have to reshape our thinking on how we put our trash, how we pick up trash, and how we dispose of trash — because rats won't go anywhere that they can't eat. And so we are feeding them too much. And we need to stop doing so.

CO: Okay. Eric, thank you. I look forward to hearing you called the Pied Piper of Brooklyn. [CO and EA laugh] And thanks for telling us about this. Take care.

EA: Thank you. Take care.

CH: Eric Adams is the borough president of Brooklyn — which is where we reached him. And if you want to see some photos of the trap, and who wouldn’t? they're up on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Piano]

Jimmy Johnson obit

AH: From the start, there were a couple of unusual things about Jimmy Johnson. First, he grew up in Alabama, but he didn't like country music. He got into music because of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode". The second unusual thing was he didn't want to be a star. He just wanted to be part of a great band. Well, he was part of a hard-working band. He once said they worked 14 hours a day, seven days a week — and that he didn't have a day off for 7 years. But were they great? Depends on whether you think Wilson Pickett's "Mustang Sally", Aretha Franklin's "Respect", and the Staple Singers' "I'll Take You There" are great. Which you do. So yes, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section — also known as "The Swampers" — were, unquestionably, great. Jimmy Johnson, an integral part of that legendary band, died last week. He was 76. I listed 3 songs just now but I could have listed 100. The Swampers weren't just prolific, they were brilliant. They prided themselves on coming up with what Mr. Johnson called "fresh licks" for every song. But they didn't need the spotlight: in an interview this year, Jimmy Johnson said, "The best way to put it is...we consider ourselves backup players, not stars."

[Music: Ambient]

Part two: Bill 21 op-ed, Dorian east

Bill 21 op-ed

Guest: Jean-Francois Lisee

AH: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau isn't making Bill 21 an election issue. And Jean-Francois Lisee thinks that's a problem. Mr. Lisee is the former leader of the Parti Quebecois. And Bill 21 is the law that was passed this summer in Quebec, banning religious symbols and clothing for public sector workers like teachers, judges, and police officers. In an op-ed published today at CBC News Opinion, Mr. Lisee criticizes the prime minister for coming out against Bill 21 in words — but refusing to go any further, out of fear of losing votes in Quebec. And, potentially, from Canadians who actually support the idea behind Bill 21. We reached Jean-Francois Lisee in Montreal.

CO: Mr. Lisee, we know how Prime Minister Trudeau feels about the Bill 21. He's called it unthinkable. Why is that not enough?

JEAN-FRANCOIS LISEE: Well, not enough. The question is will he act as he said he would? When the bill was out, he said it was unthinkable, and that he would defend the Charter. His Ministry of Justice said that there would be next steps when we would have the bill sanctioned, which it was. And we've seen none. So the question now is if re-elected, will he move to squash the ability? He many options to do that, or won't he? He has not answered that question yet.

CO: Why are you trying to lure him out on this? Because you support the idea of Bill 21; you think this is a good idea. So why would you want the federal government to do anything to oppose it?

JFL: Well, I don't want the federal government to do anything to oppose it. But I fear that it will because Mr. Trudeau's frame of mind on this is indisputable. He really cannot stand the bill. It's against everything he stands for. And I respect his position. I don't agree with it. But I think that if he runs to be prime minister again, he should tell us beforehand what will he do. If he says Listen, I'll do nothing like Andrew Scheer is saying listen, I don't agree with the bill, but we will do nothing because we feel it's within provincial jurisdiction.

CO: Okay. But you want to draw on Mr. Trudeau out on this because you suspect that it will damage his opportunities in Quebec. Is that not right?

JFL: I want the truth. I want to know if you're running to be prime minister, this is a bill you think unthinkable, what will you do?

CO: Okay. But if he came out stronger, if he said he was going to do something to oppose it or to quash that bill, what do you think would happen to his prospects in the province of Quebec?

JFL: Well, I think it's a he's in there is in a pickle, really. Because he knows that about 50 per cent of his own voters in Quebec support the bill. So it would hurt his prospects in Quebec. And as I wrote in the piece on the CBC website this morning, we know that about a third of his voters outside Quebec support the bill. He has to tell us. There are three options. He can intervene in favour of the legal challenges that's already there. We have done so in the past on other Charter issues. They can directly ask the question to the Supreme Court, as they have done in some extraordinary cases. Or they can use the disallowance clause of the Constitution — that's something that's supported by columnist Andrew Coyne. So these are the three options.

CO: But your argument is that because the polls indicate that this bill 21 is popular in Quebec, that this is something that is supportable because of that. Just because it's popular — just because the polls indicate that — does that make it right?

JFL: Oh, well we can debate on the merits of the bill. But that's not the point I'm making today. The point I'm making today is that yes, the Liberal Party is in a difficult political situation because their pollsters know that. And although I'm sure that Mr. Trudeau would like to campaign against the bill, which is his belief, he does not because he thinks that clarity would hurt him in the polls and for the election. But that shouldn't be our concern as citizens and as journalists. We should know what is exactly what he will do, or what is on or off the table. And we will decide upon knowing your real intentions.

