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The AIH Transcript for February 18, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

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]

Prologue

KG: Tonight:

CO: Friend exit. Prime Minister Trudeau's longtime pal and trusted advisor, Gerald Butts, resigns from his principal secretary post — but denies any wrongdoing in his dealings with SNC Lavalin and the former Attorney General.

KG: Labour love, lost. Today, seven British MPs staged a dramatic exit from the Labour Party — citing a failure by its leader to address anti-Semitism within the ranks and a weak opposition to Theresa May's Brexit plans.

CO: Thinking outside the books. Her name may not be as instantly recognizable as Ray Bradbury, or J.R.R. Tolkien — but the late Betty Ballantine gave notoriety to their names and others, by ushering in the era of the paperback.

KG: Fire on ice. The Nunavut male hockey team turned their first match into their first win at the Canada Winter Games yesterday, with a victory over their Yukon rivals — proving to themselves they can achieve their goals.

CO: It's had its day in the sun — and he knows who to point the big hand at. A Cambridge professor says the waning interest in the ancient time-telling device, the sundial, is clearly the fault of milennials.

KG: And... it don't prove a thing if it ain't got that swing. It won't prove a winner, that is, at the annual Dance Your PhD competition — but the current champ is a Canadian grad student who clearly knows how to put the tech in technique.

KG: "As It Happens", the Monday edition. Radio that appreciates a scientist who's got "getting down" down to a science.

[Music: Theme]

Part one: Gerald Butts: Nathan Cullen and Paul Wells, Dance Your PhD

Gerald Butts: Nathan Cullen

Guest: Nathan Cullen

KG: Justin Trudeau has lost his right hand man. Gerald Butts, the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary and longtime friend resigned this afternoon. In his resignation letter, Mr. Butts denies that the Prime Minister's Office pressured the former Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould. Pressure, it is alleged, that was applied to help the engineering giant SNC Lavalin avoid a criminal trial. Instead, Mr. Butts says he's stepping aside to prevent the allegations drawing attention away from Mr. Trudeau's important work. That doesn't seem to be the end of the matter for Nathan Cullen though. We reached the NDP MP in Ottawa.

CO: Mr. Cullen, what does the resignation of Gerald Butts tell you about the allegations facing the Trudeau government?

NATHAN CULLEN: Well, I think we're onto something. I think we're seeing a government that keeps putting its hand on heart and claiming innocence — but is acting in ways that point more towards guilt. That the prime minister’s own multi and varied stories day to day, and now the loss of his main confidante — his longtime friend in politics and life — point in the direction that we were headed already, but certainly give it a little bit more urgency now that the points are becoming more clear.

CO: Is it possible that it’s not that you now on to something and you're going in the same direction, but maybe that Mr. Butts says this will result in turning a corner?

NATHAN CULLEN: I don't know how because, again, we have yet to hear from Ms. Wilson-Raybould. We will want to hear from Mr. Butts, as we tried last week, Liberals blocked us at committee. But I think Mr. Butts would be expecting to testify in his future. And if he is unwilling to do so, then he should be expecting a subpoena. I don't think that Liberals on the committee or elsewhere in parliament can continue to resist the calls for actual openness — not just pretending to be open and transparent. Because this whole case goes right to the heart of not just governance but the Liberal promise to Canadians that they would be different, they'd be open by default, and that they're working on behalf of all Canadians just not on behalf of wealthy and well-connected people. And this case exposes the worst of politics. But I think also perhaps the worst tendencies within this party right now.

CO: So you are suggesting that he's doing this in order to get off the radar? Not to speak, but doesn't it also suggest in his letter of resignation that he is doing this in order to make a stand? I mean he says I categorically deny the accusations that I or anyone in this office pressured Ms. Wilson-Raybould. And any accusation that I or the staff put pressure on the Attorney General is simply not true. Does that not sound like he's getting ready to stand up and fight this one?

NC: Perhaps, or they're anticipating some bad news coming out of either Ms. Wilson-Raybould or somebody else. I want to hear these claims under oath. I want to see them in public. And, of course, not just for Mr. Butts. But the concern has been that people in Mr. Trudeau's staff have been meeting closely with this company who is under fraud and corruption charges for well over a year. They met I think 50 times — often talking about this one subject — trying to get a plea deal. And that if Mr. Butts is convinced of his innocence, and the innocence of Mr. Trudeau's office, then liberals in the House of Commons in parliament will be open to us inviting them to committee to swear under oath to that effect. And also, of course, allow Ms. Wilson-Raybould if she so chooses to come before a committee and tell Canadians her version of events. Because it's Mr. Trudeau who's been doing all the talking — his story hasn't been consistent. And he has been waving solicitor-client privilege. Him being the client, we now need to hear from his solicitor. Because one side of the story is certainly not enough when we're talking about something like obstruction of justice and potential corruption at the highest office in the country.

CO: Okay. And you cite that corruption and that interference as being you cite these 50 meetings that SNC Lavalin had with people in Ottawa. Was not at least one of those meetings with your own leader of your party, Jagmeet Singh?

NC: Absolutely. This was a meeting with the Quebec Chamber of Commerce, which SNC Lavalin apparently attended. And at the end of that meeting, they asked also for our support for this plea deal — this option out. We said no. And then we voted against the bill that would enable it — so all of this has to be known not just by your words but also your deeds. And New Democrats and my leader and my party have been very uncomfortable with letting white collar criminals off the hook, while ordinary Canadians have to follow every bit of the law. There seem to be two sets of laws: one set of Law's for all Canadians, and then another set for the wealthy and well-connected. When this company was caught with some of the most serious charges a company can experience, they were able to get access to the highest power in the land, and try to persuade them to put pressure on the Attorney General to allow them to plea out. And when she resisted, she was fired.

CO: Woah, woah, woah, woah. But the string of breadcrumbs leads through what we know that Bob Fife reported. And he told us himself there’s no connection between the demotion of the minister and SNC Lavalin. He tells us himself that he has two anonymous sources who say that Justin Trudeau’s office attempted to press Ms. Wilson-Raybould. And we also know that nothing came of it. So these bread crumbs, where do they actually lead?

NC: Even the attempt to pressure the Attorney General is also an obstruction of justice. The fact that Ms Wilson-Raybould in her letter to Canadians said she needed to speak truth to power, and the AG’s office couldn't even be under the perception of political interference. Those two things, to me, were warning signs. And I would like to hear from her as to what exactly happened.

CO: And just finally, you're saying that we know this happened. We have two anonymous sources in the Globe and Mail. And we have this categorical denial by the person who is blamed for this interference. So where is your evidence?

