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The Current Transcript for October 9, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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The fact is, two billion people tuned in to watch two people tell each other and tell the rest of how much they love each other.

MATT GALLOWAY: The first time most people around the world heard of Bishop Michael Curry was when he delivered a powerful speech about love at the wedding of Prince Harry. And Meghan Markle, the head of the Episcopalian Church, stunned royal watchers with his soaring sermon. In 30 minutes, the bishop explains why he believes love is the answer. In these hard times and whether his faith has been tested by the reality of this moment. Also this morning, General Motors built cars in Oshawa, Ontario, for more than 100 years, everyone there knows someone who worked at the plant. In an hour, look at what happened when the company announced it was shutting down the factory and why workers took aim at both GM and their union. And then.

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Today marks the first time in thousand years or thereabouts that the Tasmanian devil has rubbed nightly in forests.

MG: Not just from Looney Tunes. The Tasmanian devil is being reintroduced to the Australian mainland for the first time in three years. It's a good news story in a country ravaged by fires. We'll start, though, in our RV, driving down the Mississippi and talking to Americans in advance of a wild U.S. election. Next stop, barbecue in St. Louis. Good morning. Happy Friday. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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Road to November: 'You get used to being ignored' as a Black voter in the U.S., says St. Louis business owner

Guests: Jamila Brantley, Justin Idleburg

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DONALD TRUMP: Together, we will make America great again.

SUPPORTERS: [Chanting] Go go go. Go go go.

KAMALA HARRIS: We're going to vote by mail. Vote early.

DONALD TRUMP: But you don't hear them talking about today. I said hundreds of thousands of lives.

VOICE: The only thing you could tear America apart is America itself. And we do not let that happen.

MG: We are less than a month away from the U.S. election and here at The Current. We have been travelling along the Mississippi River speaking to people, no pundits, no politicians about what this election means to them and what's at stake. We're calling this the road to November. And we've stopped in several states today. We pull into St. Louis, Missouri. It is the gateway to the west. Budweiser country, home of great barbecue. And this guy.

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[Song: Chuck Berry Maybellene]

MG: There is a statue of Chuck Berry on Del Mar Boulevard across from one of his favourite spots in town, Blueberry Hill. Joe Edwards opened the bar back in 1972. And over the years, he has seen the area change a lot.

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Blueberry Hill is in an area called the Delmar Loop. In the early 90s, hundreds, it became a high fashion shopping district. Then by the 1940s, the first malls for shopping malls way out in the counties started getting built. And so the high end stores started moving out. And then in the 1960s, it was one of the dark moments in American history where redlining tactics happen, where real estate agents would go block by block in the city and say, you better sell now. If you're going to get a price for your house because blacks are going to move in. And they would use scare tactics to shock people into selling. And and the great, you know, white exodus occurred pretty soon. Half the storefronts were vacant, were boarded up or being used as warehouse space. And a lot of people then dug in our heels and said, okay, let's embrace diversity. Let's just welcome people. Let's make this a strength of our neighbourhood.

MG: As Joe said, his neighbourhood may have embraced diversity. Much of the area around it, though, has not followed suit. It's been called the Del Mar divide. South of Del Mar, mainly white and affluent. The north side, primarily black and lower income. And if we drive 10 minutes north from Blueberry Hill, there's a building looks a lot like an old gas station. That's because it is inside. You will find some of the best barbecue in St. Louis. Daryle Brantley started this location of C and K barbecue. More than 30 years ago, he died this year, but his daughter Jamila is keeping her father's legacy alive. And she gave us a glimpse behind the scenes.

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If you're truly from St. Louis and I mean the beginning of barbecue in St. Louis, you know that it's messy. Yes, get here about 9:00. And I meet, you know, someone here with meat. And we fovea the meat out and we trim the meat up in the sink over there. And then we seasoned it with a mix of different seasonings that I cannot tell you what's in there, but just know it's like salt and pepper. And we add a little extra secret in there. And after we smoke our rib tips, we chop them up with an axe. If you are scared of the axe, you can't work here. You know, we try to cut them and you know, that motion is annoying. But chapping, when you hear that, it means, you know, you get a rib cut or a rib tip coming up. And then you open up the smoker. And it's very, very slow. You have to be careful. We used to wrap everything in newspapers. This is before my time. And so they realised you can get ink poisoning. So they stop using newspaper. And then they start using butcher paper. And we still do that. We call it rap it old school. So if you want to wrap the old school, you have to let us know. When I was a kid and my dad would come home from here. He'd said, What do you want? Bring us something that's in the paper, Daddy, with the sauce in the bread and potato salad. We didn't know what it was, whatever it was, it was delicious. And you aided. It's one big ball, one big mess. It was like Christmas. You unwrap the gift, you know. I miss that. So when I see people that come in, it's like I haven't been here in 20 years and they find out they can still get it old school, it's just, it's not only is the flavour better, but the emotional attachment just adds to it.

MG: Jamila Brantley is with me now. Jamila, good morning.

JAMILA BRANTLEY: Good morning.

MG: Oh, my gosh, I'm hungry. I love barbecue. And I wanted the old school. Yeah. Wrapped in paper is just fine. Thanks. You're about 10 minute drive north from Joe's place on Blueberry Hill. Joe was talking about the Delmar Loop. How does your experience in your part of the city compare to what he was saying?

JAMILA BRANTLEY: Yes, it's definitely segregated here in St. Louis, where we are located now on Jennings Station Road. We're in a municipality called Time Line. There's definitely division within the community. There's not really a real a real good mix of people in North County is mostly black.

MG: Can you see a difference to me when you cross north and south? Can you see a difference in terms of the buildings, in terms of what the community looks like?

JAMILA BRANTLEY: Yes, you can definitely see there's not as much economic development. You know, the types of stores are totally different. So on one side of Delmar, you know, you have really good grocery store, like a high end shops, then, you know, your Lulu Lemons and your bars and things like that. And then once you cross over those cheque cashing place, White Castle, a Popeye's, liquor stores, convenience stores and gas stations, the [unintelligible]. It's really desert, like as far as the food in quality food is concerned.

MG: As a fixture in the community, how are you feeling as you get closer and closer to this election?

JAMILA BRANTLEY: I don't know. To be honest with you, this is the first time. You know, I'm 42, and this is the first time where it's been an election where I literally don't know. What to do? To be honest with you, you know, I don't believe that either candidate is looking out for black people. But at the same time, you know, black people, we really don't know how to work politics as a whole. You know, we're not putting any money behind candidates. You know, and pushing our initiatives and [unintelligible] what we need done. We really need demands on paper. We need lobbyists and we need candidates that are really concerned about black people and real and how much we do push the economy, that we spend trillions of dollars every year on different things. And without us America would be really different.

MG: What do you think's at stake for your community in the election?

JAMILA BRANTLEY: You know, there's been you know, I kind of get used to it being black.

MG: What do you mean?

