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The Current Transcript for May 26, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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Volodymyr Zelensky through a translator: So today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts. There is nothing on this place.

MATT GALLOWAY: The Ukrainian president isn't exaggerating. After the longest and bloodiest battle of this war, much of this particular Ukrainian city has been reduced to rubble. The mercenary group who led the fight says control will be turned over to Russian forces shortly. In 30 minutes, a Canadian photographer who spent time in Bakhmut on what and who is left and what, if anything, the siege of this city says about the course of a war that grinds on and on. Also this morning.

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EL JONES: We're not powerless. We're not content with being second class. And, you know, we expect reparations, we expect justice, we expect recognition, and we also are showing a path of how to get there.

MG: Black Lives Matter was the call in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Three years later, what does that mean? The Halifax Declaration was created as a roadmap for change for black Canadians. In an hour, the former Governor General Michaelle Jean and the poet and activist El Jones on turning words into action. But we begin in Alberta where the buffalo roam again. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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BISON

Guests: Clayton Whitney, Violet Meguinis, Brennen Starlight, Salman Rasheed

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[grunting and snorting]

MG: Can you hear that off in the distance? That gentle grunt and snort. That is the sound of bison. This is just a 20-minute drive from the towers of downtown Calgary. It's the Tsuut’ina Nation. And right in the centre is their buffalo paddock. Clayton Whitney is the manager.

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CLAYTON WHITNEY: There's one there. That's a yearling heifer. And then we have some yearling bulls out there. And then those ones you can see there are breeding bulls. And then way out in the distance there, you can see the little daughters or the herd out there and you'll see all the new babies. And we have 80 to 100 on the ground right now. So we're hoping for 160 this year. So when you're out there with them, it just kind of brings you back to, you know, you think back like 100 years ago. And they were I guess more than that when they were roaming North America and there was no fence lines or anything. And you can see it just in this paddock here and the different vegetation that grows and that are out here compared to like across the road, right, and just what they naturally bring to the land. There are sharp hoofs down there also like elk and deer and moose. So every time they're walking, they're actually puncturing the ground. And as they're going, they're pretty much seeding the ground with their manure and just walking on the ground. So it just brings so much back to the land. It's amazing how much animals want to come on this side of the fence with the bison. We get everything from cougars and bears and moose and deer and elk. But on the other, like across the road, you know, you don't see as much as that, you know, those different medicines and sweet grass and like buffalo grass and just stuff that they smudge with. And there's like raspberries, house gardens and stuff like that growing. It's like pretty much like a park, right? It's untouched And they're just on there and bringing back to the land.

MG: So they get up close to the bison and you need a lift with one of the workers.

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[vehicle starts and zooms off]

Brennen Starlight takes us out to the spring pasture in his rugged ATV.

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BRENNEN STARLIGHT: This is a kumoja like side by side like you probably see when a football game is going on with the players and stuff. What I was told is, you know, like back in the day, you look at the buffalo, it's here. That’s your Walmart, It's here safely, it's your Sobeys, you know, it's everything you needed right there back 100, 200 years ago.

[vehicle haults]

MG: We come to the high fence and there are the bison.

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[bison snorting]

MG: It does feel like they're kind of taking back part of this land. You can just see them off in the distance in the hills, kind of through the trees and through the mist and the smoke, utterly unconcerned about us, just kind of doing their thing.

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MG: How many are here?

BRENNEN STARLIGHT: I think it's roughly around 370 or something like that.

MG: And a lot of calves, right, a lot of babies.

BRENNEN STARLIGHT: Yeah. We're trying to shoot for like 160, I think, but, you know, wildlife can't depend on it. Try to minimize the losses as best as you can, but…

MG: But it's neat to see it. I mean, there's something really interesting about them being reintroduced.

BRENNEN STARLIGHT: Yeah, it's exciting for us. Like we like to see different nations and different reserves get Buffalo. We had quite a few just this past year come up and check out our herd and our setup and try to learn from us. So it's pretty exciting.

MG: So there's other nations that come and see what you're doing.

BRENNEN STARLIGHT: Yeah. We're going to Onion Lake next Monday to help them. They came up last fall.

MG: What do you think it means for the community to have access to these animals?

BRENNEN STARLIGHT: I think it's an opportunity for healthy living and, you know, to be able to get rid of like some of the sicknesses that come with, you know, just our diet.

MG: That's great. Thanks, man.

MG: There was a time when as many as 60 million bison roamed the Great Plains. Travellers described hearing the sound of their hoof prints before they saw them like distant thunder. Bringing them back is crucial, says Violet Meguinis. She's the consultation director for the Tsuut’ina nation.

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VIOLET MEGUINIS: We always tell people, you have to know what happened to us, why, how it shaped our people. And when the buffalo was first taken away and, you know, our way of life was severely impacted because we used to follow the buffalo. Wherever it roamed, we followed it. We lived, we got everything off the buffalo. And then the newcomers came and then the treaties were signed and we were put on little tracts of land and we couldn't follow the buffalo. But the buffalo wasn't gone there anyway. And then eventually, when the buffalo came back, to us, it was just, you know, personally, I think I look at it as it was a sign that we will continue too. And, you know, I come from parents who both went through Indian residential school and I know the loss was significant. And not only, you know, our source of food, our source of sustenance, our source of, you know, our culture, that was all taken away. But the Indian residential schools also took away our languages. And so now we're struggling and we're working hard to bring everything back. So when we say we’re bringing back everything, we're talking about the language, the culture, how we do things, even our names. We're starting to reclaim our names and we're starting to reclaim, you know, an animal that meant so much to us and we're bringing it back. It's fulfilling because our spirituality is so dependent on our connection with the land, the animals. It’s just like it makes us whole again.

MG: Violet is one of the advisors on another bison reintroduction project at Banff National Park. That started in 2017 with just 16 animals. But they've settled in so well that after calving season is done this year, the number will be closer to 100. Salman Rasheed is the field unit superintendent for Banff National Park, and I had the chance to speak with him in our Calgary studio.

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MG: Good morning and thanks for being here.

SALMAN RASHEED: Good morning, Matt. It's nice to meet you.

MG: Tell us about the roots of this project. Where did the idea for reintroducing bison into the park come from?

SALMAN RASHEED: Sure. Well, Parks Canada has been a real leader in bison conservation over the past number of years. And so in the early 1900s, a lot of your listeners probably don't know that the government of Canada bought 700 disease free bison from a rancher in Montana. And they took those bison and put them in Elk Island National Park and another park that's no longer with us near Wainwright called Buffalo National Park. The bison in Elk Island thrived. And since that time, Elk Island served as a stock for bison for reintroductions in Canada, Montana, as far away as Russia and Alaska. But since 1997, we've been thinking about wild bison in Banff National Park. And after much planning and much strategizing, working with our partners, including indigenous partners, stakeholders, the province of Alberta, we finally decided to put the plan into fruition. And in 2017, we truck loaded up 16 bison from Elk Island National Park, flew them in containers to Banff National Park and reintroduced them.

