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Canadian Aboriginal Groups Oppose Pipeline

The World — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:40:18 +0000

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in China this week.

He is heading a delegation of Canadian business leaders aimed at forging closer economic ties.

Those business leaders signed nearly $3 billion worth of deals with Chinese enterprises Thursday.

China has a particular interest in Canadian energy, which is worth many more billions.

This includes a proposed Canadian pipeline to the Pacific Ocean.

It would move sludge-like oil known as bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands to the West Coast, where it could be shipped to China.

But not all Canadians are on board with the proposal.

This week, aboriginal groups from British Columbia sent an open letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao asking China to raise the native community’s concerns about the pipeline with President Harper.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Chief Jackie Thomas, one of the signatories of the letter, about why native communities do not want the pipeline.

Canadian Lego Man Goes to Space

The World — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:40:19 +0000

The Geo Quiz is going into space – by way of Toronto.

Two Canadian teenagers in Toronto made big headlines this week.

That’s because they successfully launched a man into space.

A man made of Lego blocks, that is.

This Lego man was attached to a homemade contraption, equipped with video camera, and tethered to a weather balloon.

After the two teenagers launched it, the balloon rose some 80,000 ft.

That’s within the layer of Earth’s atmosphere we want you to name.

It’s not as high as the thermosphere where the International Space Station orbits.

Nor is it as low as troposphere.

If you were standing on the summit of Mount Everest, for example, you’d be breathing the thin air of the troposphere.

The answer is the stratosphere. Lisa Mullins talks with Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammed about their science project.

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Another Oil Pipeline Runs into Political Debate in Canada

The World — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:00:01 +0000

The US battle over the proposed oil pipeline from Canada to Texas is not over.

Congressional republicans say they will keep pushing the Obama administration to approve the Keystone project.

But the administration says a plan for a new, more environmentally-sensitive route has to be submitted first.

Foreign minister John Baird expressed the Canadian government’s disappointment with the White House decision not to approve the project for now.

But even before this matter is sorted out, there is another political battle over another proposed pipeline.

This battle is within Canada over a proposed pipeline that would go west from Alberta through a remote wilderness area to an isolated stretch of coast in British Columbia.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Canadian journalist Peter Fairley, who is following the story in Victoria, British Columbia.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Hi. I’m Marco Werman, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. The U.S. battle over that proposed oil pipeline from Canada to Texas isn’t over. Congressional Republicans say they’ll keep pushing the Obama administration to approve the Keystone project, but the administration says a plan for a new, more environmentally sensitive route has to be submitted first. Foreign Minister John Baird expressed the Canadian government’s disappointment with the White House decision not to approve the project for now.

John Baird: Obviously, this whole episode underlines the importance of diversifying our market. We can’t have only one customer.

Werman: That’s where another proposed pipeline comes in and another political battle, this one within Canada. This pipeline would go west from Alberta, through a remote wilderness area to an isolated stretch of coast in British Columbia. Freelance reporter Peter Fairley is following the story in Victoria, British Columbia. He says the proposed Northern Gateway project is broadly opposed by environmental groups and by the native peoples whose territory the pipeline would cross.

Peter Fairley: Essentially, the opposition is”¦ I would say it’s similar to that which has stalled the Keystone pipeline. We’re talking about impacts on climate from the production of crude oil in the oil sands, but also, and I think probably more so in this case, we’re talking about concerns over oil spills. Kitimat, where this pipeline will end up, is along this storied inside passage, a beautiful site, and it’s also a sensitive salmon habitat, bear habitat, whale habitat. So the thought of mega-tankers coming in and out of there is quite disturbing to many Canadians, I think.

Werman: Well, the Northern Gateway pipeline is big news in Canada, and Canada’s Nature Resources Minister, Joe Oliver issued an open letter last week in which he rails against foreign special interest and, quote, “jet-setting celebrities with some of the largest personal carbon footprints in the world.” These are the people he says have upended their tar sands plan. Who is he talking about, and how have those comments gone down in Canada?

