Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2021

The Current Transcript for July 8, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

It was like every Christmas day as a child times a thousand. I get goosebumps thinking about that because I was so worried that I would never get the chance.

MARK KELLEY: Ah, yes, the feeling of a hug, a little squeeze, a big bear hug, a tender embrace. Whatever way you want to go about it. Many of us can now touch our loved ones again after more than a year of social distancing. We'll hear from huggers and non huggers on what it feels like to wrap our arms around each other again. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

We are in a state of confusion right now in Haiti. There is no legal pathways to escape the situation that you are living right now. There is no legal- it's nothing in the books.

MK: Haiti is suddenly a nation without a president after the assassination of Jovenel Moise shot dead in his home in a country wracked by violence and upheaval. In an hour, more on the political and humanitarian crisis there. But first, a workplace in Winnipeg in turmoil over accusations of espionage. I'm Mark Kelly. You're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Mysterious firing at high-security lab points to larger issues, say former colleagues

Guests: Karen Pauls, Christian Leuprecht

MK: Dr. Xianggou Qiu and her biologist husband Keding Cheng, were both escorted from the national microbiology lab in Winnipeg two years ago. They were then fired last January with no explanation. There has been speculation ever since about the possibility of international espionage. Lots of questions and deflections about the case in parliament. The case is under RCMP investigation. The whole saga raises questions about the Winnipeg lab, intelligence sharing and Canada's policies on foreign students. And now two former colleagues of Dr. Qiu are speaking out and sharing new pieces of the puzzle. The CBC's Karen Pauls has been tracking the story. She joins me now. Good morning, Karen.

KAREN PAULS: Good morning.

MK: You've been talking to some of the people who knew and worked with Dr. Chou. What are they telling you?

KAREN PAULS: Well, Mark, they're saying that the story is not quite what we've heard up till now, that Dr. Xiangguo Qiu is not a spy. We spoke to Gary Kobinger, who is her former boss at the national microbiology lab. They work together on the Ebola vaccine that saved thousands of lives in Africa earlier in this decade. They got international acclaim. She's a star. She's a star scientist. And he spoke to her after she and her husband and all of her students were evicted from the lab. He told us a little bit about that conversation. Here's what he had to say. Take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

I know a character. I know that she's a very ethical person. She has a very strong work ethic. I know she has put her life on the line to help people in Africa, the career on the lines of people in Africa. And she's never done anything, in my view, that would have compromised, you know, anything in terms of the institution for which she worked. She was a very loyal person at the time she was there. You know, from her own words to me, she told me like, this is a misunderstanding and I don't know why I was walked out of the building. She didn't understand. She was from the bottom of her heart saying that this is a misunderstanding. They are going to realise that's what it is. And I don't know that she was necessarily expecting apologies or anything like this, but she thought really that it was OK to look into this and that people will come back and tell her at least come back to work.

MK: Dr. Qiu and her husband, as we mentioned, are both under RCMP investigation. Also, questions about a shipment of viruses Dr. QIu sent to Wuhan, China. What does Gary Kobinger think is happening here?

KAREN PAULS: Right. Well, I'll get to the shipment. But even before that, there was something else happening. And I got some of this information through a tip travel reports. I found that Dr. Qiu had been travelling back to China regularly between twenty, seventeen and 18 to help set up the level four lab in Wuhan, China. That would be the counterpart to the one in Winnipeg capable of dealing with the most dangerous pathogens in the world. She was training scientists and technicians. She was sharing best practises and operating procedures. And Kobinger says that's what got flagged initially. There were concerns that she was sharing biosafety information that might be proprietary to the Winnipeg lab and might provide a bit of a security conflict, a vulnerability, you know, giving insight into what was happening at the lab here. So the shipment of Ebola and Minnipa viruses came after that, after she'd been back and forth to set up that lab. And it's important to note, actually, that the shipment was questioned by her superiors in those eight documents. They asked, who wanted this shipment? Why did they want it? Why did Winnipeg have to send it? Couldn't they get it from someplace else? Ultimately, though, that shipment was approved. It went on an Air Canada flight to Beijing and then on to Wuhan. That particular piece of the story is generating a lot of conspiracy theories. And I have to add here that there were no coronaviruses in that shipment and neither of the viruses sent have anything to do with this covid-19 pandemic.

MK: But sharing best practises, that sounds kind of benign. Is that why she and her husband were fired?

KAREN PAULS: Well, according to Kobinger, not quite. After those trips to China, the public health agency also discovered her name on two patents registered by Chinese agencies on technologies that were sort of related to the work she was doing at the lab in Winnipeg. Now, the public health agency and the lab were not on those patents, which means Canada would have a really hard time getting any royalties associated with sales of that if it ever went to market.

MK: So so the issue there is this this could be a conflict of interest.

KAREN PAULS: Exactly. I mean, if you're a federal public servant and you invent something, Ottawa owns it. You don't. So you're not allowed to file for a patent overseas without the minister's permission. I've asked the public health agency, we don't know if that happened here or not, but give. The concern it raised probably not. Now, interestingly, Kobinger says that Qiu told him she didn't know her names were on those patents and she actually found the second one and flagged it to the public health agency herself. He says the agency handled this all really badly and all of this could have been avoided with a little better communication and transparency. Take a listen to what he says.

SOUNDCLIP

When you don't have an open channel of communication, it gets out of hand. And I think that's where we are. We are into a two year investigation by the RCMP that is not concluding. We are in the unfortunate situation where the public health agency is not sharing there is not sharing their findings to the Department of Canada. I mean, this is this is unheard of to me above all this. I'll tell you what I'm very worried about is that this lack of transparency is going to undermine confidence and trust of the public and to those institution and into those processes.

MK: OK, so that's the intellectual property part of this story. But what about the Chinese scientist, Dr Qiu students? They were also evicted from the lab. What does the Gary Coleman Jr. say about that?

KAREN PAULS: Well, I mean, he points out that Canada likes to attract brilliant foreign students. It's good for our research. It's good for our universities. The best and the brightest studying and working here. It's also a good form of income for universities. But in this case, there are concerns about how at least one of them and possibly more got access to the lab with some affiliations that are a little troubling.

MK: What kind of affiliations are we talking about here?

KAREN PAULS: Well, one of the students named Feihu Yan has published work on behalf of the Academy for Military Sciences in China.

MK: So what makes that a problem?

KAREN PAULS: Well, it is a research arm of the People's Liberation Army of China. It defends the Communist Party's interests. And it's well known to have a bio weapons research programme. So Canada doesn't want that sort of work happening in its lab. And just to be really clear, we don't know what Feihu Yan was doing in the Winnipeg lab. The public health agency won't tell us, but we do know that he does research on Ebola and Lassa viruses, which are both deadly to humans and classified as possible bio weapons concerns.

MK: So how does somebody with those kinds of affiliations then end up in the Winnipeg lab?

