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The Current Transcript for December 12, 2024

Host: Matt Galloway

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

DANIEL LEADER: People would say, your, your house smells so good. And then a neighbor would tell another neighbor. And then, some neighbours told the college professors, and I was starting to be called the bad guy.

MATT GALLOWAY: Daniel Leader's the guy you want to live next to. Long before people started treating their sour dough starters like family. During the pandemic, the celebrated New York State Baker was working to bring homemade bread to the masses. His new book is a look back on how someone whose first loaves were better used as paperweights ended up becoming that bread guy. In 30 minutes, Zen and the Art of Baking Bread, and why Leader insists it's much easier than you might think. Also, this morning: As expected, the Bank of Canada chopped its leading rate yet again yesterday. Coming up, what that means for your debt, for our dollar. And for an economy that some people say is already in a recession. Plus, the world's biggest sporting event is headed to Saudi Arabia and not everyone is happy about that.

SOUNDCLIP

FIFA VOICE: It's everything wrong with football governments. It's, I mean, we're going to have all the same echoes that we had with Qatar, all the same issues going on, on a much wider scale.

MATT GALLOWAY: FIFA awarded the 2034 World Cup to the Middle East nation. Hardly unexpected, they were the only bidder. In an hour, why the World Cup is going to Saudi Arabia despite a human rights record that Amnesty International calls atrocious. We begin, though, with hope, freedom and fear in Syria. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Syria’s uncertain future

Guests: Azza Kondakji, Margaret Evans

[People speaking Arabic]

MG: 'Thank God, thank God, we've got rid of the oppressor.' That is a Syrian refugee lined up at the Turkish-Syrian border waiting to return to his homeland.

[Sounds of people chanting]

MG: And in Damascus, thousands of people chant and set off fireworks celebrating the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It has been nearly a week since opposition forces toppled Assad's regime, forcing him to flee to Russia. Now, talks in Syria have shifted to the future as the country looks toward moving forward from 13 years of civil war. AZZA KONDAKJI: is a Syrian once detained for protesting against the Assad government. She is in Homs. Azza, hello.

AZZA KONDAKJI: Hello.

MG: How are you doing?

AZZA KONDAKJI: I'm good. I'm very good.

MG: Very good. Describe the scenes in your city when you got the news that Bashar al-Assad had fled government and fled the country.

AZZA KONDAKJI: Well, it's quite overwhelming. We're still like, it's, it's the fifth day and we still cannot believe that we are the, the generation who, who witnessed this epic moment that we have been waiting for too long, even before the Syrian revolution have started.

MG: What was the reaction like on the streets when people found out? How did people respond?

AZZA KONDAKJI: Well, people went out to the streets the next day immediately and started celebrating. People started to meet their beloved who were, who were out of the government. The previous government, besieged areas like the celebrations, are still ongoing on a daily basis.

MG: But as you mentioned, it was hard for people to believe that this was true, right?

AZZA KONDAKJI: Yeah, of course. Having, having someone ruling you, a family ruling you since 1971, and now they are gone with all the injustice that they did. It's very overwhelming to still believe that it's gone. And we are actually witnessing this.

MG: What was life like for you and your family under the Assad regime?

AZZA KONDAKJI: Other members of my family have been detained, too. My father had a travel ban even before the Syrian revolution because of having opinions against the Assad regime. So, it's used to be a country with no justice, no dignity, no free of speech. So, we're hoping for, for the better for the country.

MG: What about you yourself? I said in the introduction that you yourself had been detained for protesting against the, the Assad government. What happened?

AZZA KONDAKJI: Well, I was detained for, for protesting. Well, I was detained three times, actually, knowing that the demonstrations ended years ago. But the government is, is always have been always scared of people who know how to write, who know how to speak, you know, which is the most weapon that the government have been scared from.

MG: What do you think the government was afraid of from those people, as you said, who know how to write and know how to speak?

AZZA KONDAKJI: Yes, because we, we have opinions. We have, we, we know like it like because the word like it's, it's more, it's way stronger than the actual weapon. And this is what the government was the most scared of, that you go out and you, you demand your rights. And this is what scares dictators, dictatorships.

MG: It must have been terrifying to have been detained, as you said, three times.

AZZA KONDAKJI: Yes, it was. Yes. It's very terrifying. Like, knowing that your family doesn't know where you are because the fam like, here, you don't have the right to know where the detainees are taken to. So, yes, it's been, it's been scary for both of us, for, for me and for, for my family as well.

MG: We're seeing these extraordinary images of people being freed from prisons, people like yourself who had protested, who were detained. What is it like knowing what you went through? What is it like to see those images?

AZZA KONDAKJI: Well, I was, I was released on March 2020. But I was like, I was still in prison until, until the day of the fall of the Assad. It's the day I called that I was, I was freed from, from Assad's regime on the eighth of December.

MG: But you still, even though you were out of detention, you were still kind of living in detention under, under [AZZA KONDAKJI: Of course] that regime?

AZZA KONDAKJI: Every day. Every single day. I was scared to be detained again. Every single day. Every time I see a car parking under our like by our building, I used to be scared that they are now coming to take me. But now I am finally, I am now out of prison.

MG: You know, there are millions of Syrians who left Syria and came to places like Canada because of what they lived under. Why did you stay in the country?

AZZA KONDAKJI: Because I wanted to witness this day. Regardless of all the hardships that we went through. Besieged detention. Hunger. But I wanted to witness this day with me, with my family.

MG: This is a really difficult time. There's a lot of joy, but there's a lot of fear as well about what might come and what the future of Syria will look like. What are you worried about right now?

AZZA KONDAKJI: Well, having to move out from a messy, messy and dirty home to a new home takes a lot of work and a lot of time and a lot of patience. And we have to have this. But the, the thing is that I'm very optimistic about what is coming. But it's going to be easy? No, it's not going to be easy. But it's going to be for the better for Syria.

MG: But as you say, I mean, this is going to take time for that messy home to be cleaned up. [AZZA KONDAKJI: Yeah.] Yeah. What are you most hopeful for? I mean, if you think of the future of Syria, this is a moment that, as you said, you stayed in the country to live through. What are you hopeful for?

AZZA KONDAKJI: I hope for a Syria for all Syrians, dignity for everyone, free of speech, like just to be treated as, as actual civilians who have rights.

MG: Could you have imagined this day coming?

AZZA KONDAKJI: Never. Never. I thought that maybe the children of our children might witness it or, and might not.

MG: So, that's really powerful for you to be there in the middle of it?

AZZA KONDAKJI: Yeah, very much. Like, it's, we're still overwhelmed. We still cannot believe.

MG: Azza, I'm glad to talk to you. Thank you very much. And all the best.

AZZA KONDAKJI: Thank you for hosting me.

MG: Azza Kondakji is a Syrian once detained three times, as you heard, for protesting against the Assad regime. She was in the city of Homs.

