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The AIH Transcript for January 7, 2021

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: A direct contrast with direct conflict. A Black activist in Washington, D.C., says it was hard to watch the way police treated the mob at the Capitol yesterday and not be struck by how differently they treated Black Lives Matter protesters.

CH: American devolution. A D.C. resident says he's just beginning to grapple with what happened in his hometown last night -- a city that's hurt, scared, and still in shock.

CO: Faith healer. After a tense runoff election, Reverend Raphael Warnock is set to become Georgia's first Black senator. A friend of his tells us the win renews the hope that America's promise is not lost.

CH: You only get one shot. A top doctor in Quebec defends the province's decision to postpone the second shot of the Pfizer vaccine and response to criticisms that it amounts to a medical experiment done without patients consent.

CO: Auction house rock. A good sized stone from a British garden, was under people's feet, but now is going under the hammer after it turned out to be an ancient Roman artefact.

CH: And don't touch that dial. Well, phones don't have dials anymore, but the Saskatchewan RCMP annual list of the goofiest, most misguided 911 calls suggests some people shouldn't touch that screen. As It Happens. The Thursday Edition. Radio that urges you not to succumb to that siren song.

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Part 1: D.C. resident who gave BLM protesters refuge condemns 'atrocities' at U.S. Capitol

BLM protests vs. riot response

Guest: Anthony Lorenzo Green

CH: People around the world were glued to coverage of yesterday's siege on the U.S. Capitol and the total security failure in the face of it, but that coverage hit harder for those who live in Washington, D.C. and it hit hardest for the city's Black residents, many of whom were quick to point out how differently they have been policed. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser was asked to address that discrepancy at a news conference today.

REPORTER: How upset does it make you to see the federal response on Black Lives Matter during the protests there and around Juneteenth, and then see yesterday by comparison, you mentioned that earlier -- how upset did it make you or what?

MURIEL BOWSER: What I'm upset about -- I'm upset about what this president has done to our city and our democracy. I'm not prone to wild swings of emotion because we have some work to do to find out what happened, to make sure it doesn't happen again. And that's my job right now. And that's the job of everybody here. I'm upset that my police officers were put in harm's way when they were just doing their jobs.

CH: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser laying the blame for yesterday's storming of the U.S. Capitol squarely at the feet of President Donald Trump and promising to get to the bottom of what happened. But Black Lives Matter activists say it's pretty clear what happened. Anthony Lorenzo Green is a BLM organiser in Washington, D.C. That's where we reached him.

CO: Lorenzo, what was going through your mind while you were watching those rioters storm Capitol Hill yesterday?

ANTHONY LORENZO GREEN: Well, I was very baffled, quite honestly, because I immediately saw the difference in response that the rioters, the White supremacist, received and just imagining if it was me or any other racial justice activists that have been protesting in the streets of D.C. for months, we would have been shackled, we would have been carried away, we would have been shot and killed.

CO: And so what you saw, I mean, you couldn't see it --- just on TV we could watch what was happening inside. What did you make of the police response once they had breached the perimeter and were inside the Capitol?

ANTHONY LORENZO GREEN: Well, that's the interesting thing, because many of the White supremacists that did enter the Capitol, they were streaming live. So a lot of people were following as they were walking around inside. And it was just baffling. But unfortunately, I wasn't surprised because after seeing the videos of them basically being let in and seeing officers take selfies with them, I was like, oh, these are their people.

CO: When you call them White supremacists, this is not just your opinion, many of those people were identified as being members of White supremacist or neo-Nazi groups. So they were known to police and they didn't fail to show their identities.

ANTHONY LORENZO GREEN: And not only were they known, this is the third time they've came to our city since the election. So there were two prior test run for law enforcement and people in leadership and they were basically allowed to roam the streets, they attacked folks, they went in desecrating sacred Black spaces. So it was insane to see that happen right after the election and then a repeat of it in December. And that's why Black Lives Matter DC made it our business the third time when they made it clear that they were coming back saying that they were going to storm the Capitol, we decided to put out some demands to the city to make it clear what needed to be done to prevent this threat, not only just across the board denunciation of White supremacy and White supremacists, but really challenging our businesses -- do not serve these people, do not give these folks room reservations, do not let them in your businesses with no mask on while we're in the midst of a pandemic that has been so devastating for Black families in this city.

CO: And before we get to how the city responded -- just remind people, because immediately many people were tweeting the comparison with what happened in the summer as there were demonstrations in Washington and elsewhere. But the ones in Washington in particular, the response the police gave to Black Lives Matter -- how did they respond at that time?

ANTHONY LORENZO GREEN: Well, at that time, it was tear gas, rubber bullets, charging with shields, riot gear, cops on bikes were using bikes as weapons. So this is people who are simply coming out to the streets to say the names of people who have been lost to police violence, whether we're talking about folks here in Washington, D.C., like Jeffrey Price or Trey Joyner, who was killed by U.S. Park Police, or Miriam Carey, who was actually killed by U.S. Capitol Police, who was only here visiting from Connecticut, made a wrong turn and was shot dead. These people did not receive the same treatment that we saw yesterday. In Washington, D.C., we are very unique, we have 32 independent police agencies that operate alongside the Metropolitan Police Department, who we call D.C. police. There's the U.S. Capitol Police, U.S. Park Police, Secret Service. Park policing missing in action. And we already know who park police reports to, they're under the U.S. Department of the Interior, they're under Trump. When the mayor requests permission for the National Guard to go to the Capitol, it was denied by the Department of Defence. And eventually, from what we heard, Pence had to make the order for National Guards to go to the Capitol. So you have so many federal resources around the Capitol in this city that usually would be there to stop something like this, to so-called keep people safe. They were nowhere to be found. It feels plant to me. And it feels like this was a coup and people were either scared to call it what it was or an attempted coup, or they don't want to own what type of country we live in.

CO: The chief of police, the Capitol Security Police, said that they were unprepared, that they were overwhelmed. They're going to investigate. What consequences do you think there should be for the leadership and for those who organised the police yesterday?

