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The AIH Transcript for December 16, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and Karen Gordon

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

KAREN GORDON: Good evening. I'm Karen Gordon. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

KG: Tonight...

CO: The exception that proves the misrule. Protesters across India are furious about their government's new law which would make tens of thousands of immigrants into citizens, but not if they're Muslims.

KG: The business end. A former SNC-Lavalin executive is convicted of bribing officials and defrauding Libyans which may be a bad omen for what happens when the construction giant itself goes on trial.

CO: Not too late to change your mind. A doctor who is on the frontlines of major disease outbreaks is now working to save himself from alcoholism and hoping the ground-breaking use of deep brain stimulation will work.

KG: An intended audience of one. Waad al-Kateab didn't make her award-winning documentary about life before and after she left Syria for acclaim -- she made it for her baby daughter.

CO: Deck the halls with bow-wows and howling. In one house in Newfoundland, an artist is really caterwauling the Christmas carols -- or given his species, I guess he's doggerwauling.

KG: And anchor management. There has never been an ocean near Saskatchewan, but our guest's new art exhibit illustrates fictional stories from the province's non-existent maritime past. As It Happens. The Monday Edition. Radio that takes a moment to say: "Hi, Saskatchewan. Long-time no sea."

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: A tissue bank in Ohio sent 300 square feet of skin to New Zealand volcano victims

India protests

Guest: Niha Masih

KG: Across India, authorities are struggling to contain protests over a widely condemned new citizenship law. The Citizenship Amendment Act allows tens of thousands of former migrants to become Indians -- unless those migrants are Muslim. Thousands have taken to the streets. And yesterday riot police stormed a university in New Delhi attended by many Muslims -- firing tear gas and arresting dozens of people. Today, students gathered to read the Indian constitution out loud.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: The people of India [Crowd repeating] having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic and to secure to all its citizens: Justice...

KG: So far, at least six people have died during the protests across India. Niha Masih is The Washington Post's India correspondent. We reached her in New Delhi.

CO: Niha, first of all, can you just describe some of the scenes at the Jamia University campus over this weekend?

NIHA MASIH: So ever since last week when the government passed the controversial citizenship law, there have been protests across the campus, thousands of people are on the streets are marching against the government's new law. There was heavy police presence which were trying to push back on the students and not allowing them to proceed further. There were barricades. Policemen were armed with tear gas shells as well as batons to control the crowd. And that's where things turned violent and it ended up in vandalism, arson, police beating up students.

CO: What started this sort of spiral into the more violent reactions?

NM: Right. So both sides have their own visions of how it got out of hand. The police version is that it was the protesters who forced -- started burning buses and private vehicles on the roads on which this protest march was happening. And that's when the police had to resort to teargas as well as beat and charge them to push them back. The protesters say that it was the police which first reacted with force, and then some of the protesters who claim not to be students, but are the locals in the area who were also part of the march set these buses on fire.

CO: And what about today -- are these protests still going on? Are people still on the streets?

NM: Yes. Today, in fact, the protest spread to many many other cities as other campuses came out in support of the students who were targeted by the police yesterday. And social media was awash with students being targeted by the police. So today there were protests in at least 20 other campuses across the country, as well as in Delhi itself. This evening, many citizens gathered around a symbolic monument in the heart of the city and read out the preamble of the Constitution.

CO: I know you have seen some of the videos of these clashes with police, these assaults. Can you tell us what they contain -- those pictures?

NM: Sure. So a lot of people today were sharing videos which show how the police actually stormed inside the university campus because the protest was actually happening out on the road. And then there are visuals of the police officers inside campuses beating students who were all unarmed. There is footage from inside the library full of teargas smoke, there are teargas shells lying on the floor. As well as one particular video where a couple of female students save their male friend from being hit by Delhi police by literally forming a shield around him while police officials with long sticks try and beat that guy.

CO: But this all comes back to this new law -- this citizen amendment law that was put into place by the Indian government. Maybe describe why that law was put in place to begin with.

NM: Well, this has been a long standing promise of the BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This will actually, for the first time, introduce religion as a criteria for nationality. And it creates a path towards citizenship for migrants who belongs to six religions, including Hindus, but exclude Islam which is a faith practiced by 200 million Indians. And these people are those who have come from India's neighbouring countries, but again, excludes both other countries where Muslims are in minority. So it is seen as a discriminatory bill against Muslims. And that has really sort of angered a lot of people. The opposition is calling it unconstitutional and a break from India's founding ethos of secularism.

CO: The argument the government gives is that this bill which would allow tens of thousands of people of Hindu, Christian, Jain, Buddhist or Sikh background to claim Indian citizenship. They say that they're excluding Muslims from that because these people who would come to India, feel persecuted in those Muslim countries and the Muslim countries have their own protection for their own people. So how has that argument gone down in India?

NM: Well, critics of the government and opposition parties do not buy that argument because, first of all, India has several neighbouring countries, not just these three. So if the argument was that India wants to welcome religious minorities being persecuted in its neighbourhood, then it should include Myanmar where Rohingya Muslims are being discriminated against and have actually fled. There is also Sri Lanka where they're not just minority Muslims but also Hindus who face persecution as well. So some of these questions were put to the government in the parliament and the answers given were not satisfactory according to the opposition. And I would like to add here that besides the citizenship bill, the other concern which is seen in conjunction with this is the home minister's repeated statements for conducting a nationwide citizenship registry that every citizen will have to prove that they are Indian and they are not illegal.

CO: It's no secret that Prime Minister Modi would like to see India become a Hindu state. So is this part of that? Is this the underlying intention of these new laws?

NM: Yes, absolutely. Prime Minister Modi and his party, the BJP, have long envisioned India as a homeland for the Hindus and not what its founders envisioned it as a secular republic -- a country for all faiths. And they have made no bones about stating that upfront. Some of these laws, including this one and other actions of the government, points to its vision. India's history of first there was Mughal rule -- Muslim rule for centuries, followed by British colonialism. So all of this for the Hindu nationalist is seen as a humiliating period. And now this is their way of reclaiming the greatness of the Hindu civilization which was lost because of invaders who came in from outside.

CO: Niha I really appreciate you giving us this analysis. Thank you.

NM: Thanks so much.

KG: Niha Masih is The Washington Post's India correspondent. We reached her in New Delhi.

