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The Current Transcript for December 30, 2024

Host: Susan Ormiston

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

ANTHONY HOUSEFATHER: We're in an impossible situation if he stays because he will be the ballot issue. It'll all be a question for voters. Do they want Justin Trudeau to stay prime minister? They’ve clearly come to a conclusion on that.

SUSAN ORMISTON: MP Anthony Housefather is one of some 50 Liberals calling on Justin Trudeau to go, and the other federal parties are promising a non-confidence vote early in the new year. Our national affairs panel is here to reflect on the explosive year that was and the one to come ahead. Also this morning.

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ROBBIE FIRMAGE: We never had a chance to do anything. Like before you knew it, like within five minutes, we were out on the deck. The smoke was there thick. Couldn't even see each other really. We tried to get some life rafts, some suits out.

SO: It was a nightmare scenario that gripped people across Newfoundland and Labrador and the country. Seven fishermen disappeared at sea this summer and the worst was expected. The community had even begun planning for a regional funeral. And then days after they vanished, jubilation. In 30 minutes, the incredible survival story of 52 hours lost at sea. And in an hour, we'll hear about people's desire to find someone who looks just like them. The art, the relationships and the science of doppelgangers. But we begin today with the death of a former president at 100. I'm Susan Ormiston, sitting in for Matt Galloway, and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

CARTER PASSING

Guest: Aaron David Miller

SO: Former President Jimmy Carter was a Georgia peanut farmer who served one term as the US's 39th president. He died yesterday at 100, becoming the longest-lived US president. Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on US foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. He joins us from Washington to talk about the legacy of Jimmy Carter. Hello.

AARON DAVID MILLER: Hello. Thanks for having me.

SO: Thanks for coming on this morning. What word would you use to describe Jimmy Carter's life?

AARON DAVID MILLER: Incredibly selfless, meaningful and purposeful, as was his post-presidency. He showed people, I think at a time when coarseness and polarization in American politics and selfishness seems to have gained a new currency and crashed through existing norms and institutions of civility and decency in politics. Carter's life involves something else. He did what he thought was right at times that was extraordinarily controversial. Would I describe Jimmy Carter as a great president? No. We've had three undeniably great presidents, one a century. Washington in the 18^th, Franklin Roosevelt in the, excuse me, Lincoln in the 19th and Franklin Roosevelt in the 20th. Was he a consequential one term president? Absolutely. And his greatest accomplishment, an accomplishment that no other American president can ever achieve is that he was responsible for brokering an agreement between Israel and the most powerful and largest and most politically resonant Arab state, Egypt.

SO: And that was the Camp David Accords, of course, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

AARON DAVID MILLER: Well, actually, on a technicality, since he was not nominated in time, Begin and Sadat deservedly got that peace prize. Carter's was delayed, and it wasn't conveyed on him until 2002. And it was not just for Camp David. Although the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, they were two different accomplishments, I would have given Carter that prize along with Begin and Sadat.

SO: So he's often described as the best ex-president the US has ever seen, but his administration, his presidency was described by many as not a success. What were his challenges in the one term?

AARON DAVID MILLER: You know, the US presidency in the wake of the two traumas of the 60s and early 70s, Vietnam and Watergate, it plunged the American politics and the presidency itself into a period of instability and crisis. And Carter was a one term president, and we've never had an undeniably great president who only served one term. So I think it was partly his personality. He was not a politician, and I think he had very little patience very often for the sorts of political compromises that American politicians make. He was challenged by Ted Kennedy at that time and stagflation, rising gas prices, and, of course, the Iranian hostage crisis doomed his presidency and opened the door for what would be viewed as the sort of regaining of the optimistic spirit of America with Ronald Reagan's entry into presidential politics.

SO: How do you think President Carter's deep faith defined his post-presidency work?

AARON DAVID MILLER: No, oh, I think faith was critically important. I interviewed Carter for both of my books, one on the Arab-Israeli issue and one on greatness in the presidency. When a man starts a conversation by saying at the age of three, at literally the age of three, because of my Bible study, I was familiar with the Holy Land, you know you're dealing with someone whose faith is a central, preoccupying and driving force of their life, as it was with Jimmy Carter. That faith gave rise to an offputting moralism at times, a capacity to see issues clearly in black and white, when in fact the world as we know it more often delivers in grey. But it became a defining, defining, the defining feature, I think, other than public service and selflessness. And that was also tied to his born again Christianity.

SO: He had some early ideas. We just have about a minute left, but I was intrigued by the fact he put solar panels on the White House in the 1970s and various other things. You spoke about, you know, the difference between Carter's approach and today. What do you think the politicians in the US should remember from his life now in 2025?

AARON DAVID MILLER: I think let me reduce it to one sentence. Jimmy Carter, like most of our presidents, all of them actually, perhaps with one exception, have the natural capacity to turn the M in me upside down so it became a W in we. Carter issued big speaking engagements after the presidency. He didn't look at the office as an ATM machine. He never saw it as a way to enrich or a source of prestige and financial enrichment for his family. That's really the takeaway here. And what we need are presidents who naturally understand that their presidency is tethered to something much bigger than their own personal needs, their financial interests or their vanity. So Jimmy Carter is juxtaposed, it seems to me, at a critical moment in America's political history.

SO: Indeed, qualities to reflect on. Thank you so much.

AARON DAVID MILLER: You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

SO: Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

NATIONAL AFFAIRS PANEL

Guests: Stephanie Levitz, Ryan Tumilty

SO: I'm Susan Ormiston and you're listening to The Current.

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JAGMEET SINGH: Today, I'm calling on Justin Trudeau to resign. He has to go.

PIERRE POILIEVRE: If you hire clowns, you get a circus, but no one should be laughing.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Like most families, sometimes we have fights around the holidays. But of course, like most families, we find our way through it.

SO: It was a pretty wild ride leading up to the Christmas break, with the finance minister resigning on the eve of the fall economic statement, with a chorus of liberals calling for their leader to resign, with the NDP promising a non-confidence motion in the next sitting and conservative supporters anxious to get their new leader on the campaign trail. Joining me now to talk about the year that was in federal politics and what lies ahead is our national affairs panel. Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter with The Globe and Mail's parliamentary bureau, and Ryan Tumilty is a political reporter with the Toronto Star. Thank you both for being here on just about the first day of 2025. Stephanie, you know, 2015, Justin Trudeau was elected. I remember it well. I was in Montreal that night. It was sunny days, he said. He was even lauded as the sexiest world leader alive. And now, well, liberals could be staring down in store defeat. How did we get here?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: How did we get here? I mean, you know, a long narrative, right? A long story about a government that shouldn't remain in power till the fall of 2025 will have hit the ten-year mark, a Liberal government beset by its own internal scandals, driven by the Prime Minister himself, a Liberal government that found itself not because of its own doing, facing down some massive things in the world like the COVID 19 pandemic, and thrown off its own agenda sometimes to do the things that it wanted to do by events beyond its control, and I guess finally, a liberal government that lost control of the narrative, and the world and especially Canadians, the issues that they were facing, the things that were concerning them were no longer being dealt with, I think in the minds of many Canadians, appropriately by this current government. And that's where, you know, this sort of arc of Justin Trudeau begins its downward slope, when they lost that plot.