KAREN PAULS: Well, and that's the big question. The lab does have to follow federal government steps for three levels of security clearance and anybody working there needs that. The you know, the cleaning staff to the scientists, everybody, the lowest levels for jobs requiring unsupervised access to protected information, assets or facilities like the lab is called reliability status. Now, that looks at whether someone's honest and can be trusted to sort of protect the employer's interests. The next levels are secret and top secret clearance. Both of those categories assess a person's loyalty to Canada and determine whether they might be involved in anything that could constitute a threat to the security of Canada. And they involve deep background checks by CSIS and the RCMP that go back, you know, 10 years. And they also include a loyalty to Canada tests.

MK: I didn't even know something like that existed. A loyalty card. OK, so the checks are there. But still, how did Chinese military affiliated scientists get access to that lab?

KAREN PAULS: Well, I mean, there are all kinds of different ways to get into the lab. I've gotten into the lab on a visitor's pass which can be approved within days. There's that reliability status also has a category of limitations. So you could go in, get unsupervised access. But limitations to things like the I.T., the network, the government, email the scientific network inside the lab, where all the scientists are sharing data and information plugged into all the technology. But I've been told by people inside the lab that those limitations are sometimes ignored. They come in, the students come in under that status, but once they get there, their supervisor might say, oh, you know, they need email and they need to be able to access this information. So can we just get them hooked up? And that takes place locally on the ground without any of those extra background checks by the RCMP and CSIS. And so I spoke to another scientist who used to work at the national microbiology lab. He was there for more than a decade. And he believes that some of Qiu's students were fast tracked by management because she needed them in the lab quickly to work on the research that she was doing. She didn't want to have to wait six months or maybe years to get them cleared. So here's a little bit of what that scientist told me. And Mark, we're not identifying him. He's concerned about his livelihood. Someone else is reading his words. So here's some of what he said.

SOUNDCLIP

So for them to get security clearance, they have to do ten years of their history. And then the RCMP and CSIS calls that government and finds out if they are who they say they are. That's why some international ones take so long. And that's also another reason why, again, the upper management will sometimes skirt around that in order to keep science going. I've worked at NML long enough that you see people wandering around where they shouldn't be just because it's a chaperone. Generally, you're not with that person all the time. You'll send them to the lab, they'll do their work, you'll be in your office and then they can walk around and do what they want. If you have a bunch of people coming in and you have management which is not very keen on managing and just sort of doing what they want. This could be something that fell through the cracks without question. NML, they have a lot of problems that they're trying to cover up. It would not surprise me at all if they don't want to release the information because it's going to show how incompetent upper management was. They're scapegoating on Qiu. Why? Because they don't want to lose their jobs.

MK: So, Karen, what does Canada's public health agency have to say about all this?

KAREN PAULS: Not much. I mean, the department says it can't share information without permission now from the attorney general or the federal courts. Opposition politicians have been demanding these answers for months in the House of Commons, but the agency is refusing to release uncensored documents with some of those answers. And the federal government is actually taking this to court now to get those documents sealed, saying they could have national security implications or privacy concerns.

MK: What about CSIS and the RCMP? Have they told you anything while you were investigation on this? I have a hunch the answer will be no.

KAREN PAULS: Mark, you know, this these this will never confirm or deny anything to do with its cases. The RCMP won't comment on ongoing investigation.

MK: And what about Dr. Qiu? Where where is she? What does she have to say?

KAREN PAULS: We'd love to talk to her. We don't know exactly where she is. I visited her home in Winnipeg several times. The last time I visited someone answered the door, wouldn't confirm where they are. But I said that he would get a message to them where wherever they are.

MK: And if they're listening, you're still waiting for them.

KAREN PAULS: We would love to hear from them. The mystery may only be solved when she comes forward to tell her story or those uncensored documents are released.

MK: OK, Karen, great work. Keep up the digging and we'll be following this story along with you.

KAREN PAULS: Thank you.

MK: That was CBC national reporter Karen Pauls. Well, in 2020, more than 500,000 international students held study permits for Canada. And of course, most of those don't have access to sensitive information, but it's something that government agencies and universities are taking notice of. Christian Leuprecht is a professor at the Royal Military College at Queen's University, who's also a senior fellow at the MacDonald Laurier Institute. Good morning.

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Good morning, Mark.

MK: Christine. What you've heard our discussion with Karen and her investigation. What do you make of what Dr. Chu's former colleagues have had to say about this?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: I think a useful way to start the conversation might be with a quote from the most recent unredacted public report that the Kenyan Secret Intelligence Service issued, and it reads like this: "China and Russia also target non-governmental organisations in Canada, including academic institutions, the private sector and civil society. In 2020, the People's Republic of China, Russia and other foreign states continue to covertly gather political, economic and military information in Canada through targeted threat activities in support of their own state development goals. To accomplish this, these states take advantage of the collaborative, transparent and open nature of Canada's government, economy and society, often using non-traditional collectors, including those with little or no formal intelligence training, such as researchers, private entities and other third parties to collect information and expertise of value on behalf of these states." I would say what we see here is a tension between the research culture of the Winnipeg lab. They had some world class researchers and inherently anything that's government funded needs to show that it is performing and is providing value for money for the government of Canada and for Canadian taxpayers and the national security components of the lab. And in Canada, we have not had the sort of national security culture baked into government, the way the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom has. So as a result, here, it appears that people in management made a decision that the research culture should take precedence over the national security culture. And that meant that management had at least some responsibility for skirting the security protocols that are standard in the government of Canada. When people are hired into particular positions and depending on what the position at the institution which they were into, which they are hired. I would also say that what we have here is perhaps a misunderstanding of the obligations that federal civil servants have when they conduct research on behalf of the government of Canada that is funded by Canadian taxpayers and are very specific and very clear rules that all employees are aware of in terms of the intellectual property that they generate. Employees of the Wuhan Lab are not professors. They do not have academic freedom. They are employees of the federal government. And so they need to follow the processes in place and so what we see here is is inherently problematic, especially in the lab that was built with French cooperation. But where we know that since it was open in 2017, the assurances that China had given France in terms of collaboration have not been met and that France has had no access to this lab. So that would have been already some awareness by Sis's that there are challenges around the collaboration with the world and not by the international community.

MK: So for you, I can hear that the alarm bells are certainly ringing. And I read recently that Alberta's government has asked its research universities to put a pause on any new partnerships with links to the Chinese government. Do you think that that's a move that that more institutions should be making now or is that an overreaction?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: The I've written as early as 2018 about the collaboration by Canadian universities with highly problematic institutions in China. There is a lengthy and detailed report from that year by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute detailing the many problematic collaborations that universities around the world have. Canada, however, stood out as having three universities in the top 10 in terms of the nature of the quantity and the quality of problematic collaborations by Canadian researchers with Chinese institutions that are considered exceptionally high risk of adopting those collaborations for the purpose of dual use technology and potentially weaponize those collaborations.

