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The AIH Transcript for May 19, 2018

Hosts: Helen Mann and Jeff Douglas

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

HELEN MANN: Hello, I'm Helen Mann sitting in for Carol.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening. I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight…

HM: On the leveling. A mother discovers that when her family left their home in Hawaii last week it was for the last time — because it's been swallowed by a fissure created by the eruption of the Kīlauea volcano.

JD: A wish to come together as his life comes apart. A Palestinian asylum-seeker with Stage Four cancer just wants his family to be allowed to visit from Lebanon. But so far his request is going nowhere.

HM: A defender on the defensive. Former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s public persona was that of a progressive champion for women. But after allegations of abuse he's persona non grata.

JD: A James-nastics routine. Even Blue Jays fans were doing cartwheels when the opposing pitcher dominated their team because last night B.C.’s James Paxton became just the second Canadian ever to throw a no-hitter.

HM: The devil was in the detailing. It took a lot of work but 250 years after they invaded, there are no more gross bald tails or the rats they were attached to on the remote island of South Georgia.

JD: And…Casting doubt. Turns out a bunch of people who showed up to support Ontario PC leader Doug Ford the other night weren’t acting on impulse — they were just acting. As It Happens: The Wednesday Edition. Radio that guesses you don’t win an election unless you make a play of it.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Hawaii volcano house loss, New York Attorney General allegations, Ford campaign actor

Hawaii volcano house loss

Guest: Amber Makuakane

JD: It may move slowly, but the molten lava on Hawaii's big island has made relatively quick work out of more than 100 acres of land. Since Kilauea volcano erupted last week, lava flows have swallowed up cars, roads, trees and homes. There are videos that show apocalyptic scenes — hot bubbling lava shooting out of the ground and incinerating anything in its path. Thankfully, so far there have been no deaths or injuries, but 36 buildings have been destroyed including Amber Makuakane’s home. She is a local teacher and a single mother of two. We reached her Pawa'a.

HM: Ms. Makuakane, it’s awful to know that you have lost your home. How are you even processing this?

AMBER MAKUAKANE: You know, it's definitely nothing I've ever experienced before. This is extremely new. It's a learning experience but I tried to find the positive in every situation in order to be strong for my children and be the mother that they need. I realized that I need to accept what has happened and instead of dwelling on the tragedy and what has been lost, I need to focus on accepting the fact and rebuilding our lives from here on out.

HM: Did it ever occur to you that you might lose your house to lava?

AM: No, not at all. You know, we bought the home knowing that we lived in a high risk area. What they call a lava zone one. I've lived in Leilani Estates my entire life except for when I went to college. I grew up with the volcano in my back yard my entire life. So it's nothing new for me. It's just that, I guess, I never really thought that it would come to our neighbourhood or the subdivision that I had bought in.

HM: How did you learn that your house had been destroyed?

AM: On Saturday morning at 5:21, I got a call from Alert Alarm Hawaii saying that the motion sensors had detected some motion in the living room, the master bedroom and then followed by the front door and the back door. And my first reaction was I thought perhaps well somebody was breaking in. Somebody needed food or they just wanted to take something that was left behind and I was trying to stay positive and think that way.

HM: So being positive was hoping for looters?

AM: Yeah because that would be the best case scenario than losing my home, you know. So I have a friend who works for the police department, so I had called him and he had told me that he had gotten the call a little bit earlier and he said he really wanted to call me but he didn't want me to start freaking out. So I started doing my own investigation and calling friends and family and on social media I was trying to look for videos. And later on a friend had texted me a video of aerial view of a helicopter flying over and that was my final confirmation that the house was completely gone. Because I live on a corner lot so I could clearly see where the highway was compared to my street and that corner lot, the property was covered with lava by that point.

HM: What did you see in that video? I mean, you say it was covered with lava, but what does that look like?

AM: There was a fissure that went right through my property. Right where my house was there was a big lava lake. There was just lava shooting up. Now it's just a big pile of lava rocks, a big field of black rock.

HM: Can you tell me what it was like for you in that moment when you saw on the video where your house had been?

AM: In that moment I had already known that it was gone so it was just a final confirmation. On that Thursday night when I was packing up and I was leaving and I locked that back door, I had to find it within see me to be at peace when I left knowing that I may never return again.

HM: You know, a lot of us play these games in our imagination. If we had to leave our house in a hurry what would we take with us? Did you get much out that matters to you?

AM: I tried to the most important things to me. However, now that I have the time to think or, you know, I don't have much at all, I do things like ‘Oh, shucks, I should have grabbed that, I should have grabbed this.’ Like all of my photo albums from childhood to high school to college, you know, all of that was left behind. All of my teaching things, my children's toys, many things I wish I could have taken had to be left behind. So, you know, there's nothing that I can do about it right now. And I just need to focus on providing the best life for my children. And that's exactly what I'm trying to do right now, is trying to find consistency and a place for us to live.

HM: Where are you and the kids staying? Are you getting lots of support?

AM: Right now we are staying with a friend. The outpouring of love and support is just amazing, just to know that the aloha spirit is alive and well here in Hawaii, as well as, you know, internationally in our country, just across the world. The outpouring of support is tremendous and I'm just super grateful and I am blessed beyond measure.

HM: Tell me what your kids are saying? Do they understand that this is a permanent situation, that the house is gone?

AM: I don't think they truly understand right now. My son, this morning when I was driving him to school, he said “Oh, mommy can we go home already? I miss our house.” Even though I've already told him that our house was in the lava and it caught fire. He still truly doesn't understand and he asks me every day “Mommy can we go home already.” So it's difficult.

HM: So do you have any idea, are they giving you any indication of whether they know if the volcano will calm down?

AM: Really, right now there's no indication of it slowing down. 36 houses have already been burned. As of right now the other difficult part is that the flow is underground. So the uncertainty is there, they don't know where it's going to go or where it's going to pop up next. So that is the part that is worrisome. It could go on for another month, it could go on for years. Only time will tell. We know that the volume of lava under there is tremendous. So we're just hoping that it will go in another direction where there are no more communities but only time will tell.

HM: Gosh, it's a lot of people affected and I hope it settles down and you have a sense of what's going to happen as you find a place to go. Thank you very much for telling us about it. I'm sorry about the house.

