Jewish leaders demand Trump denounce white nationalism or 'you are not welcome in Pittsburgh'

Guests: David Shribman, Keren Gorban

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: 35-80, at least one caller sounded like they may have been shot down.

VOICE 2: We have at least 4 down in the atrium. DOA at this time.

VOICE 3: I just saw what was going on and I just could not believe it. In light of the other things that are going on across the nation, to see this right on my, really right on my street to where I was heading. I'm still processing it.

VOICE 4: Suspect in the shooting is in custody. We have multiple casualties inside the synagogue.

VOICE 5: We've had a tragedy here today. The work of the first responders is probably prevented it from becoming a much more tragedy than what it is.

VOICE 6: It's a terrible terrible thing what's going on with hate in our country frankly and all over the world and something has to be done.

VOICE 7: This is the most horrific crime scene I've seen in 22 years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Members of the Tree of Life synagogue conducting a peaceful service in their place of worship were brutally murdered by a gunman targeting them, simply because of their faith.

LL: On Saturday, as services were underway at Pittsburgh's busy Tree of Life synagogue, police say a man burst through the doors yelling, "All Jews must die," before opening fire on the congregants. He had an assault rifle and at least three handguns. Twenty minutes later, eleven people were dead, eight men and three women. Six others, including four police officers, were injured. Among the victims was a Toronto-born woman Joyce Fienberg, a pair of brothers and a married couple. The oldest victim was a grandmother, 97-years-old. Some of them were at the synagogue for a baby naming ceremony. Others were there for the Sabbath worshipping and praying. The gunman who was identified as Robert Gregory Bowers was shot and taken into custody by a tactical team. He's been charged with 29 federal counts, including hate crime charges and more charges at the state level. Interfaith vigils were held in Pittsburgh over the weekend and in many other cities across the United States and Canada, including one in Montreal on Sunday night. Imam Moussabbir Alam, co-founder of the Canadian Muslim Alliance, was among those who were there.

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VOICE: The Jewish community came out and spoke about the Quebec mosque shooting and you know I'm here to do the same. This is the least I could do. You know it was gut wrenching. Basically you know I couldn't believe that it's happening again. I couldn't really, like it's a big shock.

LL: According to the Anti Defamation League the synagogue massacre is likely the deadliest attack against the Jewish community in the US in history and comes amid a rise in anti-Semitism across the country and online. It also comes on the heels of an already tense and dangerous week, following a mail bomb campaign against high level Democrats and well-known critics of President Trump. Today we're speaking with two people for whom the tragedy at the Tree of Life synagogue in the historic Squirrel neighborhood in Pittsburgh struck very close to home. David Shribman is the executive editor of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and he is in Squirrel Hill. So too is Rabbi Keren Gorban. She is a rabbi with Temple Sinai, a nearby synagogue. Hello to both of you.

DAVID SHRIBMAN: Well hello. And hello to Rabbi Keren who is actually my rabbi.

KEREN GORBAN: Hi David.

LL: David Shribman, let's begin with you. You do live just blocks away from the Tree of Life synagogue. What are you hearing from friends and neighbors about the impact of the tragedy?

DS: Well excuse me, in a period in which there are no words, so many words are being spoken, I know Rabbi Gorban herself has been very articulate on this. We're all in shock and it's like many death episodes. The work and the urgency of the next moment have kind of taken over and we haven't really had the moments of reflection that we need and that will be so searing. But I will say that the people are saying things that are beginning to seem repetitive, but they're only repetitive because they've been said so often and with such heartfelt conviction.

LL: And what are those words?

DS: We can't believe this happened here. That it's come here. That this was a sort of this is not part of the Squirrel Hill ethos, that and this is part of Rabbi Gorban's own synagogue's mantra is that the doors are open and open doors. It's a metaphor and it's a reality and it's and both the metaphor and the reality have been shattered utterly right now.

LL: Rabbi Gorban, how close is Temple Sinai where you work from the Tree of Life synagogue?

KG: I think I calculated it as about eight blocks. It's about a 10 minute walk.

LL: So did you know any of the victims?

KG: So I actually moved to Pittsburgh just about three and a half years ago. I know the wife of one of the victims who was actually substituted in our religious school a handful of times.

LL: So in that sense then this obviously is, even though you've just moved to Pittsburgh, it hits close to home for you. What was your reaction when you heard what had happened?

KG: Not again. So I was a rabbi in Denver during the Aurora theater shooting and this has now happened again in a community that I love and in places where people expect to feel safe. So it's just, it's horrific that we've reached the point where I'm actually experiencing something again like this.

LL: And I understand that you weren't present at the time, but your temple actually went into lockdown when the news of the nearby shooting broke. Can you tell us a little more about that?

KG: Well so that was actually a good thing that I wasn't around. If I had been in the synagogue, I would have been in services, my phone would have been elsewhere. I was leading some of our young adults in the community on a Shabbat hike and got the message from our accompanist and actually was the one who called our executive director to tell him to make sure that the synagogue went into lockdown.

DS: So what Rabbi Gorban has just said resounds with me as well. As Rabbi Gorban well knows, my daughter is a year from ordination as a rabbi herself and she has a colocation in Augusta, Maine and she urged her congregants in a day of reflection to turn off their phones for the full day. So Rabbi Natalie Shribman or rabbi-to-be Natalie Shribman and her congregants in Maine turned on their phones around 5 o'clock to see that their world had been basically shattered, but she was in the same situation as Rabbi Gorban.

LL: And yet Rabbi Gorban you carried on as planned with a religious school for children in the congregation. Why did the leadership decide to do that?

KG: It's essential for us that, a, weekly as much assemblance of normalcy and stability for kids as possible. That's just good for them emotionally, but also from a spiritual-religious perspective this was an act of defiance. A way to say that terrorism and hate cannot stop who we are and stop us from doing what we do.

LL: David Shribman, I just want to. You've written a couple of columns in the wake of the shooting, including one that was in the New York Times, where you describe Squirrel Hill as the least anti-Semitic community or you believed it could be the least anti-Semitic community in the United States. Tell us about that.

DS: Well it's a community where Jews and Gentiles mix easily. Where the Jewish community center is really the community center, it's not really a Jewish community center, but it is the Squirrel Hill community center. Fourty percent of its members are non-Jews. Many people here are in a married yet live Jewish lives. Many, many, many synagogues, eleven synagogues within a mile of where Rabbi Gorban and I are right now. It's kind of a Whitman's Sampler of synagogues. People mix easily. It's a place where the jewels are closed on Saturday, but open on Sunday. Banks close on Saturday, but open on Sunday. Jewish life is totally integrated and regarded and it's totally unremarkable. I don't mean to say insignificant, but I mean unremarkable that your neighbor would be Jewish or that everybody on your street is Jewish. And the most remarkable thing about Squirrel Hill is that those who are not Jewish are more likely than those who are to pronounce the Yiddish words correctly.

