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The AIH Transcript for March 8, 2021

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: No way out. The military in Myanmar continues its crackdown, pinning down protesters in Yangon, cutting electricity and hunting for those who have opposed the coup, including our guest.

CH: Dose at hand. As the pandemic rolls on, Canada's COVID vaccine rollout picks up speed, and an epidemiologist tells us he's feeling optimistic for what's next.

CO: Watching her back. An Alberta politician confirms her own suspicions that police had her under surveillance. She shares her observations about proving that she was under observation.

CH: Separation anxiety. One year ago, her father's care home was the site of the first COVID death in Canada. And our guest says the outbreak there led to more heartbreak than she could have imagined.

CO: These days, a walk in the park is no walk in the park. Coyotes have attacked 15 people in Vancouver's Stanley Park in the past three months. One B.C. runner is still recovering from her run-in.

CH: And cereal killer. After Kellogg's announces it's discontinuing just right cereal, ardent fans go into a mourning process for their morning process grief stricken that the company is flaking out. As It Happens. The Monday Edition, radio that hopes everyone who still has a box is milking it for all it's worth.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: 'I am afraid,' says Myanmar protester hiding from armed military police outside his home

Myanmar Crackdown

Guest: Shain

CH: Tonight in Myanmar's largest city, protesters defied a curfew and marched towards the military.

[SOUNDCLIP: Crowd chanting in Burmese]

CH: Protesters in Yangon chanting "Open the roads" in Burmese. They were marching in solidarity with people trapped in Sanchaung, a district of the city besieged by the military. In Sanchaung hundreds of protesters were surrounded as the army closed in with stun grenades. The scene prompted the UN and Western embassies in Myanmar, including Canada's, to urge the military to let people go home safely. As we go to air, it's difficult to know how the situation in Sanchaung ended because the military shut down the Internet. But earlier today we spoke with a protester there, minutes before the Internet was disconnected. He's using the pseudonym Shain because he fears for his safety.

CO: Shain, we are hearing stories of some really dangerous situations for people in Sanchaung district where you are right now. What is going on there, can you tell us?

SHAIN: All the news is true. Now military has cut off the electricity and made sure nobody gets outside. So also they're shooting the flash gun.

CO: These are stun grenades you're talking about?

SHAIN: Yes. I mean stun grenades. Yeah.

CO: You're speaking very quietly because why? What's going on?

SHAIN: They have a flashlight so they point to the building and whoever is sneaking (out), they make a move. Nobody can go outside. They want to black out all of Sanchaung.

CO: When you say "they," who are you talking about?

SHAIN: The military. Military and cops.

CO: Military and police, can you tell us what you have seen of the military and the police in your neighbourhood?

SHAIN: Just now, they are outside my apartment. They are waiting at the dark place and they want to take the people away from Sanchaung who have been protesting.

CO: So they are very near where you are right now?

SHAIN: Yeah, they are very near. I can see them from my house.

CO: Are you in your own apartment right now?

SHAIN: Yes, yes. I'm in my own apartment.

CO: So you are in an apartment. It's night. It's dark outside. They've cut the electricity. We fear that we may even lose this phone connection because the authorities may cut our Internet, right?

SHAIN: Yes. Yes. Also after 1:00 a.m., they will cut the Internet.

CO: I understand that the police are going door to door looking for people like you.

SHAIN: Yes, I think they are waiting -- after 1 a.m. they will come and take the protesters because nobody will know about this.

CO: And so you will tonight be expecting or worry or thinking there might be police coming in and arrest you?

SHAIN: Yes. I was afraid for that.

CO: How will they know to take you? Do they know you're there?

SHAIN: Before the electricity cut, they announce they will make sure they check everybody's house.

CO: You think they identified you as a protester?

SHAIN: Yes. Because most of the people in Sanchaung -- all of the young people are protesting.

CO: Describe what you see outside.

SHAIN: Right now, I see the full flashlight and also three people outside with guns in their hand.

CO: How afraid are you right now?

SHAIN: Yes, I'm definitely afraid. I don't know how to say that.

CO: Today, when you were out, when the young people were out on the streets, how did the police -- how did the military react to you?

SHAIN: At first they shot (at) us (with) the flash gun on the groups of people. And we retreated at the backline -- our protesting backlike we retreated. But they took more and more step forward. So we need to run as fast as we can.

CO: And you have been out on the streets these past weeks?

SHAIN: Yes, I have been protesting in Sanchaung every day.

CO: The United Nations says at least 50 of the protesters have been killed at this point.

SHAIN: Yes. Yes, I know most of the young people who were killed by the army. So you can see in the Facebook -- the news is really true, they are killing people right now.

CO: Do you know if people are going to hospital? Because also we've heard the hospitals are being occupied by the military.

SHAIN: Yes. So hospitals, they are occupying because if someone is injuried and if they come to hospital or school, they want to catch.

CO: They'll catch them because they've been protesting.

SHAIN: Yeah.

CO: And what's happened to those who have been arrested -- people you know? Do you know anything about what's happened to them?

SHAIN: Nobody knows about them. Most of the people say they are in prison or somewhere in the military base. We really don't know about that.

CO: And if they find you, what do you think will happen to you?

SHAIN: Well, I really don't know how to say...just afraid because the military and police they have to protect us, right? But right now, they are slaughtering us.

CO: Shane, why have you agreed to speak with us tonight?

SHAIN: Because I want to tell everybody around the world right now -- only the people in Myanmar, we only have each other.

CO: We're talking to you. You're in an apartment. You're hiding in the dark. You are talking to us quietly. You fear that in any moment now the police will come and take you away. Your Internet is soon to be cut off. What do you want Canadians to know about why you're doing this? Why you are in this situation?

SHAIN: Because we need help. We need help from the other countries, UN also, because the military they want to do whatever they want to do. They just said they aren't afraid of anything. So we want other countries' help.

CO: Are you alone...

SHAIN: We're so afraid. No, I'm with my mother and I rescued one protester -- a girl. So we have three people in my home.

CO: Your mother, yourself and another -- do you know the girl who you took in?

SHAIN: We don't know who she is, but she is running from the military and police, so we said you can come to our house.

CO: How is she doing?

SHAIN: I think her mind is blank right now. [Reacting to something outside] Oh my God...I think they are in front of my house. There is an apartment six-storey -- they are just trying to enter the apartment.

CO: If you have to hang up and leave, you do that immediately, okay?

SHAIN: Yes, yes, yes. Right now they are searching the apartment. Yeah, I see the flashlight. So they go inside the apartment and they are searching one of the apartments.

CO: Are they taking people out?

SHAIN: Yeah, I think they are searching people.

CO: Don't get too close to the window.

SHAIN: Yeah, I was sneaking. They are just banging the door. One of the apartment has opened the door and are talking to military police right now. Please whatever you can do to help, help us and Myanmar people. That's all I want to say.

CO: Shain, I'm going to let you go so you can get to a safer place in your apartment, okay?

