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The Current Transcript for September 13, 2024

Host: Duncan McCue [/host]

Prologue

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BOB MCDONALD: I have found in my life that when an opportunity comes along, say yes, even if you're not qualified to do it, just say yes. Focus on the first step, step your way through it and finish what you start. That's been the success of my life.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Recognize that voice? For 30 years, Bob McDonald has hosted Quirks and Quarks on CBC Radio. His new memoir, Just Say Yes, charts the zigzagging path that brought him there, from university dropout to Canada's foremost explainer of all things scientific. In 30 minutes, how getting outside to escape an abusive childhood home led to his lifelong love for adventure and why sitting still terrifies him more than any other risk he's ever faced. Also this morning:

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TASHA HUBBARD: The buffalo are missing. I was like, well, what did that do to us as a people to have this being that we were so connected with for so long, wiped out in the blink of an eye?

DUNCAN MCCUE: For over 20 years, Cree filmmaker Tasha Hubbard has wanted to tell the history of the Buffalo and Indigenous peoples from a completely Indigenous perspective. Her latest documentary, Singing Back the Buffalo, does exactly that. In an hour, how meeting communities who have dedicated their lives to buffalo brought balance into Tasha's life. But we begin with our national affairs panel as parliament gets set to resume on Monday. Good morning. I'm Duncan McCue, sitting in for Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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Unpredictable, frenetic, kinetic: What to expect when parliament resumes

Guests: Stephanie Levitz, Ryan Tumilty, Rosemary Barton

DM: We are gearing up for a rocky parliamentary session here in Ottawa. Jagmeet Singh has ripped up his agreement with the Liberals, Pierre Poilievre is chomping at the bit to get a motion of non-confidence going and there are questions about just how long the Liberal Government and Justin Trudeau as the party's leader can survive. Joining me to break it all down is our team of political watchers. Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter for the Globe Mail's Ottawa Bureau. Ryan Tumilty is a parliamentary reporter for The National Post, and Rosie Barton is the CBC's chief political correspondent. Good morning to you all.

RYAN TUMILTY: Good morning.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Good morning.

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: Good morning.

DM: I used that word 'rocky.' What word would you describe the parliamentary session ahead? Rosie let's start with you.

ROSEMARY BARTON: ‘Unpredictable,’ which is something that journalists like us like. [DM: All right.] So, that'll be exciting. Listen, I think that there is some unpredictability to it, some potential for instability. But I think that the likelihood that we get to a place where an election happens this fall is pretty slim. And that's because most opposition parties don't want that to happen. Neither the NDP nor, from what we can hear from the Bloc Québécois, them either. So, you just have the Conservatives sort of sitting there, as you said, chomping at the bit and hoping to make this happen. So, they will try to do that through a confidence motion. They will try to put pressure on their friends to join them in this venture. But I think it's still going to be kind of exciting because the whole dynamic inside the house has changed. And while there's no formal deal, the government is now going to have to find ways to ensure its own survival. That's how minority parliaments work. But that will mean that we can take nothing for granted.

DM: Rosie had lots more than one word. Ryan, what's your one word?

ROSEMARY BARTON: I thought it was just a turn of phrase.

RYAN TUMILTY: 'Frenetic' would be my one word. I think, you know, we-- I agree with Rosie that I don't think we will see a fall campaign. It's just not in enough people's interests. But that doesn't mean that we won't see chaos in the House. The one thing about the supply and confidence agreement, I think that's sort of underappreciated is that it also made other legislation move through the House quicker and easier. There were less, you know, marathon debates, for example. There was sort of more agreement on doing things in a bit more of an orderly fashion. And the NDP helped the Liberals move bills along even if they weren't part of the conference agreement. So, all of that's out the window probably.

DM: Stephanie, I should have known better than to try to hold those two to one word. You go with your one word.

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: And I'll pick sort of a combination of where the two of them landed, which is, 'kinetic.' [DM: Okay.] Everything is going to be in moving. It's always going to be constant motion this parliament. Nothing is probably going to get done because everything is going to be about jockeying for political supremacy, for attacking the other person, for making everybody's life difficult. It's going to be in constant motion, but nothing's actually going to get created.

DM: Okay, let's get into this. Pierre Poilievre has been daring the NDP to join the Conservatives in a non-confidence vote. Let's hear him.

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PIERRE POILIEVRE: Common sense conservatives will put forward a non-confidence motion at the earliest possible opportunity. And I'm asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday's byelections. Will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election? Or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?

DM: Okay, listening to you guys, you don't think that it's going to happen this fall. But Stephanie Levitz, how likely is Pierre Poilievre to get the votes out to bring the government down?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: That's a great question. I mean, a lot of it will depend on the context of it all. At what point in time does he actually, is he actually able to table what would be a binding non-confidence motion in the government? I mean, that is somewhat up to the government itself. The way the parliamentary calendar works, they have to schedule certain days for the opposition to have its business. That could not-- in theory, that could be months from now, not days from now. And as we have seen consistently in the life of this Parliament, things change from week to week so quickly that the conditions to bring down the government that may or may not exist, let's say next week, could be entirely different in two months’ time.

DM: Okay, Ryan, you mentioned the supply and confidence agreement. Jagmeet Singh metaphorically ripped it up anyway, and he's been trying to distance himself from the Liberals. Yesterday, he suggested the NDP is against the carbon tax.

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JAGMEET SINGH: We want to see an approach to fighting the climate crisis where it doesn't put the burden on the backs of working people. Where big polluters have to Pay their fair share, They have to pay the price of their pollution, But it shouldn't be on working people shoulders. And so, we've been working on a plan, and we'll be releasing our plan, our vision for how we Can do that In a stronger way in the coming months.

DM: So, Ryan, pretty light on details there. Wouldn't say exactly where he stood on the price of carbon for consumers. What should we read into that?

RYAN TUMILTY: I think what I read into that is that he is trying to distance himself from the Liberals and from one of their more unpopular policies. The carbon tax, you know, is at best, begrudgingly accepted. It is not a popular policy. It has never been a popular policy. But the Liberals feel that it is a necessary policy to deal with climate change. The NDP feels that climate change has to be dealt with, of course, and they've supported this tax in the past. So, I found those comments interesting yesterday, and I guess we'll wait and see what more details looks like when the NDP leader gets around to creating them.

