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The Current Transcript for September 13, 2019

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

I couldn't see and the line's broken and I'm trying to calm her down my first thought was oh my god two women cannot die in an underwater cave. This will be world news. I've got to solve this. There's no option.

LAUR ALYNCH: For 72 minutes, Jill Heinerth's husband and friends thought she was dead stuck in a cave unable to find her way out. But she lived to tell the tale and many other stories of remarkable resilience as she explored the world of underwater caves. The Canadian is a first among equals as a diver and as one of only a few women to take the plunge hear her in half an hour. After that:

SOUNDCLIP

You sit in the classroom and you're the only one that's in. And you hear 'Ah. The savages. They really were so mean to the poor white people who came here and they scalped them'. And this language is Satan's language this is how I was raised this is what I heard.

LL: Alanis Obamsawin, legendary film maker, is releasing her latest documentary focussed on the fight for proper equal medical care for First Nations children. Today she gets personal talking about her own disturbing experience as an Indigenous person and how it has informed her work. But first, the first leaders debate. I'm Laura Lynch and this is The Current.

'Dog-whistle politics': Liberals trying to 'provoke fear' over abortion, says Conservative strategist

Guests: Amanda Alvaro, Sally Housser, Alise Mills

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Everybody else set the snooze button. If we don't ensure that global emissions are 45 percent below their 2010 levels by 2030, the opportunity will close and it doesn't reopen ever.

[Cross talking]

VOICE 2: We all know that it's very serious. We see the impacts of climate crisis in the lives of Canadians but we have a lot of opportunity here. We believe we can put 300,000 people into great solid sustainable jobs.

VOICE 3: Well it's always been the case that the NDP don't support developing our natural resources. What we now know is that neither do the Trudeau Liberals. His carbon tax has not put a price on pollution. It has given a massive exemption to the country's largest emitters.

VOICE 1: We really don't have a lot of choice here. You can't negotiate with physics.

LL: Hey it sounds like election season in Canada. The first debate between the federal leaders took place last night in Toronto, but there was one very noticeable absence; Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was not among those squaring off. Instead Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, The NDP Jagmeet Singh and Elizabeth May of the Greens went toe to toe on deficits and the economy, Indigenous issues, climate change, foreign policy and more. Their only point of agreement seemed to be their condemnation of Trudeau's absence. We've got a panel today to help take stock of the debate highlights and what it means for those vying to unseat Justin Trudeau. Amanda Alvaro is a Liberal strategist and the co-founder and president of Pomp and Circumstance. That's a public relations firm. She's with me here in our Toronto studio. Alise Mills is a senior associate at Sussex Strategy Group and a conservative strategist. She's in our Vancouver studio and Sally Housser is a political strategist and veteran of NDP campaigns. She is in our Regina studio. Hello to you all.

GUESTS: Good morning. Hi.

LL: Alise Mills let's start with you. With Justin Trudeau's absence, Andrew Scheer became the target standing right between Elizabeth May and judgment thing as they attacked him time and again. How do you think he did?

ALISE MILLS: Well you know in that group he is the front runner and his partner for tied for first place decided that not to show up. So it was expected that Andrew was going to be at the target. I think Andrew was the only one that had that sense of statesman about him, that leadership and I think you know my issue with Elizabeth May from the get go from - I must make it sound like we've been in this campaign for two weeks now - it may feel like that but it's really only day three. But from her launch to any of her events, she's loose in the sense that she doesn't have her messaging locked down. She sort of oscillates from one issue to the next. We're not really sure what position where she stands on key positions. She's had so many issues with her candidates lately. And not just the issue. All of us have had issues with our candidates. But the problem I have with Elizabeth May and her performance last night was that the issues I started with on day one with her are the issues she's carried forward and I don't think she's really understanding that she is going to blow her own lead here.

LL: So I just want to get Sally Housser in here on that because Elizabeth May is actually the veteran of these debates. How do you think she did?

SALLY HOUSSER: You know I think she did all right. Obviously strong on climate change environmental issues as one would expect you to be. But I'd have to agree with Elise is that you know what's lacking so far in the campaign is any issue of cohesion.

LL: But we are only three days in.

SALLY HOUSSER: In the lead up you know. You know I've worked a lot of campaigns both provincially and federally. And as a New Democrat every single time I've been told that the Greens are going to eat our lunch and we need to be very very concerned. And then that you know in my mind hasn't ever really materialized. I think in order to do that you have to have a more cohesive message and your candidates have to have a more cohesive.

LL: Well what then. How do you think their leader did?

SALLY HOUSSER: I think Jagmeet last night did extremely well. I mean I think we've all here at one point written kind of the press release saying our leader won. You know but every now and then it gets to be true. And I think you know for introducing himself to Canadians last night he very much did what he needed to do. Very strong on where I think the NDP is traditionally strongest is there for the little guy, issues of equality, fighting the power.

LL: I want to get us to listen to another clip from the debate right now.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I think we need to examine our [unintelligible] code.

[Cross talking].

VOICE 2: I think we can all agree that Justin Trudeau is afraid of his record. And that's why he's not here tonight. He has made life more expensive.

[Cross Talking]

VOICE 1: We can agree on that.

VOICE 3: I'm glad we agree on the hard points.

VOICE 1: We can now sing kumbayah and keep going.

[Laughter]

LL: As you heard Justin Trudeau played a prominent role last night by not being there. Amanda Alvaro, what do you think? Was it the right decision?

AMANDA ALVARO: Well it was a decision that everyone knew going in. He had agreed to to follow the debate commission's rules and work within those and he'll be at three debates coming up. I think it was the right decision. I mean you did watch though and you had this sense of how lacking a debate could be without him being a part of it. And despite the stunt of this empty podium, which has been used in British politics before, and a lot of talking over each other by everyone on stage, you really did feel his absence there.

LL: Would you have preferred to have seen him there?

AMANDA ALVARO: I mean I would. I would have preferred to see him there but I understand the rationale for him not being there.

LL: Being what? They're saying that he lacks courage to defend his record.

AMANDA ALVARO: Well if that were the case the only way that that argument could hold water is if he declined doing any debates at all and of course that's not the case. But he's in Western Canada. He's started that campaign there. He started in B.C. He was in Edmonton last night in front of a huge rally of supporters and their rationale is we want to be on the ground with the people as much as possible we want to be connecting and talking to actual people on the ground, and that means that we're going to, we will carve out a percentage of our time to work on the debate strategy in the debates and we'll spend the rest of the time on the ground in communities.

LL: Alise Mills, it's a front runner strategy not to show up to debates. Do you think was the right move?

