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The Current Transcript for October 18, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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It's a very bad situation in there. I don't know how to explain that people were destroyed mentally and physically in that island. It's very hard to survive in there.

MATT GALLOWAY: For years, refugees travelling by boat seeking asylum in Australia have been sent to an island detention centre in Papua New Guinea. Detention can last years. The conditions are harsh. A U.N. report said the system violates the Convention against Torture. Now that centre is being shut down. In an hour, what this means for refugees around the world and for other countries looking to follow Australia's lead. Also this morning your letters on virtual care and not seeing the doctor in person as this pandemic continues. And later, many of us have been spending more time in nature over the course of COVID. Maybe you've had a close encounter with a wild animal, maybe too close.

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Obviously, animals are not following our laws. They're written for us. Nonetheless, they do commit what we consider crimes breaking and entering manslaughter, jaywalking, trespassing, littering, you name it, vandalism.

MG: Mary Roach His new book is about what happens when the wild makes its way into our world. She's here in 30 minutes to talk about deadly elephants, nosy bears, and why we should be wary of who and what we call a pest. We start, though, with the prime minister trying to make amends on the road to reconciliation. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Indigenous advocates weigh up prime minister’s trip to Kamloops

Guests: Riley Yesno, Lynn Groulx

MG: On this country's first ever National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, The Prime Minister went on holiday. The day was created this year to mark the violence and trauma inflicted on indigenous people and to look toward healing. The Prime Minister had been invited multiple times to spend the day with members of the Tk'emlups First Nation in British Columbia. He spent it instead. A short flight away with his family in Tofino, Chief Rosanne Casimir had this to say.

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I am truly saddened that he was not able to join us today. I did hold out and hope that maybe that he would be here. We have sent him two invitations and but, you know, I also realise and did see him, you know, truly honouring our survivors back east. So for me, that does give hope that we know that in the future he will be here. And I hope sooner than later.

MG: today is that day. After apologising for being in Tofino, the prime minister is in Kamloops today to try to make amends. He will hear from residential school survivors and speak with the community about reconciliation. Deina Jules is a community elder and survivor of the Kamloops Residential School. Here's a bit of what she said yesterday on Rosemary Barton Live.

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ROSEMARY BAARTON: You' re going to be part of the ceremony with the prime minister. I imagine you'll you'll have a moment with him. What are you hoping to say to him?

DEINA JULES: You know, I want to tell him. I said, as a leader, you have to to walk the talk. You know, if you want other people within Canada to really understand and appreciate and have compassion for what US residential school survivors have gone through. Then you really need to really be the role model, be the inspiration because there's been so much systemic racism and there's a lot of people in Canada that still feel the same way and and they need to really understand what happened to us and how hurtful it was because there was a lot of us that suffer post-traumatic stress disorder for what we went through at the residential school.

MG: For their perspective on his visit and what follows, I'm joined by Riley Yesno, a writer and indigenous rights advocate. And Lynn Groulx, chief executive of Native Women Association of Canada. Good morning to you both.

RILEY YESNO: Good morning.

LYNN GROULX: Hi.

MG: Riley, what do you make of the prime minister's visit to the two countries? Took Swetnick First Nation weeks after the inaugural National Day for Truth and Reconciliation today, as I mentioned that he spent on holiday.

RILEY YESNO: Yeah, so I mean, I have two sort of major trains of thought about it. One is for the people, it's to come loose specifically, you know what they've demanded of this day. Will he deliver? Because I think that's also a meaningful thing. But as I look at the major picture of reconciliation, sorry, I see this as being very odd brands for the Trudeau government performances of reconciliation, you know how the immediate and action, the thing that should have been done right in the first place isn't. Rarely is and then has to be followed by apologies by follow ups. And I just think the prime minister believes that for many indigenous people were we're perhaps more willing to forgive his repeated mistakes than we are at this point into his prime ministerial trip.

MG: And are you willing to forgive those mistakes now?

RILEY YESNO: I am not. No.

MG: We'll come back to that in a moment. Lynn Groulx, for you. I mean, we heard Dina Jules there talking about how the prime minister needs to walk the talk. And members of that First Nation have said they don't want an apology. They want to see action. What do you think can come out of this visit?

LYNN GROULX: Well, I think we will see what the community has to say after he he presents himself today. Certainly, it is one step forward. It's a little late in the game, I would say, because I mean, here we had a situation where we had a report that concluded a genocide in Canada. A second report came out with the MMIWG saying a genocide is committed in Canada. I'm not sure how many thousands of testimony altogether when you put those two reports together, but we're not, we don't, we just don't understand what happened. How is it even possible that he misunderstood? Or, you know, this error in judgement and how now he's going to regain the trust? So certainly today is one step, but there's a long way to go. I think the community will no longer accept these talks and these words without actual practical action being taken. In years, the community that has only done research on two acres of land for the remains of those children. They're still, there was a total of 160 acres and there's no funding for that. So I mean, we have to get real and we have to find ways to build trust with people. One, we've broken that trust and that's what's happened here.

MG: Get real is a really strong phrase. I mean, the prime minister was elected in 2015 on the idea, and he kept saying this and has kept saying this that the most important relationship he could have in this country is a nation to nation relationship with indigenous communities in your eyes. Lynn has that statement lost its meaning and what does get real mean if it has?

LYNN GROULX: Well, it means that. So it means that, you know, you have to deal with the basics first. We have a crisis with the situation of human rights in Canada, water housing. That's what I mean when I say, get real. How can we talk about reconciliation when we don't have that? How can we talk about reconciliation when you're not bringing women, indigenous women, who are the heart of the communities to decision making table? So we've got an issue. And that's what I mean by get real. I mean, how can we be in Canada, this country with these human rights that are supposed to be the one of the highest standards in the world and yet turn around and in our backyard? We have this crisis in terms of housing, water, et cetera. So, you know, there's the elders said it at the beginning of the show. I heard what you said. Walk the talk. When is that going to happen?

MG: Reilly Yesno, what is get real mean in the context of what you've said, which is that you don't that the apologies don't mean anything to you anymore.

RILEY YESNO: I mean, I think when I think about the reality of this Trudeau government, is that like in terms of its indigenous affairs, portfolios and reconciliation generally, like they love to tout all of the things that they do, as you know, at least better than, say, the Harper government better than any prime ministerial government or federal government beforehand. But I think it's so funny, right? Because when like the bar is on the ground, when the bar is genocide, you can make anything look like something, even if it is insufficient. And that is what this government does time and time again, and that tells indigenous people basically that they're doing it, that they're doing reconciliation. And so I think that in my mind, like there is no getting real for the federal government about the fact that they are very far and large, are not engaging in meaningful acts of reconciliation and are instead engaging in symbolic gestures, which don't mean nothing but mean considerably less when there is no meaningful action to follow, who aren't engaging in the things that survivors have been demanding of them for decades and for decades. And so I think that there is a huge disparity there in terms of what the government thinks constitutes real reconciliation and where indigenous people are saying constitutes real reconciliation.