CO: Is it possible that they don't want to weigh in on this because they don't want to play the politics of identity and the politics of fear against immigrants?

JFL: Well, they will. On that on their point of view, it's the politics of the Canadian Charter being paramount. That's their politics. So they don't want to go to the end of their thinking because they fear the political backlash.

CO: But when you say that they should make these things clear, and they shouldn't play these games. You've warned Quebecers that they should be concerned about the veil because it's well it could be used for purposes of concealing weapons like machine guns. Did not say that?

JFL: I said that if you normalize the whole veil, bad guys will use it to commit crimes and to evade surveillance. And one guy in Belgium evaded surveillance with that. I mean that's just common sense.

CO: But again, to bring this onto the national stage during an election campaign that is very, very heated — and the rhetoric is heated. Is there not a danger of creating a very negative atmosphere for immigrants? We've seen what's happened with Muslim women who wear veils being attacked on the street in Quebec. We've seen that there's become a dangerous climate for Muslims — including the fact in Quebec City, white supremacist went in and shot six of them dead in a mosque. So all of these things indicate that this is something that is playing with fire is it not appropriate to not introduce this into the federal campaign?

JFL: So that would be an argument to say that we should never discuss that or act on that in any way, shape, or form. That would mean that the extremists have one on everyone in the middle of this debate who have reasonable differences. They’re shut out of the debate. There is a real debate about separation of church and state, and how society deals with the religious fact. And we should be able to have these debates and take actions — all the while supporting the right of everyone to have its religion, to pray without being in any way, shape, or form the disrupted by others. But what once we've said that, I mean the debate is there. The law exists. The support for the law exists in the rest of Canada. And so it is an issue.

CO: Well no, but you said the law is there. So leave it alone, and don't engage in the politics of fear. Isn't that perhaps what's going on here?

JFL: Well no, because if Mr. Trudeau is re-elected, and then he decides to participate in the challenge or asks the Supreme Court to squash it, he will do it without having the mandate to do it. The debate is going to come in any case. So let us know about it before.

CO: We will leave it there. Mr. Lisee, thank you.

JFL: Thank you, Carol.

AH: Jean-Francois Lisee is the former leader of the Parti Quebecois. He now hosts a podcast on Quebec current affairs at LaBoiteALisee.com. We reached him in Montreal.

[Music: Sombre]

Perry Bellegarde

AH: Perry Bellegarde wants to boost Indigenous participation in the upcoming election. And the Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations is beginning with himself. In the run-up to the 2015 vote, a reporter asked the Grand Chief about his own voting intentions. He disclosed that he'd never voted in a Canadian election. Today, the Globe's Kristy Kirkup asked Perry Bellegarde for an update.

SOUNDCLIP

PERRY BELLEGARDE: Well I was a really good question. It caught me off guard last time, Kristy in 2015. And because I was unrolling this great platform you know and then the question the reporter was are you gonna vote? And I said no, I have never voted. And why haven't I never voted? But I have voted now. And historically as First Nations people, we have a treaty relationship with the Crown. And as I said earlier, I don't have a treaty with any political party. But it's the crown, and it's the honour of the Crown. And the Crown has to live up to and abide by and implement these treaties according to spirit of intent. So there's an ongoing obligation. And so I was taught as a young boy like we don't need to vote because we have a treaty. So that's one reason. And the other one was because it's not our government. We said that. And so oaky, we have our own government. So those two reasons. So growing up, I was always taught that from old people — elders. And so that's why I never voted. But in 2015 I was asked the question. Well actually, how do you expect first nation we will vote if you don't vote? And so I had to go home and talk to the elders, and through ceremony. And this concept of dual citizenship to embrace that concept because First Nations weren't granted the right to vote or given their rights till 1960-61. So we were allowed to participate and vote. And so harnessing that political power now is very important. And getting that vote out is very important. And embracing that concept of dual citizenship is very important. So yes, I'm going to vote again. And I've embraced that concept again. I voted. I don't feel any less Cree. I still speak Cree, and go to our ceremonies. And I'm still a member of Little Blackbear’s First Nations band. And that's not going to change, but I'm also Canadian citizen with my fundamental right to vote. And I'm going to exercise it. I'm going to encourage more people to vote because now we have impact. If you want to be a Member of Parliament, you better listen to First Nations issues and concerns and priorities because we have an impact. We're voting now.

AH: That was Perry Bellegard, the Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. He was taking questions from reporters in Ottawa, after he outlined the organization's priorities in next month's federal election.

[Music: Industrial]

Dorian east

Guest: Darrell Power

AH: It had lost a lot of power by the time it arrived in Eastern Canada. But that doesn't mean Dorian didn't still make a huge mess. The storm this weekend brought heavy rain and winds. It damaged properties and unearthed giant, old trees. At the peak of the storm, hundreds of thousands of people were without power — and for many of those people, that's still the case. Darrell Power lives in Herring Cove — a Halifax-area seaside community. When we reached him at his home earlier today, he was still waiting for the lights to come back on.

CO: Darrell, how are you doing today after that windy weekend?

DARRELL POWER: I'm doing good right now. Everything's fine.