JAMILA BRANTLEY: You get used to racism. You get used to being ignored. You get used to the tricks and the lies and the politics of trying to get your vote. But then, you know, nothing gets done, you know, for your community. But I was saying before that, you know, it's really important for black people to get involved in the local politics, I believe. I think it starts there. You know, once you get some good quality folks in office, as far as your alderman and then your councilman is in and the Congress, and then hopefully they'll go on and Senate and that kind of stuff. We know if you get some really good local leaders that understand what black people need and that certain initiatives and benefits that would help boost our small businesses and make it easier for us to obtain loans and obtain properties and things like that. As black people, you just have to educate yourself and build your own. My dad, he raised us to be politically minded, but he also raised us to be self-sufficient and not to ask and beg and depend on anybody else to do anything for you. But. But at the same time, we do live in what's supposed to be a democracy where the people are supposed to have the say. So it's just you get used to the contradiction of what America's supposed to stand for and what actually is the end result.

MG: Elections are in many ways about hope. So the politicians will sell you hope and they'll say this is what we could be. This is where we could go. Right. What do you hope for coming out of this?

JAMILA BRANTLEY: I hope for more of all kind of people to be in office because America is a whole bunch of different kinds of people with different religions and different belief systems and that kind of thing. So if that's reflected within the offices, I think that would help when it comes to decision making time and what kind of bills need to be passed. And just actually had an empathy for somebody other than you are, you know, a group of people that you're always been around.

MG: Will you vote?

JAMILA BRANTLEY: Yes. I'll definitely going to vote.

MG: You're just not sure where it's going to end up yet.

JAMILA BRANTLEY: Well [unintelligible] Trump.

MG: So might be. So there are- KK. So you have decided in some way where it may go.

JAMILA BRANTLEY: Yes. You know, Trump is not a good leader. So I would vote for him to be, you know, student council. That's easy for me. That would bottom up The Apprentice.

MG: You'd vote him off The Apprentice. When I come to C and K Barbecue. What's the plate that I gotta get?

JAMILA BRANTLEY: People love this is The Snoot.

MG: The Snoot? What's the snoot?

JAMILA BRANTLEY: A snoot is actually the pig nose.

MG: You smoke that or what?

JAMILA BRANTLEY: No, we don't smoke it. We actually put it in the oven. Season it up real good and we get the bacon is super crispy. And then we take it and put it in the sauce.

MG: Save me a plate.

JAMILA BRANTLEY: We actually ship Snoot internationally, believe it or not.

MG: And I don't know how that would work. The Snoot coming across the border. But I'll trust your judgement on that. Jamila, it's great to talk to you. I appreciate your time this morning. And good luck.

JAMILA BRANTLEY: Okay. Thank you.

MG: Thanks so much. Jamila Brantley runs the C and K Barbecue in St. Louis, Missouri. Justin Idleburg is a racial equity strategist in St. Louis. He works with governments, non-profits and other organisations helping to reduce racial disparities. He's been listening in. Justin, good morning to you.

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: Good morning, Matt. How are you?

MG: I'm well, thanks. We heard Jamila talk about St. Louis being a very segregated city in many ways. Is that something that is going to be ever thus? I mean, can that be dismantled in the future?

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: I think it needs to. And if we can get past the pettiness and put the focus on children and economic change and quality of life and public safety, I think we could. But all parties have to be willing to sacrifice something.

MG: What do you make of her - I don't want to say lack of enthusiasm, but she's not particularly enraptured by either candidate in this election and said it doesn't seem as though the candidates are going to do much, either one of the candidates, are going to do much for black folk.

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: It's very interesting, the candidates. One was a part of the cocaine laws that locked up a lot of African-Americans and people of colour. When you look at that and you put that on top of the lack of engagement outside of those that are on the voting rolls, that's how we get to where we are now. And listening to Her helps me understand is more. There is a lack of relationships and intentional engagement in this process.

MG: We talk about drug, the drug laws. Joe Biden was involved in that crime bill that, as you say, was involved in locking a lot of people up. The people will often accuse the Democratic Party of taking, for example, black communities for granted around election time. And that's a bit of what you heard from Jamila there. Is there truth to that?

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: We all take each other for granted in this place because we allow them to play with our emotions to get their votes. Voting is not rational, is relational and communities of colour north of Delmar vs. on the southern side of Delmar, where people spend big money to live in great places and want a great quality of life. Not to say that the people nor the Delmar don't do the same thing, but they're so occupied doing so many other things. You have a majority that are under-resourced, who don't have the type of tie to go engage with their under-resourced neighbours.

MG: How has COVID exacerbated that?

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: You have to use Facebook and other social media platforms to be able to reach a lot of people whom you historically have not been able to reach. And for those that are on the voter rolls. That's what my initiative has been doing with Democratic Central Committee. We've been going out putting these packages, leave them on people's doors so they can register to vote. And then we've been intentional in going after those people who have been identified as unregistered voters. Some of the market would have to change as well. You'll have to be very radical and intentional because everybody does not look like a black man and a black woman in a polo shirt and some khakis. You can't put that up at a liquor store and think that somebody is going to pay that attention.

MG: You have to be specific in terms of the community that you're speaking to.

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: Yes.

MG: What would you put up instead of the person with the polo shirt and the khakis?

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: I would put a picture of a person that looks like the people that are there.

MG: If people see themselves in those ads, they're going to target them to register to vote. What would that do, do you think?

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: They are going to spread it on social media. They are going to share more with their friends because they're part of this. They have ownership of this. And that's what communities miss a lot, is ownership. But with ownership, you have to pay. And then in these terms, if we want to see the type of changes that we want to see in our neighbourhood, we don't want to judge. We want minority participation and all these other great things. We're going to have to do it ourselves.

MG: What would you want to hear from those politicians that Jamila were saying, you know, show up when they need to show up and then don't do. What they said they were going to do? What do you want to hear from them?

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: I don't want to hear anything. I want to show I want you to show me a vision of what change looks like. If you say you've been listening to us, tell us what that change would look like. How can you all use all the resources of the federal, state and local resources to help redevelop our neighbourhoods and education? And also with the police. How and what would you do to help the police not shoot us anymore? Like is the first thing they do. They say Freeze Bay. How do you teach to police to have some type of sympathy.

MG: What do you think the effect of this summer was on the vote where we saw around racial violence a reckoning and people paying attention and calling for change in ways that they haven't perhaps since the 1960s? Has that influence this election at all, do you think?

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: I believe so. And I can say from eyewitness here in St. Louis are seeing a great woman rise from being a protester or nurse. Miss Corey Bush. She beat an incumbent, a legacy family. Mr. Lacy Clay, junior. People got tired of it. This is one time I can say to people, why black? I'll say, well, enough was enough. We want Ms. Bush because she's going to help us in some of these inequities that we don't want to see anymore.

MG: How motivated do you think people and mobilised, do you think, people are in your community to get out and vote?

