Brazil wary of foreign help with Amazon fires over fear region is 'ripe for invasion': writer

Guest: Emilee Gilpin, Alexander Zaitchik

SOUNDCLIP

[Sounds from Indigenous protests in Brazil]

MG: Indigenous protesters rally in Brazil, accusing the Government of not doing enough to stop the forest fires raging in the Amazon rainforest and the anger is spreading. Paris, London, Mexico City all saw demonstrations, demanding action. The president of France calls it an international crisis. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed, calling for action at the G7 summit. And here's why. More than 72,000 fires are burning, about an 85 percent increase over last year. The area lost, it's hard to picture what's going on. But estimates say that it equals about 90 soccer fields every hour. That is a big loss for an area that's often called the lungs of the earth. Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro meanwhile rejects calls for any foreign involvement in the crisis saying the military is being sent in to help battle the blazes. Emilee Gilpin is a Canadian freelance journalist with The Cree-Metis Heritage who has worked for the Tyee and for the National Observer. She's currently in Brazil covering the protests there. And we reached her in Brazil's capital, Brasilia. Emily, hello.

EMILEE GILPIN: Hello.

MG: This is a story that people are talking about all around the world. Tell me about what the mood is like in Brasilia, in the capital right now.

EMILEE GILPIN: Sure well I went to the march on Friday night and there were hundreds of people that took to the streets outside the ministry buildings there. I would say that it was split tone. One tone was a cry for the Amazon. It was a cry for planet Earth, for Mother Nature. And then the other tone was very politicized. There was a lot of chants and a lot of signs that were directed specifically to President Bolsanaro and to the Minister of Environment Ricardo Salles saying, people were saying Salles sai Salles sai Amazonia fica Bolsonaro sai, which means the Amazon stays and Bolsonaro goes. So it was an opportunity I think across the country for people to criticize the government and decisions that have been made since he came into office in January.

MG: It's a real mix of people who are part of these protests. Tell me what specifically the Indigenous rights activists are saying.

EMILEE GILPIN: Well there's been concern not just from the Amazon on fire but from some of the decisions that Bolsa Nardo has made since being in office reducing health care for Indigenous peoples. Putting the people in charge of the demarcation of indigenous lands to the agro ministry. So there's been concern since Bolsa Nardo started campaigning in his election run from indigenous peoples from people living in Colombo which are reserves for Afro descendants people who descended from slaves here in Brazil. So it's a rising concern now that you know the Amazon is on fire and people are experiencing firsthand the impacts.

MG: There's also a real presence of young people as part of these demonstrations. Tell me what's bringing them out.

EMILEE GILPIN: Well I think we've been hearing this from young people across the world in the last few years it's this growing concern about the world that they're inheriting the Amazon on fire there being an increase in floods. I think young people are scared about what's happening. And there have been decisions that have been made that they have had very little say or control over. So a lot of the time we speak about you know saving and protecting the earth for future generations because this is the Earth that they're inheriting and it's one that currently is on fire.

MG: Brazilian government is under extreme pressure. We heard it in that clip of the protesters, but this is being felt around the world. How has the president Bolsonaro tried to control the information around these fires?

EMILEE GILPIN: Well there's the National Institute for Space Research, which Brazilians called INPE and the director actually was fired at the beginning of the month in August. Director Ricardo Galvao. And there's been a clash between the Minister of Environment Ricardo Salles, Bolsonaro and Ricardo Galvao over the information that the Space Institute has provided around deforestation and there being an accelerated rate of deforestation over the last few years especially.

MG: We asked here in Toronto the Brazilian embassy in the city for comment on what's going on in the Amazon. The embassy sent us back a statement, which reads in part and this is a quotation. "The Brazilian government is still investigating the causes of the forest fires. Up to now there is no certainty about it. Even the numbers that have been publicized by the media are not consistent among themselves. What can be said is that the Brazilian government kept its commitments under the Paris Agreement and its overall policy to control deforestation." What do you make of what the Brazilian embassy here in Toronto has had to say?

EMILEE GILPIN: I mean I think we as the media we really do have a responsibility to be really clear and really careful. So there are reports that were released by the National Institute for Space Research that talked about deforestation alerts, which is different than the actual rates of deforestation. So I think the media needs to be clear. I think they were using a number around 88 percent increase and those were predicted or expected alerts that were released. By law they have to release these alerts as they come out, but that's different than what were the actual numbers of what's been reported in actual deforestation. So I do think we have to be clear and I think perhaps some government bodies are using that confusion by the press to you know perhaps discredit the information that's being provided. But we do need to respect the scientific evidence and more than that we need to respect the lived experiences of those who are who are facing these fires.

MG: This is an issue that's been picked up by the G7 currently meeting in France. The president of France, Emmanuel Macron in a tweet last week said, "Our house is burning literally. It is an international crisis." What do you make of the fact that he called this, not a Brazilian crisis but an international crisis?

EMILEE GILPIN: I mean that's true. This is impacting all of us. And it's not something that any of us are separate from. We're not just talking about the Amazon on fire and one political president. We're talking about an issue that the whole world is facing. We're talking about an issue of globalization of the impact of mining and agro industries. We're talking about the threat to indigenous peoples all over the world and to environmental conservation efforts all over the world. So this is something that impacts all of us.

MG: Is it an issue that goes beyond the sovereignty of Brazil? This is again something that the Brazilian president and the government have raised. They say that they have a handle on this. That this is their issue. This is a Brazilian issue and that the international community needs to keep its nose out of Brazil's business.

EMILEE GILPIN: This is a human rights issue. So this you know this is an issue that everybody needs to be concerned with. This is a violation of the Rights of Indigenous people on an international stage as well. So this is something that everybody is concerned with. I think that you know this rise of the far right that we're seeing in the world is something that nobody can deny or hide from. So this is an everybody issue.