KG: Actually if I can add to that as well. One of my favorite images from Murray Avenue, which is one of the main business streets of Squirrel Hill is a restaurant that has an advertisement for Hebrew lessons.

DS: Here the Dunkin Donuts and the ice cream shop are regularly inspected for to be kosher by rabbis. You don't see that everywhere.

LL: David Shribman, I just want to interpret one thing you said for our listeners and that is when you mentioned the Whitman sampler, which is actually a United States-based box of chocolates with different kinds of chocolates inside.

DS: It's kind of like Laura Secord.

LL: Alright. Very good. Can we just turn to the resilience of the community. Are you seeing that Rabbi Gorban?

KG: Absolutely. I think that that's one of the strengths of the Jewish community in specific, but also with people in general is that when we come together in support and in love we can really get through anything and people are coming together. I've gotten so many text messages and Facebook messages and all sorts of other different forms of communication from people around the community who know that I'm more connected than they are to the attack. But also people just wanting to check in and make sure that I'm OK and because of that, we will be able to continue and move on as they said last night on a number of occasions, this will not break us.

LL: I want to play a clip for both of you now. Many people are blaming the political climate and a rise in hate, including anti-Semitism for contributing to the violence at Tree of Life synagogue. Here's how President Donald Trump spoke about the shooting at a rally he held in Illinois, hours after the attack.

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VOICE: This evil anti-Semitic attack is an assault on all of us. It's an assault on humanity. It will require all of us working together to extract the hateful poison of anti-Semitism from our world. This was an anti-Semitic attack at its worst. The scourge of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated and it cannot be allowed to continue. We can't allow it to continue.

LL: David Shribman, I'm wondering what do you make of President Trump's comments in the wake of the attack?

DS: As you know I'm a political writer and political columnist. This is not a moment for politics. It's a moment for reflection. You know this is a week here in our community where it will be funerals and there will be more reflection and more vigils. Next week they'll be voting. I prefer to leave the politics to next week and make this a week of reflection.

LL: As you mentioned, there are the midterms coming up next week. But Rabbi I'm wondering at the same time, a number of Pittsburgh Jewish leaders have issued a letter, a public letter to President Trump, saying he is not welcome in Pittsburgh til he fully denounces white nationalism, among other things. What do you think of that? Should President Trump be able to come to Pittsburgh, if he wants to?

DS: To me?

LL: No, to the rabbi.

KG: You know he does have the ability to go wherever he wants. I have to say it was very telling yesterday when the assistant to the president who was at the vigil absolutely no applause and in fact a very stony silence. It does not seem that he is wanted in our city and that I think that's also something reasonable, given that they're it's part of his government and the people that he supports, so that nationalism and hate that he was just talking about was unreasonable and an attack on all of us.

LL: The Anti Defamation League has been really vocal in the wake of the attack. The CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told NBC's Meet the Press yesterday that there has been a sharp increase in anti-Semitism over the past year. Let's listen to him.

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VOICE: We saw a 57 per cent surge of acts of harassment, vandalism and violence directed at the Jewish community across the country. It was the single largest spike we have ever seen. And literally, just last week we released a report because we also monitor anti-Semitism online and we've seen a marked uptick in anti-Semitic harassment of political figures and other individuals, simply based on their faith. So we are living in a moment where anti-Semitism is almost becoming normalized and that should shock and move all of us to act. I would expect leaders to lead. We would hope and we should all demand that those in elected office, won't just you know give platitudes after the fact, but they will help ratchet back the rhetoric right now.

LL: Rabbi Gorban, I'm wondering to what extent do you think those with anti-Semitic beliefs have been emboldened in this climate, current political climate?

KG: I think that the ADL, the Defamation League, is better suited to answer that. But I will say that I've been seeing an increase in, not so much anti-Semitism, but in the openness of people spewing hatred. And I think that that's a really dangerous phenomenon for our entire community.

LL: David Shribman because of the situation and the setting, what message do you think should be coming from those in your community to the rest of the United States right now? I know you don't want to talk politics, but what should people of Squirrel Hill and Pittsburgh be telling the United States?

DS: That this is unacceptable and that the way we were is the way we need to be.

LL: There has though been a renewed debate over gun control and the prevalence of mass shootings in the US and this is another aspect to it. Let's listen to what the mayor of Pittsburgh Bill Peduto had to say yesterday about that.

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VOICE: I've heard the president's comments of how we should arm guards in our synagogues or churches or mosques. When we're dealing with irrational behavior, we shouldn't be trying to find ways to minimize the dangers that occur from irrational behavior. We should be working to eliminate irrational behavior in the empowerment of people who would seek to cause this type of carnage from continuing.

LL: Rabbi Gorban, what's your reaction to those sentiments?

KG: I think those are, that's a fair statement. The access to guns I think is part of the issue. The openness of hate is part of the issue. You know our synagogue has been working on the precautions and forms of security for many years. Some of those precautions started even before I arrived.

LL: Like what? What are you talking about?

KG: For example, despite our motto of opening doors to Judaism, the doors of the synagogue are almost always locked. Not because we don't want people to enter, we would love to keep people to feel free to enter our synagogue and our sacred space, our sanctuary, but we also know that there are people who try to come in, who should not. And so we keep all of our doors locked and if they are open, then we have someone standing at the entrance to greet people and give them a quick once over, just by looking at them.

LL: I also understand you have routine training into how to respond to the case of an active shooter?

KG: We do and I even pulled out yesterday to show my staff that I have, I know exactly where my active shooter protocol is on my desk, which is also how I knew that the first thing to do when I heard about an active shooter in the area was to call the executive director and put the building on lockdown.

LL: David Shribman, the final word to you. I've seen you write and speak of a level of exhaustion in the community. What do you think members of Pittsburgh's Jewish community need right now?

DS: To gain a good night's sleep and that will be very very hard to get, people talked about how difficult it was to sleep in the wake of tragedy and hatred and Holocaust big or small. And so we need the rest that comes with sleep and that will, we will not have that for some time.

LL: I think both of you for talking to me this morning about this. Take care.

DS: Thank you. Bye bye.

KG: Thank you.

LL: David Shribman is the executive editor of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Keren Gorban is a rabbi with Temple Sinai. We reached them both in Pittsburgh. Well the CBC News is coming up next. Then a Nova Scotia community is divided over a local pulp mill. We'll hear why tensions are running so high. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Fight over Northern Pulp Mill effluent pipe has reached a 'fever pitch,' says Nova Scotia MP

Guests: Joan Baxter, Sean Fraser

LL: Hello. I'm Laura Lynch, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come Habiba Nosheen of The Fifth Estate joins me with her investigation of a story that's close to home for her, why Canada's ban on adopting children from Pakistan is based on false premises. But first, tensions rising in one Nova Scotia Community.

