Will a last minute reprieve in Iran lead to lasting peace?

This week on two blocks from the White House. The Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on Trade officially comes up for review on Canada Day. So we're asking, what happens after that July 1st deadline? Join me, Willie Lowry, and my fellow Washington correspondence, Paul Hunter and Peter Armstrong as we break down U.S. politics from a Canadian perspective. Find and follow two blocks from the White House wherever you get your podcasts. And watch us on YouTube. New episodes drop every Wednesday.

This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Neil Kerkisal. Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is as it happens.

Tonight. A brief reprieve. Donald Trump has agreed to suspend his promised attacks on civilian infrastructure in Iran for two weeks. A former State Department official tells us what likely happened behind the scenes today. And we'll hear from an Iranian-Canadian professor about her conversations with loved ones in the lead-up to today's now extended deadline, and about the anxieties Iranians around the world are experiencing day in and day out. Redem and JD Vance, with polls suggesting he might be headed for electoral defeat, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban phones a friend, U.S. Vice President JD Vance. In the grand scheme of thinks, when our minds wander, our bodies are affected, a researcher explains the phenomenon of body wandering and how it can affect.

our mental health. Tooth be told, a senior in Washington state tells us how we managed to survive a crocodile attack and why that experience has renewed his faith in humanity. And they couldn't believe our ice. A British Airways plane on its way to Houston, Texas is forced to land in St. John's. And from the headlines you would think the passengers had been abandoned in a frozen wasteland. As it happens, the Tuesday edition, Radio that guarantees they got tundra-loving care.

As you've probably heard on the news by now, the United States and Iran appear to have stepped back from the brink of a dangerous escalation in the war tonight. Earlier today, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a warning that unless Iran reopened to the Strait of Hormuz, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again, unquote. He gave the Islamic Republic until 8 p.m. Eastern Time to do that, but with under two hours to go, he appears to have relented for now. In a social media post, Mr. Trump promised a two-week delay based on an Iranian proposal mediated by Pakistan, and there are reports that Israel has also agreed to the proposal. Aaron David Miller is a former U.S. Middle East negotiator based in Washington. Aaron David Miller, Donald Trump has backed down before. Is this moment, is this time different?

That's interesting. Are we at a ticking point and inflection point? It's way too early to say. I think whatever brought him to the conclusion that this insane and potentially devastating ultimatum that he issued, threatening to destroy Iran's civilization, within four hours. He's backed off of that. We also know that the Pakistanis have come up with a proposal. Two-week cessation of hostility ceased fire. And here it becomes very tricky. According to the president, that ceased fire. His agreement to that ceasefare is conditional on the Iranians opening up the straits, open, safe, and I don't know the other word that the president used. Complete immediate and safe opening of the straits.

Right. It's clearly a very good set of talking points for the president because it can compensate for the clear reality that another deadline, Donald Trump deadline, has passed without the president. Fortunately, in this case. What's your sense? Do you think in two weeks we'll be back with more ultimatums and increasingly terrifying and troubling rhetoric? We may not even get two weeks if the Iranians haven't agreed to this proposal. There are some wires that were moving just before I came in to speak with you, Aaron, and they're saying this 10-point proposal includes lifting all primary and secondary sanctions on Iran, payment of full compensation to Iran and release of all frozen Iranian assets. More details are coming now. Is this 10-point plan any different than what was on the table before all of these threats?

I don't think so. I think the core issues, Iranian demands, are going to be extremely difficult for any, not just this administration, any administration to meet. So what you have is what? Assuming the Iranians agreed to the basic proposal, and we have not heard an official confirmation that they have, then you're going to begin the slow, torturous process of negotiations. And those will succeed or fail, in my judgment,

based on a couple of factors. Number one, is there a shared sense of urgency? The president wants out of this, and he wants out of it on the cheap. that is to say, a cessation of hostilities. I'll back off my threats. We won't bomb you anymore, but you have to open the straits completely immediately and safely. The Iranians have a different take on this. For them, the straits are the new nuclear weapon. They've discovered, or maybe they knew all along, that geography is destiny. And over the last six weeks, we've seen them deploy the geographic weapon

incredibly deftly. They've made Gulf, state, security, and stability impossible. even with American Air defenses. They basically have retained 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium, which is critically important to their rebuilding of a nuclear enrichment. And they have mastered the notion of who gets through the straits, preferential access. So they are not going to give up control that they have for just a cessation of hostilities. It's still volatile, absolutely. Iran, though, there's some more wire moving, again, as we,

We speak, quoting the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, I'm looking at their statement as well. If attacks against Iran are halted, our powerful armed forces will cease their defensive operations. For a period of two weeks, safe passage through the Strait of Hormos will be possible by a coordination with Iran's armed forces and with due consideration of technical limitations. What do you take away from that statement? Well, that's more positive than less. And I think the Iranians are going to have to figure out exactly who they're going to permit through the strait. There hasn't been an agreement on their side, complete immediate and safe opening. So that's going to be a level of detail, I think, that's going to have to be negotiated.