MG: And so if the G7 takes this up in a meaningful way, what opportunity do you think that could present for some real action on this? The Brazilian government has said that it's sending in 43,000 troops, although there are disputes as to whether those troops have actually been on the ground doing anything over the course of the last couple of days. So could the G7 mobilize and create some real action on this?

EMILEE GILPIN: I mean I hope so. I do think that we need to put out these fires as soon as possible. I think we need to deal with the on the ground consequences now. But I think we can't separate what's happening and just think that if we put out the fires and everything is going to go away. I think this has raised international attention in a really important way. Although it's been heartbreaking and tragic to see what's been going on on the ground here, its important that it's raised international attention and that we're having conversations around what decisions and words have led up to what we're seeing today.

MG: He said that this is in some ways echoes of colonialism.

EMILEE GILPIN: I could say a lot of things in response to that, but I mean again this is somebody who, he's not unlike Trump in a lot of ways. He says a lot of very bold things and doesn't always follow them up, but he has made some really grave decisions that have impacted the lives of many people, the most overexploited people here in Brazil. So I mean this is echoes of colonialism. He you know doesn't support Indigenous reserve lands. He supports mining. He supports forestry and agro development in protected areas and is weakening the laws over environmental protection in Brazil. So I mean it is echoes of colonialism, but perhaps not in the way that he intended the statement.

MG: And do you connect the dots between what's happening there when it comes to the Indigenous peoples who in many ways see their roles as a role to protect the Amazon, how they're being treated with how Indigenous peoples around the world including perhaps here in Canada are being treated.

EMILEE GILPIN: Well I'm glad you said that because absolutely. I mean I spent the last two years working, leading a series for First Nations forward for National Observer which was specifically dedicated to stories of self-determination and environmental conservation in Indigenous communities, especially on the West Coast. And as I'm researching and learning more about what's happening here in Brazil it's the same story. It's an echo of industry industry's interests in capitalism's interests trying to encroach on protected areas in areas that haven't already been gravely impacted by industry. So it is the same story and it's what protections to indigenous peoples or people who are living on the land to prevent this kind of encroachment.

MG: Emily it's good to speak with you about this. I appreciate it.

EMILEE GILPIN: Obrigado.

MG: Emily Gilman is a Canadian freelance journalist who is with Cree-Metis heritage, has worked with the Tyee and the National Observer. We reached her in Brazil's capital Brasilia. And we're just learning as we're on air that the French president Emmanuel Macron has indeed confirmed that G7 countries will contribute a total of 20 million euros. That comes out to about 30 million Canadian dollars to Amazonian nations to fight the rain forest fires. We'll hear more about that certainly in the hours ahead. Alexander Zaitchik has travelled extensively through the Amazon, writing about the natural wonder and the Indigenous people who do so much work to protect it. He is a freelance writer and he is just south of Tulum in Mexico. Alexander, hello to you.

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Good to be here.Thanks.

MG: For people who have never been to the Amazon. I mean it's this larger than life thing in the imaginations of so many people. Just briefly describe what it's like. What does it feel like? What does it smell like when you're there?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: The best quote about the Amazon is probably that it invites cliché and resists hyperbole. I mean it's a place that's so dance and loud with life that it's really hard to sort of exaggerate when you're really in the middle of a primary rainforest. You really understand that you know this is the world's species and flora and fauna are you know that are known are there and God knows how many are yet to be discovered. You really get a sense for what the possible losses would be if this biome is sacrificed. It's just this incredibly rich intimidating environment and it humbles you. It's an incredibly humbling place to be.

MG: And so what is it like for you to watch these fires rage across the Amazon?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Yeah I was there in the rainy season where a lot of these fires are taking place right after they were cut. So of the fires that we're seeing now it's important to note are the sort of second stage of a process that was widely expected by people in the region because whatever was cut is now being burned and we could see that that burns were going to be much larger than usual because the cuts have been larger than usual.

MG: How does President Bolsonaro, how does he and the government that he has been surrounded with, how do they view the Amazon?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Well the current government is typically described as far right and that's true, but in the Brazilian context it means something specific to the Amazon. There's a right wing national tradition in the Brazilian context that has always had sort of oppositional antagonistic relationship to the Amazon. It was viewed traditionally as this dangerous heathen sort of other things that needed to be exploited needed to be tamed, needed to be conquered. It's almost like a foreign territory within Brazil. The military dictatorship in the 60s 70s and 80s actually used this language of you know occupation because it was seen as so different from the modern Catholic urban Brazil that most Brazilians know of and think of as a modern state of Brazil. So it's it's a strange relationship it's one that isn't really intuitive for most people who think of their country Greece as one country but Brazil is actually two countries. And then within the second Brazil of the Amazon you have hundreds of nations. The indigenous nations who call themselves nations their nations under the Brazilian Constitution their nations under international law. So you have a sort of internal colonial approach to most of western Brazil, which sort of mirrors how Bolsonaro has been responding. He's been saying this is a colonial mindset on the part of the West, but you know there's a nesting doll of colonialism in this context that's worth teasing out.

MG: Tell me a bit more about the colonial mindset that he has referred to because that's what he has said in response to what Macron has been saying and others at the G7. That this is an issue of international concern and he says the way that they're talking about it reflects and it's reminiscent of in his words a colonial mindset inappropriate in the 21st century. What's he getting at there?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Well I mean it's a sort of classic sovereignty issue in Brazil. It's a very sensitive one. The right wing in Brazil has always feared that the Amazon was this soft underbelly that was ripe for invasion and it was coveted by the world in the past it was just about territory or resources and now they fear that an international agenda will be undermining Brazilian sovereignty under the banner of a climate emergency or environmental concerns. So it's a long long history here and it's more than just what looks like sort of classic sovereignty rhetoric on the surface it's this sort of deep fear right wing psyche in Brazil was this longstanding paranoia about the world coming in and taking them on from Brazil because it's this long sort of borderless area full of riches full of incredible you know value in terms of commodities and woods and you know all sorts of minerals. So it's a very very sensitive issue in Brazil and you know to some extent it is true that you know developed countries which have destroyed their own forests are now turning to Brazil and expecting to have a strong say and Brazilian forest management. This makes sense given the stakes. But there is a certain hypocrisy that has to be admitted. And if these countries want to have leverage they're going to have to admit that their own behaviour has come into play here. So I think it's worth having this larger discussion about what the rest of the world is doing as well not because it validates all scenarios claims or his politics or his ideology versus an Amazon visit in the Amazon but it is part of this larger discussion without which the Amazon by itself is not going to be enough. It's a critical ecosystem, but it's one of many pieces in this climate puzzle. And I think ifwe're going to raise the spectre of internationalization of the Amazon, we have to talk about everyone's behaviour.