SHAIN: Thank you for this interview.

CO: Thank you for telling us what's happening to you tonight.

SHAIN: Yes.

CO: Bye.

SHAIN: Bye bye.

CH: Shain is a protester in the Sanchaung district of Yangon in Myanmar. We've agreed to use a pseudonym to protect his identity. We've posted this story on our website: cbc.ca/aih. And we'll continue to follow the story.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Covid First Death Folo

Guest: Deanna Harlow

CH: It's been a year, a very long year, since COVID-19 began to hit this country hard. Today marks the anniversary of Canada's first COVID death -- an elderly resident of a long term care home in British Columbia. The outbreak at the Lynn Valley Care home amongst residents and staff meant that hardly anyone was there to take care of the people who lived there. People were going unfed and soiled and calling out for help. So family members had to step in. Last March, we spoke with Deanna Harlow, whose father lived at Lynn Valley, about her decision to go into the residence and help out.

DEANNA HARLOW: [SOUNDCLIP: We're just carrying on knowing that there's the possibility that we could contract this virus. But I just can't imagine not being there, especially with my father, with the care that he needs. And I just can't leave my father out there twisting in the wind and let alone the workers who do show up.]

CH: That was Deanna Harlow speaking to us just about one year ago. We reached her again today in Squamish, B.C..

CO: Deanna, what do you remember of your impressions when you showed up at your father's care home that day?

DEANNA HARLOW: Well, there would have been only three care workers and six family members huddling together and trying to decide what we should be doing, trying to figure out what was going on. Were there more people coming in? Where we were going to go from here.

CO: There were three care people. There were 92 people who were in the facility, right?

DH: That's correct. I think it's approximately 92 or so.

CO: It's hard to focus back on that day, isn't it? I mean, just to remember how little we understood, how little we knew. And it was just a couple of days before the WHO declared a global pandemic. So how do you feel now about the risk -- because you said you had to stay, you had to do something? How do you assess the risk that you and your sister and those other families took?

DH: Well, it was something that we all felt that we had to do. We were very much in the moment, making decisions on the fly. It was some time before I really came to realise what it was we were doing. But I mean, I would do the same thing all over again.

CO: So you don't have any regrets about how you rolled up your sleeves and got in there, even though we knew so little about the virus at that time?

DH: None whatsoever, none at all. I mean, in the end, we were in there for 19 days and not one of the six of us contracted the virus. So we feel like it was a worthwhile risk.

CO: But your dad did get COVID-19, didn't he?

DH: He did, yes -- a week and a half or a week after that day. But he had very light symptoms, and so we were very thankful for that. He was very tired for a couple of days. And we were there to make sure that he did get fed and hydrated. I hate to imagine what the outcome would have been if we hadn't been there.

CO: Your father, he's now 97 years old.

DH: Yes, he is.

CO: How's he doing?

DH: He's not doing too badly, actually. He's essentially himself with dementia. He's kind of the life of the party. He holds court with the other residents and he does a lot of singing. He likes to sing.

CO: And do you have much contact, you and your sister, are you able to see him?

DH: I'm not able to see him. My sister is the social visitor. I get phone calls usually once a week, but it's very disorienting for him. Sometimes he doesn't know how to hold the phone or he forgets what it is. He will get instructions from the caregiver to speak into the phone, "It's your daughter, speak to your daughter." And it's just too confusing for him.

CO: And has he been in the home all this time for this past year? Has he been able to go out? Have you been able to take him for a walk or anything?

DH: My sister, thankfully, was able to take him out for a drive last week. When I spoke to him about how he went out for a ride, he remembered that he went out and he said, "Yeah, it's been a long time since I've been out for a ride." So he knew that he hadn't been out of the facility for a very long time.

CO: Do you have any sense of what effect the isolation and the separation, so little contact with you and your family, what effect is that having on him?

DH: He experiences a lot of anxiety which, unfortunately, when it gets too hard for the care workers to manage, they sedate him. And it makes him very calm, and very tired, very sleepy, he doesn't want to eat. So it's a very very negative effect. It's devastating, actually.

CO: And so what effect is this separation having on you?

DH: It's hard, very frustrating, because there just seems to be a vicious circle of promises of visitation and then reneging. Dr. Bonnie Henry will say, we think we can open visitation up a bit, and then she said every resident can have a social visitor and an essential caregiver. You know, we were all quite jubilant about that 'Yaay, someone gets to go in and take care of dad on a daily basis,' but the facilities are not allowing it.

CO: Why? What's the rationale?

DH: No rationale given. I don't know why they're getting away with it, but they are. Time after time, people are being denied essential caregiver status with no reason given.

CO: Do you have an idea in your head as to what you want to do with your dad? What are you looking forward to being able to do with him?

DH: Well we had a thing that myself and my two brothers and my sister would do with him is we would take him to the pub down the street. And we'd have a meal, drink a little beer because he likes beer. Of course, he wouldn't get the alcoholized version. And that was how we would spend Father's Day and his birthday. We actually hired two caregivers to come in, so he actually had someone with him every day. He used to take us when we were kids, we used to go on mystery trips, so the caregivers would take them out on mystery trips. And so he had everyone with him rallying around him every day, and that was just suddenly cut off on March 26th of last year.

CO: So you imagine doing some of those things.

DH: Oh, absolutely, yes, all of us and our kids, so he'll have his grandchildren around. It will be just like old family times.

CO: Deanna I hope you get that chance really soon. I hope you get that pub visit too.

DH: Thank you Carol.

CO: Bye.

DH: Bye bye.

CH: Deanna Harlow's father is a resident at the Lynn Valley Care Centre. She was in Squamish, B.C..

[Music: Calm Music]

NDP Minister ATI

Guest: Shannon Phillips

CH: Like any politician, Alberta MLA Shannon Phillips, knew running for office would mean putting herself in the public eye. But police surveillance wasn't exactly what she had in mind. For years now Phillips suspected members of the Lethbridge Police Force in Alberta were monitoring her starting when she was provincial environment minister. And now a cache of documents she obtained through a Freedom of Information request has confirmed her suspicions. We reached Shannon Phillips in Edmonton.

CO: Ms. Phillips, when did you first get that feeling that your movements were being monitored?

SHANNON PHILLIPS: I had a sneaking suspicion that the 2017 complaint that I filed was maybe not the end of it. I just had an unsettling feeling that maybe it went beyond those two officers who had made a plan to surveil me way back in 2017.

CO: Okay. I'm going to get to that in a moment about what happened back in 2017. But the latest development is you have this Freedom of Information request and you have documents, most of them heavily redacted. What have they revealed?

SP: So those documents show that my records were accessed many times by different officers for no law enforcement purpose listed. And it is a breach of a number of different laws to do that.

CO: Are there legitimate reasons why they could have been accessing those files?

