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The Current Transcript for March 16, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

This is kind of reflecting this trend in the Catholic Church where laypeople are really saying, look, we can't trust the bishops to take control of things, to clean things up, whether that's the clergy sex abuse or just celibacy and traditional values. So we need to kind of take the reins ourselves.

MATT GALLOWAY: It is a fact that the apps on your phone are gobbling up all sorts of data about you. Usually, that info is used to sell you ads. In the United States, some Catholic advocacy groups are buying that data to out gay priests. Proponents call this accountability. Critics say it's anti-gay surveillance. In an hour, how your not so anonymous data could be used. Also this morning.

SOUNDCLIP

I think that there has to be a place for people where people find pleasure in being there like the Seagram plaza. I mean, that was a great amenity and that's why I love it so much.

MG: Phyllis Lambert has spent a lifetime thinking about what makes a great city. She helped create them through her work on New York's iconic Seagram building. And she's helped preserve them as seen on the streets of her native Montreal. Now, at the age of 96, Phyllis Lambert has released her first book of photography. In 30 minutes, a Canadian architecture icon on the power of observation, the need for beauty in our cities, and why she has no plans to slow down. We begin, though, in France, where the debate over just that, retirement, has brought that country and the city of Paris in particular to a smelly standstill. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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FRANCE STRIKES

Guests: Ben Barnier, Elena Bassoli

SOUNDCLIP

[protests]

MG: We won't give in. That is the refrain on the streets of Paris this week as huge groups of protesters have filled the streets. They are angry about the government's plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.

SOUNDCLIP

I speak for the cleaners. We have a very difficult job. We have workers who wake up very early for 40 years. 5 a.m., even 4 a.m. and finish at 10 p.m. It's tiring. Really a lot of work related accidents, a lot of work related illnesses. And people cannot continue working until 64 years old. It’s impossible.

MG: Those cleaners will have a job on their hands after this is all over and done with. Since sanitation workers joined the strike, the city's garbage has been piling up and the smell and the pests are making the city of love not quite as romantic as in past. Ben Barnier is a senior correspondent with French television. He's outside the National Assembly in Paris. Ben, hello.

BEN BARNIER: Hello, Matt. How are you?

MG: I'm well. How would you describe the scene outside the National Assembly right now?

BEN BARNIER: Well, for now, in front of the National Assembly in the heart of the French capital, it is still quiet. You have members of parliament buzzing around one of the cafes, including Marine Le Pen who I've just seen a few minutes ago. But in terms of demonstrators, there's still nobody. They are coming in 50 minutes. And the members of the unions will be protesting what's happening inside the national Assembly, which is this pension reform bringing it to a minimum age of 64 for people to retire.

MG: I mean, the strikes in France are not uncommon. I think anybody who has been to France or has watched closely knows that. But the scale of this seems different. What's different to you about what you're seeing over the course of the last couple of weeks?

BEN BARNIER: This is a big one, Matt. I've covered tons of demonstrations in Paris as a senior correspondent, including a pension reform earlier with Sarkozy 13 years ago. This is a huge one because a majority of people are against this reform. We were talking about a minimum age of 64, but it could be more than that. For me for instance, it would be 67. For a woman who's been raising kids and had to stop, it could be more than that. So it is a big change and people are not ready to work longer. It affects women more than men. It affects people with lower qualification jobs more than the rest. So there is a wide sense not just among the hardcore union members, that this reform is not fair and will not make people happy. It will make their lives difficult, especially blue collars and women.

MG: Why does the government believe that the retirement age needs to be increased now? What's at the heart of its argument?

BEN BARNIER: At the heart of it is a financial reality. The current system, French system, which is quite generous compared to other countries, is not sustainable financially in the long run at least for a period of 10 to 20 years. It might be after that, but there's a period of time where it will not be sustainable. So the arguments from the governments are that in order to make this system sustainable, people need to work later in life. There's no other alternative unless, and that's what unions say, there would be a way to make it through the 10 to 20 years and then be fine financially.

MG: And are there other options? I mean, I know that unions in the left have said well, tax the wealthy, that that could be a way out of it. Is that something that the government would consider?

BEN BARNIER: Not at all. It could be an option, but it's not considering Emmanuel Macron, the French president's background, something he would consider as a former private banker and someone who's always been on the right wing side of things when it comes to economics. So he will not consider that. And as you know, it's something that's quite hard to put in place. François Hollande the socialist president tried that, tried to impose a higher tax bracket on the super rich. But it did not go well including with the Paris Soccer Club. And in the end, it never materialized. So it's hard to put in place.

MG: What is being challenged, do you think, here? I mean, what is it about this? You mentioned some of the specifics, but what is it about this that has drawn people out into the streets? Is there something larger about the balance between work and the rest of your life that people feel so upset about that they would come out and protest?

BEN BARNIER: I think there is. Yeah. There is something really deep, I think, in French identity that people want to enjoy life. It might seem a bit lazy from the outside, but there's this sense and it's part of French identity, French culture and the French way of life that probably some people envy us, that you're allowed to enjoy life, and that includes retiring when you're still at an age where you're physically fit, where you can enjoy France's beautiful regions. So it's a direct threat to that hope, that dream that someday people are going to be able to retire and be in good health. So there is something quite deep about that. Yes.

MG: What about the garbage? Does it smell in the streets of Paris this morning?

BEN BARNIER: Well, I live in Paris downtown, so I'm in a good position to comment on that. The smell is not too bad, but the site is a poor site. It’s quite sad. And, you know, we use bicycles a lot. I mean, I have kids, so I try to walk with them on the sidewalks. You've got broken glass and bottles and it's just a lot. A lot of it is piling up. But it might be a good political tool because now it's hard to really block the city. Even if there's a strike in the subway system, people can work from home. But that garbage strike is one that's quite powerful and that you can't ignore.

MG: Just before I let you go, the sense is that Emmanuel Macron has the votes to get this through. If that passes, what do you expect to see? I mean, Labour Day doesn't seem too far away. And there are always large protests on the streets of Paris on Labour Day and May Day as well. I mean, what do you expect to see in the days and weeks and months ahead?