MK: In 2019 alone, there were 140,000 Chinese international students in Canada. So how do you avoid casting suspicion on those students, bringing their valuable research and ideas to Canada, something that this country wants and is trying to encourage?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: It is important that we distinguish between Chinese nationals and the Chinese regime. It is also important that we distinguish different types of research. There are many areas where we have common interests with China. Think of climate change, for instance. But we want to ensure that we work together in terms of making this world a cleaner place and a more sustainable place. Yet when we work in areas that lend themselves to the adaptation for dual use technologies such as biosecurity, which is precisely why the Winnipeg lab as class is classified as a Level four lab and there are only four dozen or so of these labs in the world. Or when we work in areas that are directly related, for instance, to highly sensitive intelligence or defence research, we need to be a much more conscientious in terms of the potential risk that nationals from countries that at times can behave rather hostile and adversarial towards Canada may be looking to capitalise because these are very complex technologies, especially biosecurity. And so if you're trying to get ahead, one really way to do that is to try to adopt intellectual property improperly. And we know that China has the Chinese regime has at times had a track record where it exfiltrate data from universities in improper ways. I point to the 2018 exfiltration of a massive data heap from the Australian National University, which is not just a university, but has a special mandate to serve the Commonwealth government in Australia. So we know that research entities with particular relation to democratic allied governments, Australia, Canada may be a direct target by the Chinese regime and its security, intelligence and defence institutions.

MK: This story clearly not over yet. What are you expecting next? What do you want to hear next? I'm sorry. And we've only got about 30 seconds, so I'll put you on the spot there. But just let us know what's the big piece that's missing piece here?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: I think we need to taking a national security culture into the federal government, into the way the federal government spends its billions of dollars in research funding through the tri councils. And we need to make sure that Canadian universities in general and the unified research universities in Canada step up and realise that we are being a target of foreign espionage by adversarial states and need to ensure that we have the proper security protocols for both personnel data as well as intellectual property that is being generated in place to avoid exfiltration.

MK: Christian, great to get your perspective on this very important story. Thank you so much for your time.

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: It's been my pleasure. Thank you, Mark.

MK: Christian Leuprecht is a professor at the Royal Military College in Queen's University, also a senior fellow at the MacDonald Laurier Institute and editor in chief of the Canadian Military Journal. He also has a new book coming out called Intelligence as Democratic Statecraft. The CBC News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

We were kind of all standing apart at first, going like, 'Is it okay, you know, are we going to do this?' And then it was actually... we started with this hug, and it was crazy. It was very overwhelming. We were not letting go and it was just amazing. There was lots of tears and actually I'm crying now, just thinking about it.

MK: That said, you and Giovanna Boniface of North Vancouver describing what it was like to hug your cousin Sandra after months of pandemic separation. In six minutes, we'll hear from others about what it feels like to get up close and personal again. I'm Mark Kelley. You're listening to The Current.

'A sensory overload of joy': Vaccinated Canadians embracing the chance to hug their loved ones again

Guests: Suzanne Deggers-White, Alexis Block

MK: Hello, I'm Mark Kelley, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MK: Still to come, Haiti is in turmoil after the assassination of president, Jovenel Moise. In 30 minutes, we'll take a closer look at what that means for the country and the region. But first, what it feels like to be a little less socially distant.

[Music: Theme]

MK: Well, it's the moment so many of us have been waiting for. Millions of Canadians have now had a double shot of the covid vaccine, which means social isolation is out and hugging back in. Jonathan Appotive recently drove from Toronto to Ottawa to visit his parents, sister and nieces. Take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

So when I pulled in, I called them when I was about two minutes away from the house and they were all waiting to greet me. And in fact, my mother just told me today that when I was pulling up to the driveway, my youngest niece, Emily, she is five years old, she looked at my mom and said, can we hug? Is it OK to hug? She was hesitant. Mom said, Yeah, of course it is. So soon as I parked there in Tunisia, Laura and Emily ran up to me, give me huge bags, in fact, my youngest. And he said, I'm going to squeeze you so hard, I'm going to break your bones. And then my parents followed and the first hugs were a bit longer. Obviously, it was so nice to give them big hugs and reconnect because obviously it's a lot better than FaceTime and Zoom. And it was nice to see them in person for the first time in so long.

MK: And for people with family in long term care homes, the first hug was especially sweet. Jude Hanna of Vancouver got to hug her 97 year old mother, Suzanne. After so many visits separated by plexiglass.

SOUNDCLIP

It was like every Christmas day as a child, times a thousand. I get goosebumps just thinking about that because I was so worried that I would never get the chance. She squeeze my hand. She brought my hand to her lips. She kissed my hand and she looked at me and she started to cry. Now she has advanced dementia, so she doesn't always know exactly who I am. But she knows a hug. She remembers what a hug feels like and she's bounced back a little bit. She was really grumpy during those prison visits. She wouldn't speak. And now she looks at me and she says, my baby. And I hug her and I hug her and I whisper in her her ear how much I love her and I cherish every single moment.

MK: You know, this is one of those things you probably never thought about very much until we were all told we weren't allowed to hug. And keeping our hands off our loved ones for over a year has been hard, as you could hear there. And there's actually a scientific reason why research shows that hugging has health benefits. Suzanne Degges-White is a chair and professor of counselling and higher education at Northern Illinois University. She joins us this morning. Hi, Suzanne.

SUZANNE DEGGES-WHITE: Good morning.

MK: You know, you are listening along and my gosh, just the importance that value so much that we get from the hugs. Explain that to us. What are we getting? What is this physiological benefit we're getting from these hugs?

SUZANNE DEGGES-WHITE: Well, the magic thing about hugs is it's an emotional overload, it's a physical overload, and it is just a sensory overload of joy. We as humans, we come into this world and the first thing we look for is comfort from another. Human babies like to be swaddled. We all need that big bear hug because hugs are able to lower our blood pressure. They slow our heart rate. They calm our nervous system. They spur production of oxytocin, which is that bonding hormone. So there are a lot of things happening when we get wrapped in a hug with someone we care about.

MK: As I was saying at the outset, we probably didn't know how badly we were missing these hugs. And until we didn't get them any more, has there been sort of something pent up in us that we don't even realise that we're craving that touch?

SUZANNE DEGGES-WHITE: Yeah, absolutely. If you think about being on a diet and there's some food you totally adore in the day, you decide, OK, I'm going to treat myself when you take that first bite. I mean, it's an experience of all the senses, emotional, like emotional, physiological. You know, some things we do that are good for us physically. You take your blood pressure pill every day that's helping keep your blood pressure down. But there's no emotional attachment to that act. But when we haven't hugged for so long, it's just like this. It's almost like an oxytocin flood in our bodies because it feels so good. We've gone so long. And that first hug opens up the floodgates to all these feelings that you didn't realise you were just avoiding. You know, we all dealt with it in a different way. In the beginning, we felt it acutely. But then you kind of get used to this new way of being. But just because we get used to being on a diet doesn't mean we can't wait till we can indulge again. And one of our favourite things and for us is that touch with humans. You know, human, we survived as a species because we'd bond together. We share warmth. We would work together to build buildings, we'd work together to fight off enemies, and so that need for connexion is so strong in this part of the survival of the species and part of our emotional survival.