SP: Not that are listed in the documents and not to my knowledge. Wherever there's a reason to access my records, that reason is listed. So I was given 9,000 pages of documents, but most of those are redacted. I was given the list of times that my records were searched and where there was a legitimate law enforcement purpose that purpose is listed. For these other fishing expeditions, there is nothing listed. And that -- it is not just against the law, it's also a really chilling detail to emerge and further makes me feel unsafe in my own community.

CO: What do you make of that? That there were 9,308 pages that came back to you, most of them redacted. What do you think are in those pages?

SP: Well, I think some of it is the investigation records from the 2018 investigation that was withheld from me...

CO: Can you tell us what that is -- can you tell us about 2018?

SP: So in 2017 I was surreptitiously photographed by police officers in uniform and then those photos were distributed on Facebook of me with a whole libellous screed about what I was doing out in public. It was all false and probably defamatory. I filed a complaint. Two officers were disciplined in that. Unbeknownst to me, there was another investigation that layered on to my 2017 complaint about those officers had made subsequent plans to follow me and had in fact followed some of the people that I was having breakfast with that day in April of 2017. And then there were more disciplinary actions taken against the original two officers. I was never told of any of this happening. And so I appealed to the disciplinary decision. And the Law Enforcement Review Board is reviewing that matter. But I asked for internal emails between officers and the LPS refused to give me any of that. You know, I've been a minister in Alberta. I was the minister of environment. I was FOIPed a lot. And the fact of the matter is, is that they can absolutely provide those emails. And so I believe that LPS has withheld those documents unlawfully and I've also filed a complaint with the Office of the Information Commissioner as well.

CO: Being FOIPed is the shorthand of the Freedom of Information request, right? That's what you're referring to?

SP: That's right.

CO: You were the minister of the environment in Alberta also at a time when you found something else in those documents about something that police didn't investigate. What is that?

SP: So in March of 2016 apparently, and I found out about this in December of 2020, someone went to police with an allegation that they had been given a drink in a pub and that that drink was potentially laced with something and they had a very negative reaction. But the person who made the complaint and who drank it had reason to believe that the drink was originally intended for me. So that complaint was filed and no one ever told me. Now, it is possible that that complaint doesn't have any merit. But either way, the Lethbridge Police Service has a duty to warn people and in particular, I believe, had a duty to warn me.

CO: A cabinet minister.

SP: Yes. And it's just either it's incompetence or it's malevolence or it's both. But either way, the trust that the community should have in our local police force, I mean, to me is just broken. I don't know what they're doing over there. But they have a duty to warn me under the professional standards and they didn't.

CO: The chief of Lethbridge Police Services said that the matter -- all of this has been referred to the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team for investigation. And when Carolyn Dunn, CBC reporter, was contacting people who are cited in these documents, she was told that this was not appropriate, this is under investigation. Do you think this is something that we shouldn't be talking about?

SP: Well, I think that the system needs to be made to work. And so I'm going to have to pursue it because I'm not at all convinced that the LPS is actually serious about really taking on the work of repairing public trust. And there's also a broader conversation about women in politics, and in the kinds of of nonsense we put up with and how this has a corrosive effect on democratic participation for women, for people of visible minority, for Black-Indigenous-People-of-Colour, for LGBT people. This all came about because people were meeting with their MLA in public. That sends the message that maybe I shouldn't have coffee with MLA in public -- are the cops going to photograph me? And so the LPS has a lot of work to do here. And you start that work by ensuring that there's going to be a fulsome process and not kicking and screaming the whole way along.

CO: We will leave it there and we will follow the developments in this story. Ms. Phillips, I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

SP: I appreciate the opportunity.

CH: Shannon Phillips is an NDP MLA in Alberta and the party's former environment minister for the province. We reached her in Edmonton. In his letter to the CBC's Carolyn Dunn, the chief of Lethbridge Police also said it would be "Highly improper for the CBC to report any conclusions about who did or did not conduct a database search without investigative purpose until the investigation properly has run its course."

[Music: Drum & Bass Music]

COVID Scream

CH: For about a year now, we have all wanted to scream. Except like most things we want to do, screaming is strictly prohibited. But now a Dutch inventor believes screaming is actually a great idea, not just for you, but for science. And while you may be hollering about COVID, he will be looking for COVID in your scream. Peter van Wees says he has come up with what he thinks is a faster and easier alternative to the nasal swab test. He set up an airtight cabin beside a testing site in Amsterdam. When the person inside the cabin screams an industrial air purifier, collects all the particles and analyses them for the virus. It is not exactly hard science. The National Institute for Health in the Netherlands says there's not enough evidence yet, but one day it could be used as a screening tool at concerts, airports, or schools. Here's some of that COVID Screaming our Sound of the Day. [SOUND: People screaming] The cathartic sound mostly of people screaming inside an airtight room in Amsterdam, after which Dutch inventor Peter van Wees tests the air particles for COVID. It's our Sound of the Day.

[Music: Synth Music]

Part 2: Vaccine Questions: Fisman

Vaccine Questions: Fisman

Guest: David Fisman

CH: It's starting to feel like we might be turning that long promised corner in the effort to vaccinate Canadians, but what's around that corner is going to depend on more than just increasing supplies. The pressure is now on the provinces to get those doses into millions of arms. And there's still a lot we don't know about how exactly the vaccines will change the course of the pandemic and our day to day lives. To get a sense of where we might be headed, we reached Dr. David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health. We reached Dr. Fisman in Toronto.

CO: Dr. Fisman, how realistic is it for Canadians to hope that for us anyway, the end of this pandemic might actually be in sight?

DAVID FISMAN: I think it's very realistic. Something that's been striking to me is the degree to which events in 2020 and 2021 have really been following the contours of what happened in 1918 and 1919. We've just come through a big winter wave around the world, but cases have been declining since kind of the first third of January, since around January 9th globally, they've come down quite sharply. Now, the wildcard here is these new variants which we think push the reproduction number up for this disease. So that may precipitate a springtime wave. And I think we may yet see that here in Ontario and Canada and elsewhere.

CO: But you're optimistic?

DF: Yeah, if we can get to the other side of that summertime is there and we know from last summer that disease subsided a lot. And if anything, now we have more immune experience in the population.

CO: You know, I've heard from so many people whenever we have an interview about the pandemic and COVID that they can't bear it anymore, they don't want to hear any more depressing news. So I'm actually encouraged by thinking that most people are still with us in this interview, Dr. Fisman because they think they are going to get some good news here. [Chuckles]

DF: Yeah, I think this has been very hard on everyone. I mean, I'm an infectious disease epidemiologist for my job, so I guess by definition, I like this stuff. And I am very very tired of COVID, both from a personal point of view and a professional point of view. But we've got to play the cards we're dealt. We do potentially have a bit of a resurgence coming in March and April, but the world looks a lot better on the other side of that with summer. And I don't think this is going away, unfortunately. I think this is going to become an endemic disease. So something that probably comes back in the wintertime. But that's a very different situation than a pandemic situation where you have universal susceptibility.

