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The Current Transcript for April 30, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

So every member in the armed forces, every person in the Department of National Defence who has been affected by sexual harassment and violence and felt that we were not there to support you, I'm truly sorry.

MATT GALLOWAY: Six years ago, a former Supreme Court justice wrote a blistering report on what she called a sexualised culture within the Canadian armed forces. She made specific recommendations on how to address that culture, which changed very little according to sexual assault survivors in the military. Now, the government has appointed another former Supreme Court justice to lead another review into sexual misconduct. Louise Arbour is here in an hour to talk about what might be different this time around. Also this morning, immigration has always been essential to America's. Let's end our exhausting war over immigration. It has been an issue that has bedevilled many U.S. presidents. Joe Biden is promising to do better. In 30 minutes, a reality check from a man who paid smugglers to get him from Guatemala to the US Mexico border. Plus, your letters on Insects' delightful snacks, not annoying pests, but first, imagining a better future for long term care. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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Solving the problems in Canada’s long-term care sector

Guests: Alex Mihailidis, Isobel Mackenzie, Jocelyn Charles

MG: Yesterday on this programme, we heard the story of how Karen Cope and Merike Finlay brought their older friend Elizabeth Bigras into their home 20 years ago.

SOUNDCLIP

I think if Elizabeth weren't with us now, she would have to be in assisted living. She can't drive, you know, she can't hear quite things. But, you know, if we could do it differently in this country, at least for a big percentage of our population, our ageing population, or even a small percentage, it beats putting them in the old age home. As far as I'm concerned, it maybe takes a village also to keep an elder, not just to raise a child.

MG: Obviously, not every senior in Canada can be adopted by a family like that. But people across this country are working on solutions to the issues in long term care issues that have been painfully exposed over the last year. In particular, we're going to speak about changes, what's already happening and what still needs to be done. Isobel Mackenzie is the seniors advocate for British Columbia. Isabel. Good morning. Good morning. We just heard Merike Finlay say that helping her friend Elizabeth was important because in her words, it beats putting her in an old age home coming out of this pandemic. How common is that sort of sentiment these days that a nursing home, a long term care home, is just not a desirable place for someone to live right now?

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: Well, I think that that sentiment will have increased in the population because I think what covid has done has awakened Canadians to long term care and life in long term care. And I think that part of the challenge in addressing the necessary reforms that many of us have encountered over our years of advocating for them is that most Canadians, by definition, will never see the inside of a nursing home or even have a family member there. The vast, vast majority of people live their entire lives independently. And so what we've seen over the course of this pandemic is life in long term care splashed over the screens of households across the country and voices across the radio waves from coast to coast talking about life in long term care. And I think the Canadian reaction has been to say this, we've got to do better than what we're doing. And I hope that will bring improvement. And I also think it will have some people thinking more about choices as they age.

MG: Let's talk about changes, choices we'll get to in a moment. But if you start to think about making changes in the way that we care for seniors, where do you begin?

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: Well, I think obviously supporting them to live at home better, but inevitably there will be some people for a variety of reasons for whom that is not possible. And so we're going to need nursing homes or long term care. And I think the reforms are there. There's many tenets to the to the reform needed certainly around what care homes look like in terms of their physical environment, their programming, et cetera. But the foundation that is necessary for any change is to have the appropriate staff in those care homes. At the end of the day, on a day to day basis, the ability to have a meaningful, good quality of life in long term care means that there's enough people around you not just to take you to the dining room or help you to the toilet, but also to talk to you and to make you feel engaged and involved and know your story and make it worthwhile to get up each day.

MG: How do you start? I mean, these are not small issues, but how do you start to fix the staffing issues in long term care? Again, this is something that that advocates have been calling for. And we've seen politicians, you know, put to the sword in many ways to deal with the staffing issues that they might be responsible for funding. How do you start to tackle the staffing issue?

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: There is no magical solution that doesn't start with. We have to pay people more money. Over my career, I have listened to all the creative reasons around the more quote unquote efficient design that leads to lower staffing or how we create a culture that values our staffing, all skirting this basic issue, which is in order to have sufficient labour pool for want of a better term, you need to create a supply of staff. And when your demand exceeds your supply, the basic law of labour economics does not have an asterisk after it that says applies everywhere but long term care. We have got to come to grips with the fact that paying people the equivalent of an annual salary of 35 or 40000 dollars a year isn't going to cut it. And if we address that issue, we will start to grow the pool of people who we are going to need to provide caring and compassionate care. The technical skills needed are fairly easy to address. It's not a four and five year training investment for a carrot. You do need some training and you do need some technical skills. But what you really need to bring to the job is commitment, compassion. And you can't come to work each day exhausted because you're working two jobs or 60 hours a week in order to create the income you need to support your family.

MG: I want to bring another voice into this in just a moment. But very briefly, I mean, do you already see in coming out of this pandemic and what we've seen in long term care in particular, do you see change starting to happen already?

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: I certainly see the commitment for change. And I have to say that I come from British Columbia and I think we were slightly better in our long term care on some of these issues than some other provinces, for example, Quebec and Ontario. But I think it begins with the desire of the public to make the changes. This won't happen overnight, but if we can keep moving that sentiment forward, I think we will see the reforms that or at least some of the reforms we need.

MG: Stay with us. Dr. Jocelyn Charles is the medical director of the Veterans Centre at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, and she works closely with the Dorothy Macham Home, which is a care home for veterans with challenging behaviours and dementia. Doctor, good morning to you.

DR. JOCELYN CHARLES: Good morning.

MG: Could you just briefly describe the kind of care that unfolds within the Dorothy Macham home?

DR. JOCELYN CHARLES: Dorothy Macham Home is a small, very specially designed, homelike and therapeutic environment for 10 veterans with responsive behaviours due to dementia. And the philosophy is really to help these veterans achieve their best life experience despite their illness. So they're in a small house at the back of our veterans centre with very highly trained staff who learn what's important to each veteran in the programming is very flexible and it's tailored to the individual needs and preferences of these veterans.

MG: I've heard this described as patient centred care, which is a phrase that gets. Thrown around in health care and long term care a lot, but in that context, what does that phrase mean?

DR. JOCELYN CHARLES: Well, it means really understanding the person, what's their story, what's their history, what's important to them, what does make a better life experience for them, and really understanding what the behaviours mean and what this dementia has done to them. And how do we help them have a really good quality of life that takes very well trained professional staff. It takes a team. We've got recreation and creative art therapy, therapists, music therapists. We have a regular physician and a geriatric psychiatrist working with us. And we really try to understand each and every veteran and tailor the care to them.

