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The Current Transcript for February 8, 2017

Host: Kelly Crowe

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Grade me. Look at me. Evaluate and rank me. Oh, I’m good, good, good and oh so smart. Grade me.

KELLY CROWE: Lisa Simpson would probably lose her mind if Springfield Elementary got rid of letter grades. But that's what some BC schools have been doing—saying goodbye to As, Bs and Cs and focusing on detailed feedback instead. We'll hear what's behind the approach in an hour. Plus, more on our coverage of Canada's chronically delayed courts.

SOUNDCLIP

You don't have enough judges. You don't have enough court staff. You don't have enough space. You don't have enough courtrooms. You don't have enough hours in the day.

KC: Delays in getting to trial, cases being thrown out because they're taking too long. Many in Canada's legal system say it's almost out of control. How to unclog the court backlog—we'll hear suggestions coming up in half an hour. But we start in Somalia. As presidential elections take place today, many in the country are grappling with bigger problems.

SOUNDCLIP

It doesn't concern us whether this president will come back or not. We are poor people. We are displaced people. We just need help. Whatever president is elected, we just need help.

KC: I’m Kelly Crowe and this is The Current.

U.S. travel ban and famine put pressure on Somali refugee plight

Guests: Yvonne Ndege, Luca Russo, Mahad Yusuf

SOUNDCLIP

I just left Dadaab camp. I just came in Nairobi almost 10 days ago. About to leave Kenya to America, we get the ticket. We are about to leave. In fact, we’re just waiting. We are just hoping to leave, if god wish.

That's Ahmed Ismail Shafat, a 24-year-old Somali. He was born and raised in the Dadaab refugee camp along the Kenya-Somalia border. At the end of last month, Ahmed was full of hope. He'd been accepted as a refugee to the United States. But President Donald Trump's travel ban on refugees and immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries has left him in limbo. Ahmed spent years being vetted by US and UN officials, including the US Department of Homeland Security.

SOUNDCLIP

I have been waiting this process for almost eight years. Eight good years. In the year 2009, I got the first interview in the UN. In the same year, I also [unintelligible] the second phase in the [unintelligible] office. I also [unintelligible] Africa. It was a long process.

KC: Ahmed said he was ready to go, following last minute medicals and taking cultural lessons at a transit centre in Nairobi, Kenya. He had even bought a winter coat for when he settled in Kansas City, Missouri—a place he had researched and where he dreams of studying math.

SOUNDCLIP

At first it was very painful, very sad, very disappointing. In fact, I like so much in Kansas City because there’s good work with good payment. There’s also opportunity to [unintelligible] studies. In fact, I like Kansas City but unfortunately now, they have not tell us exact time that you are leaving. But we are just hoping. We are just expecting something to change.

KC: For now, Ahmed waits—still hopeful—back at the Dadaab refugee camp. Yvonne Ndege is the UNHCR spokesperson for Kenya. And we've reached her in Nairobi, Kenya. Hello.

YVONNE NDEGE: Hi there.

KC: How common is Ahmed’s story?

YVONNE NDEGE: Unfortunately very common. The US ban on Somali refugees has left many of them—who had been waiting to be resettled in the United States for years—feeling a sense of despair, a sense of heartbrokenness, many a sense of disbelief. What people have to remember is that many of these refugees who were approved to be resettled in the United States have undergone, as you heard there, years of scrutiny and investigation. And UNHCR Kenya, the whole organization puts forward the most vulnerable people for consideration for resettlement and that includes people who have medical issues and needs. It can often be women who have been abused, who have faced violence or torture and rape and children who are extremely disadvantaged or in dangerous situations.

KC: So what is life like in the camp for refugees like Ahmed?

YVONNE NDEGE: Well, refugees like Ahmed, those who are caught up in the ban, were sent back to the camps and life for them, you know is a challenge. It's not a place that they want to be. It's a place where many of them still very dependent. And many of them feel that they don't have the independence that they would want from normal life and doing all the things that normal human beings and citizens do. The whole situation of being encamped in a confined space, not having the same rights as citizens in the host communities, all these issues leave many refugees feeling very, as I say, having a sense of despair and you know a sense of not being in control of their lives.

KC: Now how stringent was the vetting process? We hear they've been extensively vetted but I mean give us a sense of how stringent that is.

YVONNE NDEGE: Resettlement of refugees is a very, very, very, very, very stringent process. Refugees, you know first of all, don't choose their own country of resettlement. Resettlement countries like the United States have their own screening procedures in place and basically they take the final decision. When they are referred, there are numerous security checks involving multiple government agencies in the host communities and countries where they might be going, in this case, the US. Many of them in particular Somalis, are subject to some of the highest levels of security checks of any category of refugee traveler to the United States.

KC: Now at the same time, Somalia could be on the brink of another famine. How is that situation affecting the remaining refugee camps in Kenya?

YVONNE NDEGE: Well, there are concerns about the famine obviously. And UNHCR is working with its partners and counterparts to try and come up with some kind of contingency plan to assist those who might be affected by the famine and who might be seeking refuge in Kenya.

KC: Now Kenya will be closing the Dadaab refugee camp at the end of May. They say that al-Shabaab is using the camp to recruit members. What's that going to mean for these people? How many people are living there now and where will they go?

YVONNE NDEGE: Yes. So we, UNHCR, are looking at a number of possible solutions to try and accommodate the very needy refugees that run into the hundreds of thousands. In other places, there is a voluntary repatriation program that's running which is giving those who want to return to Somalia the opportunity to do so. We're also looking at relocating some refugees to Kakuma, which is another major refugee camp in Kenya. But we’re also you know asking the Kenyan government to continue to give refugees space and to continue to—as they always have done for many years—to meet their international obligations in giving refugees the protection and safe haven they so much need.

KC: Okay, Yvonne. Well, thank you very much for talking with us.

YVONNE NDEGE: You're welcome. Thank you, Kelly.

KC: Yvonne Ndege is the UNHCR spokesperson for Kenya. We reached her in Nairobi, Kenya. With their dreams of resettling in the US on hold, many Somalis now face a new challenge—drought. The country suffered one of the worst famines ever in 2011 when more than 250,000 people died. At the time, aid organizations blamed the international community for its politicized response. Meanwhile, al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda affiliate, controls large parts of southern Somalia, making aid distribution difficult and many countries reluctant to participate. There are fears a similar tragedy could repeat itself with the United Nations warning that Somalia could be facing famine again this year, without a massive and urgent increase in aid. Luca Russo is the senior strategic adviser on resilience with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, Italy. And that's where we've reached him. Hello.