[Music]

New medical trial doctor

Guest: Frank Plummer

KG: Dr. Frank Plummer has been on the frontlines of some of the world's biggest health scares. Now he's facing down a health scare of his own. Dr. Plummer is the former director of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory. He helped develop the Ebola vaccine, was a steady hand through the SARS scare, and did ground-breaking research during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But this week, he's acknowledging publicly for the first time that he struggled with alcoholism over the years. And he's the first participant in a new medical trial at a hospital in Toronto that's using deep brain stimulation to treat alcohol addiction. We reached Dr. Frank Plummer in Toronto.

CO: Dr. Plummer whenever you have been a guest on As It Happens in the past it's been about your considerable research. This time it's about you. What pushed you to speak publicly about something so personal?

FRANK PLUMMER: Well, first of all, Sunnybrook was interested in promoting their study. And I thought about it a little bit -- like maybe for 30 seconds or so. And I thought it is important that I speak out about alcohol use disorder and try to help with the stigma. That's a tremendously stigmatized condition. And also to promote Sunnybrook.

CO: And so you became a participant in this rather ambitious new medical trial. And I'm going to get to that in the moment to how it works. But what made you want to join the trial?

FP: Well, I was struggling with alcohol. And I exhausted I think pretty much everything -- residential treatment programs, individual counseling, drugs, all that kind of thing. And it wasn't making the whole difference. They all helped for a little while. And so when I was made aware of this new study, I thought yeah -- what the hell? Let's go for it. Otherwise, I was going to die.

CO: I want to ask you about your struggle with alcohol. When did it begin? When did you realize that you had a problem?

FP: Well, I really didn't realize I had a problem until my liver failed in about 2012. Before that, I was drinking to relieve stress, grieve, and to celebrate and to do all those things people use alcohol for. I drank a lot. But I never thought I had a problem. I was not kind of a falling down drunk. I just drank and sat in the corner and thought. And then my liver suddenly packed it in and suddenly I was confronted with chronic illness that was ultimately fata if I didn't get treatment for it.

CO: You were also under a lot of stress, right? I mean you were going back and forth to Nairobi. You were dealing with complex health issues like H1N1, with SARS, with Ebola. I mean you had a lot of things that must have been really difficult to grapple with. And plus all the travel, I guess.

FP: My whole life has been one of huge stress. When I was working in Nairobi leading our project there, survival for the project depended on my ability to find money. And that was always stressful. And then when I took the job in Winnipeg, suddenly I had to deal with a whole new kind of stress in the public eye, under a microscope, basically in dealing with SARS, H1N1, Ebola, plus managing 500 people with all the kinds of things that might happen. My days were: get up at 6:30 in the morning, coffee, and a shower, and then get on a call to Ottawa, come home and then get into the office and deal with whatever is coming that day. It's exhilarating in many ways, but hugely stressful.

CO: And so at the peak, how much were you actually drinking?

FP: At my peak I was drinking about 20 ounces of whiskey a day -- in the evenings.

CO: Were you aware that that was a lot?

FP: I knew it was a lot, but I managed it. I never drank during the day. And I used it as a drug to relax. And I kind of survived during the days on adrenaline. It kept me going.

CO: So now this treatment -- you went through and you tried everything else. You said if you didn't come up with something, that your life was in danger. So what exactly is this new technique? What have they actually done that is helping you?

FP: The procedure is called deep brain stimulation. And what is done is a neurosurgeon drills holes in your skull and inserts a little wire electrodes deep down into your brain to a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. They attach those wires to a little pacemaker type device that constantly puts a little electrical stimuli into brain. That particular part of the brain is very involved in rewards that is really important in addiction. This procedures seems to short circuit or change the circuit, kind of rewires the brain.

CO: And what's the effect? What's it like for you? I mean how does it stop you from or does it completely stop you from drinking alcohol?

FP: Basically took away my cravings for alcohol. It made me change my mood hugely. Before this procedure, I was pretty depressed and pretty much waiting to die. Now, I have a zest for life that I haven't had for a long time. I'm doing all kinds of things. Working on an HIV vaccine, which I'm very excited about, I'm writing my book, terrorizing the neighbourhood with my dog and cooking up a storm. So life is good.

CO: What kind of a corner have we turned in this? Because this is a disorder. Alcohol abuse affects a lot of people. And it's also, as you know, very stigmatized. It's difficult for people to reach out or even recognize it in themselves as you discovered. So what does this change for people to know that, I guess, if you can change the circuits in your brain, you can actually get past it?

FP: You know, I think it's potentially revolutionary. It's not for everybody, but it's for people like me who kind of exhausted all other possibilities.

CO: And if it hadn't been for getting into deep brain stimulation, what do you think your future would have been?

FP: I'd be dead like several months ago.

CO: I understand your wife has been a great support during all this.

FP: Oh, my wife -- my wife Jo has saved my life many times, got me through it all.

CO: Well, she got you through it and now you are continuing your work in getting other people through things and saving lives. So it's good for all of us that you're healthy again. Dr. Plummer, thank you.

FP: You're very welcome.

KG: Dr. Frank Plummer is the former scientific director of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory, and a patient at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. The hospital is currently conducting the first medical trial in North America, using deep brain stimulation to treat alcohol addiction. And Dr. Plummer is their first patient.

[Music]

New Zealand: Ohio skin bank

Guest: Diane Wilson

KG: The people who survived the volcanic eruption on White Island in New Zealand have a difficult recovery ahead of them. And what they need urgently right now is skin. Many people were badly burned -- in some cases across most of their bodies. So to treat those burn survivors, doctors put out a call for about 1,300 square feet of skin. And a not-for-profit tissue bank in Ohio responded, sending a huge shipment halfway around the world. Diane Wilson is the chief operating officer of Community Tissue Services. We reached her in Kettering, Ohio.

CO: Ms. Wilson, for those of us following the news -- it was horrifying to learn of the consequences of this volcano, what kinds of injuries people had. Where did your mind go after you learned about that?

DIANE WILSON: Oh, it was just so upsetting because we deal with hospitals with severely burned patients all the time and our first thing was, "Oh my gosh! How many people would lose their lives and how many people would be severely injured?"

CO: You were able to send 300 square feet of skin to New Zealand.

DW: Yes.

CO: How many people would that be able to treat?

DW: Well I would say we usually look at 10 to 20 square feet per person during the healing process.

CO: Right. Probably between 20 and 30. I understand from skin grafts that often they come from the person themselves. Why would they need to have a transplant --need it from donors?

DW: Any patient that has a large burn area, they don't have enough skin themself usually to go to the wounded part of their body. So they will use our skin, our donated skin by our deceased donors that we have recovered, and they will use it as a temporary dressing on the patient for a period of time. And then they may replace it one time and at that time wait for the patient to be healing. And at the same time, sometimes they will take a piece of skin from the patient themselves and either grow the skin or use that as a final dressing.

