Parses captions for PM Trudeau's daily speeches and presents them in a more human readable format
Confirmed, the Canadian forces helicopter overseas in the waters between Greece and Italy, and the death also now confirmed of a Canadian crew member on that chopper. She has been identified as sub-lieutenant abbigail cowbrough of Nova Scotia. We now know there are six Canadians on board, abbigail cowbrough the first confirmed victim. The Prime Minister, Prime Minister trudeau, will be accompanied today by the Minister of national defence, harjit sajjan. Deputy Minister of national defence as well. So a little bit of a different perspective today because of that crash that happened overnight off the shore of greece. I’m sure the Prime Minister willtake other questions as well. There is a lot on the go in the nation’s capital today, both a cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister expected to have a callwith premiers and territorial leaders. There is talk that major gun restrictions could come into effect tomorrow. So many, many different things as well as of course the regularpandemic briefing which will happen at noon and any ongoing questions we might have for the Prime Minister about that. That is the rumour, we will see the Prime Minister not outside of his home, Rideau cottage today, but because it is such a busy day, and likely because of the cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister will make an aearancethere in the west block at 11:15eastern. Lots of help in My coverage of all of these different elements today. To join me, this cbc’s murray brewster who is our defence – senior defence writer for cbc news. He is here. David Cochrane of cbc and Vassy kapelos of “power & politics”. all of these smart individuals will talk about what we know andbreak down what the Prime Minister has to say. I’m going to start with murray because I know you’ve been talking to a lot of sources at this stage, murray, in the canadian military and sources atnato. What’s the latest on what you’rehearing?
What we can confirm, rosy, is that six Canadians are among thevictims. There were only six people on the helicopter. We can tell you that there were four members of the royal Canadian air force and two members of the royal Canadian navy. Now a cyclone helicopter is an anti-submarine warfare helicopter, usually carrying four crew members. Those are questions we’ll have to be asking include why there were two naval personnel aboard that helicopter at the time. As you mentioned, there has has been one confirmed victim named and named by their family. Most of the information that we’ve been getting has been coming from nato and nato sources about the incident, including the fact that the helicopter is missing, a search and rescue operation was under way, and even that the helicopter had crashed. The government and the department of national defence has only indicated at least formally that one of the helicopters had disappeared and that they had notified family. So there are probably going to be some tough questions about what the department knew about the incident. We can also tell you that the aircraft had been in the air early evening, and it was likelyinvolved in some kind of training activity. That is perhaps training for anti-submarine warfare. It was with a nato task group that patrols as part of deterrence against russian aggression.
Rosemary:
Some of the other tough questions we can expect too, Murray, would be around the state of the helicopter itself. Obviously very, very early stages of understanding what happened, but these cyclones are militarized versions of Sikorsky’s and have not been without their problems.
Exactly. Now the problems include development problems mostly. We don’t know much about the service history of the helicopter at the moment. It’s only been in service with royal Canadian air force for about two years, but what we do know is that it took about a dozen years for Sikorsky to be able to fully militarize the helicopter. Militarize means hardening the airframe, putting in perhaps more powerful engines that are able to handle the extra weight of the helicopter because of all of its electronic gear that has gone on. It was a very tortured process in terms of getting this helicopter into service. At one point the auditor general, a number of years ago, almost 10 years ago now, criticized the program for its – for the length of time it was taking to get into service but also the cost overruns that took place, and I mean, at one point the former conservative government looked at possibly scrapping this particular program and going with perhaps more off-the-shelf version of a helicopter because essentially agreeing to militarize one helicopter is almost like tryingto build a new helicopter from scratch. So those are some of the problems that they faced. In terms of the aircraft serviceability, the air force had nothing but praise for the aircraft. We do know that it was involved in one incident, one shipboard incident while – in the pacificocean last year. The helicopter was going to landon the canadian rented supply ship astrix when it encountered a hard landing. Basically smacked into the deck. So there were some problems withit, but nothing that would have indicated this kind of tragedy.