MG: You've said on this programme and elsewhere that reconciliation is dead. And so if it is, what's the alternative?

RILEY YESNO: Yeah, and I love this question, because I think when I talk about reconciliation for a lot of the people who feel that indigenous affairs or something really important and reconciliation, this idea of it's really important. It's like, Okay, so then as you know, this like a really hopeless thing and it absolutely isn't right. I find that a lot of the hope for where we can find a meaningful future of change for indigenous people in this country comes from the grassroots. And specifically, I think the land back movement holds so much potential to see a different, sort of more equitable future for indigenous people in this country. The Land Back movement addresses so many of the gaps I'm describing in reconciliation discourse, which is, you know, prioritising fundamentally material gains over symbolic gestures. And with that, you know, you can do so so much.

MG: Can you just briefly explain what what that movement is? I mean, the name in itself says one thing, but what is land back?

RILEY YESNO: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So the land back movement is actually it started online on Instagram as a meme by this guy named Arnelle Tail Feathers from Winnipeg, and it quickly, you know, got taken up by a lot of folks within indigenous communities. First for, you know, its humour. But then also, you know, the more it's been used and evolved and you'll see land back on protest rallies and pipeline demonstrations, cetera, it's become this really robust policy stance, actually, which, like I said, prioritises those material gains as opposed to symbolic gestures. And so an example of land back, for example, would be some that have been charted at the Yellowhead Institute outside out of Ryerson or university, which shows, you know, people in the west coast of Canada and the U.S. people paying rent back for land, people doing permitting protocols for people to come onto their lands and say harvest any of their wildlife there so that it's done in accordance with their values as opposed to the federal government or provincial government standards. And it's basically about indigenous people asserting their sovereignty and jurisdiction.

MG: And that to you as true reconciliation?

RILEY YESNO: Absolutely, yeah.

MG: Lynn Groulx, what do you make of that? I mean, is reconciliation the idea of it, but also the government's momentum toward that idea? Is that dead?

LYNN GROULX: Well, I believe in reconciliation, and I say that because I've seen Canadians an outpouring from Canadians, I think and I think they understand it, I think was having a struggle with it is actually the government and they're not understanding what that means. So we I do believe that what we just spoke about in terms of the land claims, that's part of the get real right. You have all these outstanding land claims all across the country. They need to be settle the situation of water, the situation of housing, the situation of exclusion or marginalisation of indigenous women, the MMIWG. The list is so long. And how are we going to deal with that while the government keeps creating frameworks, action plans this and that. But when the rubber hits the road, it's not happening. You could go anywhere an interview any community across this country and organisations, and it's just not moving. It's moving at the pace of a, you know, at a very slow pace. We're not seeing that actual progress happening. Something's not going right. And I think it's because the government is not listening. And Murray Sinclair said it, just a short while ago. What do we have to do is listen. Listen to what the community is saying and take action on what the community is saying, not just what your bureaucrats from the top down are saying. And I think this is where we're seeing this kind of reconciliation that governments not understanding and also it's very fractured. So you have some provinces doing some things, you have other provinces doing the other. Not sure what we're going to do with all this. It's a bit of a mess.

MG: I want to ask you about practically what needs to be done to address that. But you understand the frustration, not suggesting that this is truly or an entirely a generational thing. But do you understand the frustration that many younger members of of indigenous communities and First Nations communities across this country have that they say this progress is not moving, that the process is not happening, and that's why they would say that reconciliation is dead?

LYNN GROULX: Oh yeah. Yes, I do understand that, but we have to have some hope. So if we look at a historically, you know where we were and where we're going, it's up to the advocates and it's up to us. And I hope, you know, somehow we inspire the youth. I don't blame them for being discouraged. It's very discouraging. Here we have these conclusions of genocide. I have a young daughter myself. I don't want to see her in 20 years sitting in my seat, doing the same thing on the same issues that I'm dealing with. We have to have hope. We have to make that change. We have to be the agents of change. So we have to ourselves, indigenous people and hopefully with Canadians, with the support of Canadians, put that pressure on the government to make the changes we need.

MG: So if those changes aren't being made and you say the government is behind Canadians in terms of what people are calling for, what needs to happen now for things to be different, to address the issues that you've laid out, Lynn?

LYNN GROULX: Well, the government needs to take actions and we have these reports that we have so 231 calls for justice. We have 94 calls to action. They need to start to deal with those issues. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. The solutions have been put in front of us. We need to have an action plan and take action on the basic, especially on the basic human rights violations that are happening in Canada. And it has to be, that political will has to be there and it has to be action very strong on the action side. And you know, these words, these beautiful words that come out, but there's nothing behind them. You know, that kind of thing has to stop because we're monitoring all this. We're looking at all this. And if things don't go the right way, our alternative is the courts and the international community as well.

MG: Riley Yesno. Where do you want to see leadership and action on this? I mean, I know that you have mused in past about the idea of entering, you know, elected office yourself and that that has not been to you the way for change. So where does change come from?

RILEY YESNO: Yeah. I mean, to me, change comes from our community is, you know, if we are to wait for the federal government or the provincial government to the territorial government, to enact change and to do reconciliation, again, the Yellowhead Institute has done data into this to just get the tribe calls done. It wouldn't be until like 2070. And I would be like, you know, entire generations later into my elder hood. And that's not something indigenous youth especially are willing to wait for. And so I think that real change comes from our communities. It comes from a community's unapologetically and radically asserting our right, our jurisdiction, our power and demanding that whether or not people like it, that the change is going to happen. And that's something that we have always done in the history of this country and for indigenous people all over the world. And it's something that gives me great, great hope that when you know, Justin Trudeau doesn't show up a national truth and Reconciliation Day, I know that our communities will rally for one another, and that's something that's all I need.

MG: It's easy to become cynical in. The face of an intractable object in front of you. How do you avoid cynicism? Reilly Yes, no. And where does your resolve come from?

