The Current Transcript for January 21^st, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

IN THIS EPISODE

Prologue:

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

JOHN MCCALLUM: Some cities have asked for a bit of a slowdown given the speed with which the government sponsored refugees are arriving.

Anna Maria Tremonti: The logistics of welcoming thousands of Syrians to a new life in Canada on a timeline and a deadline are starting to show the strain as agencies dealing with government sponsored refugees ask for a delay and groups offering private sponsorship are ready and waiting. In a moment we'll hear about that combination of anticipation, frustration and ongoing determination. Also today, this is a police officer in the U.K.

SOUNDCLIP

We would only intervene with a firearm if that person was actually then threatening another person; actually was holding them hostage.

AMT: Increasingly, Canadian police jurisdictions are looking for such guidance as they upgrade training. In Canada an estimated 40 percent of civilians killed by police were in the midst of a mental health crisis at the time. As a Toronto jury deliberates in the police shooting death of Sammy Yatim, we'll hear from a filmmaker whose new documentary, Hold Your Fire, explores that issue. That's in half an hour. And then the Minister of Public Safety, Ralph Goodale, says that as he considers how to amend C-51, the much criticized anti-terror bill, he's looking at gaps in oversight.

SOUNDCLIP

RALPH GOODALE: That may well require more than just the establishment of a parliamentary committee.

AMT: Hear him in an hour as we follow up on the stories we've been tracking. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Private Sponsors frustrated as Syrian refugees wait in hotel limbo

Guests: Leila Canon-Ahern, Gerry Mills, Leslie Soopalu, Kilmeny Heron, Ed Turner

SOUNDCLIP

JOHN MCCALLUM: In terms of housing, yes it is a challenge but I think we are in the process of meeting that challenge. And in the meanwhile, the flow from the airplanes is not slowing down at all. It's just that if certain towns or cities need a pause, there will be other places in Canada who receive the refugees.

VOICE: How long can they expect to wait in these hotels given that there have been these requests for pauses from different municipalities?

JOHN MCCALLUM: Well, I think it's difficult to give a precise answer. Sometimes it might be two or three days, sometimes it may be two or three weeks depending on the situation.

AMT: Well, that's John McCallum, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship speaking yesterday. The government may have been late on hitting its initial targets for bringing Syrian refugees into the country but it seems that now they may be arriving too quickly. Resettlement agencies in some of Canada's biggest cities: Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, say they are overwhelmed and they've asked the government for some time to work through a growing backlog of cases. In the meantime many refugees of found themselves waiting in hotels for weeks before they find a home. But even while government sponsored refugee families are waiting in hotels, there are private groups across the country with empty apartments ready and waiting for the families they have sponsored. Leila Canon-Ahern is the leader of a neighborhood sponsorship group in Toronto called Syria to the 6 and she's with me in our Toronto studio. Hi.

LEILA CANON-AHERN: Thanks for having me.

AMT: Well, so what's your reaction to this news yesterday, the large sponsorship group, sponsorship agencies in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal want to pause on this influx of refugees?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: I think it's difficult to hear about all these families that are in hotels and waiting when we are so ready to receive them. The government assisted refugees are obviously in a different group from the privately sponsored refugees. But the government assisted refugees are coming in it seems quicker, I think that the government sort of has first dibs on those cases that are coming in, and we're left waiting. Many of us already have apartments fully furnished with donations, we've got food, we’ve got clothing. So it is hard to hear that they're sitting in hotels without all the support that they could use.

AMT: Tell me about your group. How long have you been ready to receive the family that you have sponsored?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: For quite some time. We started fund raising in August and we quickly raised $50,000 which exceeded our expectations. And we've been overwhelmed with in kind donations. We've been ready to receive a family, I would say, for at least a month. We've got an apartment that's fully ready to go and we've gone above and beyond in terms of preparation. We've done a crash course in Arabic. We've done all kinds of different training. We've got everything. We've got DVDs for the little boy that are in Arabic.

AMT: How big is your group?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: There’s six of us.

AMT: Okay, and so you know the family that is supposed to arrive that you will be responsible for?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: Yeah. We've been lucky enough to have been matched with a family. Many private sponsors still are waiting to hear. We were matched the first week of January so we know a little bit about them. We know their age and their occupation, not very much information.

AMT: And where are they right now?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: Beirut.

AMT: Okay, and do you have a date of arrival?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: No. So, we're literally just waiting for a call and the frustrating part is I'm hearing from all the different private sponsor groups is that we're all just sort of kept in the dark and we have no idea if we're going to get a call tomorrow or in six weeks or in two months. It's all up in the air.

AMT: And when you get a call, do you know how fast everything else happens like—

LEILA CANON-AHERN: No—

AMT: Like, you go down to the airport now?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: [laughs] Well, from some groups I've spoken to, they do get like 24 hours notice. But we're all sort of kept in the dark so we're on Facebook groups communicating amongst each other and trying to help each other along the way but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it everyone's getting different notice.

AMT: How helpful has the federal government been to your group throughout this process?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: I have to say, I mean I'm thrilled with what they're doing. It's just been a, we've been kept at arm's length, we feel and so to hear that there's people in hotels and we're ready to have them, I wish there was more communication we could say, you know they could say to us, we have a family, could you temporary house them; give them temporary housing. If your family's not ready to come, we’d be happy to step up and do that. So, I just feel like there could be more, they could utilize us better and if there was more community engagement, that would be great.