ANTHONY LORENZO GREEN: Well, not only should there be consequences that go straight to the top, starting with Trump. You know, when you see a complete failure like that, we have to challenge them as a community and saying investigate yourself, figure out why this didn't work, why do you see Black and Brown people more as a threat than White supremacists with Trump flags who are recording video saying that they're going to charge the capital and take over the government because they want to stop the still of a legitimate election, all because Black folks came out and voted this past year in large numbers to what I say, reclaim our time, try to put forth an agenda that benefits our laws so that we can reimagine safety for ourselves, so that folks who do want to defund the police so we don't have to waste our time and waste our tax dollars like this, we can actually build a world that keeps us safe. This isn't about Trump or Biden, and this is about Black people and what we did with our votes and how change of power makes a [inaudible] do a certain thing in America that's so familiar. But at the same time, you're reminded that your ancestors have prepared you for this moment.

CO: Lorenzo, I really appreciate speaking with you, this has been really important to hear what you've had to say.

ANTHONY LORENZO GREEN: Thank you so much and I appreciate it.

CH: Anthony Lorenzo Green is a Black Lives Matter organiser in Washington, D.C. That's where we reached him.

Capitol resident

Guest: Rahul Dubey

CH: Rahul Dubey also lives in D.C. We first spoke with Mr. Dubey back in June. At the time, he was giving shelter to dozens of Black Lives Matter protesters after they were boxed in by police on his street. We reached Rahul Dubey again today at his home just blocks from Capitol Hill.

CO: Rahul, there must be so many things running through your mind today. How are you making sense of what happened in your city yesterday?

RAHUL DUBEY: To simply answer your question, I have not been able to digest any of the atrocities that took place last night, you know, literally eight blocks away from my front door. I've been having a lot of conversations with people this morning. We're all hurting. We're terrified. We're in shock. This is by far the darkest moment of my 45 year existence. And as an American, an Indian-American born and raised here in the United States, it's very tragic. You know, I'm trying to find some comfort, it's very difficult.

CO: The last time we spoke was, of course, in June after you had unexpectedly found yourself with more than 70 people, complete strangers to you, you'd given them shelter in your house as they were fleeing police down your street after they had attended a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Are you connecting yesterday with that day back in June?

RD: Carol, 100 percent. I can't fathom that we were able to protect 72 souls in my house that night, which is more than the police and authorities arrested all last night during an attempted coup in America. And drawing that line to see that there were 118 authorities, military, paramilitary, D.C. police, government agencies and military helicopter above my house before a single peaceful protesters showed up on my Swan Street June 1st. And yet they were ready for a BLM movement, and yet you're not ready for angry, Proud Boys, White supremacists, MAGGA supporters coming to the nation's capital. And I have trouble understanding why. And that is what has me so shocked right now, is that the proportional response to a peaceful movement such as BLM on Swan Street June 1st was met with pure evil. And yet I watch White supremacists storm our nation's capital, just sit down, and take pictures and to prance around. That is really really difficult for me and for my family members and our community to swallow in such an inspirational city.

CO: I understand that yesterday you again gave shelter to some people that you had in your house last June. Can you tell us about that?

RD: Absolutely, the 70-plus here at Swan Street has formed a lifelong bond. I'm in constant contact with 15 to 20 of them and a few them -- that the fire in their hearts -- wanted to go down to the Capitol yesterday. I spoke to them on the phone. I had them come here first to group up so we could talk. And as we were talking and I was really pleading and my heart wanted to go down there as well. My heart kept us home and before we knew it, it was past curfew. And I wasn't about to let 20 something year old Black youth out in our nation's capital, when you have Proud Boys running around just decimating people because they're unhappy that they lost the election. So we stayed this night. And this morning at 10 a.m., I walked them to their Uber and got them home.

CO: And I understand that this morning or today, you had your own run-in with police.

RD: I walked down to the end of my street that I do every day to get coffee at my local diner. And the police are there and they turn on their body cams while I'm getting coffee. And I want to know why. Why were there no body cams turned on -- 100-plus authorities on Swan Street June 1st -- zero body cam footage seven months later. And I'm getting a cup of coffee. And three officers who are sitting during a global pandemic and an indoor dining establishment decides that they think I am a threat and say to me, I am becoming a problem and turn on their body cam. Our priorities are completely messed up if I am becoming a problem now, less than 12 hours after citizens of America stormed our Capitol building. It is just absurd to me and I'm having a lot of difficulty digesting this, Carol, I'm sorry.

CO: When we spoke with you in June, you said that you knew there was racism, obviously, in your city and your country. But the experience of having all those people in your house and what had happened, it opened your eyes to the depths of the systemic racism, and it really changed you. Do you sense that any of your neighbours, other people you know -- are they altered by this? Do they see things with fresh eyes since since these experiences?

RD: I do see my neighbours, I do see DC, and I do see the majority of America starting to ask the right questions. The problem is we're coming to it late. I think there's a sense of urgency here. And it's moments like January 6th and June 1st that make us ask the questions, and I'm asking my fellow citizens, countrymen, and humans to accelerate, to put the foot on the gas to ask these questions and do not let the sun shine wear off of this protest, of these atrocities, of our anger in our hearts.

CO: You mentioned the two dates June 1st when you had your eyes opened, when all those strangers came to your house. January 6th, yesterday, when you saw the reaction to the Proud Boys arriving in your city. Next date, January 20th, the inauguration. What do you fear will happen in your city come that day?

RD: My biggest fear is that a Black male in his 20s or the most marginalised person on this planet, a Black female in America, gets injured due to someone's hate. My biggest fear is that we're not going to allow them to live to their potential January 20th or well beyond. And we have to start there.

CO: Rahul we will leave it there. And I hope that peace is restored to your city and that we see a peaceful and celebratory inauguration on January 20th. Thank you for speaking with us.

RD: Carol, thank you very much. Stay safe. Godspeed. And thank you for doing what you do.