SO: Ryan, what would you see as the key turning points in that narrative?

RYAN TUMILTY: You know, I think for this government, especially, you know, this year, the loss of Toronto St. Paul's was kind of cataclysmic. You know, we've seen Pierre Poilievre polling much better than the liberals for probably almost two years now. But up until that byelection, it still seemed like the Liberals could turn it around or that this popularity wouldn't actually translate into votes. There were a bunch of byelections where Pierre Poilievre’s lead didn't really show up in the results. But in Toronto St. Paul's, all of a sudden, they were losing very safe Liberal seats, and that has just continued. And I think, you know, that led to doubts about the Prime Minister continuing. Those coming from within, inside his own caucus, those voices have only grown louder and has been, you know, really impossible for them to turn it around. I think they are still hoping, certainly maybe not this week anymore, but up until last month, they were still hoping that an economic turnaround in Canada, inflation coming down, all of those good news economic indicators would improve their political fortunes. But you don't see that happening anymore.

SO: And then we had the bombshell. We're going to get to that in a second. But first, Stephanie, Pierre Poilievre, as Ryan has described, has steadily gained support. He's got a pretty hefty lead over the liberals. What do you think explains his rise and his early success, it appears?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: You can look at it two different ways, right? Is the rise of Pierre Poilievre due to the fact that people are growing increasingly dissatisfied with Justin Trudeau and they're actively looking to park their support somewhere else, they want to vote Mr. Trudeau out of office? And of the leaders of the remaining federal parties, Mr. Poilievre is sort of the natural heir to that voter switch, right, because they're the largest party, because they dominate the airwaves the way they do, because they, you know, they outfundraise every other party infinitesimally and therefore can get their message out to Canadians more and more. And that message is the other part. Mr. Poilievre in his, you know, twoish leaders now, two years as leader has really the message discipline. He focuses on very specific core themes that hit at the heart of Canadians’ everyday lives, right? He's talking and that resonates with them. They're looking for someone who is talking about the things that matter to them, and Mr. Poilievre has managed to deliver those themes.

SO: You’re talking about his message, and money, of course, drives political campaigns and how much they have to spend on the message. The pollster David Coleto compared the advertising budgets of the various parties, and the Conservatives, he says, have dramatically increased their investment close to 19 times what the Liberals have. Let's listen in to an example of those ads.

SOUNDCLIP

Ad: It feels like home near the mountains where I grew up. I was adopted by schoolteachers who taught me that in Canada, if you worked at it, you could climb any mountain. People don't feel that way now. In fact, it feels like we're all a long way from home.

SO: Ryan, are ads like that landing for conservatives?

RYAN TUMILTY: I think you have to conclude that they are. You know, he has a 45, he's at 45 in most recent polls that I have seen. That is a 25-point lead. That is an unprecedented lead. That's the kind of numbers that very few politicians have seen. I think what's interesting about their ad campaign, though, is it portrays a different version of Pierre Poilievre than the one we see in the House of Commons. You know, it portrays a more positive vision, a more, you know, broader vision for the country, less of an attack on Justin Trudeau. Of course, that's also always mixed in. But, you know, one of the challenges I think Pierre Poilievre is going to have in this year, and it's a fairly easy challenge to have or a good challenge to have, is defining himself. Everyone knows he's not Justin Trudeau. He's made that part clear. He wouldn't do what Justin Trudeau does, but what would he do? And I think that's where you're starting to see a message come out of those ads.

SO: Turning to the question at hand, of course, is Prime Minister Trudeau. Will he resign? Pressure from his caucus to change the leadership. What are you hearing, both of you, about whether Justin Trudeau will step down? What are people saying?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: I mean, I guess it seems right now that it's not a question of if he will step down. It's a question of when he will step down and the mechanisms that would have to be triggered for him to do that. You know, does he step down pending the selection of a new leader? Does he himself seek to pull down the government and lead the liberals into the next election, guaranteeing a loss and sort of allowing the parties more space to rebuild? I think there's a lot of ways you can game out these scenarios. But, you know, as a British friend of mine noted recently, we seem to be in Liz Truss and lettuce territory right now. And that's a reminder of when the British prime Minister was compared to would she last longer than a particular head of lettuce.

SO: Right. Ryan, do you think that a change in leader could influence the Liberal Party fortunes at this point?

RYAN TUMILTY: Yeah, I think you have to conclude it could. You can tell certainly in the way the Conservatives talk about someone like Mark Carney, for example, that they're concerned about a change in leader. You know, I think for the conservatives, they'd much rather run against a very, very unpopular prime minister than someone else, right? Someone else might be slightly more popular than Justin Trudeau. In fact, someone else probably has to be slightly more popular than Justin Trudeau because Justin Trudeau is incredibly unpopular. So I think there's, you know, you can tell just by the way the conservatives attack Mark Carney and several of the other leadership potentials that they're worried about a change in leadership. But that said, a lot of the people who would come in as a change in leadership are very closely tied to Justin Trudeau. And I think it will be difficult for, you know, distance to emerge between, you know, someone in Justin Trudeau's cabinet and Justin Trudeau.

SO: Stephanie, can you help us with the timeline? It's quite complicated, actually, as you describe there, various ways that Trudeau could step down, but also the legislative calendar. In brief, you know, you've got the Conservatives promising to put forward a non-confidence motion on January 30th. Is that enough to trigger an election?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: It might be. It might be. You know, I think the first real pressure point, right, the House doesn't come back until January the 27th. The conservatives are trying before that to get a motion of non-confidence passed through a committee. They say that could then be voted on in the House as early as January the 30th. That doesn't mean it will be voted on on January the 30th. There's sort of other points, but the reality is sort of this. The government heading into the spring by roughly middle of March has to seek approval for new spending measures. Those spending measures are always a confidence vote. So at minimum here, you know, it seems like this government will fall by spring if the New Democrats stick to their word, which is that they have said they will vote in favour of a non-confidence motion that they themselves introduce or perhaps comes another way. If they do that, then by middle of March, it doesn't seem like this government could get past that day.

SO: And Ryan, just on the NDP change of heart, it appears if that sticks, Jagmeet Singh has said he would introduce a motion of non-confidence. Should that be believed? And how much flexibility does he have in terms of timing?

RYAN TUMILTY: You know, I think at this point, he doesn't have a lot of flexibility anymore. You know, he has been vague on this issue for so long. But he came out quite clearly and said, I will bring down this government regardless of who is liberal leader. So, you know, maybe he can wait until March. There's some questions about whether or not the conservatives’ move with this committee vote would constitute a confidence vote. But I would say in general, the challenge for the liberals is how long do you want to be seen as avoiding a confidence vote? How long do you want to be seen as playing political games to avoid, you know, the will of Parliament? And so, you know, I think that starts to look real bad for the liberals the longer it goes on.