MG: The CBC's senior international correspondent, Margaret Evans, is in Damascus. Margaret, hello to you.

MARGARET EVANS: Hi, Matt.

MG: We just spoke with a young woman in Homs who said she couldn't quite believe what was happening, that she thought it would be the children of her children that would witness this moment. What is it like today in Damascus?

MARGARET EVANS: Well, it's, it's been easy for the past couple of days. You know, there were those really joyous, obviously, scenes at the beginning. But there is also a lot of tension as well because of the uncertainty. Now, I'm not saying that uncertainty has gone away, but the moves that the opposition forces, the rebel groups that are now in control, at least here in Damascus and much of the country, are making or seem to be giving people a sense of, of greater ease to move around the city. So, shops are open. There had been a curfew in place. That curfew was lifted. The banks are open. People are being told go back to work. So, in the centre of, of Damascus, there is a real sense of normalcy, although you see lots of people running around, putting up the new Syrian flag, which is the flag of the opposition. And you see, you know, you'll pass a garbage bin and it'll have the old Syrian flag, which there's a difference in terms of the number of stars and the colour of stripes. But the old flag was a representation of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad's father. So, that's the kind of mood you got right now.

MG: There have been these extraordinary scenes that people have seen around the world of family members showing up at prisons, one in particular looking for their loved ones who were detained, people who had spoken out against the regime, people who had somehow offended the regime. What did you make of that?

MARGARET EVANS: It's really hard to describe the sense of just how highly charged the atmosphere was. This is on the grounds of a, of a prison on the outskirts of Damascus, the most notorious prison in Syria, nicknamed the slaughterhouse. And it's, it's the place where political dissidents would be taken, but not just, you know, the activists, but somebody who had maybe, you know, written, written something online. You know, it wa--, a vast number of different kinds of people taken there, estimates of thousands of people being executed in the prison, according to a report by Amnesty International in 2017. But it's the place where people, if they, if your, if your loved one was taken, that's the first place you're worried that they might have gone. And I think the thing that struck me most, talking to people who, who, you know, they surrounded us because they saw the camera and they'd come up and they'd show you, you know, passports or I.D. cards or pieces of paper saying, please take this picture. You know, trying to find their loved ones. Many of the people that we spoke to hadn't seen their loved ones, you know, since 2012, not allowed to visit. Not allowed to have any communication with them. And then, there were lots of people who didn't know if that's where their loved ones had gone because prisoners were moved, and the al-Assad regime relied on a vast network of prisons and not just big monolithic ones like the one we were at, but secret prisons. We have colleagues here in the city who, just over the past few days, were filming the government building and found somebody detained on that premises. And so, the prison that we're talking about, you know, as the, the opposition forces came down from Aleppo in the north. In each city, they went through, they went to the prisons to free the prisoners. But, you know, there are rumours that there are secret prisons or secret levels. And even though rescue workers have come in and said 'We've, we've released everybody that we think, you know, has been imprisoned here,' people still believe that there are secret places where people are being held.

MG: This is why people are bashing through the walls and the floors, looking for these secret chambers where they think their loved ones might have been, have been put.

MARGARET EVANS: That's right. Yeah. One of the other things that we saw were, you know, there were a lot of papers flying around, records. You know, there are apparently rooms in there full of records, and some of them are accurate and some of them aren't. So, you would see groups of people all crowded around, leaning down, looking at these big sheets of paper with handwritten names and fingerprints beside them and, you know, trying to ascertain what might have happened. One of the other things we saw was one of the opposition fighters leaving the grounds with a big kind of pile of papers, and that had the names of soldiers and prison guards who'd worked there and asked, what, what are you going to do with that? He's going to, he said he was going to give it to his leaders. He wanted the international community to come in. And, you know, one of the other things I would just mention is that, you know, people could now go into those prisons. And so, that was a brave journey for people to take, you know, going down into those cells, those cramped cells, seeing the tiny little, you know, box between this prison door and that tiny cell, no light, no windows. And they were coming to the understanding of what their loved ones had been living with. So, it was almost like people were greeting their greatest fears. And, and many people kind of coming out of there were just kind of collapsing or weeping. So, it was extremely emotional and very reflective of just how deeply wounded this country is.

MG: What are people that you're talking to saying about this rebel group, HTS - Tahrir al-Sham - that's currently in charge. There is, there's jubilation, but also uncertainty about what the aims and the goals, the true aims and goals of this group are.

MARGARET EVANS: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of that. You know, overall, there's a sense and again, I'm speaking for Damascus. I haven't visited other parts of the country, but the people are taking this moment of freedom, the surprise, etc.. But there is an underlying sense for many of not sure what to do, you know, just not wanting to be too optimistic, but not wanting to be unhopeful. Some of the people that we spoke to said that they watched the way that the opposition came down that main road from Aleppo to Damascus, as well as the way that the leader of HTS - Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, functioned as a leaders, the, the head kind of, of a government, if you want to call it that, in Idlib province, which is where the main opposition has been for years, and he's credited with creating order there, but he's also been accused by rights groups of human rights abuses in keeping that order. That said, we met a man holding his little son. So, the future of the country saying there was order in Idlib. He cared about people when they went to Aleppo. It was very organized. When they came to Hama, it was organized, and that gave him hope, he said. He said, 'That's what we want for our country.' And then, the messaging from, from the opposition groups is very much, 'It's time for us to take care of the Syrian people.' But there is, you know, people are hoping for the best. And, of course, people who might be worried because they worked for government agencies or, you know, have, have, you know, received their positions because they were in part of the, say, the Alawite sect that might have of Bashar al-Assad, that might have, you know, given them a step up in their career. Those people are worried. And we were speaking this morning with someone who works for one of the big international aid agencies here who said a lot of the regime members are still in the country and they will be very fearful of the future. And, of course, you know, people who respect the secular nature of Syria will be worried because of al-Jolani's Islamist roots and his past, as you know, leading a branch of al-Qaeda.

MG: Let me just ask you two final things. One is just and you've hinted at this, but what is the hope that people have for their country, a country that's been through so much over the last 12, 13, 14 years?

MARGARET EVANS: I think they want to stand up. The hope is that Syria can become great again in a way of real pride. You know, I started coming here in the early 2000s, and even then people were conscious of the, they talked about the, the deep culture, the Syrian culture, about how cultured and civilized the people are here. So, I think that they are hoping that the ideals that we're hearing coming out from the revolutionaries, the rebels are adhered to, but they also want the outside world to help. They want their country back. I think they also want justice. I'm not sure how easy it will be for them to get them. They want people to come home, but they also want a country that is able to actually allow that to happen.

MG: What is it like for you to be back in that city? I mean, again, you are in one city, not the entire country, but you know the city well. And, and given what it's gone through, what's it like just for you to be there?