CH: That was Rahul Dubey. We reached him at his home in Washington, D.C.. And you can find more on that story on our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

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Quebec vaccination accountability

Guest: Gaston De Serres

CH: Quebec is going ahead with inoculating as many people as possible with a single shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, despite criticism from all directions. Doctors like Dori Shiff, whom we spoke with earlier this week, have said skipping the second booster shot is unproven and unethical. Pfizer itself, the pharmaceutical giant that developed one of the COVID-19 vaccines in Quebec, said it doesn't support Quebec's plan either, and that its vaccine was approved at 95 percent efficacy on the basis of patients receiving two shots, not one. Dr. Gaston De Serres works for Quebec's National Public Health Institute and sits on the scientific immunisation group that recommended the one dose model to the province. We reached Dr. De Serres in Quebec City.

CO: Dr. De Serres if Pfizer says it's not a good idea to delay the second booster shots of the vaccine, what makes you so sure it's the right decision?

GASTON DE SERRES: Well, I think that Pfizer's position is based on the clinical trials that they conducted, which clearly showed that after two doses, you have a 95 percent protection on the short term. Even after two doses, the follow-up of participants was limited because obviously everyone wanted to know if the vaccine was working and there was no interest in seeing if the vaccine was working for one month, three months, or six months. They also collected information about what was happening between the first and second dose. And what we see from their data is that the vaccine, 14 days after the first was, we have a 92 percent protection. Okay, after the second dose, we have 95 percent. So we're really in the same ballpark area between one and two doses.

CO: All right. Well, this doesn't fit with what Pfizer is saying -- sorry about that. But Pfizer spokesperson told CBC there are no data to demonstrate their protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days. You say, well, after 14 days, it's still pretty good. They're saying after 21 days, we have no data that supports that this works. And so they say you have to have two jabs in order to make it work. What is that based on? What is your evidence that you're basing this decision on?

GASTON DE SERRES: We don't know if after three months or six months, it will decrease. But what we know from all of the vaccines that we have is that the immune response is meant to protect us for future aggression. And the protection that we see after one dose is very high and very comparable to what you have with two doses. But the question is, how long will this protection last? And it's true that we don't have follow-up data showing that after one dose, three months later, we still have very good protection. But what we know from other vaccine is that when you have a protection after a given dose, that protection doesn't drop, you know, suddenly at three weeks. So clearly, we have uncertainties about the protection that will be induced by the first dose. But we have a certainty, and the certainty is that we have at the present time a very high incidence of COVID-19, lots of hospitalisations and deaths. And if you are giving two doses to half the number of people who could get one dose, we will have a lot of hospitalisations and deaths because we don't give the vaccine to a larger number of people.

CO: Sorry, sorry, doctor. This is just not inspiring confidence, I think, in public trust in this vaccine. The company that got -- they were licenced to give this vaccine. The trials they did were for two jabs. That was why they were licenced after the trials. You are saying now, well, we don't need to pay attention to what trials they did. Even though they're saying they do not approve of this idea of just one jab, you say, well, we need to get more people with one jab in order to at least have a couple of weeks of protection. How do you know that that's going to work and what effect it might have later on? Are you not using your population as a guinea pig?

GASTON DE SERRES: Well, I think, you know, one dose or two doses, it will be the same kind of experiment that you have an experiment with two doses the same way because it's a new product...

CO: But there's been trials. Yes, there's still some unknowns there, but there have been trials. It's been approved based on those trials.

GASTON DE SERRES: Pfizer may say, well, you're playing with people. Well, I think at this time we are trying to save people's lives and we are seeing in their data, as well as what Moderna reported, that after one those 14 days after administering the first dose, you have already a very high protection.

CO: When you say it's in their data, are you saying that they don't know their own data?

GASTON DE SERRES: What they say is we don't have data showing how long the protection that their data demonstrates, how long that protection will last after a single dose. And again, what was proposed by the Quebec Immunization Committee was not to give one dose -- it's to postpone the second dose. It's not to say that there will be a one dose program, not at all. That's not the purpose. We will receive here 1.3-million doses between now and the end of March, we have 1.7-million people who are 70 years and older or a health care worker. If we want to immunise them with two doses, we will have only half of that population that could be vaccinated.

CO: What about all those people who have already had the one jab -- based on their understanding and even the contract they have, that they were to get a second one, they are not only just angry, they're pursuing a lawsuit if they can't get the second jab. They think that that was the understanding and that they're now stuck with just having the one vaccination and not the booster.

GASTON DE SERRES: Yeah, well, I understand that. You know, you may say or the people may say, well, we had a contract, but I think that they were offered first the vaccine because they were belonging to high priority groups. And there are lots of people belonging also to all these high priority groups who also want to get vaccinated and want to get protected. We would really prefer to have millions of doses available to vaccinate all the people rapidly. But that's not what we have.

CO: Dr. De Serres I appreciate your time. Thank you.

GASTON DE SERRES: My pleasure.

CH: Dr. Gaston De Serres sits on the scientific immunisation group with Quebec's Public Health Institute. He was in Quebec City.

[Music]

911 Calls

CH: And now: quote, unquote. It's hard to know how you'll behave in a crisis, but you'll like to imagine you'll rise to the occasion and show courage and good judgement and not call 911 to report that you can't find your awesome chillout mix on Spotify. To mark the end of 2020, the RCMP in Saskatchewan tweeted out a list of the Top-10 911 calls that, "missed the mark" last year. One involved a moose that had been standing in the same spot for two days. The caller felt police should check it out. Another caller wanted to report the coffee they had just purchased was cold -- well, that's definitely an emergency, but not one that would benefit from police intervention. And someone did call 911 in a panic because they couldn't find a playlist on their cell phone -- officers were not dispatched. But sometimes one crisis begets another in a kind of domino effect. And in this case, the caller set up the dominoes, knocked over the dominoes and was the dominoes. "An individual called 911 one to complain they'd received a ticket under the Emergency 911 System Act for calling 911 with non-emergency calls. They then called 911 once again to dispute the ticket."

