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The Current Transcript for March 25, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: This was an illegal take down that failed and hopefully somebody's going to be looking at the other side. So it's complete exoneration. No collusion. No obstruction.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: A very forceful U.S. President, Donald Trump, enjoying his vindication in signaling where he might take this, after the release of the summary of the Mueller special investigation into whether Mr. Trump or his campaign had worked with Russia in its bid to influence the election that brought him to power. The news has left Republicans elated and Democrats deflated. But Mr. Mueller's statements on obstruction of justice leave room for interpretation and Mr. Trump's critics have already seized on that. In a moment, we're asking where this goes next. Also today, from a special investigation to targeted recrimination and this isn't about American campaigns, this is about Canadian canola.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: When we harvest this, we'll get the seeds that come out of the pods, squeeze out the oil essentially and the oil can be used as a nutrient or it can be used as an oil in restaurants or in our own home.

AMT: Canola is a Canadian invention that almost always guarantees a profit and China has been a lucrative market, importing $4 billion dollars worth of canola seeds, oil and meal annually, until now. Canadian canola contracts with China has suddenly been canceled. The suspicion is the Huawei controversy. The reality is a whole lot of Canadian farmers need to start planting within weeks. The consensus is that the Trudeau government needs to do something fast. We're on that story in half an hour. And in an hour, consider the sea urchin. It may seem like a harmless little rounded shell of goo to you, but you clearly are not a kelp forest and they've got to get rid of one to save the other.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: You go down and basically a wall of urchins, like spine to spine, literally hundreds of them. I usually use the rake to grab the urchin and then I use the hammer to pop the shell open.

AMT: Will what they are doing in the waters off Haida Gwaii to bring back kelp and correct actions by humans many decades earlier, actually work? We're asking. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Mueller report isn't the 'magic bullet' Democrats hoped for, says Charlie Sykes

Guests: Emma Loop, Charlie Sykes

AMT: Well the report that was supposed to provide answers in fact has raised more questions. U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered his report on the Russia investigation to the U.S. Attorney General, William Barr, on Friday. Yesterday Mr. Barr published a four page summary of that report. In a nutshell, Mr. Mueller found that neither the Trump campaign nor anyone associated with it, conspired to or coordinated with Russia to influence the U.S. presidential action. But when it comes to obstruction of justice, Mr. Mueller sits on the fence, stating and I'm quoting here, "While this report does not conclude the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." U.S. Attorney General, William Barr, after reviewing the report with his team, concluded that the evidence in it is not sufficient to establish that President Trump committed an obstruction of justice of offence. And that's going to be the focus for Mr. Trump's opponents. Emma Loop is a Capitol Hill reporter with BuzzFeed News and she joins us from Washington. Hi.

EMMA LOOP: Good morning.

AMT: We have so much to talk about. First of all, who is this report good news for?

EL: Well this is certainly good news for the president and his allies who as you noted are celebrating because it says that you know there is no collusion as the president has been insisting for years now. So this is a good moment for Democrats, not a good moment for Republicans and not a great moment for Democrats who are seeking more answers and more details about what exactly is in the report.

AMT: So all we have is this four page summary and just go through a little bit with us. What does it say specifically about Russian interference in this election?

EL: Well it says that Russian interference certainly took place which is you know something that the president is going to have to acknowledge perhaps a little bit more forcefully now. You know he's kind of giving way to what Clinton has argued or you know Putin doesn't believe there have been and what. And so this report does say that the Russians attempted to interfere in the election through you know the hacking of the DNC through social media campaigns and whatnot. But it does come to this conclusion that the president's campaign you know anyone associated with that no one associated with it was involved in coordinating or colluding with Russia in those efforts. It also talks about the whole obstruction of justice issue. It says that Mueller's report is basically split into two parties the first one being the Russian interference the second one being the obstruction issue. And it says that Mueller didn't come to a traditional conclusion about whether to prosecute anyone with regard to obstruction of justice. He left the decision to the attorney general and the Department of Justice. And you know there's suggestion there is obviously that Mueller presented evidence on both sides of the coin showing that you know perhaps the president did obstruct justice and then also arguments against moving forward with a prosecution of those actions.

AMT: And Mr. Barr in that four page summary basically says we look down and we've come to the conclusion that there's nothing criminal here to move forward on obstruction of justice. That's what the Democrats are seizing on right. That was in their mind very quick.

EL: Yeah. They're arguing that it took Barr only a few days to decide whether to move forward with prosecution after Mueller spent 22 months on this. They're saying that Barr should have spent more time on this and that he is already biased against this investigation because before he was even attorney general, he wrote about you know what he saw as the flaws and the obstruction of justice investigation that Mueller was running.

AMT: Will the public get to see this report in its entirety?

EL: I think we'll get to see it in its entirety. I think that there will be quite a few redactions. But I think we will see the full report eventually. What Barr has said is that they need to go through and identify which parts of the report will lead to either grand jury materials or a kind of active investigations because those are things that. Probably can't be released to the public. And so I think that they're probably going through that process now knowing that basically everyone Republicans and Democrats want to see this fall or take it all identifying those areas that need to be potentially redacted so that they can eventually get this thing out.

AMT: And so if the president is vindicated although he is ambiguous on the obstruction of justice and Mr. Barr has come out and said what he said, Mr. Mueller's investigation has already led to charges against what is it 34 people, how is that possible?

EL: So you know I think an important way to make sure is that we haven't seen that report. This could be a report that is very critical of the president and his team but that does not amount to you know something that supports criminal charges just because it doesn't support criminal charges, doesn't mean it's not bad. So I think everyone is eager to see what the actual report says and certainly even based on what we know from Barr's memo yesterday, it doesn't exonerate the president he says you know it relates to obstruction of justice and so there are early indications that there are some pretty heavy criticisms of the president and his team within this rockwork. So you know I think the president is obviously going to be celebrating the fact that it says no collusion apparently, but I think when we see the full report it will be a lot more detailed you know analysis of his actions and that of his team.

AMT: There are a number of criminal investigations or at least investigations that have been punted to other jurisdictions now are there not?

EL: Right, so whether it's a potential fire violations, violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, you know there's the campaign finance stuff that the Southern District of New York is looking at. There are several issues and I'm sure some of which we haven't worried about which on public debt you know has been tied to two other other parts of the Department of Justice.