CO: And so you might have one person who has extensive burns with the skin of many donors on them, including of different pigments, all contributing to help somebody heal.

DW: That's exactly right. Colour of the skin makes no difference whatsoever or the age of the donor. Our donors are actually all the way up to the age of 80 years of age.

CO: How did you get all this skin over to New Zealand?

DW: Well, I think most of it went by FedEx and then by an international courier after that. So it went in validated boxes, which are good for 120 hours with dry ice in them. And it made it there very safely. And we're very happy.

CO: Has your tissue bank responded to a disaster like this before in the world?

DW: We did. We helped with Pakistan when they had the explosion of the tankers and they had some massive burns there.

CO: Any other places?

DW: We helped with 9/11. We had the military base here Wright-Patterson -- came over to pick up some skin to take to New York. But unfortunately, most of those patients did not live. And there were a lot of deaths at that time. And then we also helped with Rhode Island when there was a large fire in a nightclub and people got trapped inside a nightclub and they had a lot of burn victims.

CO: It must be essential, then, that there are people who will donate their skin in addition to all the other organs for banks like yours for this kind of treatment.

DW: Oh, yes. We are very grateful every day for the families that choose to donate. You know, people actually during their lifetime either sign their driver's license or their donor card. And then we also talk with the next of kin to make sure that we're screening these donors for any infectious disease, any type of cancers or any high risk behavior, because we have to make sure that we have very very safe skin to go on to the recipients because the recipients that are receiving this skin are in very bad health at the time they receive them. We certainly don't want them to get a type of an infection. So it takes a lot of donors in order to provide this much skin. And we are extremely grateful to those families.

CO: That's a tremendous act of trust in you that they would take this skin and put it on the bodies of people who were burned as badly as these victims.

DW: Yeah it certainly is. Our donor families are just very special. You know, they give us their last final gift. This is the last thing that a person, when they pass away, actually can give to somebody else. And we are honored with that right and that responsibility and that accountability to that donor family to make sure that we maximize that gift.

CO: What's ahead for these burn patients in New Zealand? What do you think will be required for recovery of the ones who have extensive burns to their bodies?

DW: Long term care in a hospital usually. And then slowly rehabilitated with physical therapy and with the numerous different surgeries afterwards. Frequently, a badly burned person may go through 10-20 different surgeries. They have a long road ahead of them. But many of them say, thank God for the road that I have been given, you know, that I can heal and I can continue to live a great life.

CO: Ms. Wilson, I'm glad you were able to help and your donors were able to help. Thanks for speaking with us.

DW: Sure, anytime. Thank you very much.

KG: Diane Wilson is the chief operating officer of the not-for-profit Community Tissue Services Bank. She was in Kettering, Ohio. You can find more on this story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Singing dog

KG: This time of year, it's hard to escape the barrage of holiday music. Especially if you live in Philippa Jones's house. This month, the St. John's woman's home has been full of Christmas carols -- thanks to her dog, Theo. As a special advent treats the two-year-old Border Collie Retriever mix has been covering classics like "Sleigh Ride" "Carol of the Bells" and "All I Want for Christmas is You." All of which Ms. Jones has shared on Facebook. The CBC's Jamie Fitzpatrick joined the pair to find out more, and for an impromptu holiday sing-along.

SOUNDCLIP

PHILIPPA JONES: My husband's in the band and they would practice and he would start singing along to their practicing. And then I thought I'd try a Christmas song this year with him just to see if he liked it. And it was a big success. And he sang along really enthusiastically. And I decided I would spread the Christmas cheer and make it a daily adventure Christmas sing-along.

JAMIE FITZPATRICK: I am going to call up a couple of his latest entries.

PHILIPPA JONES: He is here and we warn you, he likes his own voice the best. So he may sing along to himself singing.

JAMIE FITZPATRICK: All right. That would be okay. Let's see what happens. Michael Bublé -- you posted this a couple of days ago. [Playing song]

PHILIPPA JONES: But this one -- it seemed like he wasn't into Michael Bublé’s voice so much as the music.

[Theo (the dog) making sounds to the song]

JAMIE FITZPATRICK: That's amazing. He's doing a duet with himself.

PHILIPPA JONES: Yeah. My plan is, at the end, to do like a medley [Theo makes louder sound]. I can hardly talk when he is singing. [Laughter] My plan is, at the end, to do like a medley of all of his hits and then film him singing to himself.

JAMIE FITZPATRICK: Beautiful job Theo. The other one that I wanted to check out here is "O Holy Night." So let's listen to this for just a bit.

[Theo making sounds to the song]

JAMIE FITZPATRICK: Did he rehearse any of this?

PHILIPPA JONES: No. He always just goes straight in. He usually only sings for a minute max. So there's no opportunity for rehearsal. But with this one, he stopped and really listened before he started singing. And then when he sings, he's very like sympathetic to the emotion in the piece I find. He is definitely kind of crooning more than just howling at it.

[Theo continues to sing]

JAMIE FITZPATRICK: So he is going after the big note.

PHILIPPA JONES: Yeah, he definitely is going after the big note. That's his favorite bit I think [laughs] building up to that.

KG: That's Philippa Jones and her very good boy, Theo, singing and speaking with the CBC's Jamie Fitzpatrick. That's...that's touching.

[Music]

Part 2: Why is there a 'Maritime Museum' in landlocked Saskatchewan?

SNC-Lavalin conviction

Guest: Vincent Larouche

KG: A Montreal jury has convicted Sami Bebawi on all counts. The former SNC-Lavalin executive now faces sentencing for bribing Libyan officials, defrauding the Libyan people, and laundering the proceeds of crime. The charges go back to the early 2000s when Mr. Bebawi was overseeing the Canadian construction and engineering giant's efforts to secure infrastructure contracts with Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi. Vincent Larouche is now waiting to find out what this will mean for the trial of SNC-Lavalin itself. Mr. Larouche is an investigative journalist with La Presse -- and he began following SNC-Lavalin's legal troubles long before they became a problem for Prime Minister Trudeau. We reached Vincent Larouche in Montreal.

CO: Vincent this former SNC-Lavalin executive, Sami Bebawi, is the first person convicted in Canada for the events that took place in the early 2000s. What's taken Canada so long to get to this point?

VINCENT LAROUCHE: Well, you have to understand that the investigation about SNC-Lavalin's adventures in Libya was started by the Swiss authorities. And the Swiss police and the Swiss prosecutors opened this investigation after the dictator Moammar Gaddafi fell in Libya around 2011. They charged one key SNC-Lavalin executive over there. They convicted him and they passed some information along to the RCMP in Canada. And here we are today.