AM: Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

HM: You take care.

AM: You too. Bye-bye.

HM: Bye-bye.

JD: Amber Makuakane lives on Hawaii's Big Island. She lost her home to the Kilauea volcano eruption. We have more on this story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih

For The Record: Gina Haspel Confirmation

JD: My moral compass is strong. That was a statement Gina Haspel made under oath today at her confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. Ms. Haspel is Donald Trump's pick to lead the CIA. She has been an undercover officer at the agency for most of her 33-year career. But questions about her involvement in torture loom large over her confirmation. Ms. Haspel acted as station chief at a CIA black site in Thailand in 2002 where suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists were interrogated using brutal techniques like waterboarding. Ms. Haspel swore today that under her leadership the quote “CIA will not restart such a detention and interrogation program.” But that didn't stop some senators from grilling her about it. Here is Democratic Senator Kamala Harris questioning Gina Haspel today. This is for the record.

SOUNDCLIP

KAMAL HARRIS: One question I've not heard you answer is do you believe that the previous interrogation techniques were immoral?

GINA HASPEL: Senator, I believe that CIA officers, to whom you referred.

KH: It's a yes or no answer. Do you believe the previous interrogation techniques were immoral? I'm not asking do you believe they were legal, I'm asking do you believe they were immoral?

GH: Senator, I believe that CIA did extraordinary work to prevent another attack on this country given the legal tools that we were authorized to use.

KH: Please answer yes or no. Do you believe in hindsight that those techniques were immoral?

GH: Senator, what I believe, sitting here today, is that I support the higher moral standard we have decided to hold ourselves to.

KH: Please answer the question.

GH: I think I've answered the question.

KH: No you have not. Do you believe the previous techniques, now armed with hindsight, do you believe they were immoral? Yes or no?

GH: Senator, I believe that we should hold ourselves to the moral standard outlined in the Army Field Manual.

KH: The president has asserted that torture works. Do you agree with that statement?

GH: Senator, I don't believe that torture works. I believe that in the CIA's program, and I'm not attributing this to enhanced interrogation techniques, I believe as many people, directors who have sat in this chair before me, that valuable information was obtained from senior Al-Qaeda operatives that allowed us to defend this country and prevent another attack.

KH: Is that a yes?

GH: No, it's not a yes. We got valuable information from debriefing of Al-Qaeda detainees. And I don't think it's knowable whether interrogation techniques played a role in that.

JD: That was Gina Haspel being questioned by Senator Kamala Harris for the record. Ms. Haspel is president Donald Trump's nominee to lead the CIA.

New York Attorney General allegations

Guest: Sonia Osorio

JD: He was heralded as a progressive champion, a powerful man willing to stand up for women. As attorney general of New York, Eric Schneiderman introduced legislation to protect women who are victims of domestic abuse. And he went after Harvey Weinstein for sexual harassment and coercion. But this week, Mr. Schneiderman abruptly resigned after four women told The New Yorker that he had assaulted them. The allegations are disturbing. They include choking, slapping and spitting on women he dated. Mr. Schneiderman denies the abuse saying quote “In the privacy of intimate relationships I have engaged in role playing and other consensual sexual activity. I have not assaulted anyone,” unquote. The National Organization for Women New York had endorsed Mr. Schneiderman for attorney general and worked with him on legislation in the past. Sonia Osorio is the president of that organization. We reached her in New York.

HM: Ms. Osorio, what did you think when you first heard the allegations against Eric Schneiderman?

SONIA OSORIO: It was hard to believe when I first laid my eyes on the story, which, you know, in a flurry. I started receiving texts as the story was published. And then unfortunately, started reading the story and was shocked, absolutely shocked, like so many of my colleagues were who had worked with him, to see the other side of Mr. Shneiderman that we certainly had never seen.

HM: What struck you most about the allegations in the article in The New Yorker?

SO: They went so far beyond a lot of what we have been hearing about men needing to be held accountable. This was physical and psychological and emotional abuse. It was violent. I mean, choking is a very, very serious — it's actually a very serious crime in New York. And it's a piece of legislation that our office worked with his office to make happen.

HM: Well, in fact in 2010, when Eric Schneiderman was in the state legislature he introduced the bill that would make intentional strangulation a violent felony. You supported the legislation, you were quoted in his press release as saying the following “Fewer forms of abuse are more terrifying or dangerous than being strangled. This bill will end the free pass that abusers have been getting for this vicious, terrorizing act of brutality. We want to thank Senator Schneiderman for his outstanding leadership on the issue.” And, of course, choking being one of the things he's accused of doing, what goes through your mind?

SO: Well, you know, the hypocrisy, just the realization that you never really know anybody what they're capable of in their private life if you're not there. And how the truth is there is no profile of what a domestic batterer looks like. You know, they cross every kind barrier you can think of, from educational to socio-economic. So, I think that maybe somebody who is polished and highly-educated and has a high profile career probably takes more care and is better at masking those indications of who they are in their private life than maybe other people.

HM: Did you feel personally betrayed by what happened?

SO: I felt betrayed for the entire community, for everybody in New York actually, because that’s a really, really important position. It's the top law enforcement position in the state and it's a real step backwards to find out that the person who was leading it is someone who himself was a batterer. So it's it's a step backwards. It's really disheartening. And I know has rattled many, many people, particularly women who work in the human rights and women's rights community who had seen him as a champion for women. We have one less champion now and we need more, we need more male allies and that might be one of the reasons why people do feel betrayed. It's like there aren't enough of them and then the few that we have this is how it turns out.

HM: I do want to point out that Mr. Schneiderman denies these allegations. He insists that some of the behaviour was actually consensual. Sometimes when you're talking about public figures there are rumors that circulate. Had you heard anything, I mean, you say you were shocked, had there been anything that you know of in the circles in which you travel about Mr. Schneiderman's possible behaviour?

SO: No, no, not at all. You know, I do think that the next phase of the MeToo movement is really going to zero in on those of us who are complicit in allowing this type of behaviour to perpetuate because there is always somebody who knows. You know, this idea of the consensual-ness or the role playing, I mean, reading the story it's clear that the hitting and the slapping took place during an argument when people were fully clothed. One of the women wasn't even in a romantic relationship with him. So that doesn't really hold water.