NC: Well, it wasn't just Mr. Butts that was meeting with SNC Lavalin. It wasn't Mr. Butts alone that was accused of potentially putting pressure on the Attorney General. Mr. Trudeau's defense was that nothing untoward happened because she's still in his cabinet. 24 hours later, she had resigned from his cabinet, and sought advice from a former Supreme Court Justice as to how she would be able to speak in public. This all seems to be something significant enough to have had the chief adviser to the prime minister resign today. I think there's obviously more to this story. And I and many other Canadians would like to hear the rest of it.

CO: All right. And we hope you're going to hear it in the days to come.

NC: We’ll see.

CO: Mr. Cullen, it’s good to talk to you. Thank you.

NC: Thank you, Carol.

KG: Nathan Cullen is an NDP MP, who is the party's critic for Democratic reform. He spoke to us from Ottawa.

Gerald Butts: Paul Wells

Guest: Paul Wells

Paul Wells is senior writer at MacLean's magazine. We reached him in Ottawa.

CO: Paul, Gerald Butts is an insider that many Canadians know nothing about. So how big a deal is this?

PAUL WELLS: It's a pretty big deal. Basically, Justin Trudeau has never been in public life without being associated with Gerald Butts. The first time I heard the guy's name was after the very young Justin Trudeau spoke at his father's funeral, you know nearly 20 years ago. And a mutual acquaintance was quite convinced that the famous speech that Justin Trudeau gave had been written by Gerry Butts. I have no idea whether that's true. I just know I mean they go back to McGill. They have been inseparable since then. And you know the first time I began to take seriously the notion that Justin Trudeau might run for the federal leadership was in about 2012, when I was in a conversation where Gerry Butts was taking the notion seriously. And I figured well, there must be a real thing then if Butts is doing it. So I honestly believe nobody is irreplaceable in politics. I honestly believe that Justin Trudeau can be prime minister with a different principal secretary. But it'll be a big change because he's never had Gerry Butts far from him.

CO: And so why do you think he's doing it? He says that he's got to defend his reputation, no one else will do that for him, he's denying everything categorically. What's the purpose? It must be a point to this, right?

PW: I think there's some possibility that Butts was already fairly disillusioned, and not really that interested in continuing anyway. And that since this Jody Wilson-Raybould affair has turned out to be something that the Liberals cannot get on top of. It's not so much that this scandal is battering them with new revelations again and again. It's that they have had no luck finding any anything comprehensible to say about the first day story. The Globe reporters who broke the story on the first day — principally Bob Fife and Steve Chase — have not written a second story. And 15 days later, Gerry Butts has to quit his job. They've been so rattled by this that I think given a slow loss of motivation on the part of Butts anyway, and given that they kind of just have to throw some kind of ballast over the board, and given that he has been increasingly unpopular among Liberals in government for complex reasons we can get into, I think he I think he just said look, that's it. I'm out of here.

CO: He hints in this letter he's leaving in order to be able to make a difference or have an effect. Is it possible that he will be in a position to do more outside of the PMO than within it?

PW: Well, so there is the possibility that he’ll be an informal campaign adviser. Look, nobody except the PMO switchboard knows who's calling the prime minister at any given time. There is a precedent though. The co-chair of the Liberal campaign in 2015 was a guy named Dan Gagnier, who had been a chief of staff to both Jean Charest, and long before in Ontario, to David Peterson. And he had to quit a week before the election because he'd written an ill-advised memo to private business clients about how to benefit from a Trudeau government. Look, in the three-and-a-half years since then, I've never heard Dan Gagnier’s name spoken by anyone in government. I have no indication that he has been even in informal contact with the government. So it's entirely possible that this is not a symbolic or a fake departure. There is precedent to suggest that it would be a real departure.

CO: And you point out this all comes from a story that basically has two anonymous sources about something that was an attempt to do some pressure on a minister that seemed to have yielded no results because the charges continue — SNC Lavalin is still in the same trouble. Have you ever seen a time when there was so much fallout from something that had so few facts to peg it?

PW: Yeah, that's almost the most fascinating thing about it. This one story with vague allegations, darkly sourced, has rung this prime minister's office like a bell in a way that I'm not used to seeing. Partly is they've had a relatively easy until now. You know they came in, they were very popular, it was a new government, nobody knew which way was up. You know they haven't been battered by the press month after month, after month, and they've never gotten really good at explaining themselves. So whatever was going on here, they simply can't produce a string of declarative sentences that sounds plausible to explain it. And there's two possibilities there. One is that, in fact, something very awful was going on, and it's indefensible, and they know it. And the other is simply that they're really not good at this. They're not good at political communication. They've been flattering themselves for years that they're fantastic at it. And faced with a moderately complex set of circumstances and a moderately touchy political situation, which is does one help SNC Lavalin avoid a trial or not? You know they can't explain themselves. And if that's the case, then getting out Gerry Butts will not open at all. They're heading into a campaign — it's handy to be able to communicate.

CO: And, of course, the next shoe to drop we expect will be that Jody Wilson-Reybould will speak. What effect might that have?

PW: I suspect that she believes she was pressured. And as soon as nearly the best lawyer in the country — a former Supreme Court justice name Thomas Cromwell — clears what she can say and what she can't, see will give that she will give that account. And then you know it’ll be her word against the categorical denial of Butts. Not only that he didn't pressure her, but nobody in the Prime Minister's Office did. And then, one way or the other, I mean there's the nearly laughable forum of the Parliamentary Justice Committee, which is hung between Liberals and opposition MPs is going to kind of, sort of, try to pretend to investigate this. The Ethics Commissioner, slightly more serious, is going to going to be investigating. We don't know about the current one, but his predecessor took a long time to investigate this sort of thing. So there's a good chance he wouldn't have an outcome until after an election. And there may be other fora in which this will be adjudicated as well, as the form of public opinion.

CO: And an election.

PW: Yeah, that'll be fun.

CO: Paul, and you'll be covering it, and we'll be following you. Thank you so much for speaking with us.

PW: Thank you.

KG: Paul Wells is a senior writer at MacLean's. He was in Ottawa. For more on this story, go to: www.cbc.ca/news.

[Music: Acoustic guitar]

Dance Your PhD

Guest: Pramodh Senarath Yapa

KG: It's one thing to be able to explain complex scientific concepts in easy-to-follow terms. It's quite another to express them clearly and engagingly through interpretive song and dance. But that's the goal of the annual "Dance Your PhD" competition. And we here at “As It Happens” are big fans. Back In 2017, we heard from mathematician Nancy Scherich, she won the competition that year. And now, with the latest round, immortal geek fame has come to Canada. Pramodh Senarath Yapa is a physics PhD candidate at the University of Alberta. He plays guitar and sings to explain his Masters research at another university — the University of Victoria. And… there are dancers, too, of course. Here's a little of what his winning submission,"Superconductivity: The Musical", sounds like.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: A man sings a swing song about the process of superconductivity]

KG: We reached Mr. Senarath Yapa, in Edmonton.