LUCA RUSSO: Hello. Good morning.

KC: Good morning. How dire is the food security situation in Somalia at the moment?

LUCA RUSSO: You see I was listening to your introduction and you know my impression is that by looking at the date today, it is like to see an old movie. And the old movie is the Somalia of 2010, 2011 famine. The figures are the same. We have about three million people which we consider to be severely food insecure which is the double of six months ago. There are about 400,000 children which are acutely malnourished and the situation is likely to worsen for a number of reasons. The first one is that the next rainy season, the good season is expected to be again a poor rainy season. We are a bit worried about the cost and the price of the main staple that may raise and if there is not enough humanitarian assistance, this situation can be an exact repeat of the Somalia famine 2011. Just for remembering, in 2011 when the famine was declared, that was in July 2011, is only then the international community mobilized the Air Force. But as you said, there were already 250,000 people who had died.

KC: Now have you named it technically a famine yet? And if not, what would change when that designation is put in place?

LUCA RUSSO: That is the problem, that unfortunately there is this attitude I would say from the international community not to intervene unless a famine is declared. But the moment you declare a famine, that means it’s already too late. That means that people have already died. So what we are in at the moment in what we call an emergency situation but an emergency situation can slip into a famine very easily without even noticing.

KC: Now is it too late or is it possible to stop at this point?

LUCA RUSSO: It is not too late. And I think at the moment there is a lot of effort to mobilize the attention of the international community on this. There is an urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Hoping that most of Somalia will be accessible for humanitarian assistance because that is absolutely fundamental and that was the problem in 2011, where a large part of Somalia was not accessible. And then there are a number of measures. For instance, I'm talking for [unintelligible], livestock is the mainstay of Somali people and therefore there are a number of urgent measure that allow livestock to survive in these difficult situations, like providing animal feed, water and veterinary service. So if we intervene now, there is a good chance that at least the risk will be minimized.

KC: Now give us a sense of how the people are being affected. Are you seeing effects in children at this stage?

LUCA RUSSO: Yes. I would estimate that there is about 400,000 children. We said that there is about three million people who are affected at the moment and 400,000 children as what we call severely malnourished. And when a child is severely malnourished, that means that the capacity to grow and learn will be diminished. So some of these changes of effect can be irreversible already.

KC: What would you like to see immediately to try to prevent—

LUCA RUSSO: Immediately, I think it's very important, it's very important that awareness is raised and that we stop waiting for seeing dead body before intervening. In fact, I feel we want to start a massive awareness campaign on this crisis. And unfortunately, there are some patterns of crises which are happening in other countries at the same time, like South Sudan, northeastern Nigeria. And therefore, I think it will be necessary a massive mobilization of the international community on this.

KC: Now how do you move the aid around when it's very difficult in parts of the country controlled by the militant group al-Shabaab, an Islamist group allied to al-Qaeda? What can be done to try to reach people in those areas?

LUCA RUSSO: You see in those areas, sometimes the UN, as a partnership with local NGOs, local group who are possibly allowed to travel and deliver aid. Clearly in a few areas where the presence of military group is too heavy, the only way is to do airlift and dropping food.

KC: Okay, Luca Russo. Thank you very much for talking to us today.

LUCA RUSSO: Most welcome. Thank you.

KC: Bye-bye.

LUCA RUSSO: Bye-bye.

KC: Luca Russo is the senior strategic advisor on resilience with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, Italy. Canada's Somali diaspora is one of the biggest in the world and some Somali Canadians have been calling for more action from our government on all fronts, from the refugee situation to the threat of famine. Mahad Yusuf is the executive director of the Somali Immigrant Aid Organization. He's in our Toronto studio. Hello.

MAHAD YUSUF: Good morning, Kelly.

KC: We've been hearing about the drought in Somalia and the difficulties facing the refugees in Kenya. What details have you been hearing from the Somali refugees here in Canada that you're working with?

MAHAD YUSUF: We know that the situation of the drought. This drought is really, really bad and extremely bad. So that for the two rainy seasons that has been impacted the people. We know that every drought that we experience, that the women and children are the huge impact of those droughts. And this community here in the diaspora have been already working in mobilizing, sending money and so on, even though we also had [unintelligible] sending money because most of the hawalas and money transferring systems has been closed. Many of them are not functioning. So there was a huge impact and it's a sad situation.

KC: And they’re getting word from friends and relatives there.

MAHAD YUSUF: That’s right. Many of the people that we serve will come to our aid agencies. Many of them who wanted to sponsor—you know I want to bring up the issue of barrier to resettlement because there are a large number of Somali Canadians who live in Canada who want to sponsor their families, who want to bring them to save them or many of them even in a refugee camp ended up. The stories that you heard from Ahmed in the Dadaab refugee camp and also Yvonne really touched me because that's our lived experience for the past 30 years that keeps happening at the same time. So what we were asking, number one was the new Canadian government to remove those barriers, the barriers of the settlement of Somali refugees that has been impacting. And many of them for the past 10 years or the decade, what we know that there was no cases being processed and the length—even though the refugee camp in Dadaab is the largest in the world but the refugee processing, it takes almost six to seven sometimes 10 years. And many of the people believing that that mission is almost impossible to even sponsor your family or go through that. So we are appealing to Canadian government again to urgently number one. Number one is to respond to the crisis of the drought itself. Even the people inside the country that have no water, food and so on. We don't want to see what happened in 2011 and now almost to we’re there.

KC: Now how hopeful are you that the situation will change with Ahmed Hussen, a Somali refugee himself, who is now the minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship?

MAHAD YUSUF: We're very, very hopeful with [unintelligible] government and Ahmed and this team to respond immediately. It’s an urgent crisis and we want to see the Canadian people also to respond this urgent, urgent crisis before the situation gets much worse to the televisions and so on and the famine comes into what you have seen in the past many, many decades.

KC: Now this past weekend, four Somali asylum seekers who are among 22 who walked into Emerson, Manitoba from North Dakota. How easy has it been for Somali refugees to get permission to stay in the United States in recent years even before the Trump administration's refugee ban?