DM: It hasn't been a popular tax, but it does seem like there's a bit of a pile on going on right now. Rosie, B.C. has an election coming up next month. NDP leader David Eby said yesterday if they're re-elected, his party would end the provincial carbon tax if the federal government dropped the legal requirement for it. And that's significant. B.C. was first in jurisdiction in North America to have a carbon tax. So, how big of a problem for this is... for the Federal Liberals?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah. I mean, B.C. has had a consensus around the need to price carbon before almost anyone else. Quebec would be closely behind. So, the idea now that this is suddenly not on the table is significant. I mean, as you say, there is an election happening and the other party also promised to get rid of the carbon tax if the federal government, this federal government is not re-elected. So, there's a lot of politics going on there. But I do think it feeds into what Pierre Poilievre has been saying for months now-- that he wants a carbon tax election. That this is a real vulnerability for the Liberal government, that they themselves admit they have failed to properly explain it to Canadians. And if we now have sort of momentum building against a carbon tax, I think that that is potentially very troubling for Justin Trudeau. I will say, though, I felt like Jagmeet Singh painted himself into yet another corner by saying that yesterday. I get why he did it. I think Ryan's right-- to distinguish himself. But now he has to also take that into consideration every time he votes. It's like every time he takes a position or criticises something, he puts himself into a space where he's going to have to be able to justify why he's voting for or against.

DM: So, what does he do? I mean, Stephanie, let me ask you, I mean, do we have any clues from the NDP about what they'd be likely to support and where those lines might be?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: We can look to the past, I suppose, for some degree of an example and something that Jagmeet Singh and his party has said a lot, that they try to focus on what delivers benefits to Canadians. So perhaps, you know, we find ourselves in a situation where if we're talking, for example, the third reading vote on a piece of legislation that the NDP has been championing, such as pharmacare, you know, okay, they're going to vote for that, but they're not going to vote for other things. It doesn't really matter until we get to a confidence motion, though, right? So, if some of that then will come down to how the conservatives intend to frame the language that they'll use. Right? Will they go-- sometimes the conservatives love to load things up with a ton of political preamble, you know, whereas the blah, blah, blah and the carbon tax does, duh duh duh. And make everybody vote on it. And there's a lot of, it's a lot of, you know, song and dance there. If the conservative-- and then that will force Jagmeet Singh into a corner because he's going to have to justify it. If the conservatives just go clean and clear, the House has lost confidence in the government. Maybe that's something that Jagmeet Singh can, in fact, vote for, because if he doesn't, then how does he justify anything anymore at all?

DM: But let's talk about specifics. I mean, one thing that Jagmeet Singh said, that part of what soured his party on its deal with the Liberals was the decision to send the railway workers to do binding arbitration. Ryan, there's pressure on the government now to intervene in yet another labour dispute, this time with with Air Canada pilots. What's your sense on what the Government is weighing with those options?

RYAN TUMILTY: You know, I think it’s the same thing that the government has to weigh every time it comes up with these options, and that is, what is the broader impact of a strike like that? The rail strike was going to be catastrophic to this country if had extended for, you know, more than a few days. A billion dollars in freight moves on those lines every day. You know, you were talking about things like grain farmers, you know, losing 50 million dollars a day. You were talking about cities facing problems getting chlorine for their water treatment plants. Those sorts of things become essential. I don't think the liberals were particularly eager to be dragged into the dispute. I don't think they're particularly eager to be dragged into the Air Canada dispute either. I think Air Canada will be different for the government because it is not as significant as the two national rail lines. But certainly, it's another pressure point, and it is kind of illustrating the difference between being in opposition and being in government. In government, sometimes you have to take politically unpopular choices for the greater good. And, you know, this might be one of them.

DM: Rosie, let me get your take on that, because a lot of listeners are looking at their plane tickets nervously right now. What are the politics at play there?

ROSEMARY BARTON: Yeah, I totally agree that this is one of those moments where you maybe don't want to be the government and have to make hard decisions. Steve MacKinnon, the labour minister, is in Toronto talking to both sides, telling them to stay at the table. You heard the Prime Minister say the same thing yesterday. But as that's being said, you know, Jagmeet Singh says absolutely no binding arbitration. And even Pierre Poilievre kind of stayed away from it, just stayed away from that, only saying that pilots aren't paid enough in this country. I agree that it's not as catastrophic as the rail stoppage, but I think it affects Canadians more directly in some ways. You know, if there's 100,000 Canadians travelling on Air Canada every day, hundreds of flights, and people stuck sort of mid holiday. And they are maybe not going to take their anger out just on Air Canada. They could potentially take it out on a government that doesn't seek to move quickly. So, I fear that that's probably where things are headed if these two sides can't get a deal.

DM: And of course, we've got byelections. Let's talk byelections. We started the summer with that big shocker in the riding of Toronto, St Paul's, which was a solid liberal seat. Now conservative. Stephanie, we're starting the fall with another two byelections on Monday, one in Winnipeg, one in Montreal. Could we see another political earthquake?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, different stakes really for both ridings. In the Toronto byelection, it was a clean conservative versus liberal fight. In the other two, the two byelections we have coming up on Monday, the one in Quebec near Montreal, is a three-way fight, really. It's Liberals, New Democrats, the Bloc Quebecois, the Conservatives are nonexistent in this particular campaign. Who ends up winning it in LaSalle will be interesting because it will be either a boost or a demoralizing moment for either side. So, if the liberals lose it, many people think they will, you know, is this another sort of notch in the line of things that will lead people to say Justin Trudeau must go? If New Democrats win it, they can claim victory and say, Look, see, we told you! Ripping up the deal was a great idea. Look what it's done for us, even though it might not actually be connected. If the Bloc Québécois win, you know, this bolsters this idea we sometimes forget about the Bloc in our national political discussions, but they do have a lot of power in the House of Commons and in Parliament. A pickup in this seat against a Liberal government would put some wind in their sales and it would be interesting to see what sort of they try to extract from the Liberal government in exchange for propping them up, which they could very well do.

DM: I also want to ask you guys about the Liberal staffing issues right now. The national campaign director announced he's quitting this week. It seems two cabinet ministers, Pablo Rodriguez, Marie-Claude Bibeau, are considering seeking different elected offices rather than running for re-election. So, Ryan-- well, let's listen to Justin Trudeau first. He keeps getting asked about his political future. Let's listen to his answer.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU: I can't wait to continue getting into it this fall with Pierre Poilievre whose perspective is cuts are the only way forward, because I know that confident countries invest in their future, invest in their workers, invest in their people. And that's what we're going to continue to do.

DM: Ryan, Justin Trudeau, can't wait. What do we think of that answer?

RYAN TUMILTY: You know, I think that's a genuine answer, actually. I do think that the Prime Minister likes sparring with Pierre Poilievre. I think the two of them are you know; I think they're more than just parliamentary opponents. I think they fundamentally don't like each other. You know, I don't see the prime minister inviting Pierre Poilievre around to Rideau College for a drink at any point in time. That's just not the relationship. And I do think that, you know, the Liberals definitely feel that they have a alternative vision of the country. That Peter Poilievre is running against that vision fundamentally. And they really do believe that, you know, in a better economy, when Canadians start to feel better, when interest rates start to come down and people start comparing the two alternatives, you know, that the Liberal Party will be able to pull ahead.

DM: Justin Trudeau seems to be sticking to his line. We all know from Joe Biden now that leaders are absolutely staying on until they aren't. Rosie, are there any chances of Justin Trudeau being out before this election?

