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The Current Transcript for December 16, 2024

Host: Matt Galloway

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: But they're saying all the right things. We have to see whether they'll do the right things.

MATT GALLOWAY: A week after the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad suddenly fell, forcing the dictator to flee to Russia, the world is trying to figure out who the group now in charge is and how to engage with them. HTS has been branded a terror organization by many nations, although the United States this weekend announced direct communications with them. In 30 minutes, one of the few journalists to interview the rebel leader on whether the group has actually moderated its views and whether revoking sanctions on Syria would give the war-ravaged country a new lease on life. Also this morning, solar eclipses are moving spiritual events for many people. They're also a great opportunity for researchers to study the sun. The problem is that a total eclipse only lasts for a few minutes. Coming up, eclipse on demand. Why scientists are launching spacecraft to artificially block the sun to get a closer look. What could possibly go wrong? Plus...

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LAURA WHALEY: I hope you're enjoying your break for me as much as I'm enjoying mine from you. Until Thursday. Just pretend I don't exist. Feel free to reach out to literally anybody else.

MATT GALLOWAY: Why just giving the dates of your holiday apparently isn't enough anymore. In an hour, bringing creativity: An appointed message about work-life balance to the out-of-office e-mail reply. But with calls increasing for a crackdown on the border, we begin by asking just how much fentanyl is actually crossing from Canada into the United States. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Fentanyl flow across the Canada-U.S. border

Guests: Venda Felbab-Brown, Christian Leuprecht

MG: In the last two weeks, Canada has been trying to get a plan together to deal with the threat of tariffs from the United States. President-elect Donald Trump says he will impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canada and Mexico if the two countries don't do more to curb illegal migrants and fentanyl trafficking.

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DONALD TRUMP: Canada and in particular, Mexico. We have millions of people pouring into our country. I spoke with Justin Trudeau. I said you have to close up your borders because they're coming in the northern border, too, a lot. And drugs are pouring in. Almost as importantly, drugs are pouring in. Maybe more importantly, we can't have open borders. And I said to the president of Mexico and to Justin Trudeau, if it doesn't stop, I'm going to put tariffs on your country.

MG: The federal and provincial governments have been announcing plans for changes to border security. Alberta, for example, will be investing $29 million to create an interdiction patrol team with uniformed officers, patrol dogs, surveillance drones and narcotics analyzers. The questions remain, though, around how much fentanyl is actually making its way across our border into the United States. Venda Felbab-Brown is director of the fentanyl epidemic in North America and the Global Reach of Synthetic Opioids project at the Brookings Institution. She's also a senior fellow in policy, foreign policy there. Venda, good morning to you.

VENDA FELBAB-BROWN: Good morning.

MG: How much fentanyl is actually coming from Canada into the United States?

VENDA FELBAB-BROWN: Well, as of now, very little. At least that's the case if seizures are an indication of fentanyl flows, and that is a good reason to believe that seizures are a reasonable indication. The vast amount of fentanyl, 99 per cent of fentanyl comes to the United States from Mexico, from across the U.S. southern border, and it's smuggled by Mexican criminal groups. It's really very small amounts of fentanyl that have been interdicted at the U.S.-Canada border. And that is not surprising because the both the production and the smuggling of fentanyl in the U.S. and in Canada are very different.

MG: So if that's the case, I mean, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officials have said that the amount coming from Canada is small amounts largely for personal use, mostly by post. If that's the case, why is Donald Trump saying this is a big issue?

VENDA FELBAB-BROWN: Well, for President-elect Trump, borders and closing down borders are what he calls closing down borders. What he really means is closing down the flow of illegal contraband across the borders is a core ideological and policy and political message. He stands on firmer ground to, with his calls about the numbers of undocumented migrants coming from Canada to the United States. It's still a small percentage of the numbers of migrants coming across the southern border. But that is, I think, more of a basis of highlighting that is an issue, that has very little basis other than politics, talking about fentanyl. In fact, Canada could be complaining that a lot of methamphetamine is coming to Canada from the United States, smuggled once again by Mexican cartels.

MG: Tell us more about this. I mean, it's not just Donald Trump. One of his close allies who led his fentanyl project in his first administration says that Canada is downplaying its role, but has also pointed the finger at Canada when it comes to money laundering. How does Canada fit into that, that global fentanyl market? And what, what role would money laundering, which has been the subject of great discussion in this country, what role would that play?

VENDA FELBAB-BROWN: Well, Canada is a place where there is a lot of organized crime, very powerful organized crime that needs to be tackled. There are certainly important Chinese and Asian criminal groups that are involved in money laundering. But beyond money laundering, incidentally, we have growth of Chinese criminal groups and their money laundering operations growing in the United States. There is certainly smuggling through Canada. It's an important vector of precursor chemicals being brought into North America. But it's also an important vector of smuggling methamphetamine out to Australia and New Zealand. This is once again Mexican meth smuggled there by Mexican criminal groups. And of course, we have seen the growth of Mexican criminal groups in Canada, as well as nexus between the criminal organizations and hostile powers or powers that the United States is seeking as partners but are deploying. Fix. I'm talking here, of course, about India and the Indian government, Indian espionage agencies recruiting criminal groups in Canada to assassinate their political critics. So, there is a lot of crime happening in Canada. There's a lot of crime happening in the United States, and it needs to be tackled. And I think it's absolutely appropriate for Canada's own reason to focus on those issues and to seek collaborative relations with to act against these dangerous criminal groups. But fentanyl coming from Canada to the U.S. is not the problem.

MG: Can I go back to something that you said earlier, which is around the precursor chemicals that are used to make fentanyl? Why are they coming into this country in in such numbers?

VENDA FELBAB-BROWN: Well, they are coming to Canada for the production of fentanyl that takes place in Canada. So that is, of course, reeling from a fentanyl crisis.

MG: So, so the fentanyl that would be created from those chemicals is staying here in some ways.

VENDA FELBAB-BROWN: Absolutely. [MG: Okay.] Yeah.

MG: And those, the labs, people have called them fentanyl super labs in this country. Those labs are being used to make fentanyl that would be sold and consumed here, not exported elsewhere?

VENDA FELBAB-BROWN: Yes. So, we have had no indication that the fentanyl produced there is being exported out. But over time, that could happen. And, you know, one way to think about President-elect Trump's comments is that if there were some declines in the movement of drugs across the southern border, where would they move? There is a possibility they could move to Canada. So preventively, preventively, taking action is always good policy. But currently, the fentanyl that's produced in Canada is staying in Canada. There is no indication that in any systematic, robust way it's coming to the U.S. It's very small amount. Eventually, it could potentially be exported abroad, but we haven't seen that, either. The drug markets, fentanyl, and synthetic opioid markets that are emerging in Europe, whether in fentanyl-type drugs or [inaudible] are coming there from India and China directly. And the fentanyl markets that are emerging in the southern Cone come from fentanyl that's diverted from medical sector in the Southern Cone. So, so far, no indication of exports of fentanyl out of Canada anywhere.

MG: What does it tell you that Canada is being lumped in with Mexico if what you're saying is true?