BEN BARNIER: I think right after that, if the law passes, which is quite likely, there will be discouragement over the first coming days and after that. And I think indeed, we have to watch what's going to happen on May 1st, Labour Day. It's always been traditionally a day with large protests. And one might fear and I will fear a lot of violence and destruction because if mobilization marches, demonstrations have not worked, have not succeeded, polls indicating that the population is against this reform, then what's left? You know, violence is sadly an option. So we would have to be on the lookout for that.

MG: Ben, thank you very much.

BEN BARNIER: My pleasure, Matt. My pleasure.

MG: Ben Barnier is a senior correspondent with France Television. He was just outside the National assembly in Paris. Elena Bassoli is a health economist at the Paris School of Economics. She's also in Paris. Elena, hello to you.

ELENA BASSOLI: Hi. How are you, Matt?

MG: I'm well, thanks. We heard Ben describe just the scenes of garbage piling up in the city. I mean, looking at some of the images, and that's what in many ways has captured the world's attention. You know, in front of the cafes, in the streets near the Eiffel Tower are these mounds of garbage. You're in the city. What are you seeing?

ELENA BASSOLI: Yeah. Well, there is garbage somewhere, but there's also lots of police around. So that's what also strikes me while I was biking to my office today. So there's a sense of protest and turmoil in the city. Yeah.

MG: What is at the heart of this? Why, from your perspective, does the government feel that it needs to make these changes and increase the mandatory retirement age from 62 to 64?

ELENA BASSOLI: Yeah. So I've been looking at the data. And indeed, so far, there is not a deficit yet. But if the law stays as it was, there will be deficit in the public spending in the years ahead. And so the idea for the government is to make the system sustainable in the long run. And so by increasing the retirement age, this will make the system sustainable, right? And so in order to reduce the public spending on the pension, this would be the way to go through.

MG: And this is just a matter of an ageing population and the fact that people are living longer and therefore able to use that pension for more years. Is that the heart of it?

ELENA BASSOLI: Yeah, that's the heart of it. And also demographic things, that now like the pyramid, the demographic pyramid is inverting itself. So in the sense that more and more people will be in the share of the older population. And so we will have a smaller share of people in the working population. And that's also a concern. And that's the way the government has portrayed this. So increasing the retirement age and keeping more people in the labour force.

MG: The opposition has said that that's not the case, that as we said with Ben, there are other ways forward to ensure that the system is solvent, including taxing the wealthy. What do you make of those arguments?

ELENA BASSOLI: Yeah. So I agree with Ben. So it's pretty hard to increase taxes on the wealthy. It's very unpopular for governments and for any party. And so it's very hard to go through with this. But in my opinion, there are other ways to increase the labour force. And so no one talks about migration. But I mean, in Europe, we know that migration could be one way to increase the labour force and to help the public system to sustain the pension in the long run.

MG: Is that even possible to suggest in the current climate?

ELENA BASSOLI: No, I don't think so. But it could be one way. Also I’m coming from Italy. And also there, we have this big issue about migration. But again, many economists suggest that we need more workforce. And so this could be one way to help the public system to make it more sustainable.

MG: If this moves forward, who do you think it will impact the most?

ELENA BASSOLI: So women for sure. So as also Ben was saying, so women have more discontinuities in their careers. And if the new laws take in, it means staying in the labour market even after age 64 in order to get that 43 years of contribution. Otherwise, they could exit the labour market but with penalization, right? So I think women will be highly penalized.

MG: The Government has said, I mean, as it was proposing this, that women in some ways would benefit. What was that argument that the Government was suggesting?

ELENA BASSOLI: I think because the government at the beginning said that trimester for parental leave and family leave would be taken into account and also the minimum pension would be raised. But this will only be for people in the long careers. And we know that women usually don't have long careers. They have discontinuities. And so actually, these women will not benefit from these requirements in the new reform. But I think that was the first claim of the government, that those women could benefit. Yeah.

MG: Would there be any benefits for women in this plan? If you're trying to increase the labour pool, is there anything that would benefit women in France in that?

ELENA BASSOLI: So in my opinion, in the new text, I think the only things that will be beneficial that the government insert yesterday, it's about a 5% revitalization of genuity for women and kids that have children. So this is one way to compensate women when they exit the labour market. But again, I'm not sure that that's enough. And again, it will only be for women with long careers. And we know it's very hard for women to keep on, to stay in the labour market that long. So I'm not sure. Yeah.

MG: Why do you think people in France are so upset about these proposals?

ELENA BASSOLI: Yeah. I think so the idea of working two years more in the context of very hard jobs, strenuous jobs, it's very hard to be okay with this and to stay even two years more in the labour market. It might be very hard for these kinds of jobs like cleaning services, also nursing or being a teacher, for example. And so this is one thing that makes people very, very upset. And also I have the feeling that, you know, after the COVID and the pandemic, people also reframed the way they want to enjoy life. And so staying longer in the labour market is a huge cost for them, I think.

MG: And is that going to be possible, do you think? I mean, not just in France, but as a population more broadly stays healthier and lives longer, are governments around the world, do you think, going to need to have a look at what the retirement age is and figure out whether their pensions are actually going to be able to help, you know, meet that ageing population?

ELENA BASSOLI: Yeah. So I think these things are increasing your life expectancy. And so then increasing in the retirement age would be an issue also in the future for future governments all over Europe. But as I was saying, I mean, I'm thinking also that if there’s a way to go through this, the government should also have people to save labour market longer like by putting the incentive on enterprises to keep their workers, for example, or put more incentive to training and getting skills at the end of their careers for people that have to stay longer in the labour market. So the government has to support workers in the long run, I think, if it wants them to stay in the labour market longer.

MG: I mean, workers don't seem to agree with that though. And I just wonder if part of this is about the quality of life and maybe people rethought that. But also the idea, and we see this from abroad, that people in Europe, people in France have a better balance between work and life, whether you think workers will actually embrace that, whether they will accept that.