MG: And they would see the residents would see the same stuff every day. Yes.

DR. JOCELYN CHARLES: Within the schedule

MG: within the schedule, but I mean, that's really important that you're not cycling through people, that people have a sense of familiarity in terms of who will be there with them.

DR. JOCELYN CHARLES: Absolutely. And the staff are so amazing they can see the change of expression on one veteran's face and know what that means and be able to respond immediately to know if they're in pain or if they're hungry or if they just need someone to be with them or maybe they're bored and need entertainment.

MG: I mean, the scale of that obviously is very unique to the situation that the home operates in. But is there anything that you think long term care homes across the country might learn from what happens at Dorothy Macham?

DR. JOCELYN CHARLES: Yes, I think this type of model that's more intensive is for a small percentage of people with dementia, for a specific phase of their illness. So it's a therapeutic environment that they can be in during that more difficult phase. And I think this model could support nursing home long term care and people at home to be able to come in when they're having a difficult time related to their response behaviours, receive this very intensive and highly tailored care, create a really good care plan, and then go back to the nursing home or back home where they came from so that they can maintain their current living environment.

MG: Isobel Mackenzie. Is it possible to take what is happening at the Dorothy and make them home and scale it up elsewhere in the country?

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: It absolutely is. And the basic elements there are part of it is the getting the right population, getting people together who have a common need, having an environment that supports it and having the staff. So your guest spoke of having the appropriate number of staff, the training, the appropriate training of the staff, listening to the stories and understanding the residents and having that familiarity. There are pockets of excellence like the Dorothy Macham home throughout our long term care system in Canada. And I think that we need to look at those pockets of excellence and expand them and apply them their principles more broadly.

MG: Why aren't that wasn't that happening already? I mean, we're going to speak in just a moment about standards and maybe that would lead to that. But why aren't those pockets of excellence being seized upon as this is the model and this is what we need to do to aspire to?

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: I hate to sound so crass, but it's about the money. Those are very expensive models to run. I've actually run a similar model here in British Columbia. I was part of the first what we call dementia home model here in B.C. It costs more money, Matt, and we are going to have to come to grips with that as Canadians because the money is going to come from us. And I do think we care. I think that has been demonstrated in spades throughout this pandemic, that Canadians care very deeply about the seniors, not just in their own lives, but in Canada in general. And I think we will see the commitment that is necessary to give them a dignified life follow.

MG: Let me sneak one more voice into this discussion. Alex Mihailidis is a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Toronto, also scientific director of Age Well, which is a network created to better support older adults. Alex, good morning to you.

ALEX MIHAILIDIS: Good morning.

MG: You're working with the Canadian Standards Association, the CSA, to create these standards on long term care. What would the standards encompass?

ALEX MIHAILIDIS: So the specific standards that we're working on is really about the facility itself. What is the building look like? What should the environment itself look like? What should the backend systems be with respect to ventilation, air quality, but even down to specific aspects such as, you know, where do we position and hygiene stations? Where do we position the washing rooms and the laundry room so that we can ensure that the quality of care that we're all expecting to be providing long term care, can be supported by the environment itself.

MG: Are these standards also things that would include, for example, how many residents would be in each room?

ALEX MIHAILIDIS: So it may. We're working very closely with the second standard that's being developed by HHS. So are the Health Standards Organisation, where they're focussing on the on the type of care to be provided. So we'll be working hand in hand with them because obviously, you know, if their standard comes out and suggests that it should be maximum one resident per room, then we need to design the facility that will allow that to happen.

MG: And if you come out of consultations like this with recommendations, how do you ensure that the recommendations become mandatory, that that becomes a standard that isn't just aspire, but that that's the default?

ALEX MIHAILIDIS: Yeah. So the decision to make these standards mandatory really is up to the government itself. And as we know, there is a, you know, a bit of a miscommunication right now between the federal and the provincial and territorial governments with respect to long term care and standards. However, we are involving the provinces and territories right from the start and the development of these standards themselves. So our hope is that if we design standards that can work for everyone and can take into account the nuances and the context is that are unique to each of our provinces and territories and hopefully they'll be better by and that they're going to.

MG: Isobel, people have called for for many, many years for a national standard when it comes to long term care. Would that standard, that baseline level of care, but also to Alex's point, the design of the buildings where people are living, would that improve the quality of life in those facilities?

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: I think so. I think I do believe that everybody should have a single room with an en suite bathroom. I in my career, I've never had anybody say, oh, please put my mom in in a room with other people. So she has roommates. I it people want their own room. They'll adapt if they have a roommate potentially, but they want their own room. But I do think this idea that we would have a set of national standards there, I think that will guide us. I think that standards are important, they're necessary. But we need to have a mechanism for ensuring that those standards are met and that there are consequences for want of a better word for not meeting those standards. And that's missing not just at the national level, but to a large extent in most provinces. There's no province right now, for example, that issues fines if a care home is consistently non-compliant with regulations or standards. Ontario was poised, I think, to launch that legislation a few years ago, but it stalled.

MG: Part of this is about jurisdiction. I mean, something that even Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister, talked about on this programme, saying that you can want to change long term care, but there is the jurisdictional issues between provincial and federal governments.

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: That's very true. I am sympathetic to the challenge the federal government is facing in in our federated system, where the provinces deliver this this service long term care. And it is different to some degree. There's some commonalities between provinces, but really, it is the teeth of of the improvements that are necessary are going to rest with each province. And the federal government will struggle with how are they going to respect this federated model we have, but at the same time respond to a fairly clear national voice of a desire to see changes in long term care across the country.

MG: Dr. Charles, you have spent decades working in long term care and you worked as a W for many, many years. Do you see the will to make change now?

DR. JOCELYN CHARLES: I do. I think that the pandemic has shown a spotlight or what we already knew the gaps and the problems with the system. And I think I hope there's a moral imperative that we can't just keep humming along the way. We were we have to make these changes. You know, the auditor general, Rob. In multiple reports of all said the same thing, we have to stop writing reports and we need to move on with fixing the problem, to watch how hard we work for the salary they get and the lack of full time positions and benefits is just not acceptable.

