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The AIH Transcript for January 28, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and Karen Gordon

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello I'm Carol Off.

KAREN GORDON: Good evening. I'm Karen Gordon, sitting in for Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

KG: Tonight...

CO: A 'Dear John' letter. John McCallum is fired as Canada's ambassador to China for his remarks about the detention of a Chinese executive -- our guest says the problem wasn't impolitic words, it was politics, period.

KG: If you take their meaning. A new study finds that court reporters in Philadelphia frequently mis-transcribe words of people speaking in African-American dialect -- and in doing so, change the meaning of those words completely.

CO: Taking that extra credit. Ryerson University's student newspaper is accusing student union leaders of using credit cards like they were slush funds -- revealing tens of thousands of dollars in extracurricular spending.

KG: In, and out. An openly gay Brazilian Congressman abruptly leaves his post, and the country, fearing for his safety -- and his replacement who is also gay explains why he's taking the chance of taking his place.

CO: Fittingly, they found him 'down under.' A major dig in London and expects to eventually exude the remains of 40,000 people -- and has already uncovered the British explorer who first circumnavigated Australia.

KG: And...later, skater. The thing is all the skaters at an NHL All-Star skills competition were later than Calgary Inferno forward Brianna Decker -- but they gave the prize to one of the dudes anyway. As It Happens. The Monday Edition. Radio that appreciates a fast forward who's on fast-forward.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Remains of explorer who circled Australia unearthed next to London train station

McCallum: Liberals

Guest: Herb Dhaliwal

KG: The Trump administration isn't backing away from its legal case against Meng Wanzhou. On Friday, Canada's ambassador to China was asked to resign, after suggesting that the American bid to extradite the Chinese executive was weak. But this afternoon, the United States Department of Justice unsealed a series of criminal indictments against both Ms. Meng and her company Huawei. Here is U.S. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.

SOUNDCLIP

MATTHEW WHITAKER: As has been widely reported, in December 2018 Canadian authorities arrested Huawei's CFO in Vancouver. In compliance with our request for her provisional arrest pursuant to our extradition treaty with Canada, the United States is currently seeking her extradition. We are deeply grateful to the government of Canada for its assistance and its steadfast commitment to the rule of law. The cases we are announcing today have truly been a team effort across multiple U.S. cabinet agencies and across multiple divisions and U.S. attorneys offices here in the Department of Justice. For more than a year the agencies represented behind me followed the evidence wherever it lead. They have done great work already, and I'm confident this team is going to finish the job and bring these cases to a successful conclusion.

KG: U.S. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. Today's announcement will make it harder for the United States to take the advice of John McCallum. Mr. McCallum was asked to resign over the weekend after suggesting that the United States might cut a deal for the release of Meng Wanzhou. Not everyone agreed with the ambassador's firing. Herb Dhaliwal served along John McCallum in Jean Chretien's Liberal cabinet. We reached Mr. Dhaliwal in Vancouver.

CO: Mr. Dhaliwal I know you have been critical of your Liberal colleagues -- these ones in the Trudeau government who fired John McCallum. Does today's announcement out of Washington change your mind?

HERB DHALIWAL: No I don't think there's anything really new in this announcement, and wouldn't change my mind. My view would be the same.

CO: The issue was -- the reason why John McCallum was fired is because he wasn't playing apparently by the same rules that the Trudeau was. They were making the argument that what they were doing was following the rule of law -- that they weren't doing anything political. And John McCallum seemed to be suggesting that there could be political deals cut. Can you see why he had to be fired?

HD: He wasn't saying there's political deals to be cut -- he was saying that Meng had a good chance to win before a Canadian court because she had good arguments to beat this extradition from the U.S. -- and also in a way to resolve this issue that hoping that it would be in everybody's interests of the Americans to drop their extradition. I think there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I think he was trying to reduce the tension between Canada and China. And I think it's in everybody's interest to try to deescalate the situation instead of escalate it more. And that's all he was trying to do.

CO: He did say in various remarks including up to Friday night that from Canada's point of view it would be great if the U.S. dropped the extradition request. He said that in the course of that if the U.S. could strike a deal for the release, for the return of Meng Wanzhou to China that they could also within that get the Canadians released from jail in China. So that doesn't sound like the same hymnbook that the Trudeau government singing from, does it.

HD: Well you know all sorts of things that government do behind the scenes are not known. We often say that we'll never pay any money for Canadian hostages but some generally do that through other adversaries as well because we don't want to set a precedent. So governments behind the scenes often do things that we don't say in public to resolve the situation in an amicable way. So maybe John McCallum was a little too honest -- and some [inaudible] politics you have to follow the line and can't all be honest -- I know myself, when I was there I've said some things which turn out to be true but always, people are critical of it. So you know I've been there. I've seen what happens, and sometimes governments behind the scenes are doing different things than what they give the public persona.

CO: Okay. But you don't trust that the Americans were pursuing an honest indictment of Meng Wanzhou -- and this is an evidence based indictment that they have unsealed and that they were trying to follow the rule of law?

HD: I think what they were trying to do is create -- first of all the problems of that the Trump administration has, a deflection. Number two, they've been pressuring Canada and other countries not to do business with this telecommunications giant. And of course they don't want other countries to do business with them. And also they are not happy with the good relationship that we have with Canada and they want to disrupt that -- and I think they've have accomplished that.

CO: Do you think this whole thing is political?

HD: Absolutely. Looking at the Trump administration -- not from our point -- from the Trump administration, for the Trump administration, I would say for them this is nothing more than politics.

CO: Then why would Canada cleave to this line that we're trying to follow the rule of law and that this...

HD: Well I think Canada is -- I think Canada is, and that's why I think we're being a bit of a boyscout and taken advantage of by the Trump administration.

CO: And John McCallum got caught in between?

HD: Well John McCallum I think was doing what he figures was doing the right thing for Canada -- and maybe that wasn't consistent with the message they wanted, but you know in politics it's always you being honest and upfront with Canadians. And I know that being there.

CO: What do you think John McCallum was trying to do?

HD: Well he was trying to ease the tension between Canada and the US to see -- hopefully there's a way out of this mess.

CO: And well do you think that given the fact that China is now saying that John McCallum is right and that he has been treated shabbily by -- this in an article China Daily -- that they were 100 percent behind him and that this has fallen on deaf ears in Canada and that they should feel ashamed of themselves for having fired. McCallum. That's what China is saying.