MG: His being condemned around the world and whether it's at the G7 or whether it's in protests that are happening in Brazil or elsewhere. Do you think that international pressure will push Bolsonaro to act in a way that perhaps he wouldn't act if he wasn't the subject of international attention around this issue?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Well it depends what kind of pressure it is. I mean like Donald Trump, like a lot of right wing nationalist figures they tend to double down when it's just political pressure, trade and economics. That's I think where the leverage is going to be. And the EU, Asia, the primary markets the Brazilian beef and soy do have certain amount of power here and you know the EU's recently cut a deal to sell cars in exchange for beef from the region. These are things that should be and are being re-examined and absolutely they will have some influence.

MG: Just finally what are you most worried about as you watch these fires?

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Honestly having recently returned from. Western Brazil, I've been thinking most about the people that I met there, communities that I stayed with. These are people that have been fighting these fights in different ways for 500 years. Their ancestral homelands have been getting smaller and smaller. Their populations in many cases are on the brink of extinction and they're on the frontlines. And I'm really thinking a lot about them and how they need our support and they've been trying to tell us this is happening for a long time. They've been saying please help us. Please listen to what we're saying, not just about protecting the rainforest, but also about the values that might underlie a more sort of sustainable civilization quite frankly.

MG: Alexander, it's good to speak with you about this. Thank you.

ALEXANDER ZAITCHIK: Thank you.

MG: Alexander's Zaitchik is a freelance journalist based in the Amazon. We reached him today in Mexico, just south of Tulum, in te Yucatan region.

SOUNDCLIP

[Indigenous song recorded from festival in Brazil]

MG: An Indigenous recording from a festival in Accra, Brazil in the rainforest. That's from 2011. The CBC News is next and then we continue to play the best CBC original podcasts. This morning we begin reporter Julie Ireton's investigation into three teachers who abused students and how those teachers were allowed to get away with it, even after parents, principals and school board officials found out. The Band Played On comes up in just a moment. I'm Matt Galloway. This is the summer edition of The Current.

[Music]

The Band Plays On – Episode 1

MG: Hi I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to the summer edition of The Current. Over this summer we have been playing some of the CBC Best Original podcasts. And today we start the series. The Band Played On. It's based on an award winning investigation by CBC reporter Julie irons and Julie discovered that over the course of five decades dozens of students were abused by three teachers. The victims were teen boys and girls. Many attended the same public school in an Ottawa suburb. Warnings were ignored. Authorities didn't act. The band played on a warning this story contains adult content coarse language and candid accounts of sexual abuse which may disturb some listeners.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music]

PETER HAMER: It was towards the end of the summer I was having a party for the staff that I'd worked with. It was a nice summer night. We had enough booze and nobody was doing any kind of drugs back then, but it was always beer and coolers and it was fun.

JULIE IRETON: It's 1985. Peter Hamer is 17.

PETER HAMER: And my parents were in England.

JULIE IRETON: So naturally he's having a party. Peter's a cute kid with his wavy mullet and the dimple on his chin. He's wearing what he always wore.

PETER HAMER: Desert boots, wool work socks, jeans and either a white or a black T-shirt. If it was anything other than a white or black T-shirt, it was a T-shirt with the Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd on it. That's what I wore.

JULIE IRETON: So he's the kind of guy that prefers Pink Floyd over Corey Hart. He has some good friends, but he's not exactly part of the popular crowd. Not a jock, not a brain, a band geek. On this summer night at his parents suburban split level home Peter's drunk and so are most of friends. I had this friend who lived across the street and Tom was a significant shit disturber. That friend you have that tries to get you to do all of the bad things you ever did when you were in high school. So he had suggested you know we should get Bob over here.

JULIE IRETON: Bob Clarke, his high school music teacher.

PETER HAMER: So we'd phoned his house and if I remember correctly, Tom, my neighbour had said you know it's party. Why don't you come to the party? There's boys. There's all sorts of people here. It's a good opportunity and he showed up.

JULIE IRETON: So it's the middle of the night. Teenagers are drinking and a teacher shows up at the party.

PETER HAMER: Some people laughed when they saw Bob Clarke show up and they're like this is weird, I don't know why your teacher is here.

JULIE IRETON: Clarke comes in the front door and into the living room.

PETER HAMER: He came in and he's like alright you know like where's the action kind of stuff.

JULIE IRETON: Years of confusion and anger come to a head. Drunk and now in a rage, something inside Peter snaps.

PETER HAMER: So I went downstairs and I got my dad's 12 gauge shotgun and I brought it upstairs. He was sitting on the couch and I pointed the gun at his head. When you dredge this stuff up it's emotional and it'll always be emotional. You're never going to get away from that.

JULIE IRETON: Peter Hamer is a fit 51. He runs marathons and teaches martial arts. He's married with two kids and he's the executive director of a health centre. His black T-shirts and the tattoos up both arms give Peter a hipster vibe. His grain beard hides his teenage dimples. He looks confident, but sometimes Peter feels like he's dying inside.

PETER HAMER: I still get upset when I talk about it and I'm great every day, but.

JULIE IRETON: We're outside Peter's old high school, Bell High. It sits at the top of a hill. There's a sprawling lawn in front of the school and a forest out back. There are no sidewalks on the street and no convenience stores to even walk to. It really feels like it's in the middle of nowhere. The music room is off to one end, away from the main part of the school. How long since you were here?