ROSEMARY BARTON: I mean, sure. I'm not going to be the person that's going to say it's impossible. But I think that he is, as Ryan said, quite excited to take on a fight against Pierre Poilievre. And I will say that after their caucus meeting earlier this week in British Columbia, many of the people I reached out to, caucus members, feel a little bit better about things, frankly. There was a presentation made by his chief of staff and his executive director of communications to talk about sort of what they were going to talk about through the fall and what direction they were headed. And some MPs found that quite reassuring. I think, for MPs who don't find that reassuring, who are concerned about their jobs, who are going to be watching what happens on Monday, those byelections, there's a possibility that some of those people just start leaving. You mentioned two cabinet ministers, but there are other people. Andy Fillmore has left his seat to run to be the mayor of Halifax. And other people might make those kinds of decisions as well. Because if you know the leader's not going anywhere, nobody's trying to get rid of him actively, your only other option then is to show yourself the door.

DM: Stephanie, I want to get your take, too, though. I mean, are-- should Liberals be looking to the south on what happened with the Democrats and wondering if their leader should be stepping aside?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: I think there's probably a pretty big distinction between Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau. And one of those distinctions is about 35 years of age. Right? The energy level that President Joe Biden was putting forward to American voters, sort of the physical stumbles, some of that, that was the thing perhaps that was really turning people off. I would say that even Conservatives will agree that Justin Trudeau remains a formidable campaigner. He's charismatic. The polls are what they are. But people do still like him. They do still respond to him. There is life in the old dog yet, you know. And while it would be, the Conservatives would certainly be thrown into a strategic problem if Justin Trudeau were to leave, because really they're framing everything right now around Justin Trudeau. Everything is Justin Trudeau's fault. And so, if he were to go, it would be interesting to see how they would pivot. But I think, you know, there is I'm sure some Liberals looking down to the south and saying, Well, hey, like look what happened. You know, reversed their fortunes. The Democrats were moribund. But I don't think that the stakes or the situation plays out identically here in Canada.

DM: We've got about 30 seconds left. I'm just, I just got to ask about a wild rumour floating around Mark Carney. I mean, is that a possibility for a leader? Ryan, last word to you.

RYAN TUMILTY: I don't think it's a possibility for a leader unless Justin Trudeau decides he wants to leave. You know, Mark Carney, I think it's a pretty much open secret-- has an interest in future politics and interest in leadership politics one day. But he's not pushing Justin Trudeau out the door. That's not why he decided to go work for him at the Liberal Party, basically.

DM: All right. Canadians should be looking forward to an unexpected, a kinetic fall, apparently. Frantic and chaotic. I'm sure we'll have to have you back on the panel. Thank you all for joining us.

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: Thanks, Duncan.

ROSEMARY BARTON: Thank you.

DM: Thanks. Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter for the Globe Mail's Ottawa Bureau. Ryan Tumilty is a parliamentary reporter for The National Post. And Rosie Barton is the CBC's chief political correspondent. Well, on Monday, Matt will be back. And you're going to want to hear this: his conversation with DeMar DeRozan. He was drafted to the Toronto Raptors in 2009, became an NBA legend on the court, but he also made a big contribution off the court, helping people open up about their mental health. And it all started with a tweet where he talked about his own depression.

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DEMAR DEROZAN: I was so isolated; I was in my own solitude and in my emotions was at its all-time high. And, you know, I didn't have nobody to talk to. It was something I wrote. I just sent it, and I went to sleep. Woke up. I didn't know it would lead into all this-- to this present day. You know, I didn't know. But it was something that was obviously needed, not just for myself, but for, you know, the world in a sense, you know. To show that we go through things. And it just opened a conversation from there.

DM: Hear basketball star DeMar DeRozan speaking with Matt Galloway here on The Current on Monday. Okay. The CBC News is next. And then:

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BOB MCDONALD: What I'm discouraged about today is the way science is perceived. Scientists used to be like magicians. There I was up on a stage wearing a white lab coat, standing people's hair on, and it was amazing. And people go, Oh, wow, look at that. Whereas now people are doubting science.

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DM: Quirks and Quarks' host Bob McDonald has devoted his decades long career to helping everyday audiences understand scientific ideas. With pseudoscience and conspiracy theories threatening to upstage the truth. He sees his work as important as ever. We'll speak to Bob McDonald in six minutes. I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to The Current.

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Bob McDonald on overcoming impostor syndrome — and saying yes

Guests: Bob McDonald

DM: I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to The Current.

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BOB MCDONALD: Well Wendy, these aftershocks are a natural part of large earthquakes where the the earth is settling down into a new position that had shifted to a week ago. And if we look at the map here, I can show you how they're related to the original.

BOB MCDONALD: The water vapour is usually invisible. For example, right now you're breathing out and there's water vapour coming out of you, and you don't see it. That's because the air in your bodies nice and warm. The air inside a room is nice and warm.

BOB MCDONALD: In the wintertime, if you, if you look at the famous constellation Orion, it's the big square with the three in the middle. There's a star up on its shoulder called Beetlejuice that's definitely red if you look at it, and then down by his feet.

BOB MCDONALD: Now, I had no idea there was anything unusual about octopus’ mothers. What happens to them after they lay their octo babies?

DM: From octo babies to earthquakes to comets, Bob McDonald has talked about it all on the radio and on TV. He's, of course, the beloved host of Quirks and Quarks here on CBC Radio. Over his long career, he's done more than 7000 interviews and written seven books, been granted more than a dozen honorary doctorates, awarded the Order of Canada, even had an asteroid named after him. But what many Canadians may not know is how unlikely that life might have seemed when Bob was a child. He grew up without a lot of money. His home was far from happy. And as for formal education, Bob didn't make it past second year university. Bob McDonald has written about his life in a new memoir called Just Say Yes. He joins me from Victoria. Good morning.

BOB MCDONALD: Good morning, Duncan.

DM: You start the book with this scene that may be surprising for a lot of quirks listeners. You're on a stage, you're receiving an honorary degree, one of many. And you have what you describe as imposter syndrome. Why?

BOB MCDONALD: Well, it was the first time I'd ever choked up in front of an audience. It was my very first honorary doctorate given to me by the University of Guelph. And I just choked because I-- I said to the audience, I said, I'm sorry. I've never seen my name on a university diploma. And there was this silence like, well, how did I get here? And it's, you know, people are always asking me, you know, do you have a Ph.D. or what university did you go to? And I say, no. You know, and they're very often surprised by that. So, I thought I'd write it down and say, here's my story starting from the very beginning. And growing up in Orillia Ontario, which is my hometown.

DM: Yeah. Tell us a little bit about what life was like for you as a kid.