AMT: Where do you go to get answers?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: On line and, it's like the blind leading the blind. We're all talking to each other and saying this has been my experience and sharing stories but Lifeline Syria, I mean they're doing a wonderful job but they're too busy to answer our questions. And they're doing important work. I understand that they're not available to return calls, but you know, we've been frustrated with the paperwork process because we had to resubmit our paperwork five or six times and if there was somebody that we could just go to and ask those questions, it would be more streamlined.

AMT: And do you have a place all ready for them to live?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: We do.

AMT: And, so is it sitting empty right now?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: Yes.

AMT: Okay. So, what I think, in Toronto, there's something like 900 government sponsored Syrian refugees.

LEILA CANON-AHERN: Exactly. Waiting, and I think only six of them have found permanent housing through their settlement agencies. I think 20-something have signed a lease but there's 900 waiting and they don't have adequate clothing, they don't have everything that they need and we are there with the support, so it just seems like there's a disconnect.

AMT: And so how could the government make this process better for private sponsorship groups, do you think?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: I think if they could just involve the communities more because we're all so willing to help in any way we can and people are wanting to volunteer. So, I think if there was just more of a streamlined process. I think that the bottleneck that exists right now is with settlement agencies trying to find permanent housing for the government assisted refugees where we've already found housing. We've found temporary housing and permanent housing. So, if those cases could maybe be transferred over to us well, that, what the settlement agencies can catch up, I think that would be a great solution.

AMT: Just get them on the plane in other words.

LEILA CANON-AHERN: Yeah.

AMT: And because you have been matched, they've been, obviously, they've been cleared; they're ready to go.

LEILA CANON-AHERN: We think so. I mean, I think that they've been through screening but we don't know when they're going to be traveling.

AMT: I can hear the excitement in your voice, though. This is a big deal, huh?

LEILA CANON-AHERN: It's a big deal. Yeah, we've been waiting a long time.

AMT: Okay, well good luck and thanks for coming in.

LEILA CANON-AHERN: Thanks a lot.

AMT: That is a Leila Canon-Ahern. She leads the neighborhood sponsorship group in Toronto called Syria to the 6, and she's in Toronto in our Toronto studio. Well, from a neighborhood group to one of the larger associations handling newly arrived refugees, Gerry Mills is the Director of Operations at the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia and she's in our studio in Halifax. Hello.

GERRY MILLS: Hello.

AMT: Now, is that called ISANS?

GERRY MILLS: Yes, it is. ISANS.

AMT: ISANS. You just listened to Leila Canon-Ahern and what do you make of what she had to say?

GERRY MILLS: You know this is a, it's a massive, massive undertaking that we're doing in the country right now. It's federal government, provincial government, communities, municipal governments and so many people are involved and it's just not, you know, there are sure to be hiccups in the system. The reality is that privately sponsored refugees, or groups, the community groups who are wanting to sponsor, they’re matched [coughs] with the family when their application goes in and so it's not quite so easy as to say well, we have government assisted refugee over here, let's pass that government assisted refugee family over to privately sponsored. But I understand the frustration with some of the privately sponsored groups that are out there.

AMT: Now your organization didn’t ask for a pause.

GERRY MILLS: No.

AMT: But are you a little overwhelmed?

GERRY MILLS: Across the country, we are as I said, it's a massive undertaking. The situation is very different, the numbers are different. For instance, in Nova Scotia we usually have 200 a year which is around, what, 15 or 16 a month. So, what's happening to us is right now, we're going to be taking 750 in a couple of months. So the sheer numbers and some of the additional work that comes with that. For instance, at the hotel right now we have 120-odd people. We have 50 under the age of five, children up at the hotel. This is happening across the country; the families who are coming are large families with small children. So—

AMT: So, you have to, you have to actually start thinking about getting them in school already and things like that—

GERRY MILLS: Just well, no, these are just—

AMT: Just to keep them occupied?

GERRY MILLS: Absolutely. Usually we will have a couple of families at one time. I'm talking about ISANS here in Nova Scotia. We would have two or three families at one time. Now we have, you know, 30,40 families at one time. It's trying to-- there's no bottleneck for us right now with the 120 that we have right now. We have secured apartments even for the you know, we have families of 10 coming in. So, those people will be moving out into permanent accommodation hopefully Friday this week if not, Saturday. But we also have a storm coming so that changes everything. [laughs]

AMT: That changes everything. So, you haven't asked for a delay but you have asked it to be a little slower have you not?

GERRY MILLS: We're trying to manage the flow. Every day we are asked to submit what our capacity is both in temporary and permanent accommodation, so we provide numbers to that system.

AMT: Can you walk us through how you go about finding housing and matching refugees with that housing?

GERRY MILLS:[laughs] We have amazing people on this trying to find housing. We have a housing group in Halifax right now, which consists of numbers of landlords, the landlord association, developers and provincial government members, plus ISANS. They've been amazing trying to develop an inventory. The challenge of course, is the size of the families, and all agencies like us across the country facing this. That families have 10,11,12 not impossible, but sometimes take a little more time.

AMT: Everybody was thinking families of four, right? And that's not the reality.