ALISE MILLS: This is Justin Trudeau 2019 so let's go back in time and our time machines to 2015. And he talked about wanting more French and more English language debates. He wanted to be there with Elizabeth May because he wanted his daughter to be able to see a woman on the national leadership stage. Everybody cheered when he made those comments. And where was yesterday? Debates. It's one thing to go to a rally of supporters. It's another thing- We have a large group of undecided in this country and particularly with late older millennials for example and particularly also women. And I feel that debates are an opportunity for the person that we have employed to be our CEO, to run our country, to be accountable to Canadians and for them to be able to see the differentiation between all four leaders.

LL: Sally Housser.

SALLY HOUSSER: I get the kind of rash rationale you know, Amanda was saying, yes we're going to be out talking directly to people and not debating all the time. But there's another rationale that I frankly you know I can see is sensible is that Trudeau's team got to ship back last night and watch his opponents and where they're going to be strong, how they attacked him. You know that's a benefit I think going forward, and one that maybe people are aren't talking about in terms of preparation. We are you know kind of at the beginning. I think his you know campaign launch was a little lacklustre and it is very dangerous to play this front runner strategy when you're really not very far in the league.

LL: Amanda.

AMANDA ALVARO: I don't totally disagree with Sally I think that there is there is an upside strategically to take a look at the positioning of each of the opponents and how they will attack in a debate and have that first opportunity to take a look at that and decide how will we respond in upcoming debates. But also you know he wasn't just with supporters he's an unhealed ridings, important ridings. And I think that there's something to be said for a leader who got off the ground in Ottawam his first flight out was to western Canada. What that says to western Canadians and what it says to Albertans.

LL: The three leaders did find lots to disagree about amongst themselves. And I just want to highlight this because the exchanges over Indigenous rights were particularly heated. Listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: If there's one area where Justin Trudeau raised expectations to levels that he has been a complete disappointment it is on indigenous files.

VOICE 2: With all due respect Andrew it was conservative senators that blocked the passage of the bill that passed in the House of Commons that we should honour the United Nations Declaration on rights.

[Cross talking]

VOICE 1: For a very important reason. There are many laudable goals within this piece of legislation but we cannot create as a system in this country where one group of individual individuals, one indigenous community, can hold hostage large projects that employ so many Indigenous Canadians.

VOICE 2: The language you are using is so inappropriate.

VOICE 3: You use language like hold hostage. I mean that's just incredibly disrespectful of.

[Cross talking]

LL: Alright, that's Andrew Scheer again being put on the spot for how conservative senators defeated the bill that would have implemented the UN declarations of the rights of Indigenous peoples. Sally Housser I want to start with you. What was Jagmeet Singh trying to do here?

SALLY HOUSSER: You know I mean I think the NDP has been consistently strong on on issues of First Nations. And it's a voting group. I guess although you never want to talk about any any kind of one group is super homogenous. But there I just saw the other day a very strong ad run on APTN. I think Jagmeet Singh is rightfully going to go after Prime Minister Trudeau on failure on some of these issues, well, water advisories. But letting Andrew Scheer sit back there and also go after him with the own record of conservatives, I think it's where you want to kind of point out that the liberals and conservatives in their history have frankly failed.

LL: That leads me to a question for Alise Mills. Are indigenous issues an Achilles heel for Andrew Scheer as he tries to distinguish himself from Stephen Harper?

ALISE MILLS: No absolutely not. And full disclosure I'm working with indigenous groups and communities in regards to pipelines natural resources right now. Well I think what's the nuance here that's missed maybe and no offence to those in Toronto or past Manitoba is that we've recently gone through the First Nations elections here and there is dissent and disagreement among First Nations and there's a wide swath of a large group of Indigenous leaders. I think there's 40 of them some hereditary some elected chiefs that support oil gas, LNG, pipelines and refineries. And what they're looking for is ownership of that, and to be able to employ their own people, and to have control over that. And I think that Andrew Scheer strikes right at the heart of that. And I think that the Indigenous community First Nations community across the board I think there's disappointment Justin Trudeau whether you're a pro oil and gas indigenous leader or whether you are somebody who's against it, because there has been absolute failures on both for Indigenous communities across the board. Not just on the resource side but I would say on the social side. When these communities don't have flushing toilets and water that is a failure of the country.

LL: Amanda what do you say to that? Did Justin Trudeau just raise expectations too high in 2015?

AMANDA ALVARO: I think that when he is out and talking about his record and talking about the progress that's being made the relationship and the building of the relationship well with indigenous peoples will be among that list. And I think part of it will be about consultations and the involvement and the concessions that have been made around the pipeline and ownership of the pipeline and actually getting a pipeline built and caring about it enough to buy it. And I think part of it will be around so many other issues that have been traced and tracked and dealt with this government. I thought last night though actually this was one of the stronger moments for both Jagmeet Singh and Elizabeth May to hold Andrew Scheer to account to say you are part of this Harper record. You are part of what made this Harper record a reality. And you're the one- Well the fact that a pipeline was never built-.

LL: But we are talking indigenous rights.

AMANDA ALVARO: And in terms of indigenous rights that I'm talking about the conservative senators and how they blocked the ability to move things forward. This is part of a conservative record that Andrew Scheer now has to defend and finally has to say how he is going to uphold the rights of these people.

ALISE MILLS: I would love the opportunity to respond to that.

LL: Alise. Just briefly please.

ALISE MILLS: Yes I would like to remind everybody that it was Stephen Harper that that made sure that Indigenous women had the right to own property no matter what their marital status was. And I think that the fact that that had never been done in Canada as a woman myself I found the absolutely appalling. The other thing is that particular bill was nuanced in regards to - it's not about not supporting Indigenous and First Nations rights. I think we had demonstrated under Prime Minister Harper the many things that we had done for those communities but it's far more nuanced and it's easy to just throw it out.

LL: I've got to move on here. The Conservative leader was able to talk about issues he wanted to focus on last night. After a day in which the abortion issue haunted Andrew Scheer again. He was in the Toronto riding of York Centre with the candidate Rachel Wilson and prior to his appearance. Liberal candidate Carolyn Bennett tweeted a video of Wilson from an anti-abortion rally in 2017. I just want you to listen to a bit of audio from that.

SOUNDCLIP

While I've been passionate about events like floods for many years. We were shocked to hear that there is no national memorial, no national monument for the unborn in Canada. And we thought we need to do something about this. So we are so excited to be moving ahead on the initiative to [unintelligible] Canada's very first national memorial for the unborn.