ELENA BASSOLI: No. I think it would be hard for them. From what I know, some studies show that when the governments increase the retirement age, people don't want to stay longer in the labour markets. And so they compensate it by taking more days of sick leave or other kinds of leave. And so that's how sometimes people respond to this kind of reform. And this would be bad for the policy and the welfare system again. So I think yeah, that's an issue again, you know, because we want to keep people more in the labour market, but then they stay more in sick leave or other kinds of leave. And so again, it's on the shoulder of the public system.

MG: The world is watching. And not just because of the piles of garbage, but also because of what this means when it comes to when people can leave the workforce and enjoy those retirement years. Elena, thank you very much.

ELENA BASSOLI: Thank you so much, Matt.

MG: Take care. Bye bye.

ELENA BASSOLI: Bye.

MG: Elena Bassoli is a health economist at the Paris School of Economics.

[Song: “Sous Le Ciel De Paris” by Yves Montand]

MG: It’s the humming that does it. Yves Montand, Sous Le Ciel De Paris

[song fades up]

MG: The heart swells, doesn’t it? Yves Montand, Under the Sky of Paris, Sous Le Ciel De Paris. Your CBC news is next. And then we'll head to Colorado. Some members of the Catholic Church there are using data tracking apps to go after some priests. We’ll tell you more about how they're doing this and why many people beyond the Catholic Church are concerned. Then we'll head to Malawi for the latest as part of Southern Africa tries to recover from Cyclone Freddy, one of the fiercest storms of all time. But before that, she has a very distinct point of view from the drafting table to behind the camera. In six minutes, a feature conversation with the 96-year-old Canadian architect Phyllis Lambert. She has a new book out. We'll talk about that book and about the power of observation. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. Stay with us.

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PHYLLIS LAMBERT

Guest: Phyllis Lambert

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

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MG: Still to come, Malawi is grappling with the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy. At least 300 people are dead, thousands more forced to flee their homes. Coming up, how aid organizations are trying to help and why climate change may make storms like this even more frequent. But first, a giant of Canadian design.

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MG: Phyllis Lambert is a towering figure in Canadian architecture. She is famous for commissioning the iconic Seagram Building in New York City alongside the legendary architect Mies van der Rohe. She designed the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal and founded the Canadian Centre for Architecture. And throughout her career, Phyllis Lambert has been a passionate advocate for modernist architecture and for heritage preservation. Now, at the age of 96, she has a new book of photographs that gives a window into her unique perspective. The book is called “Observation is a Constant that underlies all Approaches”. Phyllis Lambert, hello.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: It's great to be here, Matt.

MG: What a great pleasure to have you here. We are here and I say here, here in this building. This is the CBC Broadcasting Centre. This is a building in downtown Toronto. It's designed by the architect, Philip Johnson, who you know well.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: He was an associate architect. Well, it was actually called Philip Johnson. And we found our own Philip Johnson. But Philip must really miss this building.

MG: When you came into this building, you'd never been in here before?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: No, I never had.

MG: What were your impressions as you walked in the door?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Well, it's a pleasant building. The courtyard, of course, is lovely. And otherwise, I had the same impressions as the CBC in Montreal where you go through all sorts of corridors. Lots of corridors.

MG: Places for meetings and businesses.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: But actually, you know, it would be nice if all buildings that were built had the sort of coherence that this building has. And I’m afraid that isn't happening.

MG: Let me ask you more about that and what you have seen. Tell me about the title of this book. “Observation is a Constant That Underlies All Approaches”. What does that mean to you?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: I don't think there's anything one can do. The observation hasn't been very positive. And of course, visually it's very strong. So I was a sculptor as a child. And so I learned to observe. And I had a wonderful teacher who sent me out of the room and said, Come back, it's Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Perry or whatever, and criticize Fellows. So that was a marvellous way of being taught to be able to judge your own capacity.

MG: Do you think we as a society are as observant as we should? People walk around now, they look at their phones, they may not be looking up at things, they may not be looking around them. Are we as observant of the society as we should be?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Well, I think that, you know, in simpler times and much earlier societies where you're working with your hands because you're looking after sheep or you're growing fruit and crops, you're touching and you have to look. Whereas we don't have to look very much at what we do now. So it's a different kind. I don't know what kind of observance it is now because you're always observing something, but it's a very different sort of existence.

MG: How would you describe what photography is? You were talking about sculpting, but how would you describe what photography has meant to your life over the years?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: It's just a great joy. I started photographing I guess when I was thinking about the Seagram Building sort of as a notebook, because when you're taking a photograph, I mean, I know people don't necessarily do that, but you're thinking of how the building sits on the ground, the relationship of the building to the buildings around it. But really, I started off also with a hundred million lenses, which is, you know, you see things in more detail. And I just loved that. I had to wean myself away from it eventually because you just have to use one lens. But to me, it's always been a tremendous pleasure just to observe, to look through the lens to see the possibilities.

MG: One of the neat things about this book is, I mean, there are images of these grand iconic buildings, but there are also very small details, fine little details, things that if you weren't observing, you might walk past and not notice. What do those smaller things, the more intimate details mean to you?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: When I first used the camera, I used the 100 millimetre closeup lens. And so that's detail, right? And of course, when you're sculpting or when you're putting designing a building, I mean, those details are hugely important. As the wonderful saying of Mies van der Rohe, God lies in the details, you know.

MG: But what do you think? What do you think that means, God lies in the details?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: It means that the details makes the thing work. If you don't Have this kind of the texture, the local palpable texture, it’s not going to have the effect on people.

MG: What was it about architecture that attracted you? You were born into the Bronfman family, which is one of the wealthiest families in the country. We'll talk about the Seagram Building in a moment that you were deeply involved in. What was the pathway for you for architecture?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Sculpture.

MG: Sculpture?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Yeah.

MG: Yeah.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: And I always wanted to be an artist. My parents wouldn't let me go to art school, so I went to a school that was a college. The college was very good academically.

MG: Your parents wouldn't let you go to art school?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: No, No artists. My father said, you know, businessmen pay artists. So I said yes, But the artists are remembered.

MG: So tell me more. Then you go to Vassar.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Yes.

MG: And what happened then?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Well, it was a wonderful place because, you know, as a first year and second year, but all throughout, one was able to do, you know, you could do all sorts of things. I sort of ran plays or whatever. I’d never done that before. So that was the Openness, the ability to always try new things, which was great. And so that was a freedom I think that was very different from the school I went to when I was a child. In Montreal, you know, you had one text and that was about it. And so it was the opening of a world, I should say.