HD: Well I disagree with the firing of John McCallum. I know John very well. And he's a person with utmost honesty and integrity and he's a great Canadian. So I don't agree with his firing. Now of course China's going to do their own spin for their own public. So I'm really not going to get into their statements. I can only tell you what I know about John McCallum.

CO: And do you think that the Trudeau government has been naive?

HD: To some degree, yes -- just like we were naive maybe when the whole [inaudible] thing came up when we were in government as well. And that's a very good example of what happens if you don't question other parties.

CO: So you think that the Trump government -- the Trump administration -- the people who spoke today from the DOJ are playing Canada?

HD: I think we've been duped, yes, in this matter -- we have. We should have asked tougher question at the beginning. And I think it's all part of the Trump administration now. This is politics for them as usual.

CO: What choices, what options, does Canada have at this point?

HD: They have other options, Americans, to arrest people when they go to other countries -- where they have treaties -- why didn't the Obama administration ask that she be arrested when she was here in Vancouver prior to this? Why would the Obama administration not ask her to be arrested and extradited? They were there just two years ago.

CO: Just one quick final question do your fellow Liberals share your views? Do you have any Liberals who feel the same way -- the way that you do?

HD: Yes many Liberals share my view.

CO: That the Trudeau government was wrong?

HD: Yes many liberals are unhappy with the situation -- the way this has been managed and the way McCallum has been dealt with.

CO: All right we'll leave it there. Mr. Dhaliwal thank you.

HD: Thank you.

KG: Herb Dhaliwal was a cabinet minister under Jean Chrétien. We reached him in Vancouver.

[Music]

Mark Dahlgren

KG: Today, the families of those who were killed in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash spoke about their loss. It was the first day in the sentencing of truck driver Jaskirat Singh Sidhu. He pleaded guilty earlier this month to all of the charges against him in the deaths of 16 people last April. Among those who were remembered in the crowded gymnasium in Melford, Saskatchewan, was Coach Darcy Haugan. He was killed in the crash. Mark Dahlgren's son, Kaleb, survived. He is Mr. Dahlgren talking about what it was like to hear the victim impact statements.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK DAHLGREN: It's tough. It's really tough. You know we have a sense of the pain that the people who lost their loved ones are going through. But to hear it is -- it's pretty raw and pretty real and pretty gut wrenching.

REPORTER: You'll have your own statements to make in a day or so, what are you going to say?

MARK DAHLGREN: We actually submitted our statements to the judge so we won't read ours. We just felt that we really wanted the families who lost their loved ones to have the stage and be able to talk about their loved ones and what wonderful people they were. And I think it's important that everybody hears about the wonderful people that Darcy had surrounded himself with in that organization. And it was an amazing group of people that Darcy had put around him. I can't speak on behalf of the other families. You know it's a part of the process. I hope that they'll be able to get some healing through this. I hope that Mr. SIdhu is able to hear about how wonderful people were that were involved in the accident -- and the people that survived and the people that passed away. And I hope that the families can find some solace in getting out there -- the wonderful lives -- and the lives were cut short but we're going to hear the wonderful things that these people did in their short lives.

REPORTER: Do you think it will have an impact on the duration of sentencing for the consequences to be heard so painfully?

MARK DAHLGREN: I can't imagine that it won't. You know the law does what the law has to do. And I don't think it's going to change anything. What happened, happened. I just hope that he feels the impact of what he done -- and I mean he's human I can't imagine that he wouldn't feel the impact of what's happened and no matter what the sentence is he has to live with this for the rest of his life and I can't imagine that's going to be easy for him either.

KG: That was Mark Dahlgren whose son, Kaleb, survived the Humboldt Broncos bus crash last April. He was speaking with CBC reporters Karen Pauls and Susan Ormiston. The sentencing hearing for the truck driver who pleaded guilty in the crash is expected to last five days.

[Music]

Ryerson overspending

Guest: Sherina Harris

KG: Ryerson University's Student Union has some explaining to do. The union president Ram Ganesh is facing tough questions over how he and other executive members may have racked up roughly 250,000 dollars in credit card charges since last spring -- and just how much of that money if any flowed back to students. Ryerson student newspaper, The Eyeopener, broke the story. The paper published photos of credit card statements that show purchases at Ontario liquor stores, nightclubs, casinos, sporting goods stores, and more. Sherina Harris was part of the team that first reported it. She's a news editor at The Eyeopener. And we reached her in Toronto.

CO: Sherina has the student union at Ryerson provided an explanation as of yet for how so much money could have been spent on what appears to be spent on booze, nightclubs, and casinos among other things?

SHERINA HARRIS: No they haven't. The Eyeopener has given the student union multiple opportunities to comment -- and as well at the board of directors meeting last week, several representatives asked the president directly to explain some of the expenses and he repeatedly said that he would be able to provide a full explanation in context once the receipts were reconciled on February 1st. But there were no explanations given at the meeting.

CO: How did you learn about this? How did you learn that the student union president might be spending this kind of money?

SH: So we had received some tips from people as early as this Fall that we should be looking into the credit card statements and we should be looking into some of their finances. But at that time we weren't able to verify the information just because it was screenshots of their online bank account. We didn't want to publish something based on information we couldn't confirm. So recently we started looking into it more because the president actually had told us directly that the student union had two credit cards -- that he had a credit card and the vice president operations had a credit card. When we looked into this further we learned that this is breaking financial by-laws and policies of the RSU, because the executives aren't supposed to have their own credit card. We've heard from a student director that the total amount of purchases is 250,000 dollars -- but we've only seen a small sliver of the statements.

CO: And RSU you referred to that is the Ryerson Student Union. So tell us about some of the expenses. What have you seen as far as what raised your eyebrows the most?

SH: Over 2000 dollars spent EFS Toronto which is a night club. There was over 2500 dollars spent at a Cineplex rec-room. Over a 1300 at Nick's Sport Shop. And there were also just a lot of smaller ones that we weren't really sure how they could have been used for events benefiting students. There was money spent at hotels, Airbnbs. 300 dollars at a [inaudible] lounge which is like a shisha lounge.

CO: But who has the signing authority for these kinds of expenditures? Because whatever you find out about how much money -- whether it adds up to 250,000 dollars -- a lot of these things are you would think that you'd have to get some permission -- a board of directors to sign off on these things. How is it that the president has so much discretionary spending?