SO: And just briefly, I mean, the context of this is very important. We're going to see Donald Trump in president by the end of January. How much is that going to influence the conversation here in the year ahead, Stephanie?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: It has. I mean, absolutely it will influence the conversation. And, you know, starting with if President Trump goes ahead and imposes the 25% tariffs on Canadian goods that he's been talking about, the implications of that for the Canadian economy are profound. And one of the ways it's going to shape the conversation, something Ryan alluded to earlier, was Mr. Poilievre is going to need to start having more robust answers to some of the challenges that Mr. Trump throws up. People are going to be looking for that. The narrative that has worked for him so strongly and so well thus far kind of gets out of date, I think, if, you know, if the Canadian economy is beset by 25% tariffs from the Americans. Mr. Poilievre’s focus on axing the carbon tax, while salient still for voters, is not the solution to Mr. Trump. And I think voters will be looking for him to present a more robust sort of suite of policy options responses, and he might have no choice but to deliver them.

SO: Ryan, very briefly, does chaos in Canada look bad when you're from the US and looking across the border?

AARON DAVID MILLER: I don't think it's necessarily about looking bad, but chaos in Canada means we can't properly respond to what is a real economic threat. You know, if Justin Trudeau is focussed in on his own political fortunes, I don't know how he also focuses on NAFTA renegotiations, which seem to be headed our way.

SO: Indeed. Thank you very much. Very timely discussion, both of you.

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: Thank you.

SO: Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter with the Globe and Mail's Parliamentary Bureau, and Ryan Tumilty is a political reporter with the Toronto Star. The CBC News is next, and then.

SOUNDCLIP

SPEAKER: You've got no time to think. Do what you got to do to live.

SO: Seven men from Newfoundland, a burning boat, one life raft, 52 hours at sea. Coming up in six minutes, an incredible story of survival on the ocean. I'm Susan Ormiston, and you're listening to The Current. Stay with us.

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LOST AT SEA DOC

SO: I'm Susan Ormiston, and you're listening to The Current. Coming up, our documentary, Lost at Sea, introduced by Matt Galloway.

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FIRST SPEAKER: The boy said, Toby's boat's gone missing. They can't find them.' I was just, just this numbness comes over your body.

SECOND SPEAKER: If you have people in the water, they don't have much time.

THIRD SPEAKER: Right out in front of my bridge, sat there for three days. Every time I see a vehicle, is that Andy? Is that Andy? In my mind, I was losing it.

FOURTH SPEAKER: And then they picked up some debris and stuff like that. Well, that's when I flip. Like, I said, what? I say it hurt, the van, right?

MATT GALLOWAY: When seven fishermen disappeared off the northeast coast of Newfoundland in July, just about everyone from one tip of that province to the other was gripped by dread.

SOUNDCLIP

SPEAKER: Because we knew that this was going to be a regional funeral. The food was ready, the place was booked. We were ready to help this town go through one of the worst things, worst disasters that ever could be. And then, bang.

MG: After 52 hours, the impossible.

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REPORTER: For those fishers have been found in a life raft.

MG: All seven men were found safe.

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[People cheering]

SPEAKER: Everyone just erupted in the house and I was like, what is going on? My daughter ran in the hallway and she said, mom, they get them all found. They're all alive. And I fell to the floor again.

MG: The men were found floating in a raft nearly 300 kilometres from shore. They'd survived on sips of water and sugar cubes. Michael Tiller is the mayor of New-Wes-Valley, the outport where most of the men are from.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHAEL TILLER: And you were in bed and you're just shaking, and it's like, oh my God, I can't believe they’re found. This can't be right. You know, this does not happen. It does not happen. Not seven. Something would have happened where somebody would have broke their leg. Somebody wouldn't be able to swim. Somebody would not have made it back in. But dammit, we got one to New-Wes-Valley. We got one for the province. We got one for the country, the world.

MG: But very few people know what it was actually like to be lost at sea for 52 hours. Our producer, Mary-Catherine McIntosh, visited with all seven men and discovered a story at sea so harrowing it rarely returns to land to be told.

SOUNDCLIP

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: The life raft was so small the men had to hug their knees to their chests just to fit in it. But to understand how they survived, first, you have to meet them. Andy is one of the deckhands. He first started on the boats at 13 as a nightwatchman. By 15, he was fishing in Greenland.

ANDY HUNT: And I just got in trouble at school. I was walking to school, I’d say. They said, where was two yesterday? And I said, 'I was working. Where you're working? I said, working on the boat, night watcher.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Davie's the jokester of the bunch. On the raft, he made the men laugh by pretending to be a reporter. He used a flashlight for a microphone and asked, how is your fishing trip going so far?

SOUNDCLIP

DAVIE TILLER: I was just sitting in the life raft and looking at all the boys just like, you know, 'This is, this is not the end of the world for us. Like this is just a funny moment.' You know, you've got to keep everybody's spirits up.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Toby is the baby of the crew. Just 20 at the time. He can't swim.

SOUNDCLIP

TOBY PEDDLE: No fear for the water. Still no fear for the water at all.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Are you going to take swimming lessons or?

TOBY PEDDLE: No.

SPEAKER: I wish he would take swimming lessons.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Harold is the oldest. At 62, he told the captain before they set out it would be his last trip. Two decades ago, he survived another fire at sea.

SOUNDCLIP

HAROLD HOWELL: Like his will. That’s the scariest part.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Robbie had only been sobber for two months when he boarded the boat.

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ROBBIE FIRMAGE: Yeah, this year was… sucked. Like financially, it sucks. Everything sucks about it. If I can get through this year now and start next year, I'll be out of it.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Jordan doesn't talk about what happened on the raft.

SOUNDCLIP

JORDAN KING: Like I said, this is the first time I pretty much talked about it since it happened. I'm pretty, like I'm a quiet guy. I keeps my emotions, I act tough and all that, and I try to deal with shit myself.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: And finally, there's Captain Eugene. He had only moments to order his crew to jump from a burning boat. Then, he took charge on the raft and tried to keep the men from panicking for more than 50 hours.

SOUNDCLIP

SKIPPER EUGENE CARTER: I guess we're all grown men. We always try to put the tough side out, but I mean, like when you're in situations like this, like there is no tough side. It's, it's, I mean, if you're emotional, and just let it go.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Day one, the fire. The men were expected back to the wharf about lunchtime the next day with a boat full of turbot.

SOUNDCLIP

TOBY PEDDLE: Well, it was like I said, this was a normal day, normal trip. We were just finishing up. Couldn't wait getting out of it. We was told we was going to have a couple of days off, so everyone was talking about what they had planned to do. Getting supper ready. I was up in the wheelhouse, and this alarm goes off. When Eugene come up, we looked at the alarm panel and seeing it was engine room smoke. And when Robbie got up, he just so happened to turned. And that's when he looked in the locker, seen the smoke coming out the door locker.