MAHAD YUSUF: Even before the time, it was very difficult for the many of the Somali refugees who were coming to Canada. They've been detained in the United States and then come to Canada. It wasn't very easy but now it makes that you've seen that it's more difficult for the families and the refugees from Somalia has been targeted systemically. And even though these are vulnerable people and they've been continuously being targeted and what we are hoping to see the Canadian government open the doors for them.

KC: Now Somalia’s long-delayed presidential election is being held today with members of parliament choosing a new head of state. How hopeful are you that a new president will lead the country forward onto a better path?

MAHAD YUSUF: It's not very easy. Despite of the elections, despite that hope that the new government will come into place, but our experience is that tthe situation are so bad. Millions of people are at risk today for famine because there is no rain, no food and so on and so forth. So unless we have an international response, especially like countries like Canada to lead that process and support of the people, it will not be an easy quick fix.

KC: Okay. Well, thank you for talking with me.

MAHAD YUSUF: You’re very welcome. Thank you very much.

KC: Mahad Yusuf is the executive director of the Somali Immigrant Aid Organization. He was in our Toronto studio. We did request an interview with Canada's minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, Ahmed Hussen. He was not available. If you have any comments on the stories you've heard today, please get in touch any way you can. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or post on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cbcthecurrent or e-mail us through our website. Go to www.cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact us link. And while you're there, check out pictures, links and download the podcast. It's all at www.cbc.ca/thecurrent.

[Music: Bridge]

KC: The CBC News is next. Then, why does it take 10 times longer for a trial to conclude in Australia than it does here in Canada? The Current’s coverage of Canada's court delay problem continues in our next half hour with a look at how to fix it. I'm Kelly Crowe and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Sting]

'I wanted a conviction': Father says court delays denied his toddler justice

Guests: James, George Baker

KC: Hello. I'm Kelly Crowe and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

KC: Still to come, imagine bringing home a report card at the end of the school year with no As, Bs Cs or Ds—just some detailed feedback from your teacher. That's what's happening at some BC schools and more are on their way to ditching letter grades. We'll hear why the idea is getting good marks from some parents but not from all in half an hour. But first, when Justice delayed feels like justice denied.

SOUNDCLIP

We showed up for trial. It was a seven-day trial. It was a serious sexual assault allegation. And when we got to court, there was so many more cases that were in jeopardy of being thrown out, that even though our case had been scheduled for over a year, the judge said that ours wasn't in jeopardy of being thrown out yet. So we were going to be rescheduled. It was a little bit like studying for a really big exam only to find out that it was cancelled at the last minute. It's a really frustrating process for everyone involved.

KC: That was criminal defence lawyer Daniel Brown, one of the guests we heard from Monday on The Current when we looked into the topic of court delays and what they're doing to our justice system. The Supreme Court's so-called “Jordan decision” last summer has put new pressure on the system to get cases wrapped up. Since it took effect, cases across the country have been stayed—from impaired driving and drug possession offences, to aggravated sexual assault and murder. Last month, an Ontario judge cited the Jordan decision when he stayed charges against a male teenager accused of sexually assaulting a three-year-old child at his mother's daycare. He found that the 15 year old's constitutional right to a speedy trial had been violated. I'm joined by the child's father, who we're calling James. His real name cannot be revealed to protect the identity of his daughter. And a warning that our conversation will include graphic details of an alleged sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. Hello, James.

JAMES: Hi. How are you?

KC: I'm good, thanks. Thanks for talking with us. What happened to your daughter at that daycare?

JAMES: Well, there was a son of our daycare provider that lived up the home with her. He was 13 years old. We had been there for about a year at that time and we had come home from Easter weekend and the next day was going back to daycare and getting ready for bed. She had told us that she didn't want to go back to the daycare, which is unusual because generally speaking, she is always you know, there was two other girls there that are the same age, one of which was the daycare provider’s daughter. And she always enjoyed going there. But this particular time, she said I don't want to go and we found that unusual. And then we kind of said well, you know you have to. You know you have to go to daycare tomorrow. Mom and Dad have to go to work. And she just kind of started spilling the beans about what was going on there and at that time, she was three years old. For a two and a half, three year old kid, to describe what she did to us, just painted a terrible picture. It was very clear what was going on at the daycare and it was very clear that it was sexually related. So we immediately you know called the police and reported it. I mean it's a pretty terrible situation.

KC: What were you able to piece together from what she told you?

JAMES: Well, we knew that you know the son, you know he had his penis out, basically. You know there was you know making motions, hand gestures to things. You know he pulled her to you know lick her in spots. He licked her in spots and you know there's things that a parent doesn't want to hear obviously and these are just a couple of the things. But it was obvious that there was something disturbing going on in that house and that there is no way we were taking her back there. And I'm just glad like our daughter is very—she's a very smart kid. And she explained herself very well. And I know maybe a lot of parents would—I don't know, I can't say—but I know I've heard you know some parents you know when you hear it in the news and stuff, oh, we just thought nothing of it or whatever. But I mean this picture she was painting for us was so clear, we couldn't ignore it. It was just awful what she was telling us so we obviously took it seriously right away and you know it turned out that there was an issue.

KC: What happened next once the police were involved?

JAMES: So we had to go down to the police station and our daughter had to make a statement to the police. We were directed to the sexual assault unit. Those are the first steps. I mean a lot of the stuff that happened at the start are kind of a blur at this point. This was a couple of years ago now.

KC: The charges were laid in the end.

JAMES: Yes. Sorry. Yes. Charges were laid. Yes. Yes.

KC: What was it like navigating the court system?

JAMES: It was a stressful and struggling situation. Like I said, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. It's a tough process to go through. You want to get information but you know you're not allowed to have some of that information. You know you're not supposed to discuss the situation with your spouse. You're not supposed to talk to the child about it. I mean it's hard to really work through it because you're not allowed to talk about it.

KC: Did it feel like it was taking a long time?

JAMES: Yes, it did. And you know we had some delays, which ultimately as you know, resulted in the accused, charges being stayed.

KC: When did you find out that this was a risk, that it had taken too long and that the charges might be thrown out?

JAMES: Well, we weren't concerned about it or I should say the Crown wasn't concerned about it. And I mean it makes sense that she wasn't concerned about it because this law, the Jordan rule didn't come into effect until July this past year and our trial had started prior to that. So I mean they considered our case a transitional case, meaning it started before this rule came in and you would think that because of that, that this rule would not have had an effect in our situation but I guess the judge decided that he was going to set a precedent and make the rule applicable to our case, which you know obviously didn't turn out in our favour.