SH: Typically the RSU has a general manager who oversees their finances, but the RSU fired their general manager on their first day in office. So in terms of oversight, they didn't have that general manager. But according to their financial policies, only the general manager and the financial controller, who they still have, are even allowed to have those credit cards in the first place.

CO: Just finally this is coming at an interesting time for universities in Ontario, isn't it? Because we've just heard recently the Premier of Ontario Doug Ford -- he has said that students should have the right to opt out of any fees deemed non-essential at universities -- and those fees that they are required to pay now cover all kinds of expenses in the university including the work that you do. So just give us a sense of how this is playing out against that backdrop -- how much faith maybe the student body may have lost in the whole process?

SH: Yeah it has been really interesting to see the timing of it -- because of the announcement that ancillary fees will be optional in some cases. You might have seen Doug Ford on the weekend tweeted the CBC version of the story and said, well here's an example of why I think students should be able to choose their ancillary fees. And I've seen people online also saying, I don't want my money going to this corrupt organization. But I think that it is also important to note that it's not necessarily a problem with the idea of a student union -- in this case it seems to be a problem with the people who are in office. We have had a lot of great student unions in the past at Ryerson. We still had people involved in our student union because there are staff members beyond just the five executives. We still have people doing really important work -- there's the Women and Trans Centre. There's a sexual assault survivor assistance hotline. There is the Good Food Centre where students can access food if they are not able to afford it otherwise. There is so many services that the student union provides to students. And I think what is also important to note that yes the student union did this, but The Eyeopener also received a lot of our fees from students. We get about 7 dollars per year from students. And so people wouldn't have known about the story if we hadn't broken up. You can kind of look at it from both ways. Yes you pay the student union and they did this, but you also pay The Eyeopener and were working really hard even beyond the initial story. We're working every day to continue holding the student union accountable.

CO: How big a deal is this for you to get out? Because you're a student at the journalism school -- you're working for a student paper -- this is a big story.

SH: I just joined the Eyeopener team in the Fall. I've always admired the work that The Eyeopener has done, and I've always watched the big investigations and stories from afar, and so now to actually be one the people covering them it feels a little bit surreal in terms of like practical hands on learning. We were on the phone with our editor-in-chief and some other reporters for over two hours on Thursday night just breaking down, okay how are we going to verify these documents? How are we going to make sure that the information is accurate? And how are we going to show students that process that they know that we didn't just make these the up -- so that they know it's real. And I learned so much from that process that I think will help me in any future reporting job that I have.

CO: Well good work Sherina. Thank you.

SH: Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

CO: Bye bye.

SH: Bye.

KG: Sherina Harris is a news editor at the Ryerson University Eyeopener. We reached her in Toronto. Ryerson Student Union President, Ram Ganesh, has said that any staff member of the student union was permitted to use the credit card in question. And he agreed by the end of the week to provide a more complete picture of the financial situation.

[Music]

Explorer's remains

Guest: Helen Wass

KG: For decades there was a rumor that one of Great Britain's celebrated explorers was buried under London's Euston Station. Weird rumor. Even weirder -- it turned out to be true. Nearly. The rail hub sits beside what was the church and graveyard of Saint James of Hampstead Road. The 18th century chapel was demolished back in the 1950s. Now those sacred grounds are being emptied to make way for a new high speed rail link. The people behind the project expect to exhume thousands of remains. And they've already begun. Last week they discovered the body of Captain Matthew Flinders -- the first explorer to circumnavigate Australia. Helen Wass is the lead archaeologist on the HS2 rail link. We reached her in London.

CO: Helen did you suspect it's possible that Captain Matthew Flinders was buried there in that site?

HELEN WASS: Yes it's a matter of record that he was actually buried in St. James Hampstead burial ground -- though there was an urban myth that he was buried under platform 15 of Euston Station -- one of the main stations in London which is actually next door to the cemetery.

CO: So when you discovered, that your team discovered, that he was in this particular site where the new rail link is going to be, what was that like to be able to identify that grave?

HW: Well it was really amazing. The St. James burial ground was a very densely populated burial ground -- so originally it had some 60,000 people -- that is six-zero-thousand people -- and we're going to be excavating about 40,000. So really to find one named individual you have to have either a monument above the ground which there wasn't or coffin plates actually naming the individual. Otherwise it could have just been a skeleton and we would have never known.

CO: And how much better was Captain Flinders grave marked than the others?

HW: Well his coffin had a lead nameplate on it -- a lead coffin plate. So lead doesn't deteriorate in the soil. So this is over some 200 years ago, and obviously the soil conditions mean that metal sometimes disintegrates and rots, so because he was buried with a lead nameplate that stayed exactly the same and you can read it today.

CO: And what was Captain Flinders claim to fame?

HW: He was the English explorer and navigator who circumnavigated Australia for the first time. So even though Captain (James) Cook discovered the east coast of Australia, he only identified a small portion of it. And then Captain Flinders sailed all the way around it -- he also identified that Tasmania was a separate island -- so his achievements in survey and navigation are amazing.

CO: And did he live in Australia?

HW: Well he spent a lot of time there. He had two or three journeys to Australia -- and obviously circumnavigating the continent which is very large meant that he spent a great deal of time around its coast. But he grew up in Lincolnshire in sort of mid-north England. Went to sea age 15 against the will of his father who wanted him to be a surgeon -- but then proved himself obviously to be an extraordinarily good and adept navigator. And he must have also been a really exciting individual to a crew with because when he was finally given HMS Investigator to undertake this voyage to circumnavigate Australia -- his crew was actually oversubscribed. So a lot of sailors had a really hard life. So you can imagine he must have been quite a draw as a personality.

CO: And he had some companions with him, is that right?

HW: Well yes obviously he had a ship full of men and then people he met in Australia. He named the first or rather attributed the name an Australian to an Aboriginal person, Bungaree. But also he did have a cat if that's what you're thinking of called Trim -- (Trim) he was obviously born on a ship and then sailed with him for a number of years -- and then disappeared in Mauritius where Captain Flinders was imprisoned for about six years by the French.

CO: Was he celebrated in Great Britain?

HW: He's not very well known in the UK. We are perhaps more familiar with Captain Cook. And it's really quite strange that Flinders doesn't receive the attention that he certainly does in Australia. Queen Victoria has the most statues in Australia, but I understand that Flinders has the second most.