JORDAN KING: I heard fire, fire, and I woke up in the bunk and I couldn't see nothing with the smoke. So I just by memory, I went for the ladder to go up in the wheelhouse. As soon as I went up in the wheelhouse, I grabbed five suits out of the closet.

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: We never had a chance to do anything. Like before we knew it, in five minutes, we were out on the deck. The smoke was there thick. Couldn't even see each other really.

JORDAN KING: And at this time, Toby and Eugene was there with the fire extinguishers trying to put the fire out and it wouldn't work. And then Eugene said we abandon ship, abandon this ship' and threw life rafts overboard.

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: We tried to get some life raft, some suits out. Two people who never had the suits was Toby and Harold, the two people who couldn't swim. That's how ironic, how everything worked out.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Because it was just too fast?

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: It was just too fast. Yeah, we didn't, we wouldn't even think about who could swim and who couldn't.

JORDAN KING: And at this time, we were trying to get around the flames that was coming up through the stack and the vent. And then I jumped in from the roof into the raft. And then Robbie, he pretty much almost land on me because he jumped right behind me.

TOBY PEDDLE: All the rest of them jumped. My memory is me and Harold was the last ones on because, well, it's better to get them in the water so they could catch us because me and Harold couldn't swim, right? Harold didn't want to jump very bad at all. He hesitated a lot, actually. We told him it’s either burn or try to live, right?

JORDAN KING: Me and Eugene got a plan together and boys wouldn't jump. Eugene was yelling at the boys, telling them that they had to jump or they would burn. And they said they can't. They were too scared. They can't swim'. And I said to Harold, I said, Harold, jump. I'll be there to get you. And I told him not to panic. I said, 'If you panics, I gotta let you go.' And I got Harold back to the raft and got Toby to jump.

TOBY PEDDLE: You got no time to think. Do what you got to do to live.

JORDAN KING: I pretty much caught Toby in my arms.

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: Andy lost his glasses and everything when he jumped overboard. So, he was basically on the back of the raft kicking. And Davie was too, for a while, trying to get the boat away from the, the raft away from the boat because the raft was starting to catch on fire too at one point.

TOBY PEDDLE: We had a hard time getting away from the boat. She's engulfed in flames at this point. Even in the top of the raft, there's holes burned in the raft. How that raft never melted and deflated, that's a miracle in itself.

JORDAN KING: So me and Eugene got two paddles, one at each door, and me and Eugene just paddled as hard as we could to get around about the bow of the boat. And we got around the bow of the boat, and then the tide took us away from the boat. We just drifted away from the boat and watched her burn.

SKIPPER EUGENE CARTER: There was a few times I'd shut my eyes and I'd open them back up just to, just to see that it was real, right? It was like just so surreal. But I mean, for the boys, we just sat there staring at each other.

JORDAN KING: But once we got on the raft and got away safe distance from the boat and all that, and then we all said, you know what would be good right now? A smoke. And one of the boys undone their suits and took a half pack smokes and with a grin on their face, and we all, we, we all were happy. And we said, oh well, we have one now, and we're trying to make these smokes last. I think it was an hour later they were all gone.

TOBY PEDDLE: State of panic for the first half hour of it. But then you kind of calmed down a bit because we thought, we thought for sure one of the three maydays that we put out was heard. We figured, well, what, in three hours, four hours most, someone's going to have us. But when the sun rose the next morning, we kind of figured out this is not going to happen like that. There wasn't a draft of wind. Yeah. The fog never actually set in to around suppertime. Just when the search started was when we got the fog. Just when the search started.

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: You can't see two feet in front of you. But the only way we could see outside, we had to open up the door. Yeah, that was like a tent. That's what I would call a floatable tent, we'll call it. So we had to open up the door. When we lowered the door, you couldn’t, you wouldn't be able to see 5, say 5-10 feet in front of you. It was just that thick. Like we heard planes that were probably 100 feet away from us, 200 feet maybe. And it was there and we were here and, no.

ANDY HUNT: We couldn't do much. All we was doing was sitting and listening. And one thing that was there, I think we used to hear a helicopter, and then all of a sudden, you hear it slowly go away. Hour later, then you hear another one. And then you think it’s getting closer and then it slowly go away. That’s how they did their grid to find us so they wouldn’t miss nothing. One point in time that everybody had whistles on their suits, and we would count, one, two, three, and then everybody whistles same time with the whistles.

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: You can hear this chopper getting closer to this route. It was getting so close, and then it will turn and will go back this other route. And then when it come back again, it will be getting closer. But at the last minute, like it seemed so close. And we actually, we were actually saying to ourselves, you know what, this time, we’re getting there. And then the sound started getting weaker and weaker and weaker, and then we never heard this no more.

TOBY PEDDLE: Another one of our words was actually that well, we know on land that nobody thought we was alive, right? And well, how long are they going to keep searching for us? I don’t know. They’re not going to search for weeks.

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: Day one was quiet. Nobody really said much. But then day two come around and the frustration started kicking in and nobody here comfortable and people were starting to get a little bit moody and the mood was switched off.

DAVIE TILLER: A lot of the boys used to do a lot of grumbling with me because I always sleep for probably two or three hours at a time and like the boys were barely getting any sleep, probably minutes or maybe a half an hour if they got that. So when I used to wake up, I was like, oh. The boys just put their legs or feet over the top of me everywhere. They knew I was going to be asleep and pretty good.

JORDAN KING: Me and Andy, like we’re good, we’re friends, but we got that love-hate relationship, you know what I mean? We get on each other’s nerves on a good day, on the boat when everything is going good. And in the raft, you know, complaining about not being comfortable, moving around lots and then wanting to switch out with people. And you switch out with him and then he say, oh, that is not comfortable and we switch out again. And so he was moving around a lot and we were just sick of it, you know what I mean?

DAVIE TILLER: And then one night, me and Eugene was up because we was up in the middle of the night there, and all of a sudden, a whale right behind the back. She wasn’t very far. Just [makes sound effect]. And I said, wow. And I didn’t want to say nothing, just the top, right?

SKIPPER EUGENE CARTER: We sat in the raft there and we heard this picking at the raft, and we looked out the door and a bunch of birds were floating around the raft, pecking at the raft with their beak. So I was trying to hit them with the paddle and get them away from the raft. But the whale, I don’t know. I might’ve been asleep. I was pretty emotional, so I was pretty zoned out sometimes.

ANDY HUNT: There was a bottle of gravol there. So during the daytime, we used to take gravol. But there was always somebody up keeping an eye out, looking around. But for the most of it, everybody had turns eating the gravol to relax because we couldn’t move. We couldn’t do nothing. The life raft wouldn’t much for certain men there because the third day, she was starting to get soft on the bottom. Well, the third day, it was getting really rough. Everybody lost their strength. Everybody lost, you know, you start to think more then, eh, three days in.