[Music]

Part 2: Georgia win Democrats

Georgia win Democrats

Guest: Francys Johnson

CH: While the world's attention was focussed on the attack on the U.S. Capitol yesterday, a political development with huge significance for the Biden presidency was almost missed. Democratic candidates had won both elections in Georgia and therefore control of the U.S. Senate. Yesterday afternoon, Jon Ossoff was declared the winner of his runoff race. And hours before that, the announcement that Raphael Warnock, a pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, had won his race. If confirmed, the wins will split the Senate 50/50, with the vice president elect Kamala Harris being the tiebreaker. Francys Johnson is an attorney, pastor and friend of Raphael Warnock. We reached him in Savannah, Georgia.

CO: Reverend Johnson, what does it mean to you to see your friend, Raphael Warnock, head to Washington as a senator?

FRANCYS JOHNSON: Well, it renews the hope that America's promise is not lost. These are very difficult and dark days, and it's hard to see the light of America's promise, especially in light of the unrest in the capital, that this array of our national administration and even the voter suppression tactics at the state level. But these moments are checkpoints to remind us that the ideal of America is as strong as those citizens who are willing to put themselves forward. Reverend Raphael Warnock, a son of Savannah, from the projects to the pulpit of Martin Luther King's church now to the halls of the United States Senate as Georgia's senior senator, it is one of those moments.

CO: Georgia has been thoroughly tested in these past weeks and months. And then to see those two victories, what does it mean, do you think, to see Georgia's first Black senator go to Washington?

FJ: Well what it means is that the power of the citizen is still paramount. The most powerful office is not the office of governor or secretary of state or even president, but it's the office of citizen. In every election, they have an opportunity to weigh in on who will represent them. And so in the face of a runoff election that was designed when it was put in place to thwart the election of African-Americans to statewide office and federal office, that's why it was designed that way. And in the face of the voter suppression tactics of the national administration, including, you know, tinkering with the mail to the statewide pressure tactics of purging voters to polling place changes to all the other things we've dealt with -- citizens in the middle of a pandemic rose up and with a clear voice, said that they wanted to go in a different direction and put out the richest senator in the United States Senate, Kelly Loeffler, and chose a preacher from Savannah, Georgia. That's a pretty amazing story and one that is deeply American. And so we're very proud of that narrative.

CO: And now another story, another narrative, we'd like to hear is that is the story of Raphael Warnock himself. I mean, this is a man from Savannah, Georgia, the 11th of 12 children in a family. And he talks a great deal about his parents, especially his mother. What shaped him to be the man he is?

FJ: Well, I think the very working class background that he came from. His father was an itinerant Pentecostal minister and small businessman. He literally gathered the scraps of the community, metal and the like, and repurposed them and resold them. And so Raphael Warnock knows what hard work is because he participated in it. Raphael's mother, also Pentecostal minister, who grew up in Waycross under the scorching heat of Georgia's sun in the cotton fields, picking someone else's cotton, and she's still with us, and was able to pick in the election her son to be the next United States senator. Raphael Warnockt commented on that in his election speech, in his victory speech, and in commenting on that, he really gave voice to so many who have that experience.

CO: And I'll give the quote he said, Raphael Warnock said, "The 82-year-old hands used to pick somebody else's coffin went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator. The improbable journey that led me to this place in this historic moment in America could only happen here." You, yourself, your own experiences, you were arrested with him at one point. You want to tell us about that?

FJ: Right. I was president of the Georgia NAACP, the state's oldest and largest civil rights organisation at the time. And Raphael and I were leading a group called Moral Monday, which was taking a page from Reverend Dr. William Barber's North Carolina Moral Monday movement. And we were engaged in a protracted campaign to pressure the state to expand Medicaid and to provide coverage for those who were excluded because they worked and they made a little too much to qualify for the subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. We had a meeting right there in the governor's office. We sang and we prayed. We were taken to jail. We were arrested. We certainly weren't treated like the rioters were treated at the U.S. Capitol yesterday. We were there on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves, the poor, the uninsured, those just yearning to have access to health care. And so it solidified in my mind what I already knew about him was that he was willing to put his values and his body in proximity to those who were most impacted by the policies that needed to be changed. And it wasn't esoteric for him. This was not pulpit rhetoric, but these were principles that he was going to live by. And so we took that arrest together and sat in that cell and had deep conversations about how we would move our efforts through the NAACP to the new Georgia project. And ultimately, I succeeded Reverend Warnock as chair of the new Georgia Project when he stepped down to run for Senate. And so couldn't be more excited that the work that he, Stacey Abrams and others have done has led Georgia, has led the nation, to this moment.

CO: And now he has to go to the Senate that we watched yesterday, all the events on the Capitol Hill yesterday against that backdrop. What does that say to you that Raphael Warnock is going there?

FJ: Absolutely. The Senate is the most exclusive club in the world, 100 men and women, largely White, certainly rich White Christian men. And he joins that club and will bring a narrative that is different from the others. This is a major major moment for our efforts to redeem the soul of this country. And who better to do that than the good Reverend?

CO: We'll leave it there. Reverend Johnson, thank you.

FJ: Thank you so much for your attention to this matter. Take care.

CH: That was Reverend Francys Johnson. He's an attorney and friend of Raphael Warnock, we reached him in Savannah, Georgia.

[Music]

Grace Meng

CH: When President Trump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol yesterday, many lawmakers were ushered to safe hiding places by law enforcement. Then there were those who weren't in the chamber or were forced to seek shelter wherever they could. New York Congresswoman Grace Meng was amongst them. Around 5 p.m. yesterday. She tweeted, "I said bye to family and I'm still hiding." All told, Ms. Meng spent five hours hiding behind a makeshift barricade. She spoke with MSNBC last night about the harrowing experience.