MARGARET EVANS: There's lots of, lots of different emotions. I've thought a lot about, you know, when I was here, there was a lot of hope surrounding Bashar al-Assad, who'd taken over from his father in a, in an uncontested election, you know, it's a dynasty. But he was seen as a younger leader. He had this, you know, British wife. And, and it was you know, there was a sense that maybe he would actually liberalize the country. And I remember talking to dissidents at the time, political opponents, you know, advocating for change, you know, saying give him a chance. You know, he, it might get better for us. And I worry about civil war if, if things, you know, if the opposition gets too strong. And, and I spoke to people who had been jailed in the prison system that existed in Hafez al-Assad's regime and understood the, the torture that they had experienced even then. Then you go to, you know, the Civil War, 2011, the opposition rising up and that brutal crackdown. And, you know, people talk about this country being broken and it has been so brutal, the tactics that have been used and it has been so emptied out of civil society. You know, it's you know, I don't know a lot of people here anymore because the people I met when I used to come more regularly to cover it are scattered around the world. They're in Germany or they're in Lebanon or they're, you know, some of them, I'm sure, in Canada. So, I, you know, I'm very optimistic, but I'm also extremely fearful because it's a really complicated picture. There are many people with different aspirations. And when people's security is threatened, you know, and people's livelihoods, if people forget that Syria is a country where a lot of people are living below the poverty line. So, you know, I think there are huge challenges ahead. And, but I've always had a love in my heart for this country and this amazingly beautiful city. It is, it does have deep roots. It is a very cultured place at its heart, but it has been brutalized.

MG: Margaret, I'm so glad to talk to you. Thank you so much.

MARGARET EVANS: Thanks for having me.

MG: The CBC's senior international correspondent, Margaret Evans, is in Damascus. Your CBC News with the latest on this story and others is coming up next. And then, you know, nothing compares to the smell of fresh, out-of-the-oven bread except for maybe the sound.

SOUNDCLIP

DANIEL LEADER: You get this fissure from the loaf cooling. I remember the very first time this happened to me, I was at a bakery in Paris and the bakers said, 'Listen to me. Listen to the music of the bread.' [Music: Theme fading in] And he puts the baguette next to my ear and, and he's smiling.

MG: The music of bread. Long before all of us turned into bakers during the pandemic, Daniel Leader had his hands in the dough, shaping loaves of bread. He'll come up to tell us why he is happy that the Internet was not around when he was a beginner baker, and how making bread can actually slow you down in the busy world. It's a long change from when he was making bread. It was perhaps better served as paperweights. Daniel Leader coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

A pioneer of artisan breadmaking

Guest: Daniel Leader

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current. Let's go back to a time not so long ago, a time when we were faced with an unprecedented challenge, a challenge that left us isolated in search of a distraction.

SOUNDCLIP

BREAD BAKER 1: Like so many self-isolating people, I have taken to making my own bread. This, my friends, is a year 11, fresh from the oven full of love, comfort-inducing, carb-loaded, COVID coping mechanism.

BREAD BAKER 2: I was obsessed with baking sour dough bread, and if anyone wanted some sourdough starter, I would be happy to give them some.

BREAD BAKER 3: We've really been missing community during social distancing. Making bread for others is kind of become our little way of loving them from afar. We can't come see you. But hey, here, have some bread.

MG: The pandemic helped drive home that idea that a shared loaf of bread provides more than just sustenance. Turns out the Daniel Leader has known this for decades. He is the founder of the Bread Alone Bakery in upstate New York, and a pioneer of what we now call the artisanal bread movement. 40 years ago, he was selling bread out of the back of the family's station wagon. Organic flour wasn't yet a thing. Many people hadn't even heard of sour dough, let alone tasted it. Well, now, thousands of loaves later, Daniel Leader is sharing what he has learned about his craft and our relationship with bread. His new book is called "A Slow Rise: Favorite Recipes from Four Decades of Baking With Heart." Daniel Leder joins us from our studio in Bangor, Maine. Daniel, good morning.

DANIEL LEADER: Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here.

MG: It's great to have you here. Do you, are you a toast person for breakfast?

DANIEL LEADER: 100 per cent toast person. And actually, I make my toast in a very special way. I have a, an AGA cooker, and I have this, like, it's a little, little bit of like, a rat cage. And I put the bread there and I put it directly on the burner. So I get, like, nice caramelized edges when I'm making my toast.

MG: I can smell your kitchen already. Oh my goodness. This is such an interesting book because, as I said, it's filled with recipes, but it's also the story in some ways of how you ended up doing your life's work. And this starts for you with a book. Tell me about the book that opened your eyes to bread making.

DANIEL LEADER: Well, I was in college and I was working as a breakfast cook in Madison, Wisconsin, and there was one of the first U.S. food co-ops was there. And there, next to a bin of whole wheat flour was Edward Espe Brown's book, "The Tassajara Bread Book." And there was something about this paperback book with a simple loaf of bread and jam and the cover that spoke to me. And I took it home and I just started baking this simple 100 per cent whole wheat bread. And people would say, 'Your, your house smells so good.' And then, a neighbour would tell another neighbour. And then, some neighbours told the college professors, and I was starting to be called the bread guy. And people would invite me over to their dinner parties or whatever just to share this simple loaf of whole wheat bread. And it just, it not only was it something that I loved, it was something that I was learning to love, but it was something that that, 'Wait a second. I'm making friends. I'm meeting people that are interesting. I'm sharing, like, a simple joy and, and a simple excitement.' And it captivated me then. And it still captivates me today.

MG: Let me ask you about The Tassajara Bread Book. It was written by a Zen monk. What was it about the book and about his approach, which is rooted in Zen philosophy that was really interesting to you?

DANIEL LEADER: I mean, you know, I didn't know about anything about that philosophy at the time. I was just looking at a bread book that appealed to me. But within those pages, he would talk about being connected to the process, you know, holding the flower in your hand, smelling each step along the way, you know, really immersing yourself in the process. And now, we've, we talk about mindfulness and being in the moment, but he, he didn't use those words. He talked about the emotional connection to, to making bread and really, really touching the dough and feeling it as if it's life itself. And that really spoke to me. I mean, I was, I was 18 and trying to find my way in life. And it just spoke to an emotional quality that is very much alive to this day for me.

MG: He also talked about how, and these are, I mean, you read about this in the book, "Working to Bake bread can renew our spirit. With this work, we renew the world, our friends, our neighbours." I mean, that can sound and you're talking about bread, but at the same time is what you were said at the very beginning, that you become the bread guy, that something is created when you are baking your own loaf of bread that people want to be part of.