MG: Alex Mihailidis, what are you confident that this is going to lead to a moment of actual change? I mean, we've seen and it's not just the facilities we've seen isolation within the facilities of those residents. And I know that you see an opportunity for technology there to perhaps bridge that gap. What gives you the optimism that now will be the moment where we as a society seize upon that opportunity?

MG: So I think, you know, as Dr. Charles just pointed out, that there is now kind of this will to do this, you know, this is now out there. It can no longer be hidden in terms of the issues we have in long term care and the fact that, you know, we have an organisation like CSA behind this is something that's also very positive. You know, you look at the back of any of your hockey helmets or sports equipment, the CSA logos there. And so they had the reputation being able to do this. And so I'm hoping building on that reputation, building on the team that's coming together, that was based on a national public call for members of this committee. And hopefully also my experience, obviously, in the area of working on technology and design and long term care. Hopefully we'll get something out there that's just not going to sit on the shelf.

MG: Isobel, the last minute to you. Are you as optimistic as you've said as other people may be given? I mean, again, it's not crass, but in many ways this comes down to money and what we are willing to spend for the care of our elders.

ISOBEL MACKENZIE: I am optimistic. I think that we will actually say we are prepared to put those resources there. And I think it's to a large extent the power of the boomer generation who are now seeing long term care impact their parents directly. And they are recognising or I guess we are recognising that we're the next wave. So, you know, today, yesterday it was my grandmother, today it's my mother, and tomorrow it's me. And I think that are the demands of the younger old generation, those of those sort of 75 and younger boomer generation, we're much more demanding than the generation that's actually living in long term care right now. And I think that it is it is the the generation not living in long term care right now that is going to push for these changes and is and are saying now, not good enough, we need to do better.

MG: I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to speak with all of you this morning. Thank you very much.

GUESTS: Thank you. Thank you.

GUESTS: Isobel Mackenzie, seniors advocate for British Columbia. She's in Victoria. Dr. Jocelyn Charles is medical director of the Veterans Centre at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. Alex Mihailidis, scientific director of Age Well, and he's leading a CSA group to create national standards on long term care. Your thoughts on this? Welcome. How can we improve the care of our elders? You can send us an email thecurrent@cbc.ca. We're back in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is CBC Radio One.

Biden faces immigration challenges at southern border

Guests: Estuardo Cifuentes, Muzaffar Chishti, Linda Corchado

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: An independent review into sexual misconduct within the military and the Department of Defence has been announced. In 30 minutes, we'll speak with Louise Arbour, who will be leading that enquiry. But first, 100 days in and the situation on the southern U.S. border is already becoming a defining issue for Joe Biden's presidency.

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MG: The number of asylum seekers at the U.S. southern border continues to grow while the White House continues to say, don't come, it's why U.S. President Joe Biden spoke about the need for immigration reform in his first address to Congress on Wednesday.

SOUNDCLIP

For more than 30 years, politicians have talked about immigration reform and we've done nothing about it. It's time to fix it. On day one of my presidency. I kept my commitments in a comprehensive immigration bill to the United States Congress. If you believe we need to secure the border, pass it because it has a lot of money for high tech border security. If you believe in a pathway to citizenship, if you actually want to solve a problem, I've sent a bill to take a close look at it.

MG: We're going to hear more about Biden's policies on immigration and the border in a moment. But first, let's go to Texas, where Estuardo Cifuentes is one of thousands of people who have made the dangerous trip from Latin America in recent years. He began this journey during Donald Trump's presidency as Tawadros if Winterfest joins me now with his translator, Victor Castillo, as Toigo. Good morning. Tell me why you left Guatemala? What were the conditions that that forced you to leave?

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: Basically, I get out of Guatemala because of a direct attack by the civil police police department. This attack comes right after I in public give a kiss to my partner and this attack increases after I reported this to the authorities. There was also an attempt for kidnapping right after I reported the incident. This is basically what forced me to leave Guatemala,

MG: before the attack. Had you been able to live openly with your partner,

VICTOR CASTILLO: the LGBT community has always been fine. Up until recently, we had had a relationship for about nine years and we had learnt to adapt our lives to the situation in the country. However, after this attack is what forced me to basically leave Guatemala.

MG: Tell me about how the journey unfolded, how did you get out of Guatemala and what was the what was the journey like?

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: The attack was on a Sunday. And then I left the country the following Wednesday through social media. I contacted some of the human smugglers and that's how I was able to leave the country. It was a whole process of 17 days when leaving from what, the mala through Mexico and finally making it to the border. Upon arriving to the border, I was kidnapped for about 21 days by members of the cartels. Upon paying the ransom, I was able to to get to the border and finally make it across. During those 17 days, travelling from what, the Amala into Mexico, there was times where I walked for about eight hours. We had a woman. At times we were travelling on containers behind the truck and with about large groups of about 200 people. We suffer violence, not only physical, but also psychological from authorities as well as from the smugglers

MG: What happened when you got to the border? You mentioned the cartel. What happened there

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: When we got to the border, we arrived in a group of about 400 migrants. They started separating us by groups, some walking, some in vehicles. All of a sudden, a group of armed men got there to our location, and that's when they grabbed us and took us to a safe house. That's when the 21 days began and the ransom was requested

MG: How much money were they asking for in the ransom?

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: they were asking 2500 dollars for ransom.

MG: How did you find the money to pay the ransom so that you could be free?

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: In Guatemala our partner and I had a business and also we sold a vehicle so that we can pay the ransom.

MG: What was it like being held by the cartel?

VICTOR CASTILLO: [Foreing speech].

VICTOR CASTILLO: They never harmed me physically, but it was more of a psychological it was a huge concern and it was a huge worry while we were there. I could compare that to how I was held before in a detention centre in the U.S. before

MG: when you were freed by the cartel, what happened to them?

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: Once the money was transferred, they just released me out on a public road and returned my my cell phone. That's when I communicated again with the smuggler that was bringing me to the border. That's when he makes the move to take me to the area where the CBP officers are so close to.

MG: And when you encounter the. Those officers, what happens

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: I make an attempt to explain my situation, but I was detained for about seven days and what is called a cooler's days later. That's when I was given some papers for me to sign. There were written in English. Once I was giving those papers, I was thinking back to the border. I didn't know what they were, but once I read them and got help, I learnt that those were the papers.