MG: And the goal, I mean, I want to talk about what's happened because this has been a huge success story. But at its heart, the goal of the project was what? I mean, what is gained from having bison back in that park?

SALMAN RASHEED: Right. So as you probably know, ecological integrity is Parks Canada's primary mandate. It's enshrined in our legislation. And ecological integrity simply means that the plants and animals for a respective area appear in that area. And we know from our indigenous partners that bison form part of their stories for millennia. So we knew bison were on that landscape. So reintroducing bison into Banff National Park was really part of meeting the agency's mandate to maintain and protect ecological integrity, but it also strengthened those Indigenous connections and partnerships that we had with people. So the ultimate goal was to maintain and restore ecological integrity, but also, there's so much cultural and spiritual use with bison on the landscape. That was also a goal as well.

MG: You've been out to see them?

SALMAN RASHEED: I have.

MG: What is it like to see them out there? Where would you see them? How difficult is it in that footprint to find them?

SALMAN RASHEED: It's not easy. And so they're on the eastern slopes of Banff national park. So access to that site is already difficult. And we've made that intentionally so because we wanted a wild ranging herd and this original five years was really a pilot project. And so we didn't want sort of the interference of public safety and other issues to kind of conflate that introduction. They’re on the east slopes as I said. Getting to them is a challenge, but seeing them is magical.

MG: Magical.

SALMAN RASHEED: Magical, yeah, because you don't expect to see bison in forested mountain landscapes in Banff. And so to sort of see these herds, and if you go to our website, you'll see pictures of them sort of on mountain slopes and, you know, it's just habitat that you normally don't associate with plains bison. And so it's a really magical experience.

MG: What were the conversations that were held with indigenous communities before this project moved forward to ensure not how it would work, but also whether it was a good idea?

SALMAN RASHEED: Yeah. I think the first conversations were just about their role and their involvement in the project. And we started off on a good foot because they blessed the bison Leaving Treaty Six Traditional Territory when they were leaving Elk Island. They blessed the bison when they arrived in Treaty Seven Traditional Territory. And so right from the start, we started off on a good foot. They continue to be heavily involved. I chair the Banff National Park Indigenous Advisory Circle that consists of Treaty Seven nations and Métis Region Three. They continue to offer support both in terms of resources, in terms of their traditional ecological knowledge. Their elders have been out to visit the bison. And so it's just a really positive relationship and everyone seems to be winning.

MG: What have you learned about the bison from them?

SALMAN RASHEED: Well, so much. I mean, so much of their teachings we see on the ground. They tell us that bison are what we call ecological engineers and they already knew that. They tell us that they will change the landscape. And we're finding that they are removing decades of thatch in prairie habitats and creating, old wallows are being discovered. These wallows are habitat for other species, so biodiversity is being increased. You wouldn't think that a bison wallow would be able to support amphibian species, and sure enough, they do. You wouldn't think that birds would make nests from bison hair, and sure enough, they do. And these teachings are all things that our indigenous partners have been telling us not only historically, but also through their cultural monitoring work.

MG: I mean, it suggests that in some ways, that the bison deserve to be there, that they need to belong there, that they're part of something larger that's there.

SALMAN RASHEED: Absolutely. I think they're part of the ecosystem. There are traditional stories that tell us that bison used to be the primary food source for a lot of our indigenous partners in the winter because in the winter, that's where you would find them in those high elevation sites. And so yeah, I think they're part of the ecosystem and they are certainly surviving and thriving far better than we had expected, actually.

MG: There were ranchers that were concerned about this project going forward. What were their concerns as you understand them?

SALMAN RASHEED: You know, the primary concern was really disease. And so bison are an ungulate species. They carry diseases that can be transmitted to livestock and cattle. And so we put in place quite a few measures to mitigate those concerns. The first and foremost was we obtained animals from disease free populations and we have a certified vet on our staff. And so we tested these animals for disease on a regular basis, always negative. We also minimized the amount of contact that we had with bison and cattle. And so there's about a 30 kilometre buffer between the grazing allotments, and we always try to make sure that the bison were remaining in Banff National Park.

MG: But it does speak, though, to the complications around reintroducing something. I mean, I just said earlier that in some ways, it seems like these animals are part of that ecosystem, but they weren't, right? They were in past, but then they weren't. And so you reintroduce flying them in. There are complications. There are issues that you have to think about when it comes to that.

SALMAN RASHEED: Yeah, for sure. There are complications and challenges for sure. We had an exclusion plan that we developed in partnership with the province, and so we have sort of a core zone that we have and then we have buffer zones. And so the initial buffer zone around that core activity is if we detect a bison there, we’ll kind of nudge it back into the core zone. And then there's a wider buffer zone that's closer to sort of other land use areas. And if bison appear there, we will take a more aggressive approach.

MG: And what does that mean, a more aggressive approach?

SALMAN RASHEED: Yeah. And certainly, your listeners will know that out of the, you know, roughly sub around 100 animals that we have now, two males, four males actually during the course of five years decided to venture further away. Two of those males we nudged back into the home population. Two of those other males had to be destroyed. And so, you know, we take our commitment to the province and those other land users very seriously. And once we discovered they were sort of far afield and could not be sort of hazed back, we decided to euthanize those animals.

MG: What does that say about what happens as this population growth? It starts at 16, you're now under 100. I've heard estimates that could be upwards of a thousand within the next several years. And so what will you do with a thousand bison roaming through this park?

SALMAN RASHEED: Well, I think first and foremost, population dynamics would suggest that the growth rate of these animals, which has been on average around 33% annually, will taper off. The wolves haven't discovered these animals yet, and so predation will likely take impact. So our expectation is that the growth trajectory that we've been seeing to date will likely taper off. But in all honesty, you're absolutely right. I mean, we won't have a situation where we'll have, you know, 30 million animals, which was the historic distribution of this species roaming around North America anymore. We will do what other jurisdictions have done. So, for example, in Yellowstone, they have a combination of indigenous and non-indigenous harvest that keeps populations in check.

MG: And something like that is possible here?

SALMAN RASHEED: Absolutely. And also, we also can do what Elk Island does, and we could also be a source population for relocations and movement of animals away from Banff to other jurisdictions as well.

MG: What does this story tell you about the possibility of this sort of work?

SALMAN RASHEED: Well, I think it tells me it's really inspirational because this was really a project that almost felt overwhelming at the front end because the challenges were far greater than the rewards. And I think, you know, it sets the stage for other kinds of wilding type exercises.