DANIEL LEADER: I mean, I'm still fascinated by what happened during the pandemic because of all of the foods, of all of the things that people could have kind of attached themselves to for comfort, it was bread. I mean, it was such a phenomenon. And, you know, the social media posts were extraordinary. I know, I know some bread bakers, they have 1 million or 2 million followers. And they, they are reaching out to the world in their commitment to making good bread at home. It's quite fascinating.

MG: What did you make of that? That of all the things that people turn to, it was, it was bread baking during that really isolating time?

DANIEL LEADER: To me, I always think of bread baking, like farming, like music. You know, you walk in a room and there's beautiful music. You feel different. You, you pull a carrot from a garden, you feel different. But bread baking has that... I don't know. It's, it's so primal and so, it's so real. There's, there's nothing, there's nothing that you can't understand. You have some water. You have some flour. And then, when, when the mythology went away about sourdough, wait a second. Sour dough is just flour and water that you feed a few times over a few days and all of a sudden, it's this bubbly mess and that is going to make your bread. And the byproduct is this wonderful flavour of, you know, you know, technically we're creating lactic and acetic acids. I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of science to it, but there's a lot of mythology and there's a lot of just practicality. I mean, when I first learned to bake in France in the in the in the early '80s, the bakers who taught me, they couldn't tell you about the type of lactobacilli or the exact qualities of the flour. They, you know, they, they smelled the sour dough. They felt the dough in their hands. They touched the flour. And it was that experience that they refined over time that turned them into good bakers. And I think that during the pandemic, each of us in our own little world could experience this, you know, this connection and the satisfaction and, and the sharing from, from, you know, from nothing. Flour and water.

MG: Were you a natural at this? What were the early loaves that you baked like when they came out of the oven?

DANIEL LEADER: Oh no, they were paper ones. I remember, you know, back when I was in college, we actually had, you know, typewriters and we would have our term papers piled up. I can remember putting a loaf of bread and my pipe, my one of my term papers so it wouldn't blow away.

MG: How did you learn? I mean, you talked about going to Europe. What was it that you learned when you were traveling through Europe?

DANIEL LEADER: You know, I consider myself a master of going to the back door of a bakery and knocking on the door. And in the early days, I spoke just enough French to talk my way into a bakery. And then, I would ask them, could I stay a shift? And then, it turned into three nights. And, and back then, before there was a lot of mutter and retarding proofing equipment, you know, we'd start working at midnight and work until eight in the morning. So, you know, we would have time to talk and we would have time to like, you know, really look, look at the oven and look at the dough. I mean, I'm actually quite happy the Internet was not around when I was learning bread baking because I got to, I get to experience it, you know, firsthand, like from real artisans, from real craftsmen and women. And it was a, you know, a wonderful part of my life.

MG: What did you learn about flour and about the importance of what we put into the dough?

DANIEL LEADER: Well, you know, there's kind of like two worlds in milling. You've got, you know, commercial milling and what I'm calling them, non-commodity milling, and non-commodity milling would be a small flour mill, often stone ground that has direct relationships with the farmers who are supplying this mill. And this flour is often less. Most often, it's less refined. In France, they have a type of flour called Type 85 where they just sift off a little bit of the bran just to make it a little bit lighter.

MG: Just explain what that means when you say [inaudible.]

DANIEL LEADER: So, so if you take a wheat berry and you crush it in a stone, okay? 100 per cent of that, that flour would be whole wheat flour, but whole wheat flour tends to be a little heavy. So, what they do is they have, they just have some sifters and they'll just maybe sift off, let's say, 5 or 10 per cent of the bran, just to make the flour a little bit lighter. But it's not, it's not white flour. It's kind of like a sandy colour with flecks of bran in it; a very, very different quality than commercially ground white flour that we'll see in a supermarket. But luckily, you know, certainly in the States and I know this is true in Canada as well, there's a lot of small mills popping up. In fact, one of my favourite mills in France just opened a mill near Quebec. And so, they're, they're milling this French-style flour in Montreal in Quebec now.

MG: And you notice that in the taste of the bread?

DANIEL LEADER: Oh, totally. I can tell instantly in the taste. I can tell in the, in the colour. I can tell in the way the loaf rises. I can, I can tell when the caramelization of the loaf because you haven't sifted out a lot of the, the germ which is get the fatty, the fatty part of the wheat kernel in it. It's got more of the brand. It's, you develop different, different flavour profiles with this more whole grain flour.

MG: How does it, how does it taste differently? I mean, describe what that taste would be, the difference.

DANIEL LEADER: I would say that there's a earthy, especially when you're making sour dough bread, there's an earthy quality, but it's pungent at the same time, but not overpowering. It's this very, it's like, it's a strong and soft smell at the same time. But it's, it develops a really, I like to make sour dough breads that are not too acid, and so it's got this sweet and sour quality at the same time.

MG: People think of, of baking as being a science in many ways. I mean, you use a scale because it's more precise than measuring things out by hand, for example. But in the book, you talk about the soft skills of baking. That might sound like a contradiction to some people. Can you explain that?

DANIEL LEADER: Well, you know, I know bakers who are by the book only. Like, they're so worried about the skill that they lose their contact with the process. And I like to have a balance between the two. Like, like last night, I was, I was actually making some bread. And, you know, the moment you put the water and flour together, there's a process called autolyse where you, before you add your sour dough, you just hydrate the flour and you let it sit for an hour. And, you know, I had a friend over and I would say this, these are the qualities we look at. And we picked the dough up and we saw how the dough draped over my fingers. We saw how it stretched in my hand. We smelled it. Okay. Now, I had scaled the flour, I had scaled the water. I was being very careful about the process, but I was equally in touch with how it felt in my hand because no two batches of flour are exactly the same. So, I might say, 'Well, wait a second, this feels firmer than last time. It feels a little tight. I'm going to add a little bit more water to the dough. Now, if you're only going by the book, you're not going to even ask that question. You know, you're going to say, 'Why, I did it the right way,' where I'm, I'm always encouraging bakers to feel, to smell, to hold the dough in your hand, to not rush the process and more importantly, enjoy the process, be, be in touch with it so that you feel it as you're going each step of the way.

MG: I mean, that literally speaks to what you're doing. You have your hands in the dough and yet because of maybe the times we live in or what have you, we are trying to rush through things. But you're, you're telling people while your hands are there. Actually, I mean, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier with the Tassajara book, like be in the moment while you're baking that bread.

DANIEL LEADER: Right. And also, you know, maybe today's bread is going to be better than yesterday's. Maybe it's going to be worse. But enjoy the process. And, and like when, 'Wait a second. This bread is different than last time. Why? What did I do differently? Oh, I let the sour dough go two hours longer. Oh, it was a little bit warmer. Oh, yesterday, I left it in the cooler for 24 hours, and today, I only did 18.' You know, like, you can, you can kind of go through the process and kind of like review it in a way that, like, each bake is a learning skill.

MG: That's why you say that each loaf doesn't need to be a 10 out of 10, that seven or eight out of 10 is fine?