MK: Well, I like the diet analogy. And from that I would get that the the short term boost. You know, you're taking that bite. You're feeling that connection in that hug. But what about are there longer term benefits to it, to our physical and emotional health through hugging?

SUZANNE DEGGES-WHITE: Yeah, absolutely. For instance, when we talk about hugging, if we get they say a hug a day, it's fine. There's always these magic numbers of things. We like to imagine that we can just you and in the idea of medicine. Well, if I get my four hugs a day, I'm going to be fine. But ideally, we do need physical touch every day because it does keep us calmer. It keeps us connected to others. And social support is the most important thing to longevity and to healthy living. All research points to the need for social connexion. And when we see someone in pain, when we reach out for that person, when we want to give a comforting touch to another person, the magic part about that is, is it also feeds our soul. And so that constant daily touch keeps us from going into that sense of kind of hug deprivation. Because when we don't get that hug, that attention, that affection from others, we feel isolated. We think about elderly people who are in assisted care facilities being very isolated, that there's loneliness attached, that there's stress and anxiety remain high because we're not getting that comfort that touch can bring. And also anxiety and depression and sleep disruptions have been connected to hug deprivation, touch deprivation, connexion starvation. Basically said that we need that daily. It's like the blood pressure pills. You don't know what's happened then. You take it every day and you feel all right. You stop taking it and symptoms show up. And that's what happened for everyone last March.

MK: Yeah, well, let's hear from another person who was dealing with hug deprivation, as you call it. It had been two years since Olivia Saunders had hugged her aunt Julia, who lives in Venezuela. Here are Olivia and her mom, Johanna, talking about what it was like when Julia finally finished quarantining in a room in their house in Brooklyn, Ontario.

SOUNDCLIP

JULIA: And it was kind of like it wasn't real kind of, because I felt like I hadn't seen her in a while. So I kind of felt like it was unreal. As soon as I came downstairs, she came out of her room and we just went and hugged each other.

JOHANNA: When her quarantine was over and she, like, burst out and it was like so exciting.

JULIA: It was amazing because I haven't seen her in two years.

MK: Olivia, she's just 12 years old. And, you know, obviously, this pandemic has taken a big chunk of her childhood. Tell us, Suzanne, about how you think this lack of hugging would affect kids, because we always equate, you know, kids with hugging the kids.

SUZANNE DEGGES-WHITE: Yeah, we always want to hug the kids. And kids are such sensory little creatures. And we have to remember that skin is our largest organ. It protects it's a protective barrier, but it's also how we gather information. And so for a year, little kids, as they're developing and learning about connexion and relationships, emotional development is attached to that. It's been a hard year for kids because their biggest organ of gathering information wasn't able to be used during this time when kids are all about learning about the world. So there's research now saying toddlers may have been affected by this because they didn't learn how to interact in social situations with people wearing masks. They didn't learn how to read for nonverbal cues as well as we would have had we not gone a year wearing masks to cover up our half our faces. And so we don't know exactly what this hug deprivation will mean for kids. But the idea that the magic thing about hugging it kind of gives us this short term memory loss. It's like after a child is born and after, you know, going through 24 hours of labour, if you're a woman or just, you know, watching your wife suffer, your partner suffer when that oxytocin floods, it does give us a little bit of, kind of it undoes our memory. It kind of dissolves our short term memory. So we're focussed on that moment. And so hopefully the body is we found that we're easily adaptable. We're able to handle totally new protocols for living and engaging with others. And we are amazingly flexible and responsive. And so as we go into this new space, hopefully this the benefits of oxytocin dissolving short term memories, our ability to focus on the present and to recognise how important others are to us that those feelings will overshadow any kind of remaining negative effects of this year, where physical touch became something that it wasn't just stranger danger, it was danger. We felt danger touching anyone, even those we cared about and loved and knew.

MK: Well, let me play another clip for you. This is a Cindy Graham and Margaret McKellar from Toronto. And they were overcome with emotion after going sixteen months without hugging each other because they didn't. Realise how much they had been missing it.

SOUNDCLIP

CINDY: We went into the kitchen to drop off some food and I just turned to her and I was like, we could have a hug now. And so we have a hug and burst into tears that it was dramatic.

MARGARET: It was like relief and I don't know, feeling grounded and being able to breathe again and feeling connected. I'm going to cry again. I've been crying all day thinking about it. So for me.

CINDY: I think we're both a little bit surprised. I didn't realise what a loss it was, the lack of touch over the last 16 months. It has really had a profound impact on how I feel about my connection with my friends and my family. And I mean, we all joked that I was a hugger before, like, look out because. I will always now hug when I arrive and hug when I leave. If people are comfortable because you never know if it's going to be the last time.

MK: But the interesting thing here, and I want to ask you about this, is that not all of us have been vaccinated. And that could create a situation where someone who's vaccinated, somebody who's not some people may be a little freaked out about the notion of of hugging again. Now, what do we do about that?

SUZANNE DEGGES-WHITE: You know, everyone I think that what the pandemic told us was that everyone takes public health a little differently and my personal health is connected to everyone else's and public health is connected to me. And so we really have to be aware of what it means to us if we want to stretch a boundary and say, OK, I'm vaccinated, you're not. I'm going to give you a hug. But if you're going to say unvaccinated, you're not. I have to put this off a little while longer. Then we have to do what we feel is right. Health decisions. I mean, when it comes down to it, we're going to find a way. We want to make sure that we meet all our needs but survival. And that's what, you know, this covid has made us all great, more greatly aware, acutely aware of how tentative survival is and how there are enemies. We don't see they can that can and dangerous. And so hopefully we'll see more and more people get vaccinated, will hopefully recognise that that's the safest way back to the new normal, whatever that looks like. But right now, folks are going to have to make their own decisions about if they're vaccinated, what are they willing to trust. And I don't make calls for other people's health decisions. I just know what's in the best interest of the people I care about.

MK: And when you talk about the new normal, I wonder, will hugging still be what it was prepandemic?

SUZANNE DEGGES-WHITE: EI think that for for the amazing feeling. I think that emotional overload, just hearing these folks talk about this, you can feel that emotion because we're all being touched by what they're feeling. And I think the need for humans to connect. I mean, like I said, that that's a primaeval need. That's something that got us to where we are. So I think we may be more aware of risk involved. They might be part of us, of our upper level thinking. But when it comes down to the heart, I think folks are going to are going to need to continue to connect with those big old bear hugs. They feed the soul. They heal. They provide support against illness. They help us live longer. The benefits of it are so strong and we know it intuitively. You know, we how good it feels to get a hug. And I think that being wise, you know, being thoughtful, attentive to the science, I mean, that's all that we really a science got us to where we are with so many things in our in our life now. I think we need to kind of follow that and do what we feel is right for us and not try to impose our views on others if we're those who don't feel that we're at risk. And the important thing is checking to see if someone's been vaccinated before you hug them. You know, if someone says, oh, I'm not sick, you know, take care of yourself, care for yourself first, that's key.