CO: Pramodh, congratulations.

PRAMODH SENARATH YAPA: Thank you very much.

CO: We just played a bit of the music from “Superconductivity: The Musical”, but obviously our listeners can't see it. So what's going on in your video?

PSY: So what I have is a look at the social lives of electrons in three musical acts. I have swing dancers representing these electrons. And in the first act, what you have are electrons in a normal metal at normal temperatures. And in this state, the electrons pretty much ignore each other, and are very unsociable. They don't interact with their neighbours. And in the next act, we kind of cool down this medal, and it turns into a superconductor, which means that there is no resistance to any electrical current as we're talking in the actual physical sense. But what happens in the video is that the electrons suddenly feel a need for companionship, and they start interacting with each other. And they form something called the Cooper pair, where two electrons pair up. And the last act of the musical is what happens when we introduce something called spin impurity, which are just dirt particles that exist in the superconductor. And these dirt particles don't like it when Cooper pairs come near, and they make some noise near the Cooper pai’s arch. And this is the subject of my research figuring out how much noise these impurities would make when Cooper pairs would come near.

CO: Now, the impurities, which are punks, and they're wearing like black leather, they're tough, they're mean, right? But the other people are just trying to dance — I guess the electrons are trying to dance. So what happens when this horrible thing happens with the punks attacking?

PSY: Yeah, so the punks are outsiders, of course. They're not supposed to be in the superconductor in a perfect world. But, unfortunately, we live in a world where we get impurities all the time. And what happens is that they make noise. The noise here in the actual superconductor is a form of magnetic noise — they give off magnetic fields that we don't want to see. And this is an error that we don't want. And we try to figure out ok, if we can't make superconductors without these punks or impurities, well at least we can understand how much noise they're making.

CO: But everyone comes together in the end — a big party?

PSY: Yeah, I don't know if that actually happens in a superconductor. But that definitely happened at the end of my video.

CO: And everyone's having a good time, and you're in the middle of all this playing and singing. So you're singing your thesis, right, which is really quite extraordinary — with rhyming couplets. And so how did you decide that you were going to do swing dancing as your way of dancing your PhD?

PSY: Yeah, so this video is essentially all of my hobbies that I've accrued over the entirety of my life just coming together into one project. So I’ve played guitar for about 13 years. I’ve been swing dancing for about five years. I've been singing, and you can even see a little bit of metal vocals that I've been doing since my high school years in this musical. So you know I feel like I was being prepared all my life to do this video. So I saw Dance Your PhD — this competition that's been going on for 11 years — about five or six years ago. And as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to make something out of it. And as soon as I started my masters, I knew exactly how I would do it. So in the one-and-a-half years leading up to me making this video, I'd be on the bus going to the university, and I would be jotting down notes and writing down lyrics on my phone. So I was in preparation for a long time making this video.

CO: But when you when you list all the things you have spent your whole life doing, you also spent a good chunk of your life in school, right? And so you saw these things as you could actually bring them together that all the research you did for your masters at the University of Victoria, and all these other things were all the same.

PSY: Yeah, I tend to think that you know there shouldn't be any division between the sciences and your normal life. My life as just a normal person and my life as a scientist there's no division.

CO: You know, of course, when you went into it there's very stiff competition in this contest. And so your opponents were someone who was doing a silent interpretive dance to explain the unconscious brain, and a fitness class dance video trying to explain physics through dance. So how do you think the judges came to choose your swing dance as the winner?

PSY: Yeah, so what I think tipped my video over the edge was I ended up writing all the lyrics and recording my own music and then Corey rapping everything. I think it was this kind of holistic effort where I did you know put together all of the parts of the video that kind of tipped it over the edge. I felt the other competitors were amazing. I loved watching the other entries for this competition.

CO: But you know you have all these people who danced with you — it’s about a dozen of them who are doing who are dancing out your thesis. How did you recruit them into showing the social life of electrons?

PSY: Yeah, for sure, all those people are my friends from the swing dancing community in Victoria, and also graduate students in physics and chemistry and whatnot. And also, there was a healthy intersection between the two because as soon as I came to Victoria, I wanted to join the swing dancing community there. So I dragged along a lot of my friends in the physics community. So when I wanted to make this video, it was a simple as just sending out a message to all my friends. And thankfully everyone was onboard to do this really weird idea, yeah.

CO: So they all wanted to do the dancing, but do they all understand superconductivity?

PSY: I would say a good I don’t know a handful of them do. And I'm not sure even I do at this point. So it is very esoteric.

CO: OK, Pramodh. Again, congratulations. It's a lot of fun. Thank you.

PSY: Thank you very much for talking to me.

CO: Bye.

KG: Pramodh Senarath Yapa is a PhD student at the University of Alberta. We reached him in Edmonton. You can find his video, 'Superconductivity: The Musical', on YouTube.

[Music: hip-hop]

Sundial is dead

KG: Four-hundred-and-twenty years ago, Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar — about the assassination of the Roman leader that occurred 16 centuries before. He took a few dramatic liberties — the most famous being in Act II, Scene I: in Brutus' garden, when a clock strikes three A.M., marking the moment he and his conspirators resolve to kill Caesar. The clock is a noted anachronism, because of course there were no clocks in ancient Rome. Shakespeare undoubtedly knew this, and included it nonetheless — correctly hazarding that a clock would resonate more instantly with his modern Elizabethan audience than a clepsydra. Now, don't be dismayed if you don't know what that is. I didn't either until hmm… maybe about ten minutes ago. It's an ancient water clock, calibrated to a sundial. And, believe me, hella clunky on the wrist. Anyway, I bring up Shakespeare to show that by the middle of the last millennium, sundials were already pretty passe. But that hasn't stopped Dr. Frank King, chair of the British Sundial Society, from throwing shade on a more contemporary target for the sundial's demise: kids today. The scholar recently told the BBC, quote: "Sundials are old hat ... To get young people interested in sundials is extraordinarily challenging." He laments that the society boasted 600 members just 20 years ago — but enrollment has dwindled to about half that. Well, it seems doubtful that his angle will spark recruitment among millennials, weary of being blamed for just about everything under the sun. They may feel more inclined to tell him to stick it where that sun don't shine.

[Music: Lullaby]

Part two: Labour MP revolt, Betty Ballantine obit, Nunavut hockey team

Labour MP revolt

Guest: Louise Ellman

KG: Seven British MPs have had enough of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party. In a dramatic move this morning, the lawmakers announced they were leaving the party — and forming their own bloc in Parliament called 'The Independent Group.' The group says the party has failed to deal with anti-Semitism within its ranks. The rebels are also unhappy with what they see as Mr. Corbyn's tepid opposition to Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plans. Louise Ellman is a Labour MP who released a statement in support of the rebels — but has so far refused to leave the party. We reached her in London.