PETER HAMER: 33 years. It's been 33 years since I've been inside this school.

JULIE IRETON: When I had mentioned the idea of coming here popping into the school's back door while the band was practicing, Peter was up for it. Now, I'm not so sure.

[Band playing]

PETER HAMER: I'm sorry, it's just strange being here.

JULIE IRETON: We won't stay long.

PETER HAMER: Yeah. No I mean it's okay.

JULIE IRETON: I'm wondering if it was a bad idea to come here to stir up these memories. I suggest we step back outside for some fresh air. Big step.

PETER HAMER: It is.

JULIE IRETON: Do you regret?

PETER HAMER: No not at all. I needed to. I really really needed to come back here. I dream about this place probably weekly.

JULIE IRETON: Really?

PETER HAMER: Yeah. I. Sorry. It's in my dreams. You know there's nothing. I have no good memories of high school. There's nothing that I could pinpoint and say yeah that was fun. That was great. Everything that was supposed to be good was tainted by you know by Bob Clarke's behaviour. And so you know maybe there were good good times, but I don't remember them. I remember all the crappy things that happened.

JULIE IRETON: Those crappy things started as far back as the early 1980s, when Peter was in Grade 9.

PETER HAMER: I was one of those sort of mediocre high school students. You know your quintessential middle child. You know I had what I thought was an overachieving older sister and a really smart younger brother and I sort of found that I sat in the middle.

JULIE IRETON: At first Peter enjoyed music. He learned to play the clarinet. Bob Clarke had already been teaching for 15 years by the time Peter met him.

PETER HAMER: And he was that popular teacher. He was the guy that everybody liked if you were in music.

[Sounds from band]

PETER HAMER: He identified with the kids. You know so you're awkward, uncomfortable 15-year-old kid who doesn't know what they're doing. You know doesn't know much about themselves, the body and you know how they're developing and he was on the same level, you know. And you know because he had a coolness to him. He would ask for a hug like in class after band. You know my back hurts, I could really use a hug. He would talk about you know I'm really tired and I'm tired, I'm horny. Those kind of things were constant conversations. He'd make comments about your body and he'd go oh look you know I can see your nipples through your shirt, you must be horny and he would always make jokes that in today's society would be considered inappropriate.

JULIE IRETON: So do you remember like what exactly to give me an example.

PETER HAMER: So I don't remember what grade it is, but I specifically remember it because I remember thinking this is insane, why he's saying this. So he was up in front of a class and he was talking about playing the guitar and he said to everybody, guitars are very phallic. And he says one hand is going up and down the frets as if he's stroking somebody's penis and the other hand is you know like playing with the person's balls. That was the stuff that came out of his mouth.

JULIE IRETON: Bob Clarke's sexually charged vulgar comments became unrelenting in music class, at band practice, on band trips.

PETER HAMER: Constant, every day and then he wants to you know grab you, which always made it like just that one step more.

JULIE IRETON: And sometimes he did grab. Peter remembers countless sexual comeons and when Peter was just 16, Clarke took him to a pawnshop then groped him on the way home.

PETER HAMER: Put his hand on my leg and he would say you know what would you do if I went a little higher? And what would you do if you know.

JULIE IRETON: And then there was the time Clarke asked Peter to come over to help fix his bathroom floor.

PETER HAMER: I came in and he was talking to me and he sat down on the floor. His back was leaning against the counter and his pants were at his knees and he was playing with himself. A couple days later in school he called me into the back room and he asked me if I was going to keep a secret and I said I'm not saying anything to anybody. It was such a horrible place for me in my head.

JULIE IRETON: And then there was the music room, Bob Clarke's domain. Behind that room, here at Bell High, there's a small back office.

PETER HAMER: The little room is where he would take people to do their music tests.

JULIE IRETON: We walk past the music stands and chairs. Peter is back in grade 10.

PETER HAMER: It wasn't you know right now there's an organ and a desk in here, but it used to be just a table. So he'd sit on one side of the table, you'd be on the other side of the table and or he'd stand with the music stand and then you'd have to play. Everybody's in the classroom and you had to go into the back with your musical instrument and you'd have to play a solo for him. And I'd ask him, I was such a mediocre clarinet player, I said like can't there be a better way of getting a mark?Isn't there any way that you can grade me instead of having me play a solo because I'm like you know my hands are shaking. This is terrifying. And he said yes if you would let me take pictures of you naked, you don't have to play and you'll get a good mark. Take your clothes off and let me have pictures. And I said no.

JULIE IRETON: Have you seen enough?

PETER HAMER: Yeah I've seen enough. I think I want to go home now..

JULIE IRETON: And there are others with memories of that back office.

JOHN CODY: I don't know how many times I was in his office like after hours for detention, being in the practice room. Like that's got to be haunted that fucking place. Do you know what I mean? Like I don't know why they haven't bulldozed it or whatever closed it forever. That is a place where innocence was murdered. My name is John Cody. That's my professional name, but my Christian name is Jean-Marc.

JULIE IRETON: That would've been the name on Bob Clarke's class list. He attended Bell High School before Peter Hamer.

JOHN CODY: I'll try not to blow in your face.

JULIE IRETON: Cody takes a long drag on a cigarette then a sip of coffee. We're in his small one bedroom apartment in Montreal. John Cody may not be a household name but he's a big deal in music. He's often work behind the scenes. He's even shared a stage with Joni Mitchell.

JOHN CODY: A lot of people go ooh that so cool she's introducing you and I knew her. We did sing together.

JULIE IRETON: I see a record there and Bonnie Raitt and Tom Cochran.

JOHN CODY: Those are my two American gold records. It was Tom and Kathy Cochran who gave me John Cody.

JULIE IRETON: His stage name, which became his name but not a song. This was one life is a highway was written. Cody sings backup there and wrote a song on that album and that started my career really.