KC: What caused the case to drag on long enough that it was eventually stayed?

JAMES: Well, we were told that there were a couple points on both sides of the Crown and the defence that contributed to some delays, whether it was based on appropriate witnesses or evidence as well as technical difficulties.

KC: What kind of technical difficulties?

JAMES: Well, with young kids, they avoid at all costs putting them on the stand, which I mean I totally agree with. So they have a separate room set aside with you know there's a microphone and a camera so that the judge can communicate with them. And there were a few times where the equipment wasn't working. So essentially that resulted in delays and you know they’re kids, they also need breaks. So I mean it's hard to make them sit there when the equipment is not working right. So that ultimately resulted in a bunch of delays and timeline. So I mean one day gets delayed and you know there's a lot of dates blocked up so they have to push it back three, four months, however long it takes.

KC: Do you think a delay like that should lead to a stay?

JAMES: It's really hard to say because as much as—I don't know. I wanted a conviction obviously because we know based on what was told to us what happened. I mean it seems like a ridiculous reason for a delay like that to contribute to a stayed charge of that severity to me. But the judge you know had said pretty much that the technical difficulties can’t be blamed on anyone. So I mean there's nothing we can do about that.

KC: So in the end, the judge decided to stay the charges against the teenager that was accused of sexually assaulting your daughter.

JAMES: That's correct. And we were, again we weren't privy to our daughter's testimony. We weren't allowed to be in there. We know what she said to us. We know what she said on the police video and everyone was confident. When I say everyone, I mean the Crown and the detective involved was very confident that we were going to be successful in the trial. But when I guess we really will never know for sure whether or not the evidence alone would have gotten a conviction. But everyone was very confident that we would have.

KC: Do you remember when you heard what happened?

JAMES: We were all in the courtroom for the decision and that is probably one of the most frustrating situations I've ever been in and you know you're trying to stay composed but it's very difficult.

KC: What was your reaction when you realized he was making this decision?

JAMES: Just furious. It's really hard to put into words, to be honest. Just all of us, it's just extremely frustrating. Like I said, I wouldn't wish this process or this situation on my worst enemy. It's just an awful grueling process to go through and just the situation in general was just terrible.

KC: What happened with the daycare? Did it stay closed?

JAMES: Yeah. Oh yeah. It certainly stayed closed. But from what we understand, there's no charges against the daycare provider. So I mean there's nothing—I don't think there's anything stopping her from if she really wanted to, to open up that daycare again. And that's a frightening thought.

KC: Okay. Well, thank you James, for sharing your story.

JAMES: Thank you for letting us having it heard because like I said, if there's one thing I can say to parents, I mean if you're—it doesn’t even have to be a private daycare. If you're going to any daycare, you do your research and make sure you know that your kids are safe.

KC: Okay. Well, thank you, James, very much.

JAMES: No problem. Thank you.

KC: That was James, as we're calling him. It's not his real name. His daughter was three years old when she was allegedly sexually assaulted by a male teenager. That teenager had those charges stayed because trial proceedings had taken too long. But last week, he was convicted of crimes against another girl who also attended the daycare. Those charges occurred later. Senator George Baker is deputy chair of a Senate committee that has been studying the issue of court delays. He's in Ottawa. Hello.

GEORGE BAKER: Hi, Kelly.

KC: It seems every week there's a new story in the media about charges being stayed or at risk of being stayed due to lengthy court delays. What goes through your mind when you hear stories like that?

GEORGE BAKER: Well, I think the thing that stands out in my mind Kelly, is when you have a victim or a family member of a victim saying look, how can a person who has been convicted of the most serious of crimes—take for example, sexually assaulting children 12 years of age, as was the case in the Williamson case—the person is convicted and then has the entire thing erased because the trial took too long to take place. That's what's so alarming to people. That is the conundrum we are in in Canada. We have a law that says and it dates right back to our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that if you can't be tried within a reasonable time—those are the exact words—then the answer is a stay of proceedings. In other words, you entirely erase the charges and the person cannot be charged again.

KC: Do you think Canadians appreciate the extent of the problem?

GEORGE BAKER: Well, I think they will pretty soon because in 11 months from now, the transitional exceptional circumstances will come to an end and then we'll see a flood of cases. You'll see thousands of cases unless the changes are made that the Supreme Court of Canada highlighted in their decision that must be made to prevent these delays.

KC: So at the end of this transitional period, there will be even more cases thrown out?

GEORGE BAKER: Oh yes. You will have tens of thousands of cases unless these changes are made.

KC: Are the changes being made in your opinion?

GEORGE BAKER: No, they are not right now and that's why our committee of the Senate is so important, to come up with some solutions.

KC: What kind of solutions?

GEORGE BAKER: Well, there's many. The Supreme Court of Canada has highlighted that the Crown has got to smarten up on its disclosure obligations. They've asked that we look at the rules of court. I mean why is it that only in criminal courts do we have such delays whereas in the federal court we don't? In the civil courts, we don't. Well, we looked at all of their rules to find out if things can be brought from the federal court system rules and the civil court system rules into criminal courts.

KC: So other mechanisms that don't use up the court's time that would move things along, you're trying to come up with some kind of system.

GEORGE BAKER: Yes. What we have is a system in Canada today in which the innocent, if you're innocent you're held in limbo for years. If you're guilty, for years you're not prosecuted and the general public become totally frustrated. So the question becomes this: should Canada be perhaps the only nation in the world of comparable judicial systems in which a stay is entered for the most serious of crimes like first degree murder, sexual assault against children, for goodness sake, the transmission of drugs of the most serious nature? Or should we be doing what some other nations are doing and saying no, we won't enter a stay for those very serious charges, but what we'll do is we'll have that matter go to sentencing and go to costs. In Britain, they addressed that at sentencing, they address it in damages. They address it in costs. I'm not saying that's what our committee will recommend but that's one of the considerations on the minds of people who have been listening to the general public and the general public saying this. it just doesn't make any sense to have a person convicted of first-degree murder and then just the entire thing erased because somebody had not presented a disclosure document during a trial on time.

KC: Now you brought up the Williamson case. What happened there that concerned you?

GEORGE BAKER: Well, the Williamson case, it was a case of sexual assault and I won't describe the counts there because they're very alarming, very outrageous. The person had gone through the trial, been convicted and then had the whole thing overturned as if it didn't happen.

KC: Thrown out because it took too long.