RILEY YESNO: Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, I'm cynical a lot of the time I wake up and I and I go, you know, of course, of course. But again, I think anything that gives gives me hope or those are our young people are the actions that they're doing every day. The way that young people, people younger than me and I'm not that old continually lay out revolutionary thought me. That is amazing. And I think for indigenous youth, the fastest growing demographic in this country, that the political power that they hold is yet untold and that candidate doesn't even realise it. And so I think about it as, you know, planting seeds right now that maybe I'm not going to get to sit in the shade of that tree. Hopefully I will, but they will those younger folks and perhaps my grandchildren will, and that's enough to keep me going.

MG: Lynn Groulx, how do you avoid being cynical in the face of what you have described?

LYNN GROULX: Well, maybe we need some cynicism towards the government to make sure that it keeps us, you know, on track and within ourselves. I do agree we have this desire to see the next generations do well and in a better state than we are right now, and that's what keeps me going.

MG: So in the last few minutes that we have, I'll put this down the middle. Lynn Groulx, I'll start with you. If you had the opportunity to sit down with the prime minister in this moment, given what we've talked about, but more importantly, perhaps what is in front of all of us? What would you say to him? What advice would you give him?

LYNN GROULX: I would give him the advice that he has lost the confidence of a great number of of indigenous people in Canada, and he needs to take action, immediate action, short term action on the water issue, on the housing issue, the basic human rights issues. And he needs to listen to the people, listen to the women in particular, that we have been marginalised. We have solutions that can be implemented and let us take leadership on our own situation.

MG: And you feel in particular, indigenous women have been isolated, have been marginalised and those countries?

LYNN GROULX: Absolutely. Absolutely.

MG: If he were to listen, what would he hear?

LYNN GROULX: If he were to listen, he would hear that people want an end, right, so we heard it through through the elections. People want an end to these human rights violations on water, on housing, on, you know, environmental issues. This is what he would hear. These are our priorities. We've listed them in our own in our own documents. We gave those to the government. And yeah, that's what he would hear. Canadians want to see an end to this disparity in Canada, an end to racism.

MG: Riley Yesno, I know that in past you have done some work with the federal government. If you had the opportunity now to sit down with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, what advice would you give him?

RILEY YESNO: I'll be honest and say that I probably wouldn't say anything. I've tried to give him advice before and never have been listened to too well. So I mean, I think if I were to say anything, I would say that, you know, I think I think the time of his false reconciliation hoods are coming to an end and that like, you know, whether or not he likes it. You know, Canada has to move forward. And this and the journey of truth and reconciliation. I feel like I'm using so many cliches back to back right now, but it's true and that that would probably be all I'd have to say.

MG: Are you optimistic about the future and in the face of what you've just said?

RILEY YESNO: I mean, you might have to explain every time. I'm like, maybe, maybe I am, I am for indigenous people. I know that we will continue to do all of the work that we have always done. I'm thinking between this, um, you know, climate catastrophe, all of these things, there's a lot I think to be anxious about. And I am, but I think that there's still good work happening.

MG: It's good to speak with you both, and I have a feeling we will talk again in the meantime. Thank you very much.

LYNN GROULX: Thank you.

RILEY YESNO: Thank you.

MG: lx Riley Yes. No writer and indigenous rights advocate. She was in Toronto. Lynn Grou is the chief executive of the Native Women Association of Canada. She was in Gatineau. If you are living with the legacy of residential schools and you need support, there is a helpline the number to call and it's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That number is 1866 925 4429. Your CBC News is next, and then the author, Mary Roach, is here to talk about unfortunate interactions between animals and humans and what happens when they come into our space. It's coming up on The Current. My name is Matt Galloway.

Unruly beasts and how to police them: Author examines the world of animal crime

Guest: Mary Roach

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current. Still to come for years, those seeking asylum in Australia by boat have been packed off to Papua New Guinea. Australia operated a so-called offshore processing centre for would be refugees there. That centre is now set to close, but another will stay open. We'll hear about the conditions in those camps and what the closure means for asylum seekers. That's coming up in about 30 minutes. But first, policing the animal kingdom.

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This is a case of breaking and entering the suspect's going right to the kitchen to look for food. McLaughlin was walking along popular flagpole trail just outside Nelson near the summit. He realised he was being tracked to that, notorious, for one thing, holding people to ransom. A man from the never one area got quite the surprise over the weekend. He was in the middle of harvest when he encountered two unwanted guests in his house.

MG: Home invasion, stalking, mugging, trespassing and those crimes. The perpetrators are not humans, they are animals, bears, cougars, macaques and those are just some of the creatures Mary Roach encounters in her new book Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. It explores the science of Human Wildlife Conflict, which takes her from the alleyways in Aspen to the tea gardens in India. Mary Roach is in Oakland, California. Mary? Good morning.

MARY ROACH: Good morning.

MG: When nature breaks the law, can you explain for people? I mean, we'll talk all about how nature breaks the law, but what exactly does that mean?

MARY ROACH: Well, obviously animals are not following our laws. They're written for us humans. They're following their instincts. Nonetheless, they do commit what we consider crimes breaking and entering manslaughter, jaywalking, trespassing, littering, you name it, vandalism. So for me, it was just kind of a fun and relatable way to bring people into the topic of human wildlife conflict, which is what the professionals in that world call it.

MG: Would you have imagined when you entered this book that you would find yourself sitting beside a bird scarer scoping out seagulls before the Easter mass at the Vatican?

MARY ROACH: No, that was a lovely surprise. That was something I stumbled on to the Vatican's gull problem through a video that circulated quite widely a few years ago. Although I missed it then of the pope releasing a piece dive, a white dive as a gesture of peace. And then this gull flies in with its beak open and attacks the thing which I thought was a lovely irony. And in looking into that, I discovered the Vatican has some other issues with gulls, vandalism in particular, just before the pope comes out to say Easter mass, there's a huge and very elaborate floral display. And a couple of years ago, for no apparent reason, this group of gulls came in and just knocked things over and pulled things around. Roses were strewn everywhere. And so they were trying to prevent this crime of vandalism from happening again. And thus myself and the laser scarecrow spent some time together. Actually, it made it sound as though it's a moving living scarecrow. It is a laser box that is operated and designed by a person who sells these things. So.

MG: And it does what exactly?

MARY ROACH: Imagine a beam at a discotheque, kind of, you know, going around in circles. It's it's just one colour, though, and the beam, it's a green beam. And apparently, though, who knows, you'd have to ask the gulls. Apparently, in low light, a laser beam, particularly a green one, looks like a solid object. So it appears to the birds that someone is swinging a large Star Wars light sabre at them and they vamoose.

MG: This is an example of wildlife getting into places, perhaps where humans do not want the wildlife to be. And you might think seagulls would be annoying, but not particularly dangerous. Bears are dangerous and perhaps annoying as well. What have they tried to do in Aspen, Colorado, to get bears out of garbage and out of homes?