MK: Suzanne, I hope you've got your big hug, somebody giving you a hug or you've given it up because you've certainly made me rethink all that's in a hug. And I appreciate that. Thank you for your time this morning.

SUZANNE DEGGES-WHITE: My pleasure.

MK: Suzanne Degges-White, his chair and professor of counselling and higher education at Northern Illinois University. So I know what you're thinking right now. What's the robot angle to this story? Well, it turns out robots could also become part of the future of hugging. Alexis Block is a PhD candidate in the haptic intelligence department with the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany. She's been working on something called Huggiebot. She joins us this morning from L.A.. Good morning, Alexis.

ALEXIS BLOCK: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

MK: A pleasure to have you on. Now, you've got me curious, what exactly is Huggiebot?

ALEXIS BLOCK: Well, Huggiebot is a robot that I've been working on for the last about five years and it is a completely novel, human sized interactive hugging robot with visual and haptic perception.

MK: OK, explain that to me in layman's term. What are some of the features, what am I looking at here.

ALEXIS BLOCK: So you're looking at a robot that can see a user in front of them, can estimate their height and detect someone walking towards it and it can adjust automatically and and accommodate your different body size and shape to give you a comfortable and secure embrace that doesn't hold you to tight, but also doesn't hold you to loose. And it can respond. If you rub the robots back or pat or squeeze the robot, it can tell that you're performing these actions and it can respond to you in a similar manner and it will release you whenever you're ready. So it will hold on to you for as long as you need that support. And the good thing that I think about robot hugs is there's a total lack of social judgement. It's a big thing that came up during my six different user studies that I've conducted in the past five years. A lot of people say that one of the best things about hugging this robot is they know the robot isn't judging them. If they need a very tight hug, if they need a very long hug, it's just there to provide them with the support that they need.

MK: Yeah, I know what you mean. There's always that moment where you think maybe this hug has gone on a little too long, so we dispense with that. So now, Alexis, you got me. I understand the what, explain to me the why.

ALEXIS BLOCK: Well, it's exactly what your wonderful previous guest just talked about. There are tremendous benefits to hugs. It's improving your oxytocin levels, lowering your cortisol levels, alleviating stress and anxiety, lowering your blood pressure. All of these benefits are provided because of what's called deep pressure touch therapy. This is the kind of touch that you receive from someone hugging you very firmly. And as she mentioned, there are there are detrimental effects on our physical and emotional well-being. If we don't have hugs in our life, it can cause depression and mental health problems, lower our self-esteem, lower our pain thresholds, and even result in an inability or a difficulty in forming relationships. So I was thinking, well, what if you can't get a hug from the person that you really want and embrace from why does this beneficial touch need to come from another person? And could we supplement it with another source?

MK: And yeah. So that's what I'm wondering, too, because it's one thing when you're, you know, as we've heard the testimonies from people, they're talking about hugging a family member that they haven't seen in a long time. You know, an old friend you haven't seen in a while, that all makes sense to me. But will I really get that same all those benefits from hugging a robot?

ALEXIS BLOCK: So there's a difference between, of course, hugging someone that you have a very deep, personal, strong emotional connexion with. And I would never claim that a robot would be capable of replicating that kind of connection. But I do think based on my research, that the benefit and enjoyment that people receive from hugging a robot are not that far away from what you would get from hugging another person with whom you don't have as strong of a personal connection. And so a main point of my research is that I view this technology as a supplement, not a replacement from real human physical connection. So it's meant to use when obtaining the comfort from another person is either difficult or or impossible.

MK: So take me into your research, because I'm trying to picture now. I usually I work in television. I'm always thinking in pictures. I'm trying to picture your you're you're the people are helping you with your research, coming into your lab and coming face to face with the robot. And then you say, all right, hug it out. I mean, how do people feel about that when they're when they're staring down a robot?

ALEXIS BLOCK: Well, people come in with very different attitudes and very different reasons for wanting to participate. I recently conducted a large scale user study in the midst of the pandemic, and I had many people. Emailing me, saying, I am so excited, I saw a flyer about your research. I haven't hugged someone in a year. I don't care what it's from. I just need a hug. So there are some people who are really craving that kind of physical touch and are looking forward to it. On the other hand, I have some people who come to participate because they're merely curious. And you can tell there's maybe initially a little hesitancy towards hugging a robot. It's a pretty strange idea, if you think about it. Maybe not a very common one. But what I found usually my studies are somewhat on the longer side. An hour, an hour and a half. The last one was actually three and a half hours. So over the course of spending time with the robot and interacting with it over a prolonged period, people calm down, they relax, they get accustomed to the robot. And what I found is that over this prolonged interaction, people end up really enjoying it, overcoming any initial hesitancies that they have. And by the end, they have pretty positive opinions about the idea of hugging a robot and my robot hug about itself.

MK: I you know, obviously during the pandemic, there was so much isolation, so many of us were were, you know, hunkering down at home. And I could see the need for something like Huggiebot. But but God forbid we go through another pandemic. Where do you think Hagenbach could best be deployed, you know, in the coming months and years?

ALEXIS BLOCK: I would hope that that hug you back could help as many people as possible. I think maybe some of the best places where Hugi back could be the most beneficial would be larger institutions where many people could benefit from a single huggiebot. So this might be a university, an assisted care facility or even hospitals where many different people are around it and could benefit from a robot hug.

MK: Yeah, that would be interesting to see. And and I wonder, too, for you, do you think you're going to be winning over the converts? Some I'm sure a lot of people with the scepticism who are listening here are saying I just could never bring myself to hug a robot. But you've seen it with your own eyes that that seeing is believing.

ALEXIS BLOCK: I am totally aware of the criticism and the scepticism. It is a strange idea. I began this research in the fall of 2016, so long before a pandemic had even been considered. And even back then, people used to comment on my videos saying, Oh well, this is so stupid. If I want to hug, I'll just go hug my friend. Unfortunately, we found out a few years later it's not always possible. There were still people who were sceptical about it. They came in, tried my robot, and they actually surprised themselves with how much they enjoyed it. So I certainly wouldn't force this technology on anyone who doesn't want it. That's fine. All I would say is maybe keep an open mind, try it out for yourself and and and see what you think. You might be surprised.

MK: I love it. Alexis, great to talk to you today. And good luck with, uh, with Huggiebot.

ALEXIS BLOCK: Thank you so much. Was wonderful speaking with you.