CO: Ms. Ellman, given what you know and what you've said, why have you decided to stay in the Labour Party?

LOUISE ELLMAN: Well, I've been a member of Labour policy for over 55 years. And I find it very difficult to break the ties with the party, but I'm going to continue my battle. But I'm going to continue it from inside the Labour Party, where I do have a lot of supporters.

CO: Can you give us a sense of how serious this issue of anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party is?

LE: Well, anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party is a very serious issue. There have been numerous cases of anti-Semitic taunts. And people refer to us in a Rothschild conspiracy. And the term Zionist being used in an abusive manner — and Jewish people are being made to feel very uncomfortable. And the leadership has taken very little action to deal with this. And the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, consistently says that he is an anti-racist. But he seems to find it very difficult to recognise anti-Semitism when it comes from the left. So this has been a sore that's been festering. It's become a major issue, and has caused a great deal of concern and distress, and indeed anger.

CO: The party itself though has investigated what… almost 700 alleged cases of anti-Semitism. There are people who have been suspended from the party, people who have been tossed out of the party because of their anti-Semitism. If it's so important to you, how can you stay within a party that has such what appears to be systemic racism and anti-Semitism in its ranks?

LE: Well, I'm used to fighting battles. And a longstanding Labour Party member and elected representative, I'm used to campaigning for the things that I believe in — including campaigning within the Labour Party itself. So I'm continuing to call out anti-Semitism wherever I find it — including in the Labour Party. I'm fighting to try to put this right.

CO: Do you think that Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite?

LE: I think that he finds it very hard to recognise anti-Semitism. And I do think that the Labour leadership is institutionally anti-Semitic, and that is a major problem.

CO: Well, that's a very large thing to say, and remain within the party that you believe that's the case. I mean that's why aren't more people resigning or leaving Labour?

LE: Well, people are leaving because they don’t believe that things can be changed. And many are receiving a great deal of personal abuse. And I feel in a very difficult position about this. I am struggling to cut away from the ties I've had to so long. And I'm going to fight for longer.

CO: You've heard the reaction from labour, from the leadership. They deny anti-Semitism. They say this grassroots group is a fringe minority — that they should actually resign and try and get re-elected. They've been criticised and rejected for this. So there doesn't seem to be a great spirit of renewal within the party you've decided to stay within?

LE: Well, the problem lies with the leadership of the Labour Party. And perhaps that is reinforced by that statement. But that will not stop me and others from battling on and continuing our campaign from within the party.

CO: Does Jeremy Corbyn have to go?

LE I think we've got a problem while Jeremy Corbyn is the leader. Many people from the far left join the party and became active in it. And anti-Semitism is strong on the far left. It is not confined to the right-wing of politics. I think that is the basic problem. But I'm hoping that there will be pressure on the leader, and he will realise that he can no longer be oblivious to this terrible stain of anti-Semitism within the party.

CO: So its ideology?

LE: It’s the ideology, yes. It's far left ideology, which looks at the world in terms of conspiracy theories and powerful forces. Snd traditional anti-Semitic conspiracy theories fit very neatly into that. And the far left sometimes absorb those anti-Semitic conspiracy theories without even understanding what they're doing. I think that's the nature of the problem we're facing. And it's a problem that can't be ignored.

CO: How much of the party do you think is of that camp — of that hard-left ideological camp?

LE: The problem is with the leadership. I think that's where the hard ideological camp is concentrated. They've attracted a large number of followers who have the same views. But there are many other people who are in the party and I think we're fairly oblivious to what is really going on. That's why I think it's important to keep campaigning from inside the party.

CO: One of the people who has resigned and joined this independent group has said that he was sickened that the party is now a racist, anti-Semitic party. He is another area that they're very upset with his Brexit — they think he's on the wrong side of history with Brexit. And that they think the party and the leadership is on the wrong side of all kinds of international issues — including that of Russia, Syria, and Venezuela. What do you say to that?

LE: Well, I don't disagree with much of what's being said. And I too am very concerned about many aspects of current Labour Party policy. But over the years I've often had to fight my corner when the Labor Party has adopted policies I haven't agreed with, so many of these issues are in the normal course of politics.

CO: It sounds like you're on the outside of absolutely everything the party now represents. How many people within the Labour Party are like you?

LE: There are many people who have the same views as me, and it's quite normal within a political party to have a wide spectrum of views.

CO: But yes, there is give and take, there are people who take different positions within a caucus. But my gosh, if you're on the outs with just by everything the party now represents, you and others, how can they stay?

LE: Well, I'm not against everything the Labor Party is against. I am opposed to this conservative government's austerity policies. I'm opposed to inequality. I'm opposed to making poverty worse. But I'm not afraid to speak out on key things where I do disagree. And I'm continuing my campaigning as a member of the Labor Party.

CO: Ms. Ellman, we will leave it there. And I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

LE: Thank you very much. Bye.

KG: Louise Ellman is a British Labour MP. We reached her in London. For more on this story, go to our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Electronica]

Betty Ballantine obit

Guest: Tad Wise

KG: She was like someone with a cool tattoo down her backbone — because you always recognized her by the spine. Not her actual spine. The spine of any of the many, many books on which her name appeared. Betty Ballantine was responsible for a shift in publishing that changed books forever. Because of her, authors like Ray Bradbury and J.R.R. Tolkien became household names across North America — because their work was made available in paperback. Publisher and author Betty Ballantine, of Ballantine Books, died on Tuesday. She was ninety-nine. Along with her husband Ian, Ms. Ballantine introduced North American readers to the paperback. And because of that, genres like fantasy and science fiction flourished. Here's Betty Ballantine speaking with CBC Radio's Vicki Gabereau in 1994.

SOUNDCLIP

BETTY BALLANTINE: Anybody who has done any writing, and has submitted material to the publishers never believes that they read it. And why I started you know when I was 18 or 19, I was not a publisher I was a secretary. I had read all my life — a lot. But it seemed to me that if you were going to be a publisher, you read the books. And I can still remember how astonished the Canadian rep was — Mr Appleton I think his name was. He came down to New York, and he said you've read all 300 Penguin Books — which is what…

VICKI GABEREAU: Was you list.

BB: was on our list. I said yes, you know?

VG: What do you think?

BB: Why not?

VG: And are you not reading our lists?

BB: Well, I was at least tactful enough not to say you haven’t?

VG: Oh, I see. That's why you stayed in the business, and I'm not in the business.

KG: That was Betty Ballantine, author and publisher of Ballantine Books, speaking with former CBC Radio host Vicki Gabereau in 1994. Ms. Ballantine has died at the age of ninety-nine. Tad Wise is an author — and Ms. Ballantine's nephew. We reached him in Woodstock, New York.

CO: Tad, first of all I'm sorry for your loss.

TAD WISE: Oh, well I thank you so much. It's hard to conceive of. She's just an amazing force.