CO: And now this graveyard where are you exhuming the remains -- 40,000 -- who else are you going to be exhuming? Who else is buried in this graveyard?

HW: Well a significant portion will be the men, women, and children of London of that era. The burial ground was opened in 1793 and closed in the mid-1800s -- and so that was a time of great social economic and political change, so a lot of our information and our study will focus on who those people were, how healthy they were, where they came from. But we also know that we do have other named individuals in the burial ground -- though we haven't found them yet. We have an American boxer who came over called Bill "The Terror" Richmond who taught Lord Byron to box. We have Lord George Gordon who was infamous instigating the Gordon riots during the 1700s. We have Francois Philidor, who was a chess player and musician from France -- who has a bust I understand on the Paris Opera House. So yeah quite a lot of interesting people that help us understand our history of that time.

CO: But you will be doing some research with those remains, is that right?

HW: Yes.

CO: Can you tell us about that?

HW: Well it's possible that (Captain Flinders) his life at sea left traces on his bones. I mean we just have his skeleton. So different diseases and different health conditions can leave traces on the bones. So the osteologist will take a view as to whether or not there's information that could be studied.

CO: Where will Captain Flinders be re-interred?

HW: He'll be re-interred with the rest of the burial population following existing church practice. Everybody that was buried together will be re-interred together. So he'll be treated exactly the same as everybody else and everybody will be re-interred in the new site.

CO: And all those spirits will be put back to rest then.

HW: Indeed.

CO: Helen it's good to talk to you. Thank you.

HW: Okay thanks very much.

KG: Helen Wass is the lead archaeologist on the HS2 rail link line. We reached her in London. We've got photos and more on our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Part 2: Dialects and transcription

African-American dialect

Guest: Taylor Jones

KG: The 2012 trial of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was closely watched across the United States. Devotees followed every minute of the coverage live on television, until the jury eventually found Mr. Zimmerman not guilty. But it was the cross-examination of witness Rachel Jeantel by Mr. Zimmerman's lawyer, Don West, that caught the ear of Taylor Jones. Here's some of their exchange.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: [Inaudible] it sound like -- I told it sound like Trayvon because Trayvon have a -- kind of a baby voice.

VOICE 2: [Reading document] So the question is, well who is screaming for help -- it's not Trayvon is it? And your answer, it could be Trayvon. And the question you know his voice so well, was that Trayvon Martin -- was that Trayvon screaming for help or wasn't it? Your answer, it could be. Like I said I don't know but it could be -- the dude sound kind of like Trayvon. Trayvon do got that soft voice and that baby voice sometimes -- so it could be, I don't know. You know it's not -- and that's the end of the quote.

KG: In the trial of George Zimmerman in 2012 that's a clip of defense lawyer Don West reading witness Rachel Jeantel her own words back to her from an earlier deposition. Taylor Jones heard that exchange and then he started studying the accuracy of court reporter's transcriptions when they were listening to an African-American dialect. Mr. Jones is a doctoral student of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in African-American English. Today we reached him in New York City.

CO: Mr. Jones you just heard that back and forth that first gave you the inspiration to do this study. What's going on there? What's the misunderstanding that you hear in that?

TAYLOR JONES: Well so there are a number of things that I found interesting watching this unfold on television. The first was the fact that she was very clearly speaking in what linguists refer to as African-American English which is a rule governed systematic dialect. The second was the fact that her testimony or what she said in a deposition earlier was being extensively repeated back to her verbatim and used against her. And as I watched throughout the day, because she was on the stand for a very long time during the day, it became clear to me that they were using the transcription to challenge what she was saying and to challenge her credibility as a witness. But it wasn't entirely clear that the transcriptions were always accurate or even made sense in African-American English or otherwise.

CO: And the man who was questioning her is Don West, and he is the defense lawyer for George Zimmerman who was found not guilty in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. What is Don West getting out of this? What is he able to turn around by I guess misinterpreting what she's saying?

TJ: Well in this particular example in my understanding was that the jurors didn't even consider her testimony when they came to their decision even though she had been on the stand for hours -- and was the last person to hear Trayvon Martin speaking. So in that particular instance one of the things he was getting out of that was harming the credibility of the witness.

CO: And so how often do you think this happens in trials?

TJ: That's an excellent question. And at the moment I don't have an answer and I don't think anybody else has an answer for that. The study that we recently did suggests that transcription accuracy may not be as high as we usually expect it to be. And what we'd like to do is get a better idea of how widespread this kind of miscommunication or misunderstanding is.

CO: Talk about your study that you did with Philadelphia court reporters. And what did you learn about how they interpret the language of African-Americans?

TJ: We had 27 court reporters who currently work in the courts in Philadelphia and we gave them 83 sentences spoken by nine different speakers from North Philadelphia and West Philadelphia. And the sentences were regular-mundane-everyday speech, but they did have grammatical features of African-American English -- and they were spoken by people who have African-American Philadelphia accents. And what we found is that they were not transcribed at the level of accuracy that we expect from court reporters. So they weren't transcribed at 95 percent accuracy. That seemed to be in part related to familiarity with the dialect and familiarity with the accents.

CO: What were some examples of phrases that were misinterpreted?

TJ: So one example that really stood out to me was "He don't be in this neighbourhood" -- which is 'He don't be in this neighbourhood.' And that has a very specific meaning where the B marks habitual action, so 'he don't be in this neighbourhood or he don't be in this a neighbourhood' means he is not usually in this neighbourhood. That was transcribed multiple times by different court reporters as "he'll be in this neighbourhood" as in like he will be in this neighbourhood. So it changes the meaning completely.

CO: I noticed in the list of phrases from the test -- there are a number of them that use double negatives in them like: nobody never say nothing -- which means nobody ever says anything. So how often is that the case -- where there is a double negative and then they can't sort of flip it around in their heads?

TJ: That's an interesting question because people did generally very well with just double negatives, but not great with double negatives when there was any other feature of African-American English -- negation combined with what's called negative auxiliary inversion led to a lot of confusion. So that would be like "don't nobody never saying nothing to them." And that was interpreted as a command rather than as a statement by a number of the court reporters. Sometimes it would be be transcribed correctly but the paraphrase would be something like, "do not tell them anything." Whereas the meaning is, "nobody ever tells them anything."

CO: You talk of this as being a dialect recognized -- it is systemic, it's consistent, people use it in the same way the grammar is used by people across the board in the same manner. But isn't there a view that this is just bad speaking, bad grammar, and that it shouldn't be taken seriously, is that part of the issue?