AMT: How significant is that the president was never questioned directly on these matters by Mr. Mueller?

EL: Well he did submit written answers to Mueller's team, but that is certainly something that some people, whether it be Democrats or commentators online now commenting on saying that perhaps that was not the best option, but that is I think a decision we will learn more about as you know we get more details of this report on when it's eventually made public. Perhaps that will shed light on that decision by the Mueller team.

AMT: Sspeak to me a little bit about how this addresses or enflames or something the polarization that exists where you are in Washington.

EL: You know I think that kind of going into this we figured that no matter what Mueller said people who support the president are going to keep supporting the president. People who don't like the president you know criticizing the president and wanting him out of office. I feel like people are so entrenched in their beliefs right now in the United States that it's going to take something really really egregious to really move the dial it all. And so I do think said you know even Trump could gain some popularity after this. Maybe not when a full report comes out, but for this moment in time people are going to perhaps be a little bit more sympathetic to him. But I think in general people are pretty entrenched in their views. They don't like this president, you know it's going to stay that way and if they love him, they're going to keep loving him.

AMT: And so what are you watching for in the coming days?

EL: You know I'm watching for a few things, especially on Capitol Hill. I want to see if lawmakers are going to do anything to expedite making this report public. So are they going to you know kind of let the DOJ deal with it for now or are they going to use the subpoena power or something like that? I'm also going to be looking at how this affects their investigations. So as you know in the House Democrats recently took over, they won the midterms and so they've launched these reinvigorated investigations into Trump and Russia and you know his administration that include obstruction of justice, potential collusion, etc. And so I'm going to be watching to see how, if at all, their investigations change as a result of these findings.

AMT: OK, well Emma, thanks for your work and thanks for your time.

EL: Thanks for having me.

AMT: That is Emma Loop. She's a Capitol Hill reporter with BuzzFeed News and she joined us from Washington D.C. Well the Republican Party was divided on President Trump, even before the Mueller investigation began. Charlie Sykes is a conservative political commentator. He's the editor in chief of The Bulwark. He's also the author of How the Right Lost its Mind. And we have reached Charlie Sykes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hello.

CHARLIE SYKES: Hello. Thanks for having me back.

AMT: So what are you thinking? When you saw that that summary., how did you interpret that?

CS: Well you know at this point I think we need reminding ourselves we haven't actually seen the Mueller report.This was just the attorney general summary of it. But you know on one level it's extremely good news that the president of the United States did not actively conspire with a foreign power to subvert our democracy and that the Republican Party won't have to defend that now. So that is good news, it's also good news that the Mueller investigation was allowed to complete its run, but look there's no question about it, this is a big win for president, but it is a very mixed verdict. No collusion, but also as you've been pointing out, no exoneration on the very serious charges of obstruction of justice.

AMT: OK and so I want to I want to play, we've been hearing a clip of Mr. Trump on the news a lot today, but I want to play more of what he had to say as he was about to get on Air Force One yesterday in Florida and go back to Washington. Here it is.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: So after a long look, after a long investigation, after so many people have so badly hurt, after not looking at the other side where a lot of bad things happened, a lot of horrible things happened, a lot of bad things happened for our country, it was just announced there was no collusion with Russia. The most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. There was no collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction and none whatsoever and It was a complete and total exoneration. It's a shame that our country had to go through this, to be honest it's a shame that your president has had to go through this for, before I even got elected, it began. And it began legally and hopefully somebody's going to look at the other side. This was an illegal takedown that failed and hopefully womebody is going to be looking at the other side. So it's complete exoneration, no collusion, no obstruction. Thank you very much. Thank you.

AMT: Charlie Sykes, what do you hear when you listen to Donald Trump's comments yesterday?

CS: Well triumphalism, but also he's wrong. This is not a complete vindication. It is not by any means exoneration. In fact the words are explicitly in this report that this does not exonerate the president. I'm also struck by the vindictiveness, his intent to now launch an investigation against his Democratic opponents. So this is a long way from being over.

AMT: And so talk to me a little bit about that. When he says the other side, someone's got to be looking at the other side, what do you expect him to do?

CS: Well I expect him to bluster about it. I actually would hope the calmer heads will prevail and that we will not launch a, what really would be a witch hunt. But it is interesting that you know all of the times that he has called this investigation a witch hunt. I think it's more than 180 times and yet very clearly in the end it was not a witch hunt. It was a result that he had to like and yet clearly he's not letting up and he's not going to acknowledge that Bob Mueller did a very solid job.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: How do you think this will play with the Republicans and what do you think this will do for the Republican Party?

CS: Well Republicans are to going to be relieved that they don't have to defend thism that they don't have to you know carry this on their backs. Obviously they've already made it clear they're going to rally around the president and they will. I think in your previous conversation though the point was made that this is probably not going to move the needle much in terms of public opinion because it's pretty much locked in. I think the effect on Democrats will also be very very interesting. And I think there's been a sense that Robert Mueller was somehow going to be a magic bullet for them and that it was going to guarantee that they win the election. That is obviously no going to happen. So they need to realise that if they're going to get rid of Donald Trump, they're going to have to do it the old fashioned way through the ballot box.

AMT: I have another clip I want to play. The Democrats do want the full report and they want all the underlying documents to be released to the public. They want to go through them. Republican strategist Lenny McAllister thinks they should get that. Listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I'm always one to air on the side of telling the American people the truth. The American people deserve to know. The American people deserve honest politicians at all levels of government and the American people deserve to be able to have some sense of a reset on what happened in 2016, even if it's three years later because we're not trusting each other anymore. A lot of times we don't even like each other anymore. If we don't get back to a common sense of American trust, regardless of our political backgrounds, regardless of our socio economic backgrounds or geographic backgrounds, we are going to be vulnerable as a nation.

AMT: OK and I should mention that Republican strategist Lenny McAllister said that even before that four page summary came out, but Charlie Sykes do you agree that a public airing of this report is key to some kind of national unity?

CS: Yes. I don't know that it will lead to national unity, but I think it's crucial that we get all the love. All of the information that was pulled together first of all we taxpayers paid for work. It is crucial that we understand what the president has done. Im not going to simply take billboards for page summary at face value necessarily, I'm not saying he distroted it. But yes and I think there's going to be a major push and I think that at this point there's really no reason not to release it, given the results.