You're a former negotiator. You've been on our show many times. What do you think Pakistan was doing and saying to bring this moment or how to, help bring this moment about because, as we've said, Trump has backed down before, this 10-point plan has been on the table before. What did they say this time? Well, first of all, they've been offered a proposal, a formal proposal, an agreement from the United States to cease all military activities for a period of two weeks. That relieves some of the pressure that Iran is under. And I'm sure the argument was made that most of Iran's demands we presented and probably supported by any number of parties, including the Chinese and the Russians, and perhaps the Pakistanis,

who must have coordinated this with the Saudis, who have an enormous amount to lose if the situation in the Straits and Ramoos isn't somehow remedied. But again, I caution here that we've now achieved a breakthrough and that the Pakistanis were responsible because they exercised some degree of influence or the Iranians to come to some conclusion that the war is over and not, they're going to settle up. We are just at the beginning of a long and torturous road. If it's going to succeed, you're going to need a shared sense of urgency between the Trump administration and Iran. I don't think you have that. I think the Iranians are much more willing to hold out for what they want. That's number one. And number two, if this is a serious negotiation deal, you're going to end up

having to confront the reality. If it's to last, it's going to have to be a negotiation based on a balance of interest. I'm not sure that the 15 points that the Americans had placed on the table weeks ago and the five-point response, now the 10-point response from Iran, I think if you looked at those points, one-for-one, there are gaps that are as wide as the Grand Canyon. How much the Iranians are prepared to give, how much the Americans are prepared to accept is very unclear. And I'd be very wary about how quickly any or all of this is going to come to pass. I do think getting the president off of this destroy civilization by 8 p.m. tonight is good news. What you read to me on the wire suggests the Iranians have at least bought in for the next two weeks,

although opening the straits to all traffic, it's not like it's an off-and-on-switch. I think that may be more contentious than people realize. So we'll wait and see. But I think we'll all sleep maybe a bit easier tonight, knowing no impending attack is coming from the Americans. And you do have the prospects now of the talking cure. Let's hope it works. Aaron David Miller, thank you. Thank you, Neil.

Aaron David Miller is a former U.S. Middle East negotiator. We reached him in Washington. Tonight's agreement for a two-week ceasefire comes after an incredibly stressful wait for Canadians with loved ones in Iran who will now have to hope the peace holds and some kind of lasting agreement can take shape. Saffanay Mohaggne Shaburi is an associate professor

at the University of Calgary who has family and friends in Iran. We reached her in Calgary before tonight's developments. Safane, what kinds of messages are you getting from your friends in Tehran today? A couple of them have been. been able to connect, first of all, they're very gloomy. They are quite literally, my friends say that this could be the last message that we can send

you. And it's very sad. What can you say or write to someone in response to something like that? You know, I, even though I, I myself in a very terrible, like mindset, I actually really think that something very terrible is coming. But I told them that, oh, don't say that. I'm still hopeful that there are wise people in the American administration that will stop this from happening. How have you seen those responses from the people you know and care about in Iran change over these last several weeks when you are able to get in touch?

I think initially a lot of people thought that this would be a very, this would be a short war, that it would have ended by now. They would make jokes about it. And I think they do that more because they want us who are far away not to worry as much because of how little it is that we can do. but then of course these last couple of days it has been very serious and today I got this message that yeah this might be the last message from the same friend who initially at the beginning of the war

sent me a message and said no matter what Iran will live and we will always rebuild we will always rise from the ashes as we have done in history. But today it was a very gloomy message. When someone like the President of the United States says something or post something, you know, when anyone says something, you should be able to take them at their word.