HM: Why do you think that that they didn't come forward earlier? What do you think stopped them?

SO: You know, this is a question that is always on the table because, in general, women feel that they won't be believed, in general, coming forward upends in your life in many ways. And in this case when you're talking about the top law enforcement officer in the state, they were scared of the power that he had.

HM: One of the accusers told The New Yorker that friends advised her to keep quiet about what happened because he was quote “too powerful a Democrat to lose.” Do you think that Mr. Schneiderman was protected and allowed to continue this alleged behaviour because he was such a public champion of progressive causes?

SO: No, I can't imagine anyone who would have known who would make that calculation.

HM: But someone did say this to her, someone who travels in the same circles.

HM: Well, that person was misguided and certainly not a thread of thought that I think most people would agree with. No amount of public good work makes up for battering women.

HM: Ms. Osorio, I appreciate your talking with us today. Thank you.

SO: Thank you.

JD: Sonia Osorio is the president of the National Organization for Women New York. We reached her in New York City.

[Music: Reversed Ambient Tones]

Ford campaign actor

Guest: Chris Riddell

JD: Four more weeks! Hey hey, ho ho, Kathleen Wynne has got to go! Those are just a couple of the pro-Doug Ford chants that you would have heard on Monday night outside the first Ontario party leaders debate in the run up to the provincial election. Mr. Ford is, of course, the leader of the Progressive Conservatives in Ontario. But those catchy slogans were not necessarily spontaneous. It has been revealed that some of those Ford Nation supporters were actually actors. Some of them are speaking out. Chris Riddell is a background performer and a freelance writer. He's among those paid fans. We reached Mr. Riddell in Toronto.

HM: Mr. Ridell, how did you find out about this job in the first place?

CHRIS RIDDELL: Well, I've been doing background work for a little while now, background acting work, and I was looking for some new agencies that I could register with to potentially get more gigs. And CastMeBg was recommended to me by an actor friend. And I registered with them just last week then the casting call for this rally just came out on Monday, just a couple of hours before the rally actually happened.

HM: So how do you get that call? How do you find out about it?

CR: Well, the way it works is you register with the background talent agencies, there are tons of them in town, and as they get these casting calls they could come up at any time you never know. When they get them they'll send out a mass email to all of their background actors and they'll just send it out to everyone and then see who's available to work.

HM: So what did this one say?

CR: It just said that they're looking for about 20 people to play real people at a Ford Nation rally downtown and that you have to wear Ford Nation t-shirts.

HM: Did you have to bring your own t-shirt?

CR: No, they supplied us with t-shirts.

HM: OK, and any more instructions than that?

CR: No, that was pretty much it just that you'd have to work from around 2:30 to 8:00, I think was what they said, and that it would only be 75 bucks, which really isn't a lot of money. But I had the afternoon free anyway and it was a really nice day out.

HM: Did they give you a script?

CR: No there is no scripts. When you're a background actor you don't have any lines. You're just in the background to like fill the space and have a little activity, you don't actually get in the lines to do. They might give you some direction like go here, do this, do that, but you don't actually have a script.

HM: So you said it was 75 bucks, you were free for the afternoon. Did you weigh whether you should take the job or just think well I should do this?

CR: Yeah, you know, I did have misgivings about it because I'm not a Ford supporter at all and I just thought it was really ironic and kind of funny that I could even do such a thing. It was dishonest, you know, looking back I feel great about being there. Even when I was there I just felt like a giant imposter in this bad thing. You know, if I had a chance again I really don't think I would do it again. They did seem shady to me when.

HM: When you got there what was the atmosphere like?

CR: Well, you know like any political rally people are all gathered together in their groups and there’s a lot of chanting and shouting. There wasn't any hostility or any violence at all, it was all very civil, just the two different sides shouting back and forth. It was mainly the Liberal and the Conservative sides that were the most active at the rally. The NDP were there but their group wasn't big and they weren't making as much noise although, they did have that Samba group come in, which is pretty cool.

HM: So there were real Ford supporters there as well as you guys?

CR: Oh yeah, there were quite a few real Ford supporters there. You know, young people, older people — people of all backgrounds. You know, I was a little surprised because it seems like they already have a lot of Ford supporters here. Do they really need to hire anyone? There's already enough people here already. I'm not sure we really made that much of a difference, you know.

HM: Did you tell any of the real Ford supporters that you were just there acting?

CR: No, I didn't bring it up. I wasn't sure if anyone knew. And I just didn’t want to cause any trouble at the time. There actually were some other media people there. Rebel Media offered to interview me but I declined.

HM: There was some chanting, did you take part in that chant?

CR: You know, I did take part in the chanting, I admit. To be honest with you, I was kind of bored at this thing, just holding this big sign. And, you know, you kind of get caught up in the spirit of things when you're part of this big group, it's kind of like a mob mentality thing, I guess. So you know I tried to get involved in some of the chanting but I felt like my heart wasn't really in it, sort of like putting it on.

HM: Now Ontario Conservative Party officials have confirmed what you're telling us that the casting agency you mentioned was contacted by the campaign, but not by the central campaign. They say it was one of their candidates Meredith Cartwright. And they said that's a mistake. That it shouldn't have been done to hire actors to boost the ranks. What do you think of that response?

CR: It does seem a little odd that Cartwright kind of went rogue and did this herself. It just makes me wonder couldn't they find enough of their own supporters to go there? I mean there are a lot of Ford supporters out there. Yeah it was a misstep on their part for sure. As far as I know, I didn't think background casting agencies ever did this kind of stuff.

HM: If anyone is out there questioning your commitment to the Democratic process, since you said you had concerns or misgivings, I'm just wondering if you got a call from a party you did support to be a fake supporter would you do it?

CR: Well, if I did support that party then I wouldn't be a fake supporter, I’d be a real supporter.

HM: But would you take money?

CR: Would I take money to do it? I have to say I wouldn't, you know, it would be dishonest. This whole experience has kind of opened my eyes a little bit. This whole thing of paying people to be there at your rally is dishonest, it's deceptive and it is an affront to our democracy, isn’t it?

HM: Well, the Conservative Party says they won't be doing this again, it won't happen again. Does that satisfy you?