JAMILA BRANTLEY: Not very well, because as I said earlier, there is a lack of intentional engagement. Those that are - I call them our neighbours. But in reports, they call them disparities. They really don't care who's in office because nothing that either one will do has benefited them. And these are some of the most neediest. You know, we talk about sources of funding all of this. They're not aware about that because they're not a part of the regular economy that helps make St. Louis flow.

MG: What do you think is at stake in this election for the for your community, in the community that you work with?

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: Health, education and economics, because you cannot have opportunity to thrive there. So they get home with COVID, flu. They don't have adequate access to a health centre or clinic or things like that. Like we have a digital divide that has exploded since COVID.

MG: I asked Jamila about hope and elections around hope. What are you hopeful for in this vote?

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: I'm hopeful our elected officials can put pettiness to the side and help create a change that's going to make a major impact on our children and our elders. That's what I like to see more than anything.

MG: I wish you the best of luck. And I hope when I get down to St. Louis at some point in time when this pandemic is over, we have the chance to talk in person. In the meantime, Justin. Thank you.

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: Thank you as well. You have great day.

MG: And you. Good luck. Thanks. Bye bye.

JUSTIN IDLEBURG: Talk to you later, Matt. Bye.

MG: Justin Idleburg is a racial equity strategist in St. Louis, Missouri. We are driving The Current RV under the Gateway Arch, heading now to the Bluegrass State. Kentucky will be rolling in there next week. You can catch up on all of our past road to November stops on our Web site. Go to cbc.ca/thecurrent. The CBC News is next. And then was two years ago that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry got married. It was a historic day and in many ways, one of them was the Sturman that was given by Bishop Michael Curry. He spoke about the power of love. And the bishop will join us coming up in about six minutes. We're just in St. Louis. Fascinating city. Lots of great culture there. Can't bring you barbecue on the radio, but we can bring you some St. Louis music. It's Chuck Berry. I'm Matt Galloway The Current. We'll be right back.

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[Song: Chuck Berry]

Love could help heal a 'deeply divided' United States: Bishop Michael Curry

Guests: Bishop Curry, Karin Marley

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, we head to Oshawa, Ontario, to hear how people there are coping since thousands of workers lost their jobs at the General Motors plant less than a year ago. But first, the power of love.

[Music: Theme]

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There's power in love. There's power in love to help and heal when nothing else can. There's power in love to lift up and liberate. Nothing else will. There's power and love to show us the way to live. Now, the power of love is demonstrated by the fact that we're all here. Two young people fell in love and we all showed up. But it's not just for and about a young couple who we rejoice with. I'm talking about power. Real power. Power to change the world.

MG: Seems like a different world in May of 2018, when millions of people watched that sermon given by Bishop Michael Currie at the wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle, a descendant of slaves and activists. Bishop Curry's words and his actual presence at Windsor Castle that day sent ripples, maybe even shockwaves, around the world. Bishop Michael Currie is the first African-American to lead the Episcopal Church. Part of the Anglican Church. His new book is called Love is the Way Holding onto Hope in Troubling Times. Bishop Curry, good morning.

BISHOP CURRY: Good morning. Good to be with you.

MG: When you listen back to yourself, speaking about the power of love in that moment, what do you hear?

BISHOP CURRY: Well, you know, ironically, I had never heard the echo in the room before, but it was there and it was as though the message of love echoed not just in that room, but it echoed around the world.

MG: How did that. I just want to talk about the book. But that moment, how did that moment change your life?

BISHOP CURRY: You know, in a funny kind of way, it was a confirmation for me of what I suspected and on one level believed. The fact is, two billion people tuned in to watch two people tell each other until the rest of us how much they love each other. That is the power of love that I had not expected.

MG: What did it signify? And what did it mean that you were the person that was there? What did that mean, do you think?

BISHOP CURRY: Well, I think it was a possible hopeful sign. I mean, the truth is, I mean, my ancestors were brought here undoubtedly from West Africa. They were trafficked around the time probably of the British slave trade. You know, there I was standing in a pulpit in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. Almost, if you will, at the historic epicentre of what became the British slave trade. But the fact that I was there, the royal family was there, and a mixed multitude of people were there for at least one moment was a sign of hope that my slave ancestors, their voices were heard at the centre of what once was the empire that actually enslaved them. That's a miracle.

MG: You talk in this book about how and in that moment you realised that that we are hungry for love. What do you mean by that?

BISHOP CURRY: Well, you know, I really do believe that the very nature, essence and being of God is love that says in the Bible first, John, chapter fourth is God is love. I mean, if that is the case, as I believe it is, then that means that all of us have been created, if you will, by the hand of God, by the hand of love. We actually are the result of love, which means we are here by love, to be loved, to love, and we are meant to live in love. And we are at our best when we live in love. Not the sentimental kind of love I'm talking about the love that is can be sacrificial at its very best and at its highest.

MG: How have you seen that sacrificial temple? How have you seen that changed the world?

BISHOP CURRY: Well, I mean, I've seen it in a lot of obvious ways, you know, big names. If you think about the people who actually ennobled the world for good, they tend to be people who have actually often sacrificed self-interest for the common good. I mean, you can talk about it, Desmond Tutu. You can talk about Martin King, you can talk about a Mahatma Gandhi. You can talk about a Johannes Sol. Look at most of your Nobel Peace Prize winners. They'd been people who have sometimes nearly sacrificed their own lives for the good of others. That's what love looks like on the public stage. It is a commitment to live for the common good, not just for my own good. And that way of sacrifice is what has changed the world. There's been no human progress without somebody sacrificing for it. We just buried Ruth Bader Ginsburg here in the state on the Supreme Court, who sacrificed hours and time and sometimes a reputation to work and labour for the equality of women and not just the equality of women, but for the equality of everybody in this country where that equality was not recognised. And then before her, we just buried John Lewis, who was beaten over and over again almost to death to secure the right to vote, which was a sign of equality. There has been no human progress on this earth that has moved forward for the good. That hasn't been the result of somebody making a sacrifice.

MG: Not all love is regarded equally. And in this book, you write about what you did in 2016 when you tried to convince other Anglican leaders, some around the world, to respect same sex love and allow gay marriage. What for you led you to take that path where you could realise that if you truly believe in the power of love, you need to believe in the power of love?

BISHOP CURRY: Well, you know, what changed me was the evidence of lives that I saw, I saw and experienced empirical evidence of people I knew and know who were in same sex relationships of long standing where I was seeing all of the elements that you would ever want in any marriage or in any healthy, wholesome human relationship. I was seeing faithfulness. I was seeing a lifelong commitment. In many cases. I was seeing love and care in sickness and in health in good times. I was seeing it in the lives of people that I knew. And that set up in my mind. I said, wait a minute, this is something that I didn't quite understand. I wasn't taught this. And that's where I had to step back and think if I'm seeing love in their lives for real and I'm seeing it in what looks like a marriage to me. Then it must be a marriage. And then I say, well, what's wrong with that? Nothing. And so it was basically the discontinuity of my actual lived experience of real people. And in spite of what we all kind of grew up with as conventional understandings now, I never grew up in a home or in a context where LGBTQ folk were like put down for that wasn't the issue. The issue was, could we take the next step? And I grew up in a home where the equality of humanity was a cardinal principle. My dad used to say in the midst of the civil rights struggle, he used to say, I'm doing what I've got to do so that nobody will be a second class citizen. And it occurred to me that I believe that that's true. But that's not just true for me as a black person. That's got to be true for everybody.