At the same time, this president has made comments, threats, has said shocking things, has then backtracked. Some say, you know, is this time a negotiating tactic? Is there any part of you that thinks that that could happen? If such part existed within me, it is so weak that I can't find it anymore in myself, unfortunately. The United States has done this several times during negotiations with Iran. When the war started, they were in the middle of negotiations with Iran. At this point, I think Trump has, his pride is hurt.

he thought there would be an absolute surrender, a very short fight, and he'll get what he wants. And that hasn't happened. I think he's a narcissist, and I really fear that he will take the worst action because of his hurt pride, frankly, at this point. if nobody in the United States administration does anything to stop him. By the time our conversation airs and our listeners here, hear what you're saying, Safane, we hopefully will have a clearer idea of what actually Trump means by what he wrote earlier today. How do you think Iran's leadership is going to respond in these moments? You know, the situation in Iran is such that we do.

don't actually know what the leadership looks like, right? We're not even sure if the young Khomeini is really in charge or not, and then who really is in charge. What I do think, what I do see from those that appear to be in charge, is that they're not surrendering. They don't seem to give up. We have seen like they killed Ayatollah Khomeini, the father. They have killed maybe a couple of generations of military leaders.

And there's still apparently systems in place that they're still, you know, resisting and fighting. I think they will continue to fight. If they wanted to give up, they would have given up by now. Your alma mater is one of several universities hit by U.S. and Israeli strikes in recent days. Tell our listeners what your former university in Tehran, what it represents there, what it meant to you. So I did my bachelor's degree in English literature at Shaid Beheshti or Mali University.

It's located in the north of Tehran in the slopes of Albor's Mountain. It's a beautiful campus. it's where I came into who I am, the grounds of my intellectual life. That is where, you know, despite the censorship, despite all of the problems, we had brave professors who taught us, who, that's the first time I actually read Shakespeare, Dickens, and then they later on, more contemporary writers, Jeanette Winterson. They were not allowed to teach queer theory, and yet they did. A lot of things that were not supposed to these brave professors were there for us.

I owe so much to them. And to see that university at the situation, like when I saw the pictures, it was a dagger through my heart. And in some ways, it made me even more adamant to, of course, oppose this war and to try to redirect my mind at thinking, what can I do after this is over? How can I help after this is over? Safane, I know it's such a difficult day, so I very much appreciate this. Please take care.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Saffanamo Haguegne-Shaburi is an associate professor at the University of Calgary, and that's where we reached her earlier in the day.

Eric Greger already had an impressive resume. The 72-year-old from Washington State is a spin instructor and a personal trainer, but now he can add another impressive achievement, crocodile attack survivor. We reached Eric Greger in Richland. Eric, how are you feeling today? I'm feeling pretty good. I went for a two-mile walk, and it's nice to get off the couch.

How is your pain level at this point? That's the weird thing. Post-surgery, there's been very little pain, especially they put a nerve block on to do the surgery, and I thought when it wore off a day or two after surgery, that all hell was going to break loose, but it's really been not that I'm not that uncomfortable. That must be such a relief. I'm imagining what you must have been imagining when you first, you know, you're out in the water, you're in Mexico, and you realize you're not alone, how this could have gone. Yeah. My wife, Gail, and I went down to Cozumel for a scuba diving trip,

and we had just checked in with the resort, and we still had some time before dinner, so I went for a swim and it was ending up about a 30-minute swim when I was coming into shore and I was literally about 30 yards away from shore when I got hit and kicked in the back. And my first reaction was that another swimmer hit me. So, surprise of my life when I turned around and three feet from my face was a crocodile head. And I put both hands up to block them and that's how my run. right arm wound up in his mouth. And he clamped down pretty hard and started thrashing his head back

and forth, kind of like a dog with a rag toy. And they took a video later and it turned out this guy was about 10 or 12 feet long. So he was a big guy. And then he did the death roll thing where he rose over and was taking me to the bottom. Meanwhile, I'm punching him with my good hand and kicking and screaming and for whatever reason he let me go and then he came back at me one more time and I fended him off and he kind of nipped at my right hip and then he left and when I was sure he was gone I by this time I was back at the surface and there was a rope buoy line that kind of designated the swim area that I was right next to so I used that rope pull myself out and meanwhile while sheets of blood were coming out of my right arm.

And how long is this whole terrifying interaction, if I can even call it that? How long do you figure this all was? A good question. It felt like a long, long time, but it couldn't have been much more than 30 seconds. I mean, you're in fighter flight. You're in survival mode, obviously. Are you, do you, can you remember the pain you felt in those moments? Is that something you can even describe?