[Playing electric piano].

JULIE IRETON: Cody is sitting in front of an electric piano and a big monitor is showing a multi-track recording. Well I went over there after years of making music in LA, Cody moved back to Canada four years ago. His dad was dying of cancer and he had his own health problems. That's how it starts.

JOHN CODY: That's how it starts. I love that, but it's kind of weak.

JULIE IRETON: The past few years have been really tough for John Cody. A neurodegenerative disease recently forced him into the motorized wheelchair he's sitting in, moving to the music guitar. He had cancer of the larynx. Doctors told him they'd have to remove vocal cords, which is a devastating diagnosis for a singer. But up at that keyboard he's still in his element.

JOHN CODY: Bass, guitar in unison. You get the idea. I try all the time to sin,g but if I sang like that I can control the note and I can sing it and pitch, but if I try to sing like normal like it's not a good sound.

JULIE IRETON: Long before the awards, the albums, the health problems John Cody was a student at Bell High. He started in 1977, seven years before Peter Hamer. Cody was younger than the other kids in his class because he'd skipped a grade. His yearbook photo shows a boy with wavy brown hair and full almost pouty lips. He played the sax in Bob Clarke's band. Can you like I don't know how far down the road you want to go, but can you tell me what was happening to you with your teacher?

JOHN CODY: Well the thing about him is it's funny because all I can remember, the only thing I remember about him was that.

JULIE IRETON: He was in 10th grade when the abuse began.

JOHN CODY: The only thing I could remember about him is sexual innuendo.

JULIE IRETON: And the unrelenting attention to just like Peter.

JOHN CODY: Stalking the halls, the lunchroom. It's like a drunk person that you can't get rid of that you know. That's what it feels like, it just feels like he was stalking, constantly lurking and leering. You know if you saw him coming up the hall you would go the other way.

JULIE IRETON: But then there were times he couldn't escape. Like in that back office in the music room.

JOHN CODY: I don't even remember sitting in there. I just remember like I was locked in there. I remember the date. I got it down. March 19, 1979. I don't want to remember. I don't. I remember the pants. I remember the shirt. I remember the belt. I remember the face.

JULIE IRETON: Cody also remembers the teacher saying I can orgasm without ejaculating.

JOHN CODY: I don't remember how I got on my knees. Do I have to? And I seem to remember it was dark, but there was no window to outside in that room. You could turn off the light. There were no windows to the outside in his office. And it looks you know what honestly, it was the perfect setup. I mean he had control. He had a room that locked. He had a room where he could see out into the classroom and a room where no one could see in.

JULIE IRETON: For John Cody the impact of the abuse was profound.

JOHN CODY: It fucked up my youth. There's no question.

JULIE IRETON: And there was a change in his behaviour.

JOHN CODY: It's like that's what kids do when they're upset. They just act out. You know and you think they're just being a pain in the ass, but something's wrong. You know and I wish someone had noticed.

JULIE IRETON: Four decades later, he still refuses to utter the name Bob Clarke and long after John Cody left high school, what the teacher had done to him continued to affect his life. Even after his career took off in the 1980s.

JOHN CODY: I was wild. It was a heady life. I mean I was playing music. I was in bars, I was too young to drink and deejaying and performing and all kinds of things and so I was just busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. But my sexual activity was really off the charts and I think that I'm lucky for that timem I'm lucky I didn't get sick. I mean AIDS. I wonder a lot about nt lack of self protection. You know when your innocence is fucked with and you don't even know what it is. You don't know what you're giving away. You don't know that you're giving away anything. It's obvious in dobut while I dive bombed so badly and you know, if not for music, I would have been one of those horror stories.

JULIE IRETON: If not for music, he wouldn't have met Bob Clarke. Like so many men who were abused as teens or kids Cody put the experience away. It's like he stored it in a box at the back of a shelf then he got on with his life and he pretended it didn't exist. It didn't matter. But that box recently split open and the contents spilled out. Now well into his 50s he finds he just can't hide it away anymore.

JOHN CODY: Again and again people knew and did nothing and I did what I thought was my due diligence. And nobody did theirs and there's probably nothing more frustrating to me about life than that.

JULIE IRETON: John Cody was still in high school in the late 1970s. He says back then he told two teachers Bob Clarke was doing insane sexual things to students including him. The teacher said they knew about Clarke and that the music teacher had already been spoken to, but Cody says that wasn't good enough. He thinks police should have been called.

JOHN CODY: It should have it done when I talked to those teachers about it. They knew. They knew. They knew. They knew and I knew they knew. I told teachers too. Why are we discussing this 40 fucking years later? That's 40 years.

JULIE IRETON: And in that time more students including Peter Hamer were preyed upon. For years Peter also endured Clarke's abuse and then in 1985 Peter made a decision. He would deal with the situation himself. That's when he stared at Bob Clarke down the barrel of a gun.

MG: We've been listening to the CBC podcast The Band Played On from CBC reporter Julie Ireton. We'll continue with the story in our next half hour. That's in just a few moments time. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Hello. I'm Matt Galloway. This is the summer edition of the current and today we're broadcasting the first episode of the podcast, The Band Played On. It's based on an award-winning investigation by CBC reporter Julie Ireton. A warning, this story contains adult content, coarse language and candid accounts of sexual abuse, which may disturb some listeners. We now go back to sexual abuse victim Peter Hamer. In 1985 he found himself staring at his music teacher down the barrel of a gun.

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PETER HAMER: I was livid because he came in and he's like alright you know. Like where's the action kind of stuff.

JULIE IRETON: Bob Clarke was at Peter's house. That summer party with a bunch of teens.

PETER HAMER: So I went downstairs and I got my dad's 12 gauge shotgun.

JULIE IRETON: Peter had that mullet and a desperate secret. He'd put up with two and a half years of abuse from his music teacher.