MG: How do people react when you presented that argument?

BISHOP CURRY: It was a mixed reaction, to be honest. In the early days, there was a tentative 'yes, but we're not sure/. And part of that was because none of us are few of us had been taught anything different. We've been taught maybe tolerance and respect for people. And I had always been taught: you don't talk about anybody, you don't put anybody down no matter who they are. So I had grown up with that. But the idea of same sex marriage just never occurred to me. If you asked me 20 years ago, it just was- it didn't occur to me. So it took a while. One of the things that I learnt was, one, it's not my job to convince people.

MG: What do you mean it's not your job to convince people?

BISHOP CURRY: Well, because I can't. You can't. I can. I can make my case. But I can't arm twist people. You can't do that. That's doing violence against them. One of the things I learnt in that was that you've got to both kneel and stand at the same time. You've got to honour and respect the person you disagree with and not just respect them. You've got to work to actually love them as a child of God because they are a child of God, just like you are. And just like LGBTQ folk are. And so you honour and respect that. I have to kneel, in a sense, humbly before that person. And yet at the same time, stand for the convictions that I hold to be true. If both of us do that, even when we disagree, we will discover that we actually have created room and space for us to disagree. And in time, who knows where we'll all end up.

BISHOP CURRY: Do you despair that you are speaking now at a time where that seems almost impossible?

MG: Yes, it's it's, um, the truth is it reflects deep and ancient truths. My [unintelligible] didn't come up with this. It goes all the way back to Jesus of Nazareth. It goes back to the Hebrew prophet as a I mean, this goes way back. It goes back an ancient religious tradition. Gandhi kind of saw it in ancient Hindu teachings. This goes back a long way. So now it's an anachronistic in the sense that it's ancient and old and time tested and true. And so, yes, I mean, there's a part of me, like anybody else, that is frustrated at our inability to do this. And I'm here in the United States and I don't know about you all in Canada, but we are deeply divided and troubled. There is just no question about that. And yet I refuse to give up on hope because I real I have seen the axis of the Earth shifts slightly. I've seen it. It doesn't happen inevitably. Dr. King once said progress does not happen on wheels of inevitability. It happens as the result of the blood, sweat and tears of people who work for the progress and for that change. I am committed and bound and determined to work toward the kind of change that is lasting, that is not one side winning and another side losing, the kind of change that can help us come closer to what Dr. King called the beloved community. I believe we can do it. I know we can do it. If I didn't believe we could do it. I'd give up. And I'm not giving up.

MG: Do you find yourself being drawn into politics?

BISHOP CURRY: Me? No. No, I'm not- I mean, not at least not partisan politics. One of the things that I hold about Preacher is we ought not to be in the business of partisan politics selecting candidates. But we are in the business of moral politics claiming what is the moral high ground? What are the values that we stand on? Who must we as a society, if we are to be a moral society, who must we be paying attention to? We must be paying attention to the poorest of the poor. We must be paying attention to our children. And we must work as a society until every child has every opportunity that God intended for that challenge when that child was born. And until that day happens, we've got work to do. And I believe that that's the kind of moral work that's potentially bipartisan.

MG: I ask in part because you're trying to lead and you're trying to lead at a time when division is being propagated from the very highest offices. Right. And so how do you lead as a moral leader in a time where division is all around you?

BISHOP CURRY: Well, I do think sometimes you do have to- One, you do have to be speak and you have to speak and listen. Kind of conversation that de-escalate the emotive level and actually sit down and both listens as well as share. We've tried to do an Episcopal church, structured conversations around race, around controversial issues. I've been calling it. We've got a design for cultivating civil discourse. And we kind of started it, kicked it off, if you will, after had been field tested by two members of Congress, both of whom were episcopate, our fiscal pains, but who sit on two different sides of the aisle. One was clearly a Trump supporter. The other is clearly a Clinton supporter, as a couple years ago. And they modelled that this can be done. So we've tried to do it through education and actually practising and doing it. We're going to have to do that around our racial history. Americans forget what happened to what Americans did to indigenous people in this country. We've forgotten many of the depths of the realities of the enslavement of African peoples. We've forgotten how immigrants have been treated over the years, how the Irish were treated when they came here, how Asians were treated. We've forgotten that Japanese Americans were interred here in the United States during the Second World War in a liberal administration. I mean, we've got to face the pain of that. But face it so that we can learn from it together to turn toward a new future and to build that new future together. But that's hard, laborious work. But that's the kind of work that changes hearts, changes lives. And that has the potential to change a society.

MG: Do you find your commitment to this and not your faith itself? But in some ways it is. Do you find it being tested by the difficult times that we're in right now?

BISHOP CURRY: Absolutely it is. There's no question about it. I mean, the testing is real. How could we not? I mean, you know, I mean, you as well as we've we're all living through this pandemic. And the truth is, while we're all living through it, we're all living through it differently. The working poor, the people who have to work and don't get credit, they don't get the applause of the rest of society. They're the poorest of the poor in this in this society. I don't know what's going on in Canada, but I know here are the Congress of the United States has shown an inability to come together for more legislation that will provide substantive support for people who have lost jobs because of this pandemic, people who are in deep trouble, people who can't pay their rent and are on the verge of eviction. And we're walking back. It's almost winter. That is unconscionable. We can do better than that and we must do better than that. And so that is not a person I'm not speaking as a Republican or Democrat. I'm speaking as a moral human being. That's not right.

MG: I mean, part of this is about how you speak and the forcefulness with which you speak. Could you have ever imagined not being a preacher?

BISHOP CURRY: [Laughs] Honest to God, truth, when I first went to college, I really was thinking about being a politician. I volunteered for Bobby candidate and both when he ran for Senate in New York State. Then when he ran for president and now I wasn't a high up campaign worker, I licked envelopes and knocked on doors. But he and Dr. King were both kind of models for me. And so when I went to college, I was kind of teetering between the ministry and politics as a possible way forward. And, you know, kicked around, you know, do you go to law school to do that? What do you do there? And anyway, about midway through college, I took a course in religion that just kind of cracked me open and I actually started got to read writings of Dr. King, not just the popularised sermons. And eventually did a honours thesis in college on King's non-violence as a situational imperative or as a commitment to a way of life. And asking a question, which was it and got to go to Boston University to read his doctoral papers. I mean, actual that in his handwriting. Actual papers. And to read his dissertation and to read and do a lot of research. And I realised that, wait a minute, that this guy, in his way, has had an impact. And I've known others like him. I mean, my own father, you know. So you start looking at your father, say, oh, dad, he got well, maybe he did know something. You know, how teenagers are. You discover the wisdom of your parents.