MG: you had claimed asylum. And this is in 2019 when Donald Trump was still the president. Did you believe that you would be given asylum in the United States

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: it was? Yes, you're correct. It was back in twenty nineteen towards the end of June when I claimed that asylum. However, I was returned to Mexico and wait there for 19 months. During that time, I was presenting myself once a month to a court in Brownsville

MG: During those 19 months that you were in Matamoros, there was a camp there for migrants. Tell me what that camp was like for tonight.

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: Fortunately, I did not live in Matamoros camp. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to look for a place where I could live. But yes, my life, everything was surrounded to the experience of living in a camp. The camp eventually had almost about four thousand people living there at a time. It was extreme weather. At times it was very cold. At times it was very hot. It was a lack of basic services such as electricity, water, bathrooms, but also attacks from the organised crime organisations.

MG: And the 4000 people who were living there. These are all people who are waiting for their asylum claims to be resolved?

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: These 4000 people were, the ones who were sent back due to the MPP programme

MG: for those nineteen months. What did you do aside from you? You went to the court once a month. But aside from that, what did you do?

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreing speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: me during that time in Matamoros, I was also subject to extortion by organised criminal organisations. It also worked as a taxi driver, as a server in a nightclub.

MG: Were you optimistic that you would be able to get back into the United States

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: that I had the opportunity to have an attorney to represent me, even though it was hard process. I was optimistic.

MG: Tell me about the Rainbow Bridge. What what is that?

VICTOR CASTILLO: Rainbow Bridge is a support group that I started while I was there in Matamoros to support the LGBTQ community.

MG: are some of the things that people in the community would be facing as migrants living in and around a camp like Matamoros,

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreing speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: We didn't notice that before. We have to shelter those trans women were subject to prostitution by the criminal organisations. On top of that, they were also subject to being hurt and beaten by people there in the camps and also by authorities.

MG: And were you finding that there were a number of people similar to yourself who had fled their home countries because they were being persecuted because of their identity or sexuality, if anything?

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: And there were more that were in in tougher situations than the one I was in.

MG: How aware were people in the camp of the presidential race and and the attempt by Joe Biden to win that race?

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: The majority of people who are coming to the border or to the U.S. have a relative in the United States. So there was always information about Biden running at that time. I remember specifically the Election Day, various groups of the migrants were gathered together in and keeping an eye and ear of what was happening. There was a vigil at a church that was put together there in the camp. There was celebration at approximately three a.m. when the Web page finally gave the win to buy them.

MG: Have you seen the promises that Joe Biden has made around immigration? Have you seen them be realised? It's early days in his presidency, but do you feel as though he's he's on the right path to addressing those promises?

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: those promises about the MVP have been fulfilled, but some things that were promised during the campaign are not being fulfilled nowadays. One of those things is Title 42, which is basically kicking people out and also the reduction of capacity for the number of asylum seekers in a year.

MG: Thousands of people are continuing to come to the border. And Joe Biden has said not to do that. Given what you have gone through, what more does. He and his administration need to do to help those migrants who are arriving at the southern border.

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: It's something that has always existed. And for many years, countries have not been able to solve this problem. But the solution has to do with solving problems in our countries for a better future. Work, of course, on what is going on right now at the borders, but also work in what's going on in other countries.

MG: How did it feel to be back in the United States,

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: movement? It was very emotional, but it was hard to process. Right now, I'm just trying to adapt to life here in the United States.

MG: Given everything that you have gone through, the long journey, the detention by the cartel, the 19 months that you spent sort of in limbo and everything else, do you have any regrets about making this journey?

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreign speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: It has been a very tough process for me. I am not sure that I can say that it has been worth it at this time. However, right now I feel secure, safe at this moment.

MG: And if I were to talk to you in five years, where would you want to be

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreing speech]

VICTOR CASTILLO: Possibly I would be with Rainbow Bridge and having a shelter in Mexico and another one here in the U.S. and Mexico.

MG: I really appreciate speaking with you. Thank you very much. And take care of yourself. Good luck.

ESTUARDI CIFUENTES: [Foreing speech]

MG: Eduardo Fuentes started Rainbow Bridge, which is a shelter for LGBTQ migrants. His asylum claim is still being processed. And thanks as well to Victor Castillo for his help in translating our conversation. Linda Corchado is a lawyer and director of legal services at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Centre. She's in El Paso, Texas. Linda, good morning to you. Good morning. How common is Estrada's story compared to what you have seen through your work?

LINDA CORCHADO: It's very common and it's just so inspiring to write someone who genuinely wants to see change and reform for members of the LGBTQ community but couldn't have it in his own country, yet, it's still motivated to create that change wherever he may be. I think that's a real common aspect of asylum seekers, people that are driven to change but are only met with hospitals, with torture, abuse and persecution back in their own home countries. So must leave to preserve their own lives.

MG: He was part of the MPP, which is also the Remain in Mexico programme. It was set up under the presidency of Donald Trump. Migrants were sent back to Mexico while their asylum claims were being processed. Joe Biden ended this programme. But what has replaced it at the border?

LINDA CORCHADO: Unfortunately, nothing without NPP. Now, there is no process for persons to seek asylum in the United States because of Title 42, anyone who attempts to the United States is immediately expelled back to Mexico.

MG: So if you if you show up and present at a port of entry and claim asylum, what happens?

LINDA CORCHADO: Well, I think there's three options, right? If anyone tries to go up to a port of entry, a bridge there immediately turned back. There's not even any documentation that's done on that person. It's as if that encounter never existed. The second option is if they try and enter between ports and they are somehow caught somewhere in the middle of the desert, those persons will likely undergo some minimum level of documentation, but again, are immediately expelled back. And the third option that I've encountered also are persons who attempt to jump Trump's border wall and sustained serious spinal injuries and are then hospitalised. And so through that process, I'm able to try and find some of them and advocate for them. But what I've also seen is basically when the hospital discharges them, immigration officials immediately begin the expulsion process as well. I represented one couple who nearly died of hypothermia during this historic ice storm in Texas. And as soon as they were discharged, the wife still had blue toes, was suffering, you know, from the side effects of nearly dying. And she was being crossed over barefoot into into Ciudad Juarez in Mexico.

MG: In the absence of a system or a policy, I mean, the White House has just been saying don't come. Does that message have any resonance right now?

LINDA CORCHADO: Deterrence never is is an option or a solution. You know, I've been practising immigration law and the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations and under every single administration, there have been asylum seekers who still try and exercise their international rights to seek asylum. You know, I heard Mr Smith went this is interview. And I think something else to remember is the caravan. Right, that set the Trump administration was appalled that. And now when you think of it, why would there be a caravan that was formed in the Trump administration who would have been so eager to live in that America? It's not really about who is president. It's a matter of survival.