Yeah. As soon, I mean, you know, right at the beginning, the adrenaline was, through the roof. And that's what, you know, got me through that part. But then as I'm dragging myself in on the rope, fatigue's setting in. The shock is there. And luckily, people, you know, some people swimming, people on the beach, and at least a half a dozen came out to help me in. And the lifeguard head is buoy with a rope on it. And they use that to make a tourniquet, put that around my arm and that's probably what saved my arm and maybe what saved my life. It sounds like the best case scenario in a worst case scenario incident.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, worst cases, you know, I've gone through my mind a number of times, of course, reliving it. And there's so many little things that had they gone just a little differently, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. And everybody in the hospital scurrying around me, I probably asked the nurses and the cleaning lady and all the doctors, I ask him to please save my arm. And the last thing I remember before surgery is one of the doctors said that they were going to try. And they did, and I'm still here. Ultimately, Eric, how do you think this experience has changed you? Well, a lot of gratitude for still being here, of course, but I guess one of my takeaways,

especially in the divisive world we live in, I mean, you folks up in Canada are all, you know, unity plus, I'm sure, but down here in the States, it's not quite like that. And I was, one of my takeaways is just kindness of perfect strangers from countries all over the world that were there helping me out. the kindness of people has really been impressive. One funny thing I want to bring up is our oldest son came down to help us out, and he was a godsend to get us to the airport and everything. But the last couple days at the resort, of course, I was a little bit of a celebrity walking around with my big race on my arm

and people asking about how I was and everything. And this one guy was talking about how people are really supporting, everybody hears on your side. And my son with a sense of humor said, you know, that's right. I haven't heard anybody take the side of the crocodile. Eric, I'm so glad we could speak. And I'm so glad you got the help and the support that you needed and that you're doing well. Thank you for this.

You bet. Thank you. We reached Eric Greger in Richland, Washington.

I'm going to be. Now it's time for a tale that will freeze your blood. Send it chill down your spine and turn your very heart to ice. And make your eyeballs feel, they'll also feel pretty cold. The tale of good-hearted travelers who set out on a journey to a place of sunshine but wound up on a terrifying detour to a frozen island of utter desolation, an unnamed wintry hellscape in which some passengers would show. surely die, and they would be the lucky ones. Just listen to these headlines.

British Airways strands hundreds of passengers on freezing Canadian island for two days after flight diverts for emergency. Outraged airline passengers left stranded on freezing island for two days without luggage. Airline left us on a freezing island for days. Stranded airline passengers get taste of Newfoundland hospitality during lengthy diversion to St. John's. Trapped in this frigid void, the doomed travelers' tears, frozen on their cheeks as wait a second. Sorry, could you play that last headline just again? Stranded airline passengers get taste of Newfoundland hospitality during lengthy diversion to St. John's.

So the freezing Canadian island is Newfoundland. They weren't abandoned on some remote windswept wasteland. They were in the beautiful city of St. John's, Newfoundland, and Labrador. In hotels. Well, okay, so it seems a British Airways flight to Houston, Texas had to land in St. John's because of a medical emergency. And then the plane had what the airline called a temporary technical issue. So British Airways allegedly sent passengers off on their own to find hotels without their luggage even. That's not the best.

And if you're expecting Houston, which was around 20 degrees Celsius at the time, and you get St. Johns, which was minus 10 degrees Celsius, it's fair to experience some initial mild disappointment. But people.com and the New York Post relax with the headlines about the freezing Canadian island. They were in St. John's. There are heated buildings there, and you can go inside them. It's not some forbidding tundra. And anyone there would have told you that if you'd made even a single cold call.

We're going to take a short break now when we return over his 16 years as Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban has made a sharp right turn and taken his country with him. But polls are suggesting victory is not necessarily a sure thing for him this time. So U.S. Vice President JD Vance was invited to show his support. And that foreign leader used his time at the mic to talk about the perils of foreign interference. And he has been soiling himself for years. Actor Zach Galfinakis finds fertile new ground for his upcoming Netflix show about gardening, the Gardens of Vancouver Island.

Stay tuned. I'm Chris Howden. And I'm Neil Kuk, South. In Beale City, Michigan, life is usually particularly. Everyone knows everyone and nothing stay secret for long. But then two teenagers start receiving dozens of anonymous texts a day. Messages that go from unsettling to threatening. The kind of harassment that tears friendships apart puts families at odds and leaves a whole community wondering, who would do this? I'm Kathleen Goldhar and this week on Crime Story, we uncover how thousands of anonymous messages tore through a tight-knit community.