TJ: I believe it is a huge part of the issue, so that view does exist. That view is something that linguists have been fighting for decades -- very very often the general public will hold beliefs or language attitudes about African-American English, that it's bad, that it's broken, that it's not systematic. And in part our job as linguists is to challenge those and to correct those views. So this is something that is pervasive and it's also wrong.

CO: If this is the case for court reporters -- and I understand in your study you also found that black reporters or blacks stenographers would mis-transcribe this as well. So what are the consequences for people?

TJ: First I do think it's important that you pointed out that the black court reporters did not necessarily perform better than the white court reporters. But the consequences for people can be really really wide reaching. So what the court reporter transcribes becomes the official fact of what was said regardless what comes out of your mouth in the courtroom. And that can then be used in a number of places throughout somebody's journey through the judicial system: for instance depositions taken before a trial can be admitted as evidence in cross-examination as we heard at the beginning -- but also appeals are often decided based almost exclusively on procedure and on the transcripts. And so this is something that can really affect somebody at every stage of the process as they move through the judicial system.

CO: Very interesting. Mr. Jones thank you.

TJ: Thank you.

KG: Taylor Jones is a doctoral student in linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. He co-authored a study on African-American English soon to be published in the journal, Language.

[Music]

Brianna Decker

Guest: Brianna Decker

SOUNDCLIP

ANNOUNCER 1: [Crowd noise] Boy that 69-seconds -- that is really quick.

ANNOUNCER 2: Looking to become the first German to win anything at the skills competition.

KG: German NHLer Leon Draisaitl showing off his skills in San Jose a few days ago. The forward for the Edmonton Oilers won the passing challenge at the annual NHL All-Star Skills Event -- and won himself a prize of 25,000 bucks U.S. But some eagle-eyed members in the stand noticed that there was another faster skater on the ice. Brianna Decker, who plays for the Calgary Inferno in the Canadian Women's Hockey League, was there too. And while the NHL crowned Mr. Draisaitl the winner of the passing challenge, Ms. Decker was actually three seconds faster. We reached Brianna Decker in Calgary.

CO: Brianna congratulations on winning this while being the unofficial winner of the NHL skills competition. How does it feel?

BRIANNA DECKER: Thank you. Yeah it's actually pretty incredible. I think obviously for girls that were there to be able to be on the ice and stuff with the guys -- we couldn't be like more thankful to the NHL for allowing us to come and participate and be able to demo the skills that we did.

CO: But why weren't you able to compete with the boys?

BD: Why weren't we able to?

CO: Yeah. Why were you unofficial and why is Leon Draisaitl officially winning this competition?

BD: Honestly we were told that we're demoing them and weren't participating -- like actually competing. So that's kind of what they said and that was fine with us. That's what we wanted. We wanted exposure for women's hockey. I mean that's kind of all I have to say with that.

CO: Is fair to say that you're grateful for whatever you can get?

BD: Definitely. I think with us any time we can get exposure like we did this weekend in front of 18,000 fans and having NHL and NBC, MSN -- on TV, that is huge exposure for women's hockey and we're definitely grateful for the opportunity that we had this weekend.

CO: Tell us what it is that you did in 1-minute-6-seconds.

BD: Did some break out passing -- we had to hit three different targets and then we moved into the neutral zone. You had to do saucer passes over a board into a little mini net. So there's two close targets for those and then two cross targets as well that you had to get over board and do a mini net. And then after you completed all four nets there you had to move into the next zone and hit these blocks that would light up. You had a hit the one that was lit up and you had to get five out of six targets there. Yeah.

CO: Well you know what, in the length of time for you to explain that you could have done this three times I think. You were so fast there. Did you know how fast you were? Did you know you were doing this like at such a speed?

BD: No definitely not. We did a rehearsal the day before. We had to go through all the stations, and we actually had opportunities to do the other stations as well as -- like you know Rebecca Johnston and Renata Fast and Kendall Coyne did other stations for the skills comp -- and so it was kind of fun to be able to try theirs out the day before as well. In rehearsal -- trust me -- it did not go the way that [chuckles] the actual day went for me. Rehearsal was pretty tough. I barely made it -- it wasn't enough time through the three stations the day before, so I just happened to be on I guess for the actual day of the skills comp.

CO: You were very focused.

BD: Yeah I mean I was pretty nervous as well. I mean having not only 18,000 fans there watching along, but along with all the NHL guys too -- some of them are watching as well, so that was pretty nerve racking.

CO: People who watched you timed your skate and then they watched as Leon Draisaitl won that -- he did that in 1-minute-9-seconds, which is pretty good. Still pretty accomplished. But you had done it three seconds faster than him but he won, right?

BD: Yes correct.

CO: And he got to take home a prize of what?

BD: 25,000 dollars.

CO: And what did you get to take home?

BD: Well CCM hockey ended paying me -- you know stated that they're going to pay me 25,000 dollars for competing in the competition, doing well. But fortunately too, the NHL ended up actually giving all four of us girls 25,000 dollars to donate to a charity of choice -- which we're pretty thankful for and quite frankly like pretty honoured to be able to receive that money and be able to help impact others, as that's one of our things that we love to do is be able to impact different communities and different charities and different young people around the world. And so we're pretty fortunate with that as well.

CO: That came about because people, those 18,000 people, were watching it. A lot of them thought that you should have been taking home the 25,000 dollar prize. And then you saw all those -- this hashtag, #PayDecker. #PayDecker was all over the place. What did you think of that?

BD: Yeah it was interesting. I've never been in this situation before of having I guess the social media attention. I don't know -- I was shocked by it obviously. I wasn't expecting that at all, and didn't think that that would have -- something like that would've came up but it did. And it's pretty funny to see that online. Honestly like I said like that wasn't like NHL's plan or our plan, like us girls, you know it wasn't our plan to go in there and do something like this. It kind of blew up. And thankful for that it did blow up in a sense of it just created more talk about our sport and women's hockey and growing our sport -- and that's our main goal as the four of us and the rest of the girls on our national teams that we want to grow our sport as much as we can and make an impact. And you know that's what we did this weekend.

CO: Okay so it wasn't your intention to show them up, but you did. Come on. You did. And then it blew up.

BD: We did well.

CO: You did really well. And did Leon Draisaitl -- the guy who won it, in quotes. Did he have anything to say about your performance?