Fairley: [laughs] They’re not going down very well. He’s painting a pretty broad brush. And when he talks about jet-setting celebrities, I think the poster child would be Robert Redford, who was up in Vancouver a couple months ago shooting a film, and while there, published an op-ed in The Globe and Mail, Canada’s biggest newspaper, railing against both the Keystone pipeline and the Northern Gateway. So Oliver went on to say that U.S. funds were flowing to Canadian environmental groups that are on the front lines of opposing the Northern Gateway pipeline, and essentially you know, he’s saying that, you know, Canada’s economic interests are being upended by outside influences.

Werman: Is anyone saying that Joe Oliver has a point?

Fairley: If it sells anywhere, it’s in Alberta, where there’s certainly a lot of economic interest, and jobs are focused on the industry there. But I don’t think it’s selling broadly. People are quite incensed that their concerns are being belittled, and that they’re essentially being called traitors for being concerned about water quality, for example.

Werman: So Canada has this enormously valuable resource in Alberta. They’d like to get it to the U.S. gulf, and ports on the U.S. west coast, and to British Columbia, and they’d also like to sell to China. What is the big picture here? Are the Canadian oil industry and the Canadian government partnered on getting Alberta oil to anywhere in the world?

Fairley: They absolutely are partnered. The Harper Conservative government has made exporting oil sands products a priority for the government. They see this as one of Canada’s big economic opportunities, and they want it to continue. The pipeline to the west coast has a strategic advantage over something like Keystone in that right now, all of Canada’s oil essentially goes to the U.S. via pipelines, and that means that we’re captive to U.S. buyers. By putting a pipeline out to the west coast, Canadian oil producers would be in a position to play Asian buyers off of American buyers.

Werman: Peter, how will the Northern Gateway pipeline actually be decided? Is it headed for a major showdown, as Keystone XL has, here in the U.S.?

Fairley: I think it is. The hearings began this month, and the panel that’s conducting the hearings will make a decision sometime, maybe eighteen months from now, but the government can override that. I think the Harper government would be tempted to do that, and there you have a real political showdown.

Werman: Reporter Peter Fairley in Victoria, British Columbia. Thank you for your time.

Fairley: It’s been a pleasure.

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Is Canada Rethinking Its Approach To Gay Marriage?

The World — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:20:19 +0000

Canada’s prime minister has denied his government is changing its position on same-sex marriage.

Stephen Harper made the comment after media reports regarding a divorce case in Toronto.

The case involves two women, one from Florida, the other from Britain, who got married in Canada which legalized same-sex marriages in 2005.

A lawyer, representing Canada’s federal government in the case, is arguing that the women’s marriage in Canada is not valid because same-sex marriage isn’t legal in either Florida or Britain.

Martha McCarthy is the Toronto lawyer who represents the two women.

Marco Werman: Canada’s prime minister today denied his government is changing its position on same sex marriage. Stephen Harper made the comment after media reported a divorce case in Toronto. The case involved two women, one from Florida, the other from Britain, who got married in Canada, which legalized same sex marriages in 2005. A lawyer representing Canada’s federal government in the case is arguing that the women’s marriage in Canada is not valid because same sex marriage isn’t legal in either Florida or Britain. Attorney Martha McCarthy represents the two women. She was also involved in the push to make same sex marriage legal in Canada. McCarthy says that the divorce case in Ontario could affect thousands of Americans.

Martha McCarthy: If the government succeeds with this argument it puts into doubt the validity of the marriages of any same sex nonresident who came to Canada to be married from a jurisdiction that did not recognize the validity of same sex marriage.

Werman: So in other words, if these women who were from the state of Massachusetts where same sex marriage is legal there wouldn’t be a problem with this.

McCarthy: Right, if they came with Massachusetts after Mass. passed equal legislation then you’re right, according to their argument, that would be a valid marriage. The whole thing is like a law school exam because what if one is from Mass. and one is from Texas, and one is from Ontario and one is from New York? I’ve been inundated by emails today from individuals who have questions. And one person emailed me and said we’re from New York; at the time that we got married New York didn’t recognize the validity of equal marriage…

Werman: And now they do.