CR: I'm definitely glad to hear that. Does it satisfy me though? Well, I'll be satisfied if we see that it doesn't happen again for the duration of this campaign.

HM: Well, Mr. Ridell, it's interesting to hear your story. Thanks very much for joining us.

CR:Thank you very much for having me on.

JD: Chris Ridell is a background performer and freelance writer. We reached him in Toronto.

[Music: Arpeggiated Tones]

Part 2: Cancer asylum seeker, Cancer asylum seeker

Cancer asylum seeker

Guest: Taha El Taha

JD: Taha El Taha had hoped that Canada would be his refuge. The Palestinian asylum seeker was one of thousands of people who walked across the border from the U.S. into Quebec last year. But now Mr. El Taha faces something much more frightening than a refugee hearing. He has been diagnosed with a rare Stage Four colon cancer that has spread to his chest. His hope now is that his family will be allowed to visit from Lebanon. Their visa application has thus far been denied. We reached Taha El Taha in Montreal.

HM: Mr. El Taha, I know you've just had another medical appointment, can you tell us what you've learned about your condition?

TAHA EL TAHA: Yeah. I have Stage Four cancer in my chest. I took six sessions of chemotherapy and then doctors decided to do the operation to remove all the tumors.

HM: And how are you feeling at this point?

TET: So far so good. But I have a little pain when I take a deep breath because my long collapsed with the tumor.

HM: And what prompted you to leave Lebanon?

TET: Actually my life is in danger there. I have a problem with some gangs there. They want to kill me now so I left Lebanon.

HM: And what gang are we talking about?

TET: I don't know how to say it in English, but if you know Hezbollah.

HM: So this is a group associated with Hezbollah?

TET: Yes.

HM: when you left Lebanon you traveled to the United States first. Why did you end up coming to the Canadian border, what made you think of walking across the border?

TET: I tried to apply as a refugee there and asked a lawyer he said next June all the refugees here in the U.S. will be back home. They will send them back to their countries. So I came here to Canada.

HM: Where did you get that idea to come to Canada?

TET: Actually from people and from the media, they are talking about the Haitians and all the people doing that.

HM: So how did you get to the border?

TET: I reached Plattsburgh by bus, then I reached the border by taxi, and then I walk across the border.

HM: Now when you came across the border how were you feeling then?

TET: I felt safe.

HM: You felt safe? And physically how were you doing at that point, did you feel well?

TET: I had that shortness in breathing. But I thought that was because I am tired I didn't sleep well.

HM: When did you realize that you were actually seriously ill?

TET: After I entered here and did all my paperwork with immigration here, they asked me to go to the immigration clinic. Then after two days I felt pain in my chest. I went through the emergency McGill hospital and they did the X-ray and C.T. scan for me. They discovered fluid in my chest. They thought it was tuberculosis. They put me on alone in the room.

HM: They put you in quarantine?

TET: Yes. And then take a biopsy from my chest. Then they discover it's a cancer.

HM: It must have been a terrible shock after all you've been through.

TET: Yes.

HM: What have doctors told you about what might happen now?

TET: They said this is a rare kind of cancer. One in five million people get this.

HM: Only one in five million people get this disease, this form of it?

TET: Yes.

HM: You’ve applied for your family to come temporarily from Lebanon to be with you as you go through this treatment. What would that mean for you if they were able to come here?

TET: I would mean a lot for me because here I'm alone. There is no family, no friends for me here so they can support me give me emotional support and family support to overcome my disease.

HM: What do you say to your wife when you speak with her on the phone?

TET: Yeah, we pray every night that we see each other and be a family together again and overcome all these difficult days.

HM: What do you say to your children?

TET: I hope I can see them again. I miss them very much. My daughter and my son want to see me as soon as possible. That's what they said.

HM: How old are they?

TET: Three and seven years old.

HM: And when did you last see them?

TET: October 2017.

HM: Why has the government said it's refused the visa request for your wife and children?

TET: What they said to my wife is “You're not qualified to get a visa.”

HM: Did they not say they were concerned that she might not agree to return to Lebanon?

TET: They didn't mention that clearly. But she asked somebody and he said that is maybe this is the reason. Sorry, I have shortness of breath.

HM: You don't need to apologize, I understand. Will they go back, after the visit, will they go back to Lebanon?

TET: Yes, they will be next to me as much — they will be next to me.

[SOBBING]

HM: I'm sorry. Are there any other things that you can do to try and get them here to Canada, has your lawyer offered any suggestions?

TET: We asked the office of Minister of Immigration that if they can help us take this situation as a humanitarian case.

HM: When will you have your surgery? When is that scheduled?

TET: This morning I did the pre-op. And they said to me when the blood test result I finished they will send it to my doctor and he will see the result and he will decide.

HM: You say you have no friends or family here. I'm just wondering how you're getting by. Is there anyone supporting you, helping you out at all?

TET: There is a friend that I met here in Canada. He calls me every two to three days, he brings some some groceries and asked me if I want anything.

HM: But that's your only contact, I guess, that and your doctors and medical staff?

TET: Yes.

HM: Mr. El Taha, it's a very difficult situation. I'm very sorry to hear what you're going through, and I really appreciate you talking to us about it.

TET: Thank you.

HM: I wish you the very best.

TET: Thank you, thank you.

HM: Bye-bye.

JD: Taha El Taha is a refugee applicant. We reached him in Montreal. We have more on his story on our website. And we have contacted the office of Ahmed Hussen the minister of immigration and refugees about Mr. El Taha and his family's application for a ministerial permit. We are still waiting to hear back.

[Music: Ambient Tones]

Christine Moore Allegations

JD: This afternoon Jagmeet Singh told reporters that he is almost ready to name the investigator who will look into the behaviour of Christine Moore. The NDP Member of Parliament her caucus duties suspended after the CBC published allegations made by an Afghan vet — retired Corporal Glen Kirkland. He alleges that Ms. Moore subjected him to inappropriate sexual behaviour after he was called to testify before one of her parliamentary committees in 2013. Rumours of the relationship are reported to have been making the rounds in Ottawa for years, so reporters wanted to know why Mr. Singh only acted after the CBC article went up.

SOUNDCLIP

JAGMEET SINGH: I only learned about this when it was made available through the CBC. I did not know about this before.