BOB MCDONALD: Well, it you Google me, it'll say I was born in Wingham, Ontario, which is true. It's in the southern western part of Ontario. But as soon as I was born, the family moved. I don't know why they moved when I was born, but anyway, they moved to Orillia. So, I consider that my hometown and it's great. It's at the beginning of Cottage Country. It's on a lake. Our house was only a couple of blocks from the lake. There's a big town park, so that's where I spent my time in the summer, running around like a feral kid in and out of the water, collecting pop bottles. In the wintertime, skating on the lakes, tobogganing and all that. So, it's a great outdoor thing. And my mother was the exact opposite of a helicopter parent. Her mantra was, get out of the house. Get-- don't bother me. Go play. Go play. And in a small town, you can do that. So, it was a wonderful outdoor experience, and I really liked it. But the indoor experience was a little different.

DM: Yeah, the indoor experience. I mean, you're talking specifically about your parents here. And you-- this is a difficult thing to talk about. So, I want you to share as much as you're willing. But you talk about your dad, in particular. Can you tell us a little bit about him?

BOB MCDONALD: Yes. He was an alcoholic, a serious alcoholic, and that kept us poor. I wouldn't say we were in poverty, but we were certainly the poor people on the block. We couldn't do things like go take vacations in Disneyland or something like that. And he was somewhat of a violent drunk. And I never knew when I came home whether it was going to be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And so, home for me was not a comfortable place. And that's-- this is hard to talk about-- but I want to go into this. But I was abused by him. I was sexually abused by my dad. And it it happened again with another person in a public park. An older teenage boy grabbed me and abused me as well. So, that turned home for me into a place to be from because I was violated in the very place where I'm supposed to be safe, in my home, in my bedroom, in my bed, by the very person who is supposed to protect me. And that was something that I had to deal with, and I still have to deal with for the rest of my life.

DM: You describe your dad as a monster in the book.

BOB MCDONALD: Yeah.

DM: Why did you want to tackle that now?

BOB MCDONALD: Well, the reason I want to come out about this, and I've never spoken about this publicly, because I have found a way to put it away, to put it in a vault in the back of my mind with a door that's locked and only I can open it and I don't open it. I just put it away. And I have a message for anyone who has suffered from childhood abuse, whether it's sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional, whatever-- that it is possible to deal with it. The memories will never go away. They won't. I can still remember all the details about it, every detail. But you can put it away and take charge of your own life. Because if you let it affect you for the rest of your life, you are giving more power to the abuser. Even after they're dead. My dad died at 55. The alcohol finally got him at age 55. But we make choices in our lives, and we can choose to move ahead. And I've done that.

DM: You say in the book, childhood trauma can be overcome. How did you do that?

BOB MCDONALD: You move ahead. Today is where we live. I'm not a child anymore. And so, you say, Okay, something really bad happened. But that's, that was then. This is now. And to me, child abusers should be punished to the absolute limit of the law. But we control our own lives. We make choices about what we're going to do. And I made a bunch of choices in my life that led me to be a host of Quirks and Quarks.

DM: We got heavy real fast here, Bob. [BOB: Yeah, sorry.] But I wonder, I mean, because people-- you come across as this really positive, energetic, enthusiastic person. Where does that come through given, I mean, you're talking about poverty, about abuse. Where does that energy come from?

BOB MCDONALD: Well, I think it comes from being outside all the time when I was a kid. My mean, like I say, my mother said, get out. And so, I was always outdoors playing with other kids. Or when I got a bicycle starting to explore around places I had never been. So, the world to me, even as a kid, was not a scary place. It was an adventure. What's out here? And I continue that throughout my life. And I write in the book about how when I was in my late 20s, I went all the way around the earth by myself just to see what it looks like. It was fabulous and I still love travelling that way. And now I get to explore science because science is a kind of travel where figuring out the universe or figuring out how it works or figuring out how the body works. And it's fascinating. There's so much to learn and not enough time to learn it all. So, I'm really turned on by that. So, I'd rather look ahead rather than look back.

DM: And exploring the science is perhaps why-- it goes back to that being on the stage and the feeling of imposter syndrome. Why didn't you finish the university degree?

BOB MCDONALD: I was a terrible student. I just wasn't good at it. I'm terrible at math, but I was good at theatre. I did some theatre when I was in high school. I got the lead in Oklahoma, the musical, you know, [singing] Oh, what a beautiful morning. I sang that. And in High-- and in University, I did Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's. I played Puck, a comic role, and I thought that would be my career, that maybe I should be an actor. But then when I realized that to do it professionally, you have to put yourself out in auditions. And that's when my insecurity would come in. I'm not good enough. Because it does get to you, that you're not good enough. You're not like everybody else. However, I have since found that when you feel you're not good enough, you have that imposter syndrome thing where somebody's going to find out-- I'm not that well-educated. If you think you're not good enough, you try harder. You try harder to be as good. Whereas if you think you're good, you're going to get arrogant. You won't work as hard. So, in some ways it's actually helped me, although I'm not recommending it as a way to go.

DM: You said you're not good at math. I mean, you talk about chemical formulas kind of becoming a blur in your head. [BOB: Yes.] But you're interviewing, I mean, some of the world's most learned scientists and helping us understand. How do you pull that off?

BOB MCDONALD: Well, I think the fact that I don't have a formal education is, puts me on the same side as the audience. So, I'm closer to you than I am to the scientists. I know the science. I can understand it now. I've been at it long enough, but I don't need to do the science. I don't need to do the chemical formulas and the mathematics. They do that. And then I say, So what did you find? What did your mathematics tell you? And they say, Well, we just figured out how a black hole works. Or, we just figured out, you know, how is a group of cells decide to become the human body. Whatever.

DM: But I'm not sure I'd advise my journalism students to drop out if they were going to become science journalists. So, I mean, how did you get that first big break to get into the world of science?

BOB MCDONALD: Well, it actually came while I was working at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto. And that came I mean, I was a construction worker. When I dropped out of university, I thought, well, my kind will work construction. And I did. And I have great respect for people who work outdoors, especially in the wintertime. But it was my girlfriend at the time when I was in my early 20s, and she told me that the Science Centre was hiring people to do the demonstrations, you know, stand people's hair up on static electricity and all that. And-- because she worked as a summer student. So, I went in and I just talked the guy's ear off. I just went and I said, Hi! I'd really love to work here. This is great. I love science and entertaining. And he just hired me on the spot. And so, that was what I was doing. And then in 1976, there was a robot that landed on Mars called Viking. And I was following that very closely. And CBC News called up and they said, Can somebody come on tonight and tell us about this thing that landed on Mars? And I said, Sure, I'll do that. And I'd never been on television. So, I came on and I brought a globe of Mars. I brought some of the photos and said, Hey, here's what happened. This is-- look, isn't this neat? Here's what it looks like to stand on Mars, blah, blah, blah. And then after the interview was over, when we were doing, just getting off the set, taking the microphone off, the director came down from the control room and stood right in front of me with her hands on her hips, and she pointed at me. She said, You're really good on camera. If you want to come back and do stuff for us, we'll have you. And then one thing leads to another. One thing leads to another. Television kids show and radio and then Quirks and Quarks.