CO: I want to ask you about vaccines, because Ontario says its goal is to have a first dose into every adult by July 1st. British Columbia, they're talking about Canada Day. How realistic do those timelines for vaccines look to you?

DF: Those don't sound crazy. But I think what's going to be important is using all the tools in the toolbox. And it's important to remember that every year there's a group of people who vaccinate millions, for example, of Ontarians in about a two month period, and that's public health units and family doctors who do that for flu vaccine. And those assets have not yet been deployed. We don't have family doctors on the case yet. We don't have pharmacists on the case. So I think the faster we can get people vaccinated, the faster we can move forward. So I don't think those are unreasonable timelines. I think we just need to use all the assets we have, which are considerable.

CO: One of the assets that obviously they're going to use and we've heard this in a number of provinces, is to delay the second dose so that everybody gets one dose and that they could possibly wait up to four months before the second one. The National Advisory Committee on Immunisation says that's okay. So is that what actually is giving us this breathing room?

DF: I think that's helping us in terms of vaccine supply and then to a certain extent, in terms of speed of administration, if you can get different individuals into the line rather than having space taken up by people getting a second dose. But most of that, I believe, relates to essentially doubling vaccine supply. For AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, they are two dose vaccines. And it's a bit uncomfortable because we all like to say, 'Oh we practise evidence-based medicine, evidence-based public health,' and we don't have evidence because these are new vaccines for a new disease. So anything that requires lengthy follow up, the evidence is not going to be there. I think this is a reasonable thing for them to do for probably three or four reasons. One is that we actually have some good evidence at this point from places where the vaccine has been used that it is probably 70-80 percent at a minimum, effective just after one dose. And you see that in the trial after 14 days, by the time people get an immune response, they're very protected against infection. So then the question becomes, how durable is that? Are you going to lose that protection? And we don't know. But what we do know is that a couple of months is probably not going to be sufficient for an immune response to wear off. And then what's going to counterbalance any disadvantage to delaying that dose is the fact that you're going to dramatically increase the fraction of the population who's protected and you're probably going to get into some herd effects where we really reduce transmission because we have so many folks. It's a calculative gamble, I guess it's what you'd say.

CO: And in the United States, the Centres for Disease Control say that they're guidelines on life after vaccination it includes mask-free indoor socialising with other fully vaccinated people, grandparents hugging their unvaccinated grandchildren. So is that the scenario Canadians should expect perhaps by as early as the summer?

DF: I think we'll get there. It kind of it makes me teary hearing you say that. My mom and dad are fairly avid listeners, so I suspect they'll hear this. My mom is sort of super-grandma, and I think is missing her grandchildren, something terrible. And just hearing you say that actually is quite moving for me. I think where the US is going is where we will go too. The US has a lot of that actual manufacturing capacity in the country. And so they've been able to sort of ramp things up a fair bit faster than we have. But we will get there too, and that'll be absolutely great.

CO: Grandmothers across the country are tearing up with this conversation of that imagining that special moment. And so I'm glad to hear you say that. Dr. Fisman it's good to talk to you as always. Thank you.

DF: Thank you so much for having me.

CH: David Fisman is an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

[Music: Tabla Music]

Mullet

CH: You might doubt what I'm about to say, but hear me out. If you're looking for the perfect pandemic haircut, consider the mullet. I know, but upkeep is pretty easy. It's short on the sides, so your hair won't interfere with your mask. And on Zoom calls, if you sit square to your computer and stare directly into the camera, your colleagues will only see the business in the front -- your wild party can flow freely in the back. No wonder all the cool kids are doing it. Edmonton hairstylists Kahneka Burnett and Bonnie Bentley aren't exactly sure why the mullet is making a comeback right now. But on Friday they spoke with the CBC about how a modern take on the 80s hairdo is suddenly in vogue.

KAHNEKA BURNETT: I love the mullet and the shag. I'm so happy it's back really.

TARA MCCARTHY: Now, have you had a lot of requests for it, Kahenka?

KAHNEKA BURNETT: Yeah, actually, I think it started out kind of requesting like curtain bangs. And it seems it just keeps getting further into like the shag area and then into a mullet. And people are really embracing it.

TARA MCCARTHY: Now, Bonnie, are you getting a lot of requests, too?

BONNIE BENTLEY: I have been getting more of the shags and the curtain bangs. I have had a couple of mullets, [laughs] but they're definitely more on the modern side, they're not your traditional 80s mullet.

TARA MCCARTHY: Okay. Why do you think people are going this way?

BONNIE BENTLEY: I honestly think people are being more adventurous because they're working from home now -- a lot of people are. And I think people are kind of just, you know, saying if not now then when?

TARA MCCARTHY: Yeah, yeah. Now I remember I had -- I like to call it a fashion mullet back in 2008. Kahneka is it hard to cut hair into a style like this?

KAHNEKA BURNETT: I know it's not too hard and it's a really customisable look.

TARA MCCARTHY: Yeah. Now, Bonnie you and I were actually just talking the other day about how the mullet, though, takes a little bit of upkeep at home. It's not just a wake up and go kind of a look.

BONNIE BENTLEY: Yeah, exactly. I would see people with curly hair, wavy hair -- they'll probably have an easier time of it. If you have straight hair, it's going to take a little bit more styling and product for sure. So it doesn't go down the way of Rod Stewart. [Laughter]

TARA MCCARTHY: [Laughter] What do you mean? Rod Stewart has great hair. What are you trying to say?

BONNIE BENTLEY: I mean, that's true -- he does. [Laughter].

TARA MCCARTHY: And that brings me the whole celebrity pickup of this. Kaheka have you noticed, like Rihanna has had a mullet, Miley Cyrus, I think, is sporting one right now.

KAHNEKA BURNETT: Definitely. A lot of celebrities have been embracing it. And Billy Eilish -- and I actually heard that since Joe Exotic came around, it's increased 1,124 percent people searching how to cut a mullet.

TARA MCCARTHY: Woah. But no one's asked you for the Joe Exotic mullet, have they?

KAHNEKA BURNETT: No, not that one. [Laughter]

TARA MCCARTHY: What would you what would you say Kahneka, if I walked in, showed you a picture of Joe Exotic on my phone and said, I want this.

KAHNEKA BURNETT: [Laughter] I mean, you know, if you're confident enough to rock it, I love it.

TARA MCCARTHY: Bonnie, what would you do?

BONNIE BENTLEY: I love that.

TARA MCCARTHY: Yeah, you'd love that. I made a huge mistake earlier this week when I saw you.

CH: Edmondson AM co-host Tara McCarthy speaking with hairstylists Kahneka Burnett and Bonnie Bentley. We have no word on whether Tara is now sporting a Tiger King style mullet.