GERRY MILLS: Our average family right now is families of seven.

AMT: And so what are the main challenges? How do you find, you've got these groups that find them accommodation, and is it—

GERRY MILLS: Well, we’ve been doing this a long time, so we know who the landlords are.

AMT: You just have to do more of it.

GERRY MILLS: Absolutely. We have to do more of it and landlords have actually stepped up to the plate; are holding apartments for us. We’re fortunate that IRC has been able to provide us at least with a draft; list of the people who will be arriving until the end of February. So, the numbers of families of 10, the numbers families of 12, eight for instance. So, we have a bit of an idea of numbers; the size of the families that are coming so we're able to try and find these accommodation. But of course every month is different. The apartments that are available you know, we're getting to towards the end of the month now and different apartments will become available on February 1st.

AMT: And you make the point that there are people in hotels and they go to one hotel, how easy is it to find hotel accommodation?

GERRY MILLS: In Halifax what we're doing for temporary accommodation, which is what we always do, actually. Some places across the country have specific settlement or welcome houses where they put people, refugees in temporary accommodation. But we use hotel, so we’re using one hotel. So we have everybody in one hotel. And we're trying to move people out as soon as we can we have--once that 120 are moving at the end of the week. For instance we have, we have another group coming today which is round about 46-50. On the weekend, Monday I think it is, maybe, we have another 50. Then another 30 come in the middle of the week. So—

AMT: [laughs] You’re not having much sleep.

GERRY MILLS: It's not me actually, it’s our settlement staff. Those are the folks that deserve the kudos.

AMT: So, what do you think the government needs to do to improve on this process right now?

GERRY MILLS: I think, I think we're all working without a complete road map. There are sure to be hiccups in the system. And we're all trying to work together, provincial governments, municipal governments, federal government and agencies like us, to be able to get refugees in and to get them into temporary and permanent accommodation. I think those systems are in place. I think there are a tweaks probably that need to happen. But every day is a new day.

AMT: Okay. Well, welcome to today then, Gerry Mills. Thank you for your time.

GERRY MILLS: [laughs] Welcome.

AMT: Bye bye. That is Gerry Mills, Director of Operations at the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia or ISANS. She's in Halifax. Well, some communities may be overwhelmed but then there's Eganville, Ontario, about an hour and a half west of Ottawa. They've just welcomed their first Syrian family, the first Muslims in Eganville. In fact, the local group of sponsors, which is called Valley Welcome, has gone to great lengths to settle more refugees than originally planned; an extended family of 14 instead of nine. It is the story of reuniting sisters and persistent stickhandling of the bureaucracy. Three of the group's organizers spoke to the CBC's Hallie Cotnam about their story and the wild ride to bring these specific refugee's home.

SOUNDCLIP

LESLIE SOOPALU: So, this list would come through. We would get very excited and the phone calls would start, would you like to sponsor this family and they'd say, Oh too bad they've already been sponsored. [laughs] Who was beating you at the bush?

ED TURNER: You know, my gosh, when Leslie called me and said I’ve got news for you, that we've got our family, I just about fell over. I couldn't believe that it, you know, it would be really happening. It was going to fundamentally change another family's life.

KILMENY HERON: And, then there's the waiting, the waiting, the anticipation, anticipation. Okay, when are they going to get here?

LESLIE SOOPALU: They're told that they're going to Canada and they know that, and they know that there's going to be somebody helping them. And then they get to the airport and they’re given an envelope and they open it and they see that they're going to fly to Jordan-Oman. Oman-Ottawa. We pick them up. They’re a young couple, 24 and 27. The remainder of their family haven't yet received the final approval to come to Canada, but the young couple did. So we picked them up on Sunday and that evening when we were we were having a celebratory meal at the home that they are now living in, they found out that her sister's family, so, her sister’s married and has three children. They got word that they were coming to Canada on Tuesday.

LESLIE SOOPALU: No idea where they're going just that they were coming to Canada.

KILMENY HERON: Leslie spent much of Monday trying to track down where this family was going. There was a lot of phone calls and e-mails the next day trying to figure out where are they going and we found out that they were going to a community in New Brunswick.

LESLIE SOOPALU: I think our reaction was seeing Bushra, the young woman.

KILMENY HERON: She really couldn't understand why her sister had to go somewhere else and you could see in her eyes how desperately she really wanted her sister to be with her.

LESLIE SOOPALU: This was Sunday night, so Monday morning, just started making phone calls. Citizenship and Immigration Canada was our first call.

HALLIE COTNAM: Did anyone pick up the phone?

LESLIE SOOPALU: [laughs] Absolutely!

KILMENY HERON: I had a contact. He was very helpful. There's a strong desire to keep families unified so he was able to give us some information about them.

HALLIE COTNAM: In New Brunswick?

KILMENY HERON: That's correct. So we've got three smartphones going and it was kind of a like a, hold your breath sort of moment. You have a family coming in and we want them! [laughs]. Like there was a pause for—

LESLIE SOOPALU: Because they've been going through exactly what you've been going through, too.

KILMENY HERON: Well,[crosstalk Kilmeny, Leslie and Ed]you get so attached. You finally get the names of the family that's coming. You start to just immediately bond with people you don't even know—

LESLIE SOOPALU: It just happens.