Anita, you were there, as the U.S. Vice President said those words. He had more to say as well. And he is a leader from a foreign country coming to that country in the middle of an election. We'll just underline that. but what stood out to you about what else was said in that press conference? It was very interesting to hear him say that the European Union and probably Ukraine were interfering in the Hungarian election. And at the same time at the very same event, he openly endorsed Prime Minister Viktor Orban,

which is unusual for an American vice president to travel to foreign country ahead upon election and to endorse a candidate. How are Viktor Orban supporters receiving that message? It's very hard to say at the moment, obviously, but I have talked to a few voters after it was made public that JD Vance would be traveling here. And they all said that they are happy about it, but at the same time, it's not influencing their decision. They said that they have already made up their minds.

And also all the analysts I have talked to during my reporting said that Hungarian waters would be concentrating on domestic issues when they decide on who to back Sunday at the election. They will concentrate on inflation, the economy, health care, and education and other issues that are closer to home. And Viktor Orban's critics, how have they been reacting? Péter Magyar, the opposition candidate. He actually said this was our country and its fate should be decided in Budapest, not in either Washington, Moscow or Brussels. Basically, he was not happy about JD Vance's visit here.

Based on your reporting, what is your sense, Anita, at this stage of whether a high-profile visit like that, even pulling up Trump, you know, on speakerphone at one point, do you think that that might hurt or help Viktor Orban at this point? Personally, I would say that a high-profile endorsement would obviously help him. but I'm not sure if it's a big enough help to really make a difference in the numbers. So I don't think it would hurt him in any way, but I do agree with the analysts and all the voters I talk to that probably this will not be a key factor in deciding the outcome of this election. And is it those issues that are putting Viktor Orban on shaky ground at this stage after having such a grip on power for such a long time?

what shifted in this race? There have been a couple of very high-profile scandals that shook their popularity, besides the usual accusations of corruption. The biggest scandal was, it happened more than two years ago when the president of this country pardoned a person who was convicted of helping a pedophile, and that really shook the nation that a person convicted of such a, big crime could be pardoned. And it was actually right after that pardoned that Peter Maggiar came out and said that he was leaving Fides, because he used to be in Fides, he was a supporter of Viktor Orban.

But after that scandal, he said that he was no longer able to support that party and that he's disillusioned and they accused them of corruption. And that's how all his movement started. Given what you said, though, about how close and a member of Viktor Orban's party, Péter Magyar was for so long, if he were to win, that would be a huge change, certainly. But what would it materially change for people in Hungary? Yes, this is a question that a lot of people are asking here, and some people are asking the question whether Péter Magyar would just run a very similar system to Viktor Orban. but but Magyar is claiming that that's not true.

He would drastically change everything. He would restore democratic checks and balances. He would curb corruption. And he also says that he would anchor Hungary in the Western world because Viktor Orban has close ties to Russia and China. And Magiars wants to turn the country back to the West and build up pragmatic relations with the East. He's actually promising a complete.

change from what Viktor Orban is doing right now. And people seem, just based on the polling so far, people seem to believe him at this stage. Yes, they do. And there's also one other thing that Annals always point out when I ask them. And it's that Peter Malia really understands the everyday problems of the people. And he really listens to their concerns and promises that this state will work for them again. It's late there.

In Budapest, you've had a long day of reporting. And election coverage can be very difficult. But what is your sense, Anita, of how people across the country or in Budapest in particular are feeling, you know, just a couple of days out from the election? Everything is really tense. And this is on everybody's mind. And it's just it took over public life right now. and everybody's minds.

It's all consuming for people because every day we have a new scandal, because as we get closer to the election, whistleblowers are coming out, actually. So that's actually the story in the past two or three weeks, that every single day a whistleblower has come out to say, what's going on in there, either in the police or the military or in some other agency. And people are really paying attention to that. It's very funny, but some people are saying that we can cancel streaming services because just Hungarian politics is interesting enough to feel your evening

because we have another whistleblower to watch every night. Of course, we cannot prove whether they are speaking the truth. We don't know if that's real. But really, it's like a very tense time politically. time for this country. Anita, I thank you for this. Please take care. Thank you. Anita Kumovash is a reporter with Reuters. She's in Budapest.