MG: So it's only 100 days or 101 days, I suppose, since Joe Biden has been in office. But I mean, broadly, how would you assess how he's handling this if he says that he wants to do things differently and promised to do that not just, you know, as president, but also in the campaign? How has he done in those 100 days?

LINDA CORCHADO: A lot of talk, but not a lot of action. You know, it's it's really a desperate thing, right, to to be this faceless person on the other end of the phone, speaking to persons who may now live their lives with hands that are amputated because of the ice storm in a wheelchair now, because they've attempted to jump over the bridge and over the walls and to know that that they may be expelled, that were immediately facing that future anyway is a horrific experience, even as an advocate. I also oversee the detained docket and the detention of migrants is still alive and well even during a pandemic. So we need urgent change. We need radical change even to get somewhere to the left of moderation that we need to give some level of human civility to persons who have been persecuted. And we're just not there yet.

MG: Just very briefly, I mean, is there the political will to do that? Immigration is such and it's not just under Donald Trump. It's now under Joe Biden, under Obama. It is such a fraught issue in the United States.

LINDA CORCHADO: Lots to say about fear mongering. Right. And this idea of rejecting the other. I was really surprised, though, during during the presidential election to see Fox News, which is a very conservative news station here, was pulling their their audience. And many of them were in favour of citizenship and didn't really get what the big deal was. So it was kind of surprising to see, you know, we've been fighting this dark war, trying to protect humans under the Trump administration. But it just seems like there's more to it than that. And I hope that the Democratic that the Democrats really tap into the vibrancy of voters all across America. I think they might find some surprises that there are more persons that are that would be supportive of comprehensive immigration reform.

MG: Linda, great to speak with you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Linda Corchado, lawyer and director of legal services at Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Centre. She was in El Paso, Texas. Muzaffar Chishti is a senior fellow at the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute and has been listening in. Good morning to you. Good morning to you. How would you grade Joe Biden's work in addressing the influx of migrants arriving at the U.S. southern border?

MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: Well, not very well. I mean, I think it has been a real turbulence for them. They arrived at this issue unprepared for the enormity of the challenge that had been expecting and I think have been having difficulty finding their way out of it.

MG: How could they be unprepared? I mean, this issue is not a new issue.

MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: Yeah, I think they're tired of the messaging that don't come will be sufficient. And obviously that didn't work. And they should have been prepared, I think, especially after the pent up feeling during the Trump administration and people waiting on the other side of the border that there would be a surge. And, you know, it's that the defence has been the problem for the Obama administration, for the Trump administration, for the Biden situation, because we have tended to think about this as emergencies that will just go away. There'll be a one surge. It's really not. This has been a sustained phenomenon and we haven't looked at it as a sustained challenge to be addressed with a sustained solution.

MG: How much of Biden's work thus far has been unravelling some of the work that Donald Trump did versus implementing his own new policies?

MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: So obviously the challenge of the border is a big one, which they're confronting. But if you look at his immigration policies outside the border, they've been quite impressive. I mean, he has by now issued close to 90 amongst the executive actions, about 52 of them have been unwinding. Trump and others have been to improve immigration situation that advocates have asked for for the last 25 years. So in that the record is quite impressive. It just is not that well known. And most of it has to do with the improvements in the interior enforcement of the country and letting more people come in by lifting travel bans and improving access both for immigration and citizenship.

MG: It's interesting, Linda was saying, surprisingly to some, that there's support within the viewers of or some support within the viewers of Fox News for immigration reform and citizenship. You talked about dealing with this just as an emergency. Why has it been so difficult for administrations to meaningfully tackle the issue of immigration?

MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: Well, you know, we're a polarised country. And, you know, immigration has been sort of a source of this polarisation for a very long time. The issue now is that. Is strong feeling in the country, about two thirds of the country believe that we should have a pathway to citizenship for the 11 percent. But the difference between the two political parties has lost the difference between Republicans and Democrats today about do they feel good about immigration or bad is about 45 percent. So are you

MG: suggesting the public is ahead of those

MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: politicians just ahead of them? But the polls are so strong for a Republican to be soft on immigration. All it does is invite a challenge in the primary, and that's a political challenge for the party.

MG: So what would give you the confidence, given the promises that he's made? But to your point, also, what he has done maybe out of the spotlight, that Joe Biden can succeed where others haven't been able to succeed?

MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: Well, he can obviously do executive actions, which he has been good at except the border situation. And that's huge. I mean, it makes a lot of difference in the lives of ordinary people. If you're an unauthorised person in the country today and have not committed a serious crime, you don't have much to fear about your arrest or detention. That's an existential change from where we were in the Trump administration. But in terms of legal, where he needs legislation, which is for the legalisation of the of the eleven point one million unauthorised, he needs Congress and he has very slim majority. And these need 60 votes in the Senate for them. He needs the Republican help that is missing. And unfortunately, Republicans who would normally be willing to support a bill but are looking for an excuse not to the border crisis, has provided them an excuse not

MG: To do so. The border is the thing. It's the anchor in some ways that are weighing down some of that progress.

MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: Border has really been a challenge on a number of fronts. On immigration, he hasn't been able to make that much advance as he would legislatively because of the border challenge.

MG: Is it just finally, we only have about 30 seconds left, but is it about going deeper than what's just happening at the border? We've spoken about going to Guatemala and taking a look, for example, at the famine that's unfolding there. What's forcing people to leave those countries? And if you deal with that, perhaps you won't have a situation at your own border.

MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: That's the root causes are very important. Biden is very keen about root causes in the bill. He has supported four billion dollars provided for root causes. And we and he has made Vice President Harris in charge of the root cause phenomenon. So we hope there will be some progress in that direction as well.

MG: Muzaffer, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: Thanks so much for having me.

MG: Muzaffar Chishti is a senior fellow at the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute, and he was in New York City this morning. Your regional update is next. And then yesterday, the national defence minister, Harjit Sajjan, announced an independent review into sexual misconduct within the military and the Department of Defence. In 90 seconds, a conversation with the person leading this review. Louise Arbour, I Matt Galloway you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio one. Stay with us.