GRACE MENG: I spent the last five hours or so in what I thought was an anonymous safe little space right above the Capitol, right off the House floor. I thought it might even be safer than my office because it was anonymous. Around 1:30, we start getting alerts to stay away from windows and doors. And then we heard that one of the House office buildings, Cannon, had been evacuated. Within 15 minutes, I started hearing a lot of stomping and chanting and shouting right outside my door. And I didn't have windows, so I couldn't tell what was going on. But I saw, as I had MSNBC on, that they were actually marching around right outside my door. And I got really frightened. I did my best to barricade myself in the room, turn off the lights and then any potential sounds. And I was really scared. I texted everyone I love.

RACHEL MADDOW: There's been questions all day as to what the consequences of this will be, whether Republicans will call on the president to resign or the Republicans will call on their own colleagues who helped incite this to resign. We're seeing the hometown paper, for example, of Senator Josh Hawley in Missouri telling me he has blood on his hands. I guess I asked you for your response to that, but also what you think should happen in terms of accountability for this terror that you and your colleagues went through today.

GRACE MENG: These acts today, whether they happened to members of Congress, whether they happened to the staff members and to the law enforcement that were in there, these were criminal and terrorist acts. They damaged, they broke property, they fired shots in the people's house. You know, this is a president, this is a person, who has been inciting violence virtually since day one, even before he got into office. While I never fully expected today's events to happen, none of us would be surprised that when he basically invites and incites violence in Congress and promises to accompany them to the U.S. Capitol, you can't be surprised and their party cannot act surprised that something like this happened today.

CH: Grace Meng is a Democratic congresswoman from New York. She spoke with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

[Music]

Roman slab

Guest: Will Hobbs

CH: Years ago on a property in England, a homeowner found a hunk of rock in the garden. Maybe because it was the right height or maybe because it looked sturdy, she decided to use it as a block to help her climb onto her horse. But that slab has much more going for it than its sturdiness. Turns out it's old, like nearly 2000 years old. Will Hobbs as an antiquities specialist at the auction house, Woolley and Wallis in Salisbury, England. That's where we reached him.

CO: Will, is this the sort of thing that people expect to discover in their gardens in England?

WILL HOBBS: No. In England they expect us to find just rare plants perhaps, or old ferns in the Victorian era. But to find a Roman marble slab is incredibly rare to find that sort of thing.

CO: What does it look like?

WH: It looks like nothing much, I'm afraid. It is like a very, very big block of marble. It is quite dirty, as well because it has been sort of exposed to the elements so it doesn't have that lovely white marble you expect marble to be. So it looks like, I hate to say it, it's a big green stone. It's only when you look at it closely, then you notice exactly what it is.

CO: And when it gets all cleaned up, what can you see?

WH: Well you got two wreaths and lots of Greek writing, that's obviously the important thing is the fact that you can tell now that it's got this Greek writing and you can date it to being almost 2000 years old and it's been lying around in well, lying around in sort of I guess what we know now is western Turkey, where it was made for 2000 years ago and I think it was pretty looked after for a bit, and then we have no idea what happened to it after that, apart from it ended up in someone's garden.

CO: Do you know what it actually says in Greek?

WH: Yes, we do. We've got the Greek letters. It's a dedication to a chap called Demetrios. And also his father's mentioned in there as well and his grandfather, which is quite unusual. So you got three names, Demetrios, Metrodoros, and Leukois. So it's an award to Demetrios fellow. But in the other two wreaths, you have the people and the young men, and they're the people that obviously we think would have dedicated this large marble slab to Demetrios. So whether they were sort of a group of cadets and sort of gave this in honour to this Demetrios chap -- that's the thing we don't know. We know who it is made for, but we don't know why it was made for him. Which is, again, another big part of the big puzzle that we're trying to sort of fill the gaps in before we actually get to sell it.

CO: Okay so what are your theories as to how it ended up in this garden?

WH: We think he came back to the UK maybe in the 18th and 19th century, pass the grand tour, went to the Europeans -- well the Englishmen were sort of going around Europe, sort of trying to learn more about the ancient world and were picking up these pieces and bringing them back and then having [inaudible] and doing scholarly research on them. But then this is where it also stops because you don't know which house it was part of, because there's obviously no documents on it -- where it's been before. And we know that a lot of houses in the area where it was found were pretty demolished after the Second World War. And so we're thinking it may have come from one of those houses and almost been sort of lost in amongst all the rubble of when these houses were demolished. And then we think may have been scooped up and then just dumped as just sort of extra rocks rather than sort of infill or rather than sort of an important piece of marble. And then it was just left in this rockery. And it wasn't until the owner of the house where it was found, sort of when they bought the house 20 odd years ago, they decided to sort of get rid of the rockery that had been there since the 70s. That's when we think it was put it in this particular house. She took it out and thought that's quite an useful rock, I might use that to get onto my horse. It was covered in mud. And when she picked it up and she couldn't see any of the writing on it at all. So she just moved it from one side of the garden to the front of our house where it was placed in a position where she could actually get onto her horse in the mornings or in the evenings, go off riding. And then over the years, slowly, the sort of the weather sort of -- you lost all the mud. And then one day she was looking down and the sun must have put a bit of a shine on it. And she thought, that's unusual. What's that mark down there? Rubbed it a bit more and then found all this writing. Then everyone sort of got involved, archeologists got involved in it, a classic scholar who can obviously translate it all. But that was 10 years ago when that was sort of discovered. And then she then left it to one side, you know, She found another block to get onto her horse. But, you know, it was no longer exposed to the elements of the cruel British weather we have -- it's not good as yours. And then it was ten years later, it was just before the first lockdownfirst when I think half of the UK was sort of cleaning out their garages and their attics because they got a bit bored of being at home all this time. She thought oh, what should I do with this big block? And yeah, an email came through to me one day and then the whole ball started rolling again.

CO: And were you the one to tell her what it was -- that it was 2000 years old?

WH: Well, I didn't have that pleasure, but then I sort of had the pleasure of telling her what it's potentially worth. I think at auction we're estimating at 10,000-15,000...

CO: Pounds.

WH: Yeah. U.K. sterling pounds. Yeah.