DM: Well, one thing leads to another. You knew we were going to dig through some of the old tape here. So, you're famous for your hands on explanations of scientific ideas. You did a lot when you hosted a kid's show, Wonderstruck in the 80s and 90s. Older listeners will remember that. At one time you actually went skydiving, then used a simple piece of cardboard and a rock to explain how quickly things travel through the air.

SOUNDCLIP

BOB MCDONALD: Now, about 300 years ago, there was a guy named Galileo, and he said that all objects would fall at the same speed. But if you try it and you take two very different objects, like a piece of cardboard, which is very light and a rock, which is very heavy, and you drop them both at the same time, you will find that... The rock gets to the ground first every time. So, does that mean Mr. Galileo was wrong? Well, not exactly.

BOB MCDONALD: I was always looking for everyday objects to explain science, because that's a trick when you're working with kids. You start with something familiar. And on Wonderstruck, at the end of every program, we had kitchen demos that was shot in my kitchen because we didn't have a studio. And I would just do stuff you could find around the house and do simple demonstrations. And I was very popular among teachers. And so, I'd do a lot of teacher conferences and school visits and all of that. And there was a magic moment one time when I was in a school, a grade school, and they had all the kids in the cafeteria because it was the biggest room they had. And I wanted to do a demonstration I call the invisible fire extinguisher. And usually I use baking soda and vinegar to make carbon dioxide. But there was a vending machine right beside me where I was standing. So I said, Okay. So, I went over and I put some coins to the machine and I got a can of ginger ale. And I had this big glass bowl and I poured the ginger ale into the bowl from a height, so you get all kinds of bubbles. And then I asked the kids, you know what's inside the bubbles? And we work with them. It's carbon dioxide. I said there's two things about carbon dioxide. One, it doesn't burn. And two, it's heavier than air. So I said, so this bowl has carbon dioxide in it. You can't see it. Let's do a test. And I lit a candle, hold it beside the bowl and just tipped the bowl a little bit. The carbon dioxide spills out. You don't see it, but the candle goes out magically. I said, There's my invisible fire extinguisher. And kids go, Whoa! And I did it using a can of ginger ale. And then I got a couple of cans of soup. I had two cans of soup. They're the same size, the same weight, unopened. And I put them on the table side by side and said, we're going to have a race. I'm going to roll them down the table. Which one do you think will win? One was chicken noodle soup. The other one was mushroom soup. I just lift the end of the table up to tip it and they start rolling and the chicken soup just runs away. Why do you think the chicken soup always wins? This kid puts up his hand, he says, Because chicken have feet. Great answer! Great answer! But it's because the chicken soup is runny, the mushroom soup's gooey, like snot. And so, it doesn't turn as well. So, now you're into fluid dynamics, pipelines, all kinds of stuff. So, that's my philosophy.

DM: When you just laughed there, I'm picturing Bob McDonald with a big smile on his face. And you talk about being new to TV and learning TV, but being really conscious of your smile. Why?

BOB MCDONALD: Well, it's-- I've always had trouble with my teeth. I have a whole chapter on crooked teeth. My teeth are not straight. I don't like close ups because they really show. And that's because I didn't have dental care as a kid. Both my parents had all their teeth ripped out, which is what was common in their generation. And so, I had to go through in my 20s. I didn't see a dentist until I was in my mid-twenties, and they were so rotten that I had to have a whole bunch of them removed. But the ones that were left had them all filled. I went through a year of going to the dentist all the time. We got to be good friends. And at the end he said, Okay, your teeth are now healthy, but they're not straight. He said, If you want to straighten them out, it'll take a while because you're an adult. But he said, you don't need to. It's purely for cosmetic reasons, and so you've got to think about that. He said, People have accepted you up until this point with the way you look. Okay. And I was just getting into television. I thought, I'll leave it. This is the way I am. People know me. As soon as I open my mouth, they know who I am. So, I've struggled with that. I know I don't have a perfect smile, but, well, in a way, it's an identity.

DM: That story says so much about you, Bob. I mean, you call yourself a half-educated, low-income kid. But then all of a sudden, like, you are the host of Quirks and Quarks, You know, 30 years ago, you became the host. You say that's the best name of any radio show in the business. But what was it like 30 years ago being that kid, what was different about doing that job compared to the Science Centre, compared to all the journalism that you'd done before that?

BOB MCDONALD: It was a really hard transition. It was a steep, steep learning curve because up until that point I was doing my own stuff and we were encouraged to be silly and fun and I'd do my own research. Quirks is different because it follows the news of the week. What was published, what are the journals, what are the universities putting out? And you don't know what's coming. And I was suddenly doing adult science and talking to, you know, top people in the world, somebody who'd just won the Nobel Prize. They're talking to me in subjects that I was not that well versed in. In fact, the first year the British were suffering from mad cow disease. So, I had to learn how to say bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Can be a mouthfull. Yeah, just learn how to say it, let alone what it means. You know, what it does to the brain and all of this stuff. So, it was pretty hard and I was really struggling with it at the beginning. But then I realised that the producers are the ones who do the heavy lifting. They find the scientists, they talk to them ahead of time. They do pre-interviews to get the story right. They give me the background information and we work together on the script and on the questions before the interview happens. By the time I get to the interview, I know the answers to all the questions I'm asking. So then, what I do is I just listen. And I-- I'll ask the question and see if they're going to give me that answer. And if they don't, then I say, Okay, let me see if I got this right. And then I kind of turn it around to bring it back.

DM: Let me see if I got this right. Quirks listeners will remember hearing that fairly regularly on this show. You found out that scientists are aware of that signature phrase. What did you find out?

BOB MCDONALD: Yeah, I was at an event at one of our universities and a scientist who'd been on the show a couple of times, he said, You know, in our lab, we try to get through an interview with you without you saying, Let me see if I got this right. Because if you say that, we failed. I said, I didn't know I set a bar. But what I'm trying to do is I'm a translator. I'm trying to translate between scientific jargon, which is its own language and the public. But it's always learning and it's great. That's what I love about Quirks and Quarks. It's always new. I can barely even tell you what's on next week's show.

DM: Your love of space really shines through in the book, and I want you to tell us the story. In 1981, you were a freelancer. You drove down to Florida to witness a bit of space history, and there was a piece of CBC stationery that came in handy.

BOB MCDONALD: Yes. 1981 was the second flight of the space shuttle Columbia, but it was the first flight of the Canadian Canadarm. And I drove down with my brother in his van. And in order to get into NASA before leaving, I grabbed a piece of CBC stationery and I wrote a letter to NASA introducing myself and then just scribbled some name on the bottom. And we showed up at the gate and I said, Hi, we're Canadians. We're down here to cover the mission. And because it was the [unclear] flight, there was hardly anyone there. They were open arms. They said, Oh yeah, here. You can have press passes and we'll give you a vehicle pass for the vehicle. So, we could drive anywhere in the whole Kennedy Space Centre. It was great. And it was a morning flight. We got there the day before, so we just slept in the van. The next morning, just rolled back the door, sat there and there was a space shuttle. Oh my god.