McCarthy: We came to Ontario, we got married, we’ve now moved to Ontario, do you think our marriage is valid?

Werman: Yeah, lots of questions.

McCarthy: It’s just ridiculous.

Werman: Let me ask you this, Ms. McCarthy, is a marriage certificate in Canada, for gay and lesbian couples, is it the exact same document as it is for heterosexual couples?

McCarthy: Yes, it is.

Werman: So how is Canada’s federal lawyer able to slide in the proviso after same sex marriage was enshrined into law in 2005?

McCarthy: Well, there’s some old case about the validity of marriages for purposes of annulment, 30 year old case that talks about the validity of marriage being dependent in part on the law of the domicile.

Werman: So what you’re saying is Canada’s marriage laws do not have a residency requirement, but that federal divorce laws do.

McCarthy: That’s exactly right. There is a one-year residency requirement for divorce, but no residency requirement for marriage.

Werman: So that makes this case especially complicated.

McCarthy: It’s why, the current estimates are that perhaps 15,000 same sex marriages have been solemnized since June of 2003, when equal marriage began in Canada. And as many as one third of those have been Americans.

Werman: I have to ask you this, if you know that your Canadian marriage license will not be recognized where you live, in this case in Florida and in Britain, then why even go through with marriage in the first place?

McCarthy: Because I mean that’s thousands of people who wanted a marriage despite what the view was in their home jurisdictions, who came because we were marrying same sex couples. That was you know, a flood in the first six months.

Werman: So Prime Minister Stephen Harper says that this case is not going to reopen the whole issue of same sex marriage. Do you think it actually will reopen it?

McCarthy: It’s possible, if we are not successful on this particular legal issue about whether or not the marriages are valid, the implications are enormous and embarrassing on the international stage to Canada, which has held itself out. I mean I’ve been certainly a big player in holding ourselves out as being leaders internationally on the issue of gay marriage. It’s unbelievable that the federal government would be taking this position nine years in.

Werman: Attorney Martha McCarthy speaking to us from Toronto. Thank you very much for your time.

McCarthy: No problem.

Mountains in British Columbia

The World — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:50:44 +0000

For the Geo Quiz we are looking for a mountain in British Columbia, Canada.

There is plenty of snow for skiers this season unlike last year when snow had to be helicoptered for the Winter Olympics.

Whistler Mountain in British Columbia, Canada is the answer to the Geo Quiz.

Avalanches killed two Canadian skiers late last week that is prompting forecasters to be extra vigilant.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks to avalanche forecaster Jan Tindle at Whistler Blackcomb ski resort in British Columbia, Canada.

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Understanding Noise Pollution in the Oceans

Rhitu Chatterjee — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:43:10 +0000

An octopus sits on a drillhead used by scientists at the University of Victoria. The drillhead’s named Cork, and hence it’s inhabitant, this octopus was nicknamed Corky. (Photo: NEPTUNE Canada)

Sound travels much faster in water than in air, and thus plays an enormous role in the lives of marine species. Reef fish rely on sounds to communicate. So do whales and dolphins.

But over the last century, we humans have filled the oceans with noise. Most of our commerce happens through ships which are noisy. We’re increasingly exploring the marine environment for oil, using airguns and underwater explosions.

So, how is this noise pollution affecting marine animals? That’s what Michel André has been trying to answer for most of his career. He’s a bioacoustics expert at the Technical University of Catalonia, in Barcelona. I first spoke with André back in April this year, when I blogged about his study showing human-made noises in the ocean may be hurting giant squids.

Until recently, Andre had limited access to sounds in the seas. He could only work with sounds recorded over brief periods of time from a boat out in sea.

So “the dream was to have the (acoustic) data flowing to our desks,” says Andre.

Recent technological developments have helped make that dream come true. Now, scientists all over the world are putting underwater microphones in our oceans and connecting them to satellites or to the Internet. So researchers like Andre can continuously monitor the marine soundscape and do so in real time.