KILMENY HERON: And so New Brunswick says, Sure, take our family—

LESLIE SOOPALU: New Brunswick says they absolutely have to be reunited, no question and well you know, people are going to be sad. People are going to be heartbroken but everybody is going to recognize that this needs to happen. So, then we just set out, okay, so what do we need to make it happen and then it was about eight hours on the phone and emailing. And then, then there was the plan to intercept them. Because by the end of the day on Monday it wasn't finalized. Like, New Brunswick knew that they needed to come to Eganville. We knew that we had to have them here but we didn't know how it was going to happen.

ED TURNER: Leslie tells me what we what we need to do. And I felt like a really, what do we call those things, a 007 mission—

LESLIE SOOPALU: [laughs] Caper for sure.

ED TURNER: Besides being Minister of Melville United Church, I also drive bus part time. So we were able to get a minibus, the way we want to Montreal. We pulled up into the airport and I dropped off the welcoming team and I went to park down at the mall. I get a text saying, Ed, they're not here. They're going to a processing facility.

LESLIE SOOPALU: So, there was the high of my gosh, they’re at the airport and then the low of oh my gosh, they're not here. Where are they? First, people wouldn't tell us where they were. Let’s go to another information booth.

[laughter]

KILMENY HERON: We weren't supposed to know where that processing center was but we did find another info agent who told us, and even printed out a Google map, directions for us [laughs], which was incredible. And then it was like a secure facility so they didn't have to let us in but they did. And then we were taken to a CIC agent there, who humoured us. She sort of, she was shaking her head when she was hearing our story and saying you're well meaning folks but I’m not releasing anybody to you [laughs]. It’s like, oh yeah?

HALLIE COTNAM: But something changes.

KILMENY HERON: We just fired off e-mails to everybody, to our sponsorship agreement holder, to our CSE rep, to the matching center. Ed, in the bus, Ed, you were in touch with our township councillor—

ED TURNER: Who gave me the name of somebody in the community that just so happened to know somebody that works in the Prime Minister's office.

KILMENY HERON: So, we made so many calls that there's no way of knowing which ones worked but something did.

LESLIE SOOPALU: About three hours after we had arrived at the processing center, she came out and said, you've got approval. You can take your family. And it was a very emotional moment for everybody. For us and for the young couple who you know, she was going to see her sister—

KILMENY HERON: And laughing and crying.

LESLIE SOOPALU: Definitely.

AMT: Well, who says you can't work through and around bureaucracy? Today, the sisters and their families are living in Eganville, Ontario. We heard the voices of Leslie Soopalu, Kilmeny Heron and Ed Turner in Eganville speaking with CBC reporter Hallie Cotnam. We also contacted the sponsor group in New Brunswick that gave, that agreed to change its plans, to help the sisters, the Lancaster Baptist Church. That group is still waiting for another Syrian family ready to welcome them at any time. We posted some pictures of the Valley Welcome sponsors and their newcomers on our site

Close to 40 per cent of civilians killed by police are in mental crisis

Guests: Helen Slinger, Terry Coleman

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: To serve and de-escalate.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Drop the knife now!

REPORTER: According to his family, Sammy Yatim wasn't mentally ill, but as he rode the Dundas line late that July night, Yatim was acting very strange, even threatening fellow passengers with a knife. For many people, that still wasn't enough to justify what happened next. Yatim was alone on the streetcar when police arrived.

[gunshots]

REPORTER: They fired nine times.

[gunshots]

REPORTER: And then they tasered him.

AMT: Well, those gunshots are currently weighing heavily on the minds of jurors in Toronto deliberating the case of Constable James Forcillo. He was charged with second degree murder and attempted murder following that 2013 incident, the death of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim. The court case has been big news because few police officers face criminal charges after shooting deaths. They are often cleared of wrongdoing and, according to a new documentary that you just heard a bit of, the death of Sammy Yatim is just one example of a growing problem of police shooting people who are in crisis. The documentary is called Hold Your Fire. It airs tonight at 9:00 on CBC Television's documentary stream Firsthand. Helen Slinger wrote and directed Hold Your Fire. She joins us from Vancouver. Hello.

HELEN SINGER: Hello.

AMT: That video of police confronting Sammy Yatim on a Toronto streetcar sparked an outcry. The jury is now deliberating. They went into deliberations yesterday. What did you think as you watched all of the testimony in the trial unfold, Helen?

HELEN SINGER: Oh, I thought, I’m sure glad I'm not on that jury. I think it's really difficult. There's a lot of evidence to hear. As you watch the last two and a half days watch the judge instruct the jury, it’s interesting how much they have to take in. Two different charges, of course, second degree murder and attempted murder. They have to debate both those charges. They've got a lot to look at and I think it's really difficult because they have to decide if this was, well, if the shooting was both necessary and reasonable. And the fact that I think most people looking at the video think it was not necessary; there were other things that could have been done that we all wish we would have done had we been the officer in uniform. Whether or not it was reasonable probably depends on whether or not Constable James Forcillo truly believed that his life was in danger. And I think it's going to come down to that, whether or not the jury believes that he told the absolute truth when he was on the stand, that he believed he was going to die if he didn't fire.

AMT: Anecdotally, it seems there are more cases of these types of police shootings. What do we know about how many there actually are in Canada?