MK: And Alexis Block is a PhD candidate at the in the haptic intelligence department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany. Well, how about that? Now it's your turn to tell us what hugs mean to you or tell us the story of your first post pandemic hug with someone special. You can email us one word, thecurrent@cbc.ca, or tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. And if you happen to take photos of your first embrace or somebody did, would love it if you shared some of those with us to just keep it clean. OK, coming up after your regional update,

SOUNDCLIP

I know you know, accordion expert by any stretch of the imagination, but my own personal opinion, he is the best bellow bendor on a button box that has ever been.

MK: Well, for those of us who may not know what a bellow bender on a button box is, stick around. It will be loud. And here's the best part, there will be a few Newfoundlanders involved. I'm Mark Kelly, in for Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current.

Assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse

Guests: Louis Herns Marcelin

MK: I'm Mark Kelley and you're listening to The Current. Haiti is in the middle of a national crisis. President Jovenel Moise was shot dead in his home on Wednesday. First Lady Martine Moise was also shot and is now in hospital in Miami. The national police chief said four of the assailants have been killed and two arrested and that others involved would be captured and killed. Tension in the country has been building for years. Moise had been ruling by decree since he refused to hold elections in 2019, and the country continues to cope with food shortages as well as the pandemic. Joining me now is Louis Hern's Marcelin, a professor at the University of Miami. He also runs a Haitian institute devoted to research and higher education. Good morning.

LOUIS HERNS MARCELIN: Good morning,

MK: Louis. Tell me, what have you been hearing from friends and colleagues back in Haiti since since the assassination of the president?

LOUIS HERNS MARCELIN: Well, since the assassination, people have been staying at home and the people are very anxious. And we as you said, I run a research institute that cover the whole country and I had to be in touch with the staff. So that's [unintelligible] and through them to know about their families. And we know that the people voluntarily, voluntarily stay at home. And precisely because of the uncertainties of the situation and murkiness of the situation and the people don't know exactly what will happen and what would be the future of their country, because one of the biggest problems that we face ourselves in now in this situation is that there are no institutions, all the viable institutions that would ensure a transition of power, a stabilisation of the country. All these institutions have been undermined, and that's where we are now.

MK: I was reading the the the Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste this morning and their description of of the assassination, very graphic that that the president had been shot 12 times. It appeared to be a very targeted shooting. The police chief called the the the assassins mercenaries that were some were speaking English, some were speaking Spanish, which was unusual. Who would want the president dead?

LOUIS HERNS MARCELIN: A lot of people will want the president dead because they precisely. We have to look at this in a more systematic way. Of course, we have the event is a very is a terrible event, is a critical event for a country to have the president of the country assassinated in this fashion. The most, you know, spectacular aspect of it is that there was the most protected person in Haiti, which is the president. He didn't have no perimeters of security, no metres of control. People are you know, they were able to penetrate the compound and then to do what they had to do. There are a lot of factions, a political factions, I have to say. I mean, to allow the listeners to understand the situation in Haiti, in Haitian politics is extremely fragmented. We don't have a vigorous political parties. We have groups, political groups that they most of them are associated in one way or another with gangs. And this is something that is important for us to know. Political leaders, mostly elected officials, most of them are connected with some groups of young people. These abuse young people to whom that they have given guns and arms and terrorise the other party. So the game of politics is not regulated by the rule of law. The politics is very difficult, you know, to be to achieve it because it supposes that we agree on the rules of the games. The rules of the games these days after three months, and this has been going on for some time now, the rules of the games have been the rules of those who can impose their wills on orders. And we have seen during the later month, particularly the last four, five, five weeks. You know how gangs have gangrene the country, have taken control, you know, divided the country into different territories. The police itself has no power to reach certain areas in the country. And the justice system doesn't work because it has been neutralised and corrupt. And in all of this with the [unintelligible] of the country that doesn't have an elite, you know, intellectual elite, economic elite, social elite, that could give the orientations to the rest of society. Not that we don't have an elite, but we have a very fragmented elite, and those who constitute those who are the privileged people and they also have their hands very profound in the political fragmentations in clanism in the gang kind of regime kind of thing that have been established. So we are in a situation in which that all these factions are in one way or another [unintelligible] the former president. And the former president was that they said either, he himself and the government, has been accused of being facilitating the emergence and proliferation of gangs to terrorise its enemy. Hee has been ruling by decree.

MK: But that's what I'm curious to know about some. Some are calling the late president corrupt, some calling him a reformer. But what is the role of the international community? The Canadian government has been supporting this regime. The American government has been supporting this regime. Should the international community be doing more to try to help the reform, to try to help promote democracy in Haiti? Or is that part of the problem?

LOUIS HERNS MARCELIN: That's a powerful questions, because, in fact, that's where I was going with my analysis. All of these things are happening. All this disintegration of these institutions in Haiti have been happening. While we had only 15 years, the United Nations had a permanent presence in Haiti to stabilise after the crisis, after the crisis of the earthquake, to stabilise the country. And in 15 years later, the mission, the mandate of the United Nations in Haiti through MINUSTAH was to ensure that Haiti reinforced these institutions for rule of law, of restitution and security institutions. And the United Nations left Haiti. Mone of these were accomplished. And then after they left, that was militias in the country to of course, renforce a rule of law insititurions, to enforce security institutions. And all of these have been happening under the eyes, you know, progressively through time, under the eyes of the Western powers, particularly the United States and Canada, and supporting the government in the tacitly accepting the degradation of the political empowerment, the degradatio of the conditions for human rights. And what was very funny about this is - not funny, but tragic about this is - is up to today, up to yesterday, to hear officials from Canada, officials from the United States saying the first thing to do, we have to organise election. But then they don't address the key problem. Do they the very conditions for elections to happen, which is a stable country, a stabilised city where people are not at risk to be killed by different gang factions. And where people can create and organise politics, can organise campaign in all of these things are not possible. So the point is to respond to your question, the international community has been instrumental in - I wouldn't say, it wasn't intended, but we know it's the kind of unintended consequences the international community have led to more and more to destroy. And this is what I mean. Most of the interventions of the international community in Haiti, including Canada, including the United States, United Nations, European Union, they have been done under the terms of these countries and institutions. They don't integrate Haitians, Haitians perspective in the parameters of development or the [unintelligible] that they want to address. They go to Haiti and they come with a plan. And the plan has no participatory mechanisms. And the plan is being executed only with, precisely, those groups, those traditional groups that were that particularly hold power in Haiti and maintains power in Haiti. And you have a kind of a kind of neo colonial forms where you have, you know, those local rulers take orders from the international community. While the community, organising community based organisations, human rights organisations, visit organisations, universities, churches, et cetera, who are there, can also bring their perspective into the debate but they are not part of the...

MK: But do you believe because of all of that, do you believe that democracy is now dead in Haiti or on life support in Haiti right now?