LL: That is conservative candidate Rachel Wilson in 2017. The audio wasn't so great on that so if you couldn't make it out she was saying she was looking to create a national memorial for the unborn. Alise Mills, what should voters make of what conservative candidate Rachel Wilson is saying there?

ALISE MILLS: Well every individual has a right to their own personal convictions on a number of issues. But Andrew Shearer and the Conservatives have always been clear that we govern for all Canadians. So I you know I just want to make this really clear because I don't know how many times conservatives and Andrew Scheer have to say this but there is there is absolutely no appetite or no will to re-open this debate and we're going to oppose all attempts to reopen the debate. So you know I know that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are you know out there you know weaving the mythology. They're not aren't talking about the facts but something hypothetical and it's intended to provoke fear. And I think at a time where Canadians are feeling not united - we have regional issues, we have social issues, we have social to regional issues. I think you know this dog whistle politics is dangerous.

LL: Jagmeet Singh was also trying to raise the abortion issue in the debate last night. He's criticizing both Andrew Scheer and Elizabeth May. So Amanda Alvaro is this an issue you think Justin Trudeau will continue to raise when he's in the room or out on the road?

AMANDA ALVARO: Well I think this is an issue that can take that Canadians will continue to raise. I mean you have when you have almost 15 percent of the Conservative Caucus who stands up in anti-choice rallies when the leader decides that on the first full day of campaigning he's going to campaign with an anti-choice candidate. And when you have groups like right now whose mission is to elect 50 federal ridings for candidates who identify as pro-life conservative candidates. That's not fear mongering. That's just fear. That's a concern for Canadians and it's incumbent upon all of the leaders to talk about some of these social issues that are battering at the minds of women who want to know that their rights will be preserved.

LL: Sally Housser, I think you want to get in here.

SALLY HOUSSER: Yes. You know when people kind of just say, hey, listen it's the debates over we have no appetite to open it, which is what the conservatives you know say all the time. I think that there is a fear and one that's natural kind of Canadian women when you see some of the things that are happening at the state level in the United States. And just saying kind of OK we're not going to legislate that abortion is now illegal is not enough. There are so many different ways that right wing governments and right wing politicians can reduce restrict access to safe reproductive health care. So you know I think that you need more and I agree the Wilberforce project and rightnow.org are extremely organized. Their mission is to at the nomination level nominate anti-choice candidates and get them elected. So I think ignoring it is is at our peril. We've got to be proactive. And I think you know for Elizabeth May having candidates who weren't quite sure and the message is mixed. That's a problem.

LL: All right. I'm sure that we can go on and on and I hope we will meet again but we're going to leave it there for one day. Thank you to all of you. Amanda Alvaro is a Liberal strategist and the co-founder and president of Pomp and circumstance. She's here in Toronto. Alise Mills is a senior associate at Sussex Strategy Group and a conservative strategist. She's in Vancouver. Sally Housser is a political strategist and veteran of NDP campaigns. She's in Regina. Now we at The Current and CBC News have a full slate of election coverage on the go. We are your destination for news analysis and voter tools you need to make an informed decision in October. So if you have a question for the federal leaders about the election well you may just get your chance to ask it. On October the 7th, two weeks out from Election Day five federal party leaders and that will include Justin Trudeau will face off as part of the English language debate. The five leaders will also take part in a French language debate on October 10th. And both of those debates are going to include questions from the public. So here's your chance to get your question in what would you like to ask the federal leaders. Go to our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent for information on how to watch the federal leaders’ debates and just maybe get your question asked. The CBC News is next. Then take a deep breath.

SOUNDCLIP

She became entangled. And then she became stuck wedged in the rocks and then she broke the guideline. So we're both now blind with a broken safety line. She's panicking but she's also the cork in the bottle containing my life because she's closer to the entrance than I am and I can't get past her. So I have to solve the situation for both of us or neither of us is going to get home.

LL: We're going underwater with Jill Heinerth, one of the most celebrated cave divers on Earth. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

Cave diver Jill Heinerth

Guest: Jill Heinerth

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come stay with us for a new feature we're calling the current obsession a chance for producers to talk about something they're, well, obsessing about. And once you hear it well you may be too. But first we are taking a deep and dangerous dive.

[Music: Theme]

LL: If I die it will be in the most glorious place that nobody has ever seen. That is the opening sentence of Jill Hinds exhilarating memoir Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver. And it says a lot about the Explorer. For decades the Canadian has been at the top of her field in the depths of the ocean for one of the most dangerous pursuits in the world. It has led her to some unimaginable places the crevices of an iceberg, the longest cave systems in the world to document and map the unknown and it has taken a lot of metal along the way. She's faced injury, the deaths of dozens of colleagues and friends and close calls of her own. But the call to push further in the name of scientific exploration couldn't be contained. Today Jill Heinerth is not only one of the most celebrated cave divers on earth, she's also recognized as a pioneering underwater photographer and filmmaker and Jill Heinerth is with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

JILL HEINERTH: Hello.

LL: Tell me about your earliest memory of diving. When did you first realize there was something that you loved?

JILL HEINERTH: I threw out my young life was always involved in swimming lessons and water polo and synchronized swimming and springboard diving and anything to stay wet. But when it came to scuba diving I immediately knew from my very first dive [unintelligible] Canada that this is something that I wanted to do.

LL: Do you remember why? What it was that it twigged in you?

JILL HEINERTH: Well especially when I'm swimming underwater in cave systems - because that's my specialty Waterfield cave systems - it feels like I'm swimming through the veins of Mother Earth. It's just as much spiritual as it is you know a beautiful environment to see and it gives me a sense of purpose because of some of the scientific discoveries that we've been a part of.

LL: When we talk about the events that formed you both as a person and as a diver. There's something that happened to you in college you had a terrifying encounter with an intruder in your home and I wondered you could tell me about that and what it taught you about fear and how to face it.

JILL HEINERTH: Well I mean my first reaction was just to hide under the blankets as we all would and just hope that the burglar would go away. But I think it gave me the courage and the knowledge that I could survive, and also the understanding that we have to kind of step toward fear to do something new for ourselves to sort of cross that next horizon I guess. And it taught me that I could turn off my emotions and deal with terrifying things in order to survive.

LL: Now one of your mentors in diving was Paul Heinerth. You eventually married him but not until after an extraordinary exploration and this year a mother took on mountains of Mexico. It's the first real test of your deep cave diving skills. So tell me about the mission and how you came to be a part of it because you weren't actually supposed to be diving at first.