REPORTER: There will be people out there that say that others clearly knew about this alleged incident and there is a perception that you only acted after the media report came out. What do you tell Canadians who will say that it should have been your job as leader to have acted sooner, especially when people knew about this alleged incident?

JS: So there's two things here. Knowing about a relation is one thing, knowing about the specific allegations that were brought forward by the CBC, specifically outlining some impropriety, that was absolutely unknown to me and unknown to the team, the impropriety of it. Specific issues around the relation, I also didn't know anything about that. Whether people knew about that or not is separate from what's being brought forward, specifically an allegation of impropriety. That is something that's brand new. It's just been brought forward by the CBC.

REPORTER: Just the fact that she’s having sex with someone who is testifying in front of her own committee in itself, is that not improper?

JS: I can just speak to what I was made aware of. And what I was made aware of are the specific allegations around the impropriety around what we've all read in the CBC. Those issues have just been brought to light to me and that as soon as they’ve been brought to light I've taken action.

REPORTER: The impropriety in this case, what specifically in what you’ve read is improper?

JS: Well, the question is probably best put to Mr. Kirkland. Mr. Kirkland has raised concerns around what he perceives a power imbalance, and he raised some concerns around his state of health and the context of state of health and the state of the military's view of the position of an MP. Those are things that…

REPORTER: So everybody knew about that. We knew the health state of this person because he was public saying he had problems. We knew his status and we knew the power imbalance, so if somebody in your caucus knew about this by reading FRANC Magazine, why didn't they raise it to you or to the other leader then?

JS: I can't answer that question because I don't know what was known, who knew it and what they did or didn't do with it. I can just speak to what I knew, and very clearly, as soon as I became aware to me I took action.

JD: That was NDP federal leader Jagmeet Singh, taking questions from reporters in Ottawa earlier today. NDP MP Christine Moore has said that she has a quote “Totally different view of the allegations made by retired Corporal Kirkland.” She told The Globe and Mail quote “You will find out that there is some stuff that does not stick with his story.”

[Music: Ambient Tones]

Rat-free island

Guest: Dickie Hall

JD: for the first time in two-and-a-half-centuries rats no longer rule all the roosts on the remote island of South Georgia. Since humans arrived on the British island off the coast of Antarctica, rats have devastated many of its bird species. But after a decade of the world's largest project to eradicate invasive species, the island is rat free. Dickie Hall is the program director for that project, which is led by the Scottish Charity South Georgia Heritage Trust. We reached Mr. Hall in Cambridge.

HM: Mr. Hall, you've been hard at work at this for a number of years now. How does it feel to have South Georgia Island rat free?

DICKIE HALL: It feels absolutely fantastic. Somewhat unbelievable, it's still sinking in. Yeah, we always hoped the best way to prepare ourselves for the worst. But in the end we've done the survey and no rodents were found. So yeah, we can we can be very confident that there are no rodents left on South Georgia.

HM: Describe the island for us?

DH: It’s an incredibly mountainous place. It's only, I suppose, 100 miles or so long, which doesn't sound massive, but it's like the Alps has been chopped off midway up and just dropped into the ocean — it's just an island of mountains. And all around the edge of the island, at low level around sea level, are little patches and pockets of greenery and vegetation and that's where most of the animals and bird life live.

HM: What is the wildlife there?

DH: The most obvious wildlife to most people visiting are the fur seals and the elephant seals there are tens and tens of thousands if not millions of fur seals. The other great thing about South Georgia are the albatross.

HM: And there were rats at one point. How did they get there?

DH: So in the 18th century the sealers and the whalers began to arrive at South Georgia, partly thanks to Captain Cook, who had sent reports back to Britain to say that this was a real haven for seals, which at that time that wouldn't have been considered a wonderful environmental thing, that was considered a resource. So all of these sealing vessels began to head down to South Georgia to harvest the seals and take the skins. And in doing so, as it was back then, the ships had rats on board, they were infested with rats.

HM: And how big did the rat population become?

DH: Nobody is entirely sure, it's a very, very difficult one to be 100 per cent positive about because how do you measure a population of rodents on such a rugged island. You can only visit a few sections of it so you can make estimates. So let's say somewhere in the middle there were perhaps five million rats on the island.

HM: That's an enormous task to get rid of that many rats/

DH: It's an absolutely enormous task, yeah.

HM: And I guess we should be clear why it was necessary. What was the effect that these rats were having on the natural wildlife?

DH: The rats on the island were basically eating anything in sight. So I should explain that South Georgia is an island without trees. So any bird on the island nests on the ground or it nest under the ground and burrows. And in that situation that's right in the path of the rats and it just becomes a free for all for the rats to eat the chicks and to eat the eggs. The South Georgia pipit, the tiny passerine songbird that is endemic to South Georgia and also the South Georgia pintail, which is this beautiful little duck — they didn't stand a chance. Anywhere that they tried to nest the rats would just Hoover up their chicks and the eggs.

HM: So getting rid of these rats was a decade long effort. What kind of steps did you have to take?

DH: Well, previous eradications on other islands, so populated islands, generally you hand bait. But South Georgia is too big, far, far too big far too rugged to be albe to do that. So we adopted an approach that's been used widely by the New Zealanders, which is aerial baiting from helicopters, where we have helicopters flying across the island following GPS lines and they spread baits from the air and we covered every inch of the island that way.

HM: And you had to do it more than once, I gather?

DH: Well the island this far too big to have done in a single attempt. So we did it over the course of three seasons, over six years.

HM: And how did you finally determine that you'd gotten rid of them?

DH: So that was our task for this season. So back in back in October of 2017, myself and the team went down to South Georgia and we had a team of device-deployers. We put out rodent detection devices and we had dog-handlers with rodent-detection dogs and we scoured the whole of South Georgia. Amazingly, thankfully, we found no evidence of existing rodents.

HM: What about the poison itself? Any concerns about the impact it might have on other wildlife?

DH: We had worked closely with the manufacturer of the poison. And so it was designed and tailored to be attractive to rodents but not particularly attractive to birdlife. That said, some of the birds are general scavengers and general browsers and they will potentially take up some of the poison bait, and that was simply collateral damage that we had to accept. There was no way to go about eradicating the rodent from South Georgia without putting some of the birdlife individually at risk.