CO: It's hard to imagine that just not many hours ago, or 24 hours ago you was still had the wind, I guess?

DP: Yes, we did really, really, a lot of high winds.

CO: Describe what it was like when it hit Herring Cove?

DP: Well, it's it just started off as it is a real normal day. But probably 10 o’clock in the morning, and the wind picked up a little bit, and we started to get some rain, and a little wind here, and a little heavier rain. And all a sudden the tide started coming up because it was low tide when it started. The tide came up, and then the sea started coming in and out of cove. And it’d go way all the way, in all the way back out. It kept getting higher every time. And when it was getting higher it was taking the little piece of the shore, a little stick of wood, and then somebody’s wharf, and then a boat, then a shed, and just kept getting worse from there on.

CO: Were you nervous?

DP: A little bit, but not too bad because we’ve been through it many times here. But we pretty well knew what to expect.

CO: Because you lived in Herring Cove for 65 years, right?

DP: Yeah.

CO: Have you ever seen a storm like this one?

DP: No, never this bad. I’ve seen a lot of storms, but never this bad. Even Hurricane Juan didn't seem as bad as this one. Not as much impact.

CO: And you could watch how it was surging?

DP: Oh yeah. We were sitting down on the on a on the back of the bank at my place. You’d get a couple of real high gusts of wind. And it took my shed and knocked it over on that side, and that's a big shed. And then the storm just surged, came it, picked it up, and beat it all to pieces.

CO: It just took your shed away?

DP: Yeah. Well, it's still here. But it's laying on its side.

CO: What other losses?

DP: Well, there was three of four sheds that are just obliterated. They are gone all together. There’s nothing left of them. And there's a boat not too far from me on the rocks with holes in the side. And there's just about every wharf in the cove — which is probably ten or twelve — are all just falling apart. There’s nothing left of them. When you go up the far into my cove there's two little bridges, and everything went under the bridge and it's all up into the big pond — all the sheds, the wharfs, and there's buoys, and lobster pots, and you name it, it's up there.

CO: And what about people's homes?

DP: The homes fared pretty good. There's a couple with a few shingles off the roof, but the homes were pretty good. There's no damage to the personal property itself, but there’s a couple of small little garden sheds tilted over, but there was no damage on them. I got a bit of lawn furniture tipped over. A lot of the homes here are sheltered by trees. So there was no tree damage either, so we're pretty lucky in that way.

CO: Well, it's amazing that you didn't have trees damaged because that's what we're hearing everywhere is that trees were just uprooted all over Nova Scotia.

DP: Yeah, no. Down here, we were pretty good. There might have been one way up the far end on the highway. But other than that, there's hardly any wires down here. So it's done pretty good that way. There’s no nobody hurt. No lives lost or anything like that, so that was a good thing.

CO: What were the sustained winds that you were getting?

DP: Well, they told us it was around 110-120. I say it's pretty close to that — maybe a little bit more when you got the big gusts, right? Because the two big gusts that hit my shed were pretty strong, and they just pushed right over on the side — just like somebody pushed it.

CO: How does that compare with Hurricane Juan?

DP: Well, Hurricane Juan, the winds were probably close to the same strength, but they didn't last as long. This one here went on for I say for seven or eight hours, or maybe longer.

CO: That was the thing as people were tracking it that they sort of thought okay, well it must be over. The worst is over. And then you'd find out that the winds had picked up, and they were just as bad as they have been. It just went on and on, didn't it?

DP: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And once the tide itself went down, it wasn't so bad. Then all of sudden the tide started coming back up again. Then all the surf started coming in again. And at the end of our cove is a big breakwater that breaks the water, and about 30 feet of that fell off the front. So that opened up the cove a little more, which brought more water in.

CO: What's it going to take to repair all the damage?

DP: Well, you’re into the hundreds of thousands of dollars at least for the private property. I don’t know what it would cost for the breakwater. They’re going to have to get a crane in to do some down there I would think.

CO: What about people? Have you been able to get out and find out how your neighbours fared?

DP: Oh yeah, well we have an elderly lady next door. We take care of her. Take her over coffee and tea and you know a few do things — sandwiches and donuts like that because she's by herself. And so we take her or. The rest of them are all pretty well. She's the only single lady here that’s by herself — the elderly one. So we lookout for her all the time, so other than that everyone else is pretty good.

CO: And what about do you have power? Do you have electricity?

DP: No, we still don't have any, We lost it Saturday around noon, and it's not back yet. But have a generator anyway, so we're not too bad.

CO: All Right. They're saying that this is the largest number of people without power — largest outage — that Nova Scotia has ever experienced. I think about a half-a-million people at one point didn’t have power.

DP: Yeah, it is. Exactly. Some got the power back yesterday, but a lot of us don’t have any power back yet. Sometime today that we’re hoping. I know they're working at it.

CP: What are you going to remember about going to bed that night, and the sound of that rain and wind? What stays in your head about that moment?

DP: Just most mostly the surf — because we could hear it going through the night, in and out, in and out The rain was pretty near gone by the time we went to bed at 11:30. But the wind was so high you could hear the wind howling through the trees. But you could hear the surf coming and going. And it sounded like you were sitting beside the ocean. But other than that you know it was pretty good. And we get up the next morning, and everything was all over just like no nothing happened, right? The sun was out, and the wind was gone, and tide was gone, and all the wharfs were gone.