MG: Have you always been somebody who's been really curious about the world that's out there?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: I sure think so.

MG: Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's something that you have to teach people. And part of that's observation, but part of it is also we live in in a comfort zone and you can be comfortable in that comfort zone. But getting beyond that and being curious about what lies on the other side of that can be a struggle.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Curiosity is very much the basis of actual observation. You know, you're interested in how this thing works. That of course is a whole big subject.

MG: Tell me about the Seagram Building. For people who don't know this building, can you describe it?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Well, the building rises from, in New York, I have to start that way. New York are all up against the sidewalk. Or they were, I should say. And there was no way of you ever seeing them. You have to crane your neck or look from across the street. And they were not welcoming. There was no sort of place where you could just, except for the Rockefeller Centre, which was wonderful. You could sit down at the great square and things like that. And so Mies set the Seagram Building back from a street about 100 feet. 90 actually. And so in the plaza, there are these great benches on the side in lieu of railings. And people sit on these, people watching. And people talk there, they read there, they court there. So it's just really kind of a life giving place.

MG: I mean, you've said in some ways that that space outside of the building is as important or even more important than the building itself because it's part of that larger community.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: I think it's more important because, you know, the building is a beautiful building. It's in bronze. But Mies said it could have been in steel and it would have been just good. Maybe the warmth of the bronze is a bit different, but it's a very articulated, it's a slim building. It's not very tall. It's about 40 stories, 48 stories, I think. And the ground floor has sort of a bustle. Behind the building, there's a sort of one bay, which is about 30 feet by nine bays long. So it's an entrance. And there's a restaurant on both sides. And what's so important about that is there's life at the ground. So most buildings you go into, you get a dead wall. There's an elevator there. You go hooting up and that's the end of it, you know. So I think that that thoughtfulness always about people and, you know, the granite on the ground, so it's not concrete that's going to get chipped and everything else. And it is a noble material. And the planting on the, you know, the trees on each side of the pool, it's a great quality. And it changed actually the zoning in New York and that people were given extra amount of volume and they are developers or people who are building buildings. In the building, they made a space for people. And the building itself is an elegant building. Philip Johnson actually did the lighting and the perimeter offices. And so there's a film that's pulled over a frame and there are lights behind it. So it just gives a nice even light.

MG: The building looks like it does because of you. I mean, there was an initial design and then you pushed back. You wrote to your father and the letter says, “Create a building which expresses the best of the society in which you live, and at the same time your hopes and the betterment of this society”. What did you think would happen when you sent that letter to your father?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Well, I just sort of said, you know, you don't have a daughter if you don't change this.

MG: When you think of a building that expresses the best of the society, I mean, that sounds like a radical idea in some ways.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: I think buildings have always done that. One of the problems, of course, is that buildings have always been done by the powerful, the wealthy, the princes, the kings, the priests. Religious buildings, hospitals, that's much more recent, you know. And so they have always been that way. And people, I think, you know, in New York, it's a pity now because they build these tall little buildings. Well, it's very expensive to do that because of against the wind. Even the Seagram building, which is only 48 stories or whatever, it's very well braced so that it doesn't move. So people, you know, don't get cracks in the wall. They don't feel like they’re in a zone that's moving. And these tall buildings are very expensive to build because the people who buy them, most of them have second homes or third homes or fourth homes. And it kills the whole life of the city. These people who have who are in the news all the time now, they have greater income than nations do. So this is what this is. It's absolutely, I think, appalling.

MG: I mean, if you take a look at the buildings, not just in New York, but the buildings that are going up in cities now across Canada, do they have that kind of grand idea?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: No. Because in Canada, in North America basically, if you take New York, even when the Seagram building was built in New York, there was the Chrysler building and there were one or two other buildings that had some character to them. But basically, there was no effort to really make wonderful buildings.

MG: What do you make of, I mean, we're in downtown Toronto, all of the glass towers that you see around here now? You just closed your eyes as I said that.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Well, you know, even some of the glass towers that are going up now, some of them that are kind of well-disciplined or okay, they have kind of a nice quality to the articulation of the outside. You know, you can see the structure. But what I'm very upset about in Toronto is this building a base and then another building on top of it and then adding Googles here and there. You know, I'm appalled by that.

MG: Appalled. I mean, what is the place of beauty in things like that, in building a city? What should the place of beauty be in building a city?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Well, I think that it has to be a place for people where people find pleasure in being there like the Seagram plaza. I mean, that was the great amenity of the Seagram plaza and that's why I love it so much. I mean, the building is wonderful itself, and it's much finer than any other building because of the detailing and the quality of it. But you can’t have a city that's very, very rich and very, very poor because that's what happens. And that's happening to all cities in North America. In Europe, it's not so because public housing, for example, in Spain is so much better than the housing that’s built by individuals.

MG: Do you worry that the big cities will be, I mean, we talk about the cost of real estate, for example, and the cost of housing, that cities will become exclusive, that they will only be for…

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Well, they'll empty out. Yeah, they will because there's no life there. I mean, the whole point about a city is that people get together and they have various, you know, many activities. You know, one of the great problems, though, is shopping, because most of the stores are closing down. I buy most of my clothes via Instagram. Not Instagram.

MG: Online.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Online. Yes. Exactly. And so I think that's a problem. Bookstores, cafes I think are still existent because they’re places where people could meet. But I think it's very, very worrisome about cities because, you know, they're not places to live and they are places for some people to make money off. And that is so wrong. And you talked about the cost of the land. In the sixties or seventies, maybe it was the seventies and early eighties, there was a sense in Canada that land was not going to be privately owned. And even people who were in real estate talked about this and it never happened. And that's a pity because the cost of land has a huge influence on the building that’s put there.

MG: That there should be sort of a public element to this. Is that what you're saying?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Well, you know, for example, in England, the land was owned by bigger states or basically it should not be owned by anybody. It should be owned by the state or the city. And then you present a project that can be proved or not proved according to some humane ideas. And so, for example, zoning started off to keep people out of cities. In New York, it was to keep people who are poor out of the cities.