DANIEL LEADER: Yeah, absolutely. I no longer try to make perfect loaves. I try to have the process be an experience and if the bread is a 10, I'm happy. If the bread is an eight, I'm happy. Of course, you know, if it's not, if I, if I really messed something up, that's a little disappointing. But that doesn't happen too much these days.

MG: It's hard in the Instagram era [DANIEL LEADER:: Yeah] because everybody wants to take a picture of their bread when it's perfect and post.

DANIEL LEADER: Yeah, I'm guilty of that, too.

MG: Good to know. One of the other things that you talk about and people who bake know this is that when you bring it out, when you bring the loaf out of the oven, you need to stop and you have to listen. What are you listening for?

DANIEL LEADER: Well, when the bread is cooling, you get this kind of crackling. And, and especially if you, if you bake the bread a little bit dark, not too dark, but you get some real caramelization, you get this fissure from the loaf cooling. I remember the very first time this happened to me. I was at a bakery in Paris and the bakers said, 'Listen to me, listen to the music of the bread.' And he puts the baguette next to my ear and, and he's smiling from ear to ear, like because I had never, I had never done that before. And he was so excited that I was experiencing that process for the very first time.

MG: And it's crackling away as, as it cools down..

DANIEL LEADER: Exactly. Exactly.

MG: Do you name your sourdough starter? [cross-talk] I ask because people, this is what you saw during the pandemic as well. [DANIEL LEADER: Yeah.] People become very attached to their sourdough starter. Sometimes, they name them for reasons that are too long. Mine's called Carmine. But do you feel attached to your sourdough?

DANIEL LEADER: Oh, totally. We just got back to Maine, where I live now, and we were gone for about three and a half weeks. And so, you know, I come home and I check my sourdough right away and I literally only keep it like maybe like 40 grams in the refrigerator and I check it. And so, it's been three weeks. And then, I fed it yesterday morning, getting ready to mix the dough last night. And it just comes alive so quickly. That, that in itself is like this magical process. Like people say, well, can I kill my sourdough? Well, I mean, I think it's possible. Maybe if you neglect it for 3 or 4 months. But I've had sourdoughs for two months sitting in the fridge and you, you know, you feed it again and off it goes.

MG: But it is a thing, right? People do become attached.

DANIEL LEADER: Oh, yeah. I'm definitely attached to it. I'm very, very careful. Like, if we, if we have a lot of guests or in the summer, if a family comes in, they're in the refrigerator moving things around and I open the fridge and my sourdough is not in its normal place. I'm like, Oh my God, you know, did someone take it? Do they throw it away? Like, it's a mom--, a moment of panic. Because I am, I am attached to my, my 50 grams of sourdough I keep in my fridge.

MG: So we were talking earlier. You said you're fine sometimes with the eight out of 10 loaf. [DANIEL LEADER: Yeah.] You also, after you retired, had a chance to live through this dream that you'd had. And it's not, you're not looking for an eight out of 10 or 9 out of 10. You're looking for 10 out of 10. And competing in Le Grand Prix de la Baguette. What is that?

DANIEL LEADER: Well, in Paris, every year since 1993, they have this competition, and every bakery in Paris is entitled to bring two baguettes. And you have to get there between 10 and 11 a.m.. You bring two baguettes, and they weigh them, they check the length and then, they lay all these baguettes out on a table. Maybe, the table must be 40 feet long. And so, you have this sea of baguettes and it's something that I had always been fascinated about. And so, I called a friend of mine who has a bakery in Paris, and they said, 'Well, why don't we, why don't we enter? And what do you think if I bake the bread?' So I, along with his baker, we bake these two baguettes and they were exactly the right way and exactly the right length. And, and we took the baguettes there. And it's like this magical moment where you've got bakers showing up on bicycles and bakers showing up on motorcycles and cars and bakers of every, every size and shape and age showing up, and they drop the two baguettes off. And then, all of the bakers are like, lined up along the Seine, breaking baguettes and talking and waiting for the, the judges to decide. And, and...

MG: It sounds very French and very, very much like Paris.

DANIEL LEADER: Oh my God. It was just, it was so much fun. And, you know, they have three teams of judges and they each start out with like 40 baguettes and they bring it down to 20 and they bring it down to 10. And then, each table picks one, and then the judges at the end all pick one winner and that winner gets to deliver bread every day to the Élysée Palace and, and Paris for a year. And they win, I think, €500. But it's not so much about who wins in my mind. It's about the joy of all these bakers coming together. And it was really, it was really one of the most wonderful moments of my life being part of that competition.

MG: How did it go for you in terms of the competition?

DANIEL LEADER: We don't know because only one person wins. But we, we got to, they, because they knew I was writing about it for the book, they let me stand in the room when the judges were going through the competition. And so after about an hour and a half in the room, it was so intoxicating, the smell, that I had to leave for a minute.

MG: Do you worry and I ask you this because you're involved in this wheat improvement center, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico? [DANIEL LEADER: Yeah.] Do you worry about the impact of a changing climate on what is essential to your life's work, which is, is the wheat that leads to the flour, which leads to the bread?

DANIEL LEADER: Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a big issue. Last year in France, the harvest was very high quality, but half the quantity, the center in Mexico is doing all of this amazing research, trying to create, crossbreeding varieties of wheat. There's a photo in the book where they trying to have the, the foliage and the wheat. They have the leaves be bigger, which keeps the soil cooler and also varieties of wheat that have a root structure that goes deeper so that they need less water. So, there's tremendous research going on, really trying to look at what can we do to combat climate change? Just for example, here in Maine, most of the farmers that are growing wheat are now planting spring wheat rather than winter wheat just because...

MG: There's not much of a winter anymore.

DANIEL LEADER: Yeah, it is scary, but it's also hopeful that you have this amazing scientific community across the world working to address this problem.

MG: And an audience that is there. I mean, there's a whole fight against ultra-processed food, but also this real movement of people to try to figure out how to slow their lives down, whether it's changing your technology or what have you. It feels and it's beyond the pandemic that, that people want to eat real food and people want to figure out. I get that it takes more time than just pulling a loaf of bread off the store shelf. But they want to figure out how to create some of that food as well.

DANIEL LEADER: Yeah. And I mean, there's a real movement. I've seen this in Canada where I wouldn't call them homesteading, but I would say there are people starting family farms again looking for niche products that they can grow or process on the farm. There's this micro-bakery movement where people are starting, you know, micro-bakeries in their in their garages and doing subscription services. But, you know, it's interesting. And you can look in the, in people making spirits and people doing all types of foods at home, craft cheeses. I mean, it's, it's a scary time, but it's also an exciting time for Kraft Foods.