PETER HAMER: He was sitting on the couch and I pointed the gun at his head. Clearly he was scared. He was just sitting there, he wasn't saying much. He just stared at me. So my sister and her boyfriend at the time had come home and she saw me.

NICOLA HAMER: So he was holding one of the shotguns on Clarke and Clarke was standing there, which struck me as so odd on so many levels.

JULIE IRETON: Nicola Hamer is Peter's older sister. She also remembers that night.

PETER HAMER: She just comes up to me just like Peter, you're being an idiot. She took the gun away from me.

NICOLA HAMER: And so I just literally yanked the gun out of his hands, like you're so stupid. Why are you doing this? You know and he ran off.

PETER HAMER: And I thought I'll just go get the next gun. So I went downstairs to the basement and it was a 22 calibre rifle and I brought that back up and continued to threaten them and don't ask me why he didn't leave at that point, but he didn't leave it.

NICOLA HAMER: And was threatening him. Yeah. He was threatening him with the gun and Clarke was standing there going look I don't want any trouble, this is you know don't be crazy kind of thing.

PETER HAMER: I don't have any real recollection of what he had to say. The only thing that stuck in my mind is I don't know what you're talking about, which I thought was strange because I'm like you know what I'm talking about.

NICOLA HAMER: And I turned to Clarke and I yelled why are you still here? You know I couldn't cause what are you doing here? Go away. And then he did. He turned around he left.

JULIE IRETON: At the time Nicola didn't know what was going on between Peter and his teacher.

NICOLA HAMER: I knew Clarke was a sleaze. I had no idea the extent of it and I didn't even ask because.

JULIE IRETON: Peter was desperately worried about their younger brother Alex. He was about to head to Bell High.

NICOLA HAMER: My brother was going to start grade 9 after I finished Grade 12 and I was worried that he would be a victim.

JULIE IRETON: That's why he had grabbed the guns.

PETER HAMER: And I said you know my brother is going to school in a year and if you touch him, I'll kill you.

NICOLA HAMER: Like if you ever touch my brother I'll kill you. You know this kind of thing.

JULIE IRETON: Peter had threatened to kill his teacher. He had held a gun, two guns to Bob Clarke's head.

PETER HAMER: My absolute fear at the time was that it was going to be me that would be arrested and that carried with me for years. There's no way I can say anything because what I've done is worse. You know I threatened somebody. It was an unloaded gun, but I still made him very afraid and I couldn't tell anybody.

JULIE IRETON: Months went by and Peter's head was still a mess. He finally confided in another teacher about what Bob Clarke had been doing.

PETER HAMER: And he said you need to have a conversation with the administration of the school. And I said I wasn't interested. And he told me I absolutely needed to escalate this. So he'd set up a meeting with Mr. Carroll who was the principal of the school. And I went and sat with Mr. Carroll and told him some of what had happened.

JULIE IRETON: Peter told to Bell High School Principal Pat Carroll.

PETER HAMER: About the hugs. I told him about.

JULIE IRETON: The vulgar innuendo. The request for naked photos.

PETER HAMER: That he had wanted to take pictures of me and them in the back room and I remember Carroll saying what do you want me to do?

JULIE IRETON: So this teenager was asked what do you want me to do.

PETER HAMER: And at that point really what I wanted him to do was make sure that he couldn't get my brother. And so I said I just don't want to be here. I don't want my brother to be a victim. That was the driving force for me and he said okay. That's the last we talked about it. That's the last I talked about it with anybody.

JULIE IRETON: Bob Clarke left Bell High School at the end of the school year in 1986. And at the time all Peter knew was he was gone and he wouldn't lay a hand on his younger brother.

PETER HAMER: So I felt like you know okay I'd done my job and you feel like you were the only one.

JULIE IRETON: Decades went by. Then Peter did what he had been thinking about doing for 30 years.He went to the police and charges were laid.

REPORTER: From the CBC Ottawa newsroom. A former teacher from Morrisburg has been charged with groping one of his male students in Ottawa back in the 1980s. Ottawa Police have charged 72-year-old Robert Clarke with sexual assault.

PETER HAMER: For the thirty three years of pain that he's caused me, I need to have him charged.

REPORTER: He's scheduled to appear in court next month. Investigators say there could be more victims.

JULIE IRETON: More victims do come forward. Several more. Eight men go to police and charges are laid. The allegations against Bob Clarke date back to the early 1970s and into the 1990s, long before Peter Hamer and long after. Eventually a court date is set and victims start to prepare.

PETER HAMER: I want them to be alive to be held accountable.

JULIE IRETON: Peter worries as he waits to face Bob Clarke in court.

PETER HAMER: Let him not have the guts to take his own life.

JULIE IRETON: But Peter's looking for accountability beyond the justice system.

PETER HAMER: You know what happened happened. Let's figure out you know why it was allowed to happen for as long as it was allowed to happen. I'm just desperate to find out.

JULIE IRETON: Peter's sister Nicola Hamer arrives with research material. OK so what's in this pile here?

NICOLA HAMER: Six years of Bell High School yearbooks from the years of spanning years that we were there.

JULIE IRETON: The yearbooks are dog eared and dusty but they show who is in charge over the years. Peter's elderly family dog Elvis wanders around the room.

PETER HAMER: He's got congestive heart failure.

JULIE IRETON: We gIve Elvis a pat and we get back to the yearbooks. Peter thinks some of the answers lie with the school board. Clarke's former employer. All Peter knows is Bob Clarke left teaching in 1992. There were rumours he was forced to leave. My own requests to the school board for information go unanswered.

PETER HAMER: My assumption is that each employee of the school board has a file attached to them. If there are complaints then they go into the file and there were complaints.

JULIE IRETON: Peter had complained to his principal in 1986 and he wants to know how many other school authorities knew about what Clarke was doing.

PETER HAMER: The focus for me now is why. You know it's the why. Why was he allowed to continue teaching. Bob Clark was all he you know he was obviously the main the main perpetrator but there were more and there are more people out there that I think to an extent could easily be considered just as guilty because they allowed it and the culpability is just as serious I think as as the actual crime I can comprehend where Clark comes from.