MG: Like what?

SALMAN RASHEED: So you've heard about wilding globally where, you know, large areas are rewilded to native conditions. And so there's opportunities for doing that. And so, you know, of course, that caribou populations in Jasper are also struggling as they are throughout North America. And so there's a potential for some work in Jasper to do some reintroductions as well as a breeding in Jasper. So it just opens the door for these types of large scale ecological works.

MG: And that matters, just finally, because I mean, these are iconic animals of this part of the country in some way, right, but face real existential threats for a bunch of different obvious reasons. When you're able to kind of turn those threats around, that matters to you why?

SALMAN RASHEED: It matters because I mean, I couldn't think of anything more Canadian.

MG: Flying in bison to a park where they used to be ages ago.

SALMAN RASHEED: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we were doing our engagement after we wrote our draft report for this bison program, we engaged with a lot of youth. And, you know, I wouldn't think that youth would have a connection with this because, as you said, you know, they weren't here before. They haven't been here a long time. The art of getting them here was a real challenge. But within one generation, even the youth that we were talking to who had often not actually seen these bison, the concept of having these large land mammals in a wild area in a national park really seemed to resonate with them. They were to a person, to a child, not only supportive, but jazzed. You know, they were so excited to have this kind of notion of wildness and Canada in their backyard that, you know, it was really inspirational. And that's what it means to me.

MG: It's fascinating work and I'm really glad to hear about it and also that it's a success. Thank you very much.

SALMAN RASHEED: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Salman Rasheed is the field unit superintendent for Banff National Park. We spoke in our studio in Calgary last week. Your CBC News is coming up next. And then.

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FINBARR O'REILLY: what was a pretty town that was known for making sparkling wine has now been largely flattened and all the buildings are smashed, shattered, charred from constant artillery strikes over the past year. The trees are splintered. And over the winter, you had scenes that looked like something from, you know, World War II trench warfare, World War I trench warfare.

MG: The long, deadly fight for Bakhmut in Ukraine. We'll speak with a Canadian photographer who witnessed the battle, the losses and the fallout in a city that, as he says, has been in many ways reduced to rubble. That's coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. Stay with us.

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BAKHMUT BATTLE

Guests: Finbarr O'Reilly, Alexander Lanoszka

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

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MG: Still to come, how to improve the lives of black Canadians, from housing to justice to health care and schools. A new declaration lays out a plan and a statement of nothing about us without us. We'll hear from the woman who spearheaded this, the former governor General, Michaëlle Jean. She's here in just under 30 minutes. But first, what the battle of Bakhmut means for the war in Ukraine.

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MG: Bakhmut has seen the longest and bloodiest battles since the war in Ukraine began. This week, Russia's Wagner group said they have taken the city, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continued to argue that's not true.

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Volodymyr Zelensky through a translator: Now, our people are accomplishing a very important mission. They are now in Bakhmut. I will not share where exactly, but it witnesses that Bakhmut is not occupied by Russian Federation as of today.

MG: Finbarr O'Reilly is a Canadian photographer, regular contributor to The New York Times. He is in Kharkiv this morning. Finbarr, hello.

FINBARR O'REILLY: Hi, Matt.

MG: You have been in Bakhmut for The New York Times covering this siege. When were you there last?

FINBARR O'REILLY: The last time I was there was in October, November. And at that time, the city was under heavy assault as it has been for the last year. And I spent the day in what they call a stabilization point, which is about a kilometre or so from the zero line, which is where the two sides are clashing in the trenches. And the stabilization point is where they would bring the wounded who were coming in in droves with blast wounds from artillery strikes and frontline fighting.

MG: How have you seen the city change over the time that you have been in that city?

FINBARR O'REILLY: Yeah. So I went into Bakhmut a number of times over the last year, and the first time I went in, it was the towns and villages on the periphery of Bakhmut itself, further east and north that were the scenes of the heaviest fighting and the heaviest shelling from the Russian side. And little by little, the Russian advance has kind of moved forward and moved forward first taking the sault mining town of Soledar to the North of Bakhmut, and then focussed its sights on Bakhmut itself. And the Russian military doctrine is, as we've seen in Chechnya, as we've seen in Syria, when they focus on a town to target, they tend to attack it with artillery block by block, street by street, and will pummel certain areas and just wipe out everything in that block, then they’ll move to the next block on the grid and the next block on the grid. And so what you've seen is a systematic kind of destruction of Bakhmut as the Russian advance has moved forward incrementally. And what was a pretty town that was known for making sparkling wine and, you know, gypsum caves where that wine was aged underground has now been largely flattened and all the buildings are kind of just smashed, shattered, charred from, you know, constant artillery strikes over the past year. The trees are splintered. And over the winter, you had scenes that looked like something from, you know, World War II trench warfare, World War I trench warfare, just really, really grim and bleak scenes in the city Now. When we look at some of the drone images that our team photographers produced from there this week, it is just a shell of what it once was.

MG: Again, when you take a look at those drone images, it looks like something from a post-apocalyptic film. Like there's very little that's left. And The Times published some of your photos earlier this week from Bakhmut. There's one of what looks like there was a building that was there and it's just been reduced to rubble. It's surrounded by other apartment blocks and there are cars that are destroyed in that courtyard. What was going on there?

FINBARR O'REILLY: Yeah, that was just another, in a way, just a normal morning. You know, the artillery strikes are hitting the buildings and any of the vehicles that happened to be parked in the nearby compounds. And this is what I was describing with just this systematic shelling of cities block by block. And I've just spent the last month or so documenting other towns and cities in that eastern and southern region that have been systematically levelled in this same way so that all you have left are stumps of buildings. And, you know, we think of battles as advancing, you know, in a vertical way forward across distance, but a lot of this fighting has also been vertical where the Russians are levelling the buildings through artillery one floor at a time. So a nine story building gets shattered down to eight stories, seven, six, five, until it's just nothing but a pile of rubble. And that removes the ability of the Ukrainian defenders from being able to operate and hide in those buildings to the point where they're just hiding in underground bunkers and shelters below the rubble in many cases.

MG: You mentioned in some ways, some of the scenes take you back to, you know, the trench warfare of the great wars. Tell me a little bit about the conditions that the Ukrainian defence were operating in in and around that city.