Our minds and our bodies seem mostly indivisible. For example, when we're watching the pit, our minds think, oh, that's gross. That guy ate way too many hot dogs. And our bodies walk to the fridge to see if we have any hot dogs. But when our minds wander, we can feel detached from our bodies. Of course, we're not. Our bodies are responding to our thoughts whether we're aware of it or not. Scientists call that inner mind-to-body process body wandering.

And in a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that when people's attention turns inward, it can have consequential implications for mental health. Leah Benelis co-authored the study, which is her postdoctoral research in the Department of Clinical Medicine at Arhus University in Denmark. We reached Ms. Benelis in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Leah, do you often find yourself body wandering? So I do, actually, yeah. I think one of the findings that we find quite interesting is that people vary in how much they body wander or how much they feel their sensations. I am quite often, maybe too aware. Before you did this work or as a result of it? Just in general, like I can be quite anxious, for example.

So I don't notice my heart beating or bodily sensations, which is one of the things we kind of find. So, yeah. But we should distinguish for our listeners first, you know, there's daydreaming, there's your mind is wondering. And then there's what you're looking at here, body wandering. What's the difference? Yeah, it's a good question. because classically research had only focused on mind wandering or daydreaming. So that is more when you're thinking about the past, you're mentally time travelling, maybe to the future,

you're thinking about, I don't know, your social situations or yourself. So it's very cognitive topics, we would say. Whereas we were interested in to what extent your thoughts reflected your body, which was a previously very neglected field of study. There's these huge fields, scientific fields, that focus on, mind wandering, so daydreaming, or to what extent our thoughts reflect our body, and vice versa. But no one really looked at to what extent did the body influence these stream of consciousness thoughts, and that's what body wandering is.

And so you talked to 500 people, you put them in an MRI. What ultimately were you looking for? So we were essentially looking at, to what extent, these two fields, as I said, the embodied recognition and mind wandering actually intermixed. So do we see that people's thoughts reflect their body at certain points? And does it interrupt it in a negative way? How does this reflect to people's mental health profiles? And also the body itself. So how aroused you are as in if your heart beating faster. So the state of your body as well. So we wanted to characterize it for the first time because it hadn't been characterized before. And so we wanted to look at all these

different dimensions relating to it. And of course, you know very well, and those who've been in an MRI might know this as well. Not everyone handles that experience the same way. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable and nervous, even impatient. How did you factor that when you were looking at the results ultimately? Yeah, because obviously it's quite a strange environment, right? You don't see yourself in everyday life in this weird tube that is very noisy, quite claustrophobic. You have to think of the study in that setting. But in order to look at the brain, you obviously have to record it in a scanner. But we also, people have also asked people about the spontaneous thoughts in everyday life as well. So we can compare it to some of those findings in everyday life. But,

yeah, it is something to think about where some people might be quite uncomfortable and maybe scared and other people can be very comfortable in those situations. So you got those 500 MRIs, those scans. What did they tell you? We found that in comparison, to when people are usually daydreaming, you see an area in the brain related to that, known as the default mode network. So we found a different activation pattern when those thoughts concern the body. So when those thoughts concern the body and their sensations, we also see areas related to sensing the body and some of the areas related to the classic mind wandering. So we found both. So we found this unique signature that shows that when you're

sense the body in the brain as well. You can see this within mind wandering, which people don't normally find. They often before wouldn't consider sensory regions like vision, hearing as well, as involved in mind-wondering patterns in the brain. But we find that you can do this with the body. You can observe both of these patterns. So what do those scans suggest to you? Is it, to be clear, is it, did that body wandering make people feel better? So the scan was related to what extent people were body wandering and whether their brain showed this pattern. But another finding that we found was that people who body wandered in general had better mental health in the sense that they had less depression symptoms and less ADHD symptoms. So we do actually find an aspect of health that you're asking about now as well.