CO: And this person that was convicted by the Swiss courts, Riadh Ben Aissa, he became a key witness in the Canadian procedure, right?

VL: Exactly. He became a cooperative witness for the Canadian police while he was sitting in jail in Switzerland. And we saw his testimony at Mr. Bebawi's trial. And it was very very clear that, in his mind, he would not be the only one to go down in this story. He explained that, yes, I took part in some criminal acts, I gave bribes to Moammar Gaddafi's son, I took some money aside from SNC-Lavalin and I put it in my pockets -- but I also gave some to my superior, who was Mr. Bebawi and I kept him informed of every corruptive act that I did over there, so I'm not the only one involved in those actions.

CO: You've been putting this together piece-by-piece over the years that you've covered it. But this is a publicly traded Canadian engineering company -- so how do these executives pull that off?

VL: Yes, that's an interesting part. Because like you said a publicly traded Canadian company cannot just give millions of dollars to a foreign official to get a contract, and it will be detected by the authorities. But SNC-Lavalin had a practice of hiring what they called commercial agents in countries where they did not have a permanent office. And some of those commercial agents, they were asking to get paid in some tax havens through some shell companies that they would set up maybe in Panama, in the Bahamas, in the British Virgin Islands. And then maybe this shell company had a bank account in some very secretive country like Switzerland or Malta. And at some point, these executive realized that nobody can see what the commercial agent does. The commercial agent is hiding behind a shell company. Maybe we don't even know his real identity. Maybe he's represented by some Swiss lawyer. And finally Mr. Ben Aissa -- he created his own shell company based in the British Virgin Islands. And in his position at SNC-Lavalin, he took steps so that the company hired his own company as a commercial agent without disclosing his interests. And he managed to get SNC-Lavalin to pay more than 100-million dollars to this supposed commercial agent. So he managed to get his hands on a 100-million dollars that he could use to distribute bribes, put some in his own pockets, give some to Mr. Bebawi -- his superior at SNC-Lavalin. And the interesting part is that Al-Saadi Gaddafi, the son of the dictator Moammar Gaddafi, he had taken the same steps. He had created a shell company in the Bahamas, and that company had a bank account in Malta. So you have one mysterious shell giving money to one other mysterious shell. And you don't have anywhere SNC-Lavalin paying Mr. Gaddafi.

CO: All this is going to play out in another trial that people are watching for because they will remember the case of Jody Wilson-Raybould -- the former justice minister -- who said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was pressuring her to allow for a deferred prosecution for SNC-Lavalin, that would allow them to avoid having to go to trial. That all fell apart with a big exposé. And now SNC-Lavalin will have to go to court itself as a company. Will this contribute to that prosecution of the company itself?

VL: Well, there's two ways to look at it. I think we can admit that Mr. Bebawi's trial, was in some kind of way a dress rehearsal for the company's trial because much of the evidence will be the same, some of the witnesses will be the same, the actions that took place are the same. However, Mr. Bebawi's conviction shows that the witnesses and parts of the evidence are strong and reliable. But SNC-Lavalin's defense will probably not be to try and pretend that no corruption ever took place. That would be very hard to sell to a judge. Probably their defense will be that there was some corruption, but it was the act of some rogue executives like Mr. Bebawi who were acting on their own without disclosing to the rest of the company what they were doing. Now, it's going to be very interesting to see how the judge sees this because at Mr. Bebawi's trial we had some of the testimonies that claim that the former CEO of SNC-Lavalin, Jacques Lamarre, was made aware of some of the acts. Mr. Lamarre is not charged. He hasn't testified. So maybe we'll get to the bottom of it at the company's trial.

CO: All right. We'll be following your reporting Vincent. Thank you so much.

VL: Thank you. Bye bye.

KG: Vincent Larouche is a reporter with La Presse. We reached him in Montreal.

[Music]

COP25 Summit

KG: Global climate talks in Madrid were supposed to wrap up on Friday. Instead, they went into the early hours of Sunday morning and still those two extra days weren't enough to arrive at a meaningful deal. As the final gavel of the UN's COP25 summit fell, the only thing everyone could agree on was the scale of the disconnect between the world's biggest polluters and the voices demanding change. Many of those voices come from civil society organizations who were attending the summit as observers. And in the final hours of the marathon gathering, some of those observers had a chance to take the mic. Adam Currie was among them. He's a youth climate organizer with Generation Zero, and was one of many young people desperate to see change come out of Madrid.

SOUNDCLIP

ADAM CURRIE: We are tired of governments siding with the polluters. We are tired of our lives being negotiated away for money. The people are tired of being ignored while a handful of wreckers and bullies negotiate in bad faith. We know that until we get them out of power, they will continue to sabotage our future. Our government spent two weeks focused on carbon trafficking above all else. A few of them focused on cheating while trafficking. But they all thought of convoluted schemes which are unjust and ineffective. Yet you ignore that clear and simple solutions like leaving fossil fuels in the ground. It's really not complex! We need to stop frying our planet and we need to provide support to those who are staring down the barrel of the climate crisis. The barrel of devastation.

KG: Youth climate organizer Adam Currie speaking at the COP25 summit in Madrid, where negotiators failed to find common ground on regulating a global carbon trading market. Mr. Currie was one of many young people from around the world to attend the summit. And one of many to go home disappointed by the delegates' failure to live up to the COP25 hashtag "TimeForAction." Kera Sherwood-O'Regan is an Indigenous climate campaigner from New Zealand.

SOUNDCLIP

KERA SHERWOOD-O'REGAN: As Indigenous peoples, we come here every year -- often on our own dime -- to advocate for our peoples and for our lands because it is what must be done. We are constantly forced to fight for our rights to be included. Our knowledge can not be upheld if our rights are not upheld. You treat negotiations like a zero sum game where you make deals behind closed doors, trading off our rights for the profits of the very corporations who cause this problem in the first place. But you forget that we cannot negotiate with nature. When you silence us, you deny yourselves the learning from our ways and you continue to sideline those who have real solutions for all communities. We are experts on climate. We are the Kai Tahu -- the stewards of nature. We know the legitimacy of our voices. And it's about time that you recognized it too. Hear our stories, learn our histories, stop taking up space with your false solutions and get out of our way.

KG: That's Kera Sherwood-O'Regan speaking in the final minutes of the UN's COP25 climate summit in Madrid this weekend. Despite mounting pressure over climate change, the summit has been widely condemned for failing to tackle climate change in a meaningful way.

