The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti
Thursday May 25, 2017 May 25, 2017 full episode transcript
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The Current Transcript for May 25, 2017 Host: Duncan McCue
STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE
Prologue »
Gang trial reveals alleged murder plot against B.C. crime reporter Kim Bolan »
At 31, she was diagnosed with autism. Here's how it enriched her life »
'It is a crisis': A father's mission to save drug-addicted teens from dying »
After mauling death, dog cull may be only solution argues veterinarian »
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 1 of 43 Audio Link: http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/953247811517/
DM: Hi. I'm Duncan McCue sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.
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VOICE 1: Donnelly was a loving, caring mother. She put her daughter first. She lived with us ever since she was five.
VOICE 2: It's like a nightmare. You can’t get up. Hopefully we can round up what dogs are around that are responsible and put them down.
DM: Donnelly Rose Eaglestick's aunt and uncle are still in mourning. The 24- year-old woman was found dead earlier this month. The RCMP confirmed the young mother had been killed by a pack of stray dogs while walking home one night. She was mauled beyond recognition. Her death has shocked Little Grand Rapids First Nation, a fly-in community in northern Manitoba. Residents there say they're now living in fear, particularly for their children. So the community is taking action by offering a $25-per-head reward for dead stray dogs. This is the community's chief Roy Dunsford.
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I’m scared for the kids. The dogs already taste human being. Maybe the dog will attack again.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 30 of 43 DM: The people of Little Grand Rapids aren't the only ones living in fear. Dogs have traditionally played an important role in many First Nation communities, used for hunting and protection. But overpopulation has led to packs of often aggressive stray dogs. Many communities say they don't have the resources to deal with them so culling is sometimes the only way to stop these kinds of attacks. But many people criticize the culling, saying it's inhumane and unnecessary. Judy Klassen is the Manitoba MLA for Kewatinook and the interim leader of the provincial Liberals. Her husband was among those who discovered the body of Donnelley Rose Eaglestick. She visited the traumatized residents of Little Grand Rapids First Nation last Thursday. We've reached Judy Klassen at her home in Steinbeck, Manitoba. Hello.
JUDY KLASSEN: Good morning.
DM: Your husband called the authorities when his crew came across Donnelly Rose Eaglestick’s body. What did he tell you about what he witnessed?
JUDY KLASSEN: It was quite devastating. This had never happened before for a job that he was on in the north and he started describing everything and it was quite traumatic. He had to stop because he realized that he couldn't go on. It was too traumatic and for him to describe it to me was very painful knowing that he had seen it, knowing that the people who may have been family members to this person could have been working alongside him. But it was just devastating.
DM: You were in Little Grand Rapids last Thursday. What did the residents tell you about how the death is affecting them?
JUDY KLASSEN: It's so traumatic. It's really hard to take. The residents had already been living under that fear. They teach their kids how to walk with sticks. And we always see it when we're looking around, community members are carrying these sticks. And going to a first nation, that was the first time I've seen that.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 31 of 43 DM: What would they like to see done to deal with the dogs in their community?
JUDY KLASSEN: That's where they’re lost. They don't know. There is still a lot of people that love—we all love our animals, right? They are treasured family members. And so for the troublesome dogs, they know what they want done. They want those dogs put down.
DM: It may be hard for people in the cities to imagine dogs roaming around the community. But Indigenous people have been living with dogs for thousands of years without problems. Rez dogs are kind of part of life in the community. How would you describe the relationship with dogs in First Nation communities?
JUDY KLASSEN: There was that love, like we depended on our dogs. I remember my grandfather with his dog. When his dog passed away, it was quite an upsetting thing. That was the first time I've ever seen my grandfather cry. And it’s because they were completely reliant on dogs to travel back and forth to their trap lines. They were our main modes of transportation.
DM: What's changed?