MARY ROACH: Well, the main thing that they've done is pass legislation that requires people and businesses to have bear resistant garbage containers, compost containers and restaurant dumpsters commercial dumpsters so they have to be double locking and reinforced. And you'd think that that would solve the problem. It seems pretty straightforward. However, you have to then make sure that people lock them, and it's a little tricky to do and some people don't bother. The thing with Aspen and many of these ski resort areas is these are a lot of these are vacation rentals, so they sit empty. A lot of the time. So bears can easily break in. And also people come from out of town. They don't know that it's a final offence to not lock up the special bear resistant container, or they don't really care because they don't understand the consequences of allowing bears to become dependent on human food. So that's a problem. You have to find someone to enforce those but those rules and find the people who've broken the rules. And that's requires hiring people that the police department in this case doesn't have the budget for. So you've also got to work with the waste management companies, and they may not want to retrofit their trucks or find new trucks that can pick up these cans or in a work with them, whatever. Anyway, it's it's not as simple as it would seem.

MG: And some you need people to enforce the rules as well, which, as you suggest, a couple of people Tina White and Lauren Martinson. Who are they?

MARY ROACH: Yes, there are the folks in a neighbouring ski and mountain bike resort called Snowmass. They are responsible for enforcing the bear regulations, and they are pretty hardcore. They will get inside a dumpster and figure out, OK, there's four people using this dumpster. I'm going to see who put this garbage. I'm going to open up this bag and I'm going to look at the mail. I'm going to figure out who threw this bag in there, referred to as the bear bitches. You need bear bitches, Matt.

MG: If you want the bears to be kept out, you need bear bitches. You take a look at in this book a number of references to Canada. Some of them. I think the mocking is done with with your heart in the right place, but you do have have your eye on Canada. A number of times you talk about what's happening in British Columbia and this is involving bears, but also cougars and other deadly animals. The Wildlife Human Attack Response Training Programme in British Columbia. What is this?

MARY ROACH: This is a week long training in essentially the forensics of an animal attack scene, a fatal attack. So you have a lot of the elements that you would see in a police procedural on television about a, you know, human criminals. So you've got the yellow tape and you've got the body and you're collecting evidence. So it's a part of it is in the classroom. But then we are out in a simulated attack scene and also spent some time at workstations with these mannequins that are soft touch mannequins that have been in a very detailed way, made to look like actual victims of Marling's or attacks either bears or cougars. And our job is to understand the different telltale signs. So you know, you can look at the wounds. You can measure the width between the canine teeth. You can tell by looking at these wounds pretty quickly what the species was, and that's the first thing that you figure out. Then you move on to trying to establish linkage between the victim and the perpetrator.

MG: What does a programme like this do to help answer some of those questions? Because without that kind of forensic work, you can make assumptions and often those assumptions are incorrect.

MARY ROACH: Yes, that's correct. You can. There have been cases in which an animal was assumed to have killed a person when in fact it was a person. And therefore the opposite also has been true where a person has been accused of a killing when it was in fact an animal. Lindsay Chamberlain, the the dingo and the baby, that famous case is one of those. So but it's what I loved about this is that it's a lot of work that's going into making sure that you're not destroying the wrong animal. You know, so say you find a body, someone's been killed and it's clearly a bear. Now you set a trap. There hasn't been an animal on the scene that's been shot. So you set a trap right there and now you have a bear essentially in custody. So what do you do? You make sure by looking at DNA, blood, saliva, the bear in custody, so to speak, is the actual perpetrator and if not, you release it. And that's what happens, which is lovely. I think that care is taken to make sure an innocent animal isn't destroyed,

MG: which is often not care that is applied. I mean, it's easier to destroy the animal rather than do that legwork.

MARY ROACH: That's right, yes.

MG: You go to India to study elephants and again in a book that's about nature breaking the law and deadly encounters with animals. You may not think that elephants, given perhaps people's interactions with them from a distance, would be a deadly animal. What happened?

MARY ROACH: Yeah, this was something that came as an absolute surprise to me. Having grown up with the bar and Dumbo National Geographic. I just don't think of elephants as animals to worry about in terms of your health and well-being. 500 people a year in India are killed by elephants and they're not stalking them. They're not, you know, they're not treating them as prey. It's more that the elephants are coming through. They travel in in family groups and, you know, eight or 10 elephants might move through a village and go stop and eat some farmer's crops along the way. And these are crops that people depend on to live. So obviously they're pretty upset the animals come through at night. People run out, they've got torches, they've got firecrackers. This is not the safe way to do it because it scatters the group. The family group makes them feel insecure and threatened. The elephants panic. The people panic. It's dark. People are running around and people get trampled. I knew this. I had spent some time travelling with a researcher who helps communities put together elephant response teams so that they can respond to these incursions by elephants in a safe way in a vehicle. But and so I knew all this and I talked to a beat officer who is the one who's called in when somebody is trampled or treated more intentionally by an elephant. So I knew what happens. I knew that these owls were dangerous. Yet when I got there, when I got to this place, we were staying, which was right near a sign saying it was an elephant crossing area, the first thing I wanted to do, and it was already past dusk, the wrong time to be out. I wanted to go there because I wanted to see elephants, you know?

MG: Fair enough.

MARY ROACH: I really wanted to see them, and the researchers just kind of looked at each other and said, Well, please be careful. And then they kind of like, set down their tea and they're like, We're coming with you. And we stood around maybe five minutes and it was clear that they were not comfortable. These are people who really, really know what elephants can do. And so after about five minutes, they said, Let's go back inside. And so that's what we did. Yeah, but I just it was very hard for me, even even then, to to feel that this was a dangerous and stupid thing to do

MG: here in this part of the world. I mean, it's not elephants that perhaps people are concerned about encountering after dark. If you're driving, it might be deer, it might be elk, it might be moose. If you happen to are, you're lucky enough to live in a part of the world where there are moose in the countryside. What did you learn about why it is that deer freeze in the middle of the road when a car is coming towards them? This is fascinating.