MG: In Toronto, it was to keep, I mean, they didn't have apartments as they have in Montreal in many ways to keep certain so-called undesirable people out of certain neighbourhoods.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: That was never so in Montreal.

MG: No, in Toronto.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Yeah. Well, exactly in New York too. The whole tradition of Montreal, Montreal was a French city and it was the whole structure of the city. The streets were all designed in the 17th century by the owners of the land. So that sort of continued. You see that mark in the whole city. There's a sense of community like collectivity. For example, you have a whole lot of buildings with party walls. And the English idea is to have a plot of land and put a building in the middle, a very different kind of concept of cities. But even so, without kind of a much more democratic form of how cities can be run and governed, you know, we have a very good mayor now in Montreal, but there are cities where people actually are concerned with how money is allocated in the city. And people actually discuss this and vote on it. And that makes a big effect. And for example, public consultation is hugely important or the neighbourhood groups that maybe, you know, don't have any direct power, but they have the power of being able to talk and discuss. You see, I think that's so important in a city.

MG: How do we get back to that? You've been credited with giving citizens kind of a real voice in how their city is built. And Montreal may have that, but many other cities don't. How do we get back to that, to create a place where people feel as though they have ownership of the place beyond just the place that they live in?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: People have to do it themselves. I give examples of Montreal because that's where I live. And so I know that better than anywhere else. But there's a place called Milton Park, and there was some young ex McGill people who thought they, you know, a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. They felt that they could do sort of a thing. And so they had this plan where you could get born and die in the same place without ever going anywhere. Cars were underneath it. They dug underneath the street. You could pass underneath the buildings, etc. But the community around there revolted against it and said, no, we have to be able to live in the centre of the city and have families in the centre of the city because you know what happens. It gets expensive. And the families who couldn't afford go to the suburbs. The city empties out and there’s this kind of doughnut hole in the centre of the city. And, you know, there’s nothing.

MG: In that community in Milton Park, there's a mural that is in your honour.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Yes, there is.

MG: It says flourishing flowering cities are managed with democratic equity where we can feel flowers and hear birds.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: That's right.

MG: Is that to you kind of the ideal city?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Yes, I think that means a lot, because if you take just simple things of being able to hear the birds, that means the traffic roar, okay. And the flowers, they're not going to grow where there's too much pollution. And it means gardens, it means that not everything is concrete. But it's a relationship between the building and the space is what I'm trying to say.

MG: You've had an extraordinary life in cities. And I just wonder, where are you happiest?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Well, I think I am happiest in Montreal because I came back to Montreal. I lived away from Montreal for over 30 years. I lived in New York most of the time. And I also lived in Paris for quite some time. And I had great friends in England. So I was in London a great deal. And, you know, Rome has got major cities. But Montreal seemed a place that one could work with people in the city. You know, it was small enough and cohesive enough and people, you know, lived in neighbourhoods. I mean, it's a very strong neighbourhood city. That's why I love it. And there’s always a challenge and there's always so much to do. And, you know, there’s a certain amount of energy and leadership that can be shown, but you can't do it without everybody having an agreement about what's going to happen and fighting for the same thing. So I think that that makes a very big difference.

MG: What gives you at this moment optimism for the future of cities?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Well, I think that there was a great change that came with the man who was so badly murdered in the United States.

MG: George Floyd.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: George Floyd. That made people really conscious of racial discrimination. At the same time, just about the same time, we learned about this terrible problem in Canada of the residential schools. There's children who died and buried there not known and taken away from their families. You know, people were conscious of this. Some were conscious. They knew about it. Maybe they paid lip service. I don't know. It's terrible. But things have really changed. I mean, there really is a lot of work done for everybody. The inclusivity has become a very strong position. And cities can only work on inclusivity as we were talking about zoning.

MG: Jane Jacobs had idea that a city has to be kind of the sum of its parts in many ways, everybody working together to try and create that.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Oh, she was great.

MG: And you're optimistic that that can happen in our cities?

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Yes, because I think, you know, I mean, there are all sorts of terrible things happening in the world. But people are also very conscious of the environment, about why governments can’t really come to some conclusion about really putting stringent laws to just stop this climate wave, the terrible situation we're in because that's very serious. But I think also there's such a sense, a broad sense. I mean, your programs, programs on CBC, these problems are discussed all the time. Lots of people are listening to that.

MG: But that optimism just finally, it really goes back to the title of the book in some ways. If you want to be working together, if you want people in a city to be working together, I mean, you have to be looking around. You need to be observant. You need to be curious. You need to be interested in what other people are doing.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Absolutely.

MG: It's a real pleasure to talk to you. You've had an incredible life.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: I hope it's not just had.

MG: Having an incredible… That's the other thing. Can I just ask you how? I mean, you seem relentless in some ways. You're still curious. You're not somebody who's putting their feet up. You're not.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Oh, how boring that would be. You know, I think, you know, I die with my boots on.

MG: We should all be so lucky. Phyllis Lambert, thank you very much.

PHYLLIS LAMBERT: Thank you. It was a great pleasure talking to you, Mat.

MG: Phyllis Lambert is the founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Her latest book is a collection of photographs. It is called “Observation is a Constant That Underlies All Approaches”. And yes, we should all be so lucky at 96 to still be as observant and engaged as Phyllis Lambert is. Well, coming up after your regional update, a Washington Post investigation into data mining on dating apps and how the information gobbled up is being used as a tool to name and shame Catholic priests who are accused of breaking their vow of celibacy. And then in 15 minutes.

SOUNDCLIP

In the hospital where I am speaking from at the moment, they've had around 119 deaths. At least half of those are children. And the residents in where the mudslide was said that there were an awful lot more people buried in the mud. So I think that this is going to get worse.

MG: People buried in mud, villages flattened, 80,000 people displaced. The aftermath of Cyclone Freddy in Malawi. We'll tell you about that coming up in about 15 minutes. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. We're back in 90 seconds. Stick around.