JUDY KLASSEN: What's changed is that with some people coming into the community and breaking our traditional roles, taking away our culture, telling us that it's wrong, everything started getting lost in that process. We were put on reserves and we weren't allowed to leave without asking permission from the Indian agent. And so it was very hard to maintain that relationship that we had with all living creatures.
DM: Chief Roy Dunsford has called for a dog cull by introducing a bounty, $25 per dog, but I understand no one's taken him up on that yet. What kind of challenges is the community facing in executing a dog cull?
JUDY KLASSEN: First of all, you have to have a licence for a firearm. And so if you don't have the licence, you can't use your firearm. It's a fly-in remote community so costs are triple for bullets. And so if it’s that much and so many
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 32 of 43 people are not employed, you don't want to waste your precious bullets which you need for your hunting on dogs. And so there's a lot of people that don't want to do that as well because it could be a family member's pet. The family should be supported to help take the life humanely.
DM: So what kind of resources does the community need to prevent dog attacks?
JUDY KLASSEN: What I would like to do is work with my provincial, the first nation and the federal to make sure that it's the people within the community that are equipped building capacity. There's a lot of vet programs like Manitoba Mutts, Save the Dogs Network that come into the community and provide spay clinics and all those kinds of stuff. But why not empower a person in the community? Teach them what they need to know so that person is always in the community who can then teach it to the next generation.
DM: Why hasn't that happened so far?
JUDY KLASSEN: It speaks to the neglect. You know everybody in First Nations, they have always been told what to do. There was always that Indian agent coming in and by that, it's not just the Indian agent, it was then the INAC people. It was then the other people coming in. So they never really knew that they could stand on their own until recently with this new federal partner that is looking towards empowering First Nations.
DM: Some animal advocacy groups have expressed concerns about the dog cull, saying it's not humane. What's your response to that?
JUDY KLASSEN: I believe that when a community is teaching their children to walk around with sticks, that's not humane for children. Children should be allowed to go outside at any moment. This morning I was out on my terrace. I have six kids. I come from a First Nation community. I never had to worry about thinking I have to equip my kids with sticks just in case the dog comes around. And that's the inhumane thing—the kids not being able to be kids playing outside.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 33 of 43 DM: Thank you for joining us.
JUDY KLASSEN: You're welcome.
DM: Judy Klassen is the Liberal MLA for Kewatinook. She was in Steinbeck, Manitoba. My next guest understands why the community is calling for a dog cull but says that's the wrong answer. Ewa Demianowicz is the campaign manager at Humane Society International Canada and she's in our Montreal studio. Hello.
EWA DEMIANOWICZ: Hello. Good morning.
DM: What do you think about the calls for culling dogs in northern Manitoba communities?
EWA DEMIANOWICZ: Well, like you just said, it's understandable. It looks like a short term Band-Aid solution that's going to be quick and efficient, but unfortunately dog culls will not solve the problem that is at stake here.
DM: Why not? How effective is culling as a strategy to curb overpopulation?
EWA DEMIANOWICZ: Well, we do know that removing dogs in general won't solve the problem of overpopulation because the issue at stake here is really overpopulation of dogs and removing the dogs doesn't prevent overpopulation. The dogs compensate when there is less dogs and have bigger litters and animals survive more because there's more resources for them. So the problem still remains. It's a very short term solution. If we want to manage the dog population properly and actively, we have to stabilize the population and the only way to do that is really to implement spay and neuter programs that regularly sterilize the animals so to prevent breeding and reproduction and then the overpopulation.
DM: And I understand you're heading up to a remote community in northern Quebec to help them with their overpopulation of dogs. Can you tell me a little bit about that program that you run?
EWA DEMIANOWICZ: Absolutely. Yes. So we are leaving tomorrow to
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 34 of 43 Wemotaci in Quebec, a First Nation community that's a couple of hours outside of Montreal. They face the same problems which is dogs roaming around, living in the community loose. And you know it's really impressive because when you go to a community like that, you see the dogs that are loose and there's hundreds of them. But they're really some of the friendliest dogs I've ever met when I went into these communities. They're very well socialized. They're used to humans. They're really sweet dogs that are pets for the people that live there. The problem is that when there is overpopulation, some of the dogs leave the territory and go outside of the community and become feral and have less contact with humans so they can become more aggressive.