That’s why a few years ago, he launched an ambitious global project called Listening to the Deep Ocean. It connects existing deep sea microphones (they were put in place mostly by geologists interested in studying under water seismic activities) to a website. You can learn more about his project in my story which aired on The World today.

The website allows anyone to listen to sounds in the deep ocean. You can click below to hear some of the sounds these underwater microphones are recording. They include sounds of ships, under water explosions, humpback whales and dolphins.

It is still early days for Andre’s project. So we’ll have to wait to see what he learns about the impacts of noise pollution in the oceans. In the meantime though, he thinks he’s on the verge of a major discovery from analyzing sounds from a network of microphones off Vancouver Island, in Canada.

“We are suspecting that we might detect the presence of the right whale,” says Andre.

That’s the North Pacific right whale, which hasn’t been seen in the region for some 30 years.

Listening to the Deep Ocean

Rhitu Chatterjee — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:30:44 +0000

A rattail fish checking out NEPTUNE's seismometer off the coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. (Photo: NEPTURE Canada)

Benoît Pirenne walks down a winding rubble path in a fjord on Canada’s Vancouver Island.

He points toward the water, to a sign that reads, “WARNING: CABLE.”

“The cable is going underneath here, and it’s going out 800 kilometers in a big loop in the ocean,” he says.

The cable connects to a network of scientific instruments deep in the Pacific Ocean. The network is called NEPTUNE Canada. (NEPTUNE stands for North East Pacific Time-Series Underwater Networked Experiments.)

The network was set up by Pirenne and his colleagues at the University of Victoria two years ago. It continuously monitors the ocean environment, recording all sorts of information, including sound.

Pirenne takes me to a shore station a few minutes’ walk from the coast.

“This is where the first acquisition of the data is taking place,” he says.

Once the stream of data arrives at the shore station, it is relayed to the University of Victoria. From there, it’s sent to scientists in Canada and around the world on the Internet.

A Global Network

On the other side of the planet, in Spain, Michel André has been listening in.

“This is like big ears that are placed on the bottom of the ocean,” he explains. “And these ears constantly get the sounds.”

André is a bioacoustics expert at the Technical University of Catalonia, in Barcelona. He studies how human-made noises in the ocean affect whales and dolphins.

He wanted to share the sounds of the ocean with the general public to show how human activities are altering the marine environment.

So, a few years ago, André launched an ambitious global project called Listening to the Deep Ocean.

The project connects deep ocean observatories like the one in Canada to a single website. Go to the site and you’re greeted by a whale swimming across your screen, the scene complete with sounds of water and whale calls.

Click on the whale, and you arrive at a page with an image of the earth that spins slowly when you place your cursor on it. Scattered across the globe are a handful of green and blue dots that represent individual observatories. Most of them send sounds in real time to the website.

To listen in on what’s happening in the ocean, all you have to do is click on a dot.

Audio Extra: Listen to recorded sounds from the deep ocean.
For information on what you’re hearing, click on the SoundCloud button.

Software developed by André’s team identifies the different sources of sound and indicates what they are – dolphins, for instance, or ships – in a color-coded display.

The deep-sea observatories also pick up sounds of geological processes. Observatories off Japan recorded the devastating earthquake that triggered the tsunami earlier this year. Those sounds – sped up so they are audible to the human ear – are in the website’s sound library.

The Navy’s Concerns

The ability to listen to the world’s oceans isn’t exactly new.

During the cold war, the US Navy set up a network of underwater microphones in many parts of the world to track Soviet submarines. For decades, the sounds of the deep sea were considered highly sensitive military information.

Now that civilian scientists and the general public can listen in, the US Navy is uneasy.

Consider the region off Vancouver Island where scientists have installed microphones.

“It’s a region where we have naval operations,” says Robert Winokur, a Navy oceanographer. “It’s [also] a region where the Canadian Navy has naval operations.”

He says allowing the general public to listen to that part of the ocean poses a threat to national security because someone – he won’t say who – might use that information to target Navy vessels.