CO: And you shed was gone.

DP: The shed’s gone. That’s right.

CO: Sheds gone, wharfs gone.

DP: Yup.

CO: Well, Darrel, I'm really glad to hear you're okay, and that you survived that, and your neighbour did too. I hope she's okay.

DP: Yeah, she's okay. Thank you.

CO: Take care.

DP: Okay. You too. Bye-bye.

AH: That was Herring Cove resident Darrell Power speaking to us from his home, earlier today. Over on PEI, at a campground near Summerside, officials had to rush people out of their trailers early Sunday morning. A storm surge washed over the area, and caused waters to rise inside the trailers. Here's the campground's owner, Matthew Wedge, speaking with Mitch Cormier, host of CBC Radio's "Island Morning".

SOUNDCLIP

MATTHEW WEDGE: They came in, and you know they were pounding on doors. They were going through the deep you know with the water sometimes up to their chest. And yeah, and then when we left the campground, myself and my family were the last to leave. And we were going through probably a couple of feet of water just to get out of the campground as there's a stream that goes through the entrance. It was literally going through the entrance that night

MITCH CORMIER: Was everybody okay?

MW: You know, and that's the only positive that came from this. Everyone was fine. No one got hurt. You know there was a lot of stuff that got damaged or beyond repair, but no, nobody got hurt. So that was the one good thing.

MC: And what did you return to yesterday?

MW: We returned to something I never, ever could imagine seeing. You know certain areas just look like a war zone. Campers were over on their sides. And it was quite sad. People coming in to look at their trailers, you know their homes that they live in all summer, take great pride in, and you know just to watch them go through that is it's quite hard as well. You know let alone the stuff that I was going through. So it was a difficult day. You know it was quite a quite an experience for sure. One that I hope we never have to go through again.

AH: That was Matthew Wedge speaking with the CBC today about the damage at his campground on PEI.

[Music: instrumental]

Bee house

AH: When Chantalle Ryan moved to London, Ontario with her family, she didn't realize their new house was home to a bee and bee. And bee, and bee, and so many more bees. Ms. Ryan, her husband, and her son were greeted by some unexpected squatters — who seemed pretty uninterested in the humans moving onto their property. Here's Chantalle Ryan speaking with CBC London about their discovery.

SOUNDCLIP

CHANTALLE RYAN: Right when we are moving in actually the movers themselves were the first ones to say hey, I think you have some wasps up there. You know, you could see some wasps or bees — something — flying around the exterior of the master bedroom. And there was no question they were going in and out, and there was a lot of traffic — like hundreds of bees flying around your bedroom window. When we went inside to the bedroom, you could actually see them through the window. It’s stained glass there, but you could see them, and you could hear them. And you could hear them kind of pinging off the window, but you could also hear the buzzing. The next day, we had painters in. They were the ones who said your wall is buzzing. And sure enough, if you went and you put your ear on the wall, you could actually hear the bees buzzing behind the wall. So we called Ontario Bee Rescue. And after opening up the wall and taking a look let us know that we had somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 honeybees living in our bedroom wall. My brain almost couldn't compute it in the moment. I literally stopped, and I had a pen and paper in front of me, and I wrote down the number 100,000, and I showed it to him. And I said are you are you telling me this is the number? And he confirmed that yes, 100,000 bees are living in your wall. And he figured they'd been there for between five and seven years. We were surprised, to say the least.

AH: That was Chantalle Ryan speaking with CBC London about a beehive inside the walls of her new home. She and her family harvested 250 pounds of honeycomb from the colony, enough of the golden stuff to fill dozens of jars of honey.

[Music: Piano]

Part three: Disney cinemas, racoon in car photo

Rod Coneybeare obit

SOUNDCLIP

BOB HOMME: Now look up, way up, and we're on our way to the castle. I'll go over first and go in the back door so I can let the drawbridge down and open the big front doors for you. Are you ready? Here's my castle

[Sound: A fluttering sound effect gives way to flute music]

AH: He was a TV writer, a voice actor, and a radio producer. And for 27 years, he was also a giraffe, and a rooster. That makes it sound like the late Rod Coneybeare was the victim of a witch's curse. But in fact, he was the beneficiary of a friendly giant. The Friendly Giant — the great children's entertainer Bob Homme. From 1958 to 1985 on CBC, the giant would chat with his two best friends: Rusty the rooster, who was always cheerful despite being confined to a bag; and Jerome, the giraffe who stuck his purple-spotted head through the castle window when the giant whistled. Rod Coneybeare, who played Rusty and Jerome on that classic kids' show, died last week. He was 89. Mr. Coneybeare had his hands full on the set of "The Friendly Giant". He was the puppeteer who brought Rusty and Jerome to life with his arms, and his voice. And with almost no script: Bob Homme once said that the onscreen conversations worked because of, quote, "special kind of understanding between Rod and me, and instinctively being able to follow each other's thoughts." Unquote. Here's a clip from a 1981 episode in which the giant, the rooster, and the giraffe discuss a barber pole in town — and haircuts. Listen to how natural Mr. Coneybeare makes the conversation sound.