MG: He was a minister as well.

BISHOP CURRY: He was. Yes. And so and so I began to realise that maybe this was the way for me. And in time, kind of really kind of accepted that as a calling. And that was 45 or 50 years ago now. And now, as my Angello says in her book, quoting one of the old spirituals, I wouldn't take nothing for my journey now.

MG: You also were preaching to your stuffed animals, though, as a kid, right?

BISHOP CURRY: [Laughs] Where did you read-? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

MG: I've heard that story.

BISHOP CURRY: Yes. That's really...

MG: So describe that scene of preaching to stuffed animals.

BISHOP CURRY: Well, I you know, it's really true. I used to, like, make my sister have to listen. She was younger than I am. And I'd made my sister listen and put all her little dolls and all sorts of things. And I would preach to the animals and baptise them and all that kind of stuff as a little kid. So I guess it was there. I mean, I think about John Lewis. They say he says he used to preach to the chickens when he was a kid. I guess if it's in you, it's in you.

MG: Before I let you go. I just want to ask two things. One is about it's easy to get caught in a downward spiral and the news is bad and it comes at us relentlessly. When you find yourself in that moment, what is it that you turn to for hope?

BISHOP CURRY: You know, I mean, it's too quick and fast. I don't mean to be facile saying, I turn to God, but I really do. But let me tell you how I do it. I do try to keep a regular spiritual discipline, a regular routine of intentionally trying to be in God's presence and trying to listen. I mean, I just think it's important to take some time, some dedicated time whenever I do that - I am an early riser, so I get up early in the morning - and that's when I do my private kind of devotions and stuff and exercise and all that stuff. I mean, that really does help. But then the other thing that really does make a difference for me is because I really do believe, I've experienced the love of God profoundly in human community and the community of people that I kind of consider my network of support and accountability. I mean, I turn to them and talked to them. You know, extroverts talk out loud. Think out loud. Talk to that community and that community. And then I got to tell you, I keep coming back to why am I here? What is Michael Curry's supposed to be doing now? And I'm just committed to doing that even when I don't feel like it. Even when I don't think it's making any difference. And somehow out of all of that, I can make it through the down times because the downtimes do come. Oh, they do come. They come to all of us. But somehow connecting with God, connecting with a community of love that support you and the challenges you. And having that network of support. You got to have that. I mean, that's what religious communities are in part about. And then just kind of daily kind of rededicating myself. This is what I'm about. And this is what I'm going to do.

MG: The other thing is we in this country celebrate Thanksgiving before you do in the United States. In a really difficult year. What are you thankful for?

BISHOP CURRY: I am thankful. Well, you know, Mr. Rogers, you remember Mr. Rogers. Youth tells the story of when he was little boy and there were bad things happening and he said, Mommy, where's God in all this? I mean, is when all hell is breaking loose. And his mother said, look for the helpers. Matt. The helpers are here. They may not always be in office in the highest places of the land, but they're here and some of them are in high places in the land. There are helpers. There are good people. There are people who are working even sacrificially, even as we speak. They really are here. And they are the overwhelming majority. And I know that because I've seen them.

MG: It is a great pleasure to talk to you.

BISHOP CURRY: And to you, brother.

MG: I really appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.

BISHOP CURRY: All right. God bless you now.

MG: Bishop Michael Curry’s new book is called Love is the Way Holding onto Hope in Troubling Times. He was in Raleigh, North Carolina. This is The Current on CBC Radio one. I Matt Galloway. We have a little bit of time to talk about some of your mail and some of the things that you have been getting in touch with us about this week. We spoke with some snowbirds who have tricky choices ahead. Should they stay? Should they go? You have sandy, U.S. beaches and sun on one side. You have the Canadian winter on the other, and you have COVID in both. That discussion got a lot of you talking. And so our senior producer, Karin Marley is here with some of the letters you sent us. Karin, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Hello, Matt. Think of all the skiing and snowshoeing you'll miss if you head down south.

MG: A lot of people are saying yes. So what exactly?

KARIN MARLEY: They are admittedly not everyone's thing. Gerald Berish wrote to us to say, we own a place in South Florida and are planning to fly down in December. We have a car there and plan to social distance from others as we have been doing here. The cases per day in Florida are less per capita than the cases in Quebec. Florida is steady or dropping. We are rising and the flu season is not yet here. Civil unrest is a concern, but we're in a quiet, gated community. The key to this decision is the logic, not emotion.

MG: Judith McBride King of Mantic Ontario, wrote, We own a home in Fort Myers and would dearly love to be able to get there this winter. Like your guests, we have friends there and so enjoy the lifestyle and the weather. However, when we go, we drive, as we have a dog who would definitely not do well to fly. Personally, I would like to see the Canadian and U.S. governments agree that Canadians with homes in the South could enter the US by road in order to attend to their properties and make arrangements to rent them or sell them.

KARIN MARLEY: On the other side. It's Sian Turner of Harper Centre, Nova Scotia, saying We have been sunbird for over 25 years. But I have decided due to the political situation in the USA to never cross the border again. Gun violence, racial hatred, bigotry and intolerance have overshadowed the wonderful people we have met and the amazing times we have had. We have decided to spend our money on a sunroom. This will make spending the winter in Canada much more pleasant.

MG: This one from James Burgess of Greenfield Park in Quebec. Since 2005, I have not spent a winter in Canada until now. On Saturday, the 3rd of October, I put winter tires on the car. It's the first time having snow tires. My fear is the general lack of concern expressed by my American friends, no snow and warm weather is not a reason to put my health at risk.

KARIN MARLEY: One final thought from Nat Hrynuik. Under no circumstances, but I crossed the border into the USA, just too dangerous down there. We will, however, spend much of February in Jamaica. I've often said the best thing about winter in Saskatchewan is sun rings, direct flight from Regina to Montego Bay.

MG: You could get the impression from these letters, Karin, that we are against Canadian winters that we have something against the snow and the ice and the howling winds. Rest assured, we are not. The Current is planning to celebrate all that is good about winter in the coming weeks. Bundle up. Thank you, Karin. You're welcome.

MG: Coming up after your regional update, after a manufacturing plant shuts down, what happens to the town and the people that it supported? We head to Oshawa, Ontario, to hear about life after General Motors. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in 90 seconds.

New documentary looks at GM closure in Oshawa, Tasmanian devil returns to Australian mainland

Guests: Peter Findlay, Jerry Dias, Menna Jones

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. It was one of the largest car manufacturing plants in the world for 100 years. It shaped life in the city around it. But the story of General Motors in Oshawa, Ontario, ended with anger and mass unemployment. In December of last year, the plant cut 95 percent of its workforce. It was moments of reckoning for the manufacturing sector in this country and a source of pain and anger for the people who worked there.