FINBARR O'REILLY: So the times that I was embedded with the Ukrainian military in Bakhmut, I would travel in with them and I would move to their positions, whether it was a mortar position or a machine gun position. At the time, you know, there was kind of an encirclement of the Russian forces around the outskirts of Bakhmut as they progressed inward and fighting block by block, city by city and then house to house. So the place was under constant shellfire. It was rare that you'd have more than a minute or so go by without something exploding, you know, within a few blocks. And so they operated mostly underground, coming from bunkers. A lot of the buildings in these areas have basements. The homes have root cellars where people tend to store their potatoes and beets and all kinds of other things. So the fighters tend to move from underground position to underground position or from the well protected buildings and only pop up to fire back. And the combat is, you know, has been going house to house has been incredibly brutal as it got closer and closer quarters in the city. So it would go from a range of a few hundred metres to from building to building and then from floor to floor within the bigger buildings. So it is incredibly intense, some of the deadliest and most intense fighting that's been seen in Europe since the Second World War.

MG: There's a scene that you captured of a couple of soldiers at what was the last pizza stand in Bakhmut. Can you describe that?

FINBARR O'REILLY: Oh yeah, this was last year, probably around this time. At that time, the Ukrainians were still fully in control of the whole city, and there were, you know, still several thousand people living in this city that once had 70,000 people. But all of the restaurants were closed. The market was not really operating because it was occasionally coming under shelling. So one of the few places was a little kiosk that was selling hotdogs and pizzas and coffee and soft drinks. So the soldiers tended to congregate there in between fighting. And, you know, they were pushing at that time out to the outskirts of the city, so that place was operational. But certainly, that place has long since been shut down as has everything in the city, and there are very few people who remain there now.

MG: What did the soldiers tell you about the importance of this? We're going to speak more about the strategic importance of this in just a few moments. But from what you learned from those soldiers who were there in those grim conditions fighting, and this dragged on and on and on, what did they tell you about why this battle was so important?

FINBARR O'REILLY: So the thing about soldiers who are in these situations, they're tending not to think so much about the bigger picture. They're thinking about, you know, we've just got to survive this day. We've just got to get through this. When we talk about the strategy, , you know, that's where it's coming from, from the politicians and the military strategists about why they're fighting there. These guys would just say, we have to hold Bakhmut. This is where we're standing our ground. We've seen the Ukrainian army stand its ground in a number of other places over the years. They held off in Kyiv at the beginning of the war. There was a long standoff in Mariupol before that fell. And so the Ukrainians tend to just sort of hunker down and they'll say, we're going to hold this place. And it became this focus of a war of attrition. Estimates are that 100,000 Russian casualties perhaps, with maybe 20,000 dead as the Russians sent waves of human waves at the Ukrainian positions. And so, you know, the soldiers there are really just kind of focusing on the fight, what they need to do, the rotations they're doing. They'll come back underground, take a break, head to the underground bunkers, and then they'll go back out on their missions, to their positions and operate. They're really thinking in a kind of day to day, moment to moment sort of way, whereas the overall strategies are coming from much higher up on the military chain of command.

MG: For civilians who didn't leave, and again, as you said, a huge proportion of the population has fled the city, what do you know about what life is like for them?

FINBARR O'REILLY: Extremely rough. You know, what I found not just in Bakhmut, but in other cities across the industrial eastern region of Ukraine in Donbas is the people who tend to remain are the elderly, the infirm, the impoverished and those who are older and may have a kind of nostalgia or sympathies toward Russia. Often, these are called the waiters, the ones who are waiting for the Russians to come. So the elderly and the infirm are people who feel like there's no point in them leaving. This is their home no matter how hard it gets. They don't have, you know, they're too old or too ill to relocate. They can't face or fathom the idea of moving to somewhere else and living as a displaced person in another part of Ukraine. This is, you know, we're talking about people who are on kind of the lowest level of the social structure. And so, you know, they're surviving in basements, no electricity, no water, no gas, cold through the winter. There were deliveries of humanitarian aid while the Ukrainians still held some control in the city, but what that looks like now is very difficult to say. Presumably, the Russians are there and they're having to interact with them. And maybe there's some humanitarian support being offered to the remaining civilians who are in the city, but we just don't know that at this stage.

MG: You have been at the front lines of a number of different conflicts in your work as a photographer. I just wonder how what you saw in Bakhmut compares to what you've seen elsewhere.

FINBARR O'REILLY: I think, you know, the kind of destruction and shelling, I've seen a bit of that, you know, in places like Gaza. But really, this kind of wholesale wiping out of a city systematically block by block, street by street through intense artillery strikes and aerial bombardments is just another scale. I haven't seen anything of this nature in other conflicts, but I've seen it, you know, throughout the eastern part of Ukraine. And, you know, Bakhmut is one example. There are a number of others where this kind of, you know, wide, you know, broad scale destruction has reduced a once vibrant city to just rubble, essentially, and then the intensity of the fighting, of course.

MG: Is there one image, just finally, that is kind of burned into your mind from that city and from the people that you met who are trying to make their way through this destruction?

FINBARR O'REILLY: You know, there have been so many indelible images by photographers, Ukrainian photographers and foreign photographers from Bakhmut and the war generally. If I'm talking about my own photographs, I think it would be just, you know, one of the days that I spent in this stabilization point where the wounded were being brought in. You know, it was up to, you know, some days, it would be 80, other days, it would be 100 or 200 to this place, and all just riddled with shrapnel injuries. And, you know, not all of them survived. So I think, you know, one of them was a guy who's hand had been blown off. He got shrapnel through his body and the surgeons were operating on him. But as grim as the situation was, the surgeons managed to, you know, keep up quite a light and humorous banter to try and keep their own morale up, but also the soldiers who were, you know, seriously wounded and whose lives were going to be forever changed and trying to get them through that initial amount of first aid for an hour so that they could be shipped out to proper care hours away at a proper hospital. So I think it's less than an image than a moment spent in that intensity of that first aid centre where people were just being treated. Civilians as well who'd been wounded by the shelling were brought in, patched up and then shipped out for more care, and those were the lucky ones who survived. You know, the number of dead and wounded over the last year in Bakhmut mostly is just staggering to try and imagine.

MG: These are remarkable images of just a very grim situation, as you've been saying. Finbarr, I'm glad to talk to you about them. Thank you very much.

FINBARR O'REILLY: Thank you.

MG: Finbarr O'Reilly is a Canadian photographer and a regular contributor to The New York Times. We reached him in eastern Ukraine. Alexander Lanoszka is an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Waterloo. Alexander, good morning to you.

ALEXANDER LANOSZKA: Good morning to you as well.

MG: Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Bakhmut is not fully occupied by Russian forces or mercenaries that are under the employ of Russia. This has been disputed certainly this week, but in weeks earlier as well. Who actually controls the city, do you believe?

ALEXANDER LANOSZKA: So Russia has claimed victory over Bakhmut several times now, but it looks like in this particular point in time, Russian forces do seem to be occupying the large majority of that city. Ukraine forces are still in there, but they still seem to be there only with respect to some of the outskirts of that city. And so we are seeing the Wagner group, a mercenary group that's really connected to the Kremlin, announce very recently that it’s resting and withdrawing from the city such that regular Russian army forces are going to be taking over operations in Bakhmut, which does signal that Russia seems to be occupying again a majority of that city.