NICOLA HAMER: He's screwed up deeply screwed up and he has terrible urges or had terrible urges and he didn't rein them in in an appropriate manner like an adult should do. But he had. But I understand that he had these demons inside him. I don't understand why a principal whose job is to look after the students would help a monster be a monster. And so for me in some ways these people are more culpable. I'm just really angry. And so I want I want their names out. I want people to know that they're at fault. And clearly I'm not the only one who feels this way. Right.

JULIE IRETON: This investigation is bigger than Bob Clarke. Clarke isn't the only teacher in this story. There are two others men who worked at the same school bell high. One of the other teachers is Don Graham. He coached basketball and led the team to championship wins.

NICOLA HAMER: Look I think Greenham I don't know what he was like a personality but he got away with it because he produced success and they liked that the coach was accused of more than 55 crimes involving 22 former students.

JULIE IRETON: There are more dark secrets at Bell High School. Secrets kept for years. Three teachers dozens of victims iron cover complaints that go all the way back to 1968 and they don't end until 2005. We have our own little mini Catholic Church thing going on here they were protecting these guys and. It seems like every returners.

NICOLA HAMER: You find this sort of thing and I don't even care. That was 20 years and 30 years ago. I feel like people need to know what was actually going on.

JULIE IRETON: Bob Clarke and Don Greenham worked down the hall from each other at Bell High. So what really what I'm I'm trying to figure out and this is why I want to track down other teachers and principals, vice principals, if I can is the connections between these guys, right. I mean they worked under similar principals.

JULIE IRETON: I take the yearbooks back to my office and flip through the pages I'm looking for the faces that go with the victims names. These are names that appear on an official police charge sheet on a charge sheet for Don Graham. There's one name I recognize fronds glows. And according to the police he was a victim of the basketball coach. But I know from looking at the yearbooks he also played lead trumpet in Bob Clarke's band in his yearbook photo. He has glasses and dark hair. Franz Glaus shows up in the pictures on the vinyl album. The band cut in the late 1970s, he told police he was abused by the coach. I need to find that boy now a man in his 50s. Could France glows have been victimized by both teachers? Can you hear me OK?

FRANZ GLAUS: I hear you fine.

JULIE IRETON: Okay. It's windy.

FRANZ GLAUS: I'm going to get in my car so that I can avoid any and all freeze.

JULIE IRETON: Okay. So tell me your name though so I make sure I get the proper pronunciation.

FRANZ GLAUS: My name is Franz. Last name is Glaus, which is also a swiss german name, G-L-A-U-S.

JULIE IRETON: Franz Glaus is from Montana. He's lived there for most of his adult life but he grew up in the suburbs of Canada's capital. I went to balance seventy three forty years after graduating high school. France glows spoke to Ottawa police they were investigating the former Bell coach Don Greenham and then summer 74 I walked across Brennan's path and glaring at me. France has his own story about the coach an imposing man whose successful basketball teams became legend at Bell High.

FRANZ GLAUS: Donald Greenham actually grabbed my testicles threw my clothes right. So fortunately but still for me it was a real shocker cause you're sort of half basking in the attention you're getting from this you know demi god.

Don Grantham that demi god was charged in 2016. He was accused of 55 sex crimes involving 22 students he taught and coached in the 1970s and 80s.

It wasn't something that lasts a very long. But then it was over and I don't even remember what we said after it goes.

JULIE IRETON: I've been looking for anything that connects these three accused teachers at Bell High. Franz Glaus is a connection. He played first trumpet on this album recorded by the Bell High School band. Bob Clarke was his music teacher.

FRANZ GLAUS: I mean one's a music band director and a good one. He took our bands to city wide competitions and we won them. We won them all the time and Greenham had great basketball teams and would win citywide competitions. So these guys made their mark.

JULIE IRETON: This story began with the music teacher Bob Clarke. Now I'm following leads on the coach. I head north in the middle of a snowstorm. I'm meeting the very first victim to have emerged. Rob Ferron's experience predates the Bell High School horrors. It happened long before Franz Glaus was touched by the coach. When Rob Farren was Grantham student in the late 1960s I brought slippers leaving here for. A. Little bit and he's lived and worked in North Bay Ontario for his whole life. And right now he's counting down the days until his retirement.

Eight months and eight days just in case you were wondering you know I say that's like people.

He grabs a coffee and he settles in for a conversation that may go beyond his comfort zone. Do you really think you went the wrong way. Only a few people know Rob's story but he's agreed to tell me because he wants to know how abuse was allowed to continue for decades.

JULIE IRETON: I have a list of questions that I want to make sure that I get to.

ROB FERRON: OK.

JULIE IRETON: Rob Ferron talks about difficult memories from middle school. It all happened in North Bay about 50 years ago.

ROB FERRON: Yeah yeah close to it. It's 1968 is sort of focal point of my connection to Don Greenham.

JULIE IRETON: That's when he was Rob Ferron's gym teacher. He moved. It was early on in Greenham's career when he was teaching phys ed in North Bay.

ROB FERRON: He's probably in the vicinity of 12 years older than me so he's a very young man then you know. When I first met him I would have been twelve in 67.

JULIE IRETON: Greenham was a fit a towering figure back then when Ferran was in grade 8. The coach picked him and another boy to help out with a gymnastics class. The gym teacher made Ferran feel special. And that was important to this kid. His dad a second world war vet had anger issues and sometimes things at home could be rough. But with Greenham it was different.

Little things like Hey Rob how are you. I'm 13. He said hi. How do you like to go start my car for me. He had this bright red Pontiac convertible and of course being 13 and thinking well I was going to put it in reverse back up six feet put it in drive and go forward six feet high. It's pretty cool and drive but it was pretty special. I was now special. It was a very special young man within the school which was maybe something that I really wanted to be. I guess. Unfortunately it was. It was part of maybe what is quote unquote called the grooming process.