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People are more than on edge. People are trying to protect what they've worked hard for. My husband is a third generation fisherman and when there is a company that is directly threatening that, what would you do? What if the surveyors come back. What's going to happen? I don't want to know what's going to happen if the surveyors come back.

LL: Krista Fulton is a member of the community group, Friends of the Northumberland Strait and she was talking to our producer Mary-Catherine McIntosh. But as you can hear there, the mood on Caribou Wharf, outside Pictou, Nova Scotia, is becoming more tense than friendly these days. Local fishermen are squaring off against the nearby Northern Pulp Mill. It produces bulk raw materials for products like toilet paper and tissue, but it also produces wastewater or effluent. And a plan to dump treated effluent into the ocean there has led to the tension and a recent confrontation. Here is fisherman Allan MacCarthy on his boat the Red Trapper, describing what happened when fishermen learned the surveyors for the proposed pipe were on the water. He was the first to confront the survey boat.

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VOICE 1: I just happened to end up there first and talk them into leaving. You know a peaceful, nobody's got to get hurt here. Why don't you go back to Bechtel. I did tell them that the rest of them coming out aren't going to be as nice as me. That part is true and they did take my advice eventually. It was a little slow maybe at first, they were younger. When they seen the rest of the boats coming, they knew it was probably getting seriouser.

VOICE 2: And what do you mean the rest of the boats? Who was coming?

VOICE 1: Well like everybody when it came. Once the word got around the community every boat at this warf would have been there. It wasn't just going to be a few. You'd better get out of here. Things are going to happen. The fishermen are frustrated and if you're backed into a corner and you're frustrated, things will happen and they aren't good things sometimes and I didn't want to see anybody get hurt or anybody go to jail. You're dealing with grown men who have million dollar enterprises here and you're telling them we might put you out of business. We all live in the community. A lot of us live on the water. We work in the water and we play on the water. This is a lifestyle. This is not, we're going to tear down a factory, don't worry we'll build another one. You don't rebuild the Northumberland Strait ecosystem in a year.

VOICE 2: What's your fear here with this pipe?

VOICE 1: The ruination of the fisheries habitat and the fish stocks as we know it. You don't have a camera, but if you did you could see they have barriers up over here at the hollow so that no boat is going to get in or out, unless the fisherman know who it is. We have eyes all over Pictou. That boat is not coming out of Pictou harbour that we don't know about it. There's not much can happen on this water that we do not know about and there's people watching and waiting. It's a great chance for the provincial government to reach out to us here and try and resolve the situation, which they have not reach out to us yet as stakeholders. It's probably not going to be pretty. I can't tell you what's going to happen for sure, but it's probably not going to be pretty if what happens next. I'll not be first next time. I know I won't be. You know there's people want to get there ahead of me. There's people telling me that I shouldn't have went first, that should have let them handle it.

LL: Well that was fisherman Allan MacCarthy speaking to our producer Mary-Catherine. The debate over how to handle that effluent continues to divide the people who live and work nearby. Fishermen and the Pictou Landing First Nations see it as a threat to the ecosystem and a threat to tourism. But with more than 300 employees, the pulp mill itself is important to the local economy. Mary-Catherine did meet with a supporter of the mill who says, if the mill closes, the whole province will suffer, but he wouldn't allow his voice or name to be used on the air, citing his concerns over safety. Well this debate over the pulp mill is hardly new and journalist Joan Baxter has written extensively about it. She's the author of The Mill: 50 years of Pulp and Protest and she is with us from our Halifax studio this morning. Hello.

JOAN BAXTER: Good morning, Laura.

LL: Now as I said, this tension has existed for a long time, but a recent spill heightened it even more. Tell me about that. What happened?

JB: Well actually a day before the Fishermen's Associations, actually from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, plus the Pictou Landing First Nations were supposed to meet with Northern Pulp, which is the name of the company, the local name of the company that owns the mill to hear about a new proposal because the last one fizzled out. Apparently it wouldn't work for where they were going to direct the treated effluent into the Northumberland Strait. A landowner walking his dog in the morning found a new leak in the effluent pipeline that comes from the mill and there's an easement through his land. It's also on sacred Mi'kmaq burial grounds. And that leak was immediately played down. They said it was a small leak, but I went to the site actually this weekend and they're still trying to clean up that leak. So it didn't really give anybody a lot of trust in anything that Northern Pulp or even the province of Nova Scotia is saying.

LL: Now just clear something up for me. The leaks that happened in the pipe right now, that's untreated effluent, is that correct?

JB: That is untreated effluent. That is, it comes from the mill across the mouth of a river, which is just where the East River meets Pictou harbor, for anybody who knows the area. It goes under land again for ways and then it comes above ground to go into settling ponds and aeration pond and then it sits for another month in the lagoon called Boat Harbour, which used to be a very important tidal estuary for the Mi'kmaq people and they were tricked in an almost criminal matter in the 1960s into handing over signing over that beautiful estuary that they depended on for their livelihoods for the effluent from this mill. That was back in 1967. The chief was taken up to New Brunswick and shown a non-functioning sewage system and told that Boat Harbour would not be harmed by the effluent. So it's a long, long history, but at the moment.

LL: What's happened to Boat Harbour then?

JB: The government, the provincial government of Nova Scotia, in 2015, passed an act called the Boat Harbour Act, which means that Boat Harbour has to be closed by January 2020 and that happened after a previous leak in 2014, when 47 million litres of untreated effluent went into that same area where the most recent leak happened and there was a blockade. And the Pictou Landing First Nations said enough is enough, you closed Boat Harbour and remediated, give it back to us. So by 2020 January that mill has to have its effluent going somewhere else.

LL: But you're saying remediation that means that Boat Harbour has suffered from this?

JB: Boat Harbour has suffered tremendously from this. There have already been court cases back in 1993 with some compensation for the Pictou Landing First Nation. It's a dead zone. You can't really see it and you can't access it publicly. I have visited it with First Nations people and it's horrendous. It's been considered one of the most egregious cases of environmental racism and pollution hotspots actually in Canada.

LL: So that is untreated effluent. The company has a new plan for actually treating the effluent and disposing of it. What's the plan?