BD: No. He didn't say anything to me or anything -- I think he said some stuff to other reporters and stuff that he was impressed and like good for her. But no, I didn't end up interacting with him. It's funny I'm a huge, actually a pretty huge, Oilers fan. I like to support them. So it's funny that he happened to be the one who won it.

CO: You know maybe there is a lot more support for women's hockey than the NHL realizes.

BD: Yeah I could see that. I think we don't get as much recognition as we should. But I think this weekend showed -- yeah -- how much support we really do have, and I think it did show the NHL how much support we have as well. We're thankful for the NHL for what they did this weekend because it did help grow our sport. We couldn't be more proud to be part of it.

CO: Congratulations to you. And it was really outstanding to see that. Thanks Brianna.

BD: Thank you.

CO: Take care.

BD: Thank you so much. Bye.

KG: Brianna Decker plays for the Calgary Inferno in the Canadian Women's Hockey League. She came away as the unofficial winner of a passing challenge at Friday's NHL All-Star Skills Event in San Jose. We reached her in Calgary.

[Music]

Louis Vuitton Jenga

SOUNDCLIP

[Music: Jenga Song]

KG: An interviewer once asked Leslie Scott why the game she invented -- Jenga --had become such a classic. Ms. Scott replied that it simply fulfilled all the requirements we expect from a game. Quote "It demands skill, involves interaction with other players, provides suspense, and takes place within a finite period of time." It's neat that she thinks that's all games should be. And it's cute to think of easily satisfied people carefully placing those cheap, dull wooden blocks on top of each other, on their filthy card tables or whatever regular people play games on. But others have higher requirements. They don't want to spend 20 bucks for a Jenga game you can play forever and store in a closet. They want to pay 3200 dollars Canadian for a Jenga game you never play and store in a glass display case next to your Fabergé Mr. Potato Head. Now, Louis Vuitton has kindly stepped in to fill this void. Recently fashion designer Virgil Abloh posted a photo on his Instagram, "Have I mentioned how much I love the Vuitton gifting team? he wrote. "They keep coming up with such fun stuff." Pictured was a transparent box containing translucent blocks in shades of red and blue -- each stamped with the 'LV' monogram. Truly, the "Vuitton gifting team" has outdone itself. They saw the glaring flaws with regular Jenga -- as drab blocks, the embarrassingly low cost, and the fact that you can actually play it, and fix them. Now it's a slightly different game. Less about your sense of balance -- and more about your bank balance.

[Music]

Neil Stonechild

KG: Neil Stonechild has not been forgotten. Many people remember the Indigenous teenager who froze to death on the outskirts of Saskatoon on a frigid November night in 1990. He had been picked up by police shortly before he died. His death prompted an RCMP investigation, a judicial inquiry, and the firing of the two officers. Renowned Anishnaabe artist Rebecca Belmore wants people to continue to remember the boy's tragic end. In a few days, an ice sculpture she created with her partner, Osvaldo Yero, will be installed outside the Remai Modern in Saskatoon. Here's Ms. Belmore speaking earlier today with the CBC's Leisha Grebinski.

SOUNDCLIP

REBECCA BELMORE: We made the work in 2006 for Nuit Blanche in Toronto -- and basically it's a sculpture that's made out of ice and it holds the name Stonechild. So the work is like a memorial to Neil Stonechild who lost his life here, outside the city. And for me it's --I'm getting emotional. But for me it's really important -- to us -- to my husband and myself, that the work is here, is installed here outside this building -- the Remai because I feel like the work is coming home. So I think it's really important that it's here. It's very difficult. But at the same time I think there's lots of people who are doing really great things so I think you know although the work holds the sadness of this young boy losing his life, I think there's lots of young people out there in the world who are doing really great things. So you know it holds you know a tragic story. But I think there's lots of great stories out there.

LEISHA GREBINSKI: Are there conversations that you hope it sparks?

REBECCA BELMORE: Well I hope it sparks conversation, but I hope it also creates some kind of conversation around stopping the violence that we have to live with really. And I think it's really important to say things as an artist that are difficult to think about.

KG: Anishnaabe artist Rebecca Belmore on CBC's "Saskatoon Morning" earlier today. Her exhibit, "Facing The Monumental" -- including the ice sculpture, "Freeze" -- opens later this week at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon.

[Music]

Part 3: This gay city councillor is taking over for a congressman who fled Brazil in fear of his life

Brazilian congressman

Guest: David Miranda

KG: As one Brazilian lawmaker is driven out of the country, another has stepped up to take his place. Jean Wyllys was Brazil's second openly gay congressman. But in the new political climate under right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro -- not only has Mr. Wyllys left his post, he's fled the country because of death threats. The Socialism and Liberty Party has now chosen a replacement for the seat, David Miranda. Mr. Miranda is also gay, and the husband of Intercept journalist Glenn Greenwald. We reached David Miranda in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

CO: Mr. Miranda as you know the man you are going to replace, Jean Wyllys, he says he's leaving his office, his job, because he's afraid for his life. Why would you want to take that job?

DAVID MIRANDA: Well first of all he has all the reasons to do the things that he needed to be staying alive. I know Jean for quite some time and he's received a lot of death threats. Obviously I'm afraid for my life or what can happen to my family. But in moments like this you have to be brave even with the fear that becomes courage -- and people need a voice in Brazil, and I know that I can do the job that I did here as a councilman, I was the first LGBT openly gay [inaudible].

CO: So I know it's already been difficult for you because you were in the city council in Rio and your fellow councillor Marielle Franco was shot dead. So you're no stranger to this kind of intimidation, but do you think it's going to get worse for you now?

DM: I expect not. I take measures for my safety and the safety of my family. But as you know Brazil is one of the countries who most kill human rights activists. So it is going to be dark times, but I will go forward and it needs to be a lot of strength to keep going -- the work that I was doing. This I'm going to be doing not just for me, for all the people who came for the favelas where I used to live -- my family is still there, my friends are still there. There's a lot of people who need people who actually understand the position that those people are at this stage are [inaudible] every day. So it will be hard times and we need to make a stand especially with the president that we have now.

CO: And I want to ask you about your president, Bolsonaro, because his views on the LGBT community are pretty negative or pretty -- well he's incited violence toward them. He said that he'd rather his son were killed in a car accident than to be gay. And the first things he did as president was to remove the LGBT community from groups who are covered by the country's human rights ministry. How much worse has it become for people in the LGBTQ community in Brazil since the election of President Bolsonaro?