MARY ROACH: Yeah, deer. Well and the animals that are prey, like deer who are often stalked hunted by other animals, they have evolved along with these predators over time. And they've developed a pretty keen sense of like, OK, how close can that predator come before I need to really flee? Now the car or the truck is considered by a deer, say a predator. It's a large thing coming at you. They're like, OK, it's some kind of weird metal predator. So they try to apply that kind of logic that they have, that cognitive ability to judge distance. But they haven't had time to evolve any kind of sense of how quickly they need to flee because they're going 50 or 60 miles per hour. So they're not good at judging, you know, looking at how big it's looming. The thing is coming closer and it's getting bigger. And that and how quickly it's getting bigger tells you, OK, this is how fast it's travelling. And we humans are not that good at that, either. The fast, really fast moving car. We're not that good at figuring out how long we've got to cross the street. Now, night-time, when all the animal sees, are these two pinpoints of light, the headlights, those don't loom very effectively. So the deer, if you imagine the deer standing there, just looking at these pinpoints of light kind of going through little lights coming, maybe moving, I don't know. Boom, it's not clear to the deer that this is a thing travelling at them at a respectable speed. So that's why they appear to be just standing there staring at the headlights, or that is that's the theory. And one of the ways the National Wildlife Research Centre here in the U.S., one of the researchers there is, he's no longer there. But. Well, what his idea was to install a light bar on the floor facing the vehicle on the front of the vehicle, so you're illuminating the grill. And now an animal in the road can see, OK, this is not just to pinpoints of light. This is a thing and it's coming closer. I can see it getting bigger as it's coming closer, so it just gives them more information about what this thing is doing. It's coming at me. I should get out of the way and it appears to help. I went out with the researcher when they were gathering some data and which amounted to being in the truck and driving a deer in the road. Yeah, a lot of deer in the area not hitting. We didn't hit anybody.

MG: How much of this I mean, when you take a look at the encounters that you document in this book, how much of this is about our incursion onto their territory? Well, we talk about these. Animals, you know, breaking our laws. But how much of this is about us being in their space?

MARY ROACH: Most of it. Most of it, for sure. I mean, there are I mean, if you go back far enough, all of it. But when you look at, say, the macaques in urban India, I mean, for one thing, we are expanding our range at the same time. Some animals are expanding theirs. You know, for example, a building ski resorts in the mountains, this is prime bear territory and we're moving in. And then we complain when the bears break into people's houses and cabins. In New Delhi, it felt like the monkeys were kind of moving in to take advantage of a really bounteous food situation. So to a certain extent, it's we're moving into their territory, but it's also we are happily supplying them with delicious and tasty and nutritious foods. So we're also sort of welcoming them and calling them in by not securing food or in India, particularly with these monkeys outside the [unintelligible] Temples, people are feeding them as a sort of offering. So they both want the problem to disappear, but they're also encouraging it. And it's very vexing problem for the the people who are supposed to fix the situation.

MG: Part of part of the shapes, it shapes how we think about those animals. I mean, you talk about the language that we use that we call things certain things pests. What's wrong with? What's wrong with a word like that?

MARY ROACH: I think when we refer to a species as a pest, it. It gives us, first of all, we're looking at this animal completely in the context of us and our lives and what how we want the world. We're also by using the word pest, I think we give ourselves permission to just think of it as something to be dealt with. You know, it's no longer an animal with behaviour and a life cycle and things that it needs and wants to do. It's just an inconvenience and it's a pest and you call pest control or you call the wildlife control operator and you have this kind of permission to kill it, whatever. Just get rid of it and not really give it much thought. I think it it allows us to not be very thoughtful about it. I mean, you look at how you know, laboratory animals in this country, there's a very detailed protocol for how those animals are kept, how they're treated and how they're euthanized, and we don't have any such thing for the animals that we call pests.

MG: How we deal with them, I mean evolves as well, we are now a society that's in a deep conversation about things like gene editing, which you get into and people think, well, if it's just bothering me, if it's a pest like the wasp that stung me yesterday or something like that, maybe we could get rid of it. When you hear about that and you tease this out in the book, I mean, what goes through your mind?

MARY ROACH: What goes through my mind? Gene editing in one sense, it's kind of the birth control of the future. OK, you could say, Well, now we can edit the genome and in a way that this animal only gives birth to males now doesn't give birth to females. So that's going to peter out pretty quickly and say, you are. You have an island where there's invasive rats and there are mice and they are. Destroying seabirds or harassing them or eating their eggs so you could save the biodiversity of this island by getting rid of the mice or rats in this humane way, and it sounds very appealing. But this technology is being developed by in this country, the National Wildlife Research Centre, which is part of the USDA that is the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And there is an eye, going forward, toward using this to deal with, not with protecting biodiversity and getting rid of an invasive species on an enclosed and limited geography like an island. But what about if we used it to get rid of an agricultural pest, say blackbirds or say moles or voles, which create a lot of problems in the agricultural world? Where do you draw the line? If you look at the list of animals species that are considered pests by the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services, it's pretty surprising you got cormorants and swans and beavers and bobcats, chipmunks. I mean, a tremendous number of species cause problems for the world of agriculture and and ranching. So when you let. The USDA and the agricultural industries bottom line, make that decision, and I'm not saying that has happened, and I know there's a lot of careful attention and thought being played to this, and nobody is rushing into gene drives and genetic modification for that purpose. But it is, I think. An end point that appeals to that world, so that's what I think it makes me a little uncomfortable.

MG: How do you see the way that you think and write about the place of science in our world? What do you see as as as your role in getting us to think about these sorts of things in the books that you write?

MARY ROACH: People call me a science writer and I guess that I am. But I think myself more as kind of a a gateway drug to science. I write books that touch on science for sure and then explain things in the world of science. But I write them for people who may or may not think that they're even interested in science. You know, there are people like me who took science in high school and college and said, or who didn't take science in high school and college because they thought it was a grind and a slog, and they thought it was going to be boring. So and it's not, I mean, how could science be boring? It is the world. Everything in the world is part of science. So, you know, to say that science is boring isabsurd, though I myself used to think that. So I'm trying to extend a hand to the world, I guess, to say, look, this is really interesting in an entertaining and you will enjoy reading this book because it's fun, and I've tried to make it as entertaining and interesting as I can. But I als want people to come away with an understanding of, first of all, that science matters and that good science matters, and that if we want to get out in this case, if we want to get out of some of the problems we ourselves have created, we need to have. We need to respect science and support it. And I guess that's my role.

MG: Do you find that people get hooked as a gateway drug that people then say, I want to learn more and I need to learn more after that?

MARY ROACH: It's hard for me to say, but I do know that every now and then I do a book event and I'm signing books and someone will come up and say, I've read your book stiff in high school. It was assigned to me and now I'm a resident at Darida Medical Centre and I wanted to thank you and I have to just get up and hug that person because that to me is so meaningful and gratifying, so I hope that there are a fair number of people out there like that.

MG: I'm really glad to talk to you about this book. Thank you very much.

MARY ROACH: Well, thank you, Matt and really enjoyed it.