To reduce that threat, the US and Canadian navies struck a deal with scientists at the University of Victoria. It gives the navies control over the acoustic data.

Winokur says when there are naval operations in the region, the navies redirect the stream of sound.

“Rather than it being sent to the Internet in real time, we divert it to a naval facility where the data are screened and returned as soon as possible to the University of Victoria,” he explains.

In other words, the sound is scrubbed to remove noises from naval vessels.

Scientists at the University of Victoria’s NEPTUNE project aren’t complaining about this set up, at least not openly. But the US Navy hopes eventually to work out similar arrangements with ocean monitoring systems elsewhere in the world.

Cornell University ocean acoustics expert Christopher Clark says scientists outside the US and Canada are unlikely to comply with the US Navy’s request to scrub their data.

“The strategy that they’re using with NEPTUNE is a dead end,” he says.

Clark says the US Navy doesn’t own the ocean acoustic environment and has to accept that what was once military technology is now in the hands of civilians.

This is similar to what happened with satellite imagery. For decades, it too was sensitive military data, but now anyone can go on Google Earth and look down from space.

Clark says whether the Navy likes it or not, the public will increasingly listen to the oceans.

“The cat’s out of the bag, the horses are out of the barn, whatever the metaphor is, it’s happening,” he says.

Indeed, the number of observatories on Michel André’s website is growing.

The site currently links to listening posts only in the Northern Hemisphere, but soon it will be connected to microphones in the South Pacific, South Atlantic, and Southern Indian Ocean. And that will open up an even bigger swath of the deep sea to our ears.

For more on this story take a look at my blog post: Understanding Noise Pollution in the Oceans.

Northern Arctic Outpost in Canada

The World — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:30:36 +0000

CFS Alert (Photo: Royal Canadian Air Force)

We’re looking for the northernmost place in the world where people live year round.

This Canadian outpost looks out on the ice-covered Lincoln Sea all the way to Greenland.

It’s a dark and remote Arctic setting.

On Wednesday, the temperature was about minus 18 Celsius – that’s zero degrees Fahrenheit and it’s pitch dark all the time during the winter months.

So, can you name this isolated outpost? Where daylight doesn’t return until March?

The answer is Canadian Forces Station ‘Alert’ (CFS Alert) at the northern tip of Ellesmere Island. CFS Alert commanding officer Major Andre Delhommou tells anchor Marco Werman about a day in the life of the northernmost, year-round inhabited place in the world.

Rocking Drummer Boy Big Hit On YouTube

The World — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:40:18 +0000

Sean Quigley, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, performed and filmed his own version of the classic Christmas song, “Little Drummer Boy” and posted it on YouTube. To his shock, the video has had over a million hits. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Quigley about the viral phenomenon.

Marco Werman: Here’s another fixture around this time of year, the little drummer boy. When you think about who that boy could be you might imagine a six year old innocent kid gently tapping his toy military drum. Then there’s an alternative scenario, the kid is actually 16, he’s got a grunge look about him and he’s rocking out on a full drum set. That’s Sean Quigley, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and he is the drummer boy, or shall we say, the young man on a video that’s gone viral on YouTube. Sean, how many views does your video have now?

Sean Quigley: Uh, I don’t know an exact number, but it hit a million this morning, so that was a big one.

Werman: Okay, round figures is about a million. That’s pretty good. Why cover this classic song? Why did you choose it?

Quigley: I don’t know, it just speaks to me so much. Like you said, I guess, I connect with the song because of me playing drums, and my faith and I just chose to do that song.

Werman: And you say your faith, explain that a little bit more.

Quigley: Well, I’m a Christian and the song is about a little boy finding Jesus and not having anything to give him. And that’s me, so I can play my drum just like in the song. So that’s my gift I guess.

Werman: And we should say that you’re not just a drummer. I mean you play all the instruments on this track. It’s not that hard these days, you can do it with overdubbing, but you’re really good at all of them. What do you play?