LOUIS HERNS MARCELIN: Let's say it's on life support, because, in fact, a democracy as an idea, democracy as a process was always a kind of a kind of struggle that was always repeated in the case of Haiti. Because you have a country in which that the level of illiteracy is extremely high, the poverty level is extremely high, violence is endemic, corruption is endemic. Instead of us addressing we cannot have a country, a democratic society in Haiti, if we don't have democratic institutions that are seen capable of structuring [unintelligible] for democracy to be [unintelligible]. So what they have been saying about implementing democracy in Haiti, when they talk about what from the Western powers, particularly the United States and Canada, your point was always an election. If you have elections, you shut up. You don't need to talk. Have elections and then we deal with your worries. So the whole game now, what did the electoral community misunderstand and what do leaders can help, you know, in their countries, particularly in Canada, help the government understand that they have to factor in the will of the Haitian people. The institutions in Haiti, the community based, the grassroots organisation. They have to factor that in and let them empower them, accompany them instead of taking their place to make decisions in their place.

MK: Message delivered and I'm hope that the officials from our government are listening. Professor, thank you for your time this morning. We appreciate this.

LOUIS HERNS MARCELIN: Thank you very much for having us.

MK: Louis Herns Marcelin is a professor of social sciences at the University of Miami.

[Music]

Harry Hibbs's music evoked memories of N.L. Now his accordion is making its way home

Guests: Linda Hickey, Marty Hibbs

MK: I'm Mark Kelly and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

You probably don't know that in the late 60s and early 1970s, the best selling musician in Canada wasn't the long haired rock and roller or a coffeehouse folkie. Instead it was a small, quiet man. His trademark was salt and pepper cap, a wink and a shy smile. It was an accordion player and he came from Belle Isle of Newfoundland. His name was Harry Hibbs and.

[Music]

Here's a half hour of newfies favourite son Harry Hibbs.

[Music]

MK: Well, Harry Hibbs, as you heard, is often called Newfoundland's favourite son, the musician passed away more than 30 years ago, but in the 60s and 70s, Harry Hibbs was a superstar in Toronto and of course, throughout Atlantic Canada. In one year, he went from factory worker to fame, eventually starring in a TV show, as well as earning seven gold records and selling more than a million and a half albums. Also known as His Nibs, he brought traditional Newfoundland music to the mainland and for Newfoundlanders living in Toronto at that time, fed a heart hungry for home. Linda Hickey just might be His Nibs biggest fan, and she was hoping to finally bring his accordion home to Belle Island this summer. She spoke to Matt Galloway about her musical hero earlier this year.

[Song]

MG: It's great to have you on the program. What's it like hearing that music?

LH: Believe it or not, right now I'm a little bit welled up and goosebumps. So it's just incredible how that happens to me. You know, you just play two of my very favourite of the many, many songs that Harry performed, and it just has such an impact. It's just incredible.

MG: Tell me about the goosebumps. What is it about his music that you love so much?

LH: I think the music, you know, it's part of our culture, it's part of who we are, it's part of what we grew up with. It's memories of our homes, it's our own kitchen. We didn't always have live performers, of course, in our kitchen, but we had record players. And you would have an opportunity and you'd hear that stuff. So it was kind of ingrained in you. You know, to me, I'm, you know, accordion expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have a fair bit of experience over the last years putting together some of Harry's work. And to me, my own personal opinion, he is the best bellow bender on a button box that has ever been.

MG: Where would you hear... That's high praise. Where would you hear that music?

LH: You know, I grew up in a mining town not Bell Island where Harry came from, but another mining town in Labrador, Labrador City. And funnily enough, you know, there was lots of Bell Islanders there, too. You know, we all went to school together and it was the Sunday afternoon. It was the Saturday evening, you know, that was to stuff. It was the records that were playing. If you turned on the radio station, that's what you heard. You just knew that name. For us growing up as children and like I said, in my mother's household, you know, when the record album was put on, you were told to shhh because they were listening to these songs. Right. The thing for me is I can't tell you why I loved music as much as that, it can tear me up some of those songs, the sad ones, particularly like leaving, you know, Bell Island. I can't imagine how that must have felt. The jigs and reels, you know, those toe tapping, the hand clapping ones. You know I'm engaged in music all the time. It's all around because all of my friends are musicians and, you know, a lot of accordion players. Through this pandemic, you know, I have been able to incorporate that bellow box that's making its journey home to Bell Island and put life back into it. And even though it's covid time, we have been able to make that thing talk through social media. So that's a really fun thing to do.

MG: How did you get your hands on this accordion?

LH: So through Marty Hibbs, through Harry's brother. And so we've been working on an exhibit for his hometown in Bell Island at the Community Museum. And so through Marty, we made some connections. And Marty said, I think I can get one of Harry's accordion, you know, da da da da da. And, you know, we ended up that it was his brother Mike, who had the accordion. Mike actually came down to Newfoundland and carried that accordion with him and basically handed it over to me to ensure that it became part of the exhibit, of the Harry Hibbs exhibit that's going to happen at the museum.

MG: And you've been handing it over to other musicians as well in the province, right?

LH: And so what happened, I had it in my house and I was like, oh, my God. Like, I have the holy grail of accordion here in my house. And it was in my closet. And I was a bit nervous. I was like, oh, my God, if anything ever happened to this, you know, da da da da. And then I thought, oh, my God, I just can't let it sit there. You know, covid came and we started putting it out there and I started taking some pictures and said, you know, we got the Holy Grail here in St John's now. And then all of a sudden I started getting aficionados, I call them, contacting me, saying, can I get a picture with it? Can I see it? Can I touch it? And then I was afraid to let people play it because, you know, I didn't want anything to happen to it. But then I knew the people who wanted to play it. They were experts at what they were doing. So they had people like, you know, famous accordion players in Newfoundland like Mark Hiscock and Ryan Baker and Paul Hamilton and Chris Beamers. These guys grew up listening to Harry Hibbs, that's how they learn to play. And so they wanted to be part of it. And then all of a sudden, you know, I would record it live and we would put it out on Facebook and, you know, all the social media channels. And then people just started to connect. And believe it or not, Matt, we had over a million views in a year of people watching this stuff. And the comments that came back were just incredible.

MG: That's amazing.

LH: It was incredible because people were saying, you just gave me a little piece of home or I remember that song, my mother, you know, used to play it or my mother used to listen to it or that was in our house on Sunday's while dinner was cooking. So all these memories, you know, it evoked memories in people who were literally around the world. We had people that had Newfoundland connections in Sri Lanka and Australia and Ireland and Scotland. And so they were everywhere and they were saying, you have just given me a little piece of home. So how nice was that to make that connection during this, you know, this pandemic period that we're going through.

MG: And as you say, I mean, it's a lot of pressure having the holy grail of accordions with you in the closet. What's the grand plan for it? I mean, you're talking about taking it home to Bell Island. What's the big picture?