MG: Is your sense that those troops would be able to hold the city?

ALEXANDER LANOSZKA: That's the big question. So Ukraine is currently preparing to undertake a major counteroffensive. It's not clear what direction or in what sectors that counteroffensive will take place. It's possible that that offensive could be in the direction of Bakhmut. We don't know. Only a handful of individuals do know. So it's very difficult for Russia to maintain forces all across the large frontline that currently exists in Ukraine. And indeed, they will suffer certain strains in holding Bakhmut, but we'll see how the offensive goes.

MG: Why was this city in particular a site of such a bloody battle? Why were these two sides so dug in here?

ALEXANDER LANOSZKA: From Russia's perspective, the city has strategic value insofar as it was a local rail and transport hub. So it had certain logistic uses that would serve Russian forces along the North-South access. Holding this city would also allow Russia to break out into the western direction away from Bakhmut. That being said, precisely because of the sheer number of casualties that Russia has incurred, some estimates range as high as 100,000 as you've heard, lower end estimates are about 20,000. But regardless, those numbers are staggeringly high, and one wonders whether they really are proportionate to the strategic value associated with the city. From Ukraine's perspective, there is a certain value, more or less the same reasons. However, there has been some admission on the Ukrainian side that political logic guided some of the decision making involved here to retain Ukraine forces in Bakhmut to fight off Russian forces, and indeed, precisely because of the looming counter-offensive that Ukraine is going to take. There is a sense that by focusing on Bakhmut, by making sure that Russia remains committed to the taking of Bakhmut for its own political reasons, because there is a psychological benefit perhaps associated with taking the city, that that would force Russia to remove some forces away from other parts of the frontline so that the counter-offensive could enjoy more success elsewhere in Ukraine. So there's certainly a psychological benefit too from Ukraine. So long as Russia is struggling to take even kilometres of territory, this will certainly sap Russian resources and manpower in a way that might rebound to Ukraine's long term strategic benefit moving forward.

MG: Would this be considered a victory for Russia taking the city? I mean, if you lose 100,000 troops but you still managed to have control of the city, would that be classified as some sort of victory in a war that I think most people agree has not gone particularly well for Russia?

ALEXANDER LANOSZKA: They would certainly classify it as a victory. And indeed, we see rhetoric to that effect. But I think this would qualify as a Pyrrhic victory whereby the costs are so high that they might very well undo some of the successes that Russia might have today as regards to the fighting that it has undertaken along that particular axis.

MG: There has, as you've mentioned, been a lot of talk about the so-called spring offensive from Ukraine. The sense is now the conditions are ripe for that to happen. The weather has dried up. The sun is out in some parts of Russia or in Ukraine, pardon me. What do you expect that spring offensive against the Russian troops to look like?

ALEXANDER LANOSZKA: So I personally dislike the discourse surrounding the counteroffensive precisely because there's a lot of inflated expectations as to what it might entail. Ukraine already took two counteroffensives last year. One was Kharkiv, which was a major rout of Russian forces, liberating a large swath of territory. And I think a lot of people expect the upcoming counteroffensive to look a lot like the Kharkiv counteroffensive of the fall of last year. However, there was yet another counteroffensive that took place in Kherson, which unfolded over several months. It led to the liberation of the city of Kherson, but it was very much a grind for Ukraine forces. I'm not sure which of those two models the upcoming counter-offensive will take, but this is going to be a very difficult military operation for Ukrainian armed forces to undertake. It could be very costly in terms of casualties. And I think the reason why Ukraine has not yet launched it despite all the talks surrounding it is precisely because Ukraine does want to conserve its forces. It does want to have as much equipment and as much ammunition as possible for it to maximize its chances for success. But I think, again, it probably will not result in the quick liberation of much territory, precisely because Russia still has about 200 some thousand forces in the country. It has built fortifications along certain vectors of the country. It's possible that these areas of fortifications are undermanned and it's possible that Russia is suffering from various ammunition shortages too. There's so much we don't know, but I think the best expectation we could have is that it might take a little longer than people might think. It might not happen all at once. It might liberate smaller portions of territory here and there. But eventually, it will build into something bigger, but it will take time.

MG: You mentioned equipment and there's been a lot of talk around the, I mean, Ukraine has made these requests for months now for Western fighter jets. It now seems to be actually happening that Ukraine will get F-16 fighter jets from Western allies. Is this for this current conflict or… I'd read some people say that perhaps this is for a future conflict, that these jets are not going to arrive in any immediate way. What's your sense of that?

ALEXANDER LANOSZKA: My sense is that these jets will not arrive any time soon. Training is only beginning in a few countries involving a few pilots from Ukraine. And as such, what the F-16 represents is not necessarily a commitment on the part of the West to Ukraine, but rather, a recognition that even if Ukraine succeeds this year or even next in this particular war, that the F-16s would be useful indeed for deterring the next war. So I think there is a future value associated with the F-16s, not so much a present value. As much as it would be nice to have those capabilities for this particular iteration of the conflict, I think the Ukrainian authorities are realistic about this particular capability, when they can expect to have it. And as such, the meaning of this capability is going to be very different from, say, the leopards, the hammers and other key capabilities that Ukraine has received from the West over the course of the last year.

MG: Just before we let you go, we’re just about out of time, but your language suggests that this is nowhere near being over. It’s interesting that the former Russian president, Medvedev, said that negotiations would be impossible with Zelensky still in power. So it would seem from statements like that that Russia has no real appetite for negotiations right now. But your language suggests this is going to go on, as you say, for another year, if not years.

ALEXANDER LANOSZKA: It depends. It really depends again on the counter-offensive. I'm trying to manage expectations. But if Ukraine does score major victories, then that could bring us closer to the end. I do suspect that in a flip to what Medvedev had said, this war will last as long as Putin lives, in part because he has no interest in seeking some sort of peaceful settlement whatsoever. He might be forced to do so given facts on the ground. But again, the facts on the ground remain as such that Russia does occupy about 17% of Ukraine territory, including Crimea. And there is a lot of hard work yet to be done on the side of Ukraine to liberate that territory.

MG: Alexander, thank you very much.

ALEXANDER LANOSZKA: Thank you very much for having me.

MG: Alexander Lanoszka is an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Waterloo. Well, coming up after your regional update, the Halifax Declaration is described as the first collective grassroots record of the state of being a black Canadian. When we return, the former Governor General Michaëlle Jean on why she believes it's necessary now and how to turn words into actions. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current and we're back in 90 seconds. Stick around.