Quigley: Well, on this particular one I played the drums, the guitars, the bass and then the vocals, and then just added some piano stuff over top just for a little icing on the cake per se.

Werman: And the video is pretty cinematic. Who shot it?

Quigley: I did actually.

Werman: No way, really?

Quigley: Yeah, I did with the help of my sister, yeah, I shot it.

Werman: I mean there are close-ups, there are cutaways, there are B-roll, C-roll, D-roll, I mean you’re pretty talented.

Quigley: Thank you.

Werman: You know, there’s another famous YouTube sensation or at least he got is start on YouTube, Justin Bieber. Did he kind of open up this whole world for you? Did he give you license to go ahead and do all this stuff singlehandedly?

Quigley: Not really, I mean he’s a talented kid, he’s from Canada, which is awesome. He’s doing what he loves to do, but I don’t really see a correlation, no.

Werman: What about a career in music, would you like to go down that path?

Quigley: Absolutely, yeah.

Werman: So what is next for you?

Quigley: Right now I’m not sure. I’m dealing with like a management firm out of Los Angeles, which is helping me out with a lot of the business side, stuff that I can’t really do on my own right now. And hopefully, to record more original music.

Werman: Aside from Christmas songs, which you obviously know how to nail pretty well, who do you like to listen to? What music turns you on these days?

Quigley: I like a lot of Hillsong United, it’s a band from Australia, a rapper name Lecrae, he’s amazing. I like all genres of music from the classical stuff, to jazz, to rock, hip hop, I love it all.

Werman: You know, you’re so talented I bet you could drum out a little roll on your lap right now? You think you could give us an a cappella drum roll?

Quigley: If that’s what you want to do.

Werman: Take us out with an a cappella drum roll.

Quigley: How’s that?

Werman: Pretty good, little drummer boy.

Quigley: Thank you, sir.

Werman: Sean Quigley, thanks a lot for your time.

Quigley: Thank you.

Werman: If you want to see Sean’s version of little drummer boy it’s on our website, theworld.org.

US-Canadian Border Crossing

The World — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:40:14 +0000

You may not have noticed but last week something called the “Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness Action Plan” went into effect.

North America’s busiest trading partners, the US and Canada, inked the deal.

Among other things, the action plan governs border crossings.

So, there’s one border crossing we’d like you to name.

This suspension bridge over the Detroit River was built in 1929. 10,000 vehicles travel across it on a typical day.

That includes trucks carrying a quarter of all merchandise that goes to and from the US and Canada, amounting to a $ 100 billion a year.

All that makes this bridge one of the busiest international border crossings in North America.

Can you name it?

The answer is the Ambassador Bridge linking the US and Canada.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Toronto Star reporter Mitch Potter about a Canada government proposal to use an Act of Parliament to move forward with building a bigger and better bridge at the international Detroit-Windsor border crossing.

Muslim Woman Wants to Appear Veiled in Canadian Court

The World — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:25:43 +0000

The Supreme of Canada has heard the case of a Muslim woman who wants to appear veiled in court while she testifies against the two men she has accused of sexual assault. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with University of Ottawa law professor, Carissima Mathen, about the details of the case.

Marco Werman: Religious freedom versus the right to a fair trial – that’s one way to summarize a case heard today by the Supreme Court of Canada. At the center of the case is a Muslim woman. She is the accuser in a sexual assault case and she wants to testify while wearing a niqab, an Islamic face veil that covers the entire face but the eyes. But the defendants assert that it’s their right to confront their accuser and observe her facial nuances as she testifies. University of Ottawa law professor, Carissima Mathen was at the Supreme Court hearing in Ottawa today. Carissima, this case has been ongoing for a few years. What can you tell us about it and how it’s kind of ebbed and flowed?

Carissima Mathen: Well, in this case, what happened was that at the preliminary enquiry accused counsel requested that the complainant remove her niqab. The judge performed an ad hoc questioning of the complainant and determined on the basis of some of the things she said that the religious beliefs was not sincere or valid and was prepared to order her to remove the niqab. It then went on appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal which said that there needed to be a framework to govern these kinds of decisions. So it’s really about the larger question that would arise in any case where you have a witness who comes to court wearing a face covering that is worn for a religious reason.