CO: How did she react when you told her that?

WH: Well, I don't think it really sunk in because you don't expect something that's been lying outside to be worth that sort of money, do you? So you hear these wonderful vintage finds that people find in these old cars, and these lovely sort of Jaguars or Ferraris and they're worth millions of pounds. But to just find a rock that you've been using sort of quite constantly just to get on your horse, you wouldn't expect someone to tell you it's worth that sort of money. So, yeah.

CO: Is there any expectation, though, that this is actually something that should be returned to where it originated?

WH: Well, if we knew exactly where it came from, that'll be great. So I think that would be sort of honourable thing to do, wouldn't it? Yeah, but we don't know. We know when it came out from the grand tour -- we don't believe everything that was sort of borrowed, as it were, but money mau have exchanged hands when it got sort of collected in Turkey in the 19th or 18th century. We'd love to have more research to find out, you know, who Demetrios was. I mean, that's the great thing about it now. We sort of have the opportunity to find out who was made for. Yes, I would love to work with the governments and see if we could sort of get these things repatriated.

CO: Do you think that this story will have people in England scurrying into the gardens to see what might be there?

WH: I very much hope so. And I hope when they find it, they come to me, so yes it is. Well, we've always heard lovely stories of people finding things in Essex and they do pop up. But yes, I think anybody with a horse should take a step back and see what they're standing on before they get back on their horse perhaps.

CO: Will it's great to talk to you. Thank you.

WH: And you Carol. All the best. Thanks. Bye bye.

CH: Will Hobbs is with the auction house Woolley and Wallis. We reached him in Salisbury, England.

[Music]

Helen Clifton

CH: More than 5000 doses of the Moderna COVID vaccine have been delivered to 18 remote First Nations communities across British Columbia this week -- another 5000 are on the way. And while some are nervous about getting the vaccine, many elders, chiefs and other leaders have been first in line for the shot, hoping to act as role models for their communities. Helen Clifton is known to many in the Gitga'at Nation simply as granny. She was the first person in Hartley Bay, BC to receive the vaccine.

HELEN CLIFTON: Oh, that made me feel extra special as being the oldest person here. At the young age of 95 years old, I had to represent my family -- if I can do this then I expect all my healthy family to do this. I thought if I've got to be a role model here and another vaccination -- my five generations are living here. I think the anxiety level, even I feel it here. I was watching TV or the iPad, and I said, I want to hear something positive. And if I can give that to my community, that the children you have to be well enough to look after all those that are under 18 that cannot get the vaccines so then you better have it and so that you're well enough to care for them. And so if I have to be a role model, because I'm demanding -- granny can be pretty darn demanding here, you know? And so, of course, by the moccasin telegraph here, the whole village will hear about granny and say they'll talk about it and then they're not going to let granny get ahead of them. This covid is not going to choose what colour you are or how rich or how poor you are. And so we have to be united together as human beings all around, not across Canada, all around the world for the next generation. And so as humankind united together, it's a new year. Spring is round the corner. It's a brand new page. Let's all be united together.

CH: Helen Clifton is a member of the Gitga'at Nation. She spoke with the CBC's Angela Sterritt from her home in Hartley Bay, BC.

[Music]

Part 3: Travellers will be 'stranded' if they don't show negative COVID-19 test, warns transport minister

Airlines: Marc Garneau

Guest: Marc Garneau

CH: Ticket, passport, negative COVID test. Starting today, that's what travellers coming into Canada will need to have to get on a plane. The strict rules for most flights require a test within 72 hours of departure, and passengers will still need to isolate for 14 days after getting home. That rule has the airlines scrambling and requesting a break. But Minister of Transport Marc Garneau has been in no mood to delay it. We reached Minister Garneau in Montreal.

CO: Minister Garneau, airlines were predicting mayhem if you didn't delay this rule by a month. Why did you decide to go ahead anyway?

MARC GARNEAU: We have to react quickly as the situation evolves. And in recent weeks, we've been hearing about a new variant of the UK COVID virus variant, as well as one out of South Africa. And let's face it, even though we've got vaccines on the horizon, the situation is getting worse here in Canada. And we felt it was important to act quickly and in this particular case, to put in place a requirement for people who are abroad and who want to come to Canada to provide a proof of negative results from a PCR test.

CO: Okay, so it's incumbent on the passengers to come up with that test to get it no later than 72 hours before they board. But you said that there can be exceptions that you are going to recognise that some places people might not be able to obtain that COVID-19 test. So how is that decided and who decides whether somebody has done what they can to get the test -- and if they don't have it, who decides whether they can board the plane?

MG: So ultimately, the decision is made by the agent at the gate and whether it's a Canadian airline or an international airline. We announced this over a week ago, but in the interim, we've had a look at the countries from which people may fly back to Canada. We have identified, and I mentioned this yesterday, 24 countries where we've agreed that 72 hours could be extended to 96 hours because it would take a little bit longer to get the results and to get the testing done. So we've made a temporary exception for 24 countries in the Caribbean and some in South America. We also discovered that there are two countries where there are very limited capabilities to test , one in Haiti and the other one is Saint-Perre and Miquelon -- the island just off Newfoundland. And we have established in their case that we will dispense with the pre-departure test for the meantime, and instead they will be subjected to testing on arrival and possibly being put into government of Canada quarantine facilities.

CO: But if people have to be tested and if they have a negative test, they still have to go into 14 days of quarantine. Why so? If they have to do that, why do they have to have a negative test as well?

MG: Well, absolutely they need to go into the quarantine because that is the most effective method of ensuring that somebody is not going to infect somebody else, because, as we know, you can contract the COVID-19 virus and not be symptomatic and not come up with a positive result for some time. So this adds the additional level of security that you have tested negative, but it doesn't guarantee that you are absolutely not going to become infectious within the next few days, all the way up to 14 days. So it's extremely important to follow that with the 14 day quarantine at this point.