GEORGE BAKER: Yes, because it took too long for the process to take place. Now what is too long? We examined just how long trials take place in other nations of comparable jurisdiction. We found that in Canada, it takes from five to 10 times longer for a trial to be concluded in Canada than in Australia or Britain or the European nations.

KC: Why? Why does it take so long?

GEORGE BAKER: Well, the system has gotten complex. Forty years ago, 50 years ago if you had somebody committing an offence, they'd probably be charged with two or three counts of violating the law. Today it's 10 or 12 counts for the same offence. That’s one reason.

KC: Is that unique in Canada? Is that why the Canadian system is not measuring up compared to these other countries?

GEORGE BAKER: Well now, don't forget: we have the best system of justice in the world. I firmly believe that.

KC: It doesn't sound like it when you say we throw out cases.

GEORGE BAKER: The best system of justice but this is the one big drawback. Does the solution lie in not entering a stay but having it go to sentencing and to costs? Does it lie there for very serious crimes or does it lie in a whole series of things that can be done during trials to shorten them up? The Crown counsel, defense counsel, the police have got to realize that this culture that they're in, this culture of complacency and delay has got to stop and we have to institute deadlines. We have to say to the Crown, look, you've got to have total disclosure prior to any trial taking place. Every bit of evidence that you're to use a trial, you have to disclose it prior to trial and the Crown will say but no, we can't do that. Police will say no, we can't do that because this is an ongoing matter. Sorry, you're going to have to do it and we can have a caveat there that says you can only enter new disclosure if you use due diligence and it wasn't available in the first place.

KC: Is this the apathy in the system that you're referring to—a sort of a lack of concern about the delay?

GEORGE BAKER: Yes. It's a complacency about delay, that things are going along as they should. You walk into a courtroom anywhere on a Monday morning or on arraignment day and you've got all the lawyers there with all of those people accused of crimes. What are some of the lawyers there doing? They're there to ask the court to set a date, to set dates, to set dates. Now come on. Surely that can be done by email or by telephone, as prothonotaries do in the federal court system. Defence counsel as well—I'm not just saying that Crown counsel has got to go through major changes here—but also defense counsel.

KC: Sounds like you want have to work a little bit harder in the beginning.

GEORGE BAKER: Yes. They've got to turn their minds to this on an urgent basis because if public confidence in our judicial system is lost, then we are nowhere. We no longer have the best system of justice in the world unless we can correct this one big problem.

KC: Now we talked to a couple of other people to get their take on how to improve the system. And I'd like to get your reaction to these ideas. First, Nawel Izard thinks the restaurant industry could hold some solutions when it comes to serving justice. When she was a law student at Thompson Rivers University, she and some of her peers developed a mobile app and desktop computer software called “Summons” and they hope to pilot it in BC.

SOUNDCLIP

In civil proceedings, you will tend to have a generic 9:45 a.m. time and everyone gets that same time on their paperwork, but you kind of show up and don't know when you're going to be heard. The longest time that I spent waiting around for a hearing was about eight hours and the shortest was about two. So what our solution does is it allows all users to electronically request a hearing time and be alerted of an approximate timeframe within which their hearing will be heard. So people can actually use their day more efficiently and then show up when it's their turn. So it's kind of inspired by those restaurant gadgets that you see at Olive Garden when there's a really long wait for a table and that thing will buzz and flash red lights at you when your table's ready.

KC: So what do you think of that idea, Senator Baker?

GEORGE BAKER: I think that has merit. That certainly has merit because if you take the model of not just the restaurant model she took, but look at our hospitals, look at our operating rooms. They have a computerized system to project just how busy something will be at a particular moment in time. Look at the airlines with their seating arrangements and so on. So we need to have an electronic system to better project courtroom use in Canada.

KC: Now we also contacted Bruce MacFarlane, a law professor at the University of Manitoba. More than a decade ago when he was deputy attorney general for the province, he started up a night court pilot project.

SOUNDCLIP

It ran for a very short period of time but it became apparent that we were not getting by because the moment that you start to work during the day and during the evening, you're cutting into valuable family time. So I understand that. But we were still hopeful that we would be able to use this approach on a permanent basis and speed up the process and I still think it's a good idea.

KC: What do you think about the idea of night court? Would that help?

GEORGE BAKER: Well, I think that Bruce has made an excellent suggestion there. I'll just give you an example of exactly what Bruce is talking about. We have in Canada, we have summer breaks. Just like your schools have summer breaks, the courts take summer recess. Should there be a recess when we have overcrowding in cases, overcrowding in courtrooms, we have this extensive court delay—night court would be another example. But as Bruce pointed out, you not only need the judges but you also need the staff and their holidays and so on and their family obligations have to be taken into account.

KC: What about the idea of eliminating stays altogether?

GEORGE BAKER: Well, 11B of the Charter—that section says to be tried within a reasonable time and that is a very important component to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And a lot of people can understand why we have that provision there for matters that are either summary in nature or hybrid in nature—less serious offences. Where people are taking an exception to the fact is when somebody is convicted of a very serious crime, that they can have that entirely erased because of a stay after 11B. So maybe what we should be doing is addressing those most serious of charges and saying look, the general public is going to lose confidence in our justice system if this continues.

KC: Okay. Well, we'll look forward to seeing the report. And thank you very much for talking to us.

GEORGE BAKER: Well, you're quite welcome, Kelly and thank you. Thank you to the CBC for visiting this subject.

KC: Senator George Baker is deputy chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. He's in Ottawa. Coming up in our next half hour, what if there were no more A-students or Bs or Cs or Ds? Schools in British Columbia are already experimenting with going letter grade free. Find out what goes on the report card instead and what's behind the move after the regional update. I'm Kelly Crowe and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Sting]

Why some B.C. schools say letter grade report cards fail students

Guests: Julie Cornell, Michael Zwaagstra, Sandra Mathison

KC: Hello I'm Kelly Crowe and this is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Child singing the alphabet song]

KC: Well, A, B, C, D and F have long been the benchmarks in school. From the earliest years right through university, those letter grades have rewarded, frustrated, even defined students for generations. But the time could be coming when those letter grades are a thing of the past. Last week, a school district north of Vancouver said it would be scrapping letter grades from grades four through nine in a new pilot project. It's a relatively new teaching philosophy that says grades aren't a necessary part of elementary school education and might actually impede kids from reaching their potential. This comes as the BC Ministry of Education wraps up consultations with parents on how they want to receive updates on their child's progress. While Premier Christy Clark reassured parents this week that her government has no immediate plans to ditch letter grades province-wide, many individual schools and districts are already doing just that. A school in Maple Ridge, BC was an early adopter of the no-grades approach in 2013. Julie Cornell is a teacher there at Alouette Elementary in Maple Ridge, BC. That's where we reached her this morning. Hello.