DM: It become worse. There's a lot of violent attacks against LGBT population. There's more deaths than ever was. Brazil is now the number one country with most killed LGBT. The trans community are being slaughter every day. And when you have a president elected that does not represent us -- saying openly that he's against, not only against the LGBT community but also against the human rights activists, that gives the strength to a lot of people to do things in his name on his behalf to harm us.

CO: You have said when you were on city council that the reason why you were in politics because you wanted to increase the rights for LGBT people -- you wanted to pursue hate crime laws as one of your goals. You had a lot of goals for what you wanted to do for the community, but what can you actually do now in the government of President Bolsonaro? What can you realistically accomplish?

DM: Well I'm living in one of the biggest cities in the world. I was a councilman here. And I pass a lot of laws and my fellow mates were very conservative -- I pass laws for trans people here -- have the right to having name. I passed a lot laws for the working class -- passed law for [inaudible] class. I have actually good skills of talking to everybody. I'm not saying that's going to be easy, that's going to be hard work, but I'm completely willing and have the strength and ability and the confidence that I'm going to be able to have a dialogue with the most people in the house.

CO: Can you have a dialogue with President Bolsonaro?

DM: Yes if it's necessary for the population -- I need to be able to because I'm a congressman who need to be there, thinking about that population of our country.

CO: Now just a question about Jean Wyllys -- the man you are replacing in congress -- he has just gone quiet. He's gone to Europe. We don't know where he is. He made it clear he feared for his life. He was accused of pedophilia wrongly. He was getting death threats. His family was getting death threats. So do you know anything about how he's doing? Is he safe?

DM: This is something that we shouldn't talk about. I think he's taking measures to be safe. My party is doing what is necessary for him to be safe. We're going to take all the measures for him to be safe. I think he's going to find whatever he's looking for. He was an excellent congressman in Brazil -- he did a great job. He was one of the [inaudible] about the LGBT -- spoke in person. But he got hit about a lot of fake news and death threats. And that drove him to change his position because he was insecure about his life. And I think he walked out now from the country as a hero and that's what he is for me and for a lot of people.

CO: All right. Mr. Miranda we'll leave it there. Stay safe and thank you for speaking with us.

DM: Thank you.

KG: We reached David Miranda in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For more on this story go to our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Dateline: Camden, Maine

KG: Dateline: Camden, Maine.

[Music]

KG: The Camden Snow Bowl has taken some hits over the past few seasons. There have been controversies and financial missteps. And now, the beavers. The Snow Bowl is mid-coast Maine's only ski mountain. Over the last two years it's been fined, audited, and struggled to deal with brutally cold weather. Plus, the general manager resigned for not following zoning rules. And then after all of those personal and financial failings, a mechanical one: the snowmaking machine stopped working. The water the Snow Bowl uses to make snow comes from nearby Hosmer Pond. That pond is also the home to a number of beavers. And the beavers like to dam up the intake pipe -- which means no water for the snowmaking machines, which means no snow. But there's good news. Last year the facility hired a new general manager named Beth Ward -- who made the kind of decision that people who run a ski hill rarely have to make. She hired a scuba diver. That diver clears the intake pipe clogged up by the beavers before every snowmaking session. And Ms. Ward says that even though the beavers continue to mess with that pipe, the diver has made for much smoother snowmaking. This week all of the mountain trails are open and things are humming along better than usual for skiers because by now the Camden Snow Bowl is used to experiencing one dammed thing after another.

[Music]

Affordable Homes

KG: New Zealand's Labour government vowed it would end homelessness by building lots and lots of affordable houses. The target of the project called "KiwiBuild" was ambitious -- 1000 affordable homes by July 1st, 2019. The thing is, it might have been too ambitious. Since last July, just 47 KiwiBuild homes have been built -- many of which are languishing on the market because they're too expensive. New Zealand's Housing Minister Phil Twyford says it's been difficult to attract private developers to build small affordable homes -- so instead of meeting the target for 1000 homes they've lowered the bar to 300. Last May when the plan was announced As It Happens spoke with Minister Twyford. Here's part of his conversation with Carol.

SOUNDCLIP

PHIL TWYFORD: Well, we're pulling out all the stops to make sure that no one needs to be without shelter or living in a car this winter. You know the country's being shocked I think by the scale of homelessness, and we've made it a big priority over the last six months to put together a package of measures that will mean that this winter people who need shelter will get it.

CO: If I understand this correctly you're not just looking for shelters but you're trying to develop actual housing that you're trying to put people into houses. How are you going to do that? Where will you find this housing?

PT: The kind of the main elements of the package we've just announced -- a scaling up of housing first, which is an approach that where essentially you get a roof over people's heads. And then once people have secure and safe housing you work with them to provide the services to help them deal with health issues, or get their lives back on track. We are rolling out a nationwide program of support of the emergency housing -- some of this housing is being built new but some of the others are either leasing housing. We're also scaling up the building of public housing, so that's subsidised income related secure [inaudible] house.

CO: Your opposition party is criticising your program and they want you to spend more than they think you should spend as they were proposing three times as much -- 300 million dollars instead of one hundred million dollars. Will you take them up on that challenge?

PT: The response that they made was just politicking really. And they didn't really understand that we are maintaining the level of funding that they put in place, and we are raising it significantly. So yeah they were a little wide of the mark unfortunately.

KG: New Zealand's Housing Minister Phil Twyford speaking with Carol last May about his country's ambitious affordable housing plan. New Zealand's Labour Government now says it will fall far short of its goal to build 1000 affordable homes in one year.

[Music]

Neanderthal spears

Guest: Annemieke Milks

KG: We often underestimate the wisdom and judgment of our elders. For example: Neanderthals. There are a lot of stereotypes around them, which they can't dispel due to being extinct. People think they were slow, brutish, and unintelligent. Basically that humans are the coolest and smartest, and Neanderthals are squaresville and inferior. But a new study by University College London's Institute of Achaelogy says Neanderthals might have been more capable than we think. Including when it comes to hunting. Annemieke Milks is the lead researcher. We reached her in East Sussex, England.

CO: Ms. Milks how we underestimated Neanderthals all these years?

ANNEMIEKE MILKS: We are definitely coming to new conclusions about Neanderthals and how they compare with behaviours of our own species around the time, and I think yeah in general we have underestimated Neanderthals for over a long period of time and we're really starting to see changes in that.