HELEN SINGER: Yeah, it's not anecdotal. We did, Anna Maria, for this documentary we were somewhat shocked to find out there are no national statistics. Hard to do in Canada, of course, but there's also been no will to do it. What we discovered by taking apart coroners’ reports that a very, very conservative estimate put between 2004 and 2014 at least 72 people in mental crisis were shot to death by police. And I say this is really conservative, because we only counted the reports where you could tell for sure that this could have been a person in mental crisis. And what we saw too is that the trend goes up. There are a greater percentage of people over those years from 2004 to 2014, a greater percentage are people in mental crisis to almost 40 percent now. And, again, I keep emphasizing, this was incredibly conservative.

AMT: Okay. And we are talking about Sammy Yatim, but there have been many others. What stories have stood out for you?

HELEN SINGER: The stories that we looked at in the documentary included Michael McIsaac, who was shot to death in December of 2013 on a street in Ajax, Ontario. Some people will remember seeing pictures of Mr. McIsaac. He was naked, just a few blocks from his house. He had had an epileptic seizure, the result of a brain injury and for that reason he'd left his house, he'd fled naked in a very chilly zero degree morning. So that was one. It's, again, another one where the videotape says so much. When you see the videotape of this man running down the street naked with patches of snow beside him you think, how could anyone pull up to that gentleman and not know that this is a man in crisis? But he was carrying a a furniture table leg, so that was a weapon and he was shot, again, within seconds of police arriving. And we looked also at the incident of David Boyd in Vancouver in 2007, a very, I would say, notorious case out here because when the video finally resurfaced years after the original shooting- the original shooting went by fairly quickly with police saying that they had done everything correctly and It was all good, it's a good shoot- then a few years later the video surfaced and it showed Mr. Boyd crawling across Granville street clearly unarmed- he had been carrying a bicycle chain- he was clearly unarmed at the moment that he was shot. So, these are the things that we looked at.

AMT: There's another case too, a Michael Eligon, is that right?

HELEN SINGER: Yes, yes, Michael Eligon, a very familiar case to people in Toronto. This is a gentleman who walked away from Toronto East General Hospital, again, couldn't be more the picture of vulnerability. He's caught on police dash cam walking slowly, kind of strangely. He looks bizarrely out of sorts. He's wearing a hospital gown. Again, you say to yourself, this is clearly someone in distress, not someone dangerous he's carrying two pairs of scissors- an edged weapon- which is always an alarm call for police that they must be on high alert, that their lives could be in danger. But you just say to yourself, he's so vulnerable, he's clearly in distress. Could there not be something more done? And, again, common to all these, Anna Maria, is the speed with which the interaction happens, from the moment police arrive to the shooting.

AMT: How tough is it for the families who are trying to figure out what happened?

HELEN SINGER: Horrendously difficult. Things go into a process, of course, wherever you are where police shut down and want to, I think, naturally be both investigative and self-protective. So it’s hard for the families to find out exactly what happened. And, of course, it's devastating. I mean, you imagine a loss in your own family and then compound that with a violent loss in your own family and then compound that with the fact that this is a loss at the hands of someone that you were raised to trust. And then find yourself afterwards not being able to find out exactly what happened. It's is truly a horror show for families. I can't even imagine what it feels like.

AMT: Well, I want to talk a bit about what Canadian police might learn from other places. Let's look specifically at the UK, because in making your documentary you played the video of Sammy Yatim being shot to the assistant chief constable Paul Netherton with the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. Listen to how he responded.

SOUNDCLIP

PAUL NETHERTON: In that scenario, a knife, we probably may not even deploy firearms to that. And we would give that person space. I think we would only intervene with a firearm if that person was actually then threatening another person, actually was holding them hostage and was going to harm them. And even then we would, as the expression goes, we would play along.

AMT: Helen Slinger, what did you take away from that British experience?

HELEN SINGER: Well, it's not just what I took away, it's also what other experts that looked at the piece, that Paul Netherton took away and looked at some other video that we showed. It is possible to do these things without killing anyone. It's possible to have a happy outcome for everybody. What your audience can't see, of course, is what preceded that clip of Paul Netherton is him watching the video. The expression on his face is quite amazing. He really can't understand what's going on. He's absolutely startled and shocked. And when the taser happens after the volley of nine shots he's, yes, he's beyond shocked, beyond, yes.

AMT: Well, you play that clip and you show a scene, actually, in your film of police in the UK who surround somebody who has a machete, who’s actually-- They surround him with shields and they take him down calmly. It's a totally different way of doing things.

HELEN SINGER: Well, exactly and it's so-- The thing that I think is so amazing in this clip, Anna Maria, is that it is a machete. I mean, it's big, it's terrifying looking. The man is quite out of control, he's really raging out into the street, very public, so people could be at risk. I mean, I found myself thinking, having looked so recently at all this tape as we were putting together the documentary, it's not a stapler like Dziekański at the airport, it's not scissors like Michael Eligon, it's not a knife like Sammy Yatim. It is a giant machete. And this man is truly raging at them; he's not taking a half a shuffling step towards the officer. And what they do is they just keep moving behind their cars. They try and push a garbage bin at him to contain him. That doesn't work. He rages back out. They move back to the cars. You can almost feel them, see them in this video keeping their heart rates down, just staying calm until shield officers arrive. They gently, slowly move in, surround the man, take him down to the ground. He goes off to hospital and he's since been released.