CO: When you hear her voice — when you hear your Aunt Betty — and in that interview we just heard a little bit of, what comes to mind about her?

TW: Well, you know publishing these day is monopolized by women. But what you have to understand is that Betty was really the first woman of her kind. And she was kind she was kind of a Meryl Streep figure. I mean she just did it with such class and style. And you know she worked with fresh recruits. But I think a lot of her authors fell in love with her. I know a lot of her co-workers did. And it wasn't in a salacious way. It was just people who were sort of in of her. She was just a tremendous force of joy and belief in the book. Hard to be hard to fathom today; she was she was just kind of everything in one.

CO: Most importantly that we remember the two of them — Betty and Ian Ballantine — for what they did for the paperbacks, which gave us access to books at a cheaper price, and allowed all kinds of books to come into the market both in Canada and the United States. Just tell us about the influence that Betty Ballantine had on paperbacks?

TW: Well, she very quickly came to the conclusion that her fiancée — and very quickly her husband — had made no bones about it. He was set upon changing the way Americans read. And his thesis at the London School of Economics was basically a proposal as to what paperbacks could be. And he came to the attention of Allan Lane, who created Penguin Books. And when Betty's father said I don't care who you are, you'll not be marrying my daughter without a proper job. He was offered the job of representing Penguin in America. And Betty, in one weekend, packed up from the island of Jersey, prepared to get married, got on a boat, and went over and became the vice president of Penguin USA at the age of I believe it was 20. So she was there beside Ian every step of the way. But she was the charming human side of a rather an enigmatic gentleman. Ian Ballantine was kind of difficult to describe. Not everyone understood what he said, and Betty would end up kind of translating for him to those who worked for him. Betty, because she worked with so many new writers, just had this astounding ability to act almost as a therapist. I mean I remember she would say to me you know I'd be sitting there, and she'd be reading this manuscript, and she'd be saying what is this writer trying to say? And eventually, if they had a gift, she would discover what it was they were trying to say, and they would make this amazing journey together. And over and over again you'll hear writers say that not only do they owe Betty their careers, but that Betty discovered what it was that they had to say as a writer. So that's a pretty extraordinary accomplishment.

CO: Absolutely extraordinary. And one thing that is a really key part of this story is that your aunt and uncle — Betty and Ian Ballantine — were inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. What is it that they brought to sci-fi and fantasy?

TW: Before Betty, Science fiction was basically a bunch of super bright nerds who let off steam writing short stories for pulp magazines. There was no such thing really as a science fiction author. You know you had H.G. Wells and Lovecraft and this that or the other. But she went with the help of Frederick Pohl, and she went to these authors who'd written these short stories. And she said I think you can write me a novel, and I think I want to pay for it. And I want to pay you enough for it so that you can quit your job and become a science fiction novelist. And in that regard, she created the field.

CO: There's so many things we could talk about about Betty Ballantine. But just from a personal point of view, what's the memory? What's the lasting image you have of this extraordinary woman?

TW: Well, unfortunately, she forgot who she was. She forgot most of the authors that she worked with. Theodore Sturgeon was, I think, her favourite author. And I could remind her and vague thoughts. But she lost the memory of who she was. And so it's only after her death in going back that I'm remembering you know how extraordinary a soul she was. And at the science fiction conventions she was an empress. I mean she was very beautiful, and incredibly charming, and she just kind of ruled this I don't know if you've been to science fiction conventions, but these are some interesting people — very nerdy and geek-like, and not you know Hollywood stars and starlets. And Betty was that — she had this just remarkable ease and joyfulness — like a queen.

CO: Tad, thank you so much for telling us about your Aunt Betty. And she just sounds delightful. Thank you.

TW: She was beyond delightful. And I wish her another incarnation equally as extraordinary. Thank you so much for talking with me today.

CO: Bye, Tad.

TW: Bye now.

KG: Tad Wise is the nephew of Betty Ballantine. Ms. Ballantine — a celebrated publisher and author — died Tuesday at the age of 99. We reached Mr. Wise in Woodstock, New York. For more on this story, got to our webpage at: www.cbc.ca/aih

[Music: Piano]

Nunavut hockey team

Guest: Martin Joy

KG: It was an historic game for Team Nunavut.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: A horn and lots of cheering]

KG: That was the sound of the Nunavut hockey players competing in — and winning — their first game ever at the Canada Winter Games yesterday. Since that victory, not everything has gone the right way for the men's team. But it's still been a historic outing for the young athletes. Martin Joy is the head coach. We reached him in Red Deer, Alberta — where the games are being held — earlier today.

CO: Martin, we just heard what sounded like when your team won their first game at the Canada Winter Games. What was that moment like for you?

MARTIN JOY: That was an incredible experience for myself and the coaching staff and the whole team. It was something we've worked hard for, and it was great to see the boys perform under so much pressure. It was great to see them come out and compete.

CO: What did they say? What were the boys saying about that victory?

MJ: Well, I think they were in shock, actually. They said they couldn't believe we did this. And really they are just so happy for each other. They were so supportive of the journey it took them to get here. And then when they were here it was just amazing.

CO: And that journey, tells us a bit about the journey of getting to where you were when you had that victory.

MJ: Yeah, well we've been planning for four years. And it's just a progress as we took the time to pick the team, find enough players, get the planning and logistics in place, and we showed up here with that team.

CO: But ok, you think it sounds like it's easy. That is an extraordinary thing of pulling those players together from all over the place all across Nunavut. How difficult was that?

MJ: Well, it's extremely difficult because just in the selection process, we had blizzards, for example, in the winter. So we had to have two separate trial camps. And then we still couldn't get all the players in there. And just the nature of Nunavut, it it's all fly-in communities, so a blizzard could actually knock you out of schedule for two or three weeks at a time. And then the tremendous cost of flying players around. It's just a lot of logistics and planning and rebooking and making sure you have billets in certain areas and access to schools. And you go all in on these types of events for these boys. And you know what? The boys are extremely grateful, so makes it easy to want to go that extra mile for them.

CO: How many different places do they come from?

MJ: They come from Rankin Inlet, Coal Harbour, Chesterfield Inlet, Whale Cover, and Iqaluit for this group. So we have a lot from the central Arctic, and some from the eastern Arctic.

CO: And these aren't places that are just around the corner from each other, are they?

MJ: No. Like Iqaluit is the hub, but Iqaluit is three-and-a-half hours by jet from Ottawa. And then the communities again are a two-and-a-half hour jet from Iqaluit, where you land in Rankin, and then you have to actually fly from Rankin to the other communities. And, hopefully, that the weather is not out in any of those communities so you can actually land. And so it is quite a task to take. It's not like driving in a car and going down the street to the household arena.

CO: And some parents they'll tell you how difficult it is just getting the kid down the street to the hockey rink which is in their neighbourhood. Just to do this all over Nunavut is crazy.