How the #MeToo movement could shape the new review of military sexual misconduct

Guests: Justice Louise Arbour, Emma Phillips, Karin Marley

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current yesterday, Canada's minister of National Defence, Harjit Sajjan, said he's sorry, sorry that members of Canada's armed forces and the Department of National Defence have not been protected from sexual misconduct and assault. But this apology is not the first and the abuse is not new. As far back as 2015, we have known not only about sexual misconduct in the armed forces and the Defence Department. There was actually a blistering report done by a former Supreme Court justice on that very matter. Then just last year, even more accusations when former chief of the defence staff Jonathan Vance stepped down amid an allegation of sexual misconduct. And now another independent and comprehensive review will begin this time. Former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour will be in charge. And Louise Arbour is with me now. Madam Justice, good morning.

JUSTICE LOUISE ARBOUR: Good morning, Mr. Galloway.

MG: What has the federal government actually asked you to do in this role?

JUSTICE LOUISE ARBOUR: I have a pretty extensive mandate. I think the well, let's put it this way, it's surprising and not exactly encouraging that six years after that initial report we're looking at, it looks like a continued prevalence of sexual harassment, sexual mwhat isconduct in every form. So I think one of the things I need to look at is what has been done in response to the recommendations that Meditational made and what are the continued barriers to reporting this kind of conduct? What is the adequacy or inadequacy of the response? And that includes military justice in the more serious cases. But but I think there's now a new element that that I think needs to be looked at very deeply, which is how how is the leadership that determine what's the recruitment, training, performance, evaluation and promotion system that leads to the choice of leaders in the chain of command that may have great operational efficiency background, but don't seem to carry the kind of values that are critical actually to to their performance. So they're basically the two pillars. There's been a lot of calls, as you know, for a fully independent reporting and oversight system. And the design of that, I think, is going to be very much part of what I am going to look at.

MG: Can I just ask you briefly about that? I mean, this is a call that was made six years ago, to your point in the Deshong report, given the organisational structure of the military, how independent can that system actually be? Do you have concerns around the independence of a system like that?

JUSTICE LOUISE ARBOUR: Absolutely. I have concerns. But at the same time, I have confidence. I've been given assurances that I will get all the support I need to really try to understand that this is the date we're going to need buy in from the inside. This is not the only probably a subculture organisation that is resistant to external oversight. I mean, you could look at look at the judiciary, look at the police, look at the College of Physicians. All these specialised bodies are persuaded that they know better, that nobody can judge their performance, that they only they understand and only deal with discipline and a quality of work and so on. And for the most part, they're wrong to the extent that they did not break out, I think, of a toxic culture. And people have a different understanding of what what does independent and external need in response to justice Deschenes Report Centre Sexual Misconduct Report Centre was put in place. For some people, independent and external means. It's not in the direct chain of command. For a lot of others, it means something slightly more radical in terms of distance from so. And, you know, I've heard calls for it to be a report to parliament. Well, I understand that, but what exactly are we talking about? Are we talking about certainly not about individual allegations. Victims were not going to parliament to make a complaint? Or are we talking of an ombudsman that reports that we're talking about report about systemic conduct and problems or the handling of individual cases? And, you know, it's not just the military. It's not that we're doing exactly brilliantly in other sectors in civilian life about handling sexual harassment and discrimination, sexual violence, misconduct in the workplace. But in this environment, again, the finding the way to handle confidentiality and accountability in a trustworthy fashion that is trustworthy by everyone inside and outside the system. That's what I think we need to get right this time.

MG: There are well, and this time is a key question. There are a lot of questions as to why we as a nation need another investigation into this. Six years after a report that was done where recommendations in many cases weren't followed up on weren't implemented. What's going to be different this time around?

JUSTICE LOUISE ARBOUR: Well, actually, I asked myself the same question at the outset, 'What do you mean, you've just been there?'. The flipside of that is, 'Well, so we hear that there's still an endemic, very serious concerns. Are we going to wait another 15 years, just silly. Well, now now would be the right time, I think I think it's the right time because there's continued not only continue, there's a lot of visibility on the deficiencies. So this kind of sexualised culture is still, it seems, very entrenched. And whatever has been done so far doesn't seem to be performing. What have you

MG: what have you heard? I mean, there have been not just in the reports, but in the media investigations, in the parliamentary investigations into sexual misconduct. What have you heard from those testimonies that has resonated with you?

JUSTICE LOUISE ARBOUR: Well, I've read to you what I've seen in the media. I haven't started this work, but what I'm very concerned about is, you know, just as Deshon described a sexualised culture, I'm concerned about the culture of resistance to, again, to external oversight, to appropriate accountability. But also, as I said before, too, that the expectation of the of leadership, who is only we don't know what's what's on paper, what I need to understand is what is the practise? What is the signal about what will help you move up the ranks at your career? Is it just your technical ability that so on, or is there something where, in fact, we value the opposite of what we see in the process about the nitty gritty and dignity? And and if it takes another effort at putting in place a proper way of of getting to the heart of that difficult. You know, I have to tell you, I got a couple of emails this morning, a very short email, several from men. And one of them said, if we can't respect and support our fellow warriors, male, female, binary, what are we fighting for? Well, if if if we could see this kind of attitude in that kind of promotion system that leads to senior leadership, I think we'd have we'd start seeing a culture change.

MG: Do you understand the frustration that survivors of sexual harassment and violence in the military have? I mean, it's raw, real frustration and anger with the fact that yet another report will be written that they say this is happening in part because of a political scandal. But also they worry that this is just and it's obviously no slight on the work that she will do, but they worry that this is just going to kick the can down the road further.

JUSTICE LOUISE ARBOUR: But I'm I. I get it. I mean, I can't even imagine the level of frustration on the on the part of those who were very brave and tough and did come forward. And of those who are still sitting back, holding back because they don't trust whatever is in place or whoever is running it, I get it entirety. All I could say is I'm going to get in there and do what I can. And what's the alternative at this point? I think this this kind of second look will build on what just as they are exposed, I think it was earth shattering. The level and the toxicity of that sexualised culture was widely exposed. Now, I think maybe it's going to take the second step to go deeper into trying to address from diagnosis to intervention a real one. And I, I, I honestly, I do trust that what I will recommend — and I'll make every effort to get it right — will be implemented.

MG: Just finally and briefly, there have been many questions as well around the Harper and Trudeau government's handling of these issues, in particular ignoring reports about General Vance's alleged behaviour. Will you focus on the political element of this as well?