JB: The problem is that there hasn't really been a plan that's been revealed yet because originally they said they will put a new treatment plant beside the mill and from there they will just pump that effluent, treated effluent, directly out into the Northumberland Strait. The original proposal, which came out a year ago, was to pump it right through Pictou harbour and then dispose of it, disperse it with six diffusers, into the Northumberland straight out there, where there's spawning grounds and important fishing grounds and as the Pictou Landing First Nation people said, well you're just moving it down the coast a couple of kilometres. You know this is not going to solve the problem. So there was opposition to that. Then they discovered that that route wouldn't work. The harbour was too shallow. So they just came up with this new plan last Monday morning, which would take it 14 kilometres from the mill. And anybody who's taken the ferry across from Prince Edward Island to Nova Scotia, would know the area where they're planning to dispose of it in the Strait because they would take the pipeline out for kilometres and dispose of the treated effluent out there in the Straight. The problem is that they're also not talking about cooling towers. So a marine biologist who works with the Fishermen's Association is very concerned about the temperature of that effluent that will be going out into the Strait.

LL: Because it would be too warm.

JB: Yes.

LL: We spoke to Michael Van den Heuvel, Canada Research Chair in Watershed Ecological Integrity and the director of the Canadian Rivers Institute about the risks from the effluent. Let's just listen to that.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: In terms of the level of risk of the effluent that the mill is planning to release, if it is working within design parameters, essentially effluent by law in Canada should certainly be completely non-toxic. Of course, the nature of the environment there, which is very tidal, the mill, the effluent will have a tremendous amount of dilution. So in my opinion the risks of any measurable effects within hundreds of, beyond sort of the 100 metres immediate area of the outfall is very low.

LL: So Joan Baxter, why aren't the fishermen in the area convinced that this effluent poses little risk?

JB: Because they're actually waiting to see the science themselves. The province is in a conflict of interest position in this, when it does an environmental assessment because of two agreements that were signed with that mill, one back in 1970 that actually makes the people of Nova Scotia responsible for the effluent and for its treatment and then an indemnity agreement that was signed in 1995 that gives the mill complete indemnity and puts the citizens of Nova Scotia basically on the hook for all costs associated with that effluent in perpetuity. The groups opposed to this feel that the province is in a conflict of interest situation. They're planning a fast track environmental assessment. They're asking for the federal government to come in and to do a federal assessment, which is longer and more in-depth.

LL: And we will talk more about that in a bit. But we invited Northern Pulp to do an interview, but no one was available today. We did speak to Kathy Cloutier with Paper Excellence Canada, the company that owns the Northern Pulp Mill. She said she absolutely "understands the concerns about the impact on the ocean ecosystem" and she offered this assurance.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The pulp and paper industry is federally regulated and it's actually quite interesting as I'm speaking with you, I've spent the last two days touring the mill facilities on Vancouver island and currently here in Powell river and I'm seeing mails that are operating the same systems either that we have or are proposing to have. And again each has their ocean discharge and the one in Port Alberni, it has a sockeye salmon spawning area near its discharge. And these are why federal regulations are in place to ensure that the fisheries and spawning areas and species are protected.

LL: Joan Baxter, what do the fishermen and First Nations who oppose the plan think of the company's reassurances?

JB: There's a serious lack of trust and lack of confidence between the fishermen and the mill and there has been since 1965 when they first announced this mill. Even way back then the lobster fishermen were protesting it and they were assured that nothing would happen and their lobster catches immediately dropped after the mill went into operation. So there's a serious lack of trust because of the sort of chequered history, controversial history of this mill and they say if it's so safe and if the science is there then why will they not do a federal environmental assessment. That's what they're asking for.

LL: The mill though is a big source of jobs and economic activity in the community. There must be a fair number of people who are worried about what would happen if it shuts down.

JB: Of course there's a number of people who are worried about it and certainly everybody feels for the people whose livelihoods depend on that mill. But the province has subsidised that mill to the tune of nobody knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of very cheap inexpensive water and grants and loans over the years and the feeling is that if they're going to put at risk another major industry that employs a lot more people, which is the inshore fishery and also tourism along the Northumberland Strait, then perhaps the Government should consider not throwing more good money after and they might want to do something to help the workers should that mill have to close down at some point. They have done it with other mills in Nova Scotia.

LL: We requested an interview with the premier of Nova Scotia, Stephen McNeil, but he wasn't available. We did get a statement responding to the idea that the province is in a conflict of interest, which you stated earlier. Here's part of it: " The Department of Environment's role is to review this project once the company registers it with our department for an environmental assessment. Any decision will be based on science and the best available evidence." Now you mentioned the conflict of interest is that the reason why people are so distrustful of the province's role in this?

JB: Absolutely. That's certainly what the Friends of the Northumberland Strait have been saying, the fishermen have been saying that the government is not an honest broker here because they're going to be paying for this new project, which makes them almost a partner as a proponent, but they're also supposed to be the regulator. And they chose before the project had even been submitted to them, they chose to go with the shorter, fast-tracked class one assessment, which is a very short assessment. It doesn't involve an independent scientific panel when they could have chosen the class two. And interestingly enough, now the remediation of Boat Harbour qualifies for a class to environmental assessment with the province and yet this massive new treatment and disposal system they say qualifies for class one. So people just don't have faith that the government is going to be an honest broker.

LL: I want to play one more clip from Kathy Cloutier about the tension in the community and how the company sees its role in trying to resolve some of it.

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VOICE: We've spoken with stakeholders such as First Nations. You know PLFN is our neighbor. We have met with fishers within the last two weeks. We're not looking to tell people the way things are going to be. We're really looking to hear what their concerns are, but also to obtain information that they have that may or may not be part of this process. If there's spawning areas or fishing areas that's a really important piece for us to know and the best people to know that are fishers. And we don't want to have just connect in the community. We have employees and their children that are part of this community.

LL: So how likely do you think it is Joan Baxter, that there could be a resolution that will satisfy everyone in the community?

JB: I think that the only way for this really to be resolved is for the federal government to come in and to do a federal environmental assessment and for the province to step back a little bit and admit that they are in a compromised position and to be much more transparent with the public. I mean I have a great deal of difficulty getting information out of the government about what's going on even with the most recent leak. And Pictou County is a really remarkable place. It's the birth place of New Scotland. It's a very tight knit community. I mean in one case I know a fisherman who wouldn't even put up a no pipe sign in his driveway because his neighbor works for the pulp mill and their children wait for the school bus together. So that's the kind of community it is even though they're really really strong on the no pipe campaign there because they're just so concerned. They want to see the science. And I find it amazing that Kathy Cloutier would suggest that they should be providing Northern Pulp and the regulator with the science and with the information on the spawning grounds. I would have thought that it's up to them to prove that no harm is going to be done. It's not up to the fishermen to do that. We will leave it there, Joan Baxter. Thank you.

JB: Thanks. Thanks very much.

LL: Joan Baxter is a journalist and the author of The Mill: Fifty Years of Pulp and Protest. She was in our Halifax studio. Sean Fraser has been listening in to our conversation today. He is the Liberal MP for Central Nova. He's also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment and the Northern Pulp mill is located in his riding. Sean Fraser is in our Ottawa studio. Hello.

SEAN FRASER: Hi. Thanks so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

JB: What are you hearing from your constituents about this?