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: Day three, it’s hard to put into words because I noticed that the floor of the raft was getting weak. I didn’t want to make everybody worry more than what they already are. This raft ain’t going to last so much longer.

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: I was just thinking that I guess all the stupid shit that I’d done in this life, I guess this is pay back in my eyes. So I said well, I guess I deserved it. That’s what I thought. I guess if the time was up, the time is up. But I was talking to a little girl when I got back and I said, you know what, this is a second chance now, so I’m going to turn the table. And I haven’t drank ever since.

JORDAN KING: I had two kids up in Alberta and, you know, the last few years, I haven’t been there for them much. And I have lots of emotion, missing my kids and not thinking I was going to see them again and stuff like that. So I was probably thinking about the kids. Now you’re going to make me upset. When I was sitting in that raft, I was looking back on the choices I’ve made the last few years, and I was kind of hating myself for not being a better dad and, you know, how I can be. And I was hoping I would get back to land so I could tell them how much I love them and stuff.

ANDY HUNT: And then we had a little small sponge, something to do dishes with and a little small container, and that’s what we was doing getting water out. So we soak water up and squeeze it in that one and pass it down to the other fellow and he’d dump it overboard. So that’s what we had to take water out of the raft.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: You were bailing out water with a cup and a sponge.

ANDY HUNT: That’s all we had. It was a little piece of that sponge, soak hot water, put it in a container smaller than a mug and pass that out and pass it to the next person.

ANDY HUNT: Third day, the boys are getting cold, the last two with the suits, and so we start curdling to each other basically.

ANDY HUNT: When I was at my lowest point in the raft, me and Jordan is pretty close friends. His grandfather and my grandfather got lost in sea. I just was panicking one night, and I remember actually going over to where he was laid down and I actually put my head on his chest. And that’s the best nap I had when I was out there. And he just curdled me and he said love and friendship. Yeah, it was good. I was so uncomfortable. Toby’s the young one. I said Toby, like Toby thought he was going to die, so he froze. And I said to Jordan, don’t lose hope. You just had that little girl. Keep that as a positive. Like Jordan wanted to jump over the raft at one point. He was frustrated. He’s a big boy and you can’t move, you know what I mean? You’re so uncomfortable. And I just looked at him and I said, just think about your little girl. and Toby started crying. He was just that cold. He just thought he was going to die. He was just so worried. He wanted to see his mom and daddy and going back.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: Did you rub his arm or something?

ANDY HUNT: Oh, I’d done everything to him, everything I had as a baby, covering him and cuddling him, keeping him warm. I don’t know what else to say on that.

JORDAN KING: I said it once. Yeah, I said it once when Andy was saying stuff about landing, I was in my head to jump out. You know, I just didn’t want to be in that raft no more.

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: It’s just depressing. I already lost my immediate family already this year. Well, me and my sister-in-law. So that was burning through my mind, all the stupid decisions and everything I made in life, just thinking to myself, is this it? Like is this really it? Like I’m not going to see my kids no more. And it was just so depressing. I can remember once just looking at the sky and saying, grandma, I must go home, because my grandmother lost her husband in the water. And the sky lit up. The sky actually brought hope, and that’s when we got found. So I’m praying to God that maybe that’s who was looking out for us.

ANDY HUNT: And I can remember now, I mean, always. And Davie was across from me there and everybody else was asleep. I caught a glimpse of light, because it’s not hard to find light in the centre of the ocean with no light. I was debating, was I seeing stuff? I didn’t want to put a panic to no one. And I said, boy, I got to say something. I asked Davie, is she getting loud? And I said, Eugene, I said, there’s lights out there, Eugene.

SKIPPER EUGENE CARTER: I mean, after a while, sometimes you hear things from hoping you hear things, you know what I’m trying to say. Yeah. So I said, no, that’s definitely a chopper. So I opened up the door and stuck my ear to the life raft. And when I looked up, there was a chopper going over my head. and the fog was all cleared. And I said, holy God. So I mean, at this point, I had only one flare left.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: So you had used everything else.

SKIPPER EUGENE CARTER: I had everything used. All I had left was this one flare. I kept reading the fine print, and it said only use if you have sight of a vessel or an aircraft. So like I must have read that about a hundred times throughout the day, right? So I left this flare up in the air, and I say like no more than about 30 seconds after that, I see the helicopter start to turn around. So it was dark enough that I actually used my flashlight. And I put the flashlight up, and I started turning it on and off, on and off continuously because that’s a distress call. From the pilot’s eyes, he told me that he had a night vision. So by me flicking this flashlight on and off, he said it was like a cigarette lighter, and it led him right to my raft.

TOBY PEDDLE: And the chopper got louder and louder and louder. Then it got to the point where it was almost deafening and it just started to topple the raft flat in the wind. What a relief. What a relief. There’s no word to put on that feeling, no way to describe it. You have to live through it to understand it.

SKIPPER EUGENE CARTER: I’d seen Dova coming down. So Dova came down off the helicopter, jumped in the water, swam up to the raft, and he said, how many people on board? I said seven. And he said, how many are alive? I said seven. He said, you’re a hero. He said, you’ve got the whole province, country, world praying for you. He said, simply amazing. And well, time went really fast. It felt like only a minute. So he was on board telling us to make the phone calls home.

JORDAN KING: It was amazing. Well, as soon as we got on the boat, I had to go to the shower first before I got checked over.

MARY-CATHERINE MCINTOSH: You had to use the bathroom in your suit.

JORDAN KING: Yeah, you couldn’t take the suit off. You had to use the washroom in your suit. So the first thing I got was to shower, then I got checked over, and then got a pack of smokes. And then I went to the kitchen, and I filled the plate up as high as I could get it because I was hungry. But then I sat down and I had one spoonful and then I couldn’t eat no more. I was full.

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: I didn’t know how hungry I was till I actually got unto that boat. And when I got into Costco, then I got a writ for three days. The first thing I ate was three grouchy sandwiches, and then they cooked chicken fingers, fries and the gravy.

SKIPPER EUGENE CARTER: I mean, like if there’s such thing as saying they gave us the clothes off their back, they did, because they went through their own clothes bags, and they gave us their pants, their shirts.

JORDAN KING: Dad, dad, Dad’s not really a soft guy or anything, but, you know, he was on the warf when I came in. And he just broke down in tears on his hands and knees and he was pretty bad. I’d never seen my old man like that before, so it was pretty hard to see him like that bitter. And because I always thought, I always blamed, for years, I blamed him. Oh, You don’t care about me. You don’t care about me. But they do. It’s just me that don’t, that’s too scared to open up.

DAVIE TILLER For the 52 hours in the life raft and getting home, I know the first three weeks when I was on land, I was like, what happened to us? I mean, I just looked at it like a picture. And then after the third week, I mean, I had a major, major breakdown. I had to go on my exotic peels just to take the age off of it. Just having those flashbacks in your mind, like everything, like it’s every day. And to me, the only way I could go back with my brother, you know, I just had to put everything behind me and just go, go, go. Don’t stop.

