May 16, 2010: Tommy Douglas and the RCMP - Mixing Oil and Politics - African Grandmothers - A Look Back at the first Quebec Referendum

Song: You're in Love, Charlie Brown
Artist: David Benoit
Album: Jazz for Peanuts

In case you didn't know, Canadian taxpayers have invested one-hundred-million dollars in something called the "Geo-Mapping for Energy and Minerals Program". It's a five-year project, dedicated to searching for reserves of oil, natural gas and minerals, mainly in the Canadian Arctic.

Given the massive, ongoing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, you may well ask this simple question: Why?

Why does the federal government continue to sink hundreds of millions of dollars into the development of fossil fuels? Why are we continuing a long legacy of investing in the oil and gas industry instead of redirecting all that money to companies that focus on renewable energy? And since the big oil blow-out that happened on Earth Day, why aren't we changing direction?

Our guest this morning may have some answers. During her tenure as the federal Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, she dismantled the National Energy Program; she negotiated the Atlantic Accord with Newfoundland, opening the door to offshore oil development in this country; and she was responsible for a government-owned oil company, Petro-Canada.

She became a Conservative Senator in 1990, and took early retirement in 2008. Since then, she has been serving as a volunteer advisor to the Minister of the Environment and Parks Canada, to implement a law she personally championed, "An Act to Preserve Heritage Lighthouses". And she's writing a book.

Pat Carney now lives on Saturna Island, British Columbia...which, incidentally is one of the most beautiful areas of Canada's coastline. She joined Michael from our studio in Vancouver.

It may be the ultimate iconic image of the west - a horse, perhaps a Mustang, running wild and free, its strength and grace without doubt, its sense of being at home and at the same time an integral piece of the environment, clear.

Almost 40 years ago, in 1971, the U.S. Congress declared that the mustang were "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West, which continue to contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people."

But odds are that if Velma Johnston hadn't been driving down a road to Reno from her ranch, The LazyDouble Hearts, and noticed a bit of blood dripping from a truck in front of her...most if not all the wild horses in Western North America would have been hunted to extinction.

The story of Velma Johnston, aka Wild Horse Annie, a nickname intended as an insult by her enemies that quickly turned into a affectionate appelation; is remarkable in a number of ways. And not just in the sense of one woman deciding to change the way the world viewed horses and despite incredible odds succeeding. It is a tale that inspires, facinates and continues to reverberate some 33 years after Velma's death.

So it only makes sense that telling Annie's tale would appeal to Canada's best selling writing duo David Cruise and Allison Griffiths. Together the two of them have written ten booksdealing with everything from crime and biography to history and fiction. But most importantly for this project they are horse lovers, a character trait that would have endeared them to Velma Johnston. Wild Horse Annie: The Last of the Mustangs has just been published.

Alison Griffiths was in our Toronto Studios.

Hour 3

Music

Song: Blue Ocean
Artist: Jim Hiscott
Album: Blue Ocean

African Grandmothers

Ten years ago this month, two thousand incredibly brave women marched through the main street of Manzini, Swaziland. They were defying cultural taboos by publically declaring that they had been touched by the epidemic. Many of them were HIV positive themselves. Almost all had children who had died of AIDS. These women are now known around the world as the "African Grandmothers".

Their movement has become an international phenomenon. It has spread from Swaziland, the country with the highest HIV infection rate in the world, to the rest of the continent. And it has captured the imagination of other grandmothers all over the world.

Last weekend, five hundred grandmothers from 12 African countries gathered to talk about how their lives are affected by the AIDS epidemic.

They were attending - along with 42 Canadian grandmothers - the second African Grandmother Gathering - an international meeting organised in part by the Stephen Lewis Foundation.

Canadian journalist Sally Armstrong was in Swaziland on a magazine assignment and she spoke to some of the grandmothers attending the conference.

Music

Song: Dona nobis pacem
Artist: Eliette von Karajan
Album: Mein Leben an seiner Seite

Mail Pack

Last week Michael spoke about the inglorious end to the otherwise honorable career of Senator John McCain. We got a lot of mail about that.

Also on last week's program, Joan Powell of Vancouver presented an essay she had written about saying good by to her daughter at the airport. It had some of the crew of The Sunday Edition in tears listening to it. And it seems they were not alone

We've been talking about the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on the program. Both last week and this, we'll be talking about the possibility that we may expand oil drilling off our own shores. Some of you think we should, and some of you think we shouldn't

And, though weeks have gone by, we just keep on getting mail about what some of you thought were Michael's unkind comments about soccer.

Thanks to all of you who wrote. You can write to us about anything you hear on the program. Email us or send us a letter. Our postal address is P.O. Box 500, Station A, Toronto, Ontario M5W 1E6.

Sunday Morning at the Movies: This week, MGM

In its heyday MGM called itself the studio with "more stars than there are in heaven". It was the biggest engine in the Hollywood dream factory, the best at giving audiences what they wanted during the Great Depression and postwar years - fantasy, glamour and epic stories, all delivered with seemingly inexhaustible budgets.

These days MGM is a tattered shadow of its former self. It's facing bankruptcy and its creditors are scrambling to find alternatives to a fire sale of its assets.We thought it was a good time for another edition of Sunday Morning at the Movies, starring Risa Shuman.

Lena Horne Music Feature

In 1941 Lena Horne signed a seven year contract with MGM studios, the first black performer to get a long term contract in Hollywood.

It was not the first colour barrier she would break. She was a potent voice in the civil rights movement and an inspiration to generations of young black performers.

In 1943, when she appeared in Cabin the Sky, the all-black MGM musical that Risa talked about, Lena Horne made another film called Stormy Weather. The title song became her trademark and we played it for you.

Referndum Mix

Yes or No. Two simple options. But when Quebecers arrived at the polls thirty years ago this week, they faced a referendum question that was, shall we say, nuanced.

This is what it said:

"The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations; this agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes and establish relations abroad - in other words, sovereignty - and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency; any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum; on these terms, do you give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?"

The referendum campaign served as the arena for a clash of two political titans - Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Quebec Premier René Lévesque. The stakes were high. Public opinion polls early in the campaign suggested the 'Yes' side would win.

By the time referendum day came around, May twentieth, 1980, there was evidence the tide had turned; but Canadians still perched at the edge of their sofas as the results trickled in.

We let you listen to some of the sounds and the speeches of the first Quebec referendum.

Song: The Three Trumpeteers
Artist: Nicholas Payton
Album: Payton's Place