SOUNDCLIP

I don't want to move on [sobbing]. I'm proud of myself for moving on, but I'm mad at GM for making me move on. I wanted to put in my 30 years, I was more than halfway there. I thought I had it made. Everything was good. I loved my job. I loved going to work. I missed it when I wasn't at work. And then all of a sudden they're like, OK, now you need to figure out what you're going to do. And, you know, we're washing our hands of this. So where you go. And I just feel like, I just feel so betrayed.

MG: That's Jennifer Akkerman speaking in a new documentary company Town. It's an intimate look at last the last year of the GM plant in Oshawa, Ontario. Through the eyes of the workers and the union fight for fair compensation. Peter Findlay is the writer and director of Company Town. Peter, good morning.

PETER FINDLAY: Good morning.

MG: What was the atmosphere at the plant like that day when the lights went out?

PETER FINDLAY: Well, there was a real palpable sense of heaviness, for lack of a better word. It was just, you know, the realisation after a year of anticipation for the workforce was built and built. And finally it it was sitting there staring in the face. So, you know, it was a there was some sense of relief. I would say, but but overall, it was it was very, very dire. Very, very dark.

MG: Why did GM lay off 95 percent of its workers there?

PETER FINDLAY: Well, GM is a global corporation where, you know, they the bottom line drives their their corporate moves, their their ethos. And, you know, they can they can offshore stuff down in places like Mexico and China and other developing countries where the wages are just that much lower. So in an industry where they're looking for any kind of margin, they can get to increase their shareholders profits. They'll make a move if they can make.

MG: A lot of us remember the headlines when this was announced and end what happened over the course of that year. You go deeper beyond those headlines. What was the story that you wanted to tell with this film?

PETER FINDLAY: Well, you know, we've all seen stories about massive job loss, you know, in the modern era of globalisation, and I think we become a little bit numbed by the statistics. And really what I wanted to do was to give voice to the people and the workers in particular, obviously, who were affected by this. It's not just like you're losing your opportunity to punch a clock. It's part of your community. It's part of your existence. For many of them, they were second, third, even fourth generation auto workers. So it was really a sort of a seismic shift in the life of the community. And I wanted to, you know, give them an opportunity to tell their stories.

MG: And again, for the community, it's a huge thing. There are people who work in the plant, but it comes up in the film. There's something like 15000 people who are impacted because there are all the ancillary businesses and then just the spin off. I mean, when you when you pull the plug in a plant like this, what does it mean for a city like Oshawa?

PETER FINDLAY: Well, the ripple effect is enormous. You know, you've got people who provide safety boots for the workers. You've got people who you know, that motor pop coffee shops. You've got the the Tim the local Tim Hortons. You've got, you know, it goes beyond that. It goes into, you know, the United Way, which is supported by the local union. It goes to, you know, it's a multi headed beast. In Oshawa there's a sort of it washes over the community. So it's really it's difficult to underestimate the impact it's having, as we see in the film.

MG: There is a lot of anger on behalf of those workers towards General Motors, but there's a lot of anger toward their own union, Unifor. Do you think that Unifor could have done more for these workers?

PETER FINDLAY: Well, it's a tough call to make. I mean, it's a complex dynamic. I mean your Unifor and GM are operating in this era of globalisation that I keep referring to. So the quote that Unifor has relative to what it used to have when it was the CAW, for example, let's say, 20 to 30 years ago, has been diminished significantly. So it's hard to know what more they could have done. Having said that, certainly many of the workers that I was filming with during the course of the production felt that there could have been more mobilisation and education and collective action as opposed to trying to negotiate their way out of the situation.

MG: A number of workers wanted to walk off the job, for example.

PETER FINDLAY: Yes. A lot of them would have preferred, you know, a mass mobilisation of the workforce. You know, that's in the final analysis that the sort of the nuclear option for a union is to withdraw their labour from a factory. But it's a complex dynamic because, you know, it's, GM, had already made its decision to leave. So. Strategies get played out in real time there and, you know, difficult for me to really assess what could have been done. But I know there was a genuinely a lot of anger about the choices that were made about leadership.

MG: Just finally and briefly, I mean, the film is called Company Town, and it's about one company town in Oshawa, Ontario. But I mean, this week we've been talking about the story of come by chance Newfoundland, where the refinery there is under threat and there's a lot of jobs that could disappear. Are we seeing the sunset, do you think, of because of globalisation of these company towns?

PETER FINDLAY: Well, I think the Canadian economy is becoming more diversified. So I suspect that we're not seeing the end of them. We're seeing some kind of transformation take place. But, you know, to be honest, manufacturing is still, I think, the second largest industry in the country. It produces billions of dollars in revenues in GDP. So the idea of manufacturing is going away, I think is not right. And the reality is that manufacturing provides good, solid middle class jobs for a lot of people. And if that situation just left for corporations to determine how that plays out, you are going to see more situations like that. But I think that's why it's really important that trade unions, you know, continue to fight the fight.

MG: Peter, good to speak with you. Thank you.

PETER FINDLAY: Thanks. Bye.

MG: Peter Findlay, writer and director of the documentary Company Town. Rebecca Keetch was a production operator at GM in Oshawa. She's featured in the film. She was laid off last year. Rebecca, good morning to you.

REBECCA KEETCH: Good morning.

MG: What's life been like for you since you were laid off?

REBECCA KEETCH: It's been frustrating and exhausting. It was a horrible year to go through. There were so many people who are looking at being in a dire, dire situation. You know, the, story the headlines talk about the GM closure. But I think it's really important that we remember it wasn't just the GM. It was the closure of [unintelligible] on Automotive Robinson Solutions, Oakley Industries, the Lear Corporation. See the logistics, auto warehousing, non-unionised places like Greeley and [unintelligible] like. So the entire community was impacted and has been impacted. And when you're working with people who are now struggling, they're trying to find jobs cogar or they're looking at their [unintelligible] claims are doing what you do with and go from there. So I'm impacted by that. And it's been hard.

MG: I was in Oshawa the day after this announcement was made, and you could feel that anger on the streets of the city. How do you think the union handled the closure of the plant? This is something that comes up in the film.

REBECCA KEETCH: I'm really frustrated by how the union handled the closure of the plant. A union has to be transformative. And our strategy hasn't been working so far. I mean, you know this we talk about the closure of the GM plant in Oshawa. But that's just been one of a long string of closures. GM left St. Terez. They left Windsor. They left London. They reduced their facilities in St. Catharines. They closed the Scarborough van plant that closed the Oshawa truck plant. So, I mean this. I mean, we're. The union needs to mobilise for transformative change. They need to get the membership mobilised for transformative change and instead I feel they let the membership get divided and picked off at an ad campaign is awesome. It was amazing as one component of the strategy. But we came out of that not being able to build on the future. I mean, I heard Jerry Dias say that the ad campaign is significant because it forced Ford to reconsider their direction. And I mean, sure. So we have more government money going to a profitable corporation and no guarantee of how long the jobs can stay there.