DM: That's what's called the good old days. [BOB: Yes.] You've been on Quirks and Quarks for 30 years now covering science. I mean, so much has changed in the science world, and I wonder about what you've seen as the change in science and the way that we perceive it?

BOB MCDONALD: Well, the science itself has come a long, long way. I mean, I'm stunned that the entire space program has happened without, within my lifetime. When I was a kid in Orillia in 1957, Sputnik, the first satellite went up. And I remember the headline in the Orillia Packet and Times. And it showed the Earth with a big circle around it and little balls. Said Russians put up a first artificial moon. And then I've watched all of it. I've watched all the moon landings and I've watched all the robotic missions to all of the planets in our solar system, the Hubble telescope, the Webb telescope. And it's just been amazing what we have found out about the universe itself and how we've learned to fly in space, to leave the Earth and all those early missions and going to the moon for the first time, and now we're living in space. There are people living in space right now. What I'm discouraged about today is the way science is perceived, because scientists used to be like magicians. And when I worked at the Science Centre, there I was up on a stage wearing a white lab coat, standing people's hair on end, and it was amazing. And people go, Oh, wow, look at that. Or I'd freeze flowers in liquid nitrogen in one second. You know, I'd freeze a flower and it was like, Wow, that's magic. Whereas now people are doubting science. They're doubting the science of climate. They're doubting the science of energy and saying no. And science journalism, science communication is not just done through the regular media. When I started out, the only way you could get on television was through a network, and everything was done through producers and editors. It was vetted. It was fact checked to make sure that it's accurate. Well now, anybody with a cell phone and a YouTube channel can put out whatever they want. And it's hard to tell the difference between the science and the pseudoscience or the conspiracy theories because they're very good at it. In some cases, better than we are. And so, it's confusing the public. And that disturbs me because we're living in a time now where we need science. We need a basic understanding of science among the public if we're going to deal with things like climate change or food and water and population and energy and all these things because they have science behind them.

DM: And as the host of a National Science Show. Have you ever been targeted with hostility?

BOB MCDONALD: Yes, we had we had to shut down the comments on my blog because there were a couple of people that were climate deniers. And any time I mentioned climate, they would just attack me. They wouldn't present counter in information that I was wrong, but they would you know, this guy's an actor. They did some history. I mean, who who's going to believe an actor who, you know, he doesn't know what he's talking about and all this. And I'm very careful about what I talk about to make sure that what I'm saying is correct. And so it's a different world now. And there's a challenge among young people in the public to. Find out who's saying that if somebody's saying something outrageous. Who are they? Is it an institution that they founded and they made themselves the director and the doctor? Or is it University of Toronto? You know, it's there's a big difference. So we really have to be careful where where the science information is coming from now. That's a challenge.

DM: At the end of the book, Bob, you write that 'The idea of sitting still to wait out the remaining years of my life frightens me more than any other risk I've ever faced.' What's next for Bob McDonald?

BOB MCDONALD: Well, I'll keep doing Quirks until they tell me not to. This is not a swan song. I'm not retiring or anything. And I'm going to continue to travel the world as much as I can by boat, by motorcycle riding, whatever. And I have a secret little dream, actually, Duncan. I would still, I've always wanted to go to space. And there's a slim, slim chance maybe I could get up on one of those tourist flights, you know, Virgin Galactic, something like that. So, I would like to get up on one of those tourist flights and have Chris Hadfield at the controls. That would be cool.

DM: Cool. Before we go, I want to ask about the title. Because you wrap up, so succinctly and beautifully, this wonderful philosophy. The title is Just Say Yes. Tell us about your three-point philosophy on life.

BOB MCDONALD: Yes, I have learned that when opportunities come along, and we all have opportunities come along. You have, somebody says, Hey, so-and-so's looking for a person, you'd be good at that. And we immediately say, Oh, I don't know how to do that. I don't have the experience. I can't do that. What we're really doing is expressing our fear. I have found in my life that when an opportunity comes along, say yes. And even if you're not qualified to do it, just say yes. Then the next thing that will happen is you get scared. You go, What have I done? Step two, focus on the very first thing you need to do. What's the first thing I need to do? And usually, that's ask someone, How do I do this? But what's the first thing, that once you do that, you will see the next step and then do that and just one step at a time go through. And the third point is, finish it. Finish what you start. Don't worry about being the best. There's always going to be someone better than you. And there's-- but if you don't finish it, then it's not worth anything. So, just get it done. Get it done. And that's worked for me throughout all of my career. And I will still do that when new things come along. So, that works. That works. Take a chance. What's the worst that can happen? They say no. Or, but... But just say yes. Focus on the first step. Step your way through it and finish what you start. That's been the success of my life.

DM: Quirks and Quarks listeners are going to be very happy to hear you say that they're going to have to pry the mic out of your hand. It has been a real pleasure. The book is just wonderful. Thanks for sharing it with us, Bob.

BOB MCDONALD: Pleasure talking to you, Duncan.

DM: Bob McDonald is the host of Quirks and Quarks, heard every Saturday here on CBC Radio. And his new memoir is Just Say Yes. Coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

LEROY LITTLE BEAR: We all want the buffalo to come back, but we can't do it all by ourselves. It's a big job. We will need partners.

[Music: Theme]

DM: Leroy Little Bear and those partners have done a lot to bring back the buffalo. He's one of the people featured in a new documentary about Indigenous efforts to bring the animals back to North American land. I'll speak with Cree filmmaker Tasha Hubbard about why the buffalo mean so much. That's in 90 seconds. Stick around. I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Fades up]

How Indigenous communities are bringing buffalo back

Guests: Tasha Hubbard

DM: I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to The Current.

[Sound: Buffalo noises]

DM: That sound might not be too familiar to you. It belongs to one of the largest land mammals on the continent. That animal is the subject of the latest film from Tasha Hubbard called Singing Back the Buffalo. Her documentary explores her own deep connection to the buffalo and the movement by Indigenous nations to return buffalo to the land across North America. Tasha Hubbard is an award-winning filmmaker from Peepeekisis First Nation in Saskatchewan and an associate professor of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. She's joining us from Edmonton tonight. Good morning.

TASHA HUBBARD: Good morning, Duncan. I'm well, Thank you.

DM: Congratulations on this beautiful film. I want to take you to that sound, though. I mean, the sounds of the buffalo are throughout this film. And can you describe what it was like for you to be so close to them and hearing them like that?

TASHA HUBBARD: I think the word that always came to mind was just the kind of like frequency that they're on does something to the body where it just calms you. It was like vibrational all the time. And they're actually quite quiet a lot of times. And, you know, we had to make a decision that-- people are generally unfamiliar with buffalo. I mean, they're familiar with the icon, you know, the symbolic but not the actual animal. And so, we did decide, we're like, we want people to hear them and hear their voices and hear their conversations. You know, they're talking to each other. But yeah, it just does something to your body.