MJ: No, it certainly is. But these kids are certainly worth doing it for, and you know they show it every day.

CO: Now, you beat Team Yukon five to three in this game the other day. Was there a moment that really stood out for you?

MJ: Well, my moment was seeing a lock on the kids’ faces after they realized they won. It was such an amazing, gratifying experience that to see that look and to see the appreciation and how excited they were for each other.

CO: BUt I guess things didn't go so well today — I guess against P.E.I.

MJ: No, we knew this was going to happen. Just we had three games in basically 24 hours, and we’re just going into our fourth game now. And we knew the bodies weren't gonna hold up. The boys don't feel bad for themselves. They went out there tried as hard as they could.

CO: And I understand the team spent last week in Ottawa. What did they do there?

MJ: Well, in Ottawa, we had a development camp. They actually arranged with the Ottawa Senators for us to join some alumni just before the game and skate at the Canadian Tire Centre — the home of the Senators.

CO: Your kids got to see an NHL game when they were in Ottawa.

MJ: Yes, they did, yeah. And it was an incredible experience for them.

CO: And I understand some of them had never seen the NHL game before.

MJ: That's correct. Yeah, we had some guys that have never been in an NHL arena. The guys really felt like they're a pro team at the time. It was completely amazing.

CO: It must have been amazing for those guys.

MJ: Yeah, it certainly was. And they were so appreciative. Like it's these boys appreciate everything they get. They take nothing for granted.

CO: Just finally, I want ask you about your own son, Max, who is on the team. And so what's it like for you to see him play and be part of this team?

MJ: Well, it’s fantastic. You know I spent a lot of time with him when he was younger. And he's been away from home playing hockey for the last couple of years. But just seeing him back with you know his true team like with the kids he really loves and enjoys. And just seeing him together with the boys from back home, it's rewarding. It’s why you get into hockey. You get into hockey for your kids, and to support their friends. And you know it just becomes a never ending journey of personal growth for me.

CO: What are the games to come?

MJ: We have a game right now. I think we have a couple more games later on throughout the week. So we still got lots of work to do.

CO: All right. I hope they hold up. Martin, it’s great to talk to you. Thank you.

MJ: Thanks so much.

CO: Bye-bye.

KG: Martin Joy is head coach for the Team Nunavut men's hockey team. We reached him in Red Deer, Alberta.

[Music: Up-tempo]

Part three: ISIS Canadians, Kashmir violence, Sharon Bottoms Mattes obit

ISIS Canadians

Guest: Alexandra Bain

KG: They are Canadian. And they were, until recently, part of the rapidly-shrinking ISIS caliphate in Syria. Now they want to come home. Many of them are living in camps in eastern Syria, waiting for help from Ottawa to return to Canada. But that assistance won't likely arrive soon. The federal government has repeatedly said it will not put its diplomatic staff at risk to go to their aid. Alexandra Bain is working with the families of 29 Canadians to try to get them repatriated. She's with the advocacy group Families Against Violent Extremism. We reached her in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

CO: Alexandra, who are these 29 Canadians you're trying to help get home?

ALEXANDRA BAIN: They could be anybody. In the time I've been studying this phenomenon, I've discovered very quickly it could be anybody's child. And that's who they represent — a wide spectrum of people. A majority of them though are under five years of age.

CO: So most of them are kids?

AB: Babies.

CO: Huh, and who are the adults?

AB: Again, anybody. They are people from Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal, all across Canada.

CO: Men and women?

AB: Very few men.

CO: So it's mostly mums and their kids?

AB: It's mostly mums and kids — and mostly kids at that.

CO: And these kids who are under five, where were they born?

AB: Most of them were born in Syria. A couple of them were taken over as toddlers — infants or toddlers.

CO: And all of these people — we're talking this group of 29 — because there's other numbers around as to how many Canadians might be there. But the ones that you're trying to help, they went in one way or another not the kids but the mothers and the men — the men and women — went to be part of the caliphate, right?

AB: We haven't actually been able to talk to most of these people, so we have no idea why they went? Their families, for the most part, had no idea that they had gone. And have only discovered this in the last few weeks, some of them, and they're heartbroken. They have felt lied to. They're in shock.

CO: Where did they think their loved ones were?

AB: Various places — usually parts of the Middle East, probably studying Arabic. And then they find no, in fact, that's not the case. They've got grandchildren they didn't know they had, and their kids are now held in a detention camp. So there's a lot of broken-hearted grandparents and siblings. You know aunts and uncles.

CO: But you know that there are a lot of Canadians, and the government itself, who doesn't think that Canada should go out of its way in any form to help the men and women who went to join — who became part of ISIS — to help them come back to Canada.

AB: Well, I think certainly there has to be very little argument about the children. Again, they did nothing to deserve this. As to the adults, they have the international right. The U.N. Special Rapporteur has said that they have the right to repatriation. Our allies the United States are asking people to bring their detainees home. And I think it only makes sense. I would far rather have these people questioned and investigated and face Canadian justice system than to be left out there in a refugee camp to possibly come back some other day unannounced.

CO: And in October, we spoke with that U.N. special rapporteur, and she said that Ottawa has a legal and moral duty to repatriate the Canadians — even those who fought for ISIS. And if it means putting them on trial, so be it. But the issue is that there's a strong belief that it's would be very difficult to prosecute anyone who's come back because how do you get the evidence? How do you build a case? And so it presents problematic trial policies, doesn’t it?

AB: I thoroughly understand, but this is a problem that the Canadian government faces. It's their responsibility to have made sure that the laws are in order to be able to prosecute people. That's certainly not something that our organization can deal with. My focus is on the tiny babies and children, who are hungry and cold and starving.

CO: You know that reporters have traveled to the camp where many of them are being held. They've spoken with Canadian women who went to Syria with their husbands who were part of ISIS. And they say they have no regrets about what they did. It's the same message we heard from the United Kingdom that another woman there said she has no regrets. So what should Canadians make of that? I mean if they were to come back and they feel that there was nothing wrong with being part of ISIS?

AB: The women who were being interviewed have spent the last several weeks and months under bombardment. They spent past several years listening only to ISIS propaganda. In the last few weeks, they've been eating nothing but boiled grass. If they expressed at all an interest in leaving, the chances are pretty good they would have been shot. They have no idea who they're talking to or in front of in those camps. I think we're seeing confused individuals. You know it maybe makes for good television, but in the long run, it doesn't really serve to give anyone an idea of who these people are or what we should do with them.

CO: How should they get home?

AB: Well, we've been applying for some of them we have their signatures and we started applying for emergency travel documents. We're hoping that the Canadian government will issue those travel documents. We have people over in the area who are negotiating with various political entities to allow free movement. Ideally, I would like to see the Canadian government send an airplane and pick them all up at the same time, so that we can have the same level of security for all of them. And the children be brought home. Those people who need to be investigated be brought home. And the people who need to face the Canadian justice system be brought out all at the same time.