[Music: Hip-hop Music]

Vancouver Coyote Attack

Guest: Azi Ramezani

CH: Stanley Park is one of Vancouver's main attractions. It's famous for its views of the water, majestic trees, and kilometres of trails. But it's also becoming infamous for coyote attacks. According to the Vancouver Sun, 15 people have been attacked by coyotes since December 1st of last year. Azi Ramezani was one of those people. She was running at Stanley Park in January when a coyote bit her. Now she's recovering from surgery. We reached Azi Ramezani at her parents' home in Victoria, B.C..

CO: Azi, how are you doing?

AZI RAMEZANI: Well, not that great. I've gone from being a very active person, living a very busy life to being able to do nothing. I'm very immobile. I can't sit, I can't walk academy or the bathroom. It's just a lot of complications. And I have six months of recovery to deal with.

CO: Good heavens. What kinds of injuries did you sustain?

AR: So when the coyote beat me, I was running and I was running down the hill and I was ready to take my next steps so my knee was bent. So it went right behind that bent and bit me. So obviously I fell and I fell really hard going down the hill. But it was still there. So I needed to get back up in order to protect myself. So I tried to get back up, but I was already hurting from the bite so I fell again and the fall caused a detachment of my hamstring muscle from the bone. The muscle had retracted by five centimetres, so it wasn't attached to anything at all. And my sciatic nerve was compressed. So I had to go in less than two weeks from the time of the attack to do an emergency hamstring repair surgery. And they also needed to decompress my sciatic nerve. Now, this is a very rare injury. It has six months of intensive rehab before I can go back to my full mobility, and it's not even guaranteed that I will be gaining my full mobility.

CO: Can you just tell us, I mean, what happened? You were in Stanley Park, you were jogging. When did you realise that you were under attack?

AR: I have run Stanley Park for so many years and I never run any other trails. I was aware that two of the coyotes were put down. But because I've had zero encounter in the past 10 years, at least, I knew that the situation was under control. So I was running on the side of the road very close to the hollow tree area where cars and bikers are passing by. It's a high traffic area. There's constantly traffic there. And all of a sudden I hear this growl and this coyote came out of the trails from the opposite side of where I was running, crossed the road, and attacked me from behind.

CO: And so you mentioned so the first bite was in this leg as it was bent as you were running. And then what happened after that?

AR: After that I fell. But then because the animal was still there -- it's a wild animals and when it attacks you.It's going to probably attack back if you don't get back up. So I tried to get back up. I couldn't. And I fell again. I just started screaming because I needed to scare the animal away. And I just screamed as loud as I could until it finally ran away. And some bikers actually stopped by and they stuck around until the emergency crew came.

CO: With your recovery taking six months, you're not able to do anything.

AR: I can't do anything. I lost my job. I was on contract work so I had zero benefits. I'm only qualified for medical EI -- covers 55 percent on my wages. All my cost of rehab, the rest of my living cost is coming out of my pocket.

CO: You said you knew that there were coyotes -- well, there have been coyotes in Stanley Park for a long time. And now there have been a number of attacks, right. You were 1 of 15 people who have been attacked.

AR: I was the 13th person attacked. I was the first one attacked after they had put two animals down, which makes me wonder if they are actually having a solution for this problem, because obviously they're not protecting us and they're not protecting the animals.

CO: What are you hearing as to why they've menaced and attacked humans?

AR: They are saying the problem as they become aggressive since December of last year because people have been regularly feeding them. When I was attacked, a conservation officer had a campaign in the park educating the public about these aggressive behaviour and the cause of coud very possibly be coyotes being fed by humans. So once they get fed by us, they get used to us and the fear of human is just going to vanish. So they're going to look at us as a source of food, which is why they are saying that's the reason why these attacks are happening.

CO: They were also warning people to be very cautious, right? There are signs up. So were you wary, given that you're a 13th in the attacks?

AR: Where I was there was no sign. So this is where I get really upset. They said not to go to the trails and they named a couple of trails, Brockton Trail being one. I wasn't in the trail. And that's my usual -- I've run that route forever. And I'm on the sidewalk. I was on the sidewalk and this is not a quite road. So the possibility of the animal coming out of the trail is close to none. He said, not to go to the trail. When I got attacked, they said not to go to Stanley Park at dawn or dusk. Then the 15th person got attacked and they said to avoid Stanley Park. They were giving some of the different information, which again tells me we really don't know what we're doing.

CO: I know you mentioned that two of the coyotes have been euthanized, have been killed. What do you want the park officials to do?

AR: I don't want them to kill the animals. I don't think that's a problem. What they need to do is to hold people accountable for their actions. If people have been feeding these animals and not feeding them is causing the animals being killed and it is causing them to cause hurt on us. The problem is people who are feeding them. Are we not monitoring our parks?

CO: Do you know if anyone's been fined for doing so?

AR: No. I was reading an article a couple of nights ago saying that no one in the past few years has been fined. I don't even know if Vancouver has the law to fine to people. Because I know city councillor named Pete Fry, he is trying to get a motion going that allows the conservation officers to ticket people if they catch them feeding the wildlife.

CO: What kind of a toll is this taking on you, not just your physical recovery, but just emotionally? Just how are you doing?

AR: It's a turn of lifestyle. For me to just be stranded to bed all the time -- most I can do is stand. I can't even sit, which is one of the most simplest things everybody can do. When I go to sleep, I can only sleep on one side and on my stomach. Now, imagine everything you do is limited and on top of that the financial burden and the emotional burden, it's really taking a toll on me like I'm a changed person now. I can't even do a job interview because nobody's going to take me. I'm immobile for the next six months.

CO: Well, Azi I hope you recover quickly and completely. And I'm sorry this has happened to you.

AR: I am too. Thank you.

CH: Ari Ramezani was attacked by a coyote in Vancouver, Stanley Park. We reached her in Victoria, B.C..

[Music: Calm Music]

Just Right

VOICE: [SOUNDCLIP: If you had your pick of two cereals, both with 100 percent nutrition, would you pick the one with just one kind of flake or Kellogg's Just Right with three different kinds of flakes plus hearty rolled oats, plump raisins, juicy dates and crisp crunchy nuts.]

CH: The year was 1986 -- Crocodile Dundee was introducing movie audiences to a weathered hunk named Paul Hogan. Rock Me Amadeus was topping the charts around the world. And a new serial called Just Right was tumbling into bowls around the world. Not everyone paid attention to its glorious birth, but those who did were deeply impressed by Just Right's modesty, its simplicity, its lack of glamour. Other cereals had sexy spokespeople, the brawny kerchief wearing Tony the Tiger, the enigmatic vampire Count Chocula, and the quietly dignified retired naval officer Captain Crunch. Just Right was just there. Except now it's not.

CATRIONA LEMAY DOAN: I have looked in Calgary. I've been gone a couple of times to Invermere. Do I look Invermere? I look sometimes down in Lethbridge, I've looked in Lethbridge, so I'm looking everywhere. So if anybody knows where there's a big stock of Just Right, let me know and I'm going to stock up.