VENDA FELBAB-BROWN: Well, I think this is part and parcel again of President-elect Trump's view of foreign policy and domestic policy that he sees very intertwined and that centre on a much more inward isolationist look of the country. He, North America will be the predominant focus of his foreign policy, perhaps along with China. And his answer to the many problems of U.S. policies. There is, his answer to the various issues that the United States is struggling with is shut down migration, shut down the border. And I think this is also preparation for the review of USMCA that is coming during his administration. I think some hoped that because USMCA was [inaudible] under him, that he would embrace that as his policy accomplishment. But it is a substantial possibility that he will want to undo, revise USMCA. And these fentanyl threats, apart from the politics they service, are also, I think, a preview of what will happen with USMCA.

MG: Just finally, before I let you go. Under that umbrella, we've, we talked about this last week on our program, and there's a long conversation in this country about the relationship between Canada and the United States. The world's longest undefended border is the phrase that is often thrown around. Do you think that we should expect and prepare for that dynamic and that relationship to change in the near future?

VENDA FELBAB-BROWN: Well, certainly President-elect Trump wants the border no longer to be undefended. His whole pitch is that there needs to be sort of tighter controls, and much less flow of certainly people. But there is some justification for, of, of illegal flows of people. So, flows of people who are crossing from Canada to the U.S. without authorization. But yes, if the whole thrust is that the border should no longer be undefended, and I expect that the relationship will be complicated, as will be the relationship with Mexico and with other countries. It's, it's here in North America where he wants to focus this policy. And when he is gunning for radical changes to policies.

MG: Complicated is one word for it. Venda, good to have you here. Thank you very much.

VENDA FELBAB-BROWN: My pleasure.

MG: Venda Felbab-Brown is director of the Fentanyl Epidemic in North America and the Global Reach of Synthetic Opioids project at the Brookings Institution. She's also a senior fellow in foreign policy there.

MG: The federal government says it's been working with premiers to come up with a plan to increase security at the border. Those premiers are meeting today just outside of Toronto. Christian Leuprecht is a professor at Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University and co-editor of the book "Dirty Money: Financial Crime in Canada." Christian, good morning to you.

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Good morning.

MG: Venda says that fentanyl trafficking is not much of a concern coming out of this country as Donald Trump might believe. Those sentiments are backed up by statements from Canadian border officials who testified on Friday, saying that Canada is not a significant source of fentanyl into the United States. What is your assessment of that?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Yeah. So look, it goes back to the late 19th century, that sort of, there's a perception in the United States that all bad things that happen in the United States come from outside. And so if you shut the U.S. off from the rest of the world, then you could keep the United States "pure" in quotation marks. But certainly there is a significant production problem, as Venda pointed out, within Canada, and there is in part an overproduction problem by both Chinese triads as well as the Sinaloa cartel. And some of that overproduction is finding its way to the United States. Some of it is finding its way to Australia and some of it to Europe. We know this from the evidence of seizures. It is probably not as big as President Trump's makes it out to be, but is a systemic and systematic problem. And one of the questions we need to ask ourselves is why is it that in this country we have not been able to stop it? Our deal going back with the United States goes back to 1938, and the Kingston dispensation is that neither country would become a strategic liability or threat to the other country. And certainly, there is a perception on a number of fronts, whether it's fentanyl, whether it's migration or whether it's organized crime or financial crime, that this country is not holding up its part of that bargain.

MG: That's the perception. But the facts from Venda and others suggest that that's not the case. So, what do you make of how Canada's premiers, as I mentioned, they're meeting today to try to figure out what to do in the face of this tariff threat. What do you make of how they're responding to this?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: So clearly, this is negotiation, right? So, both sides have to have something on offer. But I think there is a balance to be struck in terms of, yes, that this is ultimately a trade issue. But we cannot detract from this problem, from the fact that this country has a significant challenge with financial crime, with organized crime, with the importation of precursor chemicals for the production of fentanyl and for other drugs with the implantation of Mexican cartels in Canada, both before the pandemic, in part due to the change in visa policy by the federal government and subsequently, in part due to the pandemic when it was easier to produce fentanyl and other drugs in Canada and bring them to the rest of the world than to bring them in from Mexico. And at that, we have not been able to pay sufficient attention and we have not been able to devote the intelligence or the enforcement resources either to the actual production or to disincentivizing the laundering of money both in and through this country by organized crime, both in and around the world.

MG: Tell me more about that. I mean, this has been the subject, as I said earlier, of great discussion and hand-wringing, why it is that so much money is laundered in this country. This is the, you looked at this in this book, "Dirty Money, the Financial Crime in Canada." Why is Canada a hub, if I can put it that way, for laundering drug money?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Well, so let me provide an analogy for you. So, if you're living in a town wherever in Canada and you have a problem with particular types of crime, you might have police patrols that you step up in those neighbourhoods. You respond to calls when calls come from that neighborhood. And you might also put in place some proactive and preventative measures. We have none of those when it comes to financial crime in this country. A significant portion of our legislation has not been able to keep up either with the globalization of global trade environment or with virtual assets and in virtual currencies. Since the Integrated Proceeds of Crime team in the late 1990s, the RCMP has not had had an integrated capacity to enforce. CBSA finally got some powers in the last budget when it came to trade-based money laundering. The Federal Government itself has acknowledged that in Budget 2019, it made a significant announcement that it was significant, the overhaul the infrastructure when it comes to financial and economic crime in this country. We are still waiting for that overhaul. In Budget 2021, the Government announced the financial crime co-ordination capacity, but we're still waiting for the Federal Government to ultimately make plans for what that looks like. So, there's lots of evidence going back to the Cullen Commission that this is a significant problem and that the Government has for a number of reasons, not acted on it.

MG: Do we just not take it seriously? I mean, what are those reasons? If it's that big of a deal and everybody's paying attention to it, people know this is happening, why isn't the government acting?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Well, for one thing, there's no votes in it, right? So for another thing, it's very complicated and it's complex. So, trying to explain this to politicians and to Canadians, it's much easier to have a conversation about fentanyl, for instance, on our streets and about cost of living than to explain to Canadians that a significant portion of that fentanyl crisis and for instance, a portion of their cost of living, in particular their housing costs, is driven by organized crime, by organized crime in this country. And look, there hasn't been. And if the government would act on the Financial Action Task Force recommendations that are going to come with the country evaluation in 2025, the last evaluation did not go particularly well for Canada. The more that, the tighter the rules are, the less competitive the Canadian economy. We already know the Canadian economy is struggling somewhat, so the federal government is reticent to impose further restrictions that might further impede the performance of the Canadian economy.