JULIE CORNELL: Hello.

KC: Why did your school stop giving grades to students?

JULIE CORNELL: I think before I say that, I should answer that it's not just my school. Our entire school district actually stopped for elementary students in 2013.

KC: Okay. And why?

JULIE CORNELL: Well, it started a couple of years before that and we basically, we had sort of a committee, a reporting committee that got together and just asked ourselves a really big question which was what do parents and students and teachers really need or would be really beneficial in the whole reporting process?

KC: Was there something about grades that wasn't doing that?

JULIE CORNELL: I don't think the conversation ever started from grades. It started from what would work better because right now teachers are at the point—at that point teachers were spending hours and hours and hours working on report cards and they weren't feeling a big impact when they actually gave those report cards to the family. So letter grades was something that came in later. It was never the goal from the beginning. It was where we ended up.

KC: So without the grades then, how do you evaluate students?

JULIE CORNELL: I think it's important that you—okay, so terminology, evaluate means that we are assessing them like we're giving them a judgment on how they're doing. And we still do that in a lot of ways. No letter grades doesn't mean that we don't do any assessment. It just means that we don't give them a letter grade.

KC: Right. So what would their report cards look like?

JULIE CORNELL: So the report card, the report card is a bit of a process and I think that that's an important piece also, that we never just removed letter grades, we implemented a new method of reporting. So there are two components to that. Two big components. One is the letter grades went away but the second part is that we have students and parents in to conference and we meet with every single family to discuss that student's progress. So the official paper report card is a part of that conversation. On one of their pages, we have the student’s report on their growth in the competencies areas. Those are big skill sets like curiosity, cooperation, organization, motivation, social responsibility, all those types of things. And students are a big part of that now. We've just shifted to where the students have to actually provide evidence on each one of those things. Second page has the teachers assessing the students on literacy and numeracy in the big curricular areas and the teachers do make an assessment on how they're doing. And we do that in—I can’t remember the exact number—it’s probably nine or 10 different areas in literacy and four in numeracy. And then our last page or our— there's one more page but it's just more of a description area—but the last page is then where we sit down and we fill it out during the conference. We make notes of our conversation with parents. We write down how the student is doing, any successes, any challenges and then the student writes a goal or goals in that conference together with the parent and the teachers and that forms the plan for the next term.

KC: How does this affect the workload for teachers?

JULIE CORNELL: Believe it or not, I think it's reduced because the number of hours we used to put in to preparing report cards is equal, if not significantly reduced when we now meet with every family.

KC: I want to bring somebody else into the conversation here. Michael Zwaagstra is a high school social studies teacher, and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He's in Steinbach, Manitoba. Hello.

MICHAEL ZWAAGSTRA: Hello.

KC: So Michael Zwaagstra, what do you think about this idea of eliminating letter grades?

MICHAEL ZWAAGSTRA: Well, I think grades are an important part of the process and I'll just say for the record that I would consider letter grades like the second best of the options. I actually prefer percentage grades. But whether it's percentage or letter grades, there are different levels of performance. There's different levels of mastery of the subject area. And I think particularly as you go into higher grades and in the intro you'd mentioned the school north of Vancouver that's eliminating the letter grades grades four to nine. Grade eight and nine, that's not elementary school. Those are certainly levels where students should be receiving specific grades that indicate levels of proficiency because the fact of life is that there are different levels of performance and letter grades and percentage grades are simple accurate ways of identifying where is the student at, parents understand what that information is. There's no problem with adding in additional information. If a school wants to have, let's have more parent conferences, let's put more information on the report cards, by all means do that but you don't need to take out the grade in order to add the extra information.

KC: What do you think would be lost in a no-grade system that Julie Cornell was describing?

MICHAEL ZWAAGSTRA: You’re losing information. You're losing that quick snapshot that most parents and frankly many students want to see when they look at a report card, where they want to see where am I at? There is a significant difference between someone who's sitting at an 89 in a course or subject and someone who is sitting at a 65. And it's helpful to have that snapshot and it's also something that you can use to work from, that okay, let's improve our marks. Let's do better and then you can see the improvement on the next report card. I get the argument about let's have you know the descriptive feedback and that, but frankly a lot of parents aren’t terribly interested in reading long paragraphs in order to try to figure out where their kid is at and having a long extensive conversation every time. Sometimes you want to have just a simple straightforward discussion and conversation and you want to be able to use the straightforward letter or percentage grade as reference points.

KC: Do you think the grades motivate your students?

MICHAEL ZWAAGSTRA: It depends on the student. I mean not all students are the same. There are some students that are very motivated by grades. Absolutely. Some students want to know how they can go from an 85 to a 90 and that sort of thing. There are other students who would find them less motivating. But even for those who find it less motivating, no one would argue that grades are the only thing that we use to motivate students and all teachers know that, that there's a variety of things that we do to motivate. But just because grades don't motivate all students doesn't mean we should eliminate grades for all students. They are a useful reference point for giving information to both students and parents and I think we should keep them now.

KC: Julie Cornell, what about the argument that students need this precision in their grades to stay informed and motivated?

JULIE CORNELL: Actually I've seen really the opposite. And I am speaking from elementary standpoint, grades four to seven, but what I've seen is that when the letter grades went away, motivation soared. So students that were typically maybe good performers in a subject getting a good letter grade, in the past they were a little lazy to do a lot more. They were getting good grades so why bother doing much more? And students who were low performers getting a low grade, they didn’t want to try any harder because it was hopeless. They will never be better than that. And what I've seen is that across the board in my entire class, students want to learn more. They don't want a good grade anymore. They want to be a good writer. They want to understand the ecosystem better. They want to have personal growth. They don't care about getting a better grade.

KC: Michael Zwaagstra argues that in life, some people do better on things and that this is part of the cruel preparation for life. What do you think about that?

JULIE CORNELL: I think there's a lot of ways you can prepare for life. And as far as we're concerned in Maple Ridge, grades four to seven is not the place to start.

KC: But do you think that factors in into this idea that you will be measured in life in some way?