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DATA TRACKING

Guests: Michelle Boorstein, Teresa Scassa

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Dating apps are able to track all sorts of data. They can record your social media interactions, your sexuality, your location. But an investigation by The Washington Post uncovered how a group in Colorado has taken that data mining much further. Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal is a conservative Catholic organization. It spent millions of dollars to track and publicly identify priests using their dating and hook-up apps. The process of naming and shaming the religious leaders has caused some priests to resign. Michelle Boorstein is with The Washington Post and one of the reporters on this story. Michelle, good morning.

MICHELLE BOORSTEIN: Morning.

MG: This is a remarkable story. Let's walk through what you found. Tell us. I mean, I gave the kind of thumbnail sketch there, but what did you uncover through this investigation when it came to where people's data was leading groups like Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal?

MICHELLE BOORSTEIN: Yeah. So just to clarify. This organization was a very, you know, kind of secret private project of some philanthropists in Denver who say that they are interested in protecting the priesthood. And they wanted to try to give bishops information to help priests keep their promises of celibacy. However, in one case, they did out a monsignor a couple of years ago, and they continued to have debates as they collected data about what to do with it. Some people wanted to out people. Some people wanted to work with bishops privately. So they were able somehow to acquire a large batch of data that had to do with dating or hook-up apps. Most of it, almost all of it was from Grindr, but some of it did have other gay apps and gay menus and some information from straight apps as well. But it's part of a bigger project. People who are really concerned about traditional morality and figuring that this is from their perspective a way to achieve that.

MG: So the apps would have been on the phone. How is the data obtained from those apps?

MICHELLE BOORSTEIN: Yeah. So when you have apps on your phone, you know, the companies that run those apps, you know, when you press the little thing at the end saying yes you can, you know, you scroll through all that information and say yes. To different degrees, they're selling. They can sell your data. You know how they say you're the product. Basically, they're selling data about you. And there's really no privacy laws that protect users in this regard yet, which is one of the big issues that motivated us to write this story is kind of, you know, confronting that issue. And so there's been some, you know, Grindr in particular has had, you know, litigation and challenges about what is it doing with the data. Can it tell when you have a weather app or your map app or something that says where you are? And it's supposed to be that it's anonymous, you know, anonymous so that they don't know who it is. But in a lot of cases, data privacy experts say that the different aspects of information that they have about you, the number of your phone, etc., etc., can be pieced together. And this group spent millions of dollars to get enough information, then working with bishops offices who know where people live, where they study, etc., that they could work to identify people.

MG: You write in the piece that in some ways, this data is being sold on something comparable to the stock market. How are those groups going and cross-referencing it to figure out who the data belongs to and what it shows that these individuals are doing?

MICHELLE BOORSTEIN: Well, the one person that was publicly outed a couple of years ago, basically this organization or some members of this organization worked with people who knew where this person vacationed with their family, where their parents live, that kind of thing. And they were able to say, oh, this phone is in these different places and these different places are this person. So in this case, once this organization went to bishops around the country, and to my knowledge, they haven't publicly outed any other people after that one individual person, although I know that they have confronted people privately, they worked with these other offices who know where the priests live and where they study and, you know, other information that might help the organization. And the bishops say, oh, this phone that's using Grindr belongs to such and such a person. So they were cross-referencing the information they bought with information that the bishops offices knew.

MG: What is the motivation behind this? In the piece, you said that in some ways, these organizations reflect the newly empowered American Catholic right wing. Why are they doing this?

MICHELLE BOORSTEIN: Well, there's a segment of the church that, I mean, I think in general, many Catholics are concerned about priests that are living secret lives and not being, you know, that kind of thing. I think people have complicated feelings about celibacy, but it's not a defence of people who break their promises. It's the concern about gay priests in particular. And the people who are involved in this organization are part of a bigger project of more, you know, traditional conservative Catholics who really see this issue of gender and sexuality as existential to how they understand the Catholic teaching. So and the priest is at the centre of Catholic worship in many ways. And so to them, they're prioritizing, you know, above all the sins and challenges a person can have, this is to them of a special height. And they do represent a segment of the church. But I think even among conservative Catholics that we interviewed and people within the church who helped me report this story, they raised questions such as how do you address it when somebody is struggling? You know, what about private people, wealthy individuals taking power away from the relationship between a priest and their bishop? Is this something that leads to evangelization and conversion or is this more like a kind of corporate CEO thing you'd see where you get locked out of your computer when you're fired or something? You know, I think that it raised a lot of questions among devout Catholics about this kind of a project.

MG: But the belief is that uncovering this information from those who support it, the belief is that that goes beyond the individual's privacy.

MICHELLE BOORSTEIN: Yeah. I mean, I think there's going to be as this continues to unfold and more people discuss it, I think, you know, it's very complicated. But I think that there are certainly some people, including people that we quoted in the story, who said basically, if you're a priest and you take this public vow of celibacy, it's a public vow and you have no privacy in that regard. But Catholic teaching is actually more complicated. I mean, having used the app is not the same. I mean, it doesn't prove that the person met with anyone or spoke with anyone. It only proves that they activated this app on their phone. What was their intention? What did they actually do? Why did they do it? You know, the Catholic teaching addresses sort of all these things. And I think the people who worked with me on this reporting are saying, you know, our faith has a lot to say about these issues. It's not just a very simple like check a box kind of thing. But I think for people who support this, they would just basically say we don't want anybody who's involved in this. And if you look at the people that this group has partnered with, they're really pretty focussed on LGBTQ issues. So they don't really believe, I think, that gay priests are in the same situation as straight priests in terms of being able to be good priests, be good faithful priests. I think there's a lot of challenge to that privately.

MG: To your point, we all have apps on our phones that we get the privacy statement. Most people I don't think read that. They scroll through. They click agree and away you go. What are the restrictions in the United States on where that data goes?

MICHELLE BOORSTEIN: There really aren't laws that govern webs selling your data. You know, what you're checking is an agreement basically. If the way that the app is written, the legal language on an app is written says it's going to provide you with some privacy and it doesn't, then that's a violation of your business arrangement with that app. But as you said, I don't think most people read that. I mean, we spoke to some of these apps that are used by, I mean, Grindr is used by like 11 million people a year. There's people that use it for all manner of things, whether it's hook-up or dating or just talking. They have changed and limited more of the information that they provide. They say they don't provide location information, but there is information about your phone that, I mean, this part isn't exactly my expertise as much as my colleague swho were the tech reporter who worked on it with me, but my understanding is it depends what kind of information someone can gather about you. Is there some way that you could still be identified? But I know that there is pressure on whether it's HIPA or dating related stuff or all manner of things, that people are saying there needs to be more controls on this. But right now, there really aren't. There aren't laws that ban them from doing anything that you say okay to.