MG: You know, it's not complicated as that story that came out of the United States not so long ago about TD Bank, which had to plead guilty to money laundering. U.S. officials say that drug traffickers would arrive in cars with bags full of cash, bribing employees to launder, what, up to $670 million proceeds made from sending, selling fentanyl. How much are Canadian banks being exploited by those criminal networks that, that you and Venda talked about that are connected to the fentanyl world?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: I mean, it sounds very similar to the way B.C. casinos were being exploited. And the issue that ultimately launched the Cullen Commission on Money Laundering in British Columbia. Anybody in the audience who wants to read up on money laundering in this country just needs to go to the commission's 1,800-page excellent report. Now, when it comes to TD bank, of course, look, if you're a Mexican cartel and you're operating in both Canada and the United States, you're going to pick a bank where you can conveniently move your money between both countries. TD Bank's slogan was, of course, "America's most convenient bank" and the Attorney General, anybody, any of the listeners can look up his statement on C-Span, basically raked TD Bank over the coals for being an aggressive enabler of various organized criminal activities in the United States. And you can also see that there might be some frustration by U.S. authorities as to why is it that they have to enforce against a Canadian bank and why in Canada we've taken the rather extraordinary measure of taking putting regulatory capacities, the intelligence and compliance capacities and the enforcement capacities into three separate agencies. In Australia, they've put them into one single agency, and that's clearly getting them much better results. You can see this in the value of the fines that have been imposed and certainly criminal. TD Bank becoming only the second bank in American history to be charged for criminal conspiracy, as well as having an asset cap imposed, which [inaudible] significant impediment to TD Bank's growth. The number 24 bank in the world, the number two bank in Canada in terms of market capitalization, is not just a problem for our TD Bank and for the United States. It's a big problem for Canada because we need global banks to be globally competitive.

MG: So just before I let you go, we're just about out of time. What do you want to see from the government in addressing the financial side of the fentanyl trade? The evidence shows that huge amounts of fentanyl are not crossing from this country into the United States. But to your point, something is going on here in this country. So, what do we do about it?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: We need effective intelligence capacity, we need an effective capacity coordinate between the public sector and private sector on intelligence sharing. And we need an integrated enforcement capacity. We know that this can be done. The RCMP did do it in the late 1990s. There's willingness across all the agencies. We see that we're getting piecemeal changes, for instance, when it comes to CBSA. But ultimately it requires, like everything else in this country, a political cover and a clear message from government that this is where we need to concentrate our efforts and our resources.

MG: In a roundabout way, do you think Donald Trump, even if the facts don't stack up, will he get leaders here to pay more attention to this issue because he's threatening these tariffs?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Well, certainly Donald Trump is doing what Canadians have always fretted, which is to tie trade to national security, to the border and to defense spending. And certainly the government will need to respond to those expectations, I think, if it wants Donald Trump to step back. But we have an opportunity to negotiate our way out of this. We did it with NAFTA and USMCA during the first Trump administration. If we do the right thing, I think we can negotiate our way out of it again.

MG: Christian, thank you.

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: My pleasure. Thank you.

MG: Christian Leuprecht is a professor at Royal Military College of Canada and Queen's University, and co-editor of "Dirty Money: Financial Crime in Canada." Your CBC News is coming up next. And then, what to expect from the new leaders of Syria.

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MOHAMMED YASSER GHAZAL: There's no such thing as an Islamic government. We're Muslims and we're, it's a civil institutions [Music: Theme fading in] or ministries.

MG: That's their message. How closely does that track with past actions? How far should the West go in lifting sanctions on Syria? And if those sanctions were lifted, what would that mean for a country that has been through so much over so many years? We'll talk about that coming up in six minutes with a journalist who spent a good deal of time with the man who is now ostensibly leading the rebels in Syria. That's coming up. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

Who are Syrian rebels HTS

Guests: Martin Smith, Delaney Simon, Karin Marley

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

[Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani speaking on PA system]

MG: That's the new leader of Syria speaking last week at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. He's dressed in green fatigues and proclaiming a victory for the entire Islamic community, and a new history for the Syrian people. The question on everyone's mind now is what that new history will look like. Martin Smith was the first Western journalist to interview the new Syrian leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, in depth. His 2021 documentary for PBS's Frontline, called "The Jihadist," gives a window into this man and what approach he might take in Syria. Martin joins us now. Martin, Hello.

MARTIN SMITH: Thank you, Matt.

MG: It's a fascinating film. When you met Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani in 2021, what was your initial impression of him?

MARTIN SMITH: So, I was taken to a building that was somewhat abandoned on the outskirts of Idlib city. I was ushered into a room by armed guards wearing a black ski mask. So, it was all kind of almost a cliche of, you know, when you go to meet a terrorist. I sat down, he walked in. He is tall, fit and serious. And we proceeded to have several hours of conversation. This was before we set up cameras. This was a preliminary interview, but he was quite open. I told him that I wanted to do an interview that would be spontaneous. I wasn't going to submit questions, and I didn't want anything to be off-limits. He was open to all of that and spoke rather candidly, I thought. And a few days later, we were whisked off to a location outside of Idlib city and proceeded to do a long interview.

MG: Why do you think he wanted to talk to you?

MARTIN SMITH: It was clear he had spoken, I think, to the International Crisis Group briefly. He, he was indicating that he wanted to get a message out that he was not an ISIS or Al-Qaeda figure anymore, that he was somehow rebranding himself. He had broken with those organizations a few years earlier. And so, I was able, through intermediaries, to arrange to meet him and do an interview. I knew it would be controversial because except for Bin Laden, I don't think any leader of, of any of these groups has ever spoken to a journalist.

MG: You mentioned that in addition to, you know, that initial conversation and we see this in the film, you were taken to see the territory that his group, HTS, controlled. What did you observe? They call this the Salvation government. What did you observe about how, how that government ruled?

MARTIN SMITH: Yeah, well, first of all, you have to understand that they were under siege. There were Russian drones overhead. We could hear them. They were attacking the perimeter. And there were also cells of Al-Qaeda and ISIS operating. And he was busy subduing them or arresting or killing them where necessary. But so under those conditions, the Salvation government is what he calls it, was operating fairly successfully. And we were taken to schools, to a hospital. We saw the trash getting picked up, and things were more or less working. And we talked to a number of officials of the Salvation government. He positions himself correctly as a military figure, and the running of things was done by technocrats, bureaucrats that had fled from Assad's Syria to come up and help him run things.

MG: What did that tell you? And what does it tell you now about how he might approach running the entire country?

MARTIN SMITH: Well, you know, he's saying a lot of things that are encouraging, that he's going to be tolerant of minorities. He's going to, he, he believes in Sharia law, but he's not coercive as ISIS was in Iraq and northern Syria. He, he seems to be positioning himself to be a leader of all Syrians, whether those are Christians or Druze or Kurds or Alawites, the clan from which Assad's family comes from. So, we don't know. You know, it's one thing to say, but it's another to act.

MG: When you say not coercive, do you mean like not chopping people's hands off if they're thieves?

MARTIN SMITH: Yeah, exactly. But that doesn't mean that he, he couldn't be harsh. And we did focus on some of the reliable claims of human rights abuses that were taking place in his prisons. I mean, under Sharia law, there was no court system. It's not a democracy. So, we focused on cases where people had come up against him as critics and how they suffered, including one man who was executed for criticizing Jawlani's government.

MG: I mean, this matters in part because, as I said, people are trying to figure out how this government may operate, and how the world should engage with them. The new de facto governor of Damascus, Mohammad Yasser Ghazal, gave an interview with Reuters in English. Have a listen to a little bit of what he said about how HTS plans to govern.

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MOHAMMED YASSER GHAZAL: There's no such thing as an Islamic government. We are Muslims and we're, it's a civil yet, it's a, it's a civil situations or ministries. We don't have any problem with any ethnicity or religion.

MG: You used the word rebranding earlier. I've heard that thrown around a couple of times over the course of the last few days that he has undergone some sort of strategic rebranding. You initially said it was like going to meet a terrorist, but now he is trying to distance himself from that. What do you make of that?