CH: That's two-time Olympic speed skating champion Catriona Lemay Doan speaking to the Calgary Eyeopener. That report by the CBC's Paul Karchut confirmed what many Canadians had feared -- Just Right has been discontinued. It was 35 years old. I said many Canadians, but I might just mean several Canadians. A Kellogg's Canada rep told the CBC, 'Unfortunately, consumer demand for Kellogg's just right cereal was not strong enough to support continued production.' Still, the unassuming mix of flakes and oats has its extremely devoted fans. In fact, some of you are warming up your cars right now before hitting every grocery store in a three hour radius to build your stockpile. We wish you the best of luck. And the fate of Just Right might seem just wrong, but try to keep a positive oatlook.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Part 3: Laurentian Folo

Laurentian Folo

Guest: Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde

CH: Laurentian University is still trying to balance its books. Earlier this year, the school announced it had filed for creditor protection. And last month, news broke that money earmarked for scientific research was going to general operation costs instead. That left faculty and students with millions of dollars in funding and put several projects on hold. Today, the president of Laurentian, Robert Hache, promised that by next month he would respond to concerns about the way forward. Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde is a biology professor at the university. We reached him in Sudbury, Ontario.

CO: Albrecht, the president of Laurentian University says clarity on the school's future is on its way by April 15th. What are your questions? What do you want to hear from him?

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: I'm worried about what is the university going to look like after this CCAA process. We have no clarity on which programs are going to be cut. I'm very concerned about the jobs, faculty jobs that are going to be lost. I'm wondering especially about how the research funds that have gone missing, how are they going to be replenished, I guess.

CO: The CCAA process -- can you tell us briefly what that is?

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: It's basically a process by which the university consolidates its debts and negotiates with its creditors to deal with the insolvency crisis that it finds itself in.

CO: The big issue here is that all the research funding was folded into operating funds and they're all gone, right, or at least you can't access them while this process is going on. So what's happened to your own research funding?

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: Yeah, well, there's two things. One is that up to December 1st, it looks like all of the research funds that people had received prior to that date had been spent as operations, as you mentioned. And then as of December 1st, we were told that the university had actually segregated any newly received research funds. And so it's a bit frustrating that those monies aren't available to us or not easily available. In terms of my own work, you know, obviously there's some money missing. I've got some money coming in that I just can't access because they're telling us that we're only allowed to get research money if it's considered critical. And so critical is defined by the university as having the potential to become disastrous or at a point of crisis. So at this point, we're not sure what's going to happen.

CO: But what does that mean, do you know? Are there examples?

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: Not that I know of.

CO: What kind of research are you doing?

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: I'm an evolutionary ecologist. I work with wildlife. And I have two main research programs, one related to studying wildlife in Algonquin Park that I do in collaboration with the Interior Ministry of Natural Resources. And perhaps more importantly, in this context, I lead a program, training graduate students to do conservation science with zoos across the country.

CO: And are you able to do any of that work?

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: Yes and no. I mean, right now our graduate students are continuing to be paid, which is very important. We don't have access to money to prepare for our summer field research activities. So I'm hoping that after the CCAA process ends at the end of April, that we'll be able to get access to some of the research funding that we have. One of my biggest concerns is that the program that we lead with respect to zoos involves universities across the country. And because Laurentian is the lead institution, the money that pays the graduate students at other universities comes through Laurentian. And it's that money that needs to be sent out to those universities. And right now, we don't know whether that money will be able to go out there.

CO: How much of your research money, the costs that you incurred, how much is it coming out of your own pocket?

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: It's not that much at the moment. I mean, I've spent a few hundred dollars -- don't tell...[chuckles] my spouse wasn't too pleased when she heard about this.

CO: [Laughter] Oh it's a secret here.

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: [Laughter] But yeah. I've sent some samples -- so I have a collaborator at the Toronto Zoo and I had to send faecal samples a couple of times down there. And I've had to buy pipette tips for one of my PhD students here on campus and so on. So right now it's not very large. But normally my research grants would cover these things.

CO: And how much research grant money are you lacking at this point? How much was your grant?

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: It's probably close to a 100,000 dollars, but it's unclear right now what actually is missing and what isn't. You know, the research grants, the way the work is normally we get an annual increment or an annual amount of money. So if you get a five year grant, then every year you get one fifth of that grant. So the big concern now is, okay, some of the money is missing, but as of May 1st, that's when we normally get the next instalment of money. And that's I think at this point what we need to know about, right. We need to know, will we get that money from the grant agencies so that we can carry on with our research?

CO: That must be incredibly frustrating to not know that.

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: Yeah, of course it's frustrating. I don't think I'm surprised that we don't know. I mean, clearly there's this confidential negotiation happening, mediation that's happening right now. I know clearly the university is talking to the granting agencies and they're trying to negotiate what they're going to do. So I'm not surprised that we haven't heard anything. But that doesn't mean that it's not frustrating and maddening that this is all happening at all.

CO: And do you think that there's going to be difficult to recruit students? Do you think that people will lose trust and confidence in Laurentian University?

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: I hope not. I mean, answering this question requires that I engage in some self-preservation. I mean, the university faculty are continuing to do their job. I know so many wonderful scholars that work and teach at the university. There's no doubt that this is going to have a very large impact on our recruitment of undergraduate students, graduate students, and never mind faculty. When we try to replace, you know, retiring faculty, it's going to be very difficult.

CO: Albrecht we'll leave it there. We promise not to tell your wife that you've been paying for your bills out of your own pocket. [Laughter] I'm not sure that we'll be able to keep that. But it's good to talk to you. Thanks so much.

ALBRECHT SCHULTE-HOSTEDDE: Thank you.

CH: Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde is a professor in Laurentian University's Department of Biology. We reached him in Sudbury, Ontario.

[Music: Hip-hop Music]

Platypus Refuge

Guest: Cameron Kerr

CH: The duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed platypus has always looked like a glorious natural accident. But despite its strangeness, it's unfortunately susceptible to the same tribulations as every other animal. The Australian mammal is under threat. And conservationists at the Taronga Zoo in New South Wales aren't waiting around to find out just how much of a threat. The zoo is planning a first-of-it- kind multimillion dollar refuge for platypuses to stave off extinction. Cameron Kerr is the head of the Taronga Conservation Society. We reached him in Sydney, Australia.

CO: Cameron, what is the status of the duck-billed platypus? What's happening to their numbers?

CAMERON KERR: We don't know -- that's the shameful thing. You know, it's an Australian icon and we don't actually know how many there are out there. What we do know is that the numbers have been in significant decline over the last couple of decades based on sightings through community science and scientists looking for them. We also know that 100 years ago in the newspapers, trappers who were interested in their [inaudible] used to be able to catch thousands. And now most Australians are lucky to see a platypus in the wild.

CO: In the introduction, we describe this creature, bill of a duck and tail of a beaver and the feet of otters. What kind of an animal is a platypus?