CO: So one area that you have found where there was much more sophistication than we thought was with their hunting and there are techniques. First of all, what were the assumptions before?

AM: The assumptions are that we see in the archaeological record that Neanderthals have these spears -- first the wooden spears that I studied, and then later on with stone points on them. And the assumption has always been that in comparison to weapons that our own species seemed to have innovated like bow and arrow technologies and atlatl that everything about these hand delivered spears that Neanderthals used were inferior to these bow and arrow and atlatl technologies. So we wanted to test whether or not that was true.

CO: And why did you think that it was possibly not true?

AM: Well there were some previous studies that weren't particularly systematic where you had a couple of people throwing some replicas and showing that they would fly, but they didn't do any kind of high speed video analysis the way we did and they didn't do any accuracy testing -- so we had to guess that perhaps you know they would function as thrown weapons rather than just as close range thrusting weapons. So we decided to set up a proper experiment to really test how well they would do.

CO: Tell us about that experiment. You went to great lengths to show how these spears may have been used, didn't you.

AM: Yes we did. So I think one of the problems we have had in interpreting hand thrown spears as weapons is that a lot of the basis for which we have had these characterizations of them has being not very effective, very close distance if they were thrown, but one of the big problems behind that was that a lot of these estimates were based on people who were not very skilled in throwing. So one of the things that I wanted to do was to recruit javelin athletes who are really good at throwing. And we also replicated one of these spears from a very old site called Schoningen in Germany that dates to about 300,000 years ago. And we replicated these spears and we asked these javelin athletes to throw them at hay bales and then we recorded them using high speed video -- and really had a much better science based understanding now of how they perform.

CO: And so you definitely believe that these were javelin like spears -- they threw these as weapons?

AM: So this particular site has a whole collection of spears. It had ten spears from it. And some of those spears look likely to be designed as contact weapon and thrusting weapons because they're not double pointed -- whereas the spear that we replicated and several of the other ones are double pointed. They're pointed at the back as well as the front which is part of one of the things you really need for a spear like that to fly well. Of course we don't have direct evidence that they were throwing them but the fact that they designed some of these spears in such a way that they throw well suggests that they were actually designing them to be thrown.

CO: Now do you have any idea of how far someone or a Neanderthal could actually throw this spear in the direction of prey?

AM: The sort of estimate has always been that they effective between about five and ten metres, so that's quite close to an animal which would really limit how you can hunt it. And so in our experiment we found that the athletes were able to hit a hay bale, which is what we used as a target, up to 20 metres. And then beyond that point at 25 metres none of them were able to hit the target. So I would say that we can estimate this distance now to be between 15 and 20 metres for these early spears. And for hand throwing spears in general we see from ethnographic evidence we see people throwing distances much farther than even 20 metres.

CO: So Neanderthals were not bad hunters.

AM: No. And actually I think one of the things that this study helps us understand -- you know we know they were good hunters because we see from the archaeological record that they were hunting these prey. We see from isotopic data that they were eating a lot of meat in some cases. So this makes sense that they had a flexibility as different hunting technologies available to them and not just this up close and personal type of hunting.

CO: This changes their reputation, doesn't it? I mean how did Neanderthals get such a bum rap?

AM: It's a very interesting question. I think we're as archaeologists we're starting to engage now in what underpins us needing to characterize another species as so very different. And I think you know that's a very complex question, why do we need to characterize the other as something that is less than us. You know if we take now the evidence that we [inaudible] with Neanderthals and that a lot of us have Neanderthal DNA within our own DNA, we have to start seeing them as more human.

CO: So a lot of social assumptions have gone into this over the years eh?

AM: I think so. And I think it probably started you know -- the Neanderthals were first discovered as a species in the mid-19th century, and so a lot of our sort of ideas and characterizations of them as a species originate in 19th century thinking.

CO: Very interesting. Ms. Milks I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

AM: Thank you very much for having me.

CO: Bye bye.

KG: That was Annamieke Milks, a graduate of University College London's archaeology program. That's where she researched the way of life of the Neanderthals and found they might not be as old school as we think. We reached her in East Sussex, England. And we have more on this story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Michel Legrand

KG: To say that Michel Legrand was an overachiever would be an understatement. The Oscar-winning composer began life as a child prodigy. He went on to win countless accolades as a jazz pianist, a conductor, and film collaborator. His songs were recorded by Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, and scores of others. And that's just scraping the surface of a lifetime of work. Michel Legrand died on the weekend at home in Paris. He was 86. Over his long career Mr. Legrand scored about 150 films and TV shows. Perhaps his best known was the classic 1964 movie "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg." All the dialogue in the film was sung. And it garnered him a rare Oscar hat-trick nominations in all three music categories. He also released more than 100 of his own albums. But as he told the CBC's Jacques Gauthier in 1975, he revelled in hearing other artists interpretations of his music.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHEL LEGRAND: It's very hard to say that I prefer someone, because when I write something -- when I work, I mean when I write a song or anything, what I expect from the singer is to be surprised -- in the good sense of course.

JACQUES GAUTHIER: Happily surprised.

MICHEL LEGRAND: Yeah. So I never heard one who did exactly the way I wanted it because which way I want it I don't know. If do an orchestration myself you know on a theme that I wrote, so I'll do the approach which seems to me -- which would seem to me the closest to what I think but what I'm interested from a orchestrator to do something which will surprise me -- Oh jeez I didn't even think of that. And for a singer the same thing -- oh he or she does it this way -- that is great you know. Not always to be faithful or pure or close as possible to the simplicity -- I mean when Sinatra does [inaudible] because he changes the tempo you know. So that surprised me -- when Barbara does something for instance. She did a song called "Summer Me, Winter Me" and she did it in a really a very different way. So I didn't think -- I saw her in Vegas two years ago and she took one song called -- a very new song that I wrote just three years ago -- and it was a 2-minute song, and she did a 12-minute you know appearance with it. And it was really extraordinary for me because I didn't think it was possible. So she had sing -- and that I love very much. Also that song is written. It's dead from me. I mean it's done. I should say it is [inaudible] already, so when it's revived it should be different -- it should have another face, another body, another look.

KG: Composer and musician, Michel Legrand speaking to Jacques Gauthier on the CBC's 'The Entertainers' in 1975.

January 28, 2019 Episode Transcript

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