ANDY HUNT: But everybody says, you're going back again? And I said to everybody, I said, do you get in a car accident, do you go back to work? Do you get back in the car after you had accidents? The ocean's something I always did. And I tell these kids, stay in school. If only we wouldn’t have to do it, more or less. So that is it. It's just who we are.

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: I don't know how I will feel until I actually get in there again. I might not make it 20 feet in the water. And I may say, you know what? Bring me back. The way I feel right now, I would probably jump on it and I would go.

[Robbie calling out to his young daughter and enjoying a moment with her]

ROBBIE FIRMAGE: When I got on the raft, she wouldn’t let go of my hand. She just, She’s dad’s girl. And I had one finger in her little hand, was wrapped around one finger, and she would not let go.

SO: What a story. Those fishermen are known as the lucky seven. And next year, the outport of New-Wes-Valley is planning something almost unheard of: A seaside monument to pay tribute to fishermen who survived. They are Skipper Eugene Carter, Andy Hunt, Robbie Firmage, Harold Howell, Toby Peddle, Jordan King and Davie Tiller. That documentary was produced by Mary-Catherine McIntosh and Elizabeth Hoath with the CBC's audio documentary Unit. Coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

EDWARD TOLEDO: There was a bit of a shock. I have many people telling me, you should meet this person. He looks just like you. And so Nathaniel saw me and he tapped me in the back. And I turned around and I was like, whoa!

SO: The shock of coming face to face with his doppelganger and the lifelong friendship that followed. That's coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Susan Ormiston, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

DOPPELGANGERS

SO: I'm Susan Ormiston and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

FIRST SPEAKER: We are hosting this holiday lookalike contest, and we got kicked out of Washington Square Park.

SECOND SPEAKER: This guy’s got it. That guy's got it right there. I got the chipmunks through it like.

SO: Almost 2000 people turned up in New York City for that lookalike contest, including the actor Timothy Chalamet himself. Other celebrity lookalike competitions have popped up in cities around the world, from London to San Francisco. Doppelgangers used to be seen as a bad omen, but finding your doppelganger has become a thing. Online groups are popping up to help millions of people find theirs, and this fascination with doppelgangers took hold of our next guest more than two decades ago. Francois Brunelle is a Canadian photographer. He's captured the images of 250 pairs of doppelgangers in dozens of countries around the world. Matt Galloway spoke with him in November. Here's their conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: How did your interest in doppelgangers begin?

FRANCOIS BRUNELLE: Yes. Well, it's a long story. I used to see and I still do look at people and find their, you know, likeness to other people. And so I've been doing that all my life. But I was told I looked like a certain Mr. Bean about 30 years ago.

MG: Like The British comedy, like Rowan Atkinson?

FRANCOIS BRUNELLE: Yes, the character. Yeah, yeah. So but I didn't know who that was. And maybe it was a… maybe my face looks like a bin or I didn't know what it was. But one day, I saw one night on television this man taking a bath and the wall was falling down. And he looked very weird and awkward, but he just looked like me. He was dressed the same. I used to dress with a suit and a tie and the shirt to look serious, you know, and but, you know, I was flabbergasted, as you say. The program ended with the letters, Mr. Bean. And then I thought, oh no, people think I look like this guy, this character, and I think I look like this character. So there's no doubt. But until then, I thought I would look more like another character, Mr. Dean, James Dean. Truly, truly.

MG: Those are very different people. So given that and the fact that people said you look like Mr. Bean, how did you end up taking these photographs of doppelgangers around the world?

FRANCOIS BRUNELLE: When I had this shock about meeting my doppelganger on the screen, I just had this idea, which is a fantasy, in fact, to find that lookalikes that would be like perfect, bring them together in front of the camera, and then they would be so in a state of shock, I would say, that the picture would be good because of that. You know, that was a fantasy because when I started the project, people, some people know each other before that, so it doesn't matter. But people who meet for the first time in my studio, they have a little shock for about five or six seconds and that's all.

MG: How do you go about finding people that look alike?

FRANCOIS BRUNELLE: Well, at first and during the project, I found myself a few lookalikes, in fact, quite a number. But then I was short of lookalikes, so I went to the media and I asked for help.

MG: How alike are we talking about? I mean, how much do these people look like each other?

FRANCOIS BRUNELLE: That's a very good question, Matt, and thank you for asking it, because that's the key of the project, is a lookalike is someone you confound with another person. They don't have to be exactly the same and they are very rarely the same. Some of them are pretty, pretty much the same, I must say. But most of them, they look more or less the same. But the fact is that if you talk to someone on the street thinking it's somebody else, then they look the same. But if you put them together in the studio, you see that the ear is different, the nose is different, everything is different. But it's the way of being. And the question is when you look at yourself in the mirror, Matt, and in the morning, you shave or I don't know, and then you say, ah, this is Matt Galloway. Yeah, this is you. But then maybe somebody else in another city in the country is looking at himself in the mirror, looking at almost the same thing and says to himself, yeah, this is George. Yeah, this is me. This is George. So who is Matt Galloway at the end?

MG: That's a deep question. I mean, is that in many ways, and we're going to hear from some of the people that you brought together, but is that what you were trying to answer, who we are?

FRANCOIS BRUNELLE: Well, I'm not sure if I'm looking for an answer, but I'm looking for the question because when I saw this Mr. Bean, I thought, okay, I look really like this character. And then I thought I was somebody else. I didn't know I was that. You know, it's pretty strange. Pretty strange.

MG: So we have a couple of the lookalikes with us that you photographed in 2003. Nathaniel Siri is a director and a producer in Los Angeles. Edward Toledo is a dance teacher in Montreal. Good morning to you both.

NATHANIEL SIRI: Good morning.

EDWARD TOLEDO: Hello, how are you doing?

MG: Nathaniel, how did you first hear about Edward?

NATHANIEL SIRI: We were working for the same company for a few months, and I've been hearing about a guy that looks just like me in the company. And I was… I wanted to disagree, so I was like, I can't wait to meet this guy. And we finally met at the party, the end of the year party of this said company. And that's how I met him.

MG: And when you saw him for the first time, having heard there was somebody who looked like you, what was your response?

NATHANIEL SIRI: There was such a momentum in going into that party. I was like looking for him. I was there before him. I was like, okay, when is he coming in? When is he coming in? And then I saw him. I stared at him. He didn't see me right away. And I went to him and I said, let's go compare face in the bathroom. So yeah, that's how we met. And I think I startled him actually.

MG: Edward, were you startled? What was that experience like for you?