After gym classes Don Greenham encouraged all the sweaty 13 year old boys to shower together and the coach watched them.

He gave direction soap yourself all up and slide across the floor. Guys don't worry about it. Have some fun.

Yell and scream I'll take care of the flak. You know but but it got to be more than that. It was the encouragement of a well why don't you. So you know Johnny soap. Daggy or something and see how that you know if that's fine then. Don't ever call him. Joining us in the shower. He would stand at the edge as he was observing suggesting a game. Did the kids like him. I think so.

Yeah I do. You know I know I did. I liked him liking me.

JULIE IRETON: But that would change.

ROB FERRON: The canoe trip became the nightmare. Yeah.

JULIE IRETON: I've spoken to a lot of victims of Don Greenham, almost every one has a disturbing canoe or road trip story. For years Greenham took students on trips away from their parents.

ROB FERRON: There were five of us and we were recent Grade 8 graduates. And he came to us and to our parents and said that. Most years he went on canoe trips and he thought that we would enjoy that.

JULIE IRETON: A 13 year old kid going on a canoe trip with a favourite teacher and some buddies. What could be better.

ROB FERRON: So my parents thought OK that sounds wonderful.

JULIE IRETON: So Don Greenham drove them several hours south to the St. Lawrence Seaway to launch their canoes.

ROB FERRON: So I was a really experienced canoe or that.

JULIE IRETON: Along the way they picked up a couple men in their late teens or early 20s.

ROB FERRON: They were kind of fun. They were a little bit crazy to my way of thinking.

JULIE IRETON: They were apparently connected to Don Graham from a scouting trip.

ROB FERRON: So we set out for canoes. I'm in the back of one and Don Grantham and the two older guys. From his scope scouting trip were in the backs of the other three and the five of us were distributed in these four. And it was everywhere then. And my memory says is that it was darn close to two weeks long time in the late afternoon. They would set up camp and pitch two tents and so four of us the great apes the kids would sleep in one. Don Greenham and the two older guys and one of the kids would sleep in the other one and it makes you wonder, but I can't wonder I know what happened to me that when it was my turn to sleep in the tent I thought OK this is great you know.

JULIE IRETON: But it wasn't great, it was awful. And it's never left him.

ROB FERRON: You had to participate in these games, in his abusive games where you are made to take your bottoms off your underwear to lie down naked and one or both of the young men from the scout troop would tie like a string or a shoelace, something like that around your genitals, around your testicles and your pants and they tie a knot and leave one end long. And then they would start making you do sort of like bridges pulling you up vertically. All the while smiling like isn't this fun? Don Greenham would never do that. He would never pull the string. I don't have any memory, but he would touch it. He would absolutely touch it. He would play with your testicles. He would. I don't know if he's trying to masturbate you or what the hell he was trying to do, but he would play with your penis and I've no idea how long this would go on for, but when it was over he got a piece of blueberry pie.

JULIE IRETON: A reward for being special. There would be many more canoe trips in Don Greenham's future. Rob Farren's experience in North Bay was in 1968. Two years later Don Greenham was teaching at another middle school. This time in a suburb of Ottawa. He taught and coached Grades 7 and 8, but Don Greenham had another job. He became the much admired basketball coach. The coach at a nearby high school, Bell High.

FRANZ GLAUS: He was a favourite of the kids. Really just fun guy. Great coach. Get the best out of everybody on the team and gave everybody a chance to play.

JULIE IRETON: Franz Glaus met Don Greenham in middle school, just like Rob Ferron before him.

FRANZ GLAUS: He was a guidance counsellor, but also our basketball coach.

JULIE IRETON: Greenham was that teacher kids are supposed to go to with problems, but he was actually playing awful games with his students. One involved grabbing boy's genitals.

FRANZ GLAUS: And the idea was you would name a chocolate bar and if it was a crunchy chocolate bar he would squeeze harder. It was this a soft chocolate bar. He would relax his grip and grin and did this and a lot more with his favourite group of guys a lot more, like tape their penises together and tie their penises up to a branch of a tree at the campground where he would take kids to go camping. These are a couple of the treatments that stand out in my mind as you can imagine. But there were others that I can't get into so this guy is a real power. But when you're growing up in this and everybody loves Grantham all the teachers think he's great. The whole school reveres the man. I mean I guess part of you is thinking well it's just for fun in kicks. You don't know yet that it's a total perversion.

FRANZ GLAUS: Like Rob Ferron, Franz Glaus didn't tell his parents because there's something wrong, but you don't want to tell your parents about it.

MG: Franz Glaus's mother does find out and she goes to authorities in the 1970s. Tomorrow we'll find out how officials at the school board reacted to that news. We've been listening to The Band Played On, a CBC investigative podcast by reporter Julie Ireton nd producer Kristen Nelson. If you want to hear the entire podcast, you can find it on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. That's The Current for today. Stay tuned to CBC Radio One for Q. The screen panel convenes to look at the big stories happening in the worlds of film and television. Today Tina Hassannia and Reardon discuss the controversy surrounding former U.S. President Donald Trump Press Secretary Sean Spicer's debut on Dancing With The Stars. Now earlier in the show we talked about the huge swaths of land being swallowed up by the forest fires in the Amazon. World leaders have expressed frustration with Brazil's president Bolsonaro for not taking more action and for downplaying the impact of his policies on the planet. They're not the only ones getting a bit fed up with inaction on climate change. Remember Bill Nye the Science Guy? Friendly TV host teaching kids about science, stylish bow ties. He's getting a bit more salty these days. Take for example his spot on a recent show of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. Let's just say we had to do a little bit of beeping and bleeping before airing this segment. Don't say I didn't warn you. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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Segment from Last Week Tonight With John Oliver featuring Bill Nye the Science Guy.

The Current Transcript for August 26, 2019

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Brazil wary of foreign help with Amazon fires over fear region is 'ripe for invasion': writer

The Band Plays On – Episode 1

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