JULIE CORNELL: I know that you are measured in. I know that by taking away the letter grades, I know that the pressure, the students get to take a little break from that. They get to take a break from oh my goodness, I'm getting a letter grade in grade four when it terrifies them. It terrifies them. They are so scared of what it means. Letter grades often were seen as a judgment that the teacher made and it was a judgment—especially in elementary school—where you know oh, that teacher made a mistake. My kid is smarter than that, or that teacher doesn’t like my kid or the kid might think you know I worked harder than that. How come I don't deserve more grades? I don't know. It was always a weird shift. It was always on the teacher and now believe it or not, the shift is on the student. Whenever something is going on in the class, the parents are looking at their kid. Hey, what do you need to learn this better and what can you do more? How can you work harder to learn more?

KC: Where does the sort of negative—I guess I don't know if that's the right way to put it, educators—but sort of that idea that you know there's a penalty for not trying. I mean that’s I think an impression about grades. If you get a low grade, you know it’s sort of a negative sort of push to do better. Is that missing from sort of general feedback?

JULIE CORNELL: I don't think so because I think every teacher marks the same way and I think that that's important to mention too, that just because we don't have better grades doesn't mean we don't have marks of some kind. Every teacher has got a system that they'll use to give. And it's not entirely feedback with zero grades. I don't think there are many teachers that do that in our district. They still give a mark but the mark this time might be you know something out of 10, this time might be out of four, might be using the performance centres or the rubric. It might be pass-fail. So there is always feedback to the kid that is beyond just written comments. And I think the parents, when I've talked to parents, it started where I always ask parents okay, was there anything else you need to know about how your kid’s doing? And in the beginning, they still were interested in letter grades and that is an option in our district—for any family in our district—if they want letter grade for their child they just have to let the teacher know and we'll provide them. We're not refusing them. We're just saying they're not a big part of the conversation.

KC: Now you've seen students go from your system back to grades. Have you heard back about what kind of a transition that was like?

JULIE CORNELL: I've absolutely heard back. A lot of the students go to high school are in touch with me and they visit and that's one of the questions I ask them a lot, like how is it going getting grades? And now, I would say in the past they would say oh, I'm just doing you know I'm getting this grade, I'm getting that grade. They weren't really very excited because it was just like they're used to. They expected low grades. Now students are very, very, very excited. They're getting grades. They're getting some feedback. But they're also doing well because they now have this motivation and what it takes to be successful. They have a personal drive that they developed because they had all this time without letter grades and had good support from the teachers and their parents and what it takes to be a successful student. And now they're going into high school armed with that success.

KC: Michael Zwaagstra, Julie Cornell says the no-grades method is working for her students. How likely do you think that more schools will start experimenting with this?

MICHAEL ZWAAGSTRA: Well, this has been around for a while. I mean I know that in places like Calgary, they've been doing something like this with the K to nine level. And there's been a lot of pushback from parents, substantial pushback because they don't like having grades replaced with things like evidence and emerging and all these sorts of verbal mumbo jumbo that tends to get used in these cases. I’m not saying that's happening in Julie's case, but this is what often happens. And I will add as well that when you have parent meetings with schools where their parents are providing feedback, this initiative to dump grades is never coming from parents. I've never heard of a case in terms of the broader parent community coming to the school and saying we demand that you stop giving our schools grades. We don't want that information. We would rather just receive verbal feedback and we'll just get the grade if we happen to choose to ask for it. This is always something that gets initiated by people who have a certain educational theory who are more on the progressive end of the spectrum in terms of the educational philosophy, who prefer to focus less on the content and more on the process. And so it's part of a differing educational philosophy and I happen to hold a different educational philosophy. I think that content matters. Skills matter and that we need to actually evaluate where those skills are at and whether students have mastered the content.

KC: Is it your suggestion that the skills don't matter in the non-letter grade evaluation system? I'm not sure that's what Julie was saying.

MICHAEL ZWAAGSTRA: Well, what I'm saying is that for example, take math skills. And I haven't always taught high school, I used to teach grade five and at the time I taught grade five, I gave percentage grades and I didn't find that it was you know dramatically demotivational to students. But do you take a subject like math and you have simply different levels of proficiency. There's a huge difference between a student who is very effective at their two-digit by two-digit multiplication and a student who is not. And so it is entirely possible to take where the student is at and then calculate it and then put okay at math, they’re at this level in terms of the percentage. When you take these particular skill areas that we're doing this term, here are the assignments that we've done. Here's what we've gotten. And now here's the grade and we can use that. Yes, you can still have a focus on skills if you don't have the grades, but when you move away from grades, it becomes rather easy to sort of to move away from that emphasis on measurement and saying that there are specific things that everyone needs to know and that everyone needs to master and I can tell you in faculties of education, this is a hot debate where many education professors truly believe that content isn't particularly important. I know because I’ve had this discussion with many education professors and they tend to be the ones who are pushing this type of thing the hardest.

KC: Just to wrap up. Julie Cornell, I'm getting a sense this is controversial.

JULIE CORNELL: Definitely. Definitely controversial but I think that it was really important in Maple Ridge that we decided we wanted to move away from letter grades. Just moving away from letter grades was not our approach. We knew that our approach had to be something that gave the whole picture. So the whole idea of having students involved, reporting on competencies, reporting on key subject areas, literacy and numeracy, and talking in a conference with everybody. The whole part of that is what makes it make sense and in our school district, we don't have parents that are unhappy. We have parents that are enjoying the system. I've had parents ask me, I wish they'd get away with letter grades in high school. I've had many parents ask me that because they don't think it works. Students still like it sometimes in high school. It's a change. It's something new. It's exciting. But they also have not had them yet so when they first get them, it's kind of cool. But they're older, they're more mature. I just think we don’t—

KC: Julie, sorry. I’m just running out of time here. It's such an interesting discussion though. Thank you both for talking with me.

MICHAEL ZWAAGSTRA: You’re welcome.

JULIE CORNELL: No problem. Thanks very much.

KC: Julie Cornell is a teacher at Alouette Elementary in Maple Ridge, BC who no longer gives grades to her students. Michael Zwaagstra is a high school teacher and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He was in Steinbach, Manitoba. School boards in BC aren't the only ones grappling with throwing out letter grades. In 2014, the Calgary school board brought in changes to their report cards for Grades K to nine. It replaced a percentage system that correlated a letter grade—so a 75 per cent would correlate to a B—and brought in a system where kids received numbers between one and four. With the new system, a one means a student is not meeting grade level. Two is basic. Three is good and four is excellent. Lisa Davis is a mother of two kids in grades four and seven and the president and board member of the Calgary Association of Parents and School Councils. She hears from parents who are not thrilled with the change.