JUSTICE LOUISE ARBOUR: Well, I certainly will not focus or actually touch your comment or make any findings or recommendations on any specific case throughout the system. This process will invite very confidential information with the assurance which obviously I'm giving that I will not comment on any individual case. I will look, as I said, not only to procedures, but also at the practise of selection of of people, particularly at the senior leadership position. And I want to understand how that's done. So inevitably, I think this will bring me nothing to individual cases but into a kind of historical track of choice of qualities that the military looks at in deciding who's going to need.

MG: I hope we have the opportunity to speak again as this review unfolds and concludes. In the meantime, Louise Arbour, thank you very much for this morning.

JUSTICE LOUISE ARBOUR: My pleasure.

MG: Former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour, she will lead an independent review examining sexual harassment and misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence. This reports, as we mentioned, is not the first such report. Emma Phillips served as legal counsel to the enquiry into sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. That report came out in 2015. Emma Phillips, good morning to you. Good morning. When you heard that Justice Louise Arbour would be conducting another review into sexual misconduct in the armed forces. What was your immediate reaction?

EMMA PHILLIPS: I had a very mixed reaction, you know, on the one hand, there's the obvious frustration that survivors and others have been expressing that as you just covered with Medicare, the government has had about abductions report for six years. Her central cornerstone recommendation was to create an independent external body outside of the armed forces with it with a pretty robust mandate. And that was all before the government in her report in March 2015. And I should add that that recommendation didn't just come out of the blue. You know, it's based on established international best practises that we were seeing in the U.S. and France and Australia, the Netherlands or other countries had already been working on this kind of a model. And what we got instead was the Sexual Misconduct Response Centre, which is really only a victim support service. And it doesn't it doesn't fulfil that role of accountability that that individual was strongly recommending. So I understand when I hear survivors say, you know, enough studies, enough external reviews already in government have had a clear recommendation and it failed to implement it. And I think we also really shouldn't lose sight of the fact that there have been some real harms that have occurred in those intervening six years. On the other hand, I do also welcome that arbours review, particularly in our comments that she's just made about the broader mandate that she's been given, including looking at the military justice system, which was outside of Madame de Charles mandate. She wasn't permitted to look at that. And that, I think, was a significant obstacle in addressing that, the broader issues of accountability and and then, as Metamora said, also looking at the promotion of leadership structures. And if I can add that, you know, I think it's really also important to kind of put herself back in the shoes of where the Metamaterials report landed in 2015 is a different time. It was a different time. And, you know, it was before me, too. It was before the class actions at the Jian Ghomeshi trial hadn't happened. And societally, we were in a very different place. And certainly the military was in a very different place. And, you know, Some of your listeners might remember that just a couple of months after Madame Deschamps' report came out, General Lawson gave an interview with Peter Mansbridge where he said, 'Well, some men are just biologically wired to be aggressive.' And that was the mentality that many in the military had. And so there was tremendous resistance to the idea that this is a real problem that needs to be addressed and to the kinds of recommendations that madam was making. So I think there's a real window of opportunity now because it cannot be denied at this point in time how serious and how pervasive these issues are.

MG: How pervasive do you think those issues are? I mean, if you take a look at leaders like General Vance, who has been accused of some of the same behaviour that he said that he would address in many ways, what does that tell you about how pervasive those issues are within the culture and how difficult it is to to change a culture?

EMMA PHILLIPS: So we're talking about an organisation that's 100000 people, never mind as civilians as well, that it's a very large, multidimensional organisation with a deep history of, you know, a deeply hierarchical and deeply male dominated organisation. So it is going to be very challenging to change the culture and it's going to take multiple different efforts and components. Again, as Mr Blair was describing, there's the accountability mechanisms. There's also the leadership in educational and recruitment and promotion mechanisms. I think there is there are there's a historic culture that we see in the allegations that we see against General Vance and others that obviously these kinds of behaviours have been going on for a long time. And I also, you know, I have to say, really disheartened when I watch some of the testimony before the House of Commons where we saw women coming forward who were recruited or join the armed forces, you know, 20, 18, 2017, 2019, and experienced the same culture of serious sexual misconduct that that had been reported prior to the discharge report. So, you know, unfortunately, there have been there have been some changes, but it's not nearly sufficient.

MG: Why should survivors then those who perhaps might be critical, sceptical, concerned, perhaps cynical, that another review is another review? Why should they be confident that this will be different, do you think?

EMMA PHILLIPS: I think they're two, maybe two answers to that, one is I do think that because of the courage that survivors have had in coming forward, because of that undischarged report, because of the class action lawsuits and because, frankly, of the continued media attention on this issue, there is tremendous public pressure on the military and on the government to make concrete change. And I do think we are in a different moment now than we were in 2005. And that creates opportunity. So We hear Minister Sajjan saying in his announcement about Adam arbours new mandate, they are beginning from a point of time and saying, 'We accept that there is sexual misconduct and we accept that there's a need for an external oversight mechanism.',

MG: rather than dismissing it and being defensive and saying that this is it is what it is.

EMMA PHILLIPS: That's right. That's right. And, you know, administration went so far as to say we will implement whatever Madama Report recommends. So so she's got some, you know, tremendous opportunity here. She's been given that broader mandate, which I think is critically important. And and frankly, her own credibility really adds to to I think the trust certainly that I have that this will be an independent voice and a strong voice. And, you know, I think that that's it's important to give it it's its time and its moment to really make those those concrete recommendations for concrete change. If we don't see change coming out of that at that moment, that I think we're really and, you know, there's a real crisis in our military and in our in our government.

MG: Does it say, well, government oversight is a key part of this. Does it need to extend beyond that? Because there again, we've heard in the last 24 hours in the wake of this announcement, a number of those survivors who, to your point, very bravely spoke out, who said that they have no confidence in Harjit Sajjan, the minister of defence, to handle this issue, that that they believe it hasn't been handled, that the oversight hasn't been there to protect. Members of the military like themselves, so does it need to extend into politics as well?

EMMA PHILLIPS: I think when you when you establish an independent review with somebody like Madame or at the helm, I mean, reading between the lines as a total outsider to this process, I would understand that as the government being willing to be pushed into a particular direction because they know that she is somebody who is going to she's not going to pull her punches. And now that I'm sure there's scepticism and I'm not a political pundit, so there's scepticism about it. Is the government just pushing this down the road until after an election? And I'm sure there are reasons for people to be sceptical. But I do believe that having an external review with somebody like Medema worth a head at continues that public examination continues. The media attention continues, the public pressure and there is going to have to be a reckoning and that's going to have to result in in the concrete changes that we all see need to be made.