JILL HEINERTH: Yeah that was really the beginning of my expeditionary career in many ways. It was 1995 and I was invited to join the team the U.S. deep caving team for this exploration in an effort to try to find a way through what we thought could be the world's deepest vertical cave system inside the mountains. And so I went along as, at first, just someone who was going to be a support person in the. There were two people that were doing most of the cave diving. And one kind of said the conditions are getting too extreme. There's no visibility. We were having mudslides in the mountain that were just obliterating our ability to see in this cave. And so he stepped out and that left a void. And so I convinced the Expedition leader Dr. Bill Stone that that this was something I wanted to do and was ready and prepared to take on.

LL: And one of the things you told him is that you don't have a problem with murky water.

JILL HEINERTH: No. Because I learned to dive in murky water here in Canada.

LL: So you get you get to dive with Paul. What were you feeling as you descended into the cave for the first time that day?

JILL HEINERTH: It was an incredibly dynamic project in the sense that we kept having extreme changes to the environment; high flow, flow reversals, the current would change directions in the cave and then these mudslides that would completely obliterate the visibility. So I was certainly nervous. I mean scared but I think being scared before a dive is actually a good thing. It means you care about coming home. But also exciting because to have an opportunity to go to places that nobody's ever seen before is an incredible privilege.

LL: Throughout the book you describe some of what you'd see when you're descending into these caves including bones from our elephantine ancestors. I wonder if you could just take us into a scene like that. What were you experiencing in those moments?

JILL HEINERTH: Caves are like museums of natural history. They contain evidence of global climate change. Sometimes they contain the remains of civilizations that are no longer with us. So these are like portals to another world in many ways. Plus these caves are beautiful to me. It's not just wet rocks. They're all different. Sometimes they're like crystalline galleries of beautiful stalactites and [unintelligible] and other times you know more entranced by the biology that's living in these dark places.

LL: I just I wonder what that feeling is though because I mean I know I can go hiking on mountains and maybe pretend to myself that no one's ever been here before, but in a lot of these places nobody has ever been there before. What is it like for you?

JILL HEINERTH: It's amazing. I mean I grew up watching Apollo missions and I kind of wanted to be an astronaut as a child. I remember sitting in school in kindergarten and watching men drive around and rovers on the surface of the moon and I wanted to be an explorer. And at the time there was no Canadian space program and there were certainly no female astronauts. So that didn't seem like a direction for me. But I think that I got to do that in underwater caves instead as an aqua Knight instead of an astronaut. And that feeling when you know for certain that nobody's ever seen this before is incredible.

LL: Must be. So you did the dive in Mexico and you returned from that trip changed. How?

JILL HEINERTH: Well I realized that I was sort of on the hairy edge of this this precipice and in a way. To embrace exploration and all the wonders that you get to see within the planet is one thing, but you're also standing on a razor edge of risk. And I recognized that it was not going to be long before I experienced some incredible sadness in my life, losing friends in this in this type of diving that we called technical diving. But there was still the pole to me. I really was drawn by the discovery and the science.

LL: You did eventually work with some of the Mexico team again on the Wakhula project. It was the first attempt at underwater 3D mapping. How big a deal was that at the time?

JILL HEINERTH: It was huge. This was 1997-98. My colleague Dr. Bill Stone said how would you like to map a cave that you can't necessarily see. And I said fantastic. How are you going to do that? And within two years he had built this three dimensional mapping device that would create the world's first accurate three dimensional map of a subterranean space. And that was still just the beginning because even now almost 20 years, well actually more than 20 years later, I'm still working with Dr. Bill Stone and that mapper has continued to be developed and it's now destined for Jupiter's moon Europa. So it's great to be a part of something that big and that important.

LL: The book is peppered with these moments where things go sideways and it just sort of makes me clutch the book to my [unintelligible] because it scares me. Whether it's a failure of a gear or of someone's judgment or a simple change in the water condition and the dive just suddenly turns really dangerous really quickly. How do you remain calm?

JILL HEINERTH: Well we do a lot of training. We carry a lot of equipment with us, hundreds and hundreds of pounds of equipment and we do a lot of training and we practice drills for everything that can possibly go wrong. But when the worst happens I take this really deep breath and literally say to myself in my head emotions you're not going to serve me well right now. Because your brain does want to hijack your body. Your heart rate wants to go out of control. Your breathing wants to go out of control. And your mind just wants to run off like chattering monkeys. And all of that can be solved with a really deep breath and a thoughtful pause before you make the next best decision. Because every breath that I take under water is measured and my survival as is measured by how much is left in my tank.

LL: Because you don't have unlimited oxygen. You spoke earlier about losing people close to you when you dive and you wrote really movingly about the agony of waiting in the context of your friend Ron Simmons. Tell me what happened with Ron?

JILL HEINERTH: Oh yes. So Ron didn't come home one night basically to a friend's house next door. And I got a call in the morning that said Ron didn't come home last night. And when a cave diver doesn't come home and we know they were diving the night before then we know that we're gonna be doing a body recovery. But first we had to find him. And when we found his truck sitting alone by the spring with his shoes neatly outside the door of the truck and quiet in the forest we knew that we had to mount a body recovery. And it's incredibly difficult to be involved in something like that for a friend. But at the same time it's something that you want to do for your friends and your community.

LL: So you and another friend decided you could not be the ones to go in after him again because of my emotions, right?

JILL HEINERTH: It was just he was just too close to my colleague Wess and I. And so we called. We called the right people in and stayed on shore to support rather than going underwater. It was just more than either of us could handle.

LL: And you waited for him to come out. How do you go back into the water after a heartbreak like that?

JILL HEINERTH: It's not always easy. I mean we go through the what ifs and why can't that happened to me and the answer truly is that it can happen to you. But you have to look at the risk assessment and then remember the joy of what brought you there in the first place or the joy of even the deceased and what brought them there in the first place. And that's what drives me forward. But there are times in life where I've had to take a break. I mean I had a good scare one year and it terrified my husband, my second husband. And so I took four months off and we jumped on our bicycle as we rode across Canada just to clear our heads and really focus for the way forward.

LL: Tell me about what happened.

JILL HEINERTH: Well I was in a very small cave with the scientists and just trying to get some samples for her work. I was leading her in and the space in this cave was it would have been smaller than you know squeezing under the kitchen chairs in your home basically. And when we turned to exit she lost her orientation, disturbed the silt and then got entangled in the guideline.

LL: A guideline is something that you sort of follow along when you can't see?

JILL HEINERTH: Yes. A piece of string that we lay through the cave that becomes your you know your bread crumb trail back to the entrance but you can just hold it to get out. So she became entangled and then she became stuck wedged in the rocks and then she broke the guideline. So we're both now blind with a broken safety line. She's panicking but she's also the cork in the bottle containing my life because she's closer to the entrance than I am and I can't get past her. So I have to solve the situation for both of us or neither of us is going to get home.