AMT: There are already up ed pieces coming out today saying that Mr. Barr's fast conclusion may be was too fast and they need to be able to go and look at everything.

CS: Well yes and you know there will be a lot of questions about that. The very unusual decision by the special counsel to basically say I'm not going to make a traditional prosecutorial decision and then kicking me to Trump's handpicked attorney general whose opinion about the investigation is a matter of public record. And so I think there are legitimate questions to be raised about that and I also think that even though this is a big victory for the president, the devil's in the details and when we see as I think we will the narrative about the obstruction of justice and the relationship with Russia, I think that that's not going to be that flattering to the president and his team.

AMT: And of course there are probes underway into Mr. Trump through other jurisdictions, notably federal prosecutors in the state of New York. How important could those prove to be in your view?

CS: Well they're hugely important and I think that the the investigation by the Southern District of New York state of New York the congressional hearings these are all go on virtually every entity in the Trump orbit is under some sway over the investigation. And I do think that those polls are very very serious threat because there is enough there is a lot of material out there and it is going to be easier to establish then something is nebulous as a collusion between Russia and that in the campaign. So I think that all the White House is most concerned about the investigations about their former attorney Michael Cohen and I think they're right to be concerned about that.

AMT: What about the media in all of this? The judgment, where does all that stand with the public, do you think?

CS: Well that's going to be very interesting. There's going to be huge blowback and you know that the president is going to weaponize this to say see I was right all along. The fake news media made this up. They're hammering it, you go on social media today and you'll see the kind of blowback against the media. I would say this that most of the mainstream outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, I think their reporting has been very very sobre and fact-based. Some of the on air speculation probably got out a little bit over everyone's skis and I do think that there's always that moment where you go how much of the reporting was legitimate and how much of it was wishful thinking?

AMT: So what about you? Does this change anything for you? You know you wrote how the right lost its mind. Things looking a little better with the Republicans for you and Mr. Trump?

CS: No. When I wrote that book, it was long before the Russian collusion. I was was never trumped in the moment when he came down the golden escalator and all of those issues and all of the character flaws of the president remain intact. But there's no question about it. This removes a huge cloud over his head, but that doesn't change I think what Donald Trump represents or what he's done to the Republican Party.

AMT: Charlie Sykes, we have to leave it there. Thank you.

CS: Thank you.

AMT: Charlie Sykes is a conservative political commentator. He's editor in chief of The Bulwark. He is also author of How the Right Lost Its Mind. He joined us from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Let us know what you think. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Got to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. The news is next and then canola farmers are worried about the future after China cut off all Canadian canola imports. That's more than $4 billionworth of trade. We're there in our next half hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Stand up to China's ban on canola by building alliances with other countries they've targeted: expert

Guests: Kevin Serfas, Lynette Ong, Marie-Claude Bibeau

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, the waters of Haida Gwaii used to be home to lots of marine life, but now it's teetering on the edge of calamity and the culprit is the sea urchin, well thousands of sea urchins. We will tell you more. But first, what will happen to Canada's canola crops?

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AMT: If you drive through the Canadian prairies, it's nearly impossible to miss the canola crops. Those endless fields of bright yellow flowers are the postcard image of the prairies and they're also a big business for farmers. Once the canola plant is harvested, 40 percent of the seed in Canada is usually shipped to China. Last week, that changed. China cut off all Canadian canola imports. A move Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the government will work to reverse.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We're going to roll up our sleeves and work with the Chinese officials to demonstrate that canola should continue to flow safely from Canada to China. This is something we take very seriously. It is something we are looking into and working on right now.

AMT: Even before the canola ban, relations between Canada and China were already tense. The two countries are at odds over Canada's decision to arrest Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou after an extradition request from the United States. Many worry the canola cancellation is a sign of a deepening divide over that issue. Daryl Fransoo farms canola and barley in Glaslyn, Saskatchewan and the uncertainty has left him worried for his livelihood.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It's very unsettling because the next question is what's next? They're a big exporter of our barley of our wheats. It could be beef, it could be any numerous products that we export to China. The worst case scenario is its had a long term scenario and they close their borders to more and more of our product.

AMT: Well Kevin Serfas also grows canola and barley. His family farm is in Turin, Alberta and he is also the director of the Canola Council of Canada. Hello Kevin Serfas.

KEVIN SERFAS: How are you?

AMT: Well I'm wonder how you are. What was the reaction?

KS: It was, I mean initial reaction was surprise and disappointment. A lot of worry on our front desk for sure. You know there's a lot of uncertainty out there right now as to what's going to happen and you know where this is all going to shake out.

AMT: So you have a family farm. Who do you farm with?

KS: My dad and my brother. We're a third generation farmer in southern Albertus, so.

AMT: And how much canola do you grow, what's the percentage?

KS: About 30 percent. We've been up to 40 percent. You know just some rotation stuff. We've cut back a little bit this year already, so we're at about 30 percent this year so.

AMT: So what's the conversation right now around the kitchen table with your dad and your brother and you?

KS: Well I mean, you know that was Friday morning you know that was sort of, it was very freshly raw. My dad hadn't even really heard about it. And one of the things you talk about is what do we do now? Like what's the next step from our side? You know like it's very troublesome. Canola has traditionally been the one crop across the prairies that has proved to be profitable year after year and now you know it looks like in the short term we may have lost that as a profitable choice. So you know we sat around talked about what's the next move. You know is it a knee jerk reaction where we just start changing acres right now or do we sit and wait and see what happens over the next few weeks. You know I just heard Daryl saying you know what's next. Are they going to start going after other products that are Canadian made.

AMT: And as you try to decide what to do, you say you have to change over some of your acres to something else. Are you almost ready to plant?

KS: Yeah, yeah, no we're I'm at we're about four weeks away. And it would you know it would be you would think it's easy to just you know say well we're not going to grow this, we'll grow something else. But you know the reality of it is a lot of seeds are booked and bought back in October, November, December, like it's a framers spend all winter sort of planning what they're going to do in the springtime and now four weeks ahead of planting to start changing things it's not that easy. There's fertilizer involved. Like every crop that you grow has different needs and most of those needs are already purchased. So it's not as simple. There's no simple solution to any of this at all.