MARTIN SMITH: Well, I came away feeling that he was sincere. I'll say that he was showing me what he wanted me to see and he was telling me what, you know, he wanted me to hear. I mean, I was there for about eight days in Idlib. I did ask him to take me around, and we went to places and I said, "Can we go into that marketplace?" and "Can you get out of the car and can we go in and talk to people?" He, he was willing to do that, although wherever we went, he was very nervous. He was worried about an assassin from Hezbollah or, you know, a drone attack or a disgruntled citizen. I mean, he, we would never stay in any one place very long.

MG: I guess to some people, it's just difficult to square that rebranding with, as you said, the history of the organization and its leader, the fact that he was a commander in the Islamic State, that, that this group is an al-Qaeda affiliate. How should, how should we interpret that? Should, should we believe that somebody can change, you know, the lion can change their spots?

MARTIN SMITH: Yeah. I think the lion can change its spots. In this case, I mean, if you look at his history, it's a very interesting, you follow a very interesting trail. As a young man, he went to Iraq in order to fight the Americans after the invasion. A lot of young men in the region did that. And as he said to me on camera after 9/11, most he said it, most young men were pleased that that had happened to the United States. So he, he took up arms and he then ended up in an American prison camp. It was something, as it turned out, to be a jihadi university, because they were all sitting there and talking and planning. During that time, he wrote a 50-page paper that outlined how he saw his native Syria and how important it was to him perhaps to fight Assad, not the Americans. And after he got out, he went to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS, and showed him his paper and asked for money to go into Syria and form a, a branch of Al-Qaeda called the Nusra Front. And that's what he did. He got about $60,000 and more and went down there and started an army. He came across the border from Iraq with only six men, but soon, he was building up an army. But I think that that history indicates that he was serious early on about fighting Assad, and not about fighting the Americans, and that he didn't see his role as al-Qaeda did in fighting a job, a global jihad. So he, it's, what he's going through or what he's appearing as now is consistent with that trail, that history.

MG: Just before I let you go, I mean, you mentioned the Americans. Anthony Blinken confirmed that the United States has made direct contact with HTS. How open do you think Western powers are to changing their relationship with, with Jawlani and perhaps lifting sanctions as well as the terrorist designation?

MARTIN SMITH: Well, I think it might happen. Back in 2021, the Americans reached out to him. I'm sorry. He reached out to the Americans to have a conversation. The Americans gave him no response. So at that time, they were wary of him. But now him sitting in Damascus, they've changed. But there was a sense from top diplomats that Jawlani was perhaps the least bad option and that the terrorist designation was never acted upon. Americans killed Baghdadi. They killed bin Laden. They didn't make a big effort, even though there was a $10 million price tag on his head to go after him then. So, I think there's a possibility that you may see something. And we know, as Blinken says, that they've reached out.

MG: Martin, really good to talk to you about this. Thank you very much.

MARTIN SMITH: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Martin Smith's documentary for Frontline in 2021 about Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani is called "The Jihadist." You can find it on the PBS website.

MG: So, the big question is, should the international community consider lifting some of the sanctions that have crippled Syria's economy? And what about that designation of HTS as a terrorist organization? Is it time to reconsider that as well? Delaney Simon is a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. Good morning to you.

DELANEY SIMON: Good morning.

MG: You've said that leaving severe sanctions on Syria would be like pulling the rug out from Syria just as it tries to stand. What is the case for removing sanctions on this nation?

DELANEY SIMON: I can't emphasize enough what the effects will be of continued sanctions on Syria. Sanctions on Syria are some of the most extreme and complex in the world. And we, you were speaking before with Martin about the sanctions that are on HTS. HTS is under terrorism sanctions. And that's one layer. And the terrorism sanctions that HTS is under, particularly from the United States, make it very difficult for businesses, for NGOs and for others to engage in areas under HTS's control. That's complicated now because HTS ostensibly controls most of Syria. But beyond the terrorism sanctions, Syria is under this enormous web of overlapping sanctions. You have EU sanctions, Canadian sanctions, U.S. sanctions. You have a state sponsor of terrorism sanction that's been in place since 1979. You have sanctions on Syria's energy sector, on its central bank, on its telecoms. You have controls on exports. So, it's almost impossible to import into Syria any, any major infrastructure equipment or anything else like that. And collectively, this web of sanctions means that there's more or less a full embargo on Syria. And so, what I'm saying is if this transition is going to lead Syria to a peaceful and prosperous future, which we hope that it will, sanctions cannot remain as they are today.

MG: In the face of those sanctions, I mean, we've seen these images of these enormous stockpiles of this narcotic Captagon in Syria. How much of the Assad regime's ability to function relied on that illegal drug money?

DELANEY SIMON: It seems like from reporting quite a bit, it seems like the economy in Syria under Assad became more or less a house of cards like the regime appeared over the last, the last few weeks. When Syria rebuilds and rebuilds its economy, it's going to have to move beyond this fundamentally illicit economy. It's going to have to reinvigorate industry. It's going to have to reinvigorate its banking sector. And this will be really difficult with sanctions in place because sanctions essentially criminalize legal trade with the country. And for trade and the economy of Syria to become legal, the sanctions, the sanctions really do need to be removed.

MG: What about that listing of HTS as a terrorist organization? The reason that that listing is there is because and Martin hinted at this, this is a group that's kidnaped people. It's, it's assassinated people. It set off IEDs. It's let off suicide bombs. Human Rights Watch talked about how they arbitrarily detain people. They tortured people who were in custody. If you lift that designation, do you not reward that group and past actions, but also allow a bunch of money into Syria that could, could legitimize another terrorist regime?

DELANEY SIMON: That's a great point. And you know, Matt, it's not just because of those actions. HTS was linked with Al-Qaeda and ISIS [MG: Yeah] at some stage, even though they've renounces those links. And so, I don't want to suggest that this isn't, that this is a decision that policymakers should come to lightly. It isn't. It's something that's going to have to take an enormous amount of thought from policymakers. But sanctions are meant to be used for leverage. And Western policymakers have an enormous opportunity, and I would argue an opportunity that is, is going to be short-lived to use the sanctions as leverage. So, Western policymakers could say, 'Look, HTS, we will de-list you if you do X, Y and Z.' And now, they have to be careful when they do that because they can't suggest all of these demands, many demands that are unrealistic or impossible for HTS to fulfill. But if they start thinking seriously about what steps HTS could take to get off the list and communicate with HTS about those steps, I think that they do have a good chance, and I understand that HTS would be amenable to making real changes in terms of how they're governing, governing Syria and in terms of how they're, how they're acting vis-a-vis the population there.

MG: Is there, is there an urgency to that?

DELANEY SIMON: Absolutely. We saw in Idlib and I say we and those of us who've been observing Syria for a long time and also those humanitarian community, real challenges bringing aid into Idlib because HTS was under, was controlling the territory. There were enormous delays bringing in humanitarian aid. It was very difficult to stimulate business. I'm really fearful that something similar will happen in all of Syria. You know, we're talking about a country where 70 per cent of the population needs some kind of life-saving support from the humanitarian community. Already, the broader sanctions on Syria make that very difficult. But the terrorism listing is really, I can't emphasize this enough. It's such a major hurdle because the terrorism listing by the Americans is much easier to violate than other sanctions. Violations can be made if you provide training, advice or assistance to a foreign terrorist group. No. So, that's beyond financial support. And also, the penalties for violation are very high. We're talking criminal, criminal penalties and very serious fines. And so, I'm worried that the chilling effect of this particular sanction will be too much for the country to bear.