[Music]

Saskatchewan Maritime Museum

Guest: Todd Gronsdahl

KG: "Maritime" means "of relating to or bordering on the sea." "Land-locked" means "enclosed or nearly enclosed by land." The province of Saskatchewan is that second thing, which means by definition it cannot be the first thing. So how do you explain a new exhibit at the Art Gallery of Regina called the "Saskatchewan Maritime Museum." Well, since you and I are both confused, we called Todd Gronsdahl on the phone. He's the artist behind the exhibit. We reached him in Saskatoon.

CO: Todd, have we all missed something? Is there a maritime history in Saskatchewan?

TODD GRONSDAHL: There is now. I took the opportunity that there was no maritime museum in Saskatchewan to invent my own and sort of use that as a chance to skewer sort of the history-making or nation-building practice.

CO: Were you having ocean envy?

TG: Maybe. That is true. That does also exist. I did invent or conceive of the project when I was in Vancouver going to art school. [Laughter] So has to have something to do with it.

CO: So you decided when you went back to Saskatchewan that you were going to invent a maritime history and have a maritime museum?

TG: Yeah. Kind of. It didn't quite happen that way. I did come up with the idea when I was go to school on Granville Island. I did feel a little exotic as the lone prairie boy there. And then years later, I was working with a curator named Leah Taylor. And she looked at that and then looked at my practice -- she was like there's a lot of sort of like working with history or satirizing history in your work. And maybe that would be a great way to couch the project.

CO: Okay. So this is now at the Art Gallery of Regina. Can you describe for us, the Saskatchewan Maritime Museum? What's in the exhibition?

TG: Well, when you enter there is the "Gasparfon" which is an aquatic lab boat who Charles Gaspar uses to collect information from aquatic plants, which he uses for invention. He's sort of Elon Musk-type character from Saskatchewan back in the days of Tommy Douglas. And he uses his vast fortune and influence to sort of try to improve humanity.

CO: Okay. And we should point out that Charles Gaspar is an invention. This is your own creation, right?

TG: That one is mine. That one is all mine. I include him because some of my other works sort of poke fun or they're a little bit cynical about how history is made. So I wanted to include some that were sort of like an utopia counter to that. So it just wasn't all doom and gloom.

CO: Okay. So Charles Gaspar -- we go back to his story. He is an Elon Musk-type. What are some of his inventions?

TG: We have a Gaspar Apparatus in the gallery in the fever of sort of the era where they're investigating possible benefits to psychoactive drugs, which was actually something that took place in Waber along with the US government built a lab to try to extract psychoactive drugs from maritime plants. Unfortunately, he couldn't get any psychoactive reaction, but he did discover a way to distill vitamin B. So then he just got even more rich by selling his vitamin B.

CO: He also has invented insulation made from cat tails.

TG: Yup, exactly. It's a great way to insulate your home. [Laughs]

CO: And a lip balm made from sturgeon cartilage.

TG: Yeah, that one...you know, it might not fly today with sort of ethical concerns, but our vegan friends wouldn't be happy.

CO: Now what are some of the other actual installations and what are some of the things people can see in the Saskatchewan Maritime Museum?

TG: Well, one of the anchor installations is something that existed in Saskatoon. It's called the Devil's Dip Ski Jump. Devil's Dip was this geographical formation on the University of Saskatchewan's campus that dips into the river. So they built a sort of Olympic style ski jump that would launch skiers down the bank of the river.

CO: This is a real thing? Like this actually exists -- this Devil's Dip...

TG: Yeah. That part of that actually existed. When I think about daily occurrences when something like that popped up, I sort of immediately think like, why would they build that there? Why is the powerful elites deciding to install this? And I immediately assumed that the jump was put there to propel gluten bombs into the river [laughter] which would gum up the props of German U boats, which may sail up the Saskatchewan River during the Second World War and sort of launch an attack. And then they had to hide in plain sight. So they called it a ski jump.

CO: What do you want people to take away from this maritime museum in the middle of the prairies?

TG: Ideally, I want people to find it funny. I like making art that feel accessible to me and for me, funny things are the best way to connect with people. So I kind of get this better connection through these art projects than I do to just discussing with people. I'm happy that people value absurdity and sort of make room for it.

CO: I understand that we've interrupted you in the middle of making potato sausages.

TG: Yeah. We had to race home from Regina for our annual potato sausage making party.

CO: And this is for what occasion?

TG: Oh, it's Christmas. You have got to get the sausage ready before Christmas. And it's also a great excuse to sort of have a warm-up Christmas.

CO: This is in what tradition?

TG: I think it's like a Norwegian Christmas meal. But it's been that way in my family for so long that it might actually not be any tradition [laughter] but it's our tradition.

CO: It sounds like another invented history.

TG: I know. I was sitting here and I was thinking about the sausage. I'm like, that's definitely going to go [inaudible] league, you know? [Laughter]

CO: Well Todd I'll let you get back to work. Thanks so much.

TG: Thank you.

KG: Todd Gronsdahl is the artist behind the Saskatchewan Maritime Museum exhibit at the Art Gallery of Regina. We reached him in Saskatoon. If you'd like to see photos of that exhibit head to our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Trip

KG: Here's a nice one of a lush forest. And here's a good autumnal one of the Fraser River. And here's one of a parking lot in some big box stores. But still: at least it's actually Prince George. What I did was I typed "Prince George, BC" into a computer. All of these photos of Prince George, BC came up. And I'm willing to share my research with the folks who work on the game show, "The Price Is Right." Last month on that show, a guy named Stephen Witka won a trip to Prince George. The image that came up was of a gorgeous lake surrounded by mountains and trees. It was stunning. Mostly because it was actually a picture of Lake Louise, Alberta. That aside, though, some people aren't convinced a trip to Prince George is a very good prize. Lots of people got snide about it online. Including a user with the handle "Super (Burnt Out) Nurse" who tweeted: "What Prince George season will he visit during? Snow or smoke?" And "TriSarahTops" who wrote: "Winning a trip to Prince George on the Price is Right is like winning the lottery but the grand prize is 2.50$." Well, to counteract all this criticism, various Prince George businesses have come forward to sweeten the pot for Stephen Witka -- including the Treasure Cove Casino, which has announced it will pay for him to take a 600-kilometre helicopter trip to Lake Louise, Alberta. Trying to make your vacation spot more enticing by sending people to a different location is an interesting move. But Mr. Witka is reportedly still excited about the trip and doing a lot of research. So all those naysayers who assumed he'd have a bad time were actually making an educated guest.