MG: What would you say to somebody who's like, 'I, I don't have the time for this. I don't have the skill for this. I'm going to make the, what do you say, the paperweight that I'm going to put on my term papers' [DANIEL LEADER: Yeah, yeah] rather than something that people would want to eat? What would you say to them?

DANIEL LEADER: Well, the first thing I would say is that the whole world was making sourdough bread up until about 1900. So, so modern yeast-raised bread is relatively new. So, if people did that from the beginning of time through, you know, the turn of the century, it can't be that hard. I mean, before people had, had machines and, you know, all types of gadgets to help us, you know, people making sourdough bread forever. So, that's the first thing. It's not hard. It's a basic skill. The second thing, it's a lot more weight than work. Okay. You could say all my sourdough bread took 36 hours from start to finish, you know? Well, how much time did you actually spend working? If you feed your sourdough before you go to work in the morning and in the afternoon, you need, you need your dough a little bit and you shape it before you go to bed, it's sitting in your refrigerator and the next morning before you go to work, you, you pop it in the oven for 45 minutes. It's, it's 24 hours of time and 24 minutes of work. And so, it's not complicated. It's a simple process. It's something anyone can do. You know, people are almost intimidated by yeast and sourdough. If you could just take that out of your mind, it's an easy process. People have done this since the beginning of time. I can do it, too.

MG: And it's kind of like a magic act. Flour and water and salt.

DANIEL LEADER: Exactly. Exactly.

MG: It's a real pleasure to talk to you. The book, as it should, made me hungry and made me want to get my hands back into, into the bowl and mix up a loaf of bread. Daniel, thank you very much.

DANIEL LEADER: It is my pleasure. Thank you for this.

MG: Daniel Leader's new book is called "A Slow Rise: Favourite Recipes from Four Decades of Baking with Heart." Well, coming up after your regional update, the Bank of Canada, as expected, delivered its second straight half point cut to the key interest rate. We'll talk about what this could mean for Canadians in the days, weeks and months ahead in an economy that is a little rocky. And then...

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BRITISH VOICE Now, we saw what happened with Qatar and, and the human rights accusations and abuses around that tournament and the controversies in the buildup. [Music: Theme fading in] This is going to be 11 years, you suspect, of, of similar scrutiny.

MG: The announcement that Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 Men's World Cup of Soccer is stirring up controversy. We'll talk with a reporter who dealt with the construction and aftermath of the Qatar World Cup. Could this be a repeat? We'll talk about that when we're back in 90 seconds here on The Current.

[Music: Theme]

And Saudi Arabia hosting the World Cup

Guests: Frances Donald, Havard Melnaes

MG: Hello again, I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. It was a move widely expected by economists as Canada grapples with a rising unemployment rate and falling GDP.

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TIFF MACKLEM: Today we lowered the policy interest rate by 50 basis points. This is our fifth consecutive decrease since June and brings our policy rate to 3.25 per cent. Monetary policy has worked to bring inflation back to the 2 per cent target. Our policy focus is now keeping inflation close to target.

MG: That's Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem announcing yesterday another big drop to the key interest rate, which, as you heard now sits at 3.25 per cent. It was the second consecutive slash of 50 basis points. And as you heard as well, the fifth rate cut in a row. Tiff Macklem also cautioned that even though the Bank of Canada is considering further cuts, we should not expect them to continue at such a rapid pace. Frances Donald is Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at RBC. She's in Montreal. Frances, good morning.

FRANCES DONALD: Good morning.

MG: We knew a rate cut was coming. There were questions as to the size of that cut and what it would be. Do you think this was the right move by the bank?

FRANCES DONALD: Well, not our job to say whether it was the right move or not, but it's certainly consistent with an economy that is still struggling, Matt. This is an economy where the unemployment rate is still rising and likely going to continue to. Inflationary pressures are lower and year-over-year terms, of course, not in level terms. And there are signs of weakness that persist in most regions, and for most groups, that would mean, well, look, this economy could probably use a little bit of support and maybe a lot of support in the Bank of Canada cutting 50 basis points and telling us there is more on the horizon. It looks pretty consistent with an economy that could use a little extra right now.

MG: Could use a little extra. Is it on the edge of a recession? Are we in a recession right now?

FRANCES DONALD: Well, technically, no. Recession is usually defined as two quarters of negative GDP. For most Canadians, that really doesn't matter. A recession feels more like: Can you afford to pay your weekly bills, and do you have a job? And for a lot of Canadians, especially if they are lower income or middle income, it very much feels like a recession, and that's in the data. We know wage growth has been much lower for lower and middle-income Canadians. A lot of Canadians are not benefiting to the same extent as higher income Canadians from really high stock prices, for example. And if you've been, if you're a renter, prices are substantially higher than they were four years ago, about 25 per cent higher than four years ago. If you spend more of your income on food, for example, then things might very much feel like a recession. And there's some disagreement. I mean, even the prior Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, said Canada is in a recession by many non-traditional metrics. So, I might suggest moving away from this idea that there is a binary yes or no recession and acknowledging that there are pockets of Canada that are very much even by the traditional Excel spreadsheet definition in recession. But the total economy does not technically check that box right now.

MG: This is the fifth rate cut, as I said, since June, and the last two were sizable. Are we starting to see, I mean, it takes a while for, for the sense of those rate cuts to be felt. But are we starting to see and is the economy starting to see the impact of those previous cuts?

FRANCES DONALD: Not quite yet. In fact, most of the data is still rather disappointing. Now, that's not a huge surprise because generally, we expect those lower interest rates to start showing up in traditional data about a year to two years after they come down. And that might be why the Bank of Canada continues to feel confident in cutting by 50 basis points and signaling that there will be more ahead. Of course, folks who have variable rate mortgages will feel that instantaneously. If you have a fixed rate mortgage, then you're susceptible or you're exposed to a different type of rate. That's the rate that's determined by global bond markets. And global bond markets have already incorporated into their outlook significant rate cuts from the Bank of Canada. So actually, if you're exposed to that part of the interest rate area of the world, you're not likely to see more relief. That relief has already been embedded. Generally, we think we're going to see in the second half of 2025 more evidence of that easing flowing through into the broader data.

MG: Can I ask you about mortgages? I mean, there's what people have called a mortgage renewal cliff, that more than a million Canadian mortgages are up for renewal in 2025. And the concern from a lot of people was maybe people had locked in at a rate that was much, much lower than the one that they are going to renew at, and that could create some economic turbulence is probably a mild word. Has that been ameliorated at all by these rate cuts?