SOUNDCLIP

There are many, many parents complaining that they don't actually really know where their child is at. And so if a child gets a three on a report card for example, the parent will go in and ask the teacher what's that equivalent to? Is that 65 per cent or 75 per cent or 80 per cent? What is that? Teachers are specifically instructed not to make equivalencies with percentages. So as a parent, it becomes very difficult to really understand where your child is at.

KC: Lisa Davis says she hears from many other parents that as these kids move on to high school where they get percentage grades, some of them are shocked to find out where they actually fit in. And she says parents aren't getting the information they need.

SOUNDCLIP

Part of the sale that the school board made to parents was that there would be more robust feedback. There would be more robust comments. And what's actually happened is a reverse. Between vague report cards, vague comments and a reduced interaction directly with the teacher, there are many parents who are struggling to figure out what their child is doing in school and in fact where they're really at. The hallmark of great assessment is it is easy to understand and transparent to all. And so moving away from either letter grade or percentages simply fail that test.

KC: Our next guest has been studying this issue. Sandra Mathison is a professor of education at the University of British Columbia. We reached her in Vancouver this morning. Hello.

SANDRA MATHISON: Good morning.

KC: Sandra Mathison, we've heard from BC and Calgary. How widespread is this move away from letter grades in Canada?

SANDRA MATHISON: Well, I think there are an increasing number of schools and districts that are making this shift. Is it at the level of a tidal wave? I think probably not yet. But I think increasingly what's happening is contrary to what your guest from Manitoba suggested, the impetus is coming from teachers within schools and within school districts. It's not actually coming from faculties of education, as he suggested. There is, I think, a growing level of concern, thoughtfulness about what counts as really helpful assessment of students, both in terms of a whole variety of things that we hope to get from good assessments—helping students to be internally motivated rather than the external motivation that's characteristic of grades, letter grades or percentages. The idea of giving students more engagement and efficacy with regard to their own involvement in their own assessment, learning how to make judgments about the work that they're doing about their own learning, which is something they'll take away with them after school is completed. So I think that there's a bit of a groundswell that's occurring. It's perhaps exaggerated in British Columbia because we are provincially at a moment where I think the ministry has opened up the conversation with parents across the province to say what kinds of information might be helpful. I think that's unique in the country but it's happening in lots of places.

KC: Now, is it a good thing? It sounds like you seem persuaded by it.

SANDRA MATHISON: It is a good thing. You know it's interesting. A lot of the research on grades is not really recent. Much of the research was done in the eighties and nineties. We have lots of evidence to suggest that in fact, grades have a whole bunch of potentially negative consequences. Even though they've been used for a long time, even though it's been the tradition, that's not a good reason to continue educational practices just because they've been in place for a very long period of time. We know a lot about the negative influence of grades on motivation. Grades are—and I think your guests Julie and Michael really exemplifies an important distinction—Julia's description really builds on the kind of internal motivation that we want to build. We want kids to be interested in what they're learning. We want them to focus on the learning tasks. We want them to stay engaged and interested in what they're doing. We don't want them to be fearful of assessments of their performance. Assessments occur whether they’re grade percentages or not. We want them to think of that assessment as a way to help them be better at what it is that they're doing. Michael exemplifies the very, I think, much more traditional notions that grades are—there is an external motivation, that kind of carrot stick approach to getting kids to do what we want them to do in schools, so that we in fact do instill some fear in them. If they don't get a good grade, there will be negative consequences. The problem with that is that we see routinely that it has a negative impact on students. Low grades are not a motivation to get higher grades usually. They oftentimes are—they decrease engagement. They decrease enjoyment. Low grades are motivation oftentimes to continue to get low grades.

KC: Now what about the idea of needing marks to apply for university?

SANDRA MATHISON: Well again, that has traditionally been the case. It isn't, I think, as big a problem as people set it up to be. My own university has begun to move to a much broader based way of making admissions decisions. Grades because they're available are still used. But I think that university admissions recognizes that students bring lots of different skills, knowledge and capabilities with them to post-secondary education and that in Canada, I think universities are playing a bit of a catch up by moving to a more broad-based ways of looking at student applications. Universities are going to get in line. They're going to adapt. They're going to begin thinking in more interesting and complex ways about making admissions decisions.

KC: What about at university? Get rid of marks altogether?

SANDRA MATHISON: Well, you know that's an interesting thing. There are lots of places within post-secondary education where grades are not given. So in the teacher education program at my own university, most of the courses are pass-fail, so that in fact there's no presumption, that future teachers are motivated by grades. In medical schools has been another place where there's been a move away from grades and percentages to much more formative kinds of assessments that help people to build the knowledge and skills that are going to make them good physicians and other kinds of health care workers.

KC: Okay. Sandra Mathison, thank you very much.

SANDRA MATHISON: You're welcome.

KC: Sandra Mathison is a professor of education at the University of British Columbia. She was in Vancouver. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. Veteran soap opera actor Eric Braeden of The Young and the Restless talks about his new memoir. And remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app. It's free from the App Store or Google Play. Finally today, we were sad to learn that Rabbi Yehuda Simes passed away yesterday at just 49 years old. Back in 2011, The Current's Howard Goldenthal brought us a documentary about him titled, The Unfinished Journey of Rabbi Simes. The Rabbi was a beloved teacher at Torah High and Hillel Academy in Ottawa when a tragic accident on a New York State road left him paralyzed from the neck down. We'll leave you with part of that documentary now. This is Rabbi Simes returning to school for a surprise visit and with a message for his students. I'm Kelly Crowe. Thank you for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

I've always loved and respected each of my students. You're all very, very special to me and to my wife and to my family. I don't know why things like this happened. But I'll share with you a secret: I don't need to know why. Because I believe in a higher purpose and something good. God only does good. The only question I ask is what does God want from me? I don't know if I’ll ever walk again, but that's okay. It's still me. I’m still a person, still a teacher, still a father, still a husband. I can do all those things. It's still me, Rabbi Simes. But I pray to God to know what I need to do to get closer to him, to serve him and to serve you, my students.

[Sound: Applause]

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February 8, 2017 full episode transcript

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