MG: One could imagine that perhaps a story like this, which as you say is about the Catholic Church, but is about much more than that, that that could lead people to push for those restrictions. Michelle, thank you very much for this.

MICHELLE BOORSTEIN: Thank you.

MG: Michelle Boorstein is a reporter for The Washington Post. She was in Washington, D.C. Teresa Scassa is a professor and Canada research chair in Information Law and policy at the University of Ottawa who has been listening to this conversation. Teresa, good morning to you.

TERESA SCASSA: Good morning.

MG: You ever heard of anything quite like this before? Again, I think we all understand that we are the product when we're using these free apps. But I think people would be alarmed to hear what that might entail. Have you heard of anything quite like this before?

TERESA SCASSA: Well, certainly, unfortunately, I've certainly heard about the volume of data that's available and the different ways in which it's used to track people. I think what's unique about or what's different about this particular context is that you've got a non-profit or private non-profit organization that is now acquiring data to use to track individuals. And so that just adds another layer to it. We're used to corporations doing different versions of this and we are concerned about governments doing versions of this. And now we've got another player in the mix.

MG: And that there is some sort of market like an auction. Again, in this piece, they describe it as a stock market where that data is sold off to the highest bidder.

TERESA SCASSA: Yeah. Well, I think one of the real issues is this data is so valuable commercially that there are markets for the data. And so it becomes quite easy to acquire data for a variety of different purposes. And this has been a matter of concern for some time. It's part of the so-called data broker industry that is largely unregulated.

MG: What sort of protections do we have in this country in terms of where our data ends up?

TERESA SCASSA: Well, yeah, that's an interesting question. We do have data protection laws in Canada and that helps. And we currently have before Parliament a bill to reform the current data protection law. And I think that those reforms will add some new weapons. Maybe weapons is the wrong word, but some new powers for the enforcement of privacy rights. But one of the challenges is of course, I mean, you talked a little bit about the privacy policies associated with apps, but it's also just the way in which apps function. And so, you know, there are these software development kits, for example, that are tools that are used by app developers to facilitate just putting the app together, building the app and all of the different features of the apps. And many of those SDKs contain backdoors that siphon off data, including location data, and send it to data brokers or to other companies. And so there's this whole, you know, when you're using an app, you may be thinking that your data or some of your data is going to the app, but you may not be aware that some of it may be escaping through a backdoor.

MG: And where would it be ending up? And I mean, what also? You mentioned location, but what else would be harvested from us?

TERESA SCASSA: Yeah. And there's a huge amount of data that can be. It can be the kind of data that the app might collect, although the app should have privacy policies around that. So fitness data or whatever the data might happen to be. There should be privacy policies that manage that. But in terms of general data that might be harvested off the phone, it could be location data, it could be the id of the phone itself, which makes it easier to connect the dots between, you know, other types of data and the particular user of the phone. It could be data about gender or any number of other things. And there's just so much data that can be collected through apps. And so it just flows out into this ecosystem of data. And there is this very significant commercial interest in personal data for a variety of purposes. So this is one of the challenges. And so there's partly a consent layer to it because we're told, well, you clicked, you agree and you've consented to it. But there are issues with deceptive consent and there are also issues with inappropriate consent. And then there's issues with just backdoors where things escape. And so that's the other layer, of course, is that many of the apps that we use come from jurisdictions like the United States where the laws are much more lax. And so the developers develop according to the laws of their jurisdiction, which are not as stringent perhaps as in Canada and certainly not as in the European Union.

MG: How else could that data be used? I mean, again, we're talking about this one story where there's this non-profit, to your point, that has bought up this data to try to expose or confront priests in the Catholic Church that it feels perhaps are not following doctrine. But how else could that data be used? Could it be used by police, for example?

TERESA SCASSA: Yes. And there are stories in the United States about authorities using phone data to try and track women to see if they have had abortions, for example. And so, you know, phone data can be used to monitor or target protesters. It can be used for all sorts of things. And certainly, when it's unregulated in those ways, it's obviously commonly used for the targeting of advertising and the targeting of other commercial services towards individuals. And it’s used for profiling. Artificial intelligence now is using vast amounts of data. The potential uses are endless.

MG: If you hear people who would say, well, A, you clicked on this and B, if you haven't done anything wrong, there's nothing to worry about because we're just going to sell you ads, what would you say back to those people?

TERESA SCASSA: You know, I just think that's an old paradigm that doesn't take into account the different ways in which data are used and have influences on our lives on a very regular basis. I mean, you know, we have industries now that are using vast quantities of data to profile us not just for ads, but for credit worthiness or for our suitability as apartment tenants or for our employability. Data are being used in all kinds of ways in profiles and different contexts. And I think we need to start to realize that it's not just about, you know, whether we've done anything wrong or not. It's about how those data are used to define us and then make decisions about us that have real consequences for us in the world that may have, again, nothing to do with who we really feel that we are as a person or what we merit or deserve. So, you know, I think that we just need to be thinking about this new data paradigm and not some older version where it was a little bit more benign.

MG: So I guess in the last minute or so that we have, what would you want to see that would better protect the users of those devices and those apps in that new paradigm?

TERESA SCASSA: Yeah. Well, certainly much more stringent laws and more stringent controls. And so as I mentioned, we have a bill before Parliament right now that Canadians should be quite interested in, Bill C 27. Among other things, it does propose adding the power for the Privacy Commissioner to recommend the imposition of very significant fines on a company that has breached the law in in a significant way. And so those new powers will provide added teeth or force to the law. And so that's something to watch. At the same time, there's a battle going on in parliament around how the law is framed. And there are those who say it should be framed in a human rights context. Privacy is a human right and the government is not really on board with that approach. And so, you know, I think there's this real tension about how we frame or define this paradigm. Are we talking about data protection in the context of our fundamental human rights or are we still talking about that kind of model of it's a commercial, you know, transactional context for data?