MG: That's this announcement that came yesterday where Ford is going to make electric cars in Oakville. You were part of this group, Green Jobs Oshawa. Tell me a little bit about what you were trying to achieve in that. I mean, that's part of that transformation that you're talking about.

REBECCA KEETCH: Yes. Green jobs, Oshawa and so on. Obviously, there's the people who are just tired of fighting and begging corporations to show mercy. Corporations don't do that. They go by their bottom line. I mean, it was really sickening that when GM announced their closure of five plants in North America that their stock soared. So green jobs offshore is was looking to get government investment and public ownership. We wanted to build battery electric vehicles by [unintelligible] in government production and look at dealing with the climate crisis, which is here. So it would involved electrifying government fleet vehicles. It would also allow us to have a manufacturing hub that could quickly pivot to address social needs instead of just corporate a bottom line and greed. In a perfect example of that is mask production.

MG: Which is what happened at the GM plant in the midst of this pandemic.

REBECCA KEETCH: Right. So GM was able to quickly retool and start being able to build level one surgical masks. It's really unfortunate that they aren't serving the Canadian public the way they're serving the American public and also producing the desperately needed N-95 masks. But I mean, this is this is things that Green Jobs Oshawa has called for. We want to have a healthy, vibrant community. And we're looking- we're trying to put a Band-Aid. We're not trying to put a Band-Aid on the problem. We're trying to find a solution to the to the root of the problem. And that's relying on corporations that don't give a damn about us.

MG: It's been a hard year for you.

REBECCA KEETCH: It has been a hard year. But I have hope. I mean, we have a climate crisis and we have some of the worst inequality that we've seen in decades. But I have hope that people are going to start saying, you know, what we've been getting isn't good enough and we need to start fighting differently. We need to fight for change. We need to fight for transformation.

MG: I wish you the best and I really appreciate talking to you this morning, Rebecca. Take care.

REBECCA KEETCH: Thank you so very, very much.

MG: Rebecca Keetch is a uniform member and a former production coordinator at General Motors in Oshawa, Ontario. Kevin Craggs was a forklift operator at the plant. He is also still out of work.

SOUNDCLIP

General Motors has always been greedy. We didn't get the health and safety rules or anything like that because we sat at a table and said, jeez, please, would you mind giving us this? We had to fight for everything that we got. What's a surprise is the way we were treated by our union. I'm a unionist through and through. But there was a hell of a lot more that they could have done for us.

JERRY DIAS: The man leading the union that Kevin was so disappointed in is Jerry Dias. He is the national president of Unifor. Jerry. Good morning to you.

JERRY DIAS: Good morning. How are you? I'm well. What do you say to workers like Kevin and Rebecca who say that Unifor should have done more to protect their jobs?

JERRY DIAS: Well, there's you know, a lot of people have opinions on what we could have done or should have done. But the reality is there's one thing to criticize us. There's something else to say. What could have been done differently? We did everything. We had wildcat strikes. We did everything under the sun. But every individual workplace had its individual issues. So we fought incredibly hard. They made the announcement in November. We ended up coming to an agreement in May where we got a lifeline for the plant, where we transformed the plant into, you know, aftermarket parts. We kept the integrity of the plants alive. So it was about trying to live for another day.

MG: Do you feel like you raise the expectations of people in your membership? I mean when the plant is announced, when the company answers, it's going to close the plant, you make a speech and you say that they're not going to close this plant without a hell of a fight from us.

JERRY DIAS: And we gave them one hell of a fight. It was probably the biggest fight ever launched by a union with an announcement of any closure period.

MG: But I just wonder whether you held any cards in that fight. I mean, the GM, if it's going to close on the land, it's going to close its plant, right?

JERRY DIAS: Was it a David versus Goliath battle? The answer is yes. Frankly, those that are critical, if you ask them honestly, we knew that we are up against incredible odds. And we did everything we could. But like I said, it boils down to individual workplaces. I mean, we had members who were nervous, like we have Wildcats, we shut down GM corporate headquarters. We did all kinds of things. But people were also concerned because they knew in General Motors and us, we're building it. And the Impala, which was phased out and they weren't selling and we were doing aftermarket to walk season. We were building, you know, overflow of pickup trucks. So the leadership and GM in Oshawa were legitimately concerned. If we'd just said, screw it. We're all going to walk off the job. We're going to stay off the job. We're to stay off the job until GM does something. Their big concern was that GM would have done something. All right. We're just kept the plant closed and we would've got nothing.

JERRY DIAS: Rebecca Keetch's group Green Jobs. Joshua had this idea to retool the plants that it would be involved in helping to produce green fleet vehicles. You in the film say the people who are supporting these kind of ideas are textbook socialists. Why didn't you support that idea?

JERRY DIAS: No, I actually I do. If you look, there is one thing about talking about solutions or something else about actually doing it. It takes a lot of work. We just did in Ford in Oakville. We just negotiated one point eight billion dollars transforming the plant to electric vehicles. But the problem that I have with what they were suggesting is they were saying that the federal government is going to buy the plant. And it's just that there was naive, to say the least. So I'm not in a situation where I can look at things through a theoretical lens. I have to find practical solutions for real issues. And so so somehow I believe that the federal government was going to buy the plant, that a car was going to fall out of the sky, good luck. It wasn't me disagreeing with the green strategy because we just did it. And that's what we'll be trying to do in Oshawa. But we needed to find an immediate solution. We needed a vehicle immediately to stop the carnage of the auto parts base and everything else. And we tried. We did everything we could. And ultimately, we didn't pull it off.

MG: Governments have put in, what, nearly two billion dollars to produce electric vehicles at a plant in Oakville. Does that offer some hope for this now shuttered plant in Oshawa?

JERRY DIAS: Well, of course, the key thing is that we kept the lights on. We found a solution. GM was doing a complete closure. We defied the odds. We kept the lights on. We transformed the plant. But the key thing is, is we kept the integrity, the plants in place. I'm in bargaining with GM starting in a few weeks, and hopefully we can find a solution. But look, there's always going to be people who are critical. Look at my bargain. Your 20,000 dollar pay increase a year. People will say, damn, that you screwed. I should've got 25000. So I can't live in that world.

JERRY DIAS: But you do feel that. I mean, in the film, you talk about how do your members, you know, not lost confidence in you, but in some ways they did in that and that you feel that. I just wonder what what that's like as somebody whose job it is to represent those members. And you hear them in this film saying they wish you could have done more.