[Music]

Part 3: Why this Syrian journalist stayed in war-torn Aleppo after her daughter was born

Encore: For Sama

KG: Waad al-Kateab didn't make a film about life under siege in Aleppo, Syria, for accolades. She documented the horrors of the war for her baby daughter so that she would understand why her parents chose to be part of the resistance to the Syrian regime and why in the end they left their home country. But the documentary is direct, personal, and heartrending...and it has won awards. Earlier this month, it won the top prize at the British Independent Film Awards. The film is called "For Sama." Sama is the baby that Waad and her husband, Hamza, a doctor, had while living in a makeshift hospital in Aleppo. Here is Waad speaking to her newborn.

SOUNDCLIP

WAAD AL-KATEAB: Seventh February, 2016. My first baby, Sama. Her name is meaning the sky. The sky we love, the sky we want. Without air forces, without bombing. Sky with sun, with clouds, with the birds. Sama. Sama. Do you hear me? She’s laughing.

[Sound: Warplanes over head]

KG: You can hear Russian warplanes at the end there. That was a frequent noise that sent them running for cover. It also alerted them that casualties would soon arrive at the hospital. Earlier, this year Waad al-Kateab and her co-director Edward Watts sat down in the studio with Carol. Here's an encore presentation of that feature interview.

SOUNDCLIP

CO: Waad and Edward, welcome to the “As It Happens” studio.

WAK: Thank you.

EDWARD WATTS: Ok.

CO: I have to say at the beginning that this is a remarkable documentary. It's very powerful, and I hope many people see it and appreciate it.

WAK: Thank you very much.

CO: Now, you begin the story in this documentary with something that's really quite happy, which is the spirit of revolution. The Arab Spring has arrived at your university in Aleppo, and there is a feeling of hope in the air. Can you describe that beginning back in 2012?

WAK: Actually, at that time, we saw like the world is very small. And we saw we could really change not just our life, but the whole world. We lived through very difficult years in Syria, which was like injustice, and like without freedom, without the objective.

CO: And there was a lot of corruption.

WAK: Yeah.

CO: It was basically a regime that many people believed had to go.

WAK: Yeah, of course. And I always dreamed to be a journalist. And at that time, my father and mother said like no, you can't be journalist. If you want to be a journalist, don’t believe that. The next day we’ll be in the prisons. So you should study anything else. And when you finish, you can go out of Syria and do whatever you want. And then when the revolution started, we are scared. We can't believe that you know this thing could happen in Syria. And yeah, it's happening. And we were part of it.

CO: We were covering it, of course, as every news agency was. And it was in the midst of Arab Spring. And here, we couldn't believe it. In Syria and Aleppo, this spirit — this street — was erupting. And it seemed wow! This revolution is going to take Syria. It was really a very, very powerful time. You must have yourself thought that that was the story?

WAK: Yeah, it was the amazing things that happened. Like we were seeing all these like protests, and all this like revolution on the ground. And on the like formal channels or in the regime propaganda, he was like first he denied everything happening. And second he started like to say yeah, there's something, but about these people are terrorist. These people are like bad people, they don't want anything good for the country. So at that time, we really found out that we should do something. And to have the evidence of what's happening. And that's why actually I start filming.

CO: Documenting. Edward, following the story of what was going on in Syria, was that your sense too that this revolution that broke out in the streets of many places — including Aleppo — was the turning point?

EW: Yeah, I really did. And from the beginning, I felt that it was such an important event for world history, for all of us really. Because the regime was so notoriously brutal, they’d suppress previous uprisings so violently. And yet, you know in my country — in the UK — there was an instant Bloody Sunday, where 13 protesters were killed by the armed forces. And what I was struck by in the early days of the revolution was the Syrians were suffering something like 10 Bloody Sundays every week. You know, you were getting hundreds of people being gunned down. And what was so incredible to me watching from afar was that still, thousands of people went back to the streets to protest peacefully. And for months and months in the face of this violence, they maintained their desire to stay peaceful, to stay true to their democratic beliefs. And I thought it was just incredibly impressive and important.

CO: Waad, at what point did it turn for you? At what point did you realize you are not part of a revolution, but you were in the midst of a war?

WAK: Actually, I'm still until now consider myself part of a revolution. And what happened in Syria like it started with revolution, and we wanted to be as peaceful the whole time. But the violence that we faced, it was unbelievable. And you can’t just be like you know peaceful while you have this like criminal regime is like trying to arrest like thousands of people, killed thousands of people, and then at the end, you know like it's finished with some solution as a displacement. So now, we have like whole cities destroyed, underground just because they couldn't accept that these people wants to change their lives. Of course, it's not war, but it's not civil war. It's war between like big governments as like the Russian’s interfered with the regime, Iranians with the regime, and our side as oppositions, there was like also like many groups fighting like between each other and against the regime, against ISIS. And then we have like ISIS, which is a very big, serious problem in Syria. And through all this, we still have the belief that this life could be better for the future, and this life could be changed. And the main thing is that that this wall of fear has broken.

CO: You, and with your camera, you document what happens. And it's so clear in the images you take that this is a war against civilians, as you just said. And that it's hitting neighbourhoods without even thinking about these children and people living there. You begin to document the beginning, the openings, and you help the opening of a hospital — a series of hospitals actually. But to try and find a safe place for people to come and see doctors. And you get very, very involved in one particular hospital. What was so important about that place?

WAK: Actually, the hospital was the place where good people come to, and feel maybe the safest place in the world. Because whatever you had, if you hurt, if you have pain, so you're going just to the doctor because you feel that this place could be the safe one. Which like in Syria, the hospital was a big target by the regime. And because my relationship was Hamza as a friend through the protests, Hamza is my husband, and he's a doctor in one of the hospitals. So I lived in that place, as I found out that there is like kind of activist nurses, doctors, and these people who I know from the university. I was there as a single like woman by myself. So I really needed kind of a family to be there. So we lived in this place, which could be the easiest place for me as a woman to be there.

CO: It became more than just a family, and became your family, became you married, you found Hamza, who was a doctor there. And it's just one of the most beautiful scenes in the film is your wedding. What did Hamza say to you as you got married?

WAK: Like it's something like…

CO: Okay, I remember. It’s that you run along a dangerous road, but in the end, it was a road to freedom.

WAK: Yeah. And he said to me like come, and let's go through this way together. And we show that at the end of this way, we have the freedom that we really dreamed of.

CO: We were speaking about a documentary called “For Sama”. And we were speaking with Waad al-Kateab, along with Edward Watts, who was a co-director on this documentary. And the story about Sama is this whole documentary is a letter to Sama. It's about her, and she is born. What was it like to have her? That your daughter come into your life?