AMT: And the shields are basically the size of, almost, the size of a person so that you just keep moving around and he's got nowhere to go so. But they also take time, right? They don't do this quickly.

HELEN SINGER: Well, that's the thing. The shields are not instantly there. The shields aren't in every car. They have to come. As you well know, Anna Maria, in the UK, they don't arm every policeman. That's a special thing to carry arms. And those people don't go to every call. So the police officers that go to a call go armed first with de-escalation. That's the weapon they carry and from the time they become a police officer they know that's they’ll weapon will carry.

AMT: Well, let's talk a little bit more about training then. We've got someone else waiting in the wings. Terry Coleman is a retired police chief. He is now a consultant to the Mental Health Commission of Canada. He works on issues of mental health and policing in the justice system. He released his latest report in 2014. He's listening in and ready to join us from High River, Alberta. Hello, Terry Coleman.

TERRY COLEMAN: Hello.

AMT: Well, we can talk a little bit about the training and de-escalation. But first, as we wait for a verdict in the trial of Constable James Forcillo, how significant do you think that case might be?

TERRY COLEMAN: Well, I think it's very significant and, of course, many of us in the policing world and the like are waiting to see what the jury comes back with. I suspect that if he’s guilty of anything, it’ll end up getting appealed and it'll go on for a while yet, but we’ll wait with anticipation to see how that's going to turn out.

AMT: And as a former police officer can you understand why these shootings happen?

TERRY COLEMAN: Some of them I can't understand, no, I can't. Can we resolve all situations without reaching a high level of use of force? Probably not. But the frequency is his concerning and although I've not been at these particular scenes to witness them first hand, what I do know about them concerns me.

AMT: And what needs to change then in the way police are trained?

TERRY COLEMAN: Well, fortunately, it is already changing. When you think that is- according to Stats Canada anyway- there’s about 950,000 contacts under these circumstances or similar circumstances a year and a very, very few don't go well. Now, it's important that we pay attention to those that don’t go well. And usually when you look at them closely you find that the vital ingredients of time and talk were missing. And the training and the education of police officers, the training has changed. Canada, in particular, since the Dziekański situation at Vancouver Airport, the Justice Institute of British Columbia, mandated by the BC government, has put in place some really good crisis Intervention training. The Toronto Police have revised theirs substantially. I was able to view theirs before Christmas late last fall. And several other places are doing the same thing, in light also, of course, of the Iacobucci Report. So there is improvement, but then it's a question of how that learning survives when police officers are in a situation of crisis and how much they remember and how much they apply.

AMT: Well, so what's the variable there? Is it about how who's being hired? How do you make sure that someone will be able to retain that training in the thick of it?

TERRY COLEMAN: Well, the training and the education has to be well designed by people who are adult educators. Historically, that's not been very well done. And it's, again, has improved substantially across Canada in the last few years. The other part, of course, is practice.

AMT: What about the culture of police forces and the attitudes toward people with mental health issues?

TERRY COLEMAN: I think overall it's vastly improved. When you think of the number of contacts that police have with people under these circumstances in a year in Canada and the very few that don't go well, I think, that it’s a small number. And you asked about hiring. I'm not sure that, in total-- I think some hiring practices could be improved, let's put it that way.

AMT: Helen Slinger, come back in here. We can talk about jurisdictions and different things police are trying. You look specifically in your documentary at Hamilton.

HELEN SINGER: Yes, Hamilton looks delicious to us because they have a mobile crisis intervention team- that's what it's called in Toronto. It's called something longer- the mobile crisis rapid response team in Hamilton. And a version of this plays out in several places in the country, but Hamilton has the most aggressive, the most-- aggressive feels like the wrong word for this- but their team is a 9-1-1 responder, not true anywhere else in the country, so it's a police officer and a mental health worker and they can go out to any call. They can be first responders. If somebody showed up, for instance, if somebody showed up at the Sammy Yatim incident as a as one of these teams, they would not have been able to go in. It would have had to been a first line police officer first. In Hamilton, if that incident happened in Hamilton, they would have been able to be the first team in. You would have seen the nurse that you see in our documentary. You would have seen the nurse standing at the door of that streetcar, I predict, well back talking to that gentleman with the officer right behind her watching her back. I think there would have been a different outcome if they'd been there. But I want to caution as well that program looks terrific, unless you could have that team in every patrol car, you're always going to be looking at recruitment and training because there is no way that you're going to be able to send one of those teams to every incident. So it has to start with training, it has to start with recruitment. It has to be the patrol officers who understand that their first weapon is de-escalation, not their firearm.

AMT: Well, it's interesting. We're talking about mental health and de-escalation and all of this and, again, against the backdrop of the fact that the jury is deliberating on the Yatim trial and, we heard yesterday, once they were sequestered that what we didn't hear reported beforehand, because we couldn't, that was that the judge would not allow expert testimony for the defense to suggest that Sammy Yatim wanted to die, that he wanted suicide by cop, that he was actually in mental distress. This whole issue has come forward even in this case.