AMT: Very good thing for us city folk to understand right. I mean you don't just go out and decide a day before that you're planting.

KS: No it's not. There's there's lots involved in it that's for sure.

AMT: So even if somebody's going to switch what they're going to grow, they've already paid for the seeds, right? Like the canola seeds.

KS: Yeah and you know and depending on your relationship with your input retailer, some of them will take it back you know and give you a refund and some of them won't. So yeah it's tough you know and the thing that we talked about is you know what's our appetite for risk. You know in the short term if if this gets resolved in the next you know two to three weeks, probably there's no big long term lasting effect with any of the stuff that happened. If it goes further than that it's going to impact the bottom line of farmers for sure. If we go ahead and plant, you know it depends on what our risk tolerance is. Maybe this is resolved by September when we harvest this crop that we put in the ground and everything's fine, but you know everybody is going to be different in that way.

AMT: Well and if it's not resolved you're going to have like a glut, right because they buy so much.

KS: Well yeah I mean it's simple economics, it's supply demand. I mean you know when you lose the demand, the supply goes up and the price goes down. So we'll end up with a glut or I mean and we may end up with a glut, but that whatever's left is going to be traded at a very, very low value.

AMT: That's a lot to think about. Again and you're not alone.

KS: No. There's lots of us in this predicament that's for sure.

AMT: So what steps would you like to see from the Canadian government?

KS: You know I just think that we need to try and get as high level involvement from the government as we possibly can. All the people working on it. You know at first level you know the Canola Concil of Canada has got some fantastic people working in Ottawa with government officials. You mean there's been you know there's constant contact at all times between Canada and China. You know and it sounds like that maybe communication is closed off. We need to get the communication opened up whatever it takes to get them talking. They're saying this is a phytosanitary issue. What is the phytosanitary issue? Let us know. Let us get this figured out. Lets us help the problem along.

AMT: If ther is a problem or do you feel that you're a bit of a political, like caught in a political fight here?

KS: I mean there's lots of speculation as to what's going on here. At this point all that we know is that the Chinese are citing that it's a phytosanitary issue and that's what we have to go with. And you know until somebody comes out and says otherwise, this is sort of the approach that we have to deal with it.

AMT: Yeah and you have to figure out what to do. Kevin, thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. I hope it gets resolved.

KS: Absolutely.

AMT: Thanks.

KS: Thank you very much.

AMT: That's Kevin Serfas, he's a canola and barley farmer. He's also the director of the Canola Council of Canada and he joined us from Turin, Alberta. It's not the first time China has refused to buy Canadian canola, but it marks a new and troubling chapter in a dispute that started months ago, since the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. Two Canadians remain in detention in China accused of espionage. A third has been sentenced to death over drug charges. For insight on what it may take to solve the dispute, I'm joined by Lynette Ong. She is a China expert. She's an associate professor of political science at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto and she is in our studio. Hi.

LYNETTE ONG: Good morning.

AMT: So as you listen to Kevin Serfas, you can hear his concerns about planting, but you've also heard this concern that it could go further. What do you think of that?

LO: I think it could definitely go further. Of course there's not evidence that this is linked to the Meng Wanzhou case, but we know that China has done it to other countries before such as Norway, Australia and New Zealand, so it is really, it is not without precedent. So it's definitely linked. It looks like you know other agricultural products may also be affected, you know, it's at the risk of affected if our relations with China worsen.

AMT: A spokesperson for China's foreign ministry on Friday explained the suspension of Canadian canola imports as and I'm quoting, "normal precautions to ensure safety." Do you see this as a safety issue? You heard our last guest say they have to go with that, but do you think this is more about Huawei?

LO: It is I think definitely more about Huawei. I think what China is doing here is you know is playing the game of strategic ambiguity right using a treat leverage because ambiguity derision or hard evidence. So we it is difficult to take a deputy or international dispute resolution, which would take a long time to hear the cases and by the time they hear our case you know things might have been resolved already. So it's a tough situation.

AMT: And I should say we did request an interview with China's ambassador to Canada. We have not received a response. This isn't the first time China has used trade measures to apply political pressure. Norway's export of salmon to China dropped dramatically after a Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded a Nobel Prize for example. How successful have their measures been in the past?

LO: So it has been pretty successful I think. So I think that case took about six years to resolve. So they kept talking to each other and eventually I think China decided to put it behind behind them. I think we should be thinking the Trudeau government should be thinking in these key is you know how do we help to protect our exports to China and the overall China strategy in light of our door. While we fear. Know I think this is the time. So some people have talked about retaliation. Some people some experts have also talked about banning while altogether. I I think I think what we should be thinking about is in terms of the Huawei case, we should we should be listening to what our intelligence agencies are saying that there is a way to mitigate the risk. Like the German and the British intelligence people are seeing maybe we should allow while we in tool lead some of the power of the infrastructure and used it strategically and to secure our exports to China as well as to secure the release of Canadians held in China and after that thinking about greater you know broader diplomatic measure such as you know sending the high level delegates to Beijing and really to start talking to them.

AMT: You've said that before that they should be sending a high level delegation. You haven't seen them do that yet?

LO: No.

AMT: OK. I have another clip I want you to hear. This is a Norwegian economist. His name is Ivar Kolstad. He estimated the dispute with China cost Norway $1.3 billion in exports, as you say went on about six years. He had some serious concerns about how Norway handled the dispute. Listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Essentially the government caved to the demands of China here. In the end they issued a joint statement where Norway essentially agreed to respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. So it's kind of an embarrassing climb down for the Norwegian government. Before this happened was very much for human rights and so on. You have to think about the long term effects if you cave to China. This is something that really undermines the evolution of human rights and democracy in the world. So these issues are actually important enough to at some point say enough is enough, we won't take this kind of pressure.

AMT: Is that something you'd agree with?

LO: In a way, yes. We shouldn't be caving into an authoritarian state and unreasonable demand, but I think short term wise we also need to be strategic about what we want to insist on because we have got the lives of Canadian people in Beijing and we have got exporters whose livelihoods are at risk. I think you know in the medium term we should be thinking is well in the short term I hope our government is talking to two Norwegian government two Australian as well as New Zealanders trying to understand how they have dealt with with the Chinese in the medium term we should be setting up an alliance with these countries who have to suffer like us because they have stood up to China for abuse of human rights for a range of very very similar reasons. I think a lie is what they're truly help us to rally to rally support and to increase our leverage in our weed in terms of negotiation with China because a single country alone would never be able to stand up to China because of its sheer size.