LL: What happened?

JILL HEINERTH: Well in the end I lost track of her at one point and I knew that I needed to backtrack even further into the cave to make sure that I was not leaving her behind. And that delay in my exit me searching for her on the way out, I had to patch the guideline a couple of times I had a regulator that was malfunctioning that I was trying to deal with and I was doing the search. So by the time I reached the exit and found her fine she had called for help. But that meant that for 73 minutes the world thought that I was dead. So I was dead to my friends for 73 minutes and that's kind of sobering to face afterwards when they all sent notes and things that they might have read at your eulogy.

LL: Did you think that that might be the case as well at one point?

JILL HEINERTH: Oh yes. I mean when the whole situation unfolded and I couldn't see in the lines broken and I'm trying to calm her down my first thought was oh my god two women cannot die in an underwater cave this will be world news. I've got to solve this. There's no option.

LL: There's another incident because as I said you've had several incidents and this is the first time I've actually understood about the bends, because I've heard the expression before and didn't understand what it was. Tell me Tell me about when you got the bends.

JILL HEINERTH: So the bends is something known as decompression illness. So when we dive and we go deep underwater and stay down for a long time the gas that we are breathing - we get to use up the oxygen - but the extra things that are in your breathing mix which might be nitrogen or helium are of no use to your body. So they just get stored in your tissues and it's exactly like a bottle of pop that has all kinds of gas bubbles that are dissolved into the fluid. Now when we come up from a dive we have to make a very slow return to the surface because we're slowly relieving the pressure on our bodies and allowing that gas to slowly come out. If we don't, like if we race to the surface, it would be like ripping the cap off a soda pop bottle and all the gas would come out of suspension. So if the mathematical algorithm doesn't work out just right for our physiology, which can always happen, we can get bent. Meaning there are bubbles that are coming out of solution in our body and now getting stuck in places and causing injuries in the body and that's decompression illness.

LL: And that's what happened to you.

JILL HEINERTH: And that's what happened to me. Yes.

LL: Describe that for.

JILL HEINERTH: You know I first noticed the initial symptoms when I was under water after two days of very deep diving, almost 400 feet deep in a new cave system in Mexico. So I was out in the middle of the bush during this exploration work and I suddenly recognized that this was happening to me. And it was terrifying absolutely terrifying. At first I thought that maybe I had like ants or something inside my dry suit because I felt this sort of niggling tingling biting sensation in the front of my thighs. So I ended up treating myself in the jungle, hiking out of the jungle, doing three long stays in a reeking oppression chamber in Akumal Mexico and then having a doctor tell me never dive again.

LL: Because it does that much permanent damage?

JILL HEINERTH: It can. Yes I mean it can be deadly even in the initial onset.

LL: You say this with such equanimity. I want to talk next about your opportunity to go to Antarctica and dive into a glacier. And I was reading about just the journey to get there and I wanted to quit.

JILL HEINERTH: Well I almost wanted to quit just getting there too. That was a heck of a boat ride.

LL: So the challenge of getting there was enormous. But the diving was something else. Tell us about the challenges you were facing that you had never encountered before.

JILL HEINERTH: Well first of all it was 12 days across the Southern Ocean to reach Antarctica from New Zealand. And a 60 foot seas meant that I experienced a tremendous amount of seasickness on the way down. But once we got there we were the first people to cave dive inside an iceberg. And there's no handbook for someone that goes first. So we didn't know what to expect, of what we might encounter and it turned out that we had calving incidences where big pieces of the iceberg were calving away and closing the door that we had just gone inside.

LL: Breaking off in other words.

JILL HEINERTH: Yes. We had tremendous currents that were pinning us down inside the iceberg and on one occasion sweeping us through an iceberg. So it was quite dangerous plus the water's, minus one point eight.

LL: Yes there's that too. I want you to go into a little more detail on one of the dives because the first dive you found yourself trapped under the ice. The second dive you popped up from under the ice only to find you couldn't see the boat anywhere. You still went for a third dive. Tell me what happened on the third time.

JILL HEINERTH: Yes. So three of us went inside the iceberg to get some footage for a film for this National Geographic project. And as we were diving in I recognize that the current was starting to pick up and it was pushing us from behind. But by the time we started to retreat out of the iceberg we were pulling hand over hand, grabbing onto the seafloor to try and move forward. And it was just getting worse and worse and worse.

LL: You did get out?

JILL HEINERTH: We did. Yes I'm here today.

LL: You hold yourself up on the deck and what happened next?

JILL HEINERTH: Oh I turned to the chief scientist and I just said the cave tried to keep us today and we had a bit of a discussion and a meal and decided that we wanted to do one more dive. So we put a watch on deck to let us know when the current subsided when we could slip into the water and do another quick filming job. And while we were waiting the entire iceberg just cracked broke up. And as far as the eye could see all we could see is just broken shards of slush and ice on the surface.

LL: And if that had happened when you were in the water?

JILL HEINERTH: I wouldn't be here today.

LL: That was a good signal that we talked about the challenges. I wanted to go back into explorer mode and tell me what it was like inside the iceberg. What you were seeing?

JILL HEINERTH: Oh it was it was beautiful. I thought that I was going to go to a colourless environment in Antarctica and it's anything but. Even just the shades of blue that you see in the ice are overwhelming from like the colour of a robin's egg to transparent blue ice. It's beautiful. And then places where the iceberg tripped up on the sea floor the walls and the ceiling looked like a scallop surface of a golf ball. But the sea floor was covered with filter feeding organisms that were yellow and orange and red with like frilly fronds like Christmas tree worms, that are just capturing everything that's coming through the current in the silt.

LL: Amazing.

JILL HEINERTH: It was beautiful. It was beautiful.

LL: And the you seem destined to this life, to accept that if you die it will be in this glorious place no one's ever seen as you said. How do you grapple with your own mortality when you're deep underwater?

JILL HEINERTH: Well you know my mother's asked me aren't you afraid of dying? And my answer is is no. I guess I'm not. I'm afraid of not living a full and productive useful life. You know. So every day I wake up excited, excited to be a part of these wonderful scientific discoveries and an exploration. And yet still when I get in the water it has to be worth it. So I do careful risk assessment and there are a lot of expeditions that I turned down because I don't think that it's furthering anything for humanity. But I guess you know all I'll go smiling knowing that I've had a purpose filled existence.

LL: Does your mother, has she just shaken her head in the past?