MG: Mary Roach his new book is Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law filled with great stories of human animal encounters. We would love to hear yours. Please tell us about your Close Encounters with the wild. You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca. Coming up after your regional update.

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More people were displaced mentally and physically in that island. It's very hard to survive in there.

MG: Australia is closing one of its offshore refugee processing centres in 90 seconds. You'll hear why that's not entirely good news from a man who was detained there for years. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

Australia moves to close refugee detention centre on Manus Island

Guests: Thanush Selvrasa, Nando Sigona, John Chipman

MG: I'm Matt Galloway you're listening to The Current. For years, Australia's refugee practises have been described as inhumane asylum seekers attempting to enter the country by boat or picked up by authorities and sent to offshore processing sites. They're often held there indefinitely and in difficult conditions. But Australia has now announced that by December, it will close its processing centre in Papua New Guinea. Thanush Selvarasa spent six and a half years as a detainee there. He's now in Sydney, Australia. Hello.

THANUSH SELVARASA: Hello.

MG: What did you think when you heard that this processing centre in Papua New Guinea would close by December?

THANUSH SELVARASA: First time I heard about this news from my friend, he called me from there. We have good news. The offshore processing centre is going to end. But other thing he mentioned, we don't know what we'll going to do. They say to them, You have to go back to your own country or you settle in PNG, you or your more to [unintelligible] this second word is that disappointed me, but I hand the tender to and is a good news, but in eight years really too long.

MG: Tell me what it was like there. Describe what it was like to live in this centre.

THANUSH SELVARASA: Is a very bad situation in there. I don't know how to explain that. We were in there one hall. More than 150 people sleep there at the one hall and daily, we have to wait for very long line for get the food. And if I want to talk to my family, I get the opportunity to phone call one week one time. Even internet also, I get one week one time to use Facebook or whatever. And in 2017, we were deny food, water, electricity and everything for 24 days. This is a dark days in our life in that island.

MG: People have described it as a kind of prison. Do you think that that's a fair description.

THANUSH SELVARASA: This is a prison island because we lost 13 innocent people lives there every day. This made me feel bad.

MG: What do you mean you lost 13 innocent people there?

THANUSH SELVARASA: Who were living with me in offshore processing centre. Some of the people were attempting suicide and the lack of medical facility more people were destroyed mentally and physically in that island. It's very hard to survive in there.

MG: You fled Sri Lanka, why did you leave that country?

THANUSH SELVARASA: I yeah, I fled my country because war. I came to Australia seeking asylum and safety by what is really a risk of doing a journey. I take that risk to seeking asylum and safety. And unfortunately, I reach Christmas Island. Then I didn't expect that they transferred to me to offshore processing centre. Completely I disappointed. My dream, my whole all is destroyed in that day.

MG: When they moved you, what was your reaction? You say that you, your dream was destroyed. You didn't expect something like this to happen.

THANUSH SELVARASA: Really, I didn't expect that because when I read the Christmas Australia, I thought is I got a good life and I got everything, but unfortunately I and my friends and me more to also surfaces and and I lost my a six and half years in there. It's a very valuable time in my life.

MG: How did you end up in Australia? Now you're in Sydney now. How did you make it there?

THANUSH SELVARASA: I came here for get the medical treatment under the medevac law. Because of that, I allowed to stay in Sydney. I affected mentally in there. Then after that, they decided that I need to get the more treatment. Then I came to Australia, get the treatment, and then I spent my one and a half a year in cocktail detention. After that, I got freedom.

MG: What does your life look like now? What do you do now?

THANUSH SELVARASA: Still, I have uncertain life because I got a temporary visa. It's very difficult to get a job, very difficult to being in community. I face lots of problems from community; temporary visa, temporary visa. I can't study. I can't fly over sea. This is a different type of punishment or something like that. We need to permanent solution.

MG: You need a permanent solution.

THANUSH SELVARASA: Yeah, because already we have- we will destroy everything mentally, physically. We don't want to anymore pain in our life. We need to the solution.

MG: The Australian government has said that these sorts of detention centres are meant to discourage people from making a boat journey to Australia. What do you think of that?

THANUSH SELVARASA: Stop the mall. This is a good thing, but other hand, we are not more of an excellent tool to tell the people to the message. You don't come to Australia. We treat the people like that. You don't come to us. We are not [unintelligible]. We are human beings.

MG: Do you feel like you were not treated like a human beings?

THANUSH SELVARASA: Yeah, exactly, because they keep us in offshore processing center present to protect the border.

MG: If they're trying to protect the border, how better do you think they could deal with refugees like yourself?

THANUSH SELVARASA: If they want to protect the border, they already have the solution. If anyone come to Australia, they send back to their own country where they came from. Why did they want to keep us in offshore processing centre? Very, very long time, it'sot good decision.

MG: Given where you are now, was the journey worth it?

THANUSH SELVARASA: A, it's a better than being in Sri Lanka and the other thing is not good to being in in Australia with temporary visa.

MG: Good luck, I wish you the best, and it's good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

THANUSH SELVARASA: Thank you. Thanush Selvrasa spent six and a half years at an Australian refugee processing centre that will soon be closing. He's now in Sydney, Australia. As he pointed out, the closure of the site in Papua New Guinea does not mean an end to Australia's asylum policy. Another centre on Nauru Island remains open and despite international pressure for Australia to stop this type of detention. Other countries are actually moving toward opening offshore facilities as well. Nando Sigona is a chair of International Migration and Forced Displacement at the University of Birmingham in England. He's been listening in Professor. Hello to you.

NADNO SIGONA: Hello.

MG: Thanush Selvarasa said that it was good news that this detention site was closing, except it wasn't clear what was going to happen to the people who are still being held there. What do we know about what's going to happen to those people who are still on that site in Papua New Guinea?

NADNO SIGONA: Well, it's still fairly clear. We know that people are going to be all for basically two options, maybe three. One option is to a settlement pathway in Papua New Guinea. The second one is basically to be transferred to another centre in Nauru, and the first one is for those who are waiting in the resettlement programme coordinated by the UNHCR, The High Commissioner for Refugees, is that will continue to be waiting basically for for resettlement in Nauru. The interesting thing is that the offer for a settlement pathway, it's very unclear what is going to be the right environment attached with what's going to happen to people in terms of freedom of movement, for example. And it seems like that is a positive step that this centre is finally closed and this is not a surprise that this this centre that has been closed because this was the main target of a very famous book that came out a few years ago, by the way, in the Irnaian-Kurdish writer Behrouz Boochani, who basically attract international attention on the situation of the people in those centres. So it is a way of closing that kind of story, but doesn't change the policy. I mean, the policy is still the same in terms of Australia what they do in terms of implementing international protection.