[Music: Theme]

HALIFAX DECLARATION

Guests: Michaëlle Jean, El Jones

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Nothing about us without us. That is the message of a new document taking aim at systemic racism in this country. It's called the Halifax Declaration, organized and written by participants of the National Black Canadians Summit. The document comes with a list of demands and expectations for improving the lives of black Canadians, and it covers a lot of ground from justice and housing to health care and school curriculum, to name just a few areas. Michaëlle Jean is the former Governor General of Canada. Her foundation spearheaded the creation of the Halifax Declaration. Michaëlle Jean, good morning.

MICHAËLLE JEAN: Good morning. How are you?

MG: I'm very well and glad to have you on the program again. Why do we need something like the Halifax Declaration in Canada now?

MICHAËLLE JEAN: Well, you know, the sort of driving force of this national movement, because it's a movement to reflect established, damning and devastating facts of racism, as well as strategies for action to tackle them is the very consistent work achieved since 2016 with the successive massive gatherings of the National Black Canadians Summit organized, as you said, by the Michaëlle Jean Foundation. It seized upon the opportunity provided by the International Day for People of African descent proclaimed by the United Nations to uphold three core principles, recognition, justice and development, which are essential corollaries. So from a bottom up series of events held across the country, the journey began with the first National Black Canadian Summit held in Toronto in 2017, then by the second one held in Ottawa in 2019, followed by a series of virtual meetings during the 2020, 2021 pandemic, which culminated in Halifax in 2022 with, I must say, record breaking participation, over 1200 delegates from across Canada, among them 450 youth.

MG: Well, I was just going to say, I mean, in those consultations, part of this is about speaking to the urgency of this. What did you hear from black Canadians over the course of those conversations that would lead you to think that a declaration like this now would help improve the lives particularly of young black people in this country?

MICHAËLLE JEAN: Well, you know, we celebrate the Halifax Declaration. It is a powerful testament to our collective effort. It's a reference and already a very precious tool. The Halifax Declaration is an authentic outcome of the presentations, dialogues and calls for action heard at each summit and further validated through a national summit with support from the Network for the Advancement of Black Communities and the Black Opportunity Fund. So the coming convocation is included in a book launch by the recently established U.N. Permanent Forum for People of African Descent. The occasion is a joint event between the Michaëlle Jean Foundation and UNESCO. So it will enable leaders from black communities across Canada, including young people, to report on the authentic and unprecedented mobilization for the eradication of systemic racial discrimination. So protagonists of the summit will attest to how the Halifax Declaration bothers astride towards countering systemic racial discrimination in Canada and on the world stage. A fight that requires constant, unyielding responsibility, it is the outcome of, you know, unprecedented action carried out collectively, inclusively in a spirit of unity to achieve the ultimate goal and purpose of racial justice. So it's important to know that your approach comes from the grassroots, from experience, from perspectives, from expertise, from data directly rooted in the realities as they are lived, from the demands and expectations as formulated by black communities now being brought loudly and clearly to the attention of all Canadians and the world, and the calls for yes, decisive change. And we cannot say enough that this fight must be everyone's business and a shared responsibility.

MG: There are dozens of calls to action, dozens of points of demands, things that people are looking for coming out of this declaration. Education, justice, health, housing, sport. What is the threads, do you think, that runs through these that pulls these together?

MICHAËLLE JEAN: I think what it reveals is at once a truth, a past and present, an invocation and irreversible and unshakeable fearless calls for justice that nothing can deflect. You know, the struggles, achievements and demands of black communities in Canada have set nothing less but a global example which the United Nations Population Fund has acknowledged, you know, from the disastrous legacy of centuries of colonization, of unspeakable violence, of war and conflict waged in the name of a supposed supremacy of the white race with, you know, the dehumanization, commodification of our bodies and existence, history from which no one comes out unscathed. So you cannot understand racism today if you don't go back also to that, you know, tragedy. And the Halifax Declaration echoes our present day mobilization and affirmation. So what emerges from the Halifax Declaration coupled with the power of concrete, constructive proposals and the process of creating this manifesto is as important as its content. You know, post the Halifax Summit, we conducted a national survey receiving over 300 additions to the original text that further strengthened and validated our arguments. And of course, among the issues raised and examined in depth, you know, the facts of exclusion on all fronts, you said it, within the judicial and educational systems, in the workplace, in the sphere of housing, entrepreneurship and economic development. There is a racism also that undermines our health. So it has been at length also debated at the National Black Canadian Summit and reflected in the Halifax Declaration. And I would like, you know, to recognize the active participation of youth, the eloquent demonstration of their leadership, their commitment and their courage. You know, their vibrant, insightful, powerful and moving testimonies resonate. You know, their voices, experiences, perspectives and reflections are everywhere in the Halifax Declaration, encompassing the diversity of positions taken, expectations expressed and demands for recognition, justice and reparation in support of shared, responsible and equitable human and economic development. So youth are definitely integral to both the solution and the change. And this is not a fleeting moment, you know. It will carry on because it is a powerful and indispensable movement on the journey for yes, the eradication of systemic racial discrimination in Canada and also around the world.

MG: Just before I let you go, you could imagine that there are people who are listening to this who might think with respect that this is rather lofty language, that if people are living through systemic racism in housing, in justice, in education, what is it that will take that language down to make tangible improvements in the lives of people who have been impacted by systemic racism?

MICHAËLLE JEAN: Well, you know, it's very tangible because as you read the Halifax Declaration, and people can go and just, you know, they can read it, how actually tangible it is, how real it is. It is gratifying to witness the significant response it has garnered as it underscores the need for open and inclusive dialogue. You know, a genuine examination of yes, our past and a collective commitment to progress, to create a better future and foster greater humanity. And we must confront the truth about our history, acknowledge also the progress made, identify areas for change, and together with unwavering determination and confidence to build a stronger and more inclusive society and more inclusive world. So I would say that, you know, this moment is unprecedented, and I am amazed to see how our energy is unmatched. You know, through the doors that were opened for us in generations past, our presence is growing in every field, you know, from science, technology, engineering and mathematics, you know, the arts, from sports to business, in boardrooms and classrooms, from government to the grassroots, black leaders are rising up and our demands cannot be ignored. And they're very clear. They're very, very clear. And what is interesting is how much we really affirm that we are part of the solution, that nothing about us can be without us. And that's key. So we are organizing, we are mobilizing, we are unapologetic, unafraid, and we have a voice and we have a vision, you know, and it's demands for recognition, justice, development rings out in unity and very determined and strong. So what we are saying clearly is that our moment is now and the future of Canada is also black.

MG: We're going to speak more about the specifics of what that future might look like in this country. Michaëlle Jean, thank you very much.

MICHAËLLE JEAN: Thank you so much. Thank you.