DM: You've been studying buffalo as an academic for years and years. What started you on your buffalo journey?

TASHA HUBBARD: Well, I'm an adoptee, and I was adopted out as a baby and found my way back when I was 16 and, you know, spent time getting to know my families and learning about history and things like that. And I was at a wedding, an Indigenous wedding in Regina, and elders that I had met tapped me on the shoulder and said, Do you want to go see something special? Of course, the answer is yes. You know, and we went outside of Regina and a buffalo stone, a buffalo rib stone had just been uncovered. And, you know, it was quite big. And it had this beautiful stone ball at its nose. And it was just such a profound moment for me to, because I just, it made me think about how rooted we are as Indigenous people to these lands and that this stone had been a place that people and my ancestors had gone to for so long, you know, beyond counting.

DM: What is a buffalo rib stone?

TASHA HUBBARD: So, they're large stones that are in the shape of a buffalo. They're called rib stones because a lot of them have the ribs delineated in the stone as well as the spine. And, you know, they'll have the head and back of-- and so, they're literally stones in the shape of a buffalo. And they exist only in what is now known as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Montana. And yeah, it was just a moment where I felt really, I would say, for the first time, I really felt that I was who I was. You know, it made me feel like I belong here. And it yeah, it was very powerful. And so, after that moment, I actually went and visited other stones, realized there were more, would go see them and visit. But I also just really started thinking about buffalo and our relationship to them. And one of the first things I wondered, I was like, Well, what did that do to us as a people to have this being that we were so connected with for so long, wiped out in the scope of things in the blink of an eye?

DM: I want to get to how they were wiped out. But when you talk about that relationship, so many people in your film talk about how buffalo are food and family. What do they mean by that?

TASHA HUBBARD: Well, our stories about the buffalo, a lot of them are around how the buffalo connects with us as a relation. And so, you know, for a lot of the Nations I'm from, it's you know, they're our grandparents. You know, they're our grandfather, our grandmother. For the Lakota Dakota, they're the siblings. You know, so our stories share that. That you know, they are our relatives, that we are related to the beings that we share this land with. And, you know, that was such a discovery for me to, you know, obviously been raised in Western education and humans are at the top of the hierarchy and everything else is below. And our stories remind us differently. And so, when you have a being that you're connected with and that you, you know, our stories tell us of what what we are supposed to do for them and that they have decided to give themselves to us because they love us.

DM: Which makes this, the destruction of the buffalo so difficult from a Cree perspective. Can you describe the extent of the buffalo being wiped out in the late 1800s?

TASHA HUBBARD: Yeah, well, it had started earlier there. There had been, as soon as there was encroachment, you know, pushing them. And the bison's range was so extensive right across the North American content down into Mexico, up into Alaska, Eastern, you know, the Mississippi. The population start to decline. And what my work has been is looking at how whatever our fate was and is as Indigenous people is linked to them. And so, just as we were hit with epidemics that, you know, decimated our communities, so are they. The introduction of cattle with the diseases that cattle brought with them had a huge impact on the buffalo's destruction. And then just as we were the target of massacre and starvation policies and all of the, you know, these elements of genocide, so were they.

DM: And millions, millions and millions of them being slaughtered.

TASHA HUBBARD: You know, it's beyond knowable, I think. Like, I don't think we have anything to under-- any structure to understand just how enormous that was to have them go. And yeah, I think we're still all carrying that. We're still all carrying that pain of them leaving and being destroyed. And there's a lot of grief.

DM: And literally almost wiped out. But about 300 buffalo survived back then. Where did some of those buffalo end up?

TASHA HUBBARD: Some of them were orphaned calves. You know, there was no economical value in calves. It was the hides and the bones and all of that were, you know, were the adults. So, there were orphaned calves that were taken often by hide hunters who were actually cattlemen, ranchers. They were taking them back to their ranches and actually trying to create a more hardy cattle, you know, because cattle didn't evolve in North America and were more vulnerable. So, there was that. But there were also buffalo that just went where they couldn't be followed. And so, that's the Yellowstone herd. You know, their origins, a very small herd just went to where the hunters and poachers couldn't find them. And then there were several herds that were saved by Indigenous people. And, you know, one of the more well-known ones is in the film about a Salish Kootenai family that had a dream. The elder had a dream that they should go and get buffalo and bring them over the mountains into the plateau where they're from-- like, this is western Montana. And they did that and started a small herd. And you know that herd, it changed hands over time. And then people were already on reservations. But that wasn't enough. Right? You know, government policy is like, Okay, jeez. These Indigenous people have they have some good land here. You know, how do we get our hands on that? So, that impacted the buffalo again. So, even though they'd had this refuge on the Salish Kootenai reservation, that land got taken through government policy and it had to be sold. And that's how the buffalo ended up in Elk Island National Park here in Alberta.

DM: And you drop in so movingly on many Nations who are bringing buffalo back to the land. One of the characters in the film that's right throughout is Blood Tribes caller Leroy Little Bear. Let's have a listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

LEROY LITTLE BEAR: The elders said, Hey, I think we are all of one mind. We all want the buffalo to come back. But we can't do it all by ourselves. It's a big job. We will need partners. We used to sign treaties with the other tribes in the old days, way before we ever signed treaties with Canada or the United States. We should bring our people together and sign a treaty about bringing the buffalo back.

DM: So, tell me more about the Buffalo Treaty.

TASHA HUBBARD: Yeah. So, there were buffalo dialogues held in, across the Blackfoot Confederacy. Paulette Fox, who was a graduate student at the time, and Leroy Little Bear and others, including one of my mentors, the late Narcisse Blood, would participate and listen to the elders talk about the buffalo and how we need to bring them back into daily life so that our children have the opportunity to know buffalo again. And so, the treaty was signed in 2014. Eight nations, four south of the border and four north of the border, signed a commitment to, you know, if possible, bringing buffalo back to their tribal lands, but also a commitment to what Leroy calls raising buffalo consciousness. So, bringing buffalo back into our hearts, our minds, our education system, our, you know, our livelihood, our research and conservation and care for the land. I mean, this is what the treaty encompasses, is the whole. And I think that's where the buffalo teach us is the whole of it. The health of the land means the health of the plants means the health of the animals and health of humans. And it's all interconnected. And so, that's, you know, I think at the heart of the treaty, is there's something missing. The buffalo are missing from our ecosystems, and we feel that in our bones. And this is why I think the people in the film are so passionate. They know that this is the turning point for us to have them back in our lives again.

DM: You mentioned the impact on the land of bringing back buffalo. What kind of things have changed on the landscape if buffalo return?

TASHA HUBBARD: Well, they were generators. They're natural re-generators. You know, they move in patterns in migration patterns that are seasonal based on their deep, deep knowledge of, you know, what grows where and when and when is the best time to go and eat what's there. You know, they know what they need to eat to keep themselves healthy and more.