HM: Now this six months when you were checking for rats, you were on the island, as I understand, it through that time. What was it like being there and what was it like leaving knowing that the work was done?

DH: It's a fantastic place to work, but it's not without its challenges. It gets — every season can occur in just a single day. So even in the middle of the South Georgian summer it can snow and then it can rain and then the wind will begin to blow. You know, we had a very hardy team with those who were happy to go out and pretty much any conditions, but it was all made even more worthwhile at the end of the project when we could confirm for certain that the eradication work had been a success.

HM: Mr. Hall, thank you very much for telling us about the work. It was a long time coming but it sounds like a great success. We appreciate you telling us about it.

DH: Oh, you're very welcome.

HM: Bye-bye.

DH: Goodbye.

JD: Dickie Hall is the program director for the South Georgia Heritage Trust’s project to eradicate rats on South Georgia Island. We reached Mr. Hall in Cambridge.

[Music: Jazz]

Canadian No-hitter

JD: Well the Jays lost, but Canadian baseball fans still had something to cheer about last night because the pitcher for the opposing team, the Seattle Mariners, was James Paxton from Ladner, B.C. And Mr. Paxton became the first Canadian in the majors to throw a no hitter since 1945. Here is James Paxton himself, along with his dad Ted, speaking to Stephen Quinn host of CBC's Early Edition in Vancouver.

SOUNDCLIP

JAMES PAXTON: I looked up in the fifth or sixth inning and realized there are no hits, you know, previous to that I was just trying to figure out my delivery a little bit. I started on a couple of guys there and the third and fourth, felt a little out of rhythm. So I was just trying to find myself, I was kind of in my own head.

STEPHEN QUINN: Ted you had your family gathered around the TV last night. What was it like watching that game unfold as James has just described it?

TED PAXTON: Well it was so exciting. Similarly, you know, I didn't really clue in till about the fifth or sixth inning too that actually there had been no hits and that this was heading into a a possible no-no zone. And, you know, I was about to make this recognition to the rest of my family and they almost simultaneously held up their finger and said “Don't say anything, don't say anything. You're going to jinx it.” So nothing was said until about the ninth inning and then we were all on the edge of our coach, just absolutely glued. It was it was fantastic.

SQ: So you're all thinking it but nobody's saying it?

TP: Exactly, yeah.

SQ: James, what does it mean to you to set this record in your home country?

JP: I mean it's surreal. The fact that it happened in Canada is just icing on the cake. You know, too perfect, really special for it to happen here in front of Canadian fans.

JD: From CBC Vancouver's Early Edition, that was Seattle Mariners pitcher James Paxton, his dad Ted Paxton, and they were in conversation with Stephen Quinn, the host. Last night James Paxton became the first Canadian in Major League Baseball to throw a no-hitter since 1945.

[Music: Trance Bass]

Part 3: Google e-mail, Refugee lifeguard

Google e-mail

Guest: Nicole Nguyen

JD: Listen to this phone conversation and see if you hear anything odd about it.

SOUNDCLIP

PHONE RINGING

VOICE 1: Hello, how can I help you?

VOICE 2: Hi. I'm calling to book a women's haircut for a client. I'm looking for something on May 3rd.

VOICE 1: Sure, give me one second. What time are you looking for around?

VOICE 2: At 12:00 p.m.

VOICE 1: We do not have a 12:00 p.m. available, the closest we have to that is a 1:15.

VOICE 2: Do you have anything between 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m.?

VOICE 1: Depending on what service she would like. What service is she looking for?

VOICE 2: Just a woman's haircut for now.

VOICE 1: OK, we have a 10:00.

VOICE 2: 10:00 a.m. is fine.

JD: OK, so if you couldn't tell, one of those voices is not a human being. The woman you heard booking a hair appointment was, in fact, a new artificial intelligence program. And the receptionists on the other side of that line had no idea. Now this human-sounding voice assistant is called ‘Duplex’ and it is only one of many new developments tech giant Google unveiled yesterday at its I/O Conference. Another offering was ‘Smart Compose’ a feature that can auto-complete whole emails. Nicole Nguyen covers products and personal technology at BuzzFeed. She attended the keynote presentation at which this technology was introduced to the world. We reached Ms. Nguyen in San Francisco.

HM: Ms. Nguyen, we'll start with the issue that has many people either excited or concerned, and that's the introduction of Google Duplex. What was the reaction in the room when the demonstration was played?

NICOLE NGUYEN: There was an audible gasp. That moment where the AI, the robot, responded with an mmhmm during the conversation, which, you know, without any context would have seemed incredibly mundane, like two people having an everyday conversation engaging in what, for most people, is a chore and an administrative task. I think that a lot of people in the audience were very impressed and also terrified at what they had just seen.

HM: How does that actually work?

NN: So Duplex is an artificial intelligence powered assistant that very successfully mimics a human voice and uses that voice to make phone calls on your behalf. And Duplex works within Google's virtual assistant on the phone and a smart speaker like Google Home. And if you say take Google make me a reservation at this restaurant between 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., then Dupleix will step in and make that call on your behalf.

HM: We got another recording just as an illustration, this is a male voice making a dinner reservation, let's listen.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: How long is the wait usually to be seated?

VOICE 2: When, tomorrow or the weekend?

VOICE 1: For next Wednesday the 7th.

VOICE 2: Oh, it’s not too busy. You can come for four people, OK?

VOICE1: Oh, I gotcha, thanks.

HM: So the woman taking that reservation has no idea that that is an artificial intelligence voice. What struck you when you first heard that?

NN: I think what’s wild about that interaction was that the AI understands timing, interaction, intonation, can speak in a really natural way, the way it said ‘Gotcha’ felt really conversational and real. And it seemed like the woman on the other end had been in a way duped like a robo-call from a telemarketer wouldn’t dupe a human and you would hang up immediately if you realized you were talking to a robot. But I think she really did believe she was a human and that plays into sort of why this whole thing is both awe-inspiring, but also terrifying.

HM: So there are ethical issues here, there are also practical concerns being raised. What are the others among them?