MG: This is alarming stuff, I think, for a lot of us who perhaps should have read the privacy policy and perhaps just scrolled by and clicked agree to this. Teresa, thank you very much.

TERESA SCASSA: Thank you very much.

MG: Teresa Scassa is a professor and Canada research chair in Information Law and Policy at the University of Ottawa, and she was in the nation's capital.

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MALAWI

Guest: Felix Washon

MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio. My name is Matt Galloway. Tropical Cyclone Freddy is breaking records. It holds the record for the most accumulated cyclone energy of any storm in the southern hemisphere. That is a measure of wind strength over storms lifetime. It's also among the longest storm ever. Developed more than a month ago, first hit the coast of southern Africa at the end of February. Then this week, looped back and hit Mozambique for the second time before moving inland to Malawi. More than 300 people have been killed. Hundreds others are injured. Vincent Thom lives just outside of Blantyre, Malawi's commercial capital.

SOUNDCLIP

VINCENT THOM: So basically, I'm the survivor or the victim of this Cyclone Fred. I'm one of the guys whose homes and property have been washed away by the cyclone. But I'm safe. I'm okay, only that I've lost everything that I had. Buildings, houses have been damaged. We also have some police stations that are also affected. We also have some schools that are also affected.

MG: Felix Washon is with Malawi Red Cross Society. He is in Blantyre, Malawi. Felix, good morning.

FELIX WASHON: Hello.

MG: Can you describe what your community looks like?

FELIX WASHON: Thank you so much. Blantyre is calm today. Life is back to normal in Blantyre, but the situation is bad and worse in the other districts in the southern region because most of the waters, you know, we received the rains for four to five days, so the waters now has gone downstream where most of the rivers are flooded. And there’s still running waters, but the Malawi Red Cross society and other partners are still on the ground doing some search and rescue operations.

MG: What was that like? When the rains were hitting for, as you said, four to five days, what was that like to be in the middle of?

FELIX WASHON: It was something that we have never experienced because the rains started on Saturday coming in without ceasing, continuous rainfall. And we thought this was only going to affect the people that stay on the lower grounds in some of the southern districts. But without minutes going, we experienced a huge disaster in Blantyre where water broke out of the mountain on two places, stripping away the houses, people down the stream and left a lot of people dead and some buried in the mud.

MG: Tell me more about what you've heard down the stream. What do we know about the scale of the destruction there?

FELIX WASHON: What I know now is that deep down the stream in the districts, there has been huge devastation that has happened. As I'm talking to you now, Malawi Red Cross society flew a drone this morning to get earlier shots of this situation. The situation is really bad and worse. And most of the houses in a lot of villages are submerged in water and houses are just collapsing. There are a lot of other people that need to be evacuated, who are still in need of support.

MG: And for people whose houses have been destroyed, where are they going?

FELIX WASHON: The people whose houses have been destroyed have now been accommodated in camps. Government is leading the process of making sure that these people find shelter. So most of the schools have been turned into camps. And the government is appealing to the international community to support with shelter by providing tents so that they can accommodate these people. The people that have been displaced are so many. We are talking of over 88,000 people that have been displaced across the affected districts. So shelter is in need. We are in need of shelter to accommodate all these people. As you can see, it means some of these schools now will be affected and the education system is going to be affected.

MG: And these are people who have lost everything. And so that shelter will not be just a short term fix, right? I mean, these are people who will need accommodation for a long time to come.

FELIX WASHON: Exactly. For now, in as far as providing humanitarian assistance is concerned, we are focusing on search and rescue and giving people the immediate needs now, which are shelter, food, clothing, blankets, non-food items, water buckets and health supplies. So the focus now is to make sure that the people that have been evacuated and are in camps , they have received life-saving materials. Then in the long run, we will now go into a recovery and safe recovery to see how these people can be supported. But I know it is a long way. And we don't know how we're going to do this without the international support.

MG: One of the other issues is cholera, which is present there in the wake of storms and I know will be a complicating factor. How worried are you about the spread of cholera?

FELIX WASHON: The government is worried about the spread of cholera. You are aware the country has been battling cholera for almost a year now. And when we thought cholera cases were reducing and it was going to end, here we are hit by the tropical Cyclone Freddy that has displaced many people who are now in camps. And some of the camps are crowded. And issues of hygiene are a concern, Meaning we are aware that we might have cases of cholera. But we are happy that the government has put in place mechanisms where it has directed that all cholera interventions and health interventions should be integrated in the response to cyclone Freddy response.

MG: Felix, Just before I let you go, how worried are you there that these sorts of storms are going to become more common because of climate change?

FELIX WASHON: We are very much worried as a country. And we are slowly becoming a cyclone prone country. Within a space of three to four years, we have been hit by huge cyclones. We are talking of Cyclone Idai, We are talking of cyclone Ana just last year, now cyclone Freddy. So it is worrisome to the people of Malawi, especially now that these cyclones do affect us. So indeed, we are overwhelmed and we are worried about this cyclone trend.

MG: Felix, thank you for telling us about what you're doing and good luck and stay safe. Thank you very much.

FELIX WASHON: Thank you so much. You’re most welcome. Thank you for talking to us.

MG: Felix Washon is with the Malawi Red Cross Society. He was in Blantyre, Malawi. That is The Current for this Thursday. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. I was home yesterday and was listening to Q and heard a lovely interview that Tom Power did with k.d. lang. If you missed it, it's wonderful. They were talking about, among other things, whether she'll ever make music again. She has not recorded anything new in a while. And the answer, if you're a k.d. lang fan, is kind of unsettling. If you missed that interview, you can find it on the CBC Listen app. And we would direct you to that app to listen to anything that you might want to hear through CBC Radio, CBC Audio, CBC Podcasts. If you're out and about not listening to the radio, but you want to listen on the go or you want to, as I say, listen back to something that you missed, you can download that app for free wherever you get your apps. The CBC listen app is available for you. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

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Thursday March 16, 2023 Episode Transcript