Werman: And, the woman at the centre of this case says she is going only by the initials N.S. If N.S. is not permitted by the Supreme Court to wear a niqab when she faces the defendants, will she drop the case?

Mathen: We don’t know what the complainant would do in that case, but if you have a reluctant witness, ultimately the witness would be subject to a contempt of court order. That came out in the hearing today that the ultimate result could be that someone could in fact be jailed for their religious beliefs if the Crown determined that it wanted to go ahead. The more likely outcome in these kinds of cases is that the case simply would not proceed.

Werman: One of the Tenets of Islam is a requirement for modesty. Is this being seen as a lack of religious tolerance to ask this woman to remove her veil?

Mathen: Some members of the Muslim community in Canada argue quite strenuously that the Koran does not require veiling and so to see this as a question of religious belief is a bit of a red herring. That’s inconsistent with Canadian law on the scope of religious freedom. You know, there is an undercurrent in Canada, like the U.S. and other Western Nations, has been undergoing some debate about the role of Islam in public life and in society. But here, because it deals with the criminal justice system and the particular rights of the accused, there’s a little bit of a different aspect I think to some of the arguments.

Werman: In the United States a couple of years ago a case – Mohammed v Paruk, a Michigan District Judge dismissed a Muslim woman’s lawsuit against a car rental company because she refused to remove her niqab in the courtroom. Any sense of how this is going to play out at the Supreme Court in Ottawa?

Mathen: It’s really hard to tell at this point. The court was pressing hard about the accused rights here. The court was also wrestling with the aspect of how useful is demeanor evidence in any event. You know, there are studies that cast some doubt on that but, on the other side, we have an entire adversarial system that is predicated upon testimony from witnesses given in the ordinary courts which, of course, is that in our society people generally don’t cover their faces. So, there’s some really deep-seated societal beliefs at play here. To many people too, this is about a sexual assault complainant’s access to justice and while the niqab may make this seem a very exotic case, it’s actually consistent with other kinds of tactics that are sometimes used in a sexual assault trial to discomfort a witness, to make it less appealing for her to go forward. So, certainly, we think that that’s the important perspective.

Werman: It’s pretty complex. Is this a can of worms that Canada’s justice system would have just assumed to have kept sealed?

Mathen: I like to call it ‘a perfect storm’ of issues. I don’t think there would be a way to avoid this though, because, at some point when you have a more multi-cultural diverse society, you will have people who do observe certain cultural manners that will come into conflict with some of our criminal justice traditions.

Werman: Carissima Mathen, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, thanks so much.

Mathen: My pleasure. Thank you.

Reunion Time in Tehran

Carol Hills — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:41:10 +0000

Canadian cartoonist Gary Clement imagines a reunion of sorts outside the British embassy in Tehran this week.

Why Canada has Declared a State of Emergency for the Attawapiskat

The World — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:40:07 +0000

Attawapiskat First Nation Band Office (Photo: Wiki Commons)

A remote native community in Canada has declared a state of emergency.

The housing conditions for the Attawapiskat tribe have deteriorated to the point where many residents are living in sheds and tents.

Now they are getting emergency help from the Red Cross.

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Canadian Member of Parliament, Charlie Angus, about the problems facing the Attawapiskat.

Lisa Mullins: Now, in many parts of the developing world you might not be surprised to see people living in terrible conditions; families forced to sleep in makeshift sheds, no running water, no heat or electricity, people using buckets as toilets. But what we just described there is taking place in the Attawapiskat native reservation in Ontario, Canada. Charlie Angus represents the area in the Canadian Parliament. Angus recently visited the reservation and he says climate conditions are adding to the misery of people there.

Charlie Angus: The difference between third world conditions and northern Canada is the temperature. I was in Attawapiskat the other day, this is up on the James Bay Coast in northern Canada. It was minus 20. And that’s not cold up there. We met one family in a non-heated shed. The man was too sick to cut wood so they had no heat. He spit up blood every time he tried to cut firewood. We were in a little tent with a family of six, living in a small tent with a makeshift fire stove. Two years they’ve been in that tent. There’s 90 people being put up in a construction trailer that looks like a medieval prison and unfortunately, this is the reality in many communities. The difference with Attawapiskat is this is a community ragged, impoverished little community sad enough, they declared a state of emergency because they actually were concerned people were going to start to die if the temperatures dropped any further.

Mullins: So they declared a state of emergency themselves, the local leaders in the community. How did though get so bad in the first place?

Angus: What you’re dealing with here in northern Canada in terms of First Nation reserves or reservations is years of chronic underfunding. This is a community that doesn’t even have a grade school. For 12 years these kids have been going to school in dilapidated, portables on a toxic field. You know, this community, the kids were so upset that a little girl, she was 13 years old, Shannen Koostachin, launched a campaign to shame the government to giving us schools. Shannen became in Canada a national leader for First Nation equal education rights.

Mullins: How could that have gone though beyond the reach or the gaze of the government, including you because you represent James Bay and these residents in Parliament. And could the conditions that you saw really have come as a surprise?

Angus: Unfortunately, they haven’t been a surprise to me. I’ve been speaking of for the last seven years. We had one community in Saskatchewan that was so badly contaminated with e-coli we had three massive evacuations in one year. We’ve had major mold crisis in Fort Albany. I’ve spoken out on the situation in Attawapiskat. We had three states of emergency in three years. But what happens is the Federal Department of Indian Affairs just turns a blind eye. There’s an incredible capacity for indifference.

Mullins: Well, another question is how could this happen in an area that has rich resources, including a DeBeers diamond mine in the area?

Angus: Well, the lands of Canada’s far north are incredibly rich — copper, gold, diamonds. That’s why they make these communities so small, so that anything that’s found on the land that’s on their trap lines and their traditional hunting grounds where they’ve lived for thousands of years doesn’t belong to them. They have no access to…now in fairness to…

Mullins: They have no, in other words they have nothing in terms of revenue from the diamond mines?

Angus: Nothing. All the revenues from this rich diamond mine will go down to the province and all that money will be spent in urban areas in the southern part of Canada. Now, in fairness to DeBeers, they’ve actually sent in technicians. They sent in the trailers that were just supposed to be temporary housing, which have unfortunately become permanent, these construction trailers.

Mullins: Who is stepping up right now to help?

Angus: Well, it’s amazing, we have Red Cross Disaster Management on the ground. We’re getting calls from kids across the country doing fundraising at their schools. In Ontario, our largest province, the public school boards association are calling on all students to raise funds. I got calls from Boston, New York, Seattle, the Netherlands, the people are horrified that this is happening.

Mullins: Charlies Angus is a member of Parliament for James Bay, speaking to us about the dire living conditions for 1,800 members of the Attawapiskat native reservation in northern Ontario. Thank you.

Angus: Thank you so much.

American-Made Contributions to Egypt’s Second Revolution

Carol Hills — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:42:07 +0000

Canadian Cam Cardow on one of the American-made contributions to Egypt’s second revolution.

Name That Strait!

The World — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:40:57 +0000

For our Geo Quiz — we’re giving it to you strait.

Actually we’re looking for the name of a strait. It’s the section of the north Atlantic that separates Canada and Greenland.

This waterway also links the Baffin Sea and the Labrador Sea.

These waters are downright chilly – and mostly covered with sea ice from December on to June. Northern mariners have long known about the fierce tides here.

There are old fishing villages and Inuit communities at the edge the strait scattered along the coasts of both southwest Greenland and northern Quebec.

Name this strait where floating icebergs mingle with shrimp fishing boats and bottlenose whales.

We asked you to name the body of water that separates Greenland from Canada.

Map indicating Davis Strait (Illustration: Wikimedia Commons)

That’s the Davis Strait — which is the answer to our Geo Quiz.