SOUNDCLIP

ROD CONEYBEARE: I mean I've seen the pole, but I never say that.

BH: You don’t get haircuts.

RC: I never say I need a haircut. And you know what I never say that I never say I need a haircut [BH chuckles] because we chickens don't need to get haircuts.

BH: No.

RC: No.

BH: Giraffes don't need haircuts either, do they?

RC: Giraffes don’t either, no.

[Sound: whistling]

RC: It's kind of too bad because it's probably fun to have your hair cut.

BH: Giraffes have necks like barber poles, but they don’t have the stripes, do they?

RC: [laughs] That’s true. That’s right.

RC: Hi there.

BH: Here, let’s see. Stretch up nice and straight.

RC: Oh, you’re admiring the sheer beauty and remarkable…

BH: Now if you just had stripes that go around and around. You don’t have stripes though

RC: What! Stripes? Course not, spots.

BH: Tell him, Rusty.

RC: You’re not just admiring my neck.

RC: No, we were comparing it to a barber pole.

RC: What! Why you? Why a barber pole.

RC: Well, Friendly just happened to mention he noticed the barber pole in the village.

RC: Oh, really?

BH: We were talking about barber poles.

RC: Barber poles.

BH: Sometimes barber poles turn around, and it makes the stripes look like they're spinning up and up.

RC: Oh, I’ve seen that kind, yeah

BH: Have you seen that kind?

RC: Yeah, I have. Barber poles are very interesting. And, of course you're right, that means that there's people inside are getting haircuts. I've often bent down to have a look inside to see what it's like because, of course, I've never had a haircut.

RC: No, we were saying that.

RC: You were saying that I never had a haircut?

BH: Well, roosters don't have haircuts, chickens don't have, hens, giraffes.

RC: No, we animals it's interesting. About the time we might think you need a haircut, you suddenly look down and you say oh, it's falling off.

RC: What?

RC: The hair, it sheds. You shed.

RC: Oh yeah, that’s right.

BH: Some dogs get haircuts.

RC: Yeah, well people like that.

BH: Trim them up.

RC: But dogs would naturally shed hair.

BH: Yes, they would.

RC: Just like giraffes do.

BH: In the summertime.

RC: Birds lose feathers.

BH: That's called molting.

RC: That's molting.

RC: Yeah, that's a special word for birds.

RC: Yeah, but people don't shed or molt. So people need barbershops.

AH: Just a giant talking haircuts with a giraffe and a rooster — the latter two of whom were portrayed by the late puppeteer Rod Coneybeare. Mr. Coneybeare, who played Jerome and Rusty on The Friendly Giant from 1958 to 1985, died last week. He was 89.

[Music: Glassy guitar]

Disney cinemas

Guest: Corrine Lea

AH: For everyone who thinks there aren't enough explosions in "It's a Wonderful Life", or that "Home Alone" isn't violent enough, watching "Die Hard" has become a Christmas tradition. But this December, you won't be watching John McClane run around on broken glass inside Nakatomi Plaza at your local theatre. Recently it was announced that, because Disney had bought out Fox, all of Fox's older movies are off-limits for some independent cinemas. That "some" part was confusing. Because it presumably meant "some" cinemas would still be able to screen Fox films. And in a statement, Disney said repertory theatres — or theatres that exclusively play older movies — wouldn't be affected. Now, there's less confusion. And more anger. Corrine Lea is the owner of The Rio Theatre in Vancouver. That's where we reached her.

CO: Corrine, the question is will people be able to catch “Die Hard” during Christmas at your movie theatre?

CORRINE LEA: Well, according to Fox, no, they will not. And this will be the first Christmas that we won't be playing it.

CO: And that's not the only film — because there was some confusion as to whether or not theaters — repertory theaters — like yours would be able to show films from this catalog. What are you now hearing? What's been concluded?

CL: Yeah, it was really frustrating because Disney didn't even make any announcements or anything. We just went to book our films like we normally do, and we were told we're no longer allowed to play anything except for “Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

CO: Okay, why “Rocky Horror Picture Show?”

CL: Honestly, I think they're afraid there would be a revolt.

CO: And that's something for people who don't know, that's a cult classic. But it's also a film many people go to very late at night, or if not the wee hours of the morning, dressed up, and it's just a whole festival around that movie, isn't it?

CL: Yeah, I think that's probably part of the reason is because this whole move is I believe to direct people to Disney's streaming channel. And you know “Rocky Horror Picture Show” is definitely one of those participatory films where you need to be there in a crowd dressed up, and making all the dance moves, and throwing the rice and all of that.

CO: Okay, that film you will be able to show. What are some of the others that Disney is not going to allow you to screen at your cinema?

CL: You know, some of the big ones that stand out that you know most repertory theatres play on the regular would be “Fight Club,” “Princess Bride,” The entire “Alien” series, no more “Sound of Music.” We get sold-out crowds to the “Sound of Music,” and you know grandmothers and little kids are singing along to the song. And that's to me very sad that we're not going to be able to do that anymore. You know, I kind of say there's no one film that's going to knock out our theatre, but it's more like a death by a thousand cuts because we've got to fill the theatre 365 days a year. We need you know a variety of films to show.