HELEN SINGER: I totally understand why the judge didn't allow it. Sammy Yatim’s not on trial here. It's Forcillo that’s on trial. So it's his state of mind that needs to be looked at and the judge made a point of instructing the jury that Forcillo did not know any of the things that had happened in the streetcar as he arrived at the incident. You had Deputy Chief Federico, who's in charge of the mental health file for Toronto Police, talking about the fact that in their training they are supposed to look at the incident as it plays out in front of them, not what was happening before hand. So it's Forcillo that we're looking at here, not Sammy Yatim. And I also think if you look at the tape- and I don't think the tape always says everything- but the tape does say here if this young man wanted to commit suicide that night, he sure did a bad job- well, no, he did a good job of it, I guess- but a terrible job in that taking one faltering step towards the police officer, if he wanted to die, he could have run at him, but he didn't. It’s arguable whether or not he was even really going very much in that direction or just kind of shuffling sideways. So I don't think he looked to me like he was trying to commit suicide, but more to the point, it's not about his state of mind. It's about Forcillo’s.

AMT: Terry Coleman, how much is that issue of the quote-unquote suicide-by-cop an issue for police in training?

TERRY COLEMAN: Well, it is a phenomenon and it is addressed in training. But I stress that even if a person wants a police officer to kill him, i.e. the suicide-by-cop that we’re talking about, it's not the role of the police to oblige. The police should still do everything they can to make sure that this is resolved successfully and everybody goes home without being hurt. So, the argument is somewhat spurious to start with.

AMT: And, Terry Coleman, help us understand the mixed messages as well. Yesterday in Toronto we also heard that the force is buying 51 high powered assault rifles to be available to frontline officers. These cases are frontline cases, are they not? People get called in in emergencies. So on one hand we're talking about de-escalation, on the other hand we're hearing that, you know, police are ramping up their weaponry.

TERRY COLEMAN: Well, that’s right. And it's my understanding across the country this is been a movement now for a few years. These weapons will take the place of the shotguns they've used sense, well, at least the 1970s. So it’s one weapon replacing another. There's a certain level of concern there, but the argument is that the situation that they had in New Brunswick here a couple years ago the police were, to quote what I've read and heard, were out-gunned. And there's an argument to be made for that,

AMT: The three RCMP officers who were killed.

TERRY COLEMAN: Yes, that’s right. So, it's not something that I'd like to see, but I think that's an argument to made and it's not every police officer that’s going to have one of these. There’s only- from what I understand at this point in time- only ordered 50 for the whole of the Toronto police service.

AMT: Helen Slinger, you're looking at other solutions that police are looking at and trying to respond. Body cameras, what else?

HELEN SINGER: Yeah, body cameras were a big part of the solution for us. I’d just like to say one thing about these new guns and that's that the thing that concerns me as much as anything is the emphasis, is that—I understand weapons have to be replaced, but what would be really nice would be to see Toronto Police, all police forces, try and put somebody who's CIT-trained in every car. I think it's doable. It's been done in a few places. Spokane, Washington has 100 percent of their, not huge police force, but their police force trained so I think that's a that's a big thing to aim for rather than simply looking at a better weaponry.

AMT: And what kind of progress do you see on that front, Helen? Well, I think everybody is improving gradually across the country. I’m not sure that, I'm not sure that what I'd like to see is going to happen anytime really soon because I don't think that's really been taken on. Everybody's looking at a different percentage, different places. But, Terry, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it sits at about 30 percent is the goal for most police forces. I don't think that's good enough. I think the goal should be like what Spokane's done, 100 percent. Maybe it takes some time to reach that. I know it costs money, but imagine the money that was spent on the Forcillo case.

AMT: Terry Coleman.

TERRY COLEMAN: Yes, the CIT, which is out of Memphis, Tennessee from some time back, the recommended ratio is 25 to 30 percent of police officers to be trained as CIT officers. I too think that is low. And I think it needs to be more than what we talk about as CIT officers. I agree with Helen there that the types of teams that they have- Hamilton, for example, and there’s many other places in Canada, Halifax, that’s another one, Vancouver’s another one- they have similar teams, call them by different names, but they are very effective. And that’s definitely the way to go.

AMT: So, as we have this discussion and there's the deliberations going on, Terry Coleman, what do you hope comes out of the James Forcillo trial that can be used as you move forward on this issue with police training?

TERRY COLEMAN: Well, I hope we don't have to go through it again. That's very simplistic, I realize, but there’s lessons to be learned from that. I think it's been very high profile. I don't think there's a police officer in Canada that hasn't been following what’s going on there and will continue to follow it to whatever the outcome might be. And I think there's some great things going on with training and education of police officers. And maybe this will be an impetus for everybody partaking in that training and designing that training to do even better.

AMT: Helen Slinger.

HELEN SINGER: Yes. I think deeper cultural change still. I think this commanding control culture is running up against-- I agree with Terry that there have been, there are many advances going on right now or are on a cost in Canadian policing. I think that still we have to look at the culture more. I don't understand why something couldn't have been said at the Forcillo trial around, this is not the way it should have gone. And I understand this is a defence strategy that, you know, Forcillo claimed that he would do the same thing again. I just don't think that's good enough. I don't think police should be saying that or thinking that. And I think some of that comes from this old command and control culture that’s still there, that is running up against the new training.