CO: Okay so it's my understanding now that it's the airline agent that will determine whether the person has a reason for not having the COVID-19 test, if they determine that the person can't get on, can't board, they and their family, maybe even children with them, are those passengers not stranded?

MG: Yes, they are stranded and they're going to have to comply with the requirement in order for them to be allowed to board. I was informed about a number of people who were refused boarding on a flight coming back from Mexico today because they had gotten tested, but not the right kinds of tests. We are very serious about making sure that people comply with this requirement because we want to protect Canadians at a time when COVID is on the rise in this country and people are very concerned, particularly about variants which are more easily transmitted.

CO: Okay so you're concerned about the public perception. I wonder if some of the urgency of this policy is because the public is angry about the numbers of government officials and politicians who were travelling over the holidays. And so is this also an effort to appear to be doing something, given that people are scandalised by what those people, the government people could do when they were staying in place?

MG: I think if you look at what we've done in the last 10 months, you will probably realise that we have reacted to the need to ensure the safety of Canadians from a health perspective. And the decision that we took was purely motivated by the fact that there are now variants which are more easily transmitted and that are now in at least three dozen countries, and that we're very concerned about making sure that we minimise the risk of infecting Canadians. That is what is caused this, that's the primary reason for us to bring in this additional layer of safety over and above quarantine. And it's the right thing to do. And we will keep it in place as long as it is required.

CO: The Globe and Mail just published a story that a senior public servant at Public Health Agency of Canada accepted an all-expenses paid holiday to Jamaica, courtesy of Air Canada, in November. And this is a person who is, well, who's the acting manager of the Office of Border and Travel Health. Do you think that people might be justified in losing confidence in the government if this is happening, if people who are supposed to be in charge of the border and that security are taking vacations at the behest of Air Canada?

MG: What I would say to that is that it's important that all Canadians do their best to try to make sure that we're all working together to minimise the possibility of further transmission of COVID. And, you know, people like the one that you just mentioned and people who are public office holders are expected to lead by example -- that's very important. And so I would urge all people, and particularly public office holders, to set an example with respect to how we're going to deal with this pandemic. We all have a role to play.

CO: Minister Garneau we'll leave it there. Thank you.

MG: My pleasure Carol.

CH: Marc Garneau is Canada's Minister of Transport. We reached him in Montreal. And there's more on that story on our webpage: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Students Isolation

CH: At least 1200 out-of-province students are heading back to universities in New Brunswick this week for the winter semester. And they're eager to make it through the first of many non-academic tests, the mandatory 14-day isolation period. But Maggie Ivimey is more than up for the challenge. The Mount Allison student hails from Nova Scotia. Yesterday, she told CBC News that she is starting her fourth isolation of the pandemic.

MAGGIE IVIMEY: Every morning, even if I'm not leaving my house, I get up and get dressed. I don't stay in my pyjamas the whole day. I try and keep a routine where I eat breakfast around the same time, make sure I'm not just letting all of the days and all the hours blur together, kind of in preparation for the isolation. And just as something I've been wanting to do for a while, I recently got a kitten, so I'm hoping to keep distracted with that as well. And me and my roommate have actually come up with a list of activities we plan on doing: board games, cribbage, different kind of projects we can do around our apartment. And we're hoping to kind of not do them all in the first three days and really spread it out. I'm hopeful that the border will open again soon. I know that especially with small schools in the Maritimes, a lot of us are local and it feels weird to be filling out forms and isolating for a two hour drive when I know that I could go to other places in New Brunswick and not have to isolate. So I'm hopeful to be able to come back home midway through the semester and visit my family. So kind of fingers crossed that if all the students coming back isolate properly, we can keep the cases down so the borders will open again. And we all have the chance to come home and visit before the end of the semester in May.

CH: Mount Allison student Maggie Ivimey speaking with the CBC's Tori Weldon. Ms. Ivimey began her two week isolation yesterday in her apartment in Sackville, New Brunswick. And that last part makes her the envy of some students returning to school in neighbouring Nova Scotia. Noah Kivler is a student at Dalhousie University who comes from the state of Maine. He told CBC News that his school's rules for international students are unfair because those students must spend their two week quarantine at a hotel and pay for it themselves.

NOAH KIVLER: It doesn't really make any sense because domestic students who travel to areas that are, you know, just as risky is as a town in Maine with 2000 people are able to quarantine and make their own private arrangements. It really doesn't make any sense to me why I wouldn't be able to live as long as I'm quarantining, staying in my room, making sure I'm not exposing myself to anyone. So it's really, like, bewildering why they made the decision to go with this. The way I believe it was done last semester was you just verified your quarantine plans both at Customs and with the province, and if there was something wrong with that, they would tell you right away. But yeah, like, they just did it on a case by case basis -- like, this is how I plan on quarantining. And that would make perfect sense. Like, why shouldn't we be able to just create a quarantine plan? And if it's within what the province asks for, I don't see what the big deal with that would be and how that would be more dangerous than putting us all into a hotel. And really the fact that they just sprung this on us with, you know, about a month and a half's notice during a pandemic is just awful timing. And a lot of people live paycheque to paycheque in this world. And just giving people, you know, a month and a half's notice for an 800 dollar or potentially 1600 dollar expenses is not reasonable.

CH: Dalhousie student Noah Kivler speaking with the CBC's Preston Mulligan. A spokesperson for the university, told the CBC there are roughly 300 returning international students and that the hotel requirement was the best way to make sure everyone abides by the public health guidelines.

[Music]

Sweden COVID art

Guest: Geert van der Vossen

CH: Geert van der Vossen's garden is not conventional. It's beautiful, certainly, but it's also gut wrenching and the rows upon rows of flowers it boasts aren't made of anything green. Instead, each one is carefully wrought from scrap metal, and each one represents a single Swedish victim of COVID-19. The result is an impressive art installation that Mr. van der Vossen hopes will help make at least one country's high death toll more tangible. We reached the artist in Broddetorp, Sweden.

CO: Geert when did you first come up with this idea, this tribute to victims of COVID?