FRANCES DONALD: I'm certain that it has been a concern for the Bank of Canada. And it isn't just a concern, it's factual. We know that there are a fair share of Canadians who will renew at slightly higher, or in some cases particularly higher interest rates. But from the RBC standpoint, we're generally watching for two reasons why folks struggle to pay their mortgages. One would be that the cost of that mortgage rises. But typically Canadians actually, they're pretty good at paying their mortgage. They're more likely to pull down on spending in other areas. So, when I think about the mortgage renewal cliff, I don't worry as much that Canadians won't be able to pay their mortgage, but I worry about what sacrifices they'll have to make in order to do that. Things that economists call discretionary spending like clothing or other activities or even driving are not to me as a just a general Canadian, things that are optional. They are things that we have to do. It's not a choice whether to buy a snowsuit for your kid or not, but that type of spending tends to get squeezed. Where I'm a little bit more concerned is not the, 'Oh, your mortgage payment rose and therefore you can't afford it.' There's another reason why people struggle to pay their mortgage. And if they don't have a job anymore, they've lost a source of income. And we are seeing the unemployment rate rise. So, our analysis says not to be so nervous specifically about the mortgage renewal cliff because folks won't be able to make those payments, but actually that we should be watching whether folks have jobs and whether they're capable of paying their mortgage, even if they're making sacrifices in other areas. I got to tell you, Matt, none of these situations that we're describing are positive for the economy. So, when you asked me earlier, did the Bank of Canada do the right thing cutting 50 basis points, it's hard not to feel that that type of relief is going to be very necessary for a lot of Canadians, and they're going to need more on the horizon.

MG: Can I ask you just one more thing about the housing market? One of the things that we've talked about, and this is with developers and builders, is that they had slowed down perhaps some construction because of high interest rates, that it was complicating their math in terms of what they thought they might get out of those developments. Do you think that a rate cut will have any measurable impact on the housing market and the housing crisis that we see across this country?

FRANCES DONALD: It's such a great question because one of the pushbacks against rate cuts has been, well, you're going to inflame the housing market, you know, we're, you're going to make house prices go higher. And there's already an affordability crisis with housing as long as a whole other range. But actually, this housing market is being much more constrained by the lack of houses than that credit is too, too cheap or that, you know, folks are buying up too many houses that we just don't have enough of them. So, the way that interest rates play into the housing market has changed very much in the last four years, especially with the surge in population growth. And when we see interest rates fall, we see investment of all types accelerate from housing to research and development because small businesses and big businesses are not very much unlike households and like, they need to make decisions about where they're going to put their money. And if money is easier to access and cheaper, they're more likely to borrow more of it and invest more. So absolutely, I'd agree that if we can have some lower interest rates and it helps spur supply, that will help at the margin. I got to tell you, though, Matt, there is a significant amount of shortage of homes. This is not going to be something that moves the dial in the next 1 to 3 years. We're really trying to get a sense of how much supply we can build in the next 5 to 10 to try to rectify that imbalance.

MG: How worried should we be about rate cuts on the Canadian dollar? And this is not just for people who are lucky enough to be able to travel somewhere else. I mean, in terms of what we bring into this country and there could be an impact on a lower dollar on any number of, of parts of the economy. And so if you continue to cut rates, is that going to drive the dollar even lower?

FRANCES DONALD: Well, I'll give you a little bit of good news, and that is that the Canadian dollar is actually, global market participants who trade the Canadian dollar and ultimately determine its value, they don't just look at what happened this month. It's not that the Bank of Canada cuts interest rates and therefore, the Canadian dollar falls. It's based on expectations as to where those interest rates and other elements of the economy will be over the next 2 to 5 years. And the Canadian dollar and we can look at this mechanically has already incorporated a significant easing cycle from the Bank of Canada. That's why the Canadian dollar has done so poorly up until now, or has weakened so significantly. So, we actually as though we even though we anticipate the Bank of Canada will continue to cut, don't see a lot more weakness in the Canadian dollar ahead because it's already in the price. But I think maybe the greater consideration is that 10 years ago, we operated in a range with the Canadian dollar with stronger. So in U.S. dollar terms, you know, around $1.20 to $1.30, it fluctuated around there. What we may have to recognize is that the Canadian dollar, in an environment where Canada is doing much worse economically than the United States is probably going to stay around these levels, stay at this level of weakness. So, there isn't a lot of opportunity for us to, for example, hope that we can book a trip somewhere down south in the U.S. two years from now, and that will be in much better shape. I think that's the bigger story here, is that we're probably stuck at these levels or around them more than some expectation of material weakness ahead.

MG: I have to let you go, but just very briefly, given what you've said about the state of the economy, the Governor says that there will be further rate cuts, but they perhaps will not be as aggressive as what we're seeing right now. How low do you think rates may go? I don't know whether you do those sorts of predictions, but how low do you think we might have to get, given the state of the economy now?

FRANCES DONALD: That's our bread and butter is figuring out where the Bank of Canada will go. Our RBC forecast is that the Bank of Canada cuts rates down to 2 per cent. They do it with 25 basis points every quarter on a go forward basis for the next year or so. It could be 225, it could be 175. But the key is the direction. And the direction is we have more rate cuts ahead, just probably not 50 basis points and probably not at every meeting.

MG: I'm glad I asked. Frances, it's great to talk to you, as always. Thank you very much.

FRANCES DONALD: Thanks for having me.

MG: Frances Donald is a Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at RBC.

[Upbeat acoustic guitar music playing]

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio. My name is Matt Galloway.

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GIANNI INFANTINO: And now, we can officially confirm that the hosts of the FIFA World Cup 2030 will be Morocco, Portugal and Spain. Madrid [inaudible].

MG: The dramatic music signals in all, that's FIFA President Gianni Infantino announcing the hosts of the 2030 World Cup in a live stream yesterday to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup, which was held in Uruguay. The first three games will be in South America, a match apiece in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay. And then, after that, came the announcement for 2034.

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GIANNI INFANTINO: And last but not least, it is a great pleasure that I can confirm that the host of the FIFA World Cup 2034 will be Saudi Arabia. [clapping in the audience] [inaudible] our friends.

MG: Perhaps the dramatic music and pause was not necessary because Saudi Arabia was the only bidder for the 2034 World Cup. It will be the second country from the Middle East to host this tournament. Qatar was the first in 2022, following years of accusations of serious migrant labor and human rights abuses. There are many fears that this could happen again in Saudi Arabia, a country with a known track record of violating human rights. Havard Melnaes is the editor of the football investigative journalism outlet, Josimar. He's in Oslo this morning. Havard, hello.

HAVARD MELNAES: Hello, Matt. Thanks for having me.

MG: Thank you for being here. As I mentioned, perhaps not a lot of drama around this, given that Saudi Arabia was the only bidder for the 2034 Men's World Cup. What do we know about, about why it went to Saudi Arabia?

HAVARD MELNAES: Because FIFA President Gianni Infantino wanted it to be Saudi Arabia that was going to be hosting the 2034 World Cup. Last October, FIFA suddenly decided to open the bidding for the World Cup in 2034, and they gave a deadline of 25 days. And by, by no one surprise, they only bidder was Saudi Arabia. So, it was kind of, Infantino paved the way for the bid and for Saudi Arabia being, hosting the 2034 World Cup.