CO: But they’re in Syria. The camps are run by Kurdish militia…

AB: Syrian-Kurds, that’s right.

CO: Syrian-Kurdish militias, and it is a threatening environment for them. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has said that it will be threatening for any effort on the part of Canadians to go and try and get them out. So he says we shouldn't be risking Canadians in order to get people out of the situation they got themselves into.

AB: Well, again, the children didn't get themselves into the situation. But lawyers have gone in. We've had international human rights lawyers go in. There are aid organizations that are going in. We've even had family members go over and visit detained people in a prison and in a camp. There hasn't been any political violence there for the past five years. The Kurds have done a fabulous job in detaining these people. They don't have a lot of money. The Kurds are the people who fought ISIS, and really deserve a great credit for having done so. And we're really leaving them with our dirty linen.

CO: All right. We'll leave it there, Alexandra. Thank you.

AB: Thank you very much.

KG: Alexandra Bain runs the advocacy group Families Against Violent Extremism. She was in Fredericton.

[Music: Piano]

Kashmir violence

Guest: Sameer Yasir

KG: The violence continues in Kashmir tonight. Last week, a suicide bomber took the lives of more than 40 Indian paramilitary police officers. It was the worst terrorist attack in decades. India's Prime Minister responded by blaming Pakistan of harbouring the terror group that claimed responsibility. Now a gun battle in the same area has left nine more people dead. Sameer Yasir is a freelance journalist in Kashmir. We reached him in Srinagar.

CO: Sameer, just how tense is the situation in Kashmir right now?

SAMEER YASIR: There's a lot of fear that what's going to happen in coming days because the elections are coming in India. And knowing that Modi is going to go back to the elections because you know he actually had come to office on a plank that he was going to go hard in Pakistan, hard on Kashmiri separatist leaders. But since then the situation, Kashmir has become from bad to worse. And on the streets today, you know there was a lot of fear that what's going to happen in coming days? Because if he kind of starts a mini war with Pakistan, the first casualty of it will be the Kashmir state, so there is a lot of fear and ambivalence.

CO: And we know that last week India's prime minister said that he would give the Indian military a free hand to respond to last Thursday's attack. So what does that mean on the ground? What do people fear about the idea of a free hand of the military?

SY: Carol, this is something which I'm trying to understand myself. Because last year, we had the biggest military operation done by the Indian forces in Kashmir — they killed almost 250 Kashmiri rebels. There had been already 300 deaths in this year of security forces and of the militants. But I don't know what they're going to do. You know what actually he meant. Was it a political you know kind of statement or was it a policy decision? But the militant killings and the security forces killings have been continuing. So maybe he was trying to suggest that you know we'd be tough on the borders. Because there was not much happening on the on the line of control or on the international boundary between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir for the last four months — it was a kind of lull in that area.

CO: You mentioned how many of the militants who were opposing India who have been killed, but lots of civilians killed as well, right? And lots of arrests, lots of torture, a number of human rights groups have documented the amount of abuse. If he's going to have a give a free hand and this is actually going to accelerate, what effect will that have on Kashmir?

SY: You know that's something which actually always goes on in Kashmir and nobody reports it. Unfortunately, it doesn't become an international news, for example, a 14-year-old boy goes and he gets killed at the hands of Indian security forces. For example, I've been writing about these casualties about these civilians you know who actually try to go near the sites and try to save these trapped militants, you know? Now in that process, more than 90 were killed last year. And there were also human rights violations like this continuous spell of blindings in Kashmir, which has continued…

CO: The shooting pellet shots into the eyes of the protesters, right?

SY: Yeah, You know, Carol, hundreds of people have been blinded. So that has not stopped.

CO: Sameer, we spoke with the Indian High Commissioner to Canada last week about this, and I asked him if what's happening with all the situation is radicalizing young people? And that's what's led to the attack last week — the radicalization. He says no, he doesn't believe it's radicalization. He believes it's Pakistan who is influencing and importing this conflict into the region. It is not something that is homegrown. What do you say to that?

SY: I really don't know how much you know you can link the Pakistani state with whatever goes on in Kashmir. Maybe there are militant groups who are responsible.

CO: So what have you learned so far about the young man who conducted the worst in decades… this attack on the Indian paramilitary police?

SY: Carol, he's a very interesting character because when I went to his home two days back, I spoke to his father. And he said he was a very shy child who talked to nobody in school, played no game at all, but was into something which was like very creative. You know he used to make these wooden boxes, you know? And that's what he did later after he dropped out of his high school. So what happens in June 2016, his cousin — another militant — gets killed. And he participates in this protest, and he gets fired by the guys during that protest, and he was hit in his leg. So he stayed in his home bedridden for almost six months. And then what happened after that was he joined a local seminary, where he memorized eight chapters of the Koran. But he also left it later. And then again started working as a wood carver. But until 18th of March 20018, Ian when, along with his cousin, they left for a local university, and both of them did not come back. But no one, no one — including his family, including his father, including his uncle I spoke to whose son was killed in 2016. They said that they never imagined that this guy would be able to pull through you know this kind of attack in Kashmir Valley, which is like the biggest one in the 29 years of insurgency in Kashmir Valley.

CO: And that's why the Indian government believes Pakistan's involved. And now, the prime minister says is going to have a crushing response to Pakistan for this. So what are people in Kashmir bracing themselves for at this point?

SY: There is a lot of fear that the borders might become you know like hot now. There might be a lot of fighting on the borders. And you have to understand there are hundreds and thousands of people living on the line of control and the international working boundary between India and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir — because ultimately what would happen people in Delhi that won't get affected.

CO: Do you think there is a possibility of war between India and Pakistan over the Kashmiri border?

SY: I really don't think so. I really don't think so that they will go to war because you know that they show both of them nuclear weapons. It's almost impossible. But I think a bit of escalation on the borders might happen. Apart from that, rest of the Indian will we will have to wait and see how India would respond towards Pakistan you know on this. Because I think it's going to become worse in coming days.

CO: Sameer, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

SY: Thank you, Carol. Thank you so very much. Thank you.

KG: Sameer Yasir is a freelance journalist. We reached him in Srinagar, Kashmir.

[Music: Smbre]

Manitoba derailment

KG: A train derailment in Manitoba on the weekend has left one ranch owner with a mess -- and a lot of unanswered questions. On Saturday, 37 cars from a CN train went off the track near St. Lazare, about 300 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. Oil spilled onto the land beside the tracks — land owned by Jayme Corr. Mr. Corr spent much of the weekend watching cleanup efforts. And he feels CN hasn't done enough to keep him up to speed on the spill. Here he is speaking with the CBC's Jade Markus yesterday about his concerns.