SF: So I've been hearing quite a bit from my constituents over the past year or so, since it first came up. We initially hosted a meeting with a number of fishermen in my office and had a significant turnout. We get phone calls on a near daily basis. This is an issue that has caused a lot of anxiety in our community. Why do you think that is? There's a lot of people who through nothing, but pure intentions have serious concern about either the loss of jobs that could come up if a mill closes or because they care very deeply about protecting the environment and base their livelihood and the recreation and culture on the Northumberland Strait. I know I personally grew up in Merigomish, a small community, just on the edge of Merigomish harbor, which is off the Northumberland straight. Back home we have a deep connection to the ocean and I think people feel that it needs to be protected.

JB: Now you heard from the fisherman, Allan MacCarthy. They're saying fishers have had no real contact with the provincial government on this. Have you been talking with the Premier about it?

SF: I have spoken with the provincial government and the Premier about it and I've actually spoken on a number of occasions with Allan and a number of other concerned fishermen as well. I think it's extremely important that we're able to hear the voices of people who are actually living in the community, who are potentially going to be affected by a project like this. It's important that you don't rush into a decision making process and exclude important voices like that of Allan the fishermen.

LL: But what is the Premier saying to you?

SF: So the Premier has and we've had some conversation about it, but he's focused on striking a balance between achieving environmental protection and allowing business to take place in Nova Scotia. He hasn't to me suggested that there's a preordained outcome of the process and frankly I haven't dug in to the nitty gritty of what the provincial process might lead to because of course my role is a bit different as a federal Member of Parliament.

LL: Well you heard Joan Baxter talking about this perceived conflict of interest for the province and her saying that the federal government needs to step in and do a federal environmental assessment. What do you say to that?

SF: Yeah, first I can tell Ms. Baxter, she's not the only person who's suggested that should be the case. This is one of the things that I hear about most often. It's one of the things that was the subject of a significant protest that took place this summer in the town of Pictou. One of the things I want to communicate to anyone who might be listening is the federal government hasn't completely stepped back or washed its hands of what's going on. Right now it's important to understand that there's a process unfolding and until the mill actually puts forward its proposal, there's no ability for the federal government to conduct an assessment. But that being said, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has actively been meeting with groups like the Fishermen's Associations, Pictou Landing First Nation, other stakeholders that are concerned about protecting the environment and they will eventually when the plan is actually filed, they'll be making a recommendation to the minister on the basis of their investigation, as to whether there should or should not be a federal assessment.

LL: What would the standard be? Because it seems that the federal government clearly has jurisdiction over fisheries.

SF: Certainly. So the way that typically projects like this are dealt with is that yeah the federal government does have jurisdiction because it is a federally regulated body of water and there is a Fisheries Act authorization, if you're curious, it's Section 36-3 of the Fisheries Act, deals with the standard you have to meet when you're addressing the quality of effluent from a pulp and paper mill. If the and separate from that there is a provincial duty to conduct an environmental assessment. There were some changes made back in 2012 to the way environmental assessments took place, these are the pulp mills and it's no longer an automatic thing just because you're putting a pulp mill on the water that there is a federal assessment. There's a residual authority for the minister if in her opinion that specific project warrants a federal assessment, though it might not otherwise come up, one can be a project can be designated for an assessment, but that's typically not the case.

LL: Do you have an opinion yourself one way or the other?

SF: I think it's premature to say yes there has to be you know there isn't going to be for something that we don't know what, when or whether it's going to come up in terms of how the plan is actually going to be proposed. Any time you deal with the thought that somebody is just going to just discharge pollutants into the water, I think we have to say OK, everybody getsa back up over that. But we say let's actually take a look and make sure this is done in a scientific way. I think as soon as the pulp mill actually puts forward a proposal, the federal government will consider whether it should conduct a federal assessment or not.

LL: Now you are at this place, it seems like there's just a real impasse here, two important industries in your riding and the people who work for them are at odds with one another. Is there any room for compromise?

SF: You know to a lot of people involved with the project so far, it feels very black and white. There's either a pipe or there's no pipe. And at the end of the day there either will or won't be. But I think one of the things from my own perspective having grown up there and frankly growing up, I'm one of the younger parliamentarians in Ottawa. And I grew up as part of a generation where the environment informed everything about everything. I remember in elementary school, we sat in class and learned about the importance of composting and in university we were studying the impact of climate change and in fact in junior high we were and today I've got a unique role on the environment portfolio. In my own opinion, if you have to satisfy the public and the community that you can move forward with projects that will actually respect and protect the environment, before you can have a conversation about jobs. Once you cross that threshold and satisfy the public, yeah we can do this responsibly, then I'll be the biggest supporter of economic development projects.

LL: We're not there yet. People are making threats. Some people are afraid to talk to the media. Now we've got fishermen watching the wharf, making sure the company survey boats don't get out in the water. I'm wondering how concerned you are that things could escalate.

SF: Deeply concerned. In fact I've spoken to people who have said you know I'm one step away from thinking about carrying the rifle on board when I go out next time. Things have reached a fever pitch at home and to anyone listening, there are cool heads within each of these organizations and there's people who get more easily worked up to the extent we can let our better angels prevail here and ensure that no one takes a drastic step and becomes violent over this. And I think it's essential that we all resolve this through conversation and through scientific review.

LL: Sean Fraser, thank you for your time.

SF: It's my pleasure.

LL: Sean Fraser is the Liberal MP for Central Nova and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment. He joined us from Ottawa. Coming up in our next half hour, to adopt a child from Pakistan is against Canadian rules. But a CBC investigation delves into the puzzling ban, one the government is now re-examining. In just a moment we'll hear why this story is so personal for the Fifth Estate's Habiba Nosheen. She's here with that story after the break. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

How a controversial adoption ban on Pakistan kept a Canadian family in limbo for years

Guests: Habiba Nosheen, Jamie Poisson

LL: I'm Laura Lynch, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and you're listening to The Current.

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HABIBA NOSHEEN: OK, we're going to cut the cake!

[Chatter]

HN: That's my daughter's first birthday party.

[Chatter]

HN: The cake is really extra special because Sahel helped bake it for his sister.

[Cheers].

LL: And your daughter, her name is Sophie, right?

HN: That's right. She's trying to figure out how to blow a candle as all of us stare at her.

[Singing Happy Birthday]

HN: This was almost a year after we adopted her from Pakistan and she's two years old now.

LL: OK. Well for our listeners, Habiba Nosheen is who you're hearing. She's a host on CBC TV's The Fifth Estate. And there is a reason we're hearing about your daughter because you've been working on an investigation for more than a year that touches on something quite personal for you

HN: Yeah you know Laura as a journalist, I do my best to keep my personal life separate from my work, but this is a situation where I learned about a story when I was on a journey to adopt my child.