CO: And this flows from Disney — the Disney corporation — having purchased the 20th Century Fox back catalog, swallowed up into that grand, huge operation the Walt Disney Company. Why don't they want to continue that relationship with your cinemas?

CL: Well, Disney has always locked their films in the vaults. Like I've run the theater for ten years now, and we've never been able to show a Disney film. Everyone in the theatre industry is familiar with their practices. So when they bought Fox, we were all just waiting for this to happen. As to why, the only thing I can think of is that they're just trying to have control over you know how people can see these films. And I've been told that you know that they're trying to direct people to their streaming channel, but it's not the same thing. They're robbing our culture of the experience of watching these films on the big screen together in a communal experience. And I feel really bad about that.

CO: But it's not like you're stealing them or not paying for them. I mean these are rentals, they make money from these screenings, and they don't seem to diminish people's interest in also seeing the films on TV. So is money at all an issue here?

CL: Well no, I agree with you 100 per cent. It doesn't make any sense — because they are getting paid. It is a revenue stream. Why they have to you know hoard it all to themselves makes no sense. And really, you know because these films go back to the silent film era, this isn't just you know some films for a good time. You know this is part of film history. And you know like “Diary of Anne Frank” is one of the films that people can't show on the big screen anymore.

CO: Good heavens!

CL: Yeah, you know? And so there is culturally significant films that are no longer gonna be able to be screened. And I feel strongly that they shouldn't even have the right to do that.

CO: But when I see on the marquee of the repertory cinemas here in Toronto or elsewhere, I see films that I have forgotten oh yeah, that film! I want to see that again. So it's actually at some level it's publicity for these films, isn't it?

CL: Yeah, you would think. Like that’s the other interesting thing is no other major studio has these practices. Not Warner Brothers, Sony, Paramount, Universal, none of them you know control things like Disney does. And the other thing is this they don't even seem to acknowledge that independent theatres make a living from having this diversity. So Disney made a statement saying that all repertory theatres could still have access to their catalog. But when you read the statement it said you'd have to book it through their non-theatrical department, which what that means is that no commercial cinema can book it. It just means like schools you know a free outdoor screening or something like that.

CO: Do you have any idea what you will play instead of “Die Hard?”

CL: We haven't gotten that far yet. But you know, people have asked me like oh, is this you know going to shut down the theatre? No, this is not going to shut down the Rio — because we're always inventive, and that's what makes our theatre so great. I just think it's a tragedy that over 2,000 films can be locked away like that just by one company. You know it's a part of our pop culture. It seems shocking that is allowed to happen.

CO: We will leave it there. Corrine, I appreciate speaking with you. And I'm sorry this is happening.

CL: Thank you.

CO: Bye-bye.

CL: Bye.

AH: Corrine Lea is the owner of the Rio Theatre in Vancouver. That's where we reached her. We have reached out to Disney multiple times for comment on the Fox archives, but haven't heard back.

[Music: Acoustic guitar]

FOA: Olive tree disease

AH: It's a deadly and nearly unstoppable bacteria. And its favourite thing is olive trees. For the past few years, Xylella fastidiosa has wreaked havoc in Italy. It's killed approximately a million olive trees in the country. And now it's made its way to France. In June of 2017, the European Commission warned that Italy was not doing enough to contain the bacteria. And that if something wasn't done, it would spread across Europe. At the time, Carol spoke with Alison Abbott, a European correspondent for the journal Nature. From our archives, here is part of their conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

ALISON ABBOTT: Well, we knew pretty well exactly how widespread it is. At the moment, it is contained within the heel of the boot of Italy. So to that extent, it should be relatively easy to draw a line across it and prevent it moving forwards.

CO: But it's not happening. It's not being prevented, is that right?

AA: Well, I think the idea is it is not being prevented sufficiently. This disease can spread very rapidly because insects carry it from one tree to the next. And the measures to control the insects and to uproot the trees and destroy nearby trees haven't been carried out to the extent they would need to.

CO: But how could they not be taking it more seriously, or acting more aggressively, given the industry — the olive industry in Italy — and these trees are old, and difficult to replace. Why do you think that they're not being more aggressive?

AA: Well, if you think of the local political situation, it's sort of quite easy to understand. So the small holding farmers that have small olive groves there, they stand to lose everything if their trees are cut down. So the protesters are in large part saying we don't know it's Xylella, why are you cutting down trees, why are you doing this to control something we don't believe in? The scientists have actually proven that it's Xylella, but protesters say there are other options. Why is that important? Because Xylella is incurable. You have no hope. But if you hope against hope that actually maybe it's a fungus that's causing this disease, maybe something else that you can cure, you don't have to cut them down. So these are these sort of emotional factors that are leading to this is very crazy situation. Populist politicians are siding with you know these emotional arguments that perhaps it's not. And it has to be said the legal system has also intervened, which has made it extremely difficult.