Which seems a bit counterintuitive to one of our other findings, because we also find that people who are thinking very negatively, emotionally in the scanner, body wonder more. So we found this interesting paradox between it being associated with better mental health in some ways, but also negative emotions in the moment. So what do you think can be done with what you've been able to learn so far? What do you want people to take away from what your research is suggesting? It shows that the role of the body and emotion and mental health is very complicated,

which is, I mean, we already know that, but it just sort of confirms this. And if we want to use personalized medicines and therapies, they need to tailor it to each individual. For example, if you're a person who's very anxious and you're maybe paying attention even more to when your heart is beating or you feel a bit uncomfortable, perhaps they could make them more anxious, actually. But you could work with that still and teach them how to interpret those signals differently. But other people, for example, people who have depression, maybe they've quite disconnected with their body. You have this classic numbness that they experience. Perhaps they need to focus on their body a little bit more. And then another one would be ADHD where they're daydreaming too much. Perhaps for them

paying attention to their body could actually ground them a bit more in the present. Leah, I'm glad we could speak. Thank you. Thank you. This was great. Leah Benalus is a cognitive neuroscientist who co-authored a new study on body wandering. We reached her in Philadelphia.

He's known as the obnoxious host of Between Two Ferns. But now Zach Galaphnakis is needed. deep in them. The actor and comedian is known for his awkward, sometimes openly hostile celebrity interviews and his role in the hangover movies, but he hasn't just cultivated a career in Hollywood these past few decades. He's also been cultivating gardens. Mr. Californacus is the host of a new Netflix series called This Is a Gardening Show, which takes viewers on a stroll through gardens across Vancouver Island as he meets with farmers and foragers from Merville to Cobble Hill. He talked to CBC's Liz MacArthur about the show and his love of plants.

I have been gardening for around 25 years. When I first moved to California, I had some grass and I thought I want to start gardening. I was in Greece and I had made a decision when I was in Greece that I wanted to be a gardener because I saw a guy in his garden and it just kind of struck me how happy he seemed. And so when I went back to California and I started kind of gardening, the first thing I planted was peanuts. And I started composting right away because I knew that I wanted to build soil because that's the most important thing. Did it give you what you were looking for? Did you find that, you know, that peacefulness that kind of exists for gardeners?

Immediately. It was just kind of something to do on the weekend when I wasn't that busy to kind of. nurture these plants. And as now I've gotten a little bit more experience, I'm still not that good. I mean, I've been doing it for 25 years. I think the reason for the gardening show maybe was I had a lot of questions. I feel like that's a common thread among gardeners. Did you find what you were looking for from the farmers and gardeners you spoke with in the series?

Yes. It's very informative of the show. And I wanted it to be informative kind of on an entry level. Not that I am an advanced gardener and all, but I wanted to keep it simple. I also have young kids and just seeing where food comes from these days seems very not good for them. And I think for kids to be ignited by this is really my main goal. I think we have to be honest with ourselves and say there might be a huge storm kind. climate-wise. And I think kids, the more they know, the more they'll be able to adapt.

Is there something about Vancouver Island that, I don't know, tied in specifically to your goals and what you're thinking about when you were making this series? No, I'm familiar with it. So I wanted to be familiar with where I was going to talk about, and I've been coming to the Vancouver Island area for 30 years. So I was happy to do it in this area, which has a tradition of fantastic gardeners. You know, I think that also was important. There's a tradition here that I hope the next generation carries. Zach Alfinakis talking to the CBC's Liz MacArthur.

He's the host of This Is a Gardening Show, which will debut on Netflix later this month. We've heard a lot about interprovincial trade barriers when it comes to things like alcohol and meat, but the Cancer Clinician Advocacy Forum, or CCAF, says provincial borders can also be a barrier to quality health care, and they're calling on the country's premiers to change that. The organization released a new set of recommendations today to coincide with Cancer Awareness Month. Their suggestions take aim at administrative obstacles, and at what they say is a two-year-old. too slow approvals process for new therapies in Canada. Dr. Sandeep Sadev is a medical oncologist at the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Center

and the co-chair of the CCAF, which received some of its funding from Canadian pharmaceutical companies. We reached him in Ottawa. Dr. These issues, as you well know and your colleagues well know are certainly not new. So why was it important for you and the other members to put out these recommendations now? To be honest, the problems we've been facing for my 35 years in oncology. have been just snowballing. One of the biggest problems we have is now,

a good problem to have is we're facing a tsunami of rapid development of new cancer breakthrough treatments, not just medications, but technologies that are really advancing the field. And our systems can seem to keep up with the time it takes to process and approve them. So now, you know, we're stuck in a position where sometimes we have evidence supporting a new treatment,

and yet it can take up to two years for Canadians to have public. access to something which is already felt to be a standard of care or supported by guidelines or use in other countries. So that's one big frustration we have. You know, plus on the other end, everything about the healthcare system affects us even more deeply. Cancer is like a bell indicator of what's happening with healthcare.