LL: Tell me more then about your journey.

HN: In 2011, I was in Pakistan reporting on a number of stories and I visited an orphanage run by the EB Foundation, which is one of the most mortuaries in Pakistan.

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Children singing in Urdu.

HN: When I walked in they start to sing these songs in Urdu, as a way to welcome me. And all these kids in the room had really short hair and at first glance I actually thought they were all little boys, but I was told no. It's actually a room full of girls.

LL: Why only girls?

HN: You know there is a boy preference in the country, as I learned and a lot of the babies who are turning up at this orphanage were infant girls who had been abandoned at birth because their families wanted a baby boy. And the woman who runs this orphanage tells me that baby girls had been turning up dead all over the country.

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Woman speaking in Urdu.

HN: She pulls out a picture of an infant they had found the day before. She was burned alive likely just a day old. And I have to tell you Laura, I've covered many difficult stories as a journalist, but the image of that baby I just couldn't get out of my head for years. And that's one of the reasons that I went back there five years later and adopted my daughter Sophie from that orphanage.

LL: I can imagine. It must have been horrifying. So you go to adopt Sophie. Tell me what the process of that was like.

HN: You know adoptions are never easy. And at that point I was living and working in the United States, involved a lot of paperwork, background checks. After we were approved we went to Pakistan to actually start the process on the ground. We had a list of documents that the U.S. government required. We submitted them to the U.S. consulate and was asked to come in for an interview in Islamabad with the baby and we were approved. I was back home with the baby within two months and about two months after that she became an American citizen.

LL: So how did that adoption lead you to the story that you're telling today, which is actually focusing on Canadians adopting from Pakistan?

HN: Right. So when I adopted in 2016, that's when I learned that though my process was relatively simple, if I had been living in Canada at the time, I would not have been able to adopt my daughter because Canada has a ban on adoptions from Pakistan.

LL: How common is that?

HN: You know it's not unusual for a country like Canada to shut its doors to adoptions from a certain country. For example, most recently we saw that with Nepal or Guatemala, but in those cases there were concerns about fraud and child trafficking. The governments are usually pretty transparent and they'll say something like they are stopping these adoptions like in the case of Nepal because of issues of corruption or child trafficking. In Pakistan there was no evidence that this ban was placed because of similar concerns.

LL: Let's talk more about the ban then. When did it come into place?

HN: The ban was announced officially July 2013. The Canadian government has been saying for the last five years that they cannot allow adoptions from Pakistan because Pakistan prohibits adoptions. And I knew that that wasn't true because I had just adopted from Pakistan and for Canadian families who have been trying to adopt from Pakistan it had a big impact. Some of them were in the middle of their adoption process when this ban came into place very quietly with no warning.

LL: So what happened to them?

HN: One of the parents we spoke to in our story, we're calling her Sarah. That's not her real name. We're protecting her identity because she worries that speaking to us about what happened to her will affect her case. And so we're protecting her identity.

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SARAH: So I started the process in 2010.

HN: She started the process of adopting long before this ban was announced and was matched to a baby boy on the ground in Pakistan.

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SARAH: My son was actually born in 2012.

LL: What happened when the ban came into effect?

HN: You know in Canada, provinces deal with the application to do background checks and approve families for adoption. And it's the federal government that deals with the immigration aspect of the international adoption. So Sarah went through the provincial process, was approved, went through the Pakistani process, became the legal guardian of this child and now she submits the paperwork to bring her child to Canada. And she's essentially told no, she can't do that because there's a ban in place for adoptions from Pakistan.

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SARAH: If you're going to prevent future families from adopting that have not been matched with children, that don't have an emotional bond, that's one thing.

HN: She has pictures of her son growing up.

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SARAH: But when you ask people who have been matched with children that have created a place in their lives and in their families and in their hearts for a child, that particular child, to just stop, it's cruel.

SARAH: Keep in mind they were matched when he was a baby and now he's 6 years old.

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SARAH: It's really heartless and and hard to understand.

HN: At one point he even packed his bags and told his friends at the orphanage that his mom was coming to take him home to Canada.

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SARAH: I may not have met my son, but in my mind, he is still my son.

LL: Well wait a second because I'm a little confused. She's gone through the process and yet she's never gone over to actually meet him in person?

HN: No. And that's part of her choice I think. She says that it's just too painful.

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SARAH: I did have to appear before the judge in Pakistan, before I could get my guardianship certificate. So I was there in 2016, not far away from my son. And if I had met him, I would still be there.

HN: If she meets him and this doesn't resolve, she thinks it will just break her.

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SARAH: I never dreamt that I would be still here having this conversation with you in 2018, while my son is 6-years-old, still in the orphanage and I was aware of him at birth. And it's my own government that has prevented us from being together. I'm afraid for him to know me even through Skype or pictures or anything because I don't know if I'll ever be able to bring him home.

HN: You know her friend recently visited her son at the orphanage and made a video of him. Sarah says she can't even bring herself to watch the video.

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SARAH: Why is the Canadian government stopping this from happening and the other adoptions from Pakistan?

HN: You know that's exactly what we wanted to find out. So we requested internal e-mails and memos from the Canadian government, discussing this ban. What these e-mails and memos show is that though it wasn't announced until 2013, officials in Ottawa actually began looking into this ban and implementing this ban two years earlier in 2011, under the Harper government. One e-mail suggests that someone in the Canadian High Commission in Islamabad thought that there were too many adoptions from Pakistan, which was at that time, was the largest group of Muslim adoptions. Then Ottawa decided that Islam does not allow adoptions and therefore Pakistan does not allow adoptions and went on a campaign to try to convince the provinces and the territories to come on board and sign onto this ban. All done very quietly, without the public's knowledge. And curiously though, even just weeks before this ban, the Canadian government was sending out letters to families that they were approved to go to Pakistan and adopt, giving them no warning, no indication that this ban was coming.

LL: So you have these seeds of an explanation from government, its reasons for wanting to put this ban in place. But is there a sense that something else might be going on?

HN: You know I spoke to one lawyer who's been working to unite the families who have been separated by this ban and she tells me that she wonders if this was an attempt by the previous government at stopping people from Muslim majority countries from coming to Canada. And I can't tell you if that's true or not. What I can say is that it's left a lot of people and lot of families like Sarah, very confused about the whole thing.

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SARAH: I've had two judges, Pakistani judges from courts over there say, take this child, go to Canada and adopt him. So if the judges in Pakistan don't understand their own faith or their own laws, but Canada knows better it's dismaying.

HN: What's confusing to a lot of people is why is the Canadian government in the business of deciding what Islam or Sharia law says about an issue.

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SARAH: Interpret the faith, their faith, better than they can. I cannot understand that.