EDWARD TOLEDO: Yes, there was a bit of a shock on my end. I have heard, I have had many people telling me, you should meet this person. He looks just like you. But I was just new into the scene of the dance world, and Nathaniel was ahead of me because he had done many different contracts and he had a lot of already connections in the domain. And so that's why everyone was telling me, wow, you just got here, but we know someone that looks just like you. So I had many months of this. And we worked in the same company, but we were not doing the same events. So the people in the same company would tell us also that. And so the end of year party was the anticipation towards like, okay, we're going to finally get to see if this is actually reality. And so Nathanial saw me and he like tapped me in the back, and I turned around and I was like, whoa, yes, this is the person. This is him, obviously.

MG: I'm looking at a photo of the two of you. You do, I mean, you look different, but you do look very similar. Did you see that, Nathaniel? Did you see that similarity right away?

NATHANIEL SIRI: No, I never felt that we've looked so similar for some reason. People say that and I have to agree because everyone says that. But at the same time, I'm staring at the photo and I'm like, yeah, we kind of look similar. But since then, I've grown to know Edward and I count him as my brother. So it's a very different feeling. I don't see myself in him. I see him for who he is. So the personality took over, I guess.

MG: Francois, you took this photo that I'm looking at. What did you see when these two men came together?

FRANCOIS BRUNELLE: Well, it's a long time, but I thought they looked pretty much the same. But it's interesting what Nathaniel just said. He said, I don't think I look like Edward, because the title of my project is I'm Not a Lookalike. So it's great because there's a few subjects in the project who just said that, like, oh, you know, Francois, I don't think I look like the other guy. And I remember it was quite emotional because when you look at the picture, the way the hand on Edward’s head. And it's one of the good pictures that I did, and I'm very, very proud of it. And thanks, Nathaniel. [Says thanks in other languages]

MG: Edward, it was emotional for you.

EDWARD TOLEDO: For me, it was a strange feeling because I was confused very often by him. So I heard his name all the time, and I was beginning to learn how to dance. And he was ahead of me like three or four years, so all of his dreams and his like accomplishments were ambitions of mine. So it was kind of a bit of a mixture of things, of emotions, because I was always named Nathaniel. Everyone was telling me, like for example, dance teachers, choreographers would confuse me with his name. And at some point, it was kind of irritating and I was like, I have my own personality. I was trying to get, you know, known. And so yeah, I got to know him, and I saw that he has a lot of aspect of his personality that are very, very similar to me. And so the connection that we got right from the beginning was pretty strong, a mixture of all kind of emotions because that's how we met, by everyone confusing us.

NATHANIEL SIRI: We have a lot of affinities. We both like similar things. We laugh very similarly. I think our laughs look very much alike. And yeah, we have very similar personalities and affinities. So that's I think where the most resemblance.

MG: This photo was taken 20 years ago, more than 20 years ago. Edward, I mean, do you have a connection between the two of you now? Is it just, I mean, it's something that lives in the past and it's a great story, but are you friends? How does that work now?

EDWARD TOLEDO: We're like really close friends, but we don't live close. But we are connected in a way that is really special because we never actually stopped developing our connection throughout the years. And more so than that, we did share a partnership like at the beginning of the relationship, and then we turned it into a friendship. And now, it's sort of like a friend, like a bond similar to what a sibling would feel like because I know I can count on him. Like the bond is very strong.

MG: Nathaniel, you called him your brother.

NATHANIEL SIRI: I call him my little brother. Yeah. I don't have a brother anymore. My brother died when I was a kid. And since then, I realized with the connection that I have a bond and I want to protect him and I want to, you know, I want to be here for him. And I realized doing a documentary project last year that it might be linked to the fact that I don’t have a brother anymore. And the connection is really one of fraternity because I really am there for him. When he needs counselling, I'm trying to be mindful of what I'm saying because I know it has an impact on him. And I know that when I'm sad, he listens to me. He's there to receive all the types of emotion that can come out and he doesn't judge.

MG: That's really special in some ways. What do you think, I'll ask you both this because as I said, this is a thing. Now, there's a long piece in National Geographic about this. There have been these look alike competitions, but there's also just people are looking for their doppelganger if they think they have one. What do you think is driving that, Nathaniel?

NATHANIEL SIRI: I don't know. I don't get it.

MG: You don't get it.

NATHANIEL SIRI: No, I don't get it. Every time when I hear about it, I’m like why? Why do you want to find someone that looks like you? I guess I found mine 20 years ago, so that's probably why. I already have it. But I do not feel the need to find someone that looks like me. I do not where it stems from. I do not feel the same. I don't know. How about you, Edward?

EDWARD TOLEDO: I've always thought about this question like as a weird thing because it just happened to us. We weren't like, I wasn't looking for someone that like experienced the same, had the same experience as me. But it turned out to be at the beginning of my adventure with dance, Nathaniel was exactly what I wanted in my life, like everything that he was doing. So it's a mixture of the energy that he has. And I think people in general have the desire to connect, to find someone that they can consider themselves special with. So it's not necessarily the resemblance, but the fact that we really complete each other's ideas. And I think the fact that people think that someone's going to look exactly like them is going to bring in addition to that connection, special moments to share with each other.

NATHANIEL SIRI: And I guess we did it that way too, so we're the lucky ones.

MG: You’re the lucky ones. Francois, what do you make of that? I mean, what do you think? What is this about, the attraction that people have to doppelgangers?

FRANCOIS BRUNELLE: You ask me. I don't really know. I'm always surprised because I started this project like 24 or 5 years ago, and then it became popular with the media and then there was nothing. And then there's always a wave of interest about the lookalikes. Before the advent of the Internet, the lookalike was always a man. It was always about men. And since then, it's mostly about women. Like 75%, three quarters of my subjects, three quarters of the emails that I get are from women. And on top of that, a part of my lookalikes are couples of men and women. The book that I'm trying to produce, I will have about 10 or 11 couples who are men and women. Some of them are couples in real life. Some of them are just people who met, but they look pretty much the same. But there are men and women. So this is a new thing.

MG: It is so interesting. And your story, Nathaniel and Edward, is fascinating as well. Thank you both for being here. And Francois, thank you very much.

FRANCOIS BRUNELLE: You're welcome.

Edward and Nathaniel: Thank you very much.

MG: Francois Brunelle is a photographer in Montreal. He's now working, as you heard, on a book about doppelgangers. Nathaniel Siri and Edward Toledo were photographed for his collection of portraits back in 2003. Francois Brunelle’s photo project has attracted the attention of the scientific community. A geneticist in Spain tested the DNA samples of some of his subjects and found some genetic similarities between unrelated lookalikes. Some of my next guest’s research includes studying the personality traits of doppelgangers. Nancy Segal is a professor of psychology, director of the Twin Studies Centre at California State University in Fullerton, California. Nancy, good morning to you.

NANCY SEGAL: Good morning, Matt.

MG: You're a developmental psychologist. How did you come to study lookalikes?