NN: Well one of the questions is if, in the U.S. for example, Duplex is making a call in a state with two-party consent, and by that I mean like in California you have to ask permission before you can record a call. How will you Duplex handle that? Because we assume that Google needs to record the call to be able to transcribe into text to process what it needs to say and what it's listening to. And furthermore, you know, what differentiates the Duplex software from a telemarketer robo-call and do the same rules apply to an AI assistant as they do to telemarketers. Can the restaurant or the salon on the other end opt out of getting calls from these kinds of software? Lastly the Turing test, which involves not being able to tell whether you're talking to a human or machine, that's kind of a golden standard for a lot of technologists. It's not surprising that Google is working on this kind of technology to prove that it can surpass the Turing test. But why does the voice need to sound lifelike? It does seem like it's designed intentionally to deceive the person on the other end.

HM: So did the speakers at the conference, who have to be aware that these issues are out there, did they address any of those concerns?

NN: Well, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who introduced both of the demos, he really hammered the point that this robot is taking care of an administrative task that is a chore and takes up a lot of your time and by deferring this to Google you can spend your time doing something that you care deeply about. And, in fact, that's part of a larger ad campaign that Google is running now called ‘Make Google do it for you.’ He really hammered in on the benefits but didn't really address any of the ethical quandaries.

HM: Now another development they revealed was this ‘Smart Compose’ feature from Google. What concerns you about that.

NN: The ‘Smart Compose,’ which auto-completes the sentence it thinks you're trying to write in an email to hopefully reduce the number of grammar or spelling errors one is bound to make, seems a little bit more benign than Duplex because by nature it's less disruptive than a robot imitating a human voice. And I think that's because you ultimately have agency over what that e-mail says, while you don't over what the Duplex robot says to your hairdresser. But I think it does show that Google's AI really has prowess over language and it's something that people should watch out for.

HM: When you receive an email that’s got one of those things on the bottom the box, the suggested replies — Cool, thanks, Sure thing, whatever — do you click on those ever?

NN: You know, I can't see that I have. Even if it does suggest something like ‘sounds great,’ which is something I would have typed anyway. I, as a writer, will type it anyway, just because I'm terrified that this AI will someday take over my job. But I think a lot of people do.

HM: Yeah, I don't either, as a matter of principle. What about user privacy? Because it's kind of interesting at the same time Google is giving you these tools that you can reach out and use your devices more, they're also trying to get people to recognize that they may be using technology too much. It seems kind of like an odd juxtaposition. What's that about?

NN: Google launched a new initiative called ‘Digital Wellbeing’ that aims to help you break your phone addiction. And that's an interesting reaction to this feeling that technology might be doing more harm than good. I think after the demo we walked away feeling a little bit terrified of how smart Google is, but Digital Wellbeing counteracts that feeling. Google was trying to say there, I think, that no we do actually care about your wellbeing and we do want to mitigate some of the negative effects that too much exposure to screens has caused in our society and are thinking about that and are working against it.

HM: Not to be too cynical, but do you think that was a big PR move?

NN: I do think it was a PR move but also that it is a genuinely helpful. I think that being able to see how much time we spend on YouTube and nudge yourself to put down your screen are powerful tools. I think it can be both.

HM: All right, well Ms. Nguyen, thank you very much for, it’s stuff we’re going out to have to look out for the in the coming years. Thanks a lot.

NN: Thanks for having me.

HM: OK, bye-bye. Nicole Nguyen covers products and personal technology for Buzzfeed. We reached her in San Francisco.

[Music: Violins]

From Our Archives: MS St. Louis

JD: ‘None is Too Many’. That was the Canadian government policy that sent a ship of European Jewish refugees away from our shores in June of 1939. The ship was called the MS St. Louis, and that rejection led to the murder of over 200 of the passengers on that ship in the Holocaust. Last night Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke about that event at a Toronto synagogue. Here's part of what he had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU: We must learn from our successes in tandem with our failures. Between 1933 and 1945 the Canadian government only accepted around 5,000 Jewish refugees due to our discriminatory ‘None is Too Many’ immigration policy of the time. The most egregious example of this misguided policy happened in 1939 when Canada turned away the MS St. Louis. The Canadian government infamously turned its back on 907 German Jews were fleeing persecution. Forced to return to Europe, 254 were eventually killed in the Holocaust. We cannot turn away from this uncomfortable truth about ourselves and about our country and of Canada's part in it. We must learn from this story, remember this story, and let its lessons guide our actions going forward. And that is why I am proud to announce tonight that the government of Canada will issue a formal apology in Parliament over the fate of the MS St. Louis and its passengers.

[APPLAUSE]

JD: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promising to apologize for the turning away of a ship of Jewish refugees in 1939. In 2009 Carol spoke to one of the survivors of that ship. Lisa Avedon was part of that conversation from our archives.

LISA AVEDON: What I remember most is when the ship was in the Havana harbour and of course that was then, there weren't huge waves and so I could spend time on the deck. And my uncle came down from New Jersey trying to get us off ,and I have a very vivid memory of his being in a boat with a Cuban man speaking to us and I, having been seasick all the time, was just dying to get off the ship and was crying that I couldn't leap into the boat where he was.

CAROL OFF: I'm sure you didn't know then when you were on board, you were too young anyway, but what did you learn subsequently about what the negotiations were to try and bring the St. Louis to Canada?

LA: Well, the Jewish organizations, of course, and refugee organizations tried to get, not only the U.S. and Canada, but countries in Central America to take us in. I think what may have happened, and this is just speculation based on some of the things I've been reading, is that these countries thought if they opened the door to these passengers, what was going to happen after that.

CO: Well, it's a way of understanding why they did what it did but it still is, as Barbara mentioned in the introduction, it's just a shameful chapter of Canadian history that the reaction on the part of the immigration minister at that time infamously quoted over the years is “none is too many” That’s how many Jews that we could get take into Canada.

LA: Right.

CO: Of the 936 passengers Jewish passengers on that boat who were fleeing Europe, how many survived the war?

LA: Oh gosh, that I couldn't tell you.

CO: Do you have any idea how many — a majority of them parished, did they not?

LA: Perhaps half. You know, I have a whole lot of books on it, but to be honest I don't remember what the numbers were. I mean, we were fortunate because the rest of our family were in the U.S. by that time, England took us in knowing they wouldn't have us there for very long. But there were others who were in Holland, Belgium, went to France and if they were able to keep away from the Nazis they survived. But, of course, the Nazis in those days were rounding up people in Belgium, in Holland and sending them to the concentration camps.