JILL HEINERTH: Oh yes. My poor mama. You know what. I'm sure it terrifies her. But I think my parents are really proud. You know I think they're proud of what I do.

LL: There's this passage where you write when you're in Antarctica. You said this is a quote: "Time felt nebulous and fleeting. We were obliged to recall the most important rule of exploration. We had to be prepared to work to the very edge of what was possible and know when to turn to head home. That time was very nearly upon us". And I wonder if you foresee a time when you will head home for good when you've had enough.

JILL HEINERTH: Oh you know, I don't see that yet. I have friends that have cave diving into their 80s and I hope I'm capable of doing that. But certainly I think that is an ultimate rule of surviving explorers. Is that you have to be within reach of that gold treasure chest. I am sure I'll slow down. I'm sure I'll be you know choosier and choosier about the types of things that I get involved in but I do know when to abort and when to turn back and that's the rule of survivors.

LL: So what's next then?

JILL HEINERTH: Oh I've got lots of things on the go. You know every bit of work that I get to do at home here in Canada is fantastic and I get several projects on the horizon here as well as some work with National Geographic and Bob Ballard, you know, surveying and mapping caves that may have some human habitation in them. So pretty interesting stuff.

LL: What do you mean?

JILL HEINERTH: Human habitation sites offshore where sea levels were lower and we hope that we may find undisturbed places where people lived off the continental margins.

LL: Atlantis.

JILL HEINERTH: Well, sort of. We'll see.

LL: Before I let you go, you've said that one of your favourite caves in the world is in the Bahamas and I wonder what you've been thinking and feeling as it's become clear how that devastated the island has been by hurricane Dorian.

JILL HEINERTH: I have spent so much time in Abaco Bahamas and I still have colleagues there who went through Dorian and made it thankfully. All of us have been working towards turning parts of Abaco into an important conservation refuge that's been supported by the Bahamas National Trust because it's such an important cave system. So it's just heartbreaking to see the devastation. I think it's much worse than we're actually seeing in the news from the reports from my friends and it's going to be years if ever for that infrastructure to be returned to Abaco.

LL: Jill Heinerth I want to thank you for the book and for all of your work.

JILL HEINERTH: Thank you.

LL: Jill Heinerth is a cave diver, underwater explorer, writer, photographer and filmmaker and she was with me in our Toronto studio. Her book is called Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver and I have to tell you not only is it full of these adventures that we've been talking about, but the photos are amazing, and we'll share a few of them on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC. Well coming up in our next half hour we will introduce you to our new feature The Current Obsession. After that the complicated fight over a simple premise. We'll hear about the young boy that inspired Jordan's Principle which says that Indigenous children should have access to the same healthcare and other government funded public services as all other children in Canada. I'm Laura Lynch and you are listening to The Current.

'This is why I revolt': How Alanis Obomsawin's painful childhood experiences inform her filmmaking

Guests: Geoff Turner, Alanis Obamsawin

LL: I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current. Still to come I'll be speaking with filmmaker Alanis Obamsawin about why she is compelled to keep telling stories about the struggles and resilience of indigenous people well into her 80s. But first today on The Current we're trying out something new. We're calling it the Current obsession. It's a chance for producers on the show to talk about an idea they have rattling around in their heads. First up I'm joined by one of The Current's senior producers Geoff Turner. He is in Vancouver. Hi Geoff, what's your obsession this week?

GEOFF TURNER: I actually have a couple of obsessions this week Laura and I don't know if that's allowed but I get to do it anyway. And this is one of them.

[Music]

LL: So what is that?

GEOFF TURNER: That is the official Andrew Scheer Conservative Party campaign theme song written by none other than Jim Vallance, a long time collaborator of Brian Adams. He actually co-wrote classics like Summer of 69 and Run to You.

LL: Oh for sure I know who Jim Vallance is. Why are you obsessed with that song though?

GEOFF TURNER: Not because I especially like it but partly because the opening chords bear an uncanny resemblance to Summer of 69, but also because - as our colleague Matthew Lays and writer pointed out to me yesterday - when you hear them side by side that song sure reminds me of an 80s classic by Joan Jett. Have a listen to this.

[Music]

GEOFF TURNER: So I don't know about you but that sounds awfully similar.

LL: That does really sound similar except obviously for the lyrics.

GEOFF TURNER: Yeah. So I'll leave that aside for now. It's one of my obsessions that I'm going to try to dig a little deeper into the murky world of campaign theme songs later in the election cycle. But I've got something else in mind.

LL: Okay. What else have you got stuck in your car Geoff?

GEOFF TURNER: It is the Overton Window.

LL: Overton Window? What's that?

GEOFF TURNER: Not the Glenn Beck novel just to be clear.

LL: Okay. Because that's one place where I've heard it. But what is the Overton window?

GEOFF TURNER: So imagine a rectangular window frame and inside that window frame. This is a frame in your mind. Look inside that window frame is a range of public policy ideas that are acceptable grist for the mill in mainstream political conversation. And those ideas are on a spectrum running from left to right. So it's not that everyone in mainstream society agrees that these are good ideas but just that they're ideas that they will tolerate conversation about.

LL: I'm still trying to grasp a hold of this. Can you give me some examples to give me a better idea?

GEOFF TURNER: Okay. Well it's something that shifts over time and I've got a very good example from U.S. politics and this comes courtesy of Jarrett Skorup. He's with an American think tank called the Mackinac centre.

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Certainly at least over the past decade here in the United States I think health care is one big issue there. So for most of the U.S. history the idea that government was going to run a health care system. Politicians didn't even mention it. And now in the presidential campaign it's been talked about at the idea of a single payer Medicare for All system is being talked about openly. I think as pretty much unanimous support among Democratic candidates certainly.

GEOFF TURNER: So that's Jarrett Skorup of the Mackinac centre and the reason I contacted him is that the Overton Window is named for Joseph Overton who was one of the founders of the Mackinac centre.

LL: And he is the one who invented the phrase Overton Window?

GEOFF TURNER: Yes he was. He came up with it as a way of sort of conveying essentially what the work of the centre was doing. And I think that the example that Jarret gave there is really interesting because you had this interesting Canadian parallel. In the Canadian context right now the idea of privatizing health care is outside the Overton Window. I think you'd have a really tough time getting that idea off the ground politically in Canada right now.

LL: So the window isn't fixed. It moves around.

GEOFF TURNER: Right. And you have people at both ends of the political spectrum who are trying to raise issues that would shift the edge of that frame to the right or to the left. And according to Jarrett Skorup, that's mostly people outside the formal political process. So people at think tanks are an obvious example, activists. They get the idea on the table and if the public bites then the politicians are happy to feed them more of it. But the reason I'm obsessing about this in the context of this election is because of a little thread that I noticed on Twitter this week.