AH: That was Carol speaking with Alison Abbott, a European correspondent for the journal Nature, about the deadly bacteria that was killing olive trees in Italy. Today, the French agriculture ministry announced that it had spread to France.

[Music: Indie rock]

FB party app

AH: Sam Jeffers knows how to influence people online. He's successfully run digital campaigns that, among other things, helped Barack Obama get into the White House. But now, Mr. Jeffers is working to expose those strategies. He's the co-founder of "Who Targets Me?", which lets Facebook users see who is targeting them with ads. And this election season, it's available to Canadians for the first time. Mr. Jeffers told CBC's "Ottawa Morning" how it works.

SOUNDCLIP

SAM JEFFERS: Well, I think we'd had a run of elections where the polls suggested the results would come out one way, and then the result came out another way. And each time the victory in those elections had basically said Facebook ads did it for them. And they say we ran these huge Facebook campaigns targeted at very specific groups of voters in particular places. Our messages were well-tested. We spent you know hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars on these ads, and we won. It felt like a new thing that needed investigating. And so we built a tool, which you can install — “Who Targets Me” — which eventually effectively tracks those ads and helps build a data set that allows you to reverse engineer the strategies going on.

ROBYN BRESNAHAN: So in the forthcoming Canadian election, how will people be able to use this then?

SJ: Sure. So you can go to whotargets.me, which is our website. There's a single click to install the software, and then effectively you just continue using Facebook as normal. As you go through the campaign, you can check your results, so you can click the little extension icon on the top of your browser, and it will pop out a window that gives you a breakdown of the advertising that you've been seeing from particular parties. You know I think what I'd say to people is you mostly expect things to really surge in the last few days. That the sort of most common technique is that you wait until three or four days out, and then suddenly you're spending lots and lots of money. I mean I had a quick look at the stats for Canada this morning, and you know the Liberal Party spent I think is about 150,000 dollars in the last week on advertising. It's outspending the Conservatives quite significantly. And you just have to kind of track that kind of level of activity through the campaign.

RB: What do you find most significant like most revealing about all of this?

SJ: I think the thing that troubles me most is like in the U.K. certainly, we've seen a big negative turn in our politics. Obviously, politics is pretty crazy right now in the U.K. But the way that people use the Internet to speak to one another, and there is a kind of coarsening of public discourse and debate that is in part stimulated by this stuff. So lots of video is going out where one politician is owning the other, and like watch him destroy this one. You know, and these words are much more inflammatory than they used to be. And I think that comes at the cost of you know the slower pace of deliberation, and trying to work out what the right thing to do is. Is there middle ground? You know if you spend your whole time attacking people, you might feel like you're winning in the moment, but are you winning in the longer term? And I wonder what these very instantaneous, ephemeral social media platforms really do for the quality of the way we kind of engage with one another?

AH: That was Sam Jeffers, co-founder of the software "Who Targets Me?", speaking with Robyn Bresnahan, host of "Ottawa Morning".

[Music: Ambient]

Racoon in car photo

Guest: Jason Bantle

AH: Every year, tens of thousands of people enter the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, hoping to be considered among the best in the world. And for Saskatchewan-based wildlife photographer Jason Bantle — it took a lucky break. That also happens to be the title he gave his photo of a mother raccoon. It was declared "highly commended" today by the Natural History Museum in London, England. Meaning it wasn't the winner. But that it is awesome. And trust me, lucky break or not: it is. We reached Jason Bantle in Christopher Lake, Saskatchewan.

CO: Jason, can you describe what is happening in this photo you called “Lucky Break”?

JASON BANTLE: Well, the mother raccoon in this photo is exiting an old 1970s Pinto that was left abandoned in an old farmyard and trees have grown up all around it. It's a natural setting actually except for this car that got left in the 70s. And she made the car her den. That's where she's raising her little family. And I can actually hear them trilling in the back seat. She's just coming out of a hole in the windshield. I think it was where the rear view mirror was, and had been pulled out years ago. And there's a perfect opening in the windshield that can just squeeze her out. And she's poking your head out. She's about to head out for the evening, and to go hunting for her little kids.

CO: And it looks like she's heading out to drive the Pinto someplace.

JB: Yeah, you could almost say it's like Rocket from Guardians of the galaxy; it looks like she's flying a spaceship there, doesn't it?

CO: Yeah. But this is just a chance opportunity that you just you just happen to be there and snap this photo. You've been working on this for a long time, haven't you?

JB: Yeah, it's multiple years of being there in a hide or a blind, sitting about 30 meters away, and waiting in the evenings. I knew she was there, but on previous years, I had sat and she didn't exit the car when there was light. The photo was taken right at dusk actually. And so I'd investigated the car at other times of the year when I knew she wouldn't be there. And I thought there must be another way in and out. I can't be missing this. But she was just maybe that shy or other raccoons that had maybe denned there before. Maybe it wasn't her was just that's shy. And on this particular year she came out right at dusk. And that's a half a second exposure. She had to be absolutely still for a half a second, which in wildlife photography to capture an animal that's still for half a second is almost near impossible.

CO: What happened at the next moment after you snapped this photo?