LH: So right now, for the last year or so, we've been putting it out there, letting musicians play it, you know, young and old alike, you know, the youngest little guy we had was Luke Mercer. And Luke was about nine or 10 years old at the time when he played it. And he begged his mother to contact me and ask if he could hold it and play it. And I was like, how does this kid know this? He's 10 years old, but he did. And he played it magically. And his mother told me the night before, he kept saying to his mother, Mom, is it really going to happen? Am I going to get to play Harry's accordion? And he kept it up and kept it up. And finally she said, Luke, if you don't go to bed and give it up, I'm going to call Linda and tell her you're not going to get it, to get him to go to bed. Then we decided we were going to do a tribute to His Nibs, Harry Hibbs. So we contacted The Rooms, which is our provincial museum here in St. John's. We said this would be a perfect venue to be able to do this. We did the show in the midst of a pandemic and The Rooms now has the accordion on an exhibit there. And it's going to stay there now until it makes its journey home to Bell Island, which we hope will be this summer.

MG: You mentioned Marty Hibbs. He is Harry's younger brother. He was his manager and he is in Toronto. Marty, good morning to you.

MARTY HIBBS: Good morning, Matt. Good morning, Linda.

LH: Good morning, Marty.

MG: What do you make of what Linda has been up to, Marty?

MH: Well, I'll tell ya what, just listening to Linda, she's got me all excited. I want to play that accordion. [laughter] There's no doubt Linda is probably one of Harry's biggest, if not the biggest fan. She's been so instrumental in so many things we've done. We don't have any family back on the island. And I moved here. Harry brought me here when I was literally like, I think eight or nine years old. He raised me. My dad died. And so we don't have any family, so to speak, up on the island. So it's really exciting to hear what's happening from Linda.

MG: You had a front row view of his, kind of, rocket to fame. What was that like? I mean, describe what was going on at the time.

MH: Well, strange enough, I look back on it now and I'm now realising that I didn't understand it when it was happening because I grew up with it. Harry played for family only. He never, ever played in public, the most introverted, kind, gentle person you've ever met in your life. And he had an accident in the factory when he was recuperating from the hospital stay, he was on crutches. And his friends that would normally play at the house with him, invite him to go to a dance that was being put on in Toronto for Newfoundlanders away from home. And Harry went out to it reluctantly and I went with him. I was 15 years old. They coax him to get on stage and from there everything just was a blur because from that date, which was early 1968 until 69, the following year, Harry had released his first album, gotten a gold record and has now his own local TV show in CHCH Tv Hamilton. From there on it was just like a roller coaster ride. It was incredible. I thought everybody lived that life and now I look back on it and say wow. It was a ride. I was very blessed to have been part of it and to ride it all the way.

MG: What do you think his music meant? I mean, you talked about people who are away from home. What do you think his music meant to Newfoundlanders who are in Toronto?

MH: See, believe it or not, that's where it really hit home, because these people that moved to Toronto because they needed work. These are people that hit hard times, just like Bell Island, the mines closing down. People had to move away, including Harry. Harry, you got a job in a factory. And there was this Newfie go home attitude. I do remember, you know, signs saying Newfie go home, it was just a weird situation. And they felt out of place here because it's such a big city and they just longed for home, including myself. To me, home is still Newfoundland. And that's really strange because, I mean, I grew up in Toronto, I was educated in Toronto, I worked in Toronto all my life. I've never lived in Newfoundland since I left. But it's still home.

MG: At the height of that fame. What were those concerts like? I mean, just describe the vibe in the room.

MH: Oh, it was just, the floors would rattle. Harry was mostly known in the beginning because his first album had ten jiggs and reels. It was accordion, the actual floor shook and you could feel it because everybody, everybody was doing the Newfie stomp. It was amazing and it just... They loved it. They just wanted more and more. They couldn't get enough of it. And if he'd stop and slow down and do a few songs, that's fine. But then they'd want the jiggs and reels again.

MG: Is that what people are looking for now, Linda? I mean, you mentioned the pandemic and these covid times, you know, we're stuck inside or we can't get together with people. We can't be in a big hall, for the most part, watching somebody perform on stage and we're away from home in many ways. Is that what people are kind of drawing on from his music now, do you think?

LH: Absolutely. These two shows that The Rooms there were people in the audience like they had to sit, you couldn't stand because of the covid measures and they were rocking on their seats and their feet were tapping and they were clapping their hands. And they were you know, people said to me, my God, this is so nice. And there was one lady sitting in the very front row who was crying hysterically because the songs had brought so many memories back to her, she was from Bell Island, this lady was. Ironically, I think Harry's up there saying, I'm going to push out my own little bit of stuff from the heavens. Right. Like during covid times, because it was unique how it all came together.

MG: Marty, your brother's been gone for 30 years. Could you possibly imagine what Linda is describing right now?

MH: It's moving. It's very touching. And you don't realise it until you're in there. And I'll always remember that. And as the night went on, it just grew. The crescendo it just kept going and it peaked. And then and the actual climax of the show was the last number that he did, something like Danny Boy. And it would just... The place would just go nuts. You can't help but feel it. It's electric.

MG: What do you think you'll be feeling when you head back to Bell Island and this exhibit is finally unveiled?

MH: I think it's going to be emotional. We were kind of disappointed because we'd already booked everything, had everything arranged and it was cut off there with the covid deal, but I'm really looking forward to it.

MG: Linda, this will be the toughest question for you is, as the biggest fan of Harry Hibbs, His Nibs. But I mean, what's a favourite song that we could play?

LH: Oh, my gosh, that's hard. But all accordion players have different styles. Harry had a unique, mellow, relaxed style to it and he could sing and play. That's not so easy, I can tell you, because I'm trying to learn to play this thing. If you looked at Harry playing it, it was like so effortless. To him it was like breathing. He had that ability. But then he could pick it up and get your caps off the floor. And when he played something like the Fighting 59, that's generally how we start things off. That is the one that gets people moving.

MG: All right. Well, let's end with a bit of Fighting 59. It's great to speak with you both about this. Thank you very much.

LH: Oh, thank you, Matt, so much. Thank you, Marty, it's so nice to hear you.

MH: You're very welcome, guys. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Linda. Have a great day.

MG: Take care of yourself. Bye bye.

[Music]

MK: That was Matt Galloway conversation with Linda Hickey and Marty Hibbs from April, and that an exhibition on Belle Island that was scheduled to open this summer has been another victim of the pandemic. But not to worry, come hell or high water, Harry Hibbs accordion will be on display in 2022. Well, that's our programme for today. Stay tuned to Radio one for Q. Finn Wolfhard is probably best known for his role as Mike Wheeler in the Netflix super series Stranger Things. The Canadian actor's latest project is a short comedy film called Nightshifts, and Tom Power will be talking to Wolfert about making the jump from acting to directing. I'm Mark Kelly, in for Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Music]

Thursday 8 July, 2021 Full Transcript

Social Sharing

More from this episode