MG: Michaëlle Jean is the former governor general of Canada. Her foundation spearheaded the creation of the Halifax Declaration. El Jones is one of the authors of that declaration. She'll be joining Michaëlle Jean to present it at the United Nations next week. El Jones is an activist, a poet and an assistant professor of political and Canadian studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. El Jones, good morning to you.

EL JONES: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

MG: Michaëlle Jean says that this is an unprecedented moment. What does this declaration mean to you?

EL JONES: I think what we see here is that we actually spent a lot of effort in gathering the voice of black Canadians across this country, often voices that have never been heard, including up north, for example, places where we often don't consult, through the generations from our elders to youth. And it's been a long process of nearly a decade and more of gathering these voices. We know in 2020, obviously, we had perhaps in recent history, the largest uprising of black people on the streets, black people going out with our buddies to address state violence and address anti-black racism in Canada. We're now three years on from that. And even though we are not in the news anymore, those demands haven't dimmed. And we see that in this document that we continue to be calling not for what people are willing to give us, but for what we know we deserve and need.

MG: What is possible when it comes to tangible change coming out of this document? Again, there are a lot of areas that are covered, as we mentioned, from justice to education, housing, sport, it's a long list and an inclusive list. But when you take a look at the lives of black Canadians, what do you see as the possibility for improvement in those lives coming out of a document like this?

EL JONES: You know, we live in a very paradoxical time right now. On the one hand, as Madame Jean mentioned, we are showing more success than ever. We're entering all these fields. We are leading in many fields, and we're no longer the only or scarce or token. You see a lot of us in many places, and those doors have opened due to the work of people who came before us. But at the same time, we continue to be at the bottom of many socio economic measures. COVID showed us that in terms of the impacts on black health reflected by the conditions that we live in. We continue to be over incarcerated and overpoliced. We continue to suffer the effects of our racist immigration system. We continue in education to not be reflected in curriculum and to still have lower outcomes. So wherever we look paradoxically, we're both extremely successful, but also the mass of us is not necessarily experiencing that success. So our work and the work of all of us in Canada is to continue to push so that all black people are living in a state of justice and equality and actually have the things that we need for this life. And that is possible. We saw in 2020 when we came out with Unified Voice, black people, of course, but joined by Indigenous people and many communities who recognize that the myth that anti-black racism doesn't exist in Canada is just that. And we saw a massive uprising. And so we're continuing to recognize that anti-black racism exists in this country. It has a tangible effect on us. And so our response is to continue to identify it and continue to organize in all fields.

MG: What changed, do you think, in the three years since, since 2020 in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the reckoning that we saw around the world but as you point out, here in Canada as well, what do you think has tangibly changed since then?

EL JONES: I think what we saw is an incredible energy largely led by young people where we had people refusing to remain silent anymore, refusing to accept the idea that we somehow experience some kind of lesser racism or it didn't really exist or we ourselves didn't exist. And then once we saw that sort of peak of response, there was a sense we went back to obscurity that black issues are no longer cool or trendy. But of course, we have persisted. So we've seen young people continuing as organizers. We see more and more groups across all groups in black society as well. I think from that moment, we recognize that we must be unrelenting, that we have to make demands, that we cannot stay silent and think that the government is going to give us what they choose to give us. And part of this document is saying that I think in the past, a lot of the way the black community was dealt with was a few select people would be allowed at the so-called table to speak for the whole community. And as long as we got a little bit, we were supposed to accept that that was enough. And I think that is what has changed. We’re no longer accepting this kind of incremental change or that we should accept that, you know, it's not fast enough as Martin Luther King talked to us about, the idea that we should accept gradual change and think it's enough. And I think that has really changed. I think we see now a community that is unified, that is recognizing our community is growing. We are one of the youngest communities in Canada. So I think we are saying that we don't accept that we're an afterthought in this country. We don't accept that we haven't made historical contributions, that we haven't always existed, that we haven't always been present and that our communities don't matter. And that is what's reflected in this document and beyond. So this document is not the organizing work, it's a reflection of it. And that work continues, but it continues upon these unified lines. And part of this document is saying No black life left Behind. We often don't talk about black people who have disabilities, queer and trans black people, black youth, black people living in homelessness, black people struggling with mental health problems. They also count and their lives matter, and this document also speaks for that.

MG: Can I ask you just, you mentioned youth, and in the document, you say the black Canadian population is younger than the average. We are the future standing on the shoulders of our ancestors. Michaëlle Jean said the future is black. Where do you see, I mean, and in the conversations that you've had with black youth, where do they see their place in this country right now?

EL JONES: I think black youth are experiencing again a kind of paradox. We see a more political generation than ever, a generation that isn't afraid to organize in their schools, that isn't afraid to organize on the streets, that are speaking out on serious social issues. We see youth leading these movements getting arrested. We see youth entering into politics and we have some extremely young leaders across this country. So on the one hand, again, we see youth in all levels, black youth stepping forward to the front of their communities, but at the same time, we know that our youth are in crisis. There's a mental health crisis among all youth, including black youth. Many of our youth find it difficult to find housing or complete their education or get employment, and they're still suffering anti-black racism in the places that they work and go to school. So at the same time as youth have a voice, youth are also struggling. And we see that across Canada as well. It's not limited to the black community, but of course, we know that black people always will suffer due to anti-black racism. We will always feel the effects in an extreme way. So we can't let this generation slide. We can't say racism doesn't exist anymore or you just need to be satisfied with what you have in Canada because we're seeing the effects when we have unhoused people, when we see black people struggling and not able to get treatment, when we see our young people entering into the criminal justice system and not getting fair treatment and not getting fair sentences, when we see our young people in shelters experiencing violence in their homes. All of that are things that are impacting our community. So at the same time, we have a generation that's rising up and speaking up, but they know that they are not experiencing equality and justice in this country, and that is exactly why they are mobilizing. And we all as well have to mobilize behind this because we often think black issues only affect black people, but they affect the whole country. We are citizens too. We are people that are part of this country. We contribute to it and if we can't succeed, the country actually suffers as well. And that's why this impacts everybody.

MG: Do you worry about the context that this appears in, which is a different context than three years ago when you have a pendulum that is swinging the other way in some ways and a pushback against, I mean, this word means a million things to a million people, but, you know, there's a pushback against what people will call woke, and I'm not giving weight to that word, but you know what I'm talking about, that there is a different conversation now in many ways than there was three years ago. Do you worry about that?