AMT: Well what about the market demands? You know Canada actually exports to China the equivalent of $4 billion worth of canola products from the seed to the oil to canola meal. That's a lot of canola oil. Obviously the Chinese public wants it and needs it. Can they afford to just shut it all down for any length of time?

LO: Right. So in the short term they might substitute some other countries, but I think if they are smart, people advising the Chinese government, they will be telling people making the decision that ultimately it's the Chinese consumers that are losing out because there's a reason why they are buying from Canadians because our products are superior, prices are better. It's like we trade for a reason a country treat for a reason. If you if you if you if you refuse to trade because of a good reason ultimately is the people and the consumers are losing that's all. So this will last for too long because it is ultimately at a cost to the Chinese economy.

AMT: And what about the fact that the U.S. is in a trade negotiation with China. Do they have equivalent crops they can sell replacement in China?

LO: Possibly, possibly.

AMT: I'm asking because of course we're in this bind because of the U.S. requests.

LO: Right. So I think I think China-US trade talk is another wildcard that is on the table. And I think that might be we might see some sort of outcome coming out in the next couple weeks, if not next couple months. I think that might change. You know if there's positive outcome or even negative outcome that might change the dynamics of our relations with China.

AMT: Okay. Well Lynnette Ong, thank you for coming in. Lynette Ong is a China expert. She's an associate professor of political science at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. She is with me in our Toronto studio. Mary-Claude Bibeau is Canada's Minister of agriculture and agri-food and she's been listening in from Nepean, Ontario. Hello.

MARIE-CLAUDE BIBEAU: Hello.

AMT: How will the federal government respond to China's decision to stop importing Canadian canola and canola products?

MCB: Well we're really pushing the conversation you know discussion because we strongly think that it's the best way to find a solution and it's the most obtainable approach that we can take as well because not only, we don't only want to secure this for short term, but we want to make sure that we agree for all our agricultural industries as well on our foreign import requirements with China.

AMT: You said a science based discussion?

MCB: Definitely yes. And I'm in close relation with the Richardson company obviously, but also with the canola association and the industry and this is also what they expect from the Canadian government because we have to find this science based approach. You have to have this discussion and actually we do have discussion between scientists in Canada and in China to really understand why they have not allowed this shipment to go through in China. They are telling us that they have found some kind of pest. So this is why we are pushing this scientific issue on you know this is really how we think we have to find a solution.

AMT: Okay so you have to fight them on the science, but haven't you already had scientists look at those seeds from Richardson, which was the first company to get help on this?

MCB: Absolutely. And obviously before this settlement left Canada we had made some samples and analysis and when we had this information that once the shipment got to China, they have found something. So we returned to our samples and we still haven't found anything. So we are still very confident that our canola is a very high quality one and this is why we are asking the Chinese officials to make the demonstration to tell us what they have found because obviously they have found something we would want to know and correct the situation as quickly as possible. So we are really pushing the discussion at this level right now.

AMT: Well and yet some Chinese importers have said basically we've been told, we're just following what the government told us to do. Do you really think it's a science issue and not a political issue?

MCB: I think the solution has to come from this channel. My colleague Minister Freeland is following you know all the issues related to China and all countries around the world. I work also with the minister of international trade because we want to, it's not only China, but we always want to increase our exports in different countries and we want to diversify our exports and we have our trade commissioners looking at the demand in different countries. So we are working on different levels, but I think for that situation of canola in China right now, the solution will come from a science perspective.

AMT: We have heard farmers just today say they're worried about this happening to beef exports to China as well. What are you hearing? What can you tell Canadian food growers?

MCB: Well I definitely understand their worries and this is why we have to make sure that all our procedures in analysis are you know being recognized by the Chinese officials and it has, it was the case and it's still the case, but this is why it's so important to find this scientific based solution because it doesn't only apply to the canola, but it applies to all the exports. You know we want to make it sustainable and we want to reassure in our process that are accepted to Chinese. So this is why it's so important to focus on science.

AMT: And in the meantime the clock is ticking. The planting season is coming really fast. What do you say to farmers like Kevin Serfas, who we just heard, who can't figure what to do. He's got to make a decision pretty fast about whether he even plants canola this year.

MCB: No, I understand. I mean they are working so hard all year long and I understand it's a tough decisions for them, but I can tell him that we are taking this issue very very seriously. We're pushing on different fronts, but I mean for this special canola case, we are really having our scientific people at the Canadian food inspection agency pushing the conversation with the plant health experts from customs China. So this is we're really pushing hard to find a solution.

AMT: What other fronts? Have you sent a high level delegation to China? Has the Trudeau government done that?

MCB: Well we have offered that to China and for the time being we are having discussions and you know of technical information between the CFI here in Canada and customs China.

AMT: So you've offered it to China, does that mean they've said no, we don't want you to come?

MCB: Not now. I mean now we are having these discussions. So the communication is open and it might be a next step to send a delegation over there. So this is and as I said earlier, we are obviously looking at alternative markets to make sure that we can export our products from the various agricultural industries that we have, as many opportunities as we can have for them. And actually this is why we have negotiated these trade deal agreements with Europe and with specific regions because I think it's important to diversify our market.

AMT: Right, but we are talking about $4 billion worth of product a year. Can that be absorbed by your other markets?

MCB: Well it's not a short term solution, but our longer term plan is to increase our exports from $64 to $75 billion in terms of agriculture and agri-food products. So we are really working a lot on this front as well to ensure that our farmers and processors have great opportunity to grow and to expand.

AMT: Okay, Ms. Bibeau, thank you for your time.

MCB: Thank you.

AMT: That is Marie-Claude Bibeau. She is Canada's minister of agricultural and agri-food and she joined us from Ottawa. Let us know what you think of what she had to say. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. And stay with us, they are small, spiky and insatiable. Some of them get pretty big. Sea urchins maybe a delicacy in restaurants, but off the coast of northern BC, they are voracious eaters overrunning the sea floor and devouring precious kelp around them like little bumper cars. We will talk about the quest to stop them in a moment. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Sea urchins are devouring Haida Gwaii's kelp forest, so ecologists are smashing them

Guests: Lynn Lee, Matt Edwards

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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VOICE: This is kelp that grows all over Haida Gwaii and rocky areas and is a very traditionally important food source for hideouts particularly one that herring spawn on in. Once you get the eggs on there it's a delicacy with all First Nations communities quite frankly.