HN: It would be similar if the Canadian Government wrote to say a same-sex couple and said since you're coming from a Christian country, we cannot recognize your marriage because the Bible doesn't recognize it. And I think Canadians are used to a separation of church and state. So when you start making policies in Canada, based on religious laws and I think that's what a lot of parents we spoke to said they found troubling and confusing.

LL: Not only making policies based on religion, but also interpreting the religion and policies of another country. So what's Pakistan saying?

HN: Well we know that judges in Pakistan and courts in Pakistan have been approving international adoptions for years and there have been no change in their policy.

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VOICE: The government of Pakistan has not banned adoption at all.

HN: We also talked to Nadeem Kiani who is the spokesperson at the Pakistani High Commission in Ottawa.

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VOICE: The adoption from Pakistan is going to be taking place to other countries, including to U.S., U.K., Australia and other European countries. And we believe that a ban on Canadian government is unjustified and we would like that ban to be lifted and the parents who are citizens of Canada, they should be allowed to adopt children from Pakistan. And certainly we will encourage that.

HN: What he takes issue with is why is this ban officially only for adoptions from Pakistan and not other Muslim countries.

LL: That occurred to me. I mean what about other predominantly Muslim countries. What does Canada say about adoptions from those countries?

HN: Officially you know the ban is only from Pakistan. Again it's not clear why Pakistan was singled out, but we found that families who had adopted from other Muslim countries like Morocco, Yemen, Iran, from time to time, faced similar obstacles with the Canadian government telling them they cannot bring their adopted child to Canada because he or she is coming from a Muslim country and Canada has concluded that Sharia law doesn't allow adoptions.

LL: How many Canadian families were affected by the ban then?

HN: You know we don't know how many families decided to abandon the idea of adopting when this ban came into play, but we know from documents that we reviewed, that at least by Canadian government's estimate, 54 families were in the middle of their adoption process from adopting from Pakistan when this ban was announced. And this would have included families like Sarah's. The e-mails also showed that there was some pushback, not all provinces were keen on signing onto this ban, partly because how this would affect the families who'd be caught up in this. And they were assured that this ban would not affect people who had already been approved, but we know that that's not how it played out.

LL: And what happened to the other families?

HN: You know some of them had a happier ending than Sarah, but it's been tough.

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VOICE: Well I think that was one thing, one very great thing, missing in my life, a child.

HN: That's Shafiq Rahman. He and his wife had been trying for years to conceive, with no luck.

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VOICE: She was like very depressed for a long time.

HN: They go through an adoption agency in Toronto and decide to adopt from Pakistan. Their adoption is approved and this ban is announced.

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VOICE: We went to the agency and we give them the letter. They needed the letter. And said how could that work because there was a ban yesterday. I said what? She said the Government of Canada has put a ban on it that you cannot adopt from Pakistan. I don't know how it's going to work. I said you know what, it's going to work. Because once they issue the letter, I've been through process. You know I'm going to fight for it. I mean this is my life.

HN: He was not prepared to give up. He tells us that he had this letter from the Canadian government, ban or no ban, they had given him their word. So he proceeded with his adoption with the orphanage in Pakistan.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: They said OK, you have this letter, we'll give you the baby. You know, that's fine. You have provided us all the documents that they needed. They needed some documents from Canada that we are financially sound and there is background checks are good, so that the baby would be safe. They did everything that they should have done. And finally they gave the baby and that was the most exciting moment. My wife was laughing and crying at the same time.

LL: OK, well that sounds like a happy ending. Was it?

HN: Yes, so they got a little girl. But here is how it got complicated. They weren't allowed to bring her home to Canada because of this ban. So while this was being sorted out Shafiq came back to Canada and his wife stayed in Pakistan with the baby and the family was separated for years.

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VOICE: You're emotionally so disturbed that you cannot do anything. I was not able to work anywhere. Just making trips from Pakistan, I thought maybe something changed you know. So I'm coming back to Toronto and talking to the agency over here, adoption practitioner and he's telling me OK go to the MPs and try to fight with it. I was very disturbed, my whole life was very disturbed during those five years.

LL: Five years?

HN: Yeah that almost took five years before the Canadian government finally sorted out Shafiq's case and allowed him to bring his daughter home. We've talked to other families who are still going through similar battles with the Canadian government. Some are actually still living in Pakistan because Canada will not recognize their adoption.

LL: So you've established that it was the previous Conservative government that put this policy into place, but there's been a Liberal government in place for quite a while now. What is this government saying about it?

HN: You know, we tried for months to sit down with the Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen to have him clarify this policy. He refused, but a spokesperson for him responded in an e-mail that said, "Harmonizing the laws of two countries can often be challenging and rather than trying to overcome these obstacles, the Harper government imposed a moratorium on all adoptions from Pakistan." He goes on to say, "We have asked the department to initiate a review of this policy and begin consultations with Pakistan to determine a path forward to regularize adoptions from Pakistan.".

LL: A review, that's what they're doing?

HN: Yeah. And after our enquiries they agreed to look into this policy, but there's no word of how long that might take and how families caught up in this ban might be dealt with. But you know we'll continue to stay on the story, but I think it's worth mentioning that even though this policy came about under the Conservative government, the Liberals have been in power for three years and during this time, when families wrote to them saying help us, we have been separated from our adopted children, they wrote back with the same jargon, saying sorry, it's against Islam, you can't adopt and we can't help you.

LL: Habiba, it is heartbreaking and I thank you for sharing this story with us.

HN: Thank you, Laura.

LL: Habiba Nosheen is a reporter with The Fifth Estate. Now I want to take a moment to share some good news for podcast listeners. Today CBC News launched Front Burner. It's a daily news podcast and it is hosted by award winning investigative reporter, Jamie Poisson. She joins me here in our Toronto studio to tell us all about the new show and today's episode. Jamie Poisson, hello and welcome.

JAMIE POISSON: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

LL: Must feel pretty good to have it out.

JP: Oh feels great. I'm a little bit nervous, but I'm really excited. I hope people like it.

LL: So tell me about the show. What is it like?

JP: So Front Burner is a daily news podcast by the CBC and everyday we're going to dig into one big story, maybe two, but usually one. So we're going to try and get beneath the headlines and really unpack the themes and the threads behind a story. So we're only going to deal with stories that can sustain a 15 to 20 minute conversation and we're interested in political stories of course, but also cultural, societal stories as well. And we're very focused on Canada and Canadian stories and stories for Canadians, but we're also going to take an international look as well.

LL: That's important. You just set yourself apart. There are so many of these news podcasts coming out now, so yours is Canadian first, I guess.

JP: Yes. For me this is a podcast I've wanted in my life. I've been listening to a lot of, I listen to a lot of podcasts and I find that my listening habits include consuming very American centric podcasts and I'm I'm feeling a bit guilty that I know so much about, domestic U.S. politics and there's just there's a lot of great stories going on in Canada that I'd like to explore as well. And also the world, you know there's a lot out there and that's something that we want to pursue on this podcast.