JERRY DIAS: Look, you know, I wish I could have saved the plant. I wish GM would have said, OK, I am going to give you a product. We're reversing our decision. We're dealing with General Motors. The fact that we got them to blink. I will argue a was a great start. And frankly, we're in bargaining with a plant that is still open, which is much different. People are going to be disappointed and have the right to be. Ultimately, people's jobs were impacted. Lives are impacted. So people have the right to be upset. We did our best, but we weren't successful. Car did not fall out of the sky. And we didn't keep all of the auto parts plants open because, look, it wasn't from a lack of effort. You can only do the best you can. We did. So why am I disappointed? The answer is yes. Part of my disappointment is what our union did. The answer is no. There will always be people who were critical and that's the right framework.

MG: Jerry, it's great to talk to you, as always. Thank you.

JERRY DIAS: Keep well.

MG: Jerry Dias is the national president of Unifor. He was in Toronto. This is The Current on CBC Radio one. My name's Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: A vicious reminisce with powerful jaws like a steel trap. Each hard vox and these boys get bats, dogs, hogs, elephants, spacings, ferrets, giraffes, gazelles. A likely story but there is no such animal. Octopuseses, penguins, people, noots, canoes, wild beasts... What? No rabbits?

VOICE 2: Especially rabbits, aghh.

VOICE 1: What's up, Doc?

MG: Octopuseses. Looney Tunes' Tasmanian Devil is a spitting, spinning whirl of destruction. It's also a real star for those of us, at least of a certain vintage. In real life, these marsupial's have had a hard go while they still lumber around the island of Tasmania for 3000 years. They have been extinct on the Australian mainland. Now they are getting a warm. Welcome back. Menna Jones is an ecology professor at the University of Tasmania. She has studied the animal for 30 years and she's an adviser to a group that this week released 11 Tasmanian devils into a wildlife park in New South Wales. Menna. Hello.

MENNA JONES: Hi. I'd say good evening. But it's morning, I believe, in where you are.

MG: It is indeed. I think for a lot of us, really, the only impression that we have of the Tasmanian devil is what we just heard from Bugs Bunny there. How does the real Tasmanian devil compare to the cartoon version?

MENNA JONES: Well, I think it's quite a funny story, really, because the people who came up with the cartoon devil had apparently never been to Tasmania and never seen a Tasmanian devil in the flesh. But there are certain key aspects about Ted's which kind of get it right. You know, devils are full of character. They're belligerent towards each other. They're very, very food driven. They'll gorge themselves, fill their stomachs, just bloated. Their screams, growls and screams or enough to raise the devil. But the flipside of that is that devils, they're a predator. And like most predators, they're really smart animals. They're very wary of people. So they're quite shy. They're not aggressive towards people at all. In fact, as a researcher working on these animals in the field, I - you can call me a devil whisperer, but I can just pick him up - and devils that I worked on for their entire lives. I could just take out of the second sit in my lap. And they would poke their head under my arms, you know, to get out of the sun. If I had someone with me they had met before, they could feel up tense up a bit while they listened to the voice. And so you don't know that person. So, you know, they're both full of character, full of belligerent, great vocalisations, but they're also really nice animals.

MG: Do they spin around? I mean, in the cartoon, they're like whipping around and they buzz through trees and underground. Do they actually spin around?

MENNA JONES: I have had a devil spin. It was just before the mating season on our head. Biggest devil that I ever captured. He was 14 kilograms. And we're not finished handling him, sitting on the ground with my legs out in front, you know, a bit quite relaxed, letting go that he was so full of himself that we just prior to the mating season that he breaks the way. And he stopped in at four metres away and he actually spun round and he charged me, came to a skidding [unintelligible] from metre away and just sort of huffed and grunted and me and spun around again and took off. The answer is yes, I have to say but they probably don't do it very often.

MG: You mentioned the sound of the Tasmanian devil again. I mean, we have the idea of what it sounds like in the cartoon and this kind of spitting, roaring wild beast. This is what two real Tasmanian devils sound like.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Growling]

MG: That's kind of devilish, if I do say so myself. Why have they had such a hard go on the mainland? As I mentioned, they've been extinct there for 3000 years.

MENNA JONES: We know more or less why they went extinct. I mean, there'd been 3000 years of a drying climate and they range had been pretty much all over the Australian mainland, except perhaps the desert. And they contracted down to a very small area in the more temperate part of south eastern Australia around about that time. The human population increased with new tool use. This is the Aboriginal population, which would have increased potentially competition for prey and potentially also direct predation on the devil. And also, the dingo arrived in Australia. The dingo was a domestic dog. It came in on fishing boat from Indonesia. And that spread very rapidly across the mainland. The synergy of those three things, the devil didn't make it. And the thylacines also went extinct. And we can pick up a genetic signature in Tasmania of a near extinction event of both devils and thylacines at the same time. And all we had in Tasmania was a climate event. We didn't have the increase in Aboriginal population and we didn't get dingoes. So it does indicate that, you know, the climate probably set the scene and the other two factors bumped that off. Now that we know roughly why they went extinct, there's no reason why we can't put them back.

MG: What's the benefit? Just finally putting them back there.

MENNA JONES: Well, the devil is a top predator, originally the two top predators in Australia were the thylacine, which is not really actually as big as a wolf. It's not really a wolf. It's more of a solid looking coyote. And the devil, which is a marsupial hyaena, but it's not very big. There are only between sort of seven to 12 kilograms. But they're the top terrestrial predator in Australian ecosystems. So with the extinction of those two on the mainland and the arrival of the dingo, we now have dingoes on the mainland that fulfil that top predator role. But dingoes can't live everywhere. They're kind of banned from sheep country because the pretty destructive on sheep. So there are many places that now lack a top terrestrial mammalian predator. And top predators are pretty good at persecuting invasive predators like Red Foxes in Australia and feral cats. So this then means that the devil functions as the top predator in protecting smaller biodiversity, which would be impacted by predation from feral cats.

MG: So it helps keep things back on track in some ways.

MENNA JONES: It does. Yes.

MG: Do they call you the devil whisperer?

MENNA JONES: I have been called that.

MG: It's a good thing to have on a business card.

MENNA JONES: It is.

MG: I really appreciate you telling us more about an animal that, as I say, we know only from reputation and reputation, from a cartoon perhaps is not something that you want to build your knowledge on, man. Thank you very much.

MENNA JONES: Thank you.

MG: Bye now.

MENNA JONES: Bye.

MG: Menna Jones is an ecology professor at the University of Tasmania. That is it for The Current for this week. It's been a busy week. CBC Radio one continues with Q Coming up after the news, Taleo Schlanger in for Tom Power and she will be speaking with Afie Jurvane, also known as Bahamas Great singer songwriter. Here's a brand new record out. It's called Sad Hunk and you will hear songs from what a great title. You'll hear songs from Sad Hunk performed live through your CBC Radio, coming up. Thanksgiving weekend. And we're here on Monday. We have a special episode of Stuart McLain's Vinyl Café for you. So you want to tune in for Moralez Garden on Thanksgiving Monday. In the meantime, I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Have a great Thanksgiving. We'll talk to you Monday.

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