NANCY SEGAL: Well, my focus is really on twins. And one of my students alerted me to Francois Brunelle’s website. And when I saw what it contained, I realized that this group of subjects was a wonderful way of testing out a particular criticism that some people have advanced against twin studies. For example, identical twins are very much alike in their personalities. But some people feel it's because people treat them alike based on their facial appearance. And I've never felt that was a reasonable explanation. Instead, I thought that identical twins are treated alike because they evoke similar responses from the people around them. So I gave a number of these doppelgangers that I obtained from Francois Brunelle, and I've been continuing this even on my own. I've gotten other pairs from the television programs, and I've gotten some that I've just found on my own which are amazing. At any rate, I gave them personality questionnaires, self-esteem questionnaires and a relationship, a social relationship questionnaire. And I did this twice with two different types of personality forms. And so I reasoned that if these unrelated lookalikes are as alike as identical twins raised apart, who are there parallels, you know, raised apart but look alike, but the identicals share all their genes in common, then if the unrelated lookalikes are as alike as the twins, then maybe the critics are right. But if the unrelated lookalikes are not alike, then my thought on this is correct.

MG: And so what did you find?

NANCY SEGAL: I'm just getting to that now, Matt. And what I found was that the personality similarity of the doppelgangers was zero. It was zero.

MG: Zero.

NANCY SEGAL: Yes. And on self-esteem, it was just about zero as well. And I found that most of the doppelgangers were not closely connected at all. There were some exceptions, like Edward and his lookalike, but very, very few. And the reason is that personality is in your brain. It’s not in your face. And we know, as you said in the program, that there are a lot of websites that have been sprouting up where people can submit a photograph and look for their look alike. And I think that the popularity comes from the fact that people are envious of the twin relationship because it's very close. It’s not judgemental. There’s complete understanding and acceptance, and I think that people really want that. And I suspect that the people who submit photographs to these websites are looking for that kind of connection, and I'm just afraid that they're going to be disappointed. I think in some cases, yes, they may find it. But you see, the doppelgangers from the study that you interviewed, they talked about their behavioural similarities as the social glue that attracted them and maintained their relationship. But there is no necessary connection between how you look in your face and what your personality traits are going to be.

MG: Can I go back to that? Because one of the things that, I mean, they said, is that people thought that they were very much alike. Often, they would be confused for each other not because of just how they looked, but because of what people read into their personalities. So if there is zero, if your study found that, as you said, personality doesn't reside in the face and there's zero real relationship between personalities, how can what they went through be explained?

NANCY SEGAL: Well, I'll tell you, I heard it a little bit differently than you, Matt. I heard that people were confusing them based on their appearance because after all, people did not know both of them at that time. They only knew one. And so it was basically the face. My take on this is that the unrelated lookalikes, the doppelgangers might feel a certain attraction when they meet. But as time goes by, they find that they're very, very different. That's what the majority of the pairs are telling me. And this is not just, you know, hearsay or interviews or anecdotes. These are hard scientific data that I have gathered systematically and published.

MG: What do you make of the, in the introduction, I said that geneticists in Spain looked at the DNA samples of some of the folks that Francois was taking photos of and found genetic similarities between unrelated people. What do you make of that?

NANCY SEGAL: Well, of course, that's going to happen. I mean, look, when people both have brown eyes or blue eyes or red hair, they have the same genetic backgrounds, but it's not common through descent. It's not the same family. So I'm not surprised. And also, the guy in Spain specifically selected the most identical pairs of the ones that he had. And he did find some genetic similarities that were related to some facial features, but he did not look at personality. He did not look at self-esteem and he did not look at the social relationships that I assessed. And he did find that yes, smoking seemed to be similar and something to do with lifestyle very vaguely or generally defined. But I was very specific. I looked at five personality traits, what people call the Big five, what you think about as OCEAN: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. And that was replicated over two different questionnaires. And look, the identical twins raised apart were very, very similar.

MG: You said something interesting earlier, and I ask you this as the director of the Twin Studies Centre, that in some ways, we’re jealous, that we are, we want the connections that identical twins have. What is that about, do you think?

NANCY SEGAL: Well, identical twins have the closest social relationship on average. When we see identical twins who are so close and their relationships are so effortless, having been developed from a very, very young age, I think that many people look at them and are intrigued and are envious because what a luxury to have somebody who accepts you completely, who loves you completely, who will understand you completely. And I think that when people do try to get this look alike, they're hoping that that will be the case. But again, I said that I think they're going to be disappointed. You know, when you look at friendships and you look at married couples or significant others, it's not opposites that attract. It's birds of a feather who flock together. And when children develop imaginary playmates, who are they? They’re people who are like themselves. People don't have imaginary friends who are different from themselves. People don't feel terribly attracted to people who are different from themselves. Now, some couples, some friends complement one another. One may be more extroverted. One may be more introverted. They may have different talents and traits. But nevertheless, it's their commonalities that draw them together. I'm certain that if the two who were on today had very different affinities, very different inclinations and talents, they wouldn't be where they are today. But it was those behavioural similarities that drew them together and sustained the relationship.

MG: Do you think you have a doppelganger?

NANCY SEGAL: Do I?

MG: Yeah.

NANCY SEGAL: Well, let me just say to your viewers that I am a twin, but I am a fraternal twin. Yeah. I thought you'd never ask, Matt. I'm a fraternal twin with a sister who does not look like me and does not act like me. And we have similar values. We're very close sisters, but we're close sisters because we share a family history. Now, when I was growing up, I was very jealous of some of the identical twins that I saw in school or on the playground because they seemed to have a connection that I did not have. And being a twin, I was immediately attracted to twin studies because I found them so professionally informative and so personally engaging. It's a wonderful field. And having gotten involved with the doppelgangers, I'm thrilled. It’s a whole new side that I hadn't anticipated, but one that really feeds into my field in a wonderful way.

MG: But don’t you wonder whether there's somebody out there in the world who looks just like you?

NANCY SEGAL: Well, I'll tell you, occasionally, I have gotten people to tell me that, yes, there's someone out there. And a few have sent photographs, and I don't perceive the similarity in the slightest. And that's very interesting because one of your guests said that. And when I talked to some identical twins, they don't perceive the similarities, but yet other people do. And I think that that is the key. When other people confuse you, to me, that is the bar for being classified as a doppelganger or as a lookalike.

MG: Nancy, it's great to speak with you. Thank you very much.

NANCY SEGAL: My pleasure, Matt. Thank you for having me.

SO: Nancy Segal is a professor of psychology and the director of the Twin Studies Centre at California State University. Matt Galloway spoke with her in November. That is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. And tomorrow is the last day of 2024 and beginning the first day soon of a new quarter century. Where does the time go? With the New Year fast approaching, we are recognizing some of the best Canadian music of this year. Aysanabee won the 2024 Juno Award for Songwriter of the Year. His album, Here and Now, also won a Juno for Alternative album of the year. And from that album, here's Aysanabee with Alone. I'm Susan Ormiston, sitting in for Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Song: “Alone” by Aysanabee]

Monday, December 30, 2024 Episode Transcript

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