WAK: At that time, we were belong to that city, and we were decided together — Hamza and me — to be like this is our life, and we will live here forever. We don't want to be out. With the fear of being targeted or in a risky situation, and on the other hand, you have the feeling that this is my life. And I want to build something. So we felt just like now we can maybe have a child. it was a very difficult decision. But that's what I explained and the whole film. Because we really want something to make us more belong to the city. And this is the life that we are, you know? We want a baby to be part of the country, part of the life. And Sama was the first things that gave us the hope, and same time, give was more like feeling that we are responsible of something more.

CO: Did it change the way you saw your role because you had this little girl you had to protect?

WAK: Actually, the main things that Sama gave us the feeling that we should stay alive more. Before Sama, we were actually don't care if we were killed or not. We knew that each moment we would be killed, and we were happy for that because we believed in the revolution. But after Sama, it was something like no, we will stay in the revolution, we will believe in this, but we also wants to stay alive. We want to have our family, and bring more children, and be here. And we want this good future for her.

CO: You didn't want this war, you didn't invite this war into your lives, you're not responsible for it, and yet, you say to your daughter — you ask her — will you ever forgive me? Why?

WAK: At that time, I wasn't expecting anything will happened. Like the most feeling was that we will not be survive. And in each moment, Hamza or me will be killed, or she will be killed. Or one of us have a very bad injury, or she will have this. So I wasn't sure what the end of this story will be. But I do believe at that time, that this is our life, we are Syrian people, we have the revolution, and we have this principle which we should fight for. So whatever the cost to us, we should live it. But, of course, I want to apologize for her. And I was very worried if anything happened, will she forgave me or not? And even now, like I don't know what the affect that Sama has. When she will grow up, we will find out together. And I know that wasn't easy at all.

CO: You had on one occasion, you and your family — you and Hamza and Sama — leave the city, and you leave Syria. You go into to Turkey to be with a relative who is not well. It must have been tempting to stay? There must have been some thought in your head we shouldn't go back. We are a family, we have this little girl. Why did you go back?

WAK: Because we should go back. It wasn't that difficult for us to take that choice at that moment. I looked at Hamza's eyes, and we were just like we should go, we should go. He said yes, we should go, and that's it. And the little thinking was about Sama as should we leave her alone or not with her grand mom or something? And they tried to speak with us as you should leave Sama. You should go if you want. But you shouldn't take Sama with us. But at that moment, we just felt that we are a family should be together. There is something I can't really describe. I can't really explain. But we were do believe that there’s our destiny, and there’s our home, and there’s where we should be. And there’s something was Hamza always saying like for me or for Sama too that I can't look at any child in Aleppo, and I can't treat any child in Aleppo why? I don't care about them if I will keep my daughter safe, and be here like for them. Can you help me answer this with English?

EW: Yeah. The only thing I'd add is the sense that this was a question I always asked Waad and Hamza all the time. Because you feel naturally, of course, they wanted to stay out with the young girl — with Sama when — she was so young, and the war was getting so intense. And they were always like absolutely, we didn't hesitate, we needed to be in the city because that was where Sama's future was being decided. That was where we felt just this overwhelming, almost inexplicable need to be. And so it kind of defied rational explanation. I think that's what we concluded in the end.

WAK: And we lived with these people you know for five years in this situation. And I can’t just like turn my back and say ok, I want to be safe. I want my child to be safe. While I'm sure that other people like can't be. What about the other people?

CO: You documented with your camera in just a journalist's eye. You didn't shake. You documented in the hospital children dying. They were dead or dying while you filmed them. People came in with their blood leaving them, and your husband trying to save their life, and the other doctors trying to save them. And you watch them — your camera watched them die. You saw your city destroyed. You filmed it all with a clear… not coldness, but you just were I am going to document everything. You're going to look into the eyes of this child as this child leaves us. How did you do that? How did you see yourself as not just the woman living there with a child and being part of it, but as a journalist who to took a step back?

WAK: It's actually like the strength that you have it when you know that I will be killed in any moment. And I know that that scene should be out for people to watch. And this scene could be my daughter, could be me, could be Hamza. So I was like forced myself to do this because I know that this is the only things I could do for these people, for myself, for my future. And many moments, I was like just crying while I'm watching. In other moments, I was just like turn the camera off. And then I don't want to explain, but I have this responsibility. I have something to do there. And this is the only thing I could do. I'm not a doctor; I can't treat anyone. And I'm not a fighter; I can't fight, you know? The only thing that I can do is just like to film, to document this because the whole world is watching a lot of this like similar to this footage, but nothing happened. I was really hopeful, optimistic that something will make a difference. Something will let the people outside said this should stop. And, unfortunately, like it's still happening until now.

CO: And Edward, when you saw the pictures — these images — that Waad had captured, and how unflinching they are, how fearless they look, you're not going to get away with this world. You're going to see what it looks like to have children die before you. You're going to see what these doctors went through. I've never seen anything quite like it. And when you first saw the images that Waad brought to you, what were your impressions, what was your reaction?

EW: It's hard to sum it up in sort of in a few words really. It was on so many different layers of response. I mean it's just such an extraordinary and incredible archive of conflict, but also of humanity, you know? And I think one of the things that's so special about what Waad captured was the fact that how death and life, light and dark, humour and despair live side by side. And I think my real feeling was just what a huge responsibility we had as a team, and me, and all of us who were involved…

WAK: And the audience.

EW: And the audience. But also, to live up to this material. To take this huge, incredible archive, which it was like an extraordinary mosaic of different shots, and different material from the hospital stuff you're describing, to the beautiful personal stuff with Sama. And it was this vast web, and how to weave that into something that would be manageable, and the audiences could connect with was daunting.

CO: And did you have moments when you wondered how much the viewer could take, at what point they’d say I have to turn away, I can't even look. Yes, Waad, you were unblinking, you were going to show us everything, but did you feel that we as viewers would say no, please?

EW: That was one of the hardest things. It really was. Because we were caught between this bind that actually you have to understand that an audience coming in from the streets of a Western city can only take so much. But also, again back to this word responsibility, we felt we had a responsibility to show the reality that you’re talking about. To make people see this is what this war looked like for innocent people. And I think trying to find that position was one of the challenges. That's why we spent two years working together on it, and debating, and pushing, and pulling. Because I mean I promise you when I hope a lot of people will see the film, and they will be flabbergasted to say the least about the dark moments. But there was a lot worse — things that are burned into my mind that I will never forget. And I wasn't even there. So it was the responsibility to show people the truth, but not to overwhelm them that their minds just shut down.