MG: What is the parallel situation, if there is one, that the world should try to avoid? Is it Afghanistan? Is it Libya? What is that.

DELANEY SIMON: Afghanistan, Afghanistan is a really, a really good case. And I'm, I'm glad that you brought it up. After the Taliban took over the country in 2021, we saw a spiraling economic crisis that was grounded very much in the fact that Afghanistan, Afghanistan's new leaders were under sanctions. But the sanctions that HTS is under are even more stringent than the sanctions that the Taliban was under.

MG: I just wonder whether, I mean, you mentioned the Taliban, whether the world has learned anything from that in saying they're the Taliban, so we're not going to work with them, but they are in control of the country. Whether that makes the situation worse, and whether that is a lesson that the world has taken.

DELANEY SIMON: I think that the world is still not set up well, unfortunately, to take that lesson. And it's, it's not just, it's not just Afghanistan. It's, there are many other cases of instances where sanctions have, have where policymakers have taken a long time to lift sanctions. So, I did some work in Colombia with, with the FARC, who were under the foreign terrorist organization sanction for, for many years. And the FARC signed a peace deal with the Colombian government. The peace deal was blessed by the United States, but the United States still didn't delist the FARC for five years after they signed the peace deal with the Colombian government. And so, these things can take a really long time to lift. They're very complicated to lift. I hope that policymakers are thinking seriously about expediting lifting in the, in the Syrian case, but we don't have a good basis for that, unfortunately, in history.

MG: Because your point is just very briefly, that while the clock runs in those five years, people suffer.

DELANEY SIMON: Yeah. At this early stage of a transition, every step counts. Every step can change the course of history. And so, what I suggest to policymakers in Canada, in Washington, in Brussels, I suggest that they take three steps now. The first is to issue a broad general license that says business and commercial activity is allowed in Syria. The second is to consider how HTS can get off the list and to use leverage to convince HTS to take steps that they want to see so that HTS can get off the list on, on the terms that Western policymakers have set. And then finally, I think it's very important for policymakers to start now defining a roadmap for sanctions relief for all of Syria.

MG: Delaney, it's really good to talk to you about this. Thank you very much.

DELANEY SIMON: Thank you so much.

MG: Delaney Smith is a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. This is The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. My name is Matt Galloway. Over the last decade, Canada has opened its doors to more than 100,000 Syrians fleeing that war. Nearly half of them arrived through some form of private sponsorship, which allows, as you know, private groups to fund and support eligible refugees from Syria and beyond. It is a model that other countries around the world have studied and adopted. But earlier this month, the Canadian government announced that they were stopping the program until at least the end of next year. Last week, I spoke with a refugee who fled persecution in Myanmar. I also spoke with his sponsor and an advocate, somebody who has worked for much of her life to push forward the causes of refugees, but also in particular, the issue of private sponsorship. And we talked about what this will mean for displaced people who had been hoping for a fresh start in Canada. Many of you wrote in with thoughts of your own. Karin Marley, senior producer of The Current, is here to read some of your mail. Karen, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning. So this first letter is from Elizabeth Block in Toronto. She writes, 'I think, I hope that the government will come under such pressure that it won't be able to pause the program forever or at all. A lot of people, probably including the Minister of Immigration, don't remember that when Canada took in Vietnamese boat people, it wasn't a government initiative. It was the people who demanded it. The church and whose choir I was singing at the time sponsored a family. So did many others. The government had some problems with citizens assisting refugees. The late Nancy Pocock was known to Central American refugees as Mama Nancy. Some of them arrived with nothing but her address and phone number. The Trudeau government, Pierre Trudeau, ordered her to stop taking them in. She went right on doing it. She said, I'm an old lady. What are they going to do to me? An old lady who was a member of the Order of Canada. The activist community invented the Giraffe Award to give her for sticking her neck out.'

MG: Vernon Torstensen writes, 'This discussion is of significant importance to most Canadians. What's being missed by the guests is the problem of housing and the cost of housing across Canada. Students and unaffordable high rents as part of the housing challenge for Canadians. To see this reduced to our failed humanitarian sensitivity for immigrants is entirely narrow in scope. The decision is a response to the real internal Canadian humanitarian concerns. Why is that being minimalized? If the private sponsorship program included more support for housing immigrants, that would represent realism.'

KARIN MARLEY: So, this one is from Wiluya Graham in Victoria, B.C., 'My spouse and I were traveling through Manila Airport at the end of July and in the transit lounge during our layover, we met 15 Burundi refugees, including a mother with two children aged three and 10. They've been living in that lounge and sleeping there on cardboard since the middle of June this year. Since meeting them on July 31st, we've been trying to assist them to apply for visas to Canada. They are now being threatened with deportation back to Burundi in violation of Geneva Convention, following inhumane asylum denials. Amnesty International has asked for humanitarian visas for Burundi refugees to no avail. There is a high risk of horrific outcomes of prison disappearance or death for those being threatened with deportation back to a country they are fleeing. Their only hope for their survival is finding refuge.'

MG: Finally, Karen Wilkie writes, 'It's nice that we've been able to invite so many to our country, but we're now saturated. And when I, as a taxpayer who was born and raised here, cannot get proper medical care, a doctor and have waited over a year and a half for basic breast imaging to see my peers in our 60s scrambling from rental to rental to get affordable housing, let's get real. If we cannot take care of our own, why are we inviting others and their families in an overstretched system? Yes, we have an excellent standard of living, but not all of us are in the luxury of that standard, and our own citizens should be taken care of first before inviting the world to share in that. Our stories and backgrounds are just as relevant.' That letter from Karen Wilkie. Thank you for all of your mail on this and thank you to Karin Marley for helping read through some of your comments.

KARIN MARLEY: You're welcome.

MG: Karin Marley is a senior producer with The Current. If there's anything you hear in the program that you want to comment on, do get in touch. The email address: thecurrent@cbc.ca. Coming up after your regional update: The holidays are approaching. Do you need some inspiration for your out-of-office reply?

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Currently, fa la la la lawing. My mom told me to put my phone away and be fully present with my family during the holidays. So, I will not be receiving your email. I got recruited by the elves to go help out in the North Pole since they're understaffed this year. I am off, decking the halls and unable to answer your calls.

MG: [Music: Theme fading in] There's more where that came from. While fun and creativity are creeping into out-of-office replies, and what it says about our relationship between work and the rest of your life. That's coming up when we're back in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

Creative out-of-office messages

Guest: Laura Whaley

MG: Hello again, I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. Not long from now, many of us will be signing off from work for a little bit of rest and relaxation over the holidays, which might mean adding an out-of-office reply to your work e-mail. You know, there was a time when that was a pretty standard affair. 'I'm away from this date to that date. Please contact so and so in my absence.' Well, not anymore.