AMT: Well Daniel MacNeil is the man you're hearing there. A shellfish biologist and a diver with the Haida Fisheries Program. He's preparing to slip over the side of the boat that he's on in Haida Gwaii, off the northern coast of B.C. He's armed with a rake and a hammer and he's going to put those tools to rather brutal use.

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VOICE: You go down and you get onto an urchin barren, so that's basically a wall of urchins, like spine to spine, literally hundreds of them. And you basically go down and you start popping holes into the shells. I prefer using a rake and a hammer because the rake basically gives you an extra foot of extension. So you can, I usually use the rake to grab the urchin and then I use the hammer to bust the shell open.

AMT: Well that's right. He's on his way down to the ocean floor to smash sea urchins to bits, as many as 4000 of them, on what he would consider to be a good day. Some of the urchins will be spared for commercial fisheries. If they're of high quality, they'll be harvested for members of the Haida Nation to eat just as Haida people have always done.

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VOICE: I used to coarsely dive urchins in what we used to call the feed line. So you get this band of kelp and it's like that urchins are playing bumper cars with eachother, trying to reach that top line and those are where all the ripe ones are. And there's also size classes. You don't want to take too little and you definitely don't want to take too big. If you take those big what we call pumpkin, they're going to have the stuff of what we call gipe in them, which is basically unedible.

AMT: It sounds like painstaking work it is everything is done by hand, the killing, the fishing and the harvesting. It's part of a project aimed at restoring Haida Gwaii's kelp forest, which is in deep trouble because of what humans have done there. In the early 19th century, the sea otter was driven to extinction in the waters off Haida Gwaii because the European and Chinese demand for pelts. With no sea otters, the urchin has no natural predator and urchins are voracious eaters of kelp. So now a group of people with divergent interests is working to try to reverse the damage by culling as much as 95 percent of the sea urchins in the project area and in a minute we'll hear why that matters. But for Daniel MacNeil striking the right balance is about more than just the ecosystem.

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VOICE: You know obviously we hope we get an ecosystem response with our seaweeds and kelp and that's probably one of the bigger parts of this project is getting you know some fish and everything else associated with that ecosystem, but you know personally in my opinion, one of the most important things of this project is you've got all these different peoples from different backgrounds working together. You've got people from DFO, Parks Canada, you got the Haida Nation on board and then you got the Pacific Urchin Harvesters Association, the commercial fishermen and we might not necessarily see eye to eye on you know on various subjects, but on this specific project we're literally working together towards a common goal and through that we develop trust and I think in my humble opinion, that's one of the most important things is developing friends and trust moving forward. So when we have other projects we already have established relationships, right.

AMT: Well as he mentioned Parks Canada is deep into this. The project grew out of research work done by one of its Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve marine ecologists by the name of Lynn Lee. And Lynn Lee joins me from our studio in Victoria. Hello.

LYNN LEE: Hi there.

AMT: Marine biologist diving down to the seabed to hammer sea urchins, did you ever think your work would bring you to that depth?

LL: No I can say with honesty that that is not one of the things I imagined I would be doing.

AMT: So what's going on in Haida Gwaii waters right now that made this the right place for a sea urchin cull?

LL: So on Haida Gwaii as you mentioned and as Dan has mentioned there's been a change in the ecosystem because of past human activities. So now the lack of this keystone predator, the sea otter, has allowed urchins and other invertebrates to really flourish and they've become what we call hyper abundant in that ecosystem that we know today. And as you know seaotters were reintroduced into the British Columbia ecosystem in the 1960s, late 60s and early 70s and so in different parts of the coast the sea otter recovery has been changing the kelp forest and rocky ecosystem to be taking out more urchin barrens and increasing the kelp forest health.

AMT: So can you take us to the seabed? What does Daniel see when he's down there?

LL: So when Daniel is under water on Haida Gwaii because we have no sea otters, we have a very narrow band of kelp that's right along the shallows and below that are alive virgins. So as Daniel mentioned the high density of the virgins are arrayed against the kelp. Were there foods or is the kelp is the most. And so everybody has packed up there trying to get to the food source and as you get deeper into the cult for us there's actually no more kelp and the agents have eaten everything that that's old. So are the spores or a seed of kelp that there all the little plants get eaten by the curtains as they try to grow and what you'll see is Kardon urchin Beran And it looks like a rocky reef that has what we call coralline pink coralline crust growing on it and a lot of virgins. So there is not much more to it in terms of plant growth.

AMT: So liiterally looks like a clear cut almost?

LL: It would be the equivalent of a clear cut above, on land that people would be familiar with, yes.

AMT: And so when you're culling urchins, how many urchins does up to 95 percent represent, like how many animals are we talking about here?

LL: So as Dan explained the urchins that are at the feed line are full of row and so because of this innovative partnership with the fishing industry we are able to harvest those urchins were able to take are the ones that have enough role for people to eat to the market and into the Heider communities for food. So then the returns that are below as he was explaining do not have a lot of role in them and some of them have no role at all. And so these are returns are existing pretty much the little bits of food that they can find and urchins are amazing. Red Irgens particularly are amazingly long lived in Alaska. They found that they live over a hundred possibly to 200 years and they don't need a lot of food in order to persist in that ecosystem. And so how these curtains are then cracked and the curtains were calling are cracked and they are recycled so what's left inside the other chains which include things like their gills and basic functioning organs are then reason they called in the ecosystem and complex did so. In fact last summer we did some experiments where we looked at who would come in from the ecosystem to eat the cracked urchins and how they would compost through time.

AMT: Okay and so, so many questions here. I guess that's why they call them urchins. Some of them get as big as pumpkins?

LL: Well small pumpkins. So they can be if you can imagine kind of like a I guess the small beach bar in size including all their spines. So those are the really old urchins that have been here for a very long time and in areas where sea otters have come back, you dont see urchins of that size anymore.

AMT: And I want to hear another clip from Daniel MacNeil about the impact human activity has had on the ecosystem of Haida Gwaii.