LL: Okay what was that?

GEOFF TURNER: Okay well bear with me because this is a little bit inside baseball but Justin Lane you might know as a writer a political writer with Vice among other things he mentioned a conversation on on Twitter. It was a conversation between two of his colleagues at vice and they were pondering the campaign of Maxime Bernier. And their speculation was that the project of the People's Party of Canada was not actually to get people elected, although that would be nice for them of course too, but to move the edge of the Overton Window on some very specific issues. Now one of those journalists was Stephen Joe. And here's what he had to say about that.

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I'm just trying to get votes necessarily and that's it. But it's also the climate of the country or our public sphere with where you know the discussions with regards to issues such as multiculturalism, such as immigration, such as quote unquote political correctness, all issues that Maxime Bernier cares about. These discussions changes the definition of acceptable versus what's not acceptable. With regards to those particular issues.

GEOFF TURNER: So what Stephen show is saying is that even if the PPC doesn't elect a single member ever they might succeed in the long game by actually getting some of their main ideas cutting immigration, promoting assimilation over multiculturalism inside the Overton window.

LL: What other examples are you seeing out there?

GEOFF TURNER: So on the left side of the spectrum I would think of somebody like Naomi Klein and we know you're going to be talking to her next week about her new book. And that book sets out a pretty dramatic political and economic agenda with the aim of reversing global warming. But a lot of the specifics in the book are to the left of any mainstream political parties official policies. So the aim is to get those ideas into the window of possibility.

LL: And so how do you see this playing out in the campaign?

GEOFF TURNER: Well according to Jarrett Skorup the job of politicians is to recognize what among their policy ideals the public is actually ready to embrace. Their job is just to get the votes. The heavy lifting on those policy ideas out there is happening among activists and academics and think tanks. And of course depending on what those ideas are there can be structural barriers to them like ideological bias in media outlets that you need to get the ideas out. But if Steven Joe is right Maxime Bernier might be using the exposure of a longshot campaign to get some of those ideas in the window.

LL: You know that all sounds a bit Machiavellian.

GEOFF TURNER: Well I guess that's the nature of politics. But on the positive side when it all comes together when someone succeeds in shifting the edge of the Overton window with a great idea it's a very good thing indeed. Here's Jarrett Skorup with a favourite example.

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A group of men led by Wilberforce in England who came together it was a group of politicians and academics and pastors, clergymen, who came together because they wanted to end the slave trade. And it was way outside the window when they started but slowly slowly slowly they changed the beliefs of the population which eventually changed the beliefs of the politicians. And just two days before he died Wilberforce saw Britain agree to ban the slave trade and then that quickly spread around the world. Not quickly enough of course but it eventually spread around the world. Eventually that was something that slavery no longer accepted.

GEOFF TURNER: So Laura for Canadians considering all the policy options out there in this election, remember those options didn't get there by accident. There was a lot of effort to get them into that frame of reference that we work through every day.

LL: All right. Thanks for sharing your obsessions with us.

GEOFF TURNER: Thanks for tolerating me Laura.

LL: Geoff Turner is a senior producer with the current based in Vancouver.

[Music]

LL: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Laura Lynch. Jordan's Principle is pretty simple. Put Kids First. But the simple premise was born from a complicated fight between the province of Manitoba and the federal government over just who should pay for the care of one little boy with severe disabilities. A little indigenous boy named Jordan River Anderson.

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VOICE 1: Well Jordan couldn’t talk. He never spoke. He never cried, didn't have any tears. He had clap feet, had [unintelligible] stomach. So many difficulties.

VOICE 2: So we are practicing with Jordan to stand up and to sit down.

VOICE 1: They expect us to [unintelligible] symptoms. There's only eight cases known since the dawn of time. Good Standing.

LL: Jordan's father Ernest there tells his son's story in a new National Film Board documentary called Jordan River Anderson, the Messenger. The film chronicles the clash between levels of government over who was responsible for Jordan's care. It wasn't resolved in time for Jordan. He died in 2005 when he was five years old, 800 kilometres from his home in Norway House, Manitoba. Two years later the government recognized Jordan's Principle that Indigenous children should have access to the same health care and other government funded public services as all other children in Canada. But even then it would take years of legal fighting for the principle to be put into practice and for Indigenous parents to actually get funding for their children's care under Jordan's Principle. The acclaimed filmmaker Alanis Obamsawin brings us the story in the documentary which premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival. Alanis Obamsawin, hello.

LL: Hello. This is a story with a lot of fighters in it and the first among them was Jordan River Anderson. Who was he?

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: It was a beautiful little boy who was born with all the special needs and spend all his life in the hospital. By the time he was 2 years old the doctors had said that he could now go home or go to a house as long as it would be close to a hospital. And that place was identified in Winnipeg at one point and then the federal government and the Manitoba province government were arguing on who was responsible for whatever the costs would be. And this went on and on. And then they decided that Jordan would stay in the hospital until they figure who's going to take that responsibility. And you know he stayed on until he turned five and you went into a coma and passed away with never having gone home or to a home. So it really was a lot of pain for the whole family. It's became really tragic in every way.

LL: So two years after he died, after Jordan died, in December of 2007 the House of Commons unanimously passed what's called Jordan's Principle. Can you tell me what it says?

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: The motion was that when a family when a child is in need, the child must take be taken care then, when they first find out, whether it's a provincial or the federal government and let them figure out later who's responsible and have their own fight but the child should not be punished and have to wait or not receive the treatment that he needs. That's what the Jordan principle is that you have to take care of the child then, as soon as you know. And this finally it's changed now.

LL: In principle it seems pretty straightforward, but a lot of things happened to actually bring that into practice and that brings us to another fighter in this story and that is she's a familiar name to many. Cindy Blackstock the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. Tell us about her.

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: She is an incredible woman. We're so lucky to have her. She she just won't let go until it's done until they win and. She's been in and out of court all these years concerning Jordan. And I've seen, in the early 60s I did a lot of watching in the courtroom in different parts of our country, where our people were lining up and it was guilty. Guilty. No voice and very humiliating in this, in the way they were treated. So for me after all these years to have watched this time in the tribunal in the courtroom seeing our people being respected and heard is the highest gifts that I received in a long time. It's very different. They fought so hard. Because before that whoever was fighting for the government, always defended the government and didn't admit the wrongdoing from the government and try to not have to really help all those children. But what a different attitude and language in this room now. I sat there and there was a day I thought everybody in this room is for Jordan. And when you see this you see the possibility and how great it must feel for those who have power and finally really using it to do the right thing. Whereas those who have power often just go on trying to, in this case, stop the money to be given to the families. What a difference.