SOUNDCLIP

KARLIE: I just had an automatic response from meeting requests I sent to the managers from my boss. Please be aware that I'm on leave. I will have a limited motivation to check e-mails and significantly reduced inclination to answer mobile calls during this time, and would suggest that they wait until my return. [Inaudible]

MG: [Inaudible] a TikTok post by an Australian named Karlie. "Out-of-office" TikTok, it turns out, is a pretty active corner of the internet. People are getting more creative, and they seem to be introducing more boundaries to their out-of-office replies. Here is a TikToker named B Hills.

SOUNDCLIP

B HILLS: Welcome to a new series I'm starting on my boss's out-of-office messages. Here's the one I just got for today. 'Oh, Shoot. You need something, and I'm unavailable today. Here's the good news. You have options. Option one. Wait it out. Ask yourself, is this urgent and important? If it isn't, take a beat and give me a chance to respond after I dig myself out of my inbox later this week. You and I will be better off with this expectations that now. Option two: Get help sooner. If you answered yes to the above question, don't wait. I have a team of competent humans who look out for me and one another. They can help you, too, work with [insert names here] incentives here accordingly. If you need help with scheduling, cut straight to my assistant. Option three: If it's an inferno, skip the line. Is everything burning and only a master of existential threats could help? First, flattered you even contacted me. Now get going and contact my supervisor. He is the elusive one you are looking for. Oh my God, she is so great.'

MG: Messages don't always have to be long and involved to be effective. Here are a few more examples courtesy of the Canadian content creator Laura Whaley. Also known as your virtual work bestie on TikTok and Instagram.

SOUNDCLIP

LAURA WHALEY: I hope you're enjoying your break for me as much as I'm enjoying mine from you. [Cashier sound] Until Thursday, just pretend I don't exist. [Cashier sound]. I I'm on leave. Do not bother me again until Monday. [Cashier sound]. Feel free to reach out to literally anybody else. [Cashier sound]. If you need me. Well, that's unfortunate timing. Try one of these people instead.

MG: Laura has a business degree, spent several years in the corporate world, and then found a massive following on social media, taking on workplace issues and helping people think differently about workplace communication, boundaries and self-care. Laura Whaley is in Victoria. Laura, good morning.

LAURA WHALEY: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

MG: Don't bother me again until Monday. That's a pretty blunt message on the out-of-office.

LAURA WHALEY: Yeah, that's definitely a bold way to bring it into your out-of-office message.

MG: I think a lot of people, myself included, I mean, for a long time, my focus was just making sure that I got the dates right and my out-of-office things so they didn't screw things up and have somebody e-mail incorrect in terms of who they might want to talk to. When did you think that an out-of-office message was actually worth something, you know, worth paying attention to and worth the time that you would dedicate to?

LAURA WHALEY: Yeah, I think, you know, there's an opportunity with out-of-office messages to add a little flair, a little personality to it. I remember early on in my career it was very copy and paste, you know, like you said, the dates, you give them the bare minimum information that they need. And now, we're kind of seeing a shift to potentially getting a little more creative, maybe more expectations, setting boundaries, if you will, which, you know, comes at pros and cons, depending on the message itself and how, you know, out there, you kind of want to take it. But it's been interesting to see the, you know, entertaining spin that people have kind of used on their out-of-office or taking that opportunity to do so.

MG: You have many millions of people who follow you on social media. When you floated this idea out, what sort of response did you get from your followers?

LAURA WHALEY: I got thousands. I do it. I do it quite often, too. I kind of toss it out there of, you know, send me any entertaining or iconic or maybe out-of-office messages that made you cringe a little. And then, I get sent thousands of them and they keep, they keep on pouring in. And I don't know if they're getting more creative, but they're definitely getting more entertaining.

MG: Why do you think people are experimenting with something that really, I mean, at its base is really just about a piece of information? 'I'm not here. Here's who to talk to.'

LAURA WHALEY: I think a big driver for it is the expectation setting when it comes to out-of-office messages. That's a big piece of value that I see within them because there's often times in our careers where we receive an out-of-office message from someone. They're not back until Friday, or e-mailing them on a Tuesday. Suddenly, they respond on a Wednesday. And so, there's kind of this expectation that's been said of you're out of office, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're disconnected from work. And so, taking the opportunity to really say I'm out of office until Friday with no access to e-mail, you cannot reach me is more of that expectation. Setting boundaries surrounding out-of-office messages.

MG: Is this really a place for creativity? Do you think?

LAURA WHALEY: You know, I think it's up to the individual to decide what kind of personality they want to have within their professional reputation. And out-of-office Messages are a place where you could display that, you know, personality a little bit if you'd like to.

MG: We're going to hear some specific ones. But broadly, when you think of tone, I mean, some of these when I read that one about, you know, don't contact me again until Monday, some of them are really blunt. Some of them are funny, some have a bit of snark to them. Is there a tone that works best, do you think?

LAURA WHALEY: You know, Tom's an interesting one because it's very dependent on the reader and how they kind of interpret it. And so, what you might interpret as being quite bold, I might interpret a different way. So, it's definitely something you want to keep in mind when you are setting out-of-office messages. You know, how is the receiver going to interpret this? Is it going to come across as rude, or is it rather going to come across as, you know, funny and snarky? When it comes to tone, I think, you know, really pulling to the forefront the helpful information within an out-of-office message. I love when people kind of give you a solution within it to say, well, here's who you can contact versus just saying, 'Nope, can't contact me, I'm out of office, period.' I think that the information you provide adds quite a bit to the tone as well.

MG: 'I am out of the office having way more fun than communicating with you. I will likely forget to e-mail you back' was one out-of-office response that was circulating online. Does that, does that fit the bill?

LAURA WHALEY: Yeah. Not something I would personally go with. It kind of, you know, gives that tone of like, some superiority. Like, I'm doing something, and you're irrelevant. Yeah, I wouldn't be the first one I would go to for an out-of-office message.

MG: Okay. So, I want to play, because you've been rating these. I want to play a few examples and you can tell us what they're doing right. This is you reading these examples and this one we should say, [LAURA WHALEY: Yeah], this got a perfect score.

SOUNDCLIP

LAURA WHALEY: For any urgent matters. Please take a deep breath, because only if you are 10 out of 10.

MG: So, why does that, why does that deserve a perfect score?

LAURA WHALEY: You know, I like that one. I like it because it's a reminder that, you know, in a, in a world or society that, is everything feels urgent these days, especially in a workplace. It kind of stops you in your tracks to say 'Okay, you know, is this actually something that needs to be addressed now or can it, can it remain unaddressed until this person returns?' And so, that one gave me a chuckle. And I, I thought the tone of that one was quite cute.

MG: I mean, it does speak to that issue of urgency, right? We live in this culture where [LAURA WHALEY: Yeah] it's a culture of response in some ways. If I send you something, my expectation is that you're going to get back to me. It doesn't matter where you are or what time it is. The expectation, if I'm sending something, is that you're going to respond.

LAURA WHALEY: Yeah, absolutely. And that e-mail, too. I do remember that one went on to kind of give options as well. If things were urgent or not, it was more helpful than just that blurt there. But I did find that one quite funny.

MG: How should we re-think urgency? Not everything is a five alarm fire?