CK: Yeah, they look very fascinating. And one of my favourites, I have to say, they call them monotreme and they lay eggs, but young like a mammal. So very interesting stage of evolutionary reproduction, that's for sure. And as you say, they're probably half the size of a beaver. They swim in our waterways. They actually swim with their eyes closed. The water is quite muddy in most of Australia's rivers -- you know we don't have a lot of water here [chuckles]. And they pick up their food by electrical impulses through the end of that duck beak. So that beak is incredibly sensitive and it can pick up these tiny electrical impulses from insects in muddy water on the bottom of the river. It's a really fascinating adaption.

CO: Now, this shelter that you're going to provide is an emergency care to the platypus. So what's the danger now? I mean, obviously, the numbers are diminishing. What's the main threat?

CK: I think when populations get down to critical small numbers, is they lose their resilience. So we've had bushfires in Australia for millions of years, particularly over the last couple of hundred thousand years. So they've adapted for bushfires. But when their populations are terribly small and they've gone through long periods of drought so that they're even more vulnerable, that's when you're likely to wipe out a population. And that's exactly the sorts of things that cause what we're seeing now, the sixth mass extinction event, the silent extinction around the globe where populations become small and vulnerable. And then one event, like a fire or a long drought, can just wipe that population out and take out the last viable one. So that's the concern. The platypus refuge is designed to take up to 65 platypus. We found during the bushfires and drought -- the summer of 1920 that we just were inundated with requests for animals in our wildlife hospitals for koala, platypus, many bird species, even bats were falling out of the sky because of the heat. So we need to really build resilience and capacity into our health care system for wildlife. So we're looking to increase the capacity of our hospitals, but also create a specialist refuge in which we can take up to 65 platypus.

CO: It sounds great, except that you point out it's only for a 65 platypus. So what effect can you possibly have on numbers that need to be in the hundreds of thousands for these animals to survive?

CK: Yeah, look, that's how critical it is. So by saving 65 in a location, that's enough that we would be able to re-establish the population in that area if it was to go extinct. We found that some amphibians and other species recently that we found a small population in a river on a farmer's property or something like that of a species that actually scientists thought were extinct, bring them back to the zoo, breed them up, and then reintroduce healthy, genetically viable, larger populations to a habitat that's safe. And this is a little bit like creating insurance populations.

CO: Do you see a place for more refuges like this? I mean, is that something that needs to be done in Australia?

CK: Look, I think what we need to do is prove the concept. First, we haven't cracked the code on the ecology or reproduction of platypus yet. We've had some success breeding platypus, as have a few others. But it's still [inaudible] and not it's not all science. So it's not 100 per cent repeatable. And that's what we need to do. So this refuge will also provide facilities to really understand their ecology, the physiology and importantly their reproduction. Ideally, what we'd like to do is to be able to breed up large populations and then be able to re-wild them.

CO: We have followed stories in your country of the droughts, of those bushfires, just extraordinary extremes that everyone, people and animals are suffering. What are your greatest concerns? Not just about the platypus, but about so many of those iconic animals that you have, not just the iconic ones, but so many of them are endangered at this point, are they not?

CK: Yeah. Look, during the bushfires, we lost three billion Australian native species animals, three billion. And we don't even know what damage has been done to reptile populations, insect populations, which are the building blocks for all biodiversity. So we do know that the Australian environments -- the fires of that range and heat intensity are unusual, but given enough time, the landscape is resilient. It's amazing. I've been out in the bush this week. It's amazing how good it looks. But that's deceiving because there isn't the biodiversity there. Our big existential challenge is climate change reducing the time between major flood events, major fire events and major drought periods. That's the issue.

CO: Cameron, I appreciate you telling us the story and I wish you success with that platypus refuge.

CK: Thank you. And all the best to you in Canada.

CO: You bet. Thank you.

CH: Cameron Kerr is with the Taronga Conservation Society, which is building a platypus refuge to protect the Australian mammal. We reached him in Sydney, Australia.

[Music: Happy Music]

Birdhouses

CH: Over the past few weeks, dozens of small, brightly coloured bird houses have been popping up in unexpected places around Georgetown, Ontario, about an hour northwest of Toronto. And each one includes a message -- and not for birds who can't read, but for people. The bird house idea has taken flight just as the couple behind it had hoped. Carol and Jamie Champ say they spent many hours building 201 birdhouses.

JAMIE CHAMP: People have been pretty good through this pandemic, but people are wearing out. You can see the edges spraying. There's no hugs, there's no dinners. So you run out of things to do. So somehow we put this together, came up with a crazy idea, and we just went ahead with it, trying to generate smiles for the community.

CAROL CHAMP: We felt that good places to put them were under community mailboxes, on the footpath to the parks, nursing homes, schools, the hospital. And our favourite place was the big pile of snow at the end of cul de sacs that the snow plough leaves, Maddie would climb up on top of the snow bank and plop one right on top for the kids to find in the morning.

JAMIE CHAMP: The top of hockey nets that kids put away for the night just drop one in a couple of the hockey nets. 201 numbered birdhouses. They're all numbered units. So people had an idea how many were in play, how many were around the neighbourhood.

CAROL CHAMP: I never expected so much gratitude and happiness and cheer and joy from them. Like, it just was incredible. I wish that we'd made twice as many. If I'd known they were going to be such a hit and we probably would have made more.

JAMIE CHAMP: We did started off anonymously, but we wanted to -- the specific number was to try and generate a buzz, if you don't do enough, you don't create a buzz. We wanted to get more smiles than the 200 smiles. After they were out for about four days. We had to leak out little videos, little pictures, and each one gave a little bit more information about who may have done it. And then, of course, all the noise we made while we were making them, the neighbours started to ask questions.

CAROL CHAMP: So the neighbours started figuring it out. I have the bird house here and on the back side it says, "Take me home and share your pics at #createcommunitycheer." So people were actually -- when they found their birdhouses immediately -- sharing their pictures and leaving beautiful, heartfelt comments. It was amazing. We loved reading them. I spent a good deal of the first day crying, reading them. It's been incredible.

CH: Carol and Jamie Champ speaking with the CBC. The couple, along with their daughter, built more than 200 birdhouses and placed them around Georgetown, Ontario, as a way to create some pandemic cheer.

[Music: Guitar Music]

Wisdom

CH: The conventional wisdom says we shouldn't keep having kids when we hit the age of 70, but wisdom is not conventional. Wisdom is an albatross who is believed to be the world's oldest wild bird. And she's not slowing down. Every two years, Wisdom nests and hatches a new chick. The last time we talked about her on the show was in 2018, when she had what was believed to be her 37 baby albatross. And now, at the age of at least 70, she's just had another one. Beth Flint is amongst the many researchers who've been following Wisdom's life for years. She's a biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. From our archives, here's Carol's interview with Ms. Flint from 2018.