MG: A reckoning is a very strong word.

EMMA PHILLIPS: Well, we've got a crisis in the very highest levels of leadership in the military. So if this isn't a moment in which there's going to be concrete change, I don't know when there would be.

MG: And I really appreciate speaking with you this morning. Thank you very much. Thank you. Emma Phillips is a partner at Goldblatt Partners and she was legal counsel to Justice Marie Deschamps external review into sexual misconduct and sexual harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces in 2015. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One, my name is Matt Galloway,

[Music]

SOUNDCLIP

We ground them and we tried it and we mailed it and you lose about 50 percent when you dry it. But you're talking about a product that is about 60 to 70 percent protein. So about 750 tons of milled locusts is going to give you about three tons of chicken food.

MG: That's Scilla Alan. She's a project manager for the bug picture. It is an insect protein company. We spoke with her earlier this week about efforts in Africa to turn locusts into feed for livestock. Insects as a crunchy snack is not a new concept. You have filled the mailbox with all the different ways that creepy crawlers can be culinary delights. The Current senior producer Karin Marley is here to help sift through your mail. Karin, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning. A bunch of people write in about insects as crunchy snacks for us humans, but also for animal feed. So let's start with Will Bailey Elkin from Winnipeg. He writes, There are companies in Canada that are doing similar work with black soldier fly larvae, for example, Enterra Feed Corp. NBC grows, dries and sells the larva for livestock feed and sells the larva Fras i.e. poop. I did not know that word before as a fertiliser. The flies are raised on food waste as well.

MG: Frass, thank you. I did not know that word. Caitlin Stewart from Souris Manitoba also highlights another process that, in her words, uses black soldier flies. But they also processed waste meat, a.k.a. maggots, which transforms that waste meat into insect protein that is suitable as an animal feed protein source. This is a great way to processed waste for a win win, since animals generally shouldn't be cannibals. This translation from beef to insect protein puts more safety into the feed process as well.

KARIN MARLEY: And then we heard from Martin Klein in Toronto. He tells us about grasshoppers in the Democratic Republic of Congo writing, They were considered a delicacy. A Congolese friend served some fried grasshoppers to us when we were over there for dinner. My wife was bothered, but they actually tasted good, a bit like shrimp.

MG: Mary Watson from Pincher Creek, Alberta says, I recently decided to try cricket powder stirring about a tablespoon into my overnight oats, which also have chia seeds, ground, flax seed and berries. Each bite requires me to consciously overcome a lifetime of cultural conditioning against eating bugs. Yet do I detect an off putting flavour? Not really. Maybe the overnight oats are a bit nuttier, that's all. That said, will I continue to buy cricket powder once this pouch is done? It's hard to say. I know that I can now employ mind over matter for myself, but do I really want every bite of my breakfast to be an act of mental fortitude? That is a harder question to answer. We also got this one from Donald James MacDonald in Williamstown, Ontario. Back in the mid 1950s. My father came home a little tins of interesting stuff ants, worms, bees. There were chocolate coated insects available, but these were just the insects. He had read somewhere that the early peoples in Australia used to make a small trench around there, fires, insects would end up in there and get cooked. It was an accepted method of food acquisition.

KARIN MARLEY: And finally, James Quinn writes, In rural China, they sell Lavall of WASPs in their honeycombs in the markets, in some of the baskets, you can see adult workers emerging. The larva are a food that seems to be greatly loved. I tasted them and I found them to be fine. I guess I'm puzzled by the thought that we look down on eating animals if they don't have bones,

MG: Eever eaten any bugs?

KARIN MARLEY: I have, a bunch of times, actually, and my favourite is barbecue flavoured crickets,

MG: Which tastes like barbecue flavour?

KARIN MARLEY: Yes.

MG: No cricket.

KARIN MARLEY: With crunch. Nothing else.

MG: With crunch. Karin, thank you very much. It's it's what's for breakfast? Barbecue flavour, crickets. Karin Marley, senior producer The Current. We read every single thing that you send to us and some of your letters end up on the radio. You can write to us about anything you hear on the programme. Email thecurrent@cbc.ca. And that's it for The Current for this Friday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q. You will want to tune in to the Sunday magazine this weekend. Listen, every weekend, of course. But this weekend, Stacey Abrams is on the programme. First, black female, major party nominee for governor in an American state, narrowly lost that race in Georgia in twenty 2018. Since then, she has continued to be a huge political force, not just in Georgia but across the United States and a champion for voting rights as well. This weekend, Stacey Abrams joins Piya Chattopadhyay to speak about her role in getting out the vote for Joe Biden for the January Senate runoffs and what happened in the aftermath. We thought we would leave you this morning with a little bit of that conversation with Chad about why this is speaking with Stacey Abrams on how to make lasting change when nothing really is permanent in politics. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Have a great weekend and we'll talk to you on Monday.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Nothing is irretrievable and nothing is irredeemable, that's why we have to build infrastructure. That's why we have to build knowledge. That's why we have to build the muscle memory of voting. And we have to connect the dots to the challenges that people face in their lives when their vote is not counted or countenanced. The worst story we could tell is that it ends when the when we close the book. No, we won a victory in November. We won another victory in January. But the same day those victories became real on January six, when those numbers finally, finally came in, we had the insurrection at the Capitol. When good triumphs, that doesn't mean evil goes away. Evil just regroups. And when evil triumphs, good has to find another vantage point and another way in. I write, I work, I lead. I do the things I do because I know that this is a constant battle, but that the goal is to find the victories we can and to keep trying to defeat it as much as possible. I don't think we'll ever get it completely done, but that doesn't mean we don't try.

VOICE 2: Do those sort of if I can put it this way, quick flips, say anything to you about the robustness or lack thereof of American democracy.

VOICE 1: This is all about power. And those who have power like to keep it. Those who want power have to find a way to take it. Those who are denied power have to find a way to navigate. And democracy is about an organising structure for power. But these battles take place in every nation state in the United States. It is weakened by our hubris that we think that this isn't a battle. There's this notion that this is all about partisanship. And unfortunately, we are at a place where this is about citizenship. No one has the right to victory, but everyone who is eligible has the right to participation. And that is, I think, the weakness that we have to continue to address voter suppression at its most cruel takes away the power of citizenship, and that should never be countenanced by anyone.

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