MG: When you take a look at Australia's record and reports from asylum seekers and human rights organisations. What sort of human rights laws could have been violated by that policy?

NADNO SIGONA: I think there is an understanding as far as a lot of the international organisations, including some UN agencies concerned as the condition in these centres not only limited by various standards stay in this prison island is as was described before, is a form of the violation of human rights. Is that degrading treatment is basically deny people future and keeping them in limbo or in a prison like conditions without them having done anything wrong. I mean, in many ways they are claiming asylum pending an asylum application. They haven't been accused of breaching the law, in this sense. It is just that is a system that produce also in the long term consequences in terms of the capacity of people to integrate is going to have serious effects on the mental health of those of the people that end up on the prison island.

MG: Does that breach the Geneva Convention? That's been the accusation of of civil rights and civil society groups.

NADNO SIGONA: It breach, in the sense, is a very narrow interpretation of the Geneva Convention is a breach in the spirit of the convention because it basically led people to survive, but is not really provide the opportunity to rebuild a life, to restart a life that keep them in a limbo. In many ways, it reproduce the trauma, especially for people that have escaped from war, persecution, violation of human rights. And this is also partly why we have such high numbers of suicide attempt suicide, successful suicides, a long term impact on the mental health of the residents.

MG: We're talking about Australia here, but what are the other countries that are looking at adopting this practise?

NADNO SIGONA: Currently, I am speaking from Europe at the Australian model has been a temptation for a number of governments, in particular Denmark, but also the United Kingdom, have been looking at the way that Australia has been approaching its obligation vis-a-vis refugees.

MG: What's what's the United Kingdom looking at doing?

NADNO SIGONA: Well, the United Kingdom has tried to always looked into the possibility of building offshore processing centres that is, using territories in the middle of the ocean where everyone was claiming asylum in England or the United Kingdom would be transferred while their application was processed. But basically, this was a very strong opposition from the British to civil society. There was a lot of mobilisation by legal experts, and it was pointed out that this was in violation of the international position of the country. And so they moving towards a different kind of approach, which is still very restrictive of the right to claim asylum. That is that if a person breached the United Kingdom to claim asylum without a visa, so in a sense, without a proper documentation, their asylum application would be either discarded. All cases found to be genuine. The person would receive a legal status, which is a less strong or shorter in terms of that if the person was waiting for their asylum claim to be processed abroad.

MG: What sort of support is there for policies like that in the general public? I mean, you talked about civil society and how people there and in the legal profession have protested, but in general society, what is their support for policies like that?

NADNO SIGONA: I think there has been many years that asylum seekers and refugees have been the targets of various media coverage in the kingdom. And it's interesting that first time if you look at the refugee crisis of 2015-16, while in Europe, countries like Germany basically opened the door to over two million of Syrian refugees. United Kingdom received a very small number of people, including the refugee crisis. Nonetheless, there was this perception the country being invaded, and we know that also during the Brexit referendum campaign on issues of asylum and refugees, it was a very central in the debate, despite the fact the numbers are really small.

MG: The argument and this applies in Australia, but perhaps elsewhere as well, the argument in adopting these policies is that it discourages people that governments are trying to protect their borders, they're trying to prevent deaths at sea and that this discourages people from taking those dangerous journeys by boat. Is there any truth to that? Does that actually work?

NADNO SIGONA: It certainly makes the life for those who need protection even worse. Some governments, like the United Kingdom, are saying that we don't want any more people applying for asylum in the United Kingdom, but we are going to create legal routes. However, when you look into the details of what is the legal route and this is a part of the ongoing conversation linked to the new border legislation that is currently in parliament, it's very small number of people will be receiving the right to resettle in the UK. The problem with forced displacement that is the problem with the exile is that you cannot predict or you can predict in a sense, you know which areas are particularly stable or that are at risk of civil war, etc. but you cannot contain it. It's not about that when there was the civil war in Syria, everyone trying to look for a safe place to look for international protection. If you have only 1000 place available for resettlement doesn't solve the problem. You know that a moment of crisis when people really need to be protected, there is an international obligation to protect people. This is circumstances. And so what they call a managerial approach to asylum doesn't really work.

MG: What kind of conversations do you think we should be having then about how? To work with people who are fleeing their homes who feel like they need to flee and they're looking for a better life elsewhere.

NADNO SIGONA: I think, first of all, we need to to the sense, humanise people to seek international protection. No one chose to become a refugee and everyone can be a refugee. I mean, everyone can find themselves in the circumstances to have to escape their country of origin because a war or persecution, because human rights violation ending. And this is also why we have a system of protecting refugees. You know, it's because an understanding that this can happen to anyone, and we want to make sure that there is something in place to protect people. So people need to understand is rather than just look at the people as if it's the people over there, the people coming from poor countries of the refugees, that's not true.

MG: What about seeing what those refugees can offer when we welcome them, when they are integrated, I think of what's happened in Canada, 25000 plus Syrian refugees who were brought here in the wake of the refugee crisis and the contributions that they have made to this country. How should that be framed?

NADNO SIGONA: I think that's a very important point. You make a lot of them come up with traumas, but a lot of them are also full of resources and skills and desire to rebuild their lives. But what we need to do as countries that provide asylum is to really build the condition, to promote these skills, to promote this decided to to do well, to rebuild their lives. And this, I think Canada is a good example of trying to work with refugees to promote their integration within the labour market or go to the settlement building on network Connections. What we know from research is that the more people are kept in limbo, the more they keep them separated on islands in Australia. But also Denmark has been for years putting asylum seekers in islands isolated in the middle of the North Sea. The more you keep them away and that was conditions like prison, like conditions, then even if the people get the refugee status and they can start their life, they've been traumatised. And this is going to be a longer term effect on the capacity of rebuilding their life.

MG: Just finally, what is it as this is unfolding in various countries around the world? What is the role of international bodies like the United Nations, for example, to ensure that the policies that are being put in place don't undermine people's human rights?

NADNO SIGONA: The U.N. in particular, the UNHCR, the UN agency of refugees, it's really dependent on funding provided by the wealthier member of the United Nations. And often it's also this dependency on funding also limits the capacity of being critical, although there are also very important exceptions, for example, in the United Kingdom. The UNHCR office has been very critical of the proposal that have been put forward by the government recently, and this is also partly why there was a lot of change in the policy that we're proposing. But in general, the UN has got very little in terms of enforcement mechanisms on this issue. It can use moral suasion, but it's also important that we work with civil society, also getting the majority society on board, protecting the rights of asylum seekers, the refugees. It's it's important for everyone.