EL JONES: No, because we have always experienced this. In 1968, we had a global black revolution. You know, 1968 was probably our most revolutionary year in recent history and of course, there was backlash then. We were rising in the 1990s and there was backlash. In Nova Scotia, the Black United Front were formed through the 60s and 70s and there was backlash. Whenever black people rise up and speak up, we face backlash. The minute we make a step forward, our progress is treated like it somehow harms other people. Because when you hold power, any idea of sharing that power seems like oppression, but it's not. So whenever black people start to speak about anti-black racism and whenever we get small gains, it's always treated as though it's too far. You will see that in the 1960s, people talked about Now we've gone too far. People talked about the end of slavery. Well, now, we're going too far. Time periods that we now acknowledge were periods of oppression were seen as too far when black people took those steps forward. So it is inevitable and expected that due to our steps forward in 2020, we would have people now saying that speaking about racism is so-called woke, things that make people uncomfortable, therefore are harmful, we should shut down discussions of black history because it somehow makes other people uncomfortable. And that is not new to us and we will keep pushing for it because we know the facts are on our side. When you look at how we're actually doing on these social measures, we are still suffering and we are still impacted and we still show lower outcomes than other people. So we know that our work isn't done. So it doesn't shake me. I've been dealing this my entire adult life, as has Madame Jean, as is every black person in Canada. For our whole lives, we have been hearing that we're asking for too much, we're going too far. Martin Luther King talked to us about this. This is not news. So I think our task as always is to not be shaken by people that don't want to see us get our due and people that don't want to hear our voices. That has always been the case and we have always had to organize through that. And we are never going to be taken aback by that or stop organizing until we have true equality.

MG: Just before I let you go, we are out of time, but what will show success to you? A document is one thing and it comes out of discussions, but as you said, this isn't, you know, the last point in this. So what will show success to you?

EL JONES: We move step by step. So we have success and we move backwards. I think success would be when we have an immigration system that is equal to black people and we don't see black people being deported and stopped at our borders and we don't see black people filling up our prisons, when we don't see black people living homeless or we see black people achieving an education. And that won't happen all at once. We know that. Will that happen in my lifetime? Probably not. So what we do is move forward step by step, and we have to, as a community, unify, be collective. And this is what we see in this document, that we have spoken with one voice, and that is a show that we will continue to move forward. So our success isn't shown necessarily right away. We take steps backward, but what we know is we keep fighting on every front and we keep moving forward. So success is everything from every youth that graduates from high school, university, every new doctor we see, every person fighting in their union, every person that gets housing, every person that feels proud to be black, all of those are measures of success, and we will continue to acknowledge those and fight for the next step forward.

MG: I'm glad to talk to you as always. El, thank you very much.

EL JONES: Thank you for having me.

MG: El Jones is an activist, poet, professor at Mount Saint Vincent University and one of the authors of the Halifax Declaration.

[music]

CAMPFIRE COOKING MAIL

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio. I'm Matt Galloway. Earlier this week, we spoke with the food critic Chris Nuttall-Smith. His new cookbook is called “Cook It Wild”. It's about how to make great meals outside and over a fire.

SOUNDCLIP

CHRIS NUTTALL-SMITH: Camp Food to a lot of people is still hotdogs and beans. What else can we do? How do people like to eat? What about some just indulgent beautiful pastas or fresh vegetables or a bit of fruit, you know? And the other thing I wanted to do in kind of conceiving of this was most camp cookbooks are only for car campers. They're only if you can carry a lot of weight. I really wanted to make a book that included backpackers because I backpack, paddlers because I paddle, RVs because I have a tiny little rooftop tent on my car that I use all summer. So I wanted it to go across the kind of span of the outdoorsy community

MG: That conversation made you hungry. And so we asked for you to share your camping culinary traditions and recipes. The Current’s senior producer, Karin Marley, who does spend some time outdoors as well, is here with your mail. Karin, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning. So yeah, lots of yummy ideas here. It's great. Taylor Brown writes, “I will never forget the time my best friend and I were hiking a section of the Appalachian Trail and planned out all our meals in advance. One of the best meals was when we brought falafel mix that only required the addition of water. We fried it on our camp stove in a bit of olive oil that we brought in a Nalgene bottle. How wonderful that meal was. Your guest also mentioned bringing cheese on trips, and I can absolutely verify that some individually wrapped Babybel cheeses are wonderful snacks while backpacking that can last out of the fridge for at least a couple of days.”

MG: This letter comes from Janet Lohmann. “My partner and I love going out canoe camping here in British Columbia. We love catching a nice rainbow trout from the canoe and cooking it in our fish grill over a nice bed of coals. Nothing needed except a bit of lemon and sea salt. Incredibly delicious. And the restaurant always has a view and we can sit anywhere.”

KARIN MARLEY: John Harrower writes, “I never have hamburgers and hot dogs when camping. When we go to the trottage”, which I did not know what that is. That is a combination of trailer and cottage, logically.

MG: Good to know.

KARIN MARLEY: “At our local lake, everything is cooked over the firepit. Even in the winter, there's brussels sprouts and bacon and onions wrapped in tin foil on the fire. I love cooking over the open fire.”

MG: Michael Agueci shares his favourite outdoor meal. “Admittedly, this is a car camping recipe for lasagne. I prepare the meat sauce from scratch at home, store it in mason jars, pre grind the parmesan, shred the mozzarella as I assemble the lasagne. I use out of the box gluten free pasta. The noodles work out really nicely. Assemble in a large Dutch oven and cook over and under coals. It is fantastic.”

KARIN MARLEY: Yum. Finally, Diana Araya says, “I am Latin American and grew up always eating homemade meals. I don't think we ever had a hot dog. We've been camping with our two kids in B.C. for the past six years and we make risotto, bannock, empanadas, grilled cheese, pancakes, corn on the cob and fresh fish when we manage to catch it ourselves. We eat almost the same stuff we eat at home. We don't own a fancy or extra-large cooler, and all our camping equipment has to fit in our Toyota Tacoma. If you look around wherever you are at a city park or camping area, pay attention and look at what others are eating, especially if they're immigrants. They will be preparing and eating the most amazing meals. Two years ago, I saw a group of Serbian men roasting a whole pig in a Vancouver park. This was a beautiful thing to witness as they were all participating, enjoying drinks and sharing stories.”

MG: A whole pig.

KARIN MARLEY: I love it.

MG: The mind scrambled by that. Karin, thank you very much.

KARIN MARLEY: You're welcome.

MG: That sounds like a feast. The Current’s senior producer, Karin Marley. If you have any camping recipes you want to share or thoughts on anything you hear on this program, do get in touch. You can email us, thecurrent@cbc.ca. That is The Current for this Friday and for this week. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. We were just talking about the Halifax Declaration giving voice to the expectations and aspirations of black Canadians. We're going to leave you today with some music from Halifax. This is Aquakulture and Don't Trip. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current and have a great weekend.

[Song: “Don’t Trip” by Aquakulture]

Friday May 26, 2023 Episode Transcript

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