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VOICE: Today what we're trying to do is trying to understand what that system may have looked like in the past. You know fishing abalone and the mismanagement by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or during contact where there was just this take take take mentality, trade with First Nations, you know it was all good on our understanding. You know like we're doing trade, we're benefiting too, but I don't think no one really realized what we were doing ultimately and to the extent of it until it was gone. Haidas like to pride themselves as good stewards of the land, but we've had a couple cases in our history where we took too much ourselves and the sea otter is one of those cases where there was so much wealth that came from the furs that people just continued to do it.

AMT: So this is the high demand again for the furs. Do you worry about any unintended consequences of this intervention?

LL: I have thought about this a lot because for Parks Canada and just in general and I think about what we're doing to ensure that the negative effects, possible negative effects outweigh any risk and I guess as Dan has been seeing people have been already intervening in the eco system often with thinking of the consequences for millennia. And so what we are doing is a very small pilot restoration project that has been carefully thought out to be able to learn from what we are doing to learn how that ecosystem will respond to this change. And we've already learned from looking at coal for us whereas the idea have lived for various length of time because this reintroduction in the 1960s and 70s. And so we've been able to take that information in what we know from the changes that have occurred in areas with the idea is to inform this research project where we're essentially mimicking the prediction of spiders aren't urchins to try and restore these kelp forests.

AMT: Similar work to restore kelp forests in northern California has been underway for a few years. We asked Cynthia C with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife about the challenges they faced and what the critics have to say about their efforts to cull the sea urchn. Listen to what she says.

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VOICE: This is such, in Northern California, this has been such an unprecedented event. It's been ongoing for so long it's hard to actually call it an event now and it's had such devastating effects on our coastal communities that are really reliant on fisheries to drive their coastal economies and tourism associated with those fisheries, those recreational fisheries. It's been a pretty devastating couple of years and I would say that we are facing a lot of angst over how are we going to see a turnaround in this ecosystem quickly and that's so we're not losing species. And so if anything the pushback that we've been getting has been against a more kind of steadfast process of determining the right way for a route, rather than the other way around.

AMT: So it sounds like around where she is they're impatient. They want more and you're doing a pilot project. You're not doing the whole area.

LL: That's correct.

AMT: Are you getting some of that same feedback?

LL: Well we want to start small so that we can see how this could work and if this is successful then we look at how these sorts of management actions could be applied on a broader scale in places that people would like to see more kelp returning.

AMT: Now the sea otter has been introduced a little to the north and a little to the south, right?

LL: That's correct and so Haida Gwaii is essentially surrounded by growing sea otter populations. So in southeast Alaska there are populations of the others in the central coast of British Columbia mainland. They are expanding as well as on the West Coast in the north coast Dominque you were island. So for those listeners who don't know the West Coast geography headed is perched about 50 to 100 kilometers off the north coast of British Columbia. And so we are essentially surrounded by growing sea otter populations and we expect at some time in the near future that these ideas will naturally come in recolonise tireder guai and Guy hunters are the kind of creatures who stick to a certain area like they haven't kind of figured out there is a whole bunch of surgeons just waiting for them. They know there is a surprising story is that the idea is very distinct to behavioral ecologies and so one of the things that the males and females behave differently in their raft of males and females that tend to congregate together and then there are individual males that are more like the younger males there are maybe the teenagers that tend to head out as individuals. And so those individuals that are a little bit more adventurous than exploring their territory and expanding and so we've seen many single sea otter sightings over the last few years in Gwai Haanas, but no consistent raft of sea otters.

AMT: They don't call home.

LL: Not yet.

AMT: But that would be the desire along with all of this. Then just to have the sea otters come in because then the natural thing would start up again.

LL: That's correct. And then that would also allow the cultural relationships and the balance between the different parts of the ecosystem to become more balanced.

AMT: We heard Daniel talking about the balance is also in the relationships beyond the ecosystem, the people working together, the different departments, you're part of that. What does success look like to you then?

LL: Success is continued working relationships to build common goals and working towards common goals, especially with parts of society that have maybe been at odds like conservation groups and fishing industry have maybe been more at odds than they need to be and so in Gwaii Haanas we're hoping to build those relationships to be able to work together towards common conservation goals that benefit both people and ecosystems and cultural and ecological continuity.

AMT: Lynn Lee, thanks for your time. I've learned a lot about this. Thank you.

LL: Thank you.

AMT: Lynn Lee is a marine ecologist with Parks Canada at the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, also, the National Marine Conservation Area Reserve in the Haida heritage site. She joined us from Victoria. Well kelp forests are in trouble not only around Hadia Gwaii, but along the entire western coastline of North America. Matt Edwards has been tracking the health of those forests for more than two decades. Matt Edwards is a professor of biology at San Diego State University and we reached him in San Diego. Hello.

MATT EDWARDS: Hello Anna Maria.

AMT: Why kelp forests? What do they represent to you?

ME: Well if you at like hiking, if you like going out in nature and hiking and looking at you know the beauty of the forest and the incredible diversity and structure and kelp forests are pretty similar. You know you go under water, there's a lot of biodiversity. There's a lot of invertebrates that are amazingly beautiful. The fishes that are in there. You know the whole host of algae underneath it. So if you're a nature enthusiast and you like to be out, going under water, it's pretty similar.

AMT: So there's a lot at stake if they disappear?

ME: Very much so. Yeah, they serve a huge role in maintaining biodiversity along our coast. They support recreational and commercial fisheries and sport you know diving activities they buffer the coast to protect it from your waves and then erosion their importance you know sequestering carbon and producing agenda for the environment. They feed a whole bunch of other ecosystems. So yeah they're very important.

AMT: How bad is the current state of kelp forests on the West Coast?

ME: In certain areas pretty bad, in other areas not so much. It really matters on where you are. I've listened to other discussions and if you look at what's happening in the Pacific Northwest, pretty dire. The kelp forests have disappeared and they've been gone for a while. You know in Southern California they disappear to the warm water, but they've rebounded. So it kind of depends on where you are.

AMT: You had students in the water this week. What are they seeing?