MG: But broadly, there's very little accountability that can be applied here.

NADNO SIGONA: There is a general there is a little accountability, even less if we allow countries like Denmark or United Kingdom Australia to build centres in the middle of the sea where no one has access. Whether you don't have NGO, that can monitor the situation where people have no way of reporting cases of of human rights violations is very difficult. So in a sense, it's really important that asylum seekers are settled within our countries because there is less risk that we would get human rights violations. There is no one accountable for them.

MG: Nando Sigona good to speak with you about this.

NADNO SIGONA: Thank you very much.

MG: Thank you. Nando Sigona is a professor and chair of International Migration and Forced Displacement at the University of Birmingham in the UK. He mentioned a book that had helped turn the world's attention to the centre on Manus Island. Its author is Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish Iranian writer who sought asylum in Australia and ended up detained at the centre for six years. During those years, he wrote a book called No Friend But the Mountains. He sent it by text message, passage by passage to a translator. It won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction in 2019. That's one of Australia's most prestigious literary prises. Behrooz Boochani was still detained at the time, but he said a recorded video speech to accept the award. Here's part of it.

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BEHROUZ BOOCHANI: I have always say that I believe in words and literature. I believe that literature has the potential to make change and challenge structures of power. Literature has the power to give us freedom. Yes, it is true. I have been in the cage for years, but throughout this time my mind has always been producing words and these words have taken me across borders, taken me overseas and to unknown places. I truly believe words are more powerful than the fences of this place is prison. This is not just the basic slogan. I am not an idealist. I'm not expressing the views of an idealist here. These words are from a person who has been held captive on this island for almost six years. A person who has witnessed an extraordinary tragedy unfold in this place with humility, I would like to say that this award is a victory. It is a victory not only for us, but for literature and art. And above all, it is a victory for humanity. A victory for human being. Human dignity. A victory against a system that has never recognised us as human being. It is a victory against a system that has reduced us to numbers. It is a beautiful morning. Let us all rejoice tonight in the power of literature.

MG: Barriers, but Chinese acceptance speech for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award in 2019. He now lives in New Zealand, where he was granted a work visa. You're listening to the current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

So if I'm doing a virtual visit 90 to 95 percent of the time it is over the phone, the phone is like the fax machine. It is ancient technology, but it is so reliable and it's easy to use. I call my patient. They pick up boom. The visits underway.

MG: That's Dr. Nadia Alam. Speaking on The Current. Last week, we were talking about the moves toward virtual health care at doctor's appointments over Skype or Zoom or on the telephone and whether that is here to stay. A lot of opinions came into the email box on this, and The Current producer John Chipman is here to read some of your mail. John, good morning.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Morning, Matt. Yeah, there were a few fans of the virtual doctor's visits, Sandra Kagoma writes. Virtual care is the best thing ever. Quick, convenient. It allows physicians to see more patients. It saves money for patients, no parking charges or no circling to even find parking that can take at least half an hour sometimes. I never understand why patients think that doctors don't have a right to their own safety and a reasonable workload and hours. They have families and children who care and depend on them as well.

MG: Tim Temple is a retired GP and family practise in British Columbia. He was not sold on the whole thing. Tim writes My biggest concern is the trend away from hands on medicine. So many patients require some degree of physical examination before firm diagnosis can be made. Of course, I'm of a vintage that still believes in home visits for children and elderly especially, but I understand that the pace of current practise is so time pressured. COVID hasn't helped. Canada needs a major investment in primary care. So many of us do not have a personal GP shameful for a country as rich as Canada.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Another doctor, Tammy McNab, is a fan of the Alberta Health Service Electronic Portal Chart System, she writes. Patients can request appointments, recommend updates to their medical chart, submit PDF documents and also send questions. I can review labs and instantly appraise them of the results in the interpretation of the lab tests without having to book an appointment and set aside time. Virtual care has allowed me to deal with urgent and emergent issues quickly and efficiently, keeping patients out of emergency rooms, urgent care facilities and hospital. In the past, while rounding in hospital, I wasted so much time trying to locate the nurse for a patient or results. Now I can see them instantly and message them directly. I love it.

MG: From health care to politics.

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We have got big problems in this country, but we've allowed our political system to evolve in a way that is inadequate to meet those problems. But you know what? That's our job as citizens, we can't blame it all on the politicians, and it is our job as citizens to say cut it out and start focussing on big solutions.

MG: That's the voice of the outgoing mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi. He was on the programme on Friday for his final national interview as mayor. Elections are being held in that city today.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Your interview drew lots of reaction, Maryanne Freeman writes from Vancouver. Great interview. I'm sorry to lose this order to the public platform. We need more people who can actually speak in sentences. Hope we hear from Mayor Nenshi soon again. Calgary will have a way to go to better this thoughtful man.

MG: Doug Weir in London, Ontario was also a fan, he says, when Matt asked whether we would hear from him again. He quipped, I have too big a mouth to shut up. Hopefully, Mr. Nenshi will keep on talking and telling us where we have gone wrong and where we've gone right. He's a voice of reason in this complicated, ever changing world. Keep it up, Mr Nenshi. We look forward to hearing from you again.

JOHN CHIPMAN: And Anna Ling Kaye tweeted, That was such a good interview. Thank you, the head and energy for your service, your humanity and humour, your vision for Canada and the inspiration to sever. Enjoy the well-earned time off.

MG: You should mention that Seva is a term that the mayor was talking about. It means public service and Mayor Nenshi was encouraging everyone to do more in their lives. In the course of our interview.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Christina Crowley-Arklie was particularly inspired, she tweets. Listening to Mayor Nenshi speak to the calling of public life and asking women, people of colour and marginalised individuals to consider public life makes me inspired to want to enter the arena. What a segment. Thank you, Mayor Nenshi, for serving.

MG: Thanks to everybody who wrote and get out and vote. If you are in Alberta, it is Election Day today. John, thank you very much.

JOHN CHIPMAN: Thanks, Matt.

MG: John Chipman, producer here on The Current. Thanks to all of you who listen, and especially to those of you who write, we do read every single thing that you send us and some of your mail ends up on the radio. If you want to reach us on Twitter, we are @TheCurrentCBC. You can email us as well thecurrent@cbc.ca. That is The Current for this Monday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q Oscar Peterson. Black and White is a new documentary about this country's greatest jazz musician and. Kelly Peterson, the wife of Oscar Peterson, will be with Cue guest host Talia Schlanger to talk about the film and share some stories about their life together. It's coming up in just a few moments on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

Monday 18 October, 2021

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