MG: What would make that attractive for FIFA to have the World Cup, the Men's World Cup in Saudi Arabia?

HAVARD MELNAES: That's a really good question. And every time, the really easy answer. It's, it's all about money. So, Saudi Arabia is investing heavily, heavily in sport, as we all know. They more or less bought the sport of golf. And in the last few years, they've turned their eyes to football as well. And they have, you know, the Saudi pro league have some really good players, like Cristiano Ronaldo, who reportedly earns $200 million per season playing in Saudi Arabia. So, if he fights all about the money and Saudi Arabia has a lot of it, and also Saudi Arabia, which is an absolute monarchy, with a dictator, Mohammed bin Salman. So, it's really, you know, really convenient for, for people to, to kind of co-operate with a dictator much easier than cooperating with democracies, because then you have to have transparent, transparent governance and you don't need that for 2034.

MG: What do you think Saudi Arabia is trying to do in terms of, of building up its image through sport? As you mentioned, Saudi Arabia has spent something like $6.2 billion on high-level sport since 2021.

HAVARD MELNAES: Yeah, well, you know, it's a long time since football was just football. Football these days, it's a geopolitical tool, and, you know, hosting a mega event like the World Cup may may be the biggest sports event in the world. It gets you a seat around the best table in international politics. And, you know, last week, French President Macron opened the Notre-Dame and all the leading political figures, figures in the world was there. And also, FIFA President Gianni Infantino. So, you know, Mohammed bin Salman wants Saudi Arabia to shine on the world stage. And that is, you know, that is actually happening now and will happen with the World Cup is quite amazing. Since five years ago, when Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi was beheaded and both U.S. authorities, the U.N., concluded that this beheading was ordered by Mohammed bin Salman himself.

MG: Amnesty International has called Saudi Arabia's human rights record atrocious. This, this World Cup bid is already being compared in some ways to the World Cup that was held in Qatar in 2022. You were there in Qatar, what, half a dozen times covering that World Cup and the construction of the stadiums leading up to the tournament, and then what happened after. What did you take from that?

HAVARD MELNAES: Well, you know, every time I went to Qatar, it was to kind of, to tell the stories of the migrant workers, because in the Gulf, in the GCC countries, you have something called the Kafala system, which means as a as a worker, you're kind of, your employer's held hostage. So, what happens when you're working under the Kafala system is that once you arrive there, your employer will take your, confiscate your passport. You will have no possibility to leave your employer or to work without, you know, without his, without him allowing it. You can't change job. So in practice, you are a kind of a hostage. And these migrant workers, you know, they're getting paid between $1 and $2 per hour. Many of them work 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. And their, their work is hard. And also, it's under burning sun, you know, the temperatures both in Qatar and Saudi Arabia can reach, you know, mid-forties, almost 50°C and, you know, laying asphalt for 12 hours a day, 12, seven days a week. That's, you know, not too many can take it. And what we saw in Qatar was that the majority of workers that died, they died of something called heat stress. So, you know, which is, which is, you know, they died of exhaustion. So, and what we saw in Qatar, because the project in Saudi Arabia, it's much bigger. You know, they're going to build 11 new stadiums. They're going to have something like 200,000 new hotels.

MG: I mean, one of these stadiums is going to be, what, 350 metres on top of a building in a city that doesn't exist yet.

HAVARD MELNAES: Yes. In Neom, and one of our journalists was in Neom three days ago, and he could tell that the real construction hadn't really started yet. They're still doing the groundwork. But just for Neom, it's expected that, you know, the Saudis need to bring in hundreds and hundreds of thousands, migrant workers, maybe millions. So, and the biggest, you know, the you know, the biggest scandal here is that FIFA is awarding the World Cup to a nation that, you know, practice modern slavery and all, you know, all the human rights organizations, they fear that as a result of yesterday's decision, you know, thousands of thousands, if not ten thousands and ten thousands of migrant workers will die as a result of this.

MG: I have to let you go, but what is the message to fans? Because after the Qatar World Cup and all of the attention that was paid on the construction of the stadiums, the World Cup for many perspectives, was a huge success. The stadiums were full. The fans showed up. There was record TV ratings. There were great sporting stories and triumphs. What is the message to fans, do you think?

HAVARD MELNAES: Yeah, well, I think it's a, it's a middle finger to the past, this decision, because football is about, you know, unity. It's about fair play. And nothing about yesterday's decision reflects that.

MG: Do you think fans care about that?

HAVARD MELNAES: You know, it's, we live in a time where it's a kind of like constant information war. You know, it's propaganda everywhere. So, fans should care about other people lives. And no tournament, you know, can be defended when it has a human cost like we go, what we're going to see in Saudi Arabia.

MG: Havard Melnaes, I'm glad to talk to you about this. Thank you very much.

HAVARD MELNAES: Thank you.

MG: Havard Melnaes is editor of the football investigative journalism outlet, Josimar. He was in Oslo. And that's The current for this Thursday, the 12th of December. Q's up next on CBC Radio One. Before we go, we want to leave you with the voices of Syrians who have settled here in Canada, and how they are feeling in this country after the fall of the Assad regime.

ABDUL RAHMAN My name is Abdul Rahman, and I'm the manager here in Crown Pastries, yeah. I left Syria first in 2001. My first family know, they are, I brought all of them to UAE, but my second cousins and all, yes, they are there. They're in Damascus. Yeah, they are okay. They are, they feel, they are scared. They are scared, actually, to be honest. Yesterday, I talked to them and they said they are really scared, but hopefully, it will be for the best. We don't know what's going to happen. Hopefully, it's going to be better because what's happened is like a dream, you know? We slept, we woke up. New, new things are happening there.

RASOUL ALSALAH Look, it's me, Rasoul Alsalah, owner of Crown Pastries. I came to Canada as a refugee. Then, I start my own business since 2015. Honestly, like all Syrian people, waiting this moment for 14 years. Hopefully now, the Syrian people, they can live peace and safe and will live for a better future. I have friends. I have some relatives, neighbours, but actually, my actual city is actually destroyed. What we cannot do, we can only pray for them with what we cannot see. Canada, it's my country and I am a citizen and I'm proud of it. And for me, I feel like, you know, I'm happy here and maybe I will go there just to visit and see friends and family.

MG: That's the owner and manager of Crown Pastries in Toronto, part of the diaspora. Millions of Syrians who fled that country during the Civil War came to countries like Canada as refugees, keeping a close eye on what's going on back home. This is music from the Toronto band Kazdoura. The lead singer, Leen Hamo, is from Syria. The song is one of many she's written about homesickness and displacement. This is Kazdoura and a song called, "Khayal", or "Shadow." I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

[Music: Khayal by Kazdoura]

Thursday, December 12, 2024 Full Transcript

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