We are probably the most multidisciplinary field in medicine where almost every patient encounter relies upon inputs from laboratories, from x-ray departments, from surgeons, radiation, oncologist, family doctors. And when all those systems are struggling, it comes to hit us right in the face. At the top of the list of what you and your colleagues are recommending is what you've called the provincial free trade of health services. What do you mean by that? What would that look like? So, you know, currently all doctors, nurses, pharmacists are licensed only within their province. So it's particularly an issue in border towns like Ottawa where we have some patients and get to know that may have to go to Montreal for some technologies they can't get in their city

where they could just cross the bridge. So we need to have equitable and rapid access to simple things, technologies, physicians. Now people are breaking down licensure barriers for all kinds of different professions, you know, legal professions, engineers. We think, especially in cancer, you know, health professionals should, when they're licensed by a province, should be able to work wherever the need is. So, you know, Canadians know about the Canada Health Act. of portability but portability is not really there yet there are inequities and access to the

diagnostics to the doctors to the treatments they're still based on geography and variable times in accessing things one big issue in oncology now is molecular testing we now know that to really treat an individual cancer very effectively we often have to know not just how big it is or where it is but what's the molecular fingerprint what's the genetic nature of that person's cancer so we can to treat them properly. And access to those kinds of tests is highly variable between provinces. Some in Newfoundland go to Florida and wait two months and others can be done in two days. So those are kinds of provincial barriers that we need to have improved. There should not be disparities. Given that health care is under provincial jurisdiction, as you well know,

how feasible do you think it is? You know, doctors are very good at complaining about things. And we need the bureaucrats and politicians to help devise the solutions. But one solution has been largely developed pan-provincial processes where the provinces all agree collectively to be part of one process and sign up to it. So even though healthcare is provincial, you know, for cancer and for medications, we have the Canada Drug Agency,

which is largely a multi-provincial gang, where we agree to review drugs together, and then we all sign on to the joint consensus. I think we have to have things like that, where even the pricing currently is a multi-provincial gang called the PCPA. We could do that even for molecular tests. Let's all agree. This should be standard of care. And then improve that vertical to horizontal integration, you know, from the message saying this is standard to getting it done in all the hospitals and communities across

the country. As our listeners heard, your organization receives corporate support from several pharmaceutical companies. You're open about that. But how do you and your colleagues balance the need, as you see it, for speedier approvals with the need for safety? The corporate support goes to very strict kind of ethics frameworks and guidelines. We never actually advocate ever for a particular treatment. We're advocating only for systemic barriers to be lowered and to be made more efficient. We're not really individually focused on any individual company's treatment. So are you saying that we have the ability to do this faster without compromising safety?

For sure. And I think governments get a bit insulted when we say copy-paste, but there are jurisdictions we can learn from. In Europe and the UK, you know, and they have their own problems, mind you, but in the UK, France, there are systems that I think have led to the model that Doug Ford that's put in Ontario called the Fast Pilot, where once we have evidence for a drug and it's gone through a multi-country review process, it gets funded almost immediately. And while pricing negotiations are going on, we have access to it very quickly.

We think that may shave off, you know, six to nine months of the delay. now it's taking two years, but we may shave off a lot of that time. Because of that process, we're advocating for other provinces to at least take an active observer status and maybe join on to that process. So, you know, let's collaborate. We don't have to reinvent the wheel and have every province review, every data point separately. We have too much siloing of health care. We need to collaborate, do things more effectively, and recognize the urgency. You know, during COVID, we achieve miracles.

You know, we got trials done very quickly. We approve new technology vaccines. We know we can do this. And cancer is even a more pressing and dangerous crisis than COVID was in terms of, you know, the death rate, how many people die of cancer more than heart disease, biggest cause of death. We can do it. We just have to get over the political inertia and the division amongst all the separate silos that are now involved. Doctor, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your interest. Dr. Sandeep Sadev is a medical oncologist at the office. Ottawa Hospital Cancer Center and the co-chair of the Cancer Clinician Advocacy Forum. We reached him in Ottawa.

You've been listening to the As It Happens podcast. Our show can be heard Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 after your world tonight. And you can, of course, also listen to our show online at cbc.ca.a slash AIAH or on the CBC Listen app or, of course, wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Neil Kokesaw. And I'm Chris Howden.