DM: How many dogs do you sterilize each time you visit?
EWA DEMIANOWICZ: We usually set up a temporary clinic for a few days, two, three, four days and we are able to sterilize between 100 and 150 dogs. So that's a lot of animals that go through our clinics and it really has a significant impact on the population afterwards.
DM: How often do you have to do it to make it effective?
EWA DEMIANOWICZ: It has to be repeated regularly, coming back every two three years to make sure that we sterilize the new puppies then and make sure that the population is stabilized. So it's something that has to be repeated.
DM: Who pays for a project like that?
EWA DEMIANOWICZ: Well, it’s a non-profit organization so it's public donations. The team that travels to those communities is entirely consisted of volunteers. So we have volunteer veterinarians, technicians and individuals. We work with the community. We have a contact that's on site that helps us set up everything and make sure to spread the word that people understand why we're there and what we're doing. So it's really a common effort between the community and the groups that come in.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 35 of 43 DM: You mentioned that many of the dogs that are roaming in First Nation communities are friendly and that it's very rare for the feral dogs to get vicious. Did you observe a different relationship in First Nation communities with dogs than the south?
EWA DEMIANOWICZ: No. People love their dogs and they treat them as pets. They love them. Some of the families bring their own dogs to our clinics to have them vaccinated and sterilized. The difference is really that the dogs do live on the streets so they're roaming and loose in the community.
DM: So what kind of danger do you think is there in some of these First Nation communities?
EWA DEMIANOWICZ: Well, obviously in the south we have leash laws. We ask people to keep their dogs on their property so they're not allowed to roam around in the community but that's something that's not necessarily possible in First Nations communities when the relationships with the dogs is different. Dogs are not necessarily tied or we don't necessarily want them permanently tied outside either. So I think you know it's possible to have a healthy well- socialized street roaming dog population but it has to be controlled and managed properly. So we do have to implement spay and neuter programs so that there's no overbreeding, no overpopulation, so that we don't see that there are too many animals in the community.
DM: And what does a first nation do if they don't have the resources for those spay and neuter clinics?
EWA DEMIANOWICZ: Well, that's the problem. We really have to work together with governments and take it seriously because tragedies like the one that happened in Little Grand Rapids is really the consequence of not addressing this issue which is a serious one. So the government needs to start to understand that this is a serious issue and we do have the people that want to go into these communities and help and set up those clinics. But what we need is a structured program and help to do it.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 36 of 43 DM: Thanks for joining us.
EWA DEMIANOWICZ: Thank you.
DM: Ewa Demianowicz is the campaign manager at the Humane Society International Canada. She was in our Montreal studio. My next guest says sometimes dog culling is the only option. Richard Herbert is a veterinarian who's helped first nation communities across Canada control their dog populations. He joins me from our studio in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Hello.
RICHARD HERBERT: Good morning.
DM: You've been listening in. What do you make of what you just heard?
RICHARD HERBERT: I find that there are holes in the understanding behind the problem and the solutions, they're good but they're not complete. And so without a full understanding of the problem without all of the solutions, we're going to end up in the same place which is where we are.
DM: So let's back up. You've been working with First Nations communities for quite a while now. How widespread is the aggressive dog problem that we're hearing about in northern Manitoba?
RICHARD HERBERT: I think that across remote rural First Nations, there's a dog problem in every community and it goes up and down depending on the size of the community and the diligence of the band council office.
DM: Do all communities have the same dog problems?
RICHARD HERBERT: They're different because dogs that are on reserve, there's about eight subpopulations of dogs and three of them are feral. And so depending on the reserve, you could have just nuisance dogs which is you just got some dogs who love to tear up garbage or whatever that are that are outside loose. These are not an issue for aggression. But you have other dogs in the population, wild dogs and et cetera, that changed the entire balance. So it's different from community to community depending on if they've been able to get help in the past, how long has it been? And well, a number of items
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 37 of 43 actually.
DM: So how did the aggressive dog problem come about?
RICHARD HERBERT: Well, aggressive dog is really—there's 11 different kinds of aggression. Pack aggression is what we're talking about here and pack aggression is done by either wild dogs or roaming dogs. They don't have to be stray. Stray means stray dogs don't have a home. They don't have to be stray. They can just be roaming. Any time two dogs get together, they form a pack and they can do all sorts of things they would never do on their own. Now, but wild dogs are totally different. A community can support a population of wild dogs depending on the size of the community and the amount of food in the dump, et cetera, between two to 500 dogs. Not that they have wild dog populations at large. And so those wild dog populations are totally different. They will come roaming through the community somewhere between two and four o'clock in the morning looking for stray food and they'll be out. You don't see them. You might see some in the dump. You can't approach them. They have a flight zone of 40 to 50 feet and you absolutely don't want to be in the woods by yourself without protection when they come through.
DM: We just heard about a spay and neuter program as being part of the solution. Can you spay or neuter those wild dogs that you're talking about?
RICHARD HERBERT: If you can't catch them, you can't spay them so you might be able to set up live traps and catch one, but the dogs are smart. They'll learn that the trap catches them and so they won't be caught the next time. So it's very hard to take care of the wild dog population without doing something like a cull. It doesn't necessarily have to be a cull per se but you're going to have to remove the wild dogs. And if you can't get near them, you'll have to use whatever you can that will take care of that.
DM: How common are dog cull across the country in first nation communities?
RICHARD HERBERT: Well, dog culls in first nation communities are a leftover
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 38 of 43 from the Indian agent days. The federal government actually, the Indian Act gives authority to the Minister for Indigenous Northern Affairs Canada. So Minister Bennett has the authority to make regulations for dogs on reserves. First Nations can also create bylaws but without any sort of resources, they can't enforce those bylaws. So given that, the further the community is, first nation community is from a major centre, the more likely they have a dog problem. And of course the more remote they are, then it just escalates.
DM: Is part of the problem here the lack of infrastructure?
RICHARD HERBERT: Well, if you want to look at it, then it definitely is a lack of infrastructure. What happened was Canada has policies, that if anybody's ever read the Royal Commission on Aboriginal peoples—which everybody in Canada should, at least the first volume out in 1996—it says Canada was created with two populations, those that had and those that had not. And the first nations were they had not. All infrastructure was withheld from First Nation communities purposely as part of the development of Canada. And so in that, the federal government through a series of laws and legislations took total control over the community including anything to do with dogs. So the Indian agents would do the dog cull. So the lack of infrastructure now that we see with dogs is I wouldn't say it's the tip of the iceberg, but it's that part of the infrastructure that's also missing with health care, with education, with so many other parts of the infrastructure in First Nations.
DM: So when a community is faced with poor health care and sick children or undereducated children, I mean you've said we shouldn't ask someone to choose between a dog and a child, that there are other needs but for the dogs that take priority. Why do you say that?
RICHARD HERBERT: Well, in a First Nations community, they don't have a ton of funding. All the funding that comes in from the federal government is earmarked, and from any other government and understandably it's earmarked and none of it is earmarked for taking care of the dogs. So in a community where you're dealing from one crisis to another crisis, because
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 39 of 43 you don't have the resources to really do any preventative work or to create infrastructure to take care of the problem by doing prevention work, then well, you're just not getting anywhere. I'm sorry. I kind of lost the question a long way through there.
DM: What's a culturally sensitive approach to dealing with the dog problem in first nation communities in your view?
RICHARD HERBERT: Well, first of all, I mean first nations need to be asked. As I heard you talking with Judy earlier, have to be asked what it is that they need. So communities really know what their problems are and they can describe it quite well. If they're having a wild dog problem versus just a stray dog problem versus I'm letting my dog loose problem. These are different. So they can describe their problems really well. And by talking with elders you can get enough of a cultural base and understanding to start to get together with different service providers to create or look at solutions that are culturally respective. And I was actually working on that up in northern Canada about five or six years ago.
DM: Richard, last question: when it comes to culling, what do you think Canadians should know about what the First Nation in Manitoba is calling for right now?
RICHARD HERBERT: Well, first of all my sympathies go out to the family and to the community. No community wants to do a dog cull and no community wants to be painted across the media as bad people because they have no other choice. But when it comes to wild dogs, we can do everything else. I mean overpopulation can be taken care of by spay and neuter and finding homes for animals and removing unwanted animals by rescue groups. That's true. But we can't take care of the wild dog population like that. So given that I would say that—and the community has already done everything they can— and whatever immediate solutions because we have immediate short term and long term solutions. But the immediate solution is the dogs that are doing this have to be removed. Otherwise it will happen again. It's not so
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 40 of 43 much they have a taste of blood. It's that dogs learn what to chase and they learn what to eat. So chase, catch, kill is normally part of their behaviour repertoire. But the lead dog chooses what to chase and what to eat. And so now that they know what to chase which is people, they know what to eat which is people, the wild dogs are going to continue to hunt.
DM: Thanks for sharing your expertise with us.
RICHARD HERBERT: Thank you.
DM: Richard Herbert is a veterinarian who works with First Nations communities on their dog problems. He was in our studio in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
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Hello. I'm Howard Goldenthal, one of the producers here at The Current. This week the show was produced by Idella Sturino, Ines Colabrese, John Chipman, Lara O'Brien, Shannon Higgins, Sujata Berry, Kristin Nelson, Karin Marley, Liz Hoath, Samira Mohyeddin, Alison Masemann, Willow Smith and Pacinthe Mattar filling in as writer this week. Special thanks to our network producers, Anne Penman in Vancouver, Michael O'Halloran in Calgary, Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg and Mary-Catherine McIntosh in Halifax. The Current’s writer is Peter Mitton. Lisa Ayuso is our web producer and Ruby Buiza is our interactive producer. Our technical producer is Gary Francis. Our documentary editor is Josh Bloch. Our senior producers are Richard Goddard in Toronto and Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Kathleen Goldhar.
DM: That's our great team at The Current and that's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. Novelist Tracy Chevalier, the bestselling author of The Pearl Earring will speak with Tom Power about how she drew on her
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-25-2…24/may-25-2017-full-episode-transcript-1.4131721#segment4 2017-05-27, 10 37 PM Page 41 of 43 own experiences for her powerful book, New Boy. And remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app. It's free from the App Store or Google Play. Join me again for The Current tomorrow. I'll speak with the provocative British artist Grayson Perry. He's the author of The Descent of Man as well as host of the television series, All Man. He's been thinking a lot about masculinity and what it means to men, to women and society as a whole. We'll give him today's last word. I'm Duncan McCue sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. Miigwech. Thanks for listening to The Current.
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Masculinity is behind most news stories. You know most of the problems in the world, you sort of think, I wonder what that’d be like if men changed their behaviour? There’s a lot of those, sort of wars and catastrophes and corruption scandals and economic meltdown. You wonder if they would be different if men behaved differently. And so I think masculinity is a central issue because it underlies so many different other stories. And I always say that being a transvestite myself, I have been very aware of gender since I was 12 or something. Also there’s a lot in the media these days about feminism and there’s a lot of talk about gender. And I often think that masculinity is the hard one to talk about. You know the big dilemma is that, for all of us, the male version of it is there is this idealized version of what a man should be and if he thinks he's failing, then he's ashamed. So therefore he never talks about it. And men have to realize that in talking about it and being a bit vulnerable, they're not going to die. They’re more likely to die if they don't talk about it. They think it's so fearful that rather die than admit weakness. That just seems to typify the central masculinity dilemma really.
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