BF: Well it's such a nice intergenerational story. People have been banding, putting metal rings, on albatrosses at Midway Atoll for almost 100 years. And so she was part of one of the early cohorts of birds that were banded by a wonderful scientist named Chandler S. Robbins. Back in 1956 he went out to Midway and banded about 8,400 albatrosses. And then in 2002 when he was already quite old, I can't remember exactly how old he was, because we were working on a new Demography Project to figure out the population structure and survival of albatrosses in the face of all the challenges that they face -- we invited him back out to the colony to see if he could find any of his old friends and to see what his pioneering work had spawned. And so he went out and even though he was a fairly elderly fellow at the time, he was just insatiable. He would go out every day and capture birds and read their bands and record them. And so one of the birds whose bands he read turns out to be this animal that we now call Wisdom.

CO: So I understand Chandler Robbins had first banded this bird Wisdom in 1956 and then found her again when he was out there.

BF: Right.

CO: And now Wisdom has outlived Chandler Robins -- I understand who died in 2017 the age of 98. And so Wisdom you know estimate because of all this is 68 years old and she has had another egg. She's about to have another offspring. Right?

BF: That's correct. She is incubating right now.

CO: 37th (offspring) right?

BF: Well that's just an estimate based on what we know about how often Laysan albatrosses breed. And so she is a little bit exceptional among some of the birds out there in that she has not taken a year off for a number of years. Lots of these birds will skip a year every once in a while perhaps related to a whole body molt or just because it just seems like it's not going to be possible that year because of ocean conditions -- we don't know exactly why. But she has been very steadfast in coming back every year and breeding so that indicates that she has figured out how to make a living in the North Pacific and how to make babies.

CO: [Chuckles] As a human the thought of having another chick at the age of 68 would not appeal. But we know her to be the oldest known wild bird. But we don't know if she is the oldest wild bird. But now don't albatrosses take on partners for life? Don't they have mates that they stay with through all of their years?

BF: Yes. That is the belief. Now we certainly have the situation where one of the pair fails to come back because it's been killed at sea by interacting with long line fishery or some kind of mishap that causes one of the pair to be no longer available. And then they will re-pair and find a new mate. But sometimes it takes a couple of years because they wait and then they have to go through the courtship and pair bonding that they would have with a new mate. But both members of the pair are affiliated or tied to a nest site and that's how they find each other each year.

CO: And does Wisdom have a mate that she comes back with?

BF: Yes Wisdom has a mate that was first banded and identified in 2006 so presumably she has had other mates previous but we don't know as much about them yet -- they weren't banded birds and again we weren't tracking her life as closely. But her mate now also has a name Akeakamai which is a really nice Hawaiian word that means 'lover of wisdom.' I like that name [chuckles].

CO: Are you hoping, expecting, to see Wisdom back next year?

BF: We definitely always hope because she has provided a wonderful insight into longevity and albatrosses that also because so many people in the world take notice each year and pay attention to these beautiful national wildlife refuges and the albatross populations up there because of her. So yeah we would hate to see her not show up.

CO: Albatross is the subject of poetry and literature and song and everything. Just magnificent creatures. Ms. Flint I really appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

BF: Well thank you so much.

CO: Bye.

CH: Beth Flint is a biologist with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. We reached her in 2018 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

[Music: Pop Music]

Fredrik Eaton

CH: In its day, Eaton's was the biggest and most famous department store chain in Canada, credited with changing the way Canadians shopped. And Fredrik Eaton was steeped in its history. He'd grown up watching his grandfather run the business. Mr. Eaton went on to run Eaton's in Toronto from 1977 to 1988, expanding its reach from Toronto to Montreal and Winnipeg, and he saw it to its end when the last store closed in 1999. Fredrik Eaton died last month at the age of 82 at his home in Caledon, Ontario. From our archives, here is Fredrik Eaton speaking with former As It Happens host, Dennis Trudeau, in 1982 about the cancellation of that year's Eaton's Santa Claus Parade.

DENNIS TRUDEAU: When you were a boy, Mr. Eaton, did you go downtown in Toronto to watch the Santa Claus Parade?

FREDRIK EATON: You bet I did. My earliest memory of Santa Claus is he used to come in the Queen Street store into the second floor and come through a window. And my father in those days used to greet him, as my brother does today. And I remember my brother and I being introduced to him, and I was really thrilled that Santa Claus worked for my father.

DENNIS TRUDEAU: How does it feel to be the man who lays Santa Claus off from the Santa Claus parade?

FREDRIK EATON: Well, we're not laying Santa off. Santa is going to be around. I guess he'll be around long after I am gone anyway. But yes, the parade, I feel very sad about it.

DENNIS TRUDEAU: Why are you doing this?

FREDRIK EATON: Well, the parade is a casualty of these economic times. And at a time when we're having layoffs of people who work for us full-time, things like that, it's just time to look at all the other expenses in the company. And one of them, which is fairly obvious, was the Santa Claus Parade. And we finally decided that we'd have to cancel it.

DENNIS TRUDEAU: When was the first Eaton's sponsored Santa Claus parade?

FREDRIK EATON: The first one was in 1905, and it was actually two in those days. There was one in Winnipeg and one in Toronto. The Winnipeg parade lasted until 1967. And there was a parade in Montreal from 1925 when we arrived in Montreal through till 1968. And so that at one time there were three Santa Claus parades. And eventually there was only the one in Toronto. And I'm afraid now that one's gone.

DENNIS TRUDEAU: You're invoking tough economic times as a cause for laying off the Santa Claus Parade. How much does it cost to put on a parade like that?

FREDRIK EATON: Well, the numbers are difficult to ascertain because there's an awful lot of people who do what amounts to work for which they do not get paid -- volunteer work, there is a tremendous amount of that has built up over the years with the parade because people like working with the parade. And I don't know what that would cost if somebody had to put a number to it. But our numbers that we have on putting it together, getting it, are significant.

DENNIS TRUDEAU: What is significant to a store the size of Eaton's?

FREDRIK EATON: You know, if you look after your nickels and dimes, you're well on the way to looking after your dollars. And we think we just have to put those expenses into more useful and profitable things, things such as building new stores, creating new jobs for people.

DENNIS TRUDEAU: You're going to be building new stores and creating new jobs in these tough economic times?

FREDRIK EATON: Yeah, we opened a store in Markville in Toronto which is this spring. And next week we'll be down in Sarnia opening the Sarnia Eaton Centre. So we're still expanding in difficult times.

DENNIS TRUDEAU: Eatons have always played their numbers pretty close to their chest, Mr. Eaton. But you're not going to tell us then how much it costs to run a Santa Claus parade after 77 years of doing it?

FREDRIK EATON: That's right.

DENNIS TRUDEAU: Do you feel a little bit like the Grinch who stole Christmas?

FREDRIK EATON: That's what everybody says. I just feel sorry that we had to do it. And I wish we hadn't. But that's a casualty of these economic times, I'm afraid.

CH: That was Fredrik Eaton speaking with former As It Happens host, Dennis Trudeau, in 1982. Mr. Eaton who oversaw the Eaton's department store chain and its eventual collapse, has died at the age of 82.

March 8, 2021 Episode Transcript

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