CO: I have in studio with me Edward Watts, and I'm speaking with him, along with Waad al-Kateab about this extraordinary documentary that they have made about Syria, about the siege of Aleppo. It's called “For Sama”. Waad, this daughter of yours in the middle of the siege, and you could see it was affecting her. What did you see in her face? What did you see in her eyes that concerned you?

WAK: The most difficult things that she was reacting as any baby could should be. She was very like tough baby. She was very… I don't know how to say this, but she's reacting in many places as an adult. And sometimes when like she should’ve cry she wasn’t. So it was something very difficult because I was worried I can't do anything for her now, and I want her to be safe. I want her to be not affected. But at the same time, I see the other children what's happening with them, and what's going on. And I expected that she will be one of them at any moment. So I really I felt helpless.

CO: And yet, as a journalist again, you documented it, you filmed it, and you also filmed your own husband. You were right up close with Dr. Hamza — with Hamza — filming what he was going through, interviewing him at key moments about what he was going through. What did you see in your husband? What effect did all this have on him?

WAK: Hamza was all the time the one who couldn't be sad, couldn't be crying. He always optimistic, and it's not just my opinion, but all the people who lives in the hospital and around us as a friends, they see this in Hamza. And the moment when they saw Hamza was like worried, so they feel was like we are now all dead because Hamza is worried now. So it's unbelievable. And through all the time he was like pretend to be very strong man to support us all. And in some moment when he was very destroyed, or like desperate, or sad I like felt that there is strength in myself I couldn't expect. So it was kind of a good relationship because both of us were together. We were survive. And this is actually what we have from the bigger circle in the film, which is Sama and the other kids. So it's one of them, and it's like friend or like single man or woman who were inside Aleppo they were because of the war, because of the revolution, because we were all having the same destiny together. Maybe that's the only thing that make us survive.

CO: You mentioned your friends, and they are wonderful. And this is I think what Edward was saying is that there is not just these moments of darkness and horror, but these moments when you feel happy, when there’s such joy. And these two people — this woman whose face lights up. She never seems to be broken by anything. And they are just such an inspiration. But you document how the war, especially in the last days when they know that it's hopeless, they have to leave. And what effect it has on your friends.

WAK: Actually, it's affected for each one who lived in Aleppo and believe in this revolution, and felt that at the end you know the choice of being there have taken from us. We were all together in very bad situation, and we've never thought that we would leave. And at that moment when like the regime and the Russians decided that no, we will take over this city, and the only choice we have even we will be killed or we will be displacement out. And that's actually I think we wouldn't accept. Until now, we didn't accept this. Now [she] lives in Turkey, and we live now in London, and other friends lives around the world. And all of us, until now, we can't believe that we are now out. We can't believe that we can't be back. I can understand all the difficult things that we went through, but the displacement was the most difficult things.

CO: And Hamza says something to you which is extremely disturbing. As you're realizing that this is it, the Russians have said we're coming in. You’re the last neighbourhood, you're done, you're finished, it's done. Aleppo is going to fall. And Hamza says something to you about what you should do with Sama. What does he say?

WAK: He said to me like we should abandon Sama, and we should leave her in any room or anything without give her any like I.D. or any paper that was this girl is. Because she had very good the chance to be survive if they didn't find out who’s her parents.

CO: And why would that be a problem?

WAK: They will kill her, of course, because they are dealing with each person in this country as a terrorist.

CO: And because you are a journalist, and they knew that?

WAK: Because I'm journalist, that’s one crime. Because Hamza is a doctor, this is the second crime. Because we were living in the opposition area, which is the third the crime. Because we stayed until the end in a place he wants to destroy, this is like forth crime. And when they will find out that we are the people who were like wants freedom, and dignity, and all these things, which is the biggest crime.

CO: We spoke with a number of times many people in Aleppo. But at that hospital, we spoke with a doctor — it wasn't Hamza — another doctor whose name we didn't reveal. But that he told us about the most horrible situation. Dr. Waseem was killed, and what a marvelous doctor he was. We interviewed the doctor about what a loss it was each time one of these doctors was killed, and that could have been Hamza just as easily.

WAK: Of course, Dr. Waseem was one of our friends, and we lived together in the hospital, and he was the first doctor to check like Sama for the first time. I really didn't expect that I would be survive. And even when I document all these things, I wasn't expect that I will make a film, you know? I just felt that the only thing I could do is just to document this, so maybe someone outside will find this footage one day, and they will make this documentary.

CO: And the pictures of the devastation of Aleppo in ruin as you were leaving. But it's so clear that you love this place, even this place is almost dust at this point, and empty of people. Everyone has left, and you loved it. How difficult was it for you to leave, Waad?

WAK: Everything we went through, we were expecting something very bad. But the only thing that we didn't expect that we would leave the city. When we left, it was the end of the story. You know like we couldn't do anything more. Like even with the bomb, with everything happened, we were okay, you know? We were okay .We could deal with all these things, we can bear everything. But when they leaving, when the displacement happened, it was like they take everything from you.

CO: You've had another child since you left.

WAK: Yeah.

CO: She was conceived when you were still there, but she's now born. The image when you're holding her for the first time, you say her head's next to you, you say she smells like Aleppo.

WAK: Yeah, that's the last thing I take from Aleppo. And when she gave birth, I felt that this is something I brought with me from Aleppo. She don't know anything about Aleppo, but it's still when she will grow up, I will tell her everything, she will watch the film, and I can really feel that I had two girls from Aleppo.

CO: And what do you think they're going to make of this when they grow up, when they're able to watch, when both Sama and [her sister] are able to watch this documentary. What do you think they'll learn about you and their father?

WAK: The only thing that I really wanted them to know that we did everything for them, for a better future, for them and for the whole children of Syria. I would love for them like to hear that we are proud of you and my father.

CO: I think when they do watch this, they will say that. Because I think it's a remarkable documentary, and so powerful, and so important, and I thank you, Waad, for making it. And thank you, Edward, for making it too. Thank you both.

WAK: Thank you.

EW: Thank you.

KG: That was Waad al-Kateab and her co-director Edward Watts discussing their documentary "For Sama" with Carol in April. The pair recently won the best film, best documentary, and best director awards at the British Independent Film Awards.

[Music]

CO: We are at the end of this edition of As It Happens. Our show can be heard Monday to Friday on CBC Radio One. And if you want to listen to our program live or on demand anytime, make sure you download the CBC Listen app. I'm Carol Off. Thanks for listening.

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December 16, 2019 Episode Transcript

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