DM: I learned this in your film. More than just big poopers. I mean, the wallows. Tell us about those.

TASHA HUBBARD: Oh, yeah. You know, and that's it. They shape the land too, right? So, you know, we show that in the film that, you know, they even carry seeds of everything in their coats. And then they have this behaviour called wallowing where they roll back and forth on the ground, and they all go the same place. So, they form these beautiful bowls in the land that eventually just become dust because they're there rolling around. They do it to get rid of their winter hair. But then that's where the seeds go. And what happens is because they're creating these bowls in the land, when it rains, that water stays in that bowl, and it provides opportunity for insects and amphibians and all sorts of others to have a shallow wetland that they need. It provides moisture, right? It allows the land to hold and retain water better. And then, you know, certain plants grow and need that proximity to those wallows. So, what's beautiful is if you go to Unbroken Prairie, you can see the ancient wallows from when the buffalo were much bigger and they're huge. And it's like, again, you're in this place that just reminds you how long we were all in balance on this land.

DM: Do we have a sense of how many buffalo there are now as a result of some of these actions?

TASHA HUBBARD: There are definitely, there's a lot of-- there's the buffalo that primarily exist are part of domestic herds. And some of though, you know, there's a spectrum of how those live. Like, some live more like buffalo. Some are still living like cattle. But there's also, you know, herds that are brought back to be on prairie land. And so, that's parks. There's refuge, you know, bison refuges, there's... and then there's also herds that are coming back to reserves and reservations. You know, [DM: You mentioned...] is there a number? No. You know? What I will say is what I think people are really focusing on is bringing buffalo back onto lands where they can live like buffalo.

DM: Live like buffalo. I mean, you mentioned National Wildlife areas, parks, refuges. I guess the big question is, should buffalo be behind fences?

TASHA HUBBARD: You know, that's the big, that's always the big thing, you know? And I, you know, think the film grapples with the fencing. And how fencing has been used literally and metaphorically you know, to contain Indigenous people, contain, you know, contain buffalo. And I think we all realize that we're living in a land that has been drastically altered. But I think that there's places that still exist where it's possible to start to tear down some of those fences and that buffalo can start to move cyclically. That's their instinct. I always say, like, it's not that, you know, buffalo are going to start running down like the number one highway. You know, like that's not the case. But, although if they ever did, I'd love to see it. But you know, but I think what we're looking at and what people are working towards is holding onto the lands that still exist. And the, you know, natural prairie grassland is the most threatened ecosystem in the world. Like it, or one of. And we're still ploughing that over for industrial agriculture. So, let's stop that. Let's hold on to that beautiful ecosystem. Let's put buffalo back. Let's let them nurture the land, the grasslands that do heavy lifting for carbon capture and buffalo, again, heavy lifting for biodiversity. And it's like, it's justice. It's giving them some justice. They shaped this continent, and we should be making as much space for them to recover as we can.

DM: You joke about them running down the Trans-Canada Highway. But I mean, what you're talking about bringing back buffalo to the land, you used the term land repatriation. Others might use the term 'land back.' So, I wonder, you know, is there opposition to repatriating the buffalo?

TASHA HUBBARD: Oh. You know, I think that there's, the buffalo exist in people's minds in certain ways. Right? And I think that, and this is where my academic, you know, comes on. There's this sort of undercurrent of of danger. And not helped by tourists who have no sense of personal safety and also no respect for buffalo and try to get within a couple of feet to get a selfie. I mean that's just ridiculous. And I shake my head and...

DM: But there have been concerns expressed by ranchers, for example, about diseases.

TASHA HUBBARD: Oh, sure. And that's, and so, that's the other thing, is buffalo have been impacted by cattle disease. Absolutely. One of the main diseases that is a concern for cattle ranchers is brucellosis, which is a disease that causes pregnant moms to abort their calves. But there's actually never been a case where buffalo spread that disease. They can get it, but they don't pass it on. And yet, it's used as a like, Oh, well, you know, we're worried about brucellosis. We're worried about that. So, you know, I think that there's work being done all over to bring awareness of that and where there are potential, you know, there's other diseases, I think those are getting spread regardless. And it's-- not all the responsibility, if any, can be put on the buffalo. So, I think it's perception. I always ask the question, why are moose and elk allowed to be wild and buffalo are not?

DM: There's also a ton of, you're talking about science. There's a ton of work going on amongst the tribes moving buffalo around in trucks and things like that to try to diversify the gene pool because it was so small. That's also really complicated.

TASHA HUBBARD: Yeah, I think we just have to realize that it's necessary for them to keep existing and we have created a, you know, there is-- a situation that's been created that they can't move in the way they did, so they need assistance. And that's what, you know, a lot of us are doing is like, first of all, wherever possible, let's create larger scale land for them to be on. And when that's not possible, like let's bring in different animals so that they can mix. And that's what's so beautiful about the Wolak̇ota Project. They have created space and they're bringing in different genetics, and then the buffalo can decide. We're not managing them so much all the time. They've been managed and controlled. And that's something the film goes into is, Yes, there's maybe some things that are necessary, but we also are over managing at times. And so, how do we have it so that they're able to be wild and make their own decisions?

DM: And there's a point made in the film that they took care of us for a really long time. It's time for us to take care of them. I wonder for you, Tasha, I mean, you mentioned at the beginning, you're a 60s Scoop kid and grew up somewhat disconnected from your culture. What's it been like for you going and learning more about the buffalo and connecting with them?

TASHA HUBBARD: Yeah, you know, that's-- they definitely provide a path. And I think it's not even just for me as an individual. I think that they're there and that path is there for anyone. And you know, whether it's coming to culture for the first time, whether it's deepening what's there already, they definitely bring that sense. And, you know, people tell me about their herds. And when they bring a herd to their nation for the first time that people come and tell the leadership, the herd helped me. I was having a really hard time and I went and sat with them and they helped me. And, you know, that's it. There is still that bond that we have. But we need them to be there, you know, to continue that and to strengthen that.

DM: Tasha, it's a gorgeous film. Thank you so much for sharing it with us, and thanks for taking time.

TASHA HUBBARD: Alright. Wonderful. Thank you, Duncan.

DM: Tasha Hubbard is a Cree filmmaker and associate professor of Native studies at the University of Alberta. Her film Singing Back the Buffalo opens today in some theatres across Canada. And that's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. We'll leave you with the song featured at the end of Singing Back the Buffalo. This is Life Givers by Young Scouts. They're a Cree musical group from Saskatchewan who received a 2024 Juno Award nomination for Traditional Indigenous Artist of the Year. I'm Duncan McCue, sitting in for Matt Galloway. Matt's back on Monday. I hope you have a great weekend. Chi-miigwech. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Music: 'Life Givers' by Young Scouts]

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Friday September 13, 2024 Full Transcript

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