LAURA WHALEY: Yeah, well, the thing I always come back to is, you know, everything's urgent and nothing's urgent. And really, that's kind of what I lived through by now of, you know, every e-mail can't possibly be urgent. Every work task can't possibly be urgent. Just doing that checking of like, is this actually something that needs to be addressed now, or is my brain trying to convince me that it does because we've come to this norm of everything in life is urgent and needs to be done immediately?

MG: Okay, here's another example.

SOUNDCLIP

LAURA WHALEY: Gone camping. Do I have access to the Internet? Yes. Am I going to use it to respond to your e-mail? No. Be back on Wednesday. Eight out of 10.

MG: Okay. So is it okay to tell people that you're like, you are unreachable, you will not be responding? I understand that you are sending this message, but I'm not going to get back to you?

LAURA WHALEY: Yeah, I think that that one is, you know, it's a strong way to set expectations, especially because we're so digitally, digitally connected these days. And so, letting people know, yeah, I have access to the Internet. So, if they happen to, you know, see something you're posting on socials or something else, it doesn't give them a right to be like, they're still accessible. I'm going to contact them for this work thing.

MG: All right, here's one more.

SOUNDCLIP

LAURA WHALEY: This e-mail is invalid and your email has been discarded. Please try again in 10 days. Eight out of 10.

MG: So, I had a friend. He worked, I can't say too much because my [inaudible], he worked for government and that's in some ways what his out-of-office said, that the e-mail that you have sent, he's away. The e-mail that you have sent has been destroyed. Just get back to him when he returns.

LAURA WHALEY: Yeah, that's a common one you're seeing or talked about, especially online, is this idea of just doing a mass delete when you return after being out of office, and then anything that's important will get followed up on. That's an interesting one because it comes to the topic of returning from vacation or time off from work and how overwhelming it can be to come to an end box full of hundreds, potentially thousands of e-mails and then spending your next 2 to 3 business days just trying to get through them. This is a strategy I've seen encouraged and this is a strategy I've also seen more hesitation on when it comes to out-of-office.

MG: But some people will even start before they are back from holiday. Start getting ahead of the inbox, knowing that this, you know, bulging e-mail inbox is waiting for them when they turn their computer back on Monday.

LAURA WHALEY: Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's very overwhelming, especially if you're trying to navigate all of the meeting invites that you've had. Maybe your first couple of days are just slammed full of meetings. When do you have time to go through the inbox? Are you going to miss any new things that come through?

MG: I mentioned that I mean, out-of-office TikTok is a huge part of the Internet. And one of the things that you see in that corner is talk around generational differences. This is Bonnie Dilber, who is a TikTok or self-described elder millennial, talking about the kinds of messages used to send a decade or so ago.

SOUNDCLIP

BONNIE DILBER: Look at what I say. One, I say slower to respond. I don't say, like, you will not hear from me. I'm just going to be slower to respond. And then, I gave them my cell phone for a quicker response, literally while I was on at these like conferences where you'd be like busy for 12 hours a day and on an actual personal vacation, I was giving people my cell phone in case they needed to get like a hold of me faster. That's wild. I get out-of-offices from Gen Z and it's like,. 'I'm out of office. Like, that's it. I'll be back on December 15th,' or whatever, but I'm really glad to be working in like Gen Z's world now, and benefiting from the shifts in workplace culture that they have brought us.

MG: Do you see a generational difference there?

LAURA WHALEY: I see more of a shift within the culture and not necessarily within generation. I think it's more tied to when you entered the workforce, and kind of the norms that were seen at those times. And now, what we're seeing that culture shift going more to setting these boundaries between work and personal time, not giving out your personal number to be reached, you know, when you're out-of-office. I see it less from a generational perspective, and more so just from a mindset around society, around the workplace and culture, because you can see, you know, the stereotypical Gen Z mindset presenting in different generations, older generations as well. And so, to kind of group it specifically into generations, I try to stay away from and more so the time point of when we entered, the workforce and what the culture was then, and then you kind of shift and move along and adjust as, as things change.

MG: And I mean, just the larger just finally, it's just a larger shift in some ways in terms of our relationship with work and our relationship with jobs, that if you are on holiday or you're on vacation or you're out of the office, that it's okay now to say that you're not working?

LAURA WHALEY: Absolutely. And when you see that, especially from, you know, managers and people within higher roles within a company, you see them being okay to disconnect fully when they're on vacation. It kind of gives you, it makes you feel a lot more safe in doing that. It kind of allows or helps build towards the culture of 'It is okay to do that. You don't need to be connected 24/7.' And when you see other people doing that within the workplace, it encourages you to also follow suit.

MG: If I e-mail you over the holidays, what will I get back?

LAURA WHALEY: Oh gosh, I haven't. You know, I've been going through some out-of-office holiday version inspiration, so I haven't quite landed on one yet, but I'll talk to you in the new year, basically. I'll get back to you when I get back to you.

MG: Laura, thank you very much.

LAURA WHALEY: Thank you for having me.

MG: Laura Whaley is a Canadian content creator who posts on Instagram and TikTok as your virtual work bestie. She was in Victoria. What are your plans for the out-of-office message this holiday season? Have you changed your approach or are you bringing some creativity to this? That idea of 'Don't get back to me until 2025,' is that appealing to you? Can you say that in your office? And what does this say? I mean, this is about actually disconnecting, as we were saying, people will put the out-of-office on, but they might still have to look at the e-mail. What does it say about the relationship between work and the rest of your life? If you have inspiration for a good out-of-office reply, you can email us: thecurrent@cbc.ca. Here's a bit more inspiration from Laura Whaley's out-of-office messages. The Holiday edition.

SOUNDCLIP

LAURA WHALEY: Ho-ho-Hold that thought until January 2nd. Buddy the Elf. What's your favorite colour? Just kidding. I'm out of office, but here's a Christmas playlist for you to enjoy until I return. Santa doesn't deliver e-mails over the holidays, so I will not receive your message until I am back. You'll have to jingle your own bells until next year as I am out of office for the holidays away, and wishing you a tremendous holiday and start to 2025. All e-mails receive from now until the. December 31st will remain in 2024. If your e-mail is important, please follow up Next year.

[Jingle playing]

And artificial eclipses

Guest: Lisa Grossmann

MG: This is The Current. My name's Matt Galloway. A solar eclipse is a stunning and rare phenomenon. Total solar eclipse. Even more rare if you've seen one. And we were lucky enough to see them in many places across this country not so long ago, there's a real feeling of awe and wonder that you kind of experience as the sun begins to disappear. For scientists, an eclipse is a great opportunity to learn more about the sun. And now, those scientists will be able to see those eclipses on demand. The European Space Agency has launched a mission called Proba-3 to create artificial solar eclipses. Lisa Grossmann is an astronomy reporter for Science News. Lisa, Hello.

LISA GROSSMANN: Hello. Thanks for having me.

MG: Why do scientists want to create an artificial solar eclipse?

LISA GROSSMANN: Well, solar, a total solar eclipse is one of the only times that you can observe a certain part of the sun called the lower, the inner corona. The corona is the sun's diffuse outer atmosphere. And if you've seen pictures of the solar eclipse or there's this big, wispy or peaky kind of arms waving off of the sun, it's kind of like a cartoon of the sun where you draw the little spikes around it [MG: Yeah], but you can only see that when the bright disk of the sun is blocked. And from the earth, you can only see that during a total solar eclipse when the moon is in front of the sun. So, what these satellites are doing with this spacecraft mission that ESA just launched is doing is having two satellites in space that will create eclipses for each other.