LL: Well let's talk about today then. Are indigenous children getting access to the same health care as other Canadian children?

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: They are. Apparently there there's still some problems here in their. When they start using blood quantum to see if they qualify. That's another very big sick thing.

LL: To see if they qualify as Indigenous.

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: Yes. If you're Metis or if you're a- there's all kinds of reasons they can find not to help. But that is changing also. And what has to happen now is you have to continue the fight because it's not because a child turns 18 or 21 and is born with all these special needs that you can stop helping them. You have to help them until the end. That's another fight.

LL: And just in the last few days there's been another human rights tribunal order ordering government to pay compensation to children who were taken away and put in care. Some of it related to Jordan's Principle and that just brings me to ask you is this fight ever going to end?

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: Well it won't end until everything is fair and the rights are given to the people. It won't. Like how can you rules people's life by forcing them out of their family. The government would the help only if the child became a ward of the government. How could you do that? That's criminal. It's criminal. I'm sorry. Some people might say 'Oh my God they're all going to give money to these kids now are to this family'. Well damn you know you just check what you're talking about. See what they have done to the people and to the land and to taking everything from us and making sure we were invisible. Making sure that we are treated as inferior. This is what they did from that very beginning and they've continue. And now a time comes where we're so strong they cannot continue this way.

LL: You keep telling stories about the struggles and resilience of indigenous people for decades and if you don't mind telling me how old are you now?

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: I'm 87 years old.

LL: And you have directed more than 50 films.

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: 53.

LL: 53 in total. But what kind of emotional journey is it for you when you immerse yourself in stories like this one?

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: Well nothing is easy but I feel so strong about it and you know I'm here because I'm one of those child. You know I wasn't a child with special needs but I was certainly, I was a child once and I wasn't treated right at all. And this is why I revolt especially against the educational system that for so many decades they had the history of Canada that they taught in the classroom officially. And then there you know me I'm here I am an Indian. Like they said Christopher Columbus who was lost, thought he was in India and the name stayed, became official. Well you sit in the classroom and you are the only one that's Indian. And you hear 'Oh the savages. They really were so mean to the poor white people who came here and they scalped them. And this language is Satan's language'. This is how I was raised this is what I heard in the classroom every day. And by the time I was- I got beat up so many times until I start beating back.

LL: Beat up by whom?

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: By children by other children you know if you're in the classroom and the whole classroom is all white and the teachers is saying how bad our people are, what do you think happens when you come out of the classroom? They're waiting for you. You know I didn't always know which corner but I knew that they were going to be there. And this is why I care so much for children and people tell me Alanis why are you so good to children? They beat you up. Yes. But they weren't born thinking that way. It's their parents and it's the adults who taught them that. And it's the teachers in the classroom that made sure that these other children could feel superior to me. I was just a savage. And by the time I was 16 I'm telling you I was dangerous. I just fought back and I really, my reason was how can this change. And I know my answer was that children have to hear another story and that's how I started to sing and talk about the history and told stories. I did hundreds and hundreds of schools in this country and I still do some of them when I can. And I won. I was right. Because now we are we are we are at the time I think across the country. Canadians want to hear the real story of this country. What's the history? They want to know the real thing. They want to know what happened. And I think in general Canadians wants to see justice done. And so it's a very different time especially the last five years with the reconciliation was done an awful lot of work and applied a lot of these changes that should have been made. So what's happening now never happened before. And I know that across the country there's an ear. You have a feeling Canadians are really listening to you now, where 10 years ago they said 'Ah, the Indians they're always complaining' and 'Oh they're drunks. They're lazy'. This is a language that we heard only. Now it's different. And we're people in court are being respected. And the treaties that were trick to our people and cheated and stole the lands stored every thing that has to do with natural resources. When you go to court now about a treaty it's a very different story. And then a lot of cases some justice is coming. Some land is going back and some money is is going back and I think I'm so glad I've lived this long to see the difference. I am very happy that I think there are good people everywhere in this country.

LL: And yet it seems like it doesn't take very much for you to tap into that anger that you felt when you were a young girl getting beaten up in school.

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: Yes.

LL: So Alanis Obamsawin at this age, are you hopeful?

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: It's more than hopeful. It's much more profound. The meaning of words, for me, words is almost more important than images. I like to listen to our people. I listen for hours before I come in with a crew. To really understand. It's about a life. And for me life is sacred and it is sacred for all. So I never get tired of hearing. And the older the people are that talk to me I'm always first of all wondering how did they survive, like what was it like. So it's just amazing. I find our people so beautiful. It's just that they don't know how beautiful they are.

LL: Alanis Obamsawin, thank you for this film. Congratulations.

ALANIS OBAMSAWIN: Thank you.

LL: Alanis Obamsawin new documentary is Jordan River. Anderson, the Messenger. It opens this week and is showing tomorrow at the Toronto International Film Festival.

PACINTHE MATTAR: Hi I'm Pacinthe Mattar, one of the producers here at The Current. This week The Current was produced by Ines Colabrese, Karin Marley, John Chipman, Julie Crysler, Danielle Carr, Cameron Perrier, Alison Masemann, Idella Sturino, Jessica Linzey, Samira Mohyeddin, Howard Goldenthal and Max Paris. Our web producers are Padraig Moran and Allie Jaynes. Our senior documentary editor is Joan Webber and our writer is Liz Hoath. Special thanks to our network producers Anne Penman, Jennifer Keene, Suzanne Dufresne, Susan McKenzie and Mary-Catherine McIntosh. Transcriptions are provided by Rasha Shehata and Shamhan Buhuiyan. Our senior producers are Cathy Simon, Geoff Turner, and Lara O'Brien. The Executive producer of the Current is Willow Smith.

LL: And that is our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio 1 for Q. Songwriters Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Frates from the Lumineers sit down with host Tom Power to talk about the real life stories behind their albums. Complicated family themes and the world premiere of their film at TIFF. Now we just heard the credits read by our producer Pacinthe Mattar. Today is with hints since last day at the current. She has been at the CBC for a decade and anyone who knows her knows what an amazing journalist producer and person she is. What many of us also know is that she has a deep love for Drake and Rihanna. So Pacinthe we know that with whomever you go on to work work work for they are very lucky people. We love you very much. We will miss you and we wish you all the best. This is dedicated to you. I'm Laura Lynch. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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