LL: So how can people listen?

JP: So It's available every morning at 6am. You can download it wherever you get your podcasts. And so Stitcher, Apple Podcast, Google Play and we're available Monday to Friday.

LL: And so today was the premiere. What did you choose for your first story?

JP: So we talked to the CBC's senior defense reporter, Murray Brewster. He was behind the scenes with the White Helmets. The White Helmets are of course this group of first responders in Syria. They run towards the bombs, instead of and rescue the people and the victims in that war. And of course they have been the targets of the Assad regime and it has become very dangerous for them to be in Syria. So they have been evacuated or a group of them have been evacuated with the help of Canada and some of them are here now. Murray was there earlier last week speaking with some of the White Helmets that arrived in Canada and he told us the story of Maysoon al-Masri who is one of the female White Helmets. It's a lot of them are male and so she's one of the female White Helmets and Murray spoke to her and she told him about this moment in the field that she'll never forget. And I think we can take a listen to that now.

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VOICE: One of the things that she talked about was her role was to go to places where men couldn't. And that was dealing with women and children in particular, the most vulnerable victims of the war in Syria. And she has many stories about the people whom she helped, but there is one that really sticks with her and that is a woman whose house was bombed and suffered second degree burns and she was tending to her at the same time as medics were also tending to her and trying to dress her wounds. They had no painkillers. They had no medication. Maysoon said the only thing that she could do was hold the woman's hand and every time they touched her, squeezed her hand just to distract her. She says that is something that's going to stay with her forever.

LL: Harrowing experiences. How many of these Syrian refugees have arrived in Toronto now?

JP: So we know that Canada has accepted 117 Syrian refugees and their families, White Helmets and their families. And an interesting aspect of Murray's story is that their arrival to Canada, it was a much quieter affair. I'm sure you remember the last time Canada brought 40,000 plus Syrian refugees here, they were met with a lot of fanfare. The prime minister was there to greet them. That's not the case in this instance and we can hear more from Murray on that.

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VOICE: I was expecting at least some government representation. Even if it was at the official level, I wasn't expecting the full political circus, but standing outside of Pearson Airport this week, there was myself and our camera crew and a representative of the White Helmets. It was a very lonely welcome, a very quiet lonely welcome to Canada.

LL: A lonely welcome, why was that?

JP: So my conversation with Murray touched on a few things. The first is that the White Helmets are still in danger and their families are still in danger back in Syria. So a lot of them are very concerned about speaking, about putting their face out there because they don't want their family members to face retribution. Murray also touched on an important issue that is coming up, bubbling up in Canada, which is anti-immigrant sentiment right now. And we talk about that in the podcast today and why the government might also want to keep a lower profile when it comes to this particular case, at this particular moment.

LL: So you're off to a strong start here. Remind us again where we can find the podcast, what time it becomes available and how many days a week, all those good details.

JP: Thanks so much. So Monday to Friday, 6:00a.m. You can download it wherever you get your podcast and you can follow us on Twitter as well, Fronter Burners, @FrontBurnersCBC.

LL: Every day of the week?

JP: Monday To Friday. We're going to take the weekend off.

LL: But I bet there's some late nights as you're getting this off the ground.

JP: There have been some late nights.

LL: People, she is dedicated. She is working hard. Thank you, Jamie.

JP: Thank you so much for having me.

LL: Jamie Poisson is an investigative journalist and host of Front Burner, the CBC's new daily news podcast. You can listen to Front Burner now to hear Jamie's full conversation with Murray Brewster. Front Burner does launch today. Episodes dropping weekdays at 6a.m. and you can go to cbc.ca/frontburner, all one word, or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. And as always, you can also subscribe to The Current's podcast. Well that is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Today, Canadian-folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie is on the show with her official biographer, Andrea Warner. Now before we go today, I wanted to introduce you to the man who says he has the oddest, but best job in Britain. Someone you'll hear from on this show later this week. Christopher Skaife is the Ravenmaster of the Tower of London. It's a crucially important position since, as legend has it, if the ravens leave the tower great harm will befall the Kingdom. He's just written a memoir called, The Ravenmaster: My life with the Ravens at the Tower of London. A normal day begins with him feeding the ravens a diet of forgive me, dead mice, rats and biscuits soaked in blood. We'll leave you with Christopher Skaife telling the terrifying story of what happened when he had a little too much alcohol in his diet the night before. I'm Laura Lynch, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: So we do have our own village pub here in the tower and I'm not a big drinker because I have to get up early in the mornings and get the birds out of bed. There was one time I probably had a little bit too much to drink. It's a story about me and a bird out called Munin. And Munin, we'd moved the enclosure to the east side of the white tower because there were some scaffold up the white tower and so work's going on. And I was a bit hung over to be honest with you and I went and checked the birds and I opened up the temporary enclosure, couldn't see her and there was a shed. She was in the shed. So as I went to get in the shed, she sneaked out from under my feet, went through my legs and flew off. And I was seriously, me telling the story, it's like she flew off. I know she was your partner, I know, I know. So she flew off and she was in full flight. So she obviously didn't want to stay here today or she wanted to go on holiday and so she looked around the white tower several times and I thought to myself in my hungover state, oh what shall I do now. A raven is about to leave the tower. Shall I phone her Majesty the queen and tell her or will that tower crumble into dust. So actually I didn't do anything like that at all. I looked up and there she was sitting on the white tower roof, right at the very top. Now I am, I'm probably the only Ravenmaster I know in history, well I know I am certainly the only Ravenmaster in history, who has climbed up to the top of the white tower, albeit on scaffolding. I ran up to the top and if you see the weather vane up there, I actually swung on that trying to catch Munin. And I didn't catch her. I did swing around the weather vane a couple of times, pointing in the southwest direction. Actually she was caught by a member of the public some seven days later in Greenwich observer. She was about four or five miles down to the south of here and she'd flown down there and she was caught by a member of the public and who caught her in his garden. And I got down there and ran to the gentleman's door and said I believe you have something that may belong to us. And he said, I think I do. I said you have saved the kingdom sir and I went in there and this little head was sticking out this sports bag and you could see his little head and I thought you're coming back. So I brought her back and it's the longest time a raven has ever been away from the Tower of London in full flight.

[Music: Theme]

The Current Transcript for October 29, 2018

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Jewish leaders demand Trump denounce white nationalism or 'you are not welcome in Pittsburgh'

Fight over Northern Pulp Mill effluent pipe has reached a 'fever pitch,' says Nova Scotia MP

How a controversial adoption ban on Pakistan kept a Canadian family in limbo for years

Oct. 29, 2018 episode transcript

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