JB: She actually went back into the car. She had just stuck her nose out. I think she was trying to get a little bit of wind. I was downwind of her, so she wouldn't have captured any smell for me. She was curious. She poked her head back out again, and at that point, she managed to squeeze her little body through that hole… well her big body actually through that little hole. And she came right out, and she stood on the hood of the vehicle. And then she went over the top of the cab and off the back of the car, and she was gone 20-30 seconds later. And I had got my shot. It was incredible. And I went over to investigate quickly like just quietly and such around. And you could see there was a log off the back of the vehicle where she obviously had been traveling a lot because you could tell there was there was a lot of traffic on the log. And the little guys were quiet. She had told him to quiet down [CO laughs], and there was no little raccoons trilling or anything. And I packed my blind up, looked at my image, and went wow I got it.

CO: And how did you feel at that moment?

JB: Oh my goodness. I mean so much time spent in the field. You know you just some of these images that you eventually capture, it's surreal. You know what you're going for, but can you actually get it? And when you get it the feeling inside is just huge what can I say? The accomplishment is there. But also, you're sharing such a unique moment of time. And that's a big part of my photography is to capture images to make people go wow, look at nature. Look at how amazing it is. And so those images that you capture that are on that level, you know you've got something special and something that will move people.

CO: So now the photo is highly commended by the Natural History Museum in London, England. And you're a finalist in this urban wildlife category. But is that what you expected? Where thinking yeah, I have an award-winning photo?

JB: I've been applying to this world competition over the last ten years on and off. And I know from people viewing this image in my galleries and such that that many people comment what an incredible image. So I knew it was special. Did I know it was this special? Well, it has to be super special to get acknowledged by this competition given there is 48,000 entries, and only 100 of us acknowledged. So yeah, I knew it special. But honestly, Carol, you never know. It's in the eyes of the judge, right. [slight chuckle]

CO: Well, you been doing this for years. How many how many wildlife photographs have you captured that you submitted? What were some of the other gets you've got?

JB: I go out onto the Arctic Ocean ice every spring to capture polar bears in their natural habitat. — specifically mothers and cubs. I was photographing golden eagles in the Yukon at a nest last fall. That I went to the third round. it didn't go to the final round this last year. It was actually kind of interesting, Carol, they had that one in the raccoon that were going on and on in their competition, and I didn't know if one of them would go the whole way. And I thought they would pick the golden eagle over th raccoon. [laughing] But no, the raccoon really stood out for them. So I've entered quite a few, and I've had ones go to the second and third round. But to get to the level of highly commended, and be part of their preview release is a really special accomplishment.

CO: And have you had any times when you're out capturing wildlife photos where the wildlife wasn't particularly happy with you?

JB: Well, one of my tag lines in my galleries and with myself is respect nature. So yes, you always have to think about the animal and that you're in their environment. It's their home that you're in, and you have to be respectful of that. So even with the raccoon, watching the wind, being in a blind, not wanting to have her be you know stressed by my presence, and then she might move her little kids, and maybe she would move them to a place that wasn't as safe. Carol, I have had some close calls for sure — especially on the Arctic Ocean ice with polar bears. They're a dangerous carnivore, and they do hunt you. So thankfully, the little raccoon they don't hunt you. So it was just a matter of being patient and respectful.

CO: Well, it also looks like a 1970s Ford Pinto is a perfect home for raccoons.

JB: [deep laughter] Yeah, that's right.

CO: Who knew?

JB: Maybe they didn't have other uses, but they're a good home for raccoons.

CO: They weren’t great cars.

JB: [CO and JB are giggling] Yeah, that’s right.

CO: But they’re great shelter. Jason, congratulations.

JB: Oh, thank you, Carol. That's very kind.

CO: Thank you. Bye-bye.

JB: Bye.

AH: Jason Bantle is a wildlife photographer and the owner of the All in the Wild galleries. We reached him in Christopher Lake, Saskatchewan. And if you want to see his photo, "Lucky Break", head to our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Up-tempo]

Dog balls bush

AH: Gertrude Stein probably said it best: "a rose is a rose is a rose". Point being: you can give a thing any name you want, but in the end, it is what it is. The name that sticks is gonna be the one that best fits what you're describing. For example, consider a shrub called Grewia retusifolia. At least, that's what the scientists have been calling it for years. I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that right, to be honest — but it doesn't matter because the scientists got it wrong anyway. That's not what it is at all — more on that in a sec.The so-called Grewia retusifolia is a fruit-bearing shrub native to Queensland, in northeastern Australia. The seeds of its fruit dangle in pairs from a short stalk, and are covered in fine white hair. This should complete the mental picture: its common name is — ahem — "dog's balls". And that is the name that will stick, even as its scientific name changes — thanks to an expert named Andrew Barrett at Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens. As he explained, quote, "When I compared European, Asian, and Australian Grewia retusifolia specimens it became apparent that dog's balls is a completely different species." Unquote. He's given the thing a new scientific name: Grewia savannicola. But if you ask me, a dog's balls is a dog's balls is a dog's balls — a name that has stood the testes of time.

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September 09, 2019 episode transcript

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