AMT: Okay. Well, thank you both for talking about this. Thank you. I've been speaking with Terry Coleman, retired police chief, now a consultant on policing issues to the Mental Health Commission of Canada. He's in High River, Alberta. Helen Slinger is the writer and director of the documentary Hold Your Fire. It airs on CBC Television's Firsthand tonight at 9:00, 9:30 in Newfoundland.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale on government plans for Bill C-51

Guests: Ralph Goodale

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Music: Upbeat]

VOICE 1: Some parents and some school personnel will proclaim that by changing policy, it will lead to massive epidemics. There will be lice marauding down the corridors of the schools, carrying children to their demise.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Canada needs more jobs and greater growth. That's what we put forward as a plan to invest in infrastructure.

CHIEF ISADORE DAY: These roads are vital to the cost of living, and to ensure that there's supports in the North. And right now, climate change is affecting that.

VOICE 3: We've just purchased the T.H.C. It's an extract. It's just a much more quick and easier way for me to medicate than having to smoke a doobie. [laughs]

AMT: There you go. That was some of the week that was here on The Current. Alternatives to smoking a doobie…

[murmurs in agreement]

AMT: And lice marauding down the corridors of your neighborhood school. Hello, Piya Chattopadhyay.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Hello, happy new year.

AMT: Happy new year.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: I just looked at the calendar, it's January 21st. Is it too late to say that to someone?

AMT: [interposing] Time goes so fast. You’ve seen me in the hallways.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: I don’t feel like I have.

AMT: But you haven't seen me on air.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Hello, Anna Maria on air, nice to see you.

AMT: Hello, Piya Chattopadhyay, Friday host of The Current. Let's begin.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Let's begin.

AMT: The Liberal party's commitment to infrastructure investment was a key component of its election platform, a promise of 124 billion dollars over the next 10 years. Since last fall's election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers have been canvassing the country, talking up infrastructure plans. Monday, we looked at where that infrastructure money should be directed. And one voice we heard was Chief Isadore Day, regional chief for Ontario at the Assembly of First Nations.

SOUNDCLIP

CHIEF ISADORE DAY: I represent 133 First Nations, so 31 of those communities need winter road access, because currently they do not have a connection to the rest of Canada. You need to have access to the south, you need to have access to other communities in the North, to cut the cost of living. So essentially, these roads are vital to the to the cost of living, and to ensure that there's supports in the North. And right now, climate change is affecting that.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: All right, well, Mary Ann Shannon of Terrace, British Columbia, put in this vote: “The number-one project has got to be the First Nations communities that need water systems. How can we call ourselves a caring country when we have allowed a boil water advisory to go on for 15 years?” On Facebook, Robert Johnston added this thought: “Fund projects that help society shift towards a sustainable economy, culture and environmental relationship. Don't put money into one-off projects poorly conceived in the interests of corporate welfare or short-term greed. Take the high road here.”

AMT: Okay, switching gears now, Tuesday, we took a deep dive into Bill C-51, the so-called anti-terrorism bill that became law, actually, in June. Some worry about new powers the legislation gives intelligence officers and law enforcement, including an expanded no-fly list. Shahid Mahmood's name is on that list. He’s a Canadian urban planner, he’s spent the past decade trying to find out why.

SOUNDCLIP

SHAHID MAHMOOD: At the time, Canada refused to actually acknowledge that they actually had a no fly list.

AMT: So what have you learned from Canadian officials in this time?

SHAHID MAHMOOD: Nothing. If anything, the issue has been muddied. I filed dozens of access to information requests. John Lapierre, who was the minister of transportation at the time, frankly did not acknowledge the fact that this is what I had gone through.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: That was Shahid Mahmood, a Canadian urban planner. His name has been on Canada's no-fly list.

AMT: The Liberal government says it will review Bill C-51 and the legislation brought in under it, to determine if parts of it need to be amended. To find out what changes could be coming, I spoke to Ralph Goodale, Canada's Minister of Public Safety, later yesterday. Here's that conversation.

AMT: Shahid Mahmood told us Tuesday that he has been on Canada's no fly list for 12 years. He now has a redress number from U.S. Homeland Security, but he's never been able to get any specific answers from Canadian authorities on why he's on the list, and how he gets his name removed. Will that change now?

RALPH GOODALE: Well, we said specifically during the election campaign and in the platform that there were a number of security related issues that we wanted to address. The mandate that I have very clearly from the prime minister is to ensure that our security systems are effective in keeping Canadians safe, and at the same time, that we safeguard the values, the rights and freedoms and the democratic character of the country. So that's what I'm working on, achieving those two things together. And the reviewing of issues around the no fly list is very much a part of that consideration. To see what we can do to ensure it's more accurate, that there are systems of redress and appeal when things go wrong, and how can citizens achieve a higher degree of satisfaction when they're caught in those difficult, and sometimes stigmatizing circumstances that can be very public and very awkward when they're trying to get on an airplane. Obviously, we want our travel system to be safe. We want to, effectively, as much as we can, prevent people from traveling for the purposes of terrorism. At the same time, we need to make sure we've got the safeguards in place that are ensuring the rights and values of our country.

AMT: Now we know Bill C-51 expands the scope of the no fly list, in an effort to thwart Canadians from joining groups such as ISIS. Have there been cases since the law came in in June that have stopped any would-be jihