Satire

It's Thursday January 12th, and I am freakin' out over here. Those Liberal ads about Stephen Harper have got me jumpy as a long tailed cat in room full of rockin' chairs.

Currently...(phone rings) AHHH! What the?...just the phone, ok.

Listen there's negative then there's terrifying. You should see the ads the Liberals didn't run. I didn't know Stephen Harper was behind the bird flu! And in another ad, he shoots these laser things from his eyes and freezes people. It's like Mr. Freeze but worse. Way WAY worse... (Drone noise) Oh god here comes another one..turn the TV off ..TURN IT OFF..I'm serious!

This is the Current.

Native Girls Sister/Crey Story

It's a tale you wouldn't want to live through twice. Yet the family of a prostitute who went missing from Vancouver's downtown eastside is fearful more of its members are heading down the same path. And sadly, we're talking about two young girls, 13 and 14-year-old sisters.

But we need to back up this evolving story by five years to understand the painful roots. In late 2000 Ernie Crey's sister's Dawn Crey disappeared off the Vancouver streets. Her DNA was later found on Robert Pickton's pig farm - the accused serial killer from Port Coquitlam--although hers is not one of the 27 murders he's been charged with.

As if that wasn't heartbreak enough, today Ernie Crey and his family are pleading with the B.C. Government to help prevent his nieces from following in Dawn's tragic footsteps. Ernie Crey's 13 and 14-year-old nieces have been wards of the Province for eleven years. And despite the fact that their care has been delegated to an aboriginal child and family services agency, the girls are not in a foster home - he says - but rather, on the streets of Chilliwack.

The two girls also have a twenty-year old sister who's trying to help them. One of our producers met up with Ashley Crey in front of the Chilliwack home where the girls are believed to be staying. Ashley Crey says she's tried to find out more about the circumstances her sisters are living in. And while we were with her, she again approached a woman who came out of the house and said she wanted to talk about helping her sisters.

For more on what the family is trying to do we were joined by Ernie Crey. He is the step-uncle of two girls - one 13, the other 14 years old. They are wards of the Province - but he and his family say the two are not being cared for properly.

Accountability

British Columbia has handed over child welfare responsibilities to various aboriginal social service agencies, like the Sto: lo Xyolhemeylh, in recent years. And this isn't the first time their actions have been questioned when it comes to protecting children.

To address some of the concerns about the current child protection system, and some questions that are being raised by this case of the two young sisters, - we were joined by Jeremy Berland. He is the assistant Deputy Minister with B.C.'s Ministry of Children and Family Development.

Listen to The Current: Part 1

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

The Current: Part 2

Green Party Leader – Jim Harris

During the final debates this week, federal party leaders took to the national stage and released their sound and fury for the benefit of deciding voters. But as Jim Harris can attest there was a notable absence from the show. The leader of the Green party was a mere spectator like the rest of us.

Jim Harris is a self-described fiscal conservative who likes to blur traditional conceptions of left and right politics. As a former staffer at the Financial Post and a successful author of books on corporate management, his credentials tend more towards capital "C" Conservative than conservation.

We invited Jim Harris on the program today to hear how he might have sounded behind one of those fancy debate podiums, wearing a colour coded tie like his political rivals, his, of course, green. Jim Harris joined us in our Toronto studio.

For more election coverage, check out cbc.ca/canadavotes. The Reality Check team will critique the newly released Liberal and NDP platforms, and they'll have a feature on groundbreaking negative political ads in Canadian election history.

Music Bridge

Artist: Les Paul
Cut: CD11 “Caravan”
CD: “American Made World Played”
Label: EMI
Spine #: 09463 34065 2 0

Letters

Louise Beaudoin is a former cabinet minister for the Parti Quebecois between 1994 and 2003. She is also this week's Friday political host of The Current, as we wind our way through the federal election campaign. This morning she is taking some time away from her research post at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal to join us for a look at the mail.

Listen to The Current: Part 2

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

The Current: Part 3

Permafrost – Researcher

A white Christmas is usually a given in the Northwest Territories. But it wasn't necessarily a sure thing two and a half weeks ago, when Yellowknife celebrated the warmest Christmas in recorded history. It was a balmy new year in the territorial capital, too, with a high of minus-three on January 1st.

And it might get warmer still, according to a new study of permafrost in the north. It says the rapidly melting tundra could itself boost the rate of climate change. CBC Radio producer Bob Carty made an award-winning documentary a few years ago, No Word For Robin, about the dramatic changes in the Canadian Arctic seemingly brought about by lurching climate shifts. We heard from some residents of Banks Island in the Northwest Territories describing some of the ways climate change is reshaping their lives.

Well that climate change is changing not just the weather and the eco-system, but the landscape itself, right down to the very foundation of the tundra … permafrost. The word conjures up images of bleak, treeless stretches of frozen muskeg. But permafrost is losing its permanence in much of the Arctic, and as it melts, new phenomena like landslides on Ellesmere Island and rapid erosion of Arctic coastlines are occurring at alarming rates.

We asked the University of Calgary's Brian Moorman, who is also the Canadian chair of the International Permafrost Association, to describe the effect melting permafrost is having on the land and infrastructure of the Canadian Arctic.

The shifting situations he describes could worsen significantly if a new study out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado turns out to be correct. It shows the pace of permafrost melting accelerating, which would fuel a hastening in the pace of climate change. The study's co-author is research scientist David Lawrence. We reached him at his home in Boulder, Colorado.

Permafrost – McGill Professor

Well, that prognosis doesn't sound very encouraging. But there are different perspectives when it comes to the study of permafrost, and what its melting might signal. So for a second opinion, we've brought in another permafrost researcher, Wayne Pollard. He's a professor of geography and the former director of Climate and Global Change Research at McGill University. He was in our Montreal studio this morning.

Last Word: Permafrost

We've just been discussing permafrost and how it is both affected by and affecting global warming itself...well Permafrost also has an effect on the independent music scene in this country because it's the name of a Toronto-based record label. It represents such emerging bands as The Barmitzvah Brothers, Femme Generation, and Jon-Rae and the River.

And lately, Jon-Rae and the River's been generating a lot of buzz. The 7-piece band has shared a stage with big Canadian acts such as The Arcade Fire and they'll be opening for the Constantines next month. Jon-Rae Fletcher, the band's lead singer and songwriter, is the son and grandson of B.C. preachers, and he grew up singing in churches---which explains the folk-gospel bent to his music.

So we closed the program with a song by Jon-Rae and the River, called “Come Back”, from their latest album Old Songs for the New Town.

Music

Artist: Jon-Rae and the River
CD: “Old Songs for the New Town”
Cut: CD 4, “Come Back”
Label: Permafrost Records
Spine: FROST010

Listen to The Current: Part 3

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

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