ME: Yes I actually spoke with a couple of my graduate students who were diving in San Diego. And Sandiego has one one of the largest kelp forests that we have on the West Coast. And it's actually doing pretty good right now. It's got a good surface cannot be of help. And they told me that they saw a lot of new juvenile's recruiting. So right now in point momos it's actually rebounding and it's got a pretty good trajectory juveniles recruiting what does that mean. Well if you think about you know your garden when your seedlings come up and they are very young they look different from what they do when they're producing their fruits. Those little ones coming up they're just starting to make their way out of the ground up into the sun. We think about the same way with the kelps. They start off very small microscopic and begin to grow. They look differently when they're very small than they do when they're adults. And so when we talk about recruitment, it's really the appearance of those very smart juvenile kelps.

AMT: So you're making the point that there is a lot of this as regionally specific. We hear about the loss of the sea otter, the effect that's had on the ecosystem. What else has been going on where there is no more kelp?

ME: The two big things that are really impacting the kelp I would say are ocean warming and with that comes low nutrients. It's like not fertilizing your garden. The kelps begin to die back and that's one of the things that's hit us pretty good. More so in the south. The other thing are outbreaks of sea urchin grazing, that are coming out changed the way they forage and feed and they normally see it kind of down in cracks and crevices under borders and they just feed on the detached drifting pieces of algae that break breakoff just naturally and during wave of large waves and that sustains them. But when the cops disappear in that seaweed disappears the surgeons become hungry and they emerge and they come out of the cracks and crevices and they start to actively is that on the C4 or in those little joke Dubow camps I was just talking about. They really nailed those they like those and they pretty much denuded clear of the bottom of the cup you know everything that comes up in Southern California our problem I think is more centered on um warming events. And so we had periods of dieback due to that. So is that climate change certainly is one where events are certainly getting more frequent and more extreme. But you know really each year during the summer time the nutrients the waters warm up the nutrients drop. And so we have some natural senescence each year. So it is a natural in your pattern but superimposed that opine a warmer ocean and you know these events are getting a little more extreme, a little more severe and more frequent.

AMT: You also have something called the blob?

ME: Yeah the blob was, you know in 2014-2015 we had this really large area of warm water off the coast and that persisted for many years. On top of that we had we had a southern osscilation event with extra warm water and big wave event so it was kind of a double whammy if you will that hit the kelps.

AMT: So what are the biggest challenges for the Pacific Northwest when it comes to restoring the kelp forest?

ME: Well I think for the Pacific Northwest the big thing we need to do is control the urchins, which are grazing on the kelps. You know the water will cool off again, the cold rich water will return. It'll be good conditions for the kelps up there, but we need to do something about the sea urchins.

AMT: So when you hear about the projects like the one in Haida Gwaii, what are you thinking, is that the way you might have to go?

ME: Well I think that certainly is a good avenue to take, now these things you know one of the things about doing that is it's very labor intensive. I like the idea of getting fishermen and local stakeholders and recreational dive groups and local fishermen involved and you're really getting community engagement because it's going to take a lot of effort. But in reality you know you can do these things in areas that are accessible where there's bolt lodges or there's beaches that you know divers can enter but really the spatial area at which you can do that it's limited. That's a huge coastline that takes a lot of effort not just on one day but it takes continuously doing it and there is going to be areas near the coast that are not that are not accessible just due to big waves and just the way the coastline is. And so I think there are things that go on in a way and these we've seen down in Southern California around Santa Monica you know local areas I think it is possible to control the populations and return some of the kelp forest. But over the big scale you know allowing those big predators that really are much more efficient than us than forage 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and over large areas. I think those are you know returning those big predators is really going to be a big step in this.

AMT: There's also something called urchinomics I love that word. What is it?

ME: Yeah. So one of the ideas is as the urchins run out of food and they chang their feeding behavior, they then emerge and they graze down all the existing algae and once that's disappeared there's no lot food for them. Now we talked about you talked about this in your previous discussions and there was no eruptions the RO the gonads began to shrink. The first thing you do is you start to reabsorb those high energy gonads just to stay in them. And once those gonads disappeared you know the urchins can survive four years or more. Very little food but they're not really good for sale. So if you're going to go and harvest them you know what do you do with them. They're not commercially viable. So one of the eight years is to bring collect those urchins instead of just smashing them bringing them onto land and putting them into big tanks or quarter facilities and then feeding them and there is a pelletized food that is involved in image that they're testing to see if they can make it commercial food. And so the idea is to essentially fatten them up get those, the gonads to row back into a good shape so that you can sell them.

AMT: And I have to ask, are the urchinomics, urchinomicable? What's the word I'm looking for there. Economical, urchinomical.

ME: Yes and so well that is you know this is a lot of this is in test phases and there's you know research being done on this. And I think that's to say if it's urchin economical, these thingshave to start somewhere and we have to grow it. Things become more efficient and better and we figure out these things as these industry so so you know we're trying to solve. I think really two problems you're trying to solve especially the ecosystem, the loss of the kelp forest from these urchins, but also the loss of the urchin fishery, the row that you know people love.

AMT: How optimistic are you? You've been out for a long time.

ME: Well that's a good question and I guess my answer has to be it depends on where you are. These kelp forest have disappeared because of different reasons they have different histories and such they have different futures I think for the Pacific Northwest and getting up into British Columbia when the cold water returns it looks like it may be returning. I think know these Cutforth will return. They will rebound in other areas like in which you go down to the southern range of the kelp beds along Mexico where ocean temperatures are a little bit more important than these grazing outbreaks and the oceans are warming their future really is not quite as clear to me they're a little bit more threatened by climate change ocean warming. I'm not certain that their future is quite, I'm not as optimistic about their recovery in the short term.

AMT: Matt Edwards, good to talk to you. Thank you for bringing us up to speed on what's going on.

ME: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure.

AMT: Matt Edwards, professor of biology at San Diego State University. He joined us from San Diego. That's it for us today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Tom Power is kicking off a week that celebrates the piano. And today you will hear from James Rhodes, a pianist who used music to overcome a very difficult childhood. We're going to leave you though with one more take on a sea urchin. If you're familiar with Japanese cuisine, you may know the sea urchin as uni. There are also a lot of ways to prepare sea urchin at home. Jenice Yu is a fish seller from Vancouver. And we're going to leave you with the sound of her giving an urchin cooking lesson to CBC British Columbia's Gloria Macarenko. Here it is. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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Live demonstration of preparing sea urchin at home.

[Music: Theme]

Mar. 25, 2019 episode transcript

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