CO: You're going to be in Halifax for the 70th anniversary of this voyage.

LA: Right.

CO: What do you hope people can and will learn about the story of this ship?

LA: That's a very good question. I think the thing that has always disturbed me about the whole story is that we have to learn something from it. When people are in such miserable situations, as human beings, we really have an obligation to make sure that they are rescued from those situations and that that doesn't happen again.

CO: This week will mark the anniversary of our, Canada's official position, which was to reject that boat load of Jewish refugees. What's the lesson that this chapter in Canadian history has to pass on to us?

LA: You know, I mean, it's so important for people to be concerned about other people and not just ignore what is going on. And when you look at what is going on in other places in the world still today, we don't have enough concerns of people who are in dire straits for reasons that have nothing to do with them. They just find themselves in these situations because they're in the wrong country, the wrong part of the world.

JD: From our archives, that was Carol in conversation of Lisa Avedon and 2009. Ms Avoden was one of the hundreds of Jewish refugees aboard the MS St. Louis, which was infamously turned away from Canadian shores in 1939. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last night he would issue an official apology for that act.

[Music: Ambient Tones]

Refugee lifeguard

Guest: Salam Aldeen

JD: In 2015 Salam Aldeen left behind his life as an entrepreneur in Denmark to help refugees flee into Europe. Mr. Aldeen bought a boat, he put together a group of volunteers called ‘Team Humanity’ and they set out to rescue refugees making the very, very dangerous trip to Lesbos by sea. Two years ago he was arrested by Greek authorities, along with a Danish volunteer and three Spanish firefighters. All five were charged with smuggling and faced up to 10 years in jail. Earlier this week all five were cleared. We reached Salam Aldeen in Lesbos.

HM: Mr. Aldeen, it has been more than two years since you were arrested. Tell me what your feeling like now that you have finally been acquitted?

SALAM ALDEEN: I am relieved, really relieved. Two years thinking about that I could get a life sentence for saving lives. It has been very hard, not only for me, but for the people around me. My family is still in shock in one way. I can't believe that I got free. When you're sitting in a court and somebody wants to give you a life sentence there’s a lot of things going on in your head. I was just hearing my name many times in the court. It was very hard because it was me who was the captain, it was me who called the other guys to come so we could go and rescue. So it was very hard. But I had faith in the Greek law and the Greek authorities. So I'm happy that it went this way.

HM: Your case was watched very closely by other non-governmental organisations, rescue groups working in that region and elsewhere. Why do you think it got so much attention?

SA: I think it's because everybody knew that we were doing humanitarian work and we were rescuing people. Imagine you have a person 100 metres away from shore drowning. You can't wait for somebody to come help. So we jumped into the water and rescued these people. That's how humanity is. Without all these organizations nobody, could have survive. Like a lot of people have been dead. So everybody was afraid of what happened with us because if we get convicted and jailed for saving lives the humanitarian work will be in danger.

HM: Can you tell us about the circumstances of your arrest? What happened?

SA: On the 14th of January between two and three o'clock in the night, we got an S.O.S. message on the WhatsApp with all the volunteers in all the organizations. There U.N., there was MSF there were a lot of organizations. So they wrote that there was a boat sinking somewhere in front of the airport. I called there Spanish team and asked them where they were, we went into my boat and into the sea. And when we came to the sea, we couldn't see anything, it was dark and there was no boat, like we were trying. We called the coast guard before we went to sea and told them there was a boat somewhere we don't know where it is. They said to me “If you find the boat, or if you find the location of the boat please call us back” that’s what they said. And then we got arrested — after seven minutes we got arrested. We got surrounded by three boats and then all of us were in jail.

HM: And did you know those Coast Guard officers who arrested you? Had you been familiar with them during this time?

SA: We were cooperating always with the Coast Guard, we were always talking with them, like only 14 hours before this incident we saved 51 people with the green light of the authorities, they knew us. I was there from September 2015.

HM: Why do you think you were arrested?

SA: We don't know. We don't know what happened.

HM: What brought you there in the first place from your life back in Denmark?

SA: It was a picture of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian boy. It was on the news and on the fourth of September I went to the Red Cross in Denmark and where to go if I wanted to help. They told me to go to Lampedusa, but little the boy in the news was on the way to Greece. I decided to go to Lesbos. So two days after the picture I was in Lesbos and three hours after I landed I was saving lives. I was going to the boat getting people out of the water and it was insane. I remember after the third boat I took, half of my body was in the water and I looked back and I saw all these refugees coming up from the water like almost drowning in the water and I was screaming and crying at the same time because it was so hard to see and there was nobody to help. There was some volunteers and that's it.

HM: How long had you planned to stay?

SA: One week .I bought a ticket for one week, just to see and come back. But I couldn't go back. It was impossible I had a dead child in my hand many times, I had people drowned in front of me. I dug a grave for six hours and buried four children a mother and a father. It’s Something that stays with you and will never go out of your brain. I had to stay and help.

HM: And you were a former asylum seeker yourself, right?

SA: Yeah. We also were refugees when we came. My father is from Iraq, my mother is from Moldova, born in Moldova and there was a civil war in ‘92 so we ran away like all these refugees.

HM: How does your asylum experience compare to what you're seeing with these people?

SA: It was easy for us. These people are suffering and have suffered so much, so much. A lot of them lost their families in the sea. Imagine you're saving a mother and you couldn't save the child? Or saving the the child and you couldn’t save the mother. It was hard.

HM: How do you think this work has changed you? How is your life different from what it was before you started?

SA: My life changed completely. I can't — I don't think I can go and work a normal normal job anymore. I think it has to be something humanitarian. I have an organization called Team Humanity and we are really trying to get the donation so we can make big projects, we have a lot of ideas and this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to move things, I wanna change a lot of things.

HM: Mr. Aldeen, I wish you the very best of luck in achieving those objectives. Thank you for talking to us.

SA: Thank you so much for listening.

HM: All right, you take care.

JD: Salam ALdeen is a Danish volunteer. He was just cleared of all human smuggling charges in Greece earlier this week after helping rescue migrants on the island of Lesbos. We reached Mr. Aldeen on Lesbos.

May 9, 2018 episode transcript

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