MG: Explain how this is going to work. I've heard it referred to as eclipse on demand.

LISA GROSSMANN: Yeah. So, one, one spacecraft will be the one that has like the camera that's taking observations of the sun and then the other one will move in front of it and they're going to fly in really precision formation. So, and this is new, too. This is kind of a technology demonstration, part of the mission where they're going to show how they can fly in really, really lined up perfectly with each other so that the second spacecraft blocks the sun, but only the bright disk of the sun, not more of it. And this is different from how other spacecraft that have looked at the sun do it because other spacecraft have used kind of internal disks that block more of the sun than just the brightest, because there are some funny optics effects that happen at the edge of the, of the disk. If it's too close to your camera and the moon is really a perfect disk for this because it's so far away, it casts a very sharp shadow. And so, these two spacecraft are going to be far enough away from each other that they can cast a sharp shadow, too. And it'll bring this rare, rarely seen part of the sun into, into view whenever scientists want, basically.

MG: This actually sounds sort of something out of a James Bond movie.

LISA GROSSMANN: It kind of does.

MG: How long will those eclipses on demand last?

LISA GROSSMANN: The last. Each one will last six hours. And a total eclipse from Earth lasts only a couple of minutes. The one that we just had in, in April was, I think 4.5 minutes at the longest point. And that's pretty good. And eclipses on earth only happen once or twice a year. And you have to make sure that you're in exactly the right spot, and that you don't have any bad weather. Like, it's very rare and unusual and special to see a solar eclipse from Earth, but you only get a little snapshot of it. So, with six hour eclipses every day for the next, the mission's gonna last for two years. So, they're going to get a thousand eclipses or more for six hours each. So, we'll be able to see how this part of the sun changes over time.

MG: We down here on Earth will not see six hour solar eclipses, right?

LISA GROSSMANN: Unfortunately, no, no. It kind of sounds like that, doesn't it? Eclipse on demand, that you can just like move the moon right into place, but that's not how it works.

MG: What could, what could possibly go wrong with that, right? What is it that the scientists will learn from, from this part of the sun's corona by being able to do this on demand?

LISA GROSSMANN: Yeah, there are a couple of things that a couple of like big mysteries about the sun that scientists think can really have the, have their answers in this part of the Corona. One of them is that the Corona is like a million degrees hotter than the surface of the sun, which is weird because usually when you move further away from a heat source, it gets colder. But on the sun, there's like, you know, the great big burning star part. And then, as you move further away from it, it gets hotter. And so, what is going on there? And we have some ideas, but we think that all of the good stuff is actually cooking in this part of the Corona that we can almost never see. So, hopefully we'll get some insight into that. Another thing is that the this part of the Corona where the, you know, the surface of the sun kind of transitions into the environment of the solar system. The sun can send out big bursts of energy. You may have seen or heard of these solar flares or coronal mass ejections. And those can affect Earth. This can affect satellites and other, like, electronics on Earth. They also are what's responsible for, for auroras, for like the solar storms and the northern lights. And we saw some beautiful ones earlier this year, too. So, it would be really nice to be able to predict when those are coming with more precision than we have now. And scientists think that the inner corona is where those are launched also.

MG: That's one practical way that this will help us here on Earth. And it doesn't, you know, put us at the center of the universe. But are there other things that we might learn from this kind of science that would help us specifically practical here?

LISA GROSSMANN: That would help us specifically practically here. [MG: Yeah.] Being able to predict these solar storms and, and then be able to prepare for them in advance, I think is the most useful thing here on Earth. And other than that, I think the thing that excites me is just the, you know, mysteries of the universe, just knowing how it works.

MG: Do we know when the first eclipse is going to be? The first artificial eclipse?

LISA GROSSMANN: Yeah. The, the spacecraft launched on December 5th and they're getting ready and doing their commissioning stuff now. And the first one should be in early 2025.

MG: It's kind of amazing that, you've hinted at this, but the precision such that they are able to these, these spacecraft be in formation to be able to block this at precisely the right way is kind of remarkable.

LISA GROSSMANN: Yeah, it's really cool. It has not really been done before in this way. And to hold that formation for six hours at a time is really going to be amazing, too. And then if it works, and this could be used for future spacecraft also, that could fly in formation and do other interesting things in space.

MG: You mentioned what happened in April where so many of us were able to see a total solar eclipse, and we were standing out on the street in front of the house and it was cloudy and all the neighbours are there. And we had the glasses on, and we're staring up at the sky. And then, suddenly the clouds part and everything got dark, but everything also got quiet except for the people who are going [gasp] 'Look at that.' [LISA GROSSMANN: Yeah.] What did, what do you make of that? I mean, this is what you cover, but there's also you have to feel it, too, right?

LISA GROSSMANN: Absolutely. No, it's astonishing. I saw my first total eclipse in 2017. I was in Wyoming for it, and I wrote a bunch of stories ahead of time about, about solar science, about the kind of things I was just talking about with the kernel heating problem and solar storms. And so I was like, 'Okay, I know a lot about the sun. I know a lot about solar physics now. And I think I'm kind of prepared,' and I was not prepared. It was absolutely life-changing. I was just astonished at how incredible it was to see that part of the sun that I had just been learning so much about, which was quite its own, but just the like. Like, I understood why people thought it was, you know, religious or an omen or something in previous time periods. And, it's really...

MG: Why was it life-changing for you?

LISA GROSSMANN: Why was it life-changing for me? I mean, I wanted to see more. I got to see, I got to see the one in 2024. Also, I think I'm like at high risk of becoming one of those people who plans all their vacations around getting into the path of totality again. And it just takes, I think, it's really special. We are the only planet where this happens. There are no other places in the solar system where the moon is exactly the right size to block the sun. So, this is the only place in definitely in the solar system, maybe in the galaxy, maybe in the universe? Like, it's a pretty rare thing to have a moon this size. It happens to be exactly the right size to block out our central star. So, that's really unique in itself. But also, it's not going to be like that forever here. The moon is moving slightly farther away from the Earth every year, like two inches every year. So, eventually it'll be far enough away that it doesn't block the sun anymore. So, we are living in a really lucky place and time, really a unique place in time in the history of the cosmos to be able to see this amazing thing. And that's really cool to think about. I think that's really special.

MG: It speaks to the value of, of what this project is. I mean, I ask about the practical elements, but really it's about what you said, which is kind of wrapping your brain around the mysteries of the universe.

LISA GROSSMANN: That's what excites me. I think it can be both, but yeah, I, I'm here for the awe.

MG: Here for the awe. I love it. Lisa, thank you very much.

LISA GROSSMANN: All right. Thank you.

MG: Lisa Grossman is an astronomy reporter for Science News. That is The Current for this Monday. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. Thinking of the sun and the mysteries of the universe or at the very least awe, here's Bobby Hebb, and a tune called "Sunny." I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

[Music: Sunny by Bobby Hebb]

Monday, December 16, 2024 Full Transcript

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