Rosemary:
Mm-hm. and again, of course, we don’t know the circumstances of exactly what unfolded over the course of the past 12 hours or so, but those will be some of the things that will undoubtedlycome up for the Minister, the Prime Minister and the chief of the defence staff. Murray, I’ll get you to stand byfor a moment as I bring in vassykapelos. I know you were chasing this story last night, into the wee hours as well, about what you might have learned or what people were telling you as the story developed last night.
Vassy:
I mean, as Murray pointed out, I think the most important at this point fact for us to take away from this is that six Canadians were involve din this. It’s not surprising, considering it is a Canadian helicopter, so it would likely have a Canadian crew. My understanding from speaking with, for example, greece’s ambassador to Canada is there ISS lot less – even though this was totally within normal duties, this was a very routine apparently operation at the time, because of COVID-19 restrictions and because of the sort of on-set of COVID-19, crews were kept smaller and theywere also kept to, as much as possible, even though it’s a nato mission, to stay within sort of one country. That’s part of this as this evolves, basically. The other thing I would point out and what I learned from greece’s ambassador is that the search and rescue mission that is ongoing right now will take place over 72 hours. That’s also pretty normal. The crash itself happened, as murray pointed out, in the earlyevening. It was not pitch black at the time, and that is something thata couple of sources have pointedout to me, just because of – that it was in greece, it was not sort of the middle of the night. The vision would have been okay, and murray also pointed out thatthe weather and so did the greekambassador at the time was not, you know, an impediment at all. So as you point out, rosy, thereare a lot of questions about what happened. My understanding is that investigation is at the earliestpossible stages, obviously, because the search and rescue mission is ongoing right now. The other thing, where that mission is concerned, is that this happened in international waters, and the sort of body that governs or that is responsible for that area is actually based in italy, so there are a lot of italian vessels as well as helicopters helping with the search and rescue mission right now. I know that greece has offered to provide any of those – any of that equipment as well to take part in the search, but that’s where things stand at themoment.
Rosemary:
Okay, and of coursewe’re standing by to hear what the Prime Minister, his minister of defence and the chief of the defence staff have to say. Just a little more information about the one identified victim at this stage, I believe some debris have been spotted and reports also that a body has been spotted as the search and recovery period continues, but sub-lieutenant abbigail cowbrough was a marine system engineering officer in the navy. She was 23 years old. She graduated from the royal military college of Canada in 2008, and by a strange twist of fate, she was actually one of the bagpipers on hmcs fredericton that performed for the rampage that killed 22 people in Nova Scotia. She, herself, is from there. So a difficult day on a whole other front. David, I’m going to bring you into talk about other topics that might come up. There’s abbigail cowbrough. I’m just going to let her play for a minute maybe. (bagpiping). (bagpiping). ♪
Rosemary:
Okay, and that is sub-lieutenant abbigail cowbrough performing on hmcs fredericton, just one of the lives lost in that crash. We’re going to hear more about that in about five minutes’ time. David, I do want to talk to you a little bit about some of the other topics the Prime Minister will likely get questions about. Gun restrictions is one of them because we do expect as early astomorrow, perhaps an introduction of gun prohibition, and that is happening – I mean, it was going to happen anyway, but certainly the urgency after the shooting in Nova Scotia might be more pressing because of that and the government mightbe acting because of that urgency now too.
David:
Yeah, it’s – it’s something that they had signalled back in the winter cabinet retreat in Winnipeg that they were going to do, likely through regulation, an order-in-council, not legislation that is required to go to the house of commons, but something that they can do through regulations with cabinetapproval and with cabinet scheduled to meet today, I suspect – they don’t share the cabinet agenda with us, but thiswill be right at the top of the agenda. and to summarize the reporting, first in “the globe and mail”, then our colleagues at radio-Canada and jean paul tasker has an article up on our website, bill blair, the public safety Minister has drawn up a list of firearms he recommends to be banned in Canada. Trudeau is reviewing the list. It’s an extensive list, m14 rifles, beretta, storm carbines and classifications of weapons which enormous fire power and deadly potential. It does not include handguns. They need to legislate that, andwhat they want to do there is new powers on handguns to give municipalities the power to enact their own restrictions on handguns. These are all things that were promised during the election campaign. It was a core part of their public safety pitch, in particular to voters in the 905 region and places like the lowermainland of British Columbia. They had intended to move on this, or so they tell us, beforethe pandemic struck, but that changed plans and perhaps the massacre in Nova Scotia gave them some urgency to act on this. So I suspect the Prime Minister will be asked about this today. Though, rosy, I should tell you that they are sticking with the limited format of questions thatwe normally see when the Prime Minister is outside Rideau cottage, despite the fact he is now in the west block with the defence Minister and the chief of the defence staff with follow-ups with reporters on thephone and four questions from reporters in the room, and that will be the extent of it. and with this – you know, this latest tragedy, 2020 has been a terrible year in Canada. It started with the iranian plane being shot down killing hundreds, a pandemic that has killed thousands, a massacre in Nova Scotia that has killed dozens and now a helicopter crash that has killed six more. So I don’t know if people will get to these other topics because of the more urgent immediate focus of the fact that, as murray tells us, six canadian soldiers are missing and presumed dead.
Rosemary:
Yeah, quite right. and you’re also right to say that the gun restrictions, or the prohibitions, what is on the table is likely to go in front of cabinet today, if it hasn’t already, but I would imagine it will get discussed one last time, and what was interesting about some of the reporting our colleague did was that the choice of weapons that you talked about there, to be prohibited, in the description of those weapons they also included where they had been used. So the 15 for instance at sandy hook that used the polytechniqueweapon is on that list, Dawson college weapon is on that list. So it was an interesting sort of political framing around those weapons because, of course, there are gun rights owners and activists who don’t believe that assault weapons of this kind should be restricted for legally – you know, people who follow the law around guns. and there will be obviously a lot of debate around this issue, and if it can happen just through regulation rather than legislation, that also – a political, you know, issue for the government, that it will have to contend with at some point.
David:
and rosy, if I could just add, I’m told that one of the weapons that are believed to be used in the Nova Scotia tragedy are covered, is covered by this classification of weapons that they are going to ban. I don’t know if it was added post-Nova Scotia or happened to be on the list that they draftedup earlier, but it will cover atleast one of the weapons believed to have been used.
Rosemary:
That’s an importantnote. and the other weapons – some of the other weapons we believe were obtained through the United States, and I would imagine in ale gal fashion, the RCMP are looking at that. We are standing by to bring you to that room there in the west block that has become familiar to you just because that’s where these regular briefings on COVID-19 are held. Today, though, the attention turning to, as David said, just another tragedy in what has been very difficult year for this country. and this is another instance of that with this crash of the cyclone helicopter off the coast of Greece. It was involved in a NATO mission, and Murray and Vassy have been able to confirm that all six people on board were Canadians. and we do have identified one of the victims at this stage. I’ll go back to Murray as we’re waiting. Murray, I may interrupt you, buti’ll just bring you back. Some of the other things that we may need to keep in mind here, maybe you could just tell us a little bit more about the NATO mission itself. As Vassy said, this was sort of a regular training mission. It didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. You know, I guess accidents can happen, but maybe you could just bring us up to speed on what they would have been doing over there at all.
Well, the NATO mission is a deterrence mission. It’s meant to keep Russia in check in eastern Europe, and NATO has two task groups, naval task groups, and one of them patrols the Mediterranean, and Canada regularly contributes to that particular mission. In fact, it’s commanded that task group a number of months ago. and what they would be doing is they would be training for anti-submarine activity, tracking russian submarine activity in the mediterranean. Tensions have been heightened with russia, there has been an enormous increase in submarine activity by russia, not only in the north atlantic, but as well in the mediterranean. So part of this would be for thehelicopter to be keeping tabs onany potential russian submarinesthat might be shadowing them, and part of the training exercise. But one of the things about the cyclone that makes it unique is the electronics that are inside. It is essentiallily a flying ipod, if I can put it that way, in terms of its ability to be able to track objects and do surveillance. That was one of the selling features for it, so this could very well have been part of the training that was taking place. One of the questions I have in My mind, aside from what Vassy had mentioned about the COVID-19restrictions and restricting crew size on missions is what were two naval technicians doingon board the aircraft at the time. and so those are just some of the things that they might have been engaged in, but we’ll have to see because, again, the canadian government has not beenvery forthcoming about this.
Rosemary:
Maybe I’ll just get you to, you know, speak a little bit more about that. It does sound like the majority of information we’ve received, at least on the record, certainly, has come from NATO and from the Greek ambassador tovassy. What would be the – would it be contacting next of kin? would it be concern around privacy? what would be the reason why we would be getting more information from elsewhere?
Well, that would be part of it, because in many respects this is very much like some of the worst days in Afghanistan because the Canadian military and the Canadian public have seen training accidents where one or two members of the military, cf-18 pilot was killed in a crash a couple of years ago. We had a search and rescue technician who died, but it’s very unusual for a training accident or some kind of accident to take the lives of six people all at once. The last time we had something like this I suggest would have been some of the darkest days inafghanistan when there were roadside bombs taking out entire armoured vehicles. So there was a strict protocol that was put in place in terms of notification of families and notification of next of kin, as they called it in Afghanistan. There was an embargo placed upon the information, an embargo placed upon the incident. This could very well have played into the delay of getting the information out to the Canadian public as to what happened. But these are some of the questions that we would have to ask the chief of the defence staff.
Rosemary:
Okay, Murray, thank you for that. Murray will stand by as well to help us with our coverage after some of these questions get asked. Just again show you the room, we are expecting the prime minister today soon, we are told, within the next three minutes or so. Today he will be accompanied, though, by his Minister of national defence, harjit sajjan, the chief of the defence staff, Jonathan Vance, to update us on what we know more about this NATO trading mission gone so terribly wrong with six Canadians on-board. I just want to bring you up to speed on a couple of other things, though, that have happened overnight that are not unimportant as well, and that isthe student aid legislation thatwe talked about a lot yesterday, that $9 billion package that theproposed to help many students in this country who are struggling, may not be able to find work, worry about how they’re going to pay for tuitionmoving forward. That legislation did, in fact, pass the house of commons last night, will make its way to the senate later this afternoon, expected to get royal assent fairly quickly. There were a couple of concessions made by the government after some pushing back by opposition parties, the NDP in particular wanted the amount of the emergency relief benefit for students to be increased up to $2, 000, what thecerb is, for those who have dependents or disabilities. That happened. and the conservatives pushed hard for some sort of measure that would incentivize students to work if they could find employment in some of the places, the front-line work, forinstance, that we know is so badly needed, whether it be farming or grocery stores or contact tracing, all the things that are still happening right now. So the government, as well, conceded on that point and will set up a sort of job bank situation where students who want access to the benefit also have to sort of register in the job bank to show that they are, in fact, looking for a job if one becomes available. So that is an important piece ofinformation, particularly for students, and that should start to unfold pretty rapidly. These programs do unfold pretty rapidly, but of course it’s not going to be the focus of the Prime Minister’s conversation today. He has a busy day as well. Not only with this briefing focused on the accident but alsoa cabinet meeting later, a premier and territorial ministers call which I’m sure will very much be focused on thereopening of the economy. and then potentially as david and I were talking about this prohibition of guns coming tomorrow. As we wait for the Prime Minister, I’ll bring back Vassy if I can. I’m not sure what part of that you want to talk about, but I did want to go back to the fact that the legislation actually moved forward because sometimes we – you know, the story is when there’s so much going on right now in the news cycle thatwe lose track of them, but that is happening and it’s important for students to realize that there were a couple of changes there, but that it is moving forward.
Vassy:
– aid package, and you’re right, My understanding is the applications for it will open within the next few weeks, and it will move very much like the CERB, so if you have a cra account, the money will go into your account very quickly after your application is approved. I think the one thing I would touch on out of that is we are also getting a picture from the parliamentary budget watchdog today of just how huge the fiscal impact of everything thathas gone on over the last six weeks will be including the measures announced by the federal government so far as faras financial aid goes. They are looking at a deficit ofmore than $250 billion. The debt in a few years will hit, because of all this, not just what their spending but thedecreased amount they are takingin, depleted revenues as well, the debt will hit nearly a trillion dollars, and that’s just an estimate based on the situation as it stands. We don’t know what the economic recovery will look like, how slow it might be, the continued effect on businesses, on consumers as, you know, you can’t just turn a key and open things up again. So just sort of a revised, refreshed look at how the magnitude of all of this. I know so many of us thinking about that as, you know, we go through living this and living the physical distancing measures. There’s sort of, like, a bird’s eye view of everything that’s going on, and I think the contraction of the economy is about 12%, they are anticipating, which is the biggest on record ever since they started keeping track of this in 1961. So hard to underscore how big a deal this all is. I know we’re all living that, but certainly that is new information as well today.
Rosemary:
I should correct myself about the legislation. The senate sits tomorrow, in fact. I was confused because I know some senators are coming back today, but it will sit tomorrow in order to pass that legislation. and as you talk about the economic part of this, because obviously if you force people to stay in their homes and not participate in the economy, the economy contracts substantively, and today there were new job numbers released from the United States, 30 million Americans now without work, that has happened just over the course of six weeks, just a stunning number. In this country we know that there has been a total number of applicants just over 7 million for the CERB, but we do know that the number of people unemployed is larger than that. Of course this is the same week that businesses are now able to tap into the wage subsidy program as an attempt for businesses to try to get some employees back on the payroll, which will, of course, then decrease the number of people applying for the emergency relief benefit. We’re about two minutes away from the Prime Minister coming out there to take questions. Differently than usual because it is a different topic. and also because he has a lot on the go today. He is at west block today. He has been mostly working out of his home, as you know well, as many of you are as well. But today because of the cabinet meeting and other things he will be at this room where we normally have the pandemic briefing. That briefing will still happen at noon eastern with other cabinet ministers and public health officials, so we will get still an update on the situation of the pandemic which has now in this country passed sort of a dire marker, more than 3, 000 people now dead in this country, and as we know so many of them related to those long-term care centres. So that briefing, that information still to come at noon mostly, but we would expectthe vast majority of the questions to the Prime Minister, the Minister of the defence staff, chief of the defence staff about this downing of a helicopter off the coast of greece, a helicopter that was based on hmcs fredericton. As we have been reporting, six Canadians on board, and one confirmed victim of that crash now, sub-lieutenant abbigail cowbrough, who was a marine system engineering officer in the navy. She was 23. She graduated from the royal military college of Canada in 2018, and there’s already been some notes from her father on facebook, and we obviously have confirmed that with her family members. Her father, shane cowborough saying that he lost his oldest daughter in the crash, that there are no words, and you havemade me forever proud. She too also a tribute made to abbigail by her local church. She participated there as well, and we also know that she playedthe bagpipes, and she did that on board the hmcs fredericton not too long ago to honour thosewho were killed in the shooting rampage in Nova Scotia just a week ago. Just a lot of sadness right now. So we will get some more detailsfrom the Prime Minister as soon as he emerges here with his Minister and chief of the defence staff. I’ll go back to murray, if I can, unless I see some movement – oh, I do see some movement, so why don’t we go inside the west block there to get an update and perhaps more details about how this accident may have unfolded, and more of the people on board. The Prime Minister of Canada, harjit sajjan, the Minister of national defence, and the chief of the defence staff. Let’s listen in live. [ voice of interpreter ]