SOUNDCLIP

JAYME CORR: Not one person… and that is my land on both sides of the track up there. And I haven't heard from one person from CN. That's really concerning, really concerning. Like I would say somebody should have been in my yard yesterday for sure. Seeing that's what's happening, I should be getting a report every day, telling me what's going on up there. Isn't that just common courtesy? I haven't heard from one person from CN, except for the like the one CN police guy I talked to yesterday morning that well basically told me there is nothing I could do. My nephew went in and got a little closer to the scene than we were — me and my son. And he got some pretty good pictures of the oil spill, and there's a lot of oil there. And I could smell oil again in the air this morning, so I'm not sure if they are pumping cars out or what. But you know it's more of not knowing what's going on up there like a lot of my fence is gone. The path that goes underneath that our cows using the summertime, that's all smashed up on the one side. Like I'm not sure what they're going to replace or you know for like the drinking water from my cows. It's more not affecting me now. It's going to be more in the summertime, when I take my cows up there. Like am I going to be able to use that water in that lagoon? I can't go in there and cause a stir. So I just sit and wait I guess.

KG: That was Manitoba rancher Jayme Corr, speaking to the CBC's Jade Markus yesterday about the weekend CN train derailment that spilled oil onto his land. A spokesperson for CN Rail told CBC Manitoba that the company is working with local landowners, and Corr will receive "support and remediation" from CN.

[Music: Folk]

Sharon Bottoms Mattes obit

Guest: Stephen Pershing

KG: It was a custody battle that made international headlines: In 1993, Sharon Bottoms Mattes became involved in a bitter court fight with her mother over custody of her young son. Virginia courts ruled she was, quote: "an unfit parent", unquote, because she was in a lesbian relationship. Ms. Bottoms Mattes died of cancer last month. But her death was just recently made public by her family. She was 48. Stephen Pershing was one of the American Civil Liberties Union lawyers who defended Ms. Bottoms Mattes in the case. We reached him in Stony Point, New York.

CO: Steve, first of all, I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

STEPHEN PERSHING: It's very kind of you to say. I have been out of touch with Sharon for many years, but I remember her vividly.

CO: Can you tell us about this case? How did this begin that Sharon Bottoms lost custody of her son Tyler?

SP: Well, her mother filed for custody after Sharon left her mother's home. Tyler was the offspring of a union between Sharon and her high school boyfriend. But he pretty much left the scene before the boy Tyler was born in 1991. And so Sharon was raising Tyler by herself, and living under her mother's roof. Part of the background here is that Sharon was sexually abused by her mother's live-in boyfriend when Sharon was an adolescent. And Sharon was very reluctant that she should be raising her own child under such a roof. And when she confronted her mother with all of this and left the home, the mother, Kay, went to see a lawyer. And he told her well this is Virginia, and if your daughter is a lesbian, you can get custody. And that's how this developed. The courts were pretty homophobic back then.

CO: Now, you were with the American Civil Liberties Union as a lawyer. But a lot of lawyers wouldn't touch this case. They said that unless she broke up with her same sex partner, that it was nuts to take on this case. Why was there so much aversion to trying to help Sharon Bottoms?

SP: I don't think the lawyers who said they couldn't take her case had any issue with her chosen partner or lifestyle. I think they just didn't want to lose in the litigation, and believed that the courts would be that unsympathetic but I remember vividly when Sharon came to see me in my office, and asked if we would represent her if she didn't split up with April? And we said Of course, that's the whole point. How could it be that we would decline to represent someone to protect a relationship that we or the courts would require to end?

CO: And you lost that case. The first case court case, right?

SP: Yeah, it was a very strange proceeding because Sharon was on the witness stand, and on her mother — who had allowed her to be abused — was sitting only a few feet away. And, as an abuse victim, Sharon found it I think understandably difficult to testify against her mother. We should remember that Sharon was a person — a lovely person. But she was a very reluctant warrior for any cause. That's not why she was in this situation litigating this issue. She was there because the courts provided her mother with a weapon against her in a custody dispute — a dispute over control of young Tyler, who at that time was only two years old.

CO: Well, she was a mother who wanted to be with her child.

SP: That’s it. That was all it was. And she, of course, also wanted to have the partner she had chosen.

CO: In fact, so the only visitation that Sharon could have with her son after they lost that case was for a couple of days, as long as it wasn't in the house that she shared with her partner, right?

SP: That's right. It seems certainly archaic by today's standards. But that was the kind of order that we were not terribly surprised to get.

CO: I want to go back to how this proceeded because the Virginia court ruled that Sharon's conduct was, quote, “illegal and immoral”. And that she was forced to testify what her sex life was like. And that once they knew that she had engaged in oral sex, which they asked her about, it was considered to be that she'd broken the law. What was the law at that point that would have led to that?

SP: This was just about a family. And the family choices of these people were different. And that was what so irked the I would say pretty backward courts of the time we were litigating this. It's as if the courts were saying you could be gay if you want to, but don’t dare have kids.

CO: We spoke to you in 1994, just after the Virginia Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Sharon should have custody of Tyler. But it was a very short-lived victory, wasn't it? What happened after that?

SP: The lawyer for Kay immediately appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court. And so in 1995, the court ruled I believe the vote was four to three against us.

CO: And she’s died at the age of 48. She said she didn't want to do this for any reason except to get her son and to be a mother. What impact though do you think that her case had on the whole attitude towards same sex parents?

SP: I think in its own way it was really quite influential. It was not the only such case. It was maybe one of the most conspicuous of that particular year — 1993 was a pretty important year for the gay rights movement in the U.S. certainly. That was the year of Don't Ask Don't Tell. And while that controversy forced into the foreground lots of questions about people's status, people's patriotism, what difference it made who they chose to love in that sense between adults. But this case showed the world what a family could look like that perhaps didn't fit the norm, but was every bit as loving as any other family. And particularly when we won that decision in the court of appeals, I think lots of people rejoiced. There was an outpouring of sympathy for Sharon and her predicament, and jubilation at the result. And I think that had an effect. When you see the positive outpouring that your fellow Americans are generating for a circumstance like this, it makes you think. And I think the story of the gay rights movement in America is a story like that. People didn't know one another as well as they do today. We didn't understand these issues as closely as we do today. And with that I think we have Sharon Bottoms in part to thank because she was very brave. She didn't have to step forward. She could have thrown up her hands and wept in private. Instead, she tried her very best to make a difference not just for herself but for others. And in that I think she succeeded most admirably.

CO: Stephen, I appreciate you speaking with us, and telling us about Sharon. Thank you.

SP: Thank you.

KG Stephen Pershing is a civil rights lawyer. He represented Sharon Bottoms Mattes in her custody battle for her son. We reached him in Stony Point, New York.

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February 18, 2019 episode transcript

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