GEERT VAN DER VOSSEN: That was when I was driving to put up a show and I already had the feeling that Corona was on its way because I have relatives in Holland and there it was more of a problem than in Sweden at that point. And when I was driving, I heard on the news that billions needed to be pumped into the economy and Sweden would need millions of face masks, and there was also the death number that was on the news every day. And then all of a sudden I thought it means nothing all those numbers in the meanwhile, I wanted to do something with that anxiety or a feeling that something was on its way.

CO: Did you know anybody who succumbed to it?

GEERT VAN DER VOSSEN: Yes, that was part of the reason as well, that my brother's father in law in Holland got corona and died. And I heard how difficult it is that you have a relative which, well, you're almost not allowed to visit, it was almost impossible to go to into a hospital. And then it became clear to me it is a very serious thing not to be able to be around your relatives or around your father or when one is seriously ill.

CO: My condolences to your brother's family. And so you decided to make these flowers. You are an artist, and so you decided to create these tributes. What do they look like?

GEERT VAN DER VOSSEN: They are very basic flowers. I'm always trying to work with metal that is discarded waste from an industrial point of view, so something that is left over from industry. And in this case, I already had a product, small round metal circles, that get thrown away. And I put them together to make a very simple flower and then a stand. And because I already had that material, I thought, well, that should be doable to keep pace. And also it would be good to not know if it was possible to keep pace. That was part of the project for me to, same as in the health care system, nobody knew if we could deal with the pandemic.

CO: And so each of the flowers represents a victim to COVID in Sweden. What did you do with them?

GEERT VAN DER VOSSEN: I put them in a field -- in a 40 by 40 metre pattern two metres apart. And actually I knew I was going to go over that distance. And in the beginning, I thought to make the field bigger and bigger and bigger. The idea of putting them in a pattern in a field is actually coming from the cemetery, the war cemeteries I saw in France and Germany and Belgium. And I thought it was a very powerful symbol to honour those who died, but also to give a support to those who work in health care and fought for all those patients, but were unable to do enough or didn't get the time. I also talked with people in health care and heard that they had a tough time as well.

CO: How many of these flowers have you now planted in the field?

GEERT VAN DER VOSSEN: Well, I started with the 40 times 40 metre pattern, and when it was full with two metre distance, I put them at one metre. Then I put them at half a metre. And then also started to say that if I would continue and go over that pattern, I would put them at 25 centimetres and that would be like 25,000 flowers. And that was becoming too much for me. So that was when I decided to end the project when the pattern at half a metre was full. I had 6,561 flowers.

CO: But there are more like 9000 people in Sweden who have died of COVID, is that right?

GEERT VAN DER VOSSEN: That's correct. Today, they say it's 9,262.

CO: And now we're going to put pictures up on our website so people can see this. But you mentioned how when you see, you know -- the numbers, you can't understand the numbers. Do you think people get a sense, a better sense of the loss in Sweden when they see your installation?

GEERT VAN DER VOSSEN: I'm not sure if they will better understand the loss, but they will at least understand the meaning of the number. And that was one of my main objectives, that the number of 6000 everybody thinks they know what 6000 is, but if you see 6000 flowers and you know they represent one person, then all of a sudden everybody understands -- unwanted and unexpectedly, a lot of people visit me. I have cars coming every day to just stop and look. And all of them are impressed. But also they say, "It is that many?!" So it seems like we don't understand what a number means.

CO: And when people who stop -- are any of them people who have lost someone who one of your flowers represents?

GEERT VAN DER VOSSEN: Sometimes, yes, that happens.

CO: And what do they say to you?

GEERT VAN DER VOSSEN: Sometimes they will just say, oh, I lost this or that person so many months ago, thank you. Sometimes they're very quiet and sometimes they have a whole story to tell. It's one of the things I had no real expectations on. I never did this kind of artwork in my life. My day to day artwork they no connection to something that happens in other people's lives. It is just nice shapes and forms that can be used in different ways. So for me, it's a totally new experience, but it's until now been a very positive and interesting experience. I'm very interested to see what happens when I will move the artwork to Gothenburg in the summer.

CO: And so that's the plan for it because they're out in the weather and so it's interesting because they are made of metal there, in the pictures I have seen they've begun to take on some rust and some patina and the feeling of that they're ageing. So what do you think it would be like for them to move to Gothenburg?

GEERT VAN DER VOSSEN: Well, somehow it would feel correct if it would sort of die away or rust away after a while, but I think it should have a more central place or a place that people can visit it. So I was very happy to get the chance to move it to Gothenburg.

CO: Geert I appreciate you telling us the story. Thank you.

GEERT VAN DER VOSSEN: You're welcome.

CH: Geert van der Vossen is a Dutch artist living in Broddetorp, Sweden. That's where we reached him, to see photos of his installation, visit us on Twitter: @CBCAsItHappens.

[Music]

The Beatles AI

CH: Semolina pilchard climbing up the Eiffel Tower, Elementary Penguin singing Hare Krishna man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe. That's a verse from this song, I Am The Walrus. When John Lennon played an early version of it for Beatles producer George Martin, Mr. Martin said, "Well John, to be honest, I have only one question: what the hell do you expect me to do with that?" It's a fair question, and the final version is still kind of confusing. The lyrics are hilarious gibberish and the music sometimes sounds like an imitation of music. If you've never heard it before, you might believe me if I told you it was generated by artificial intelligence. Of course it was not. But this was. [Music Plays] That is one of 13 tracks in the style of The Beatles created by a YouTube user who goes by the name Broccaloo using an artificial intelligence model called Open A.I. Jukebox. I'd like to take a minute to explain to you how it works, but I can't because it involves phrases like vector quantised variation auto encoder, which means even less to me than yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye. Instead, let's just hear another clip. [Music Plays] I mean, it does kind of sound like The Beatles, but it's also encouraging evidence that computers are not capable of creating meaningful pop music on their own just yet because all the processing power in the world won't get you a lyric as succinct and poetic as "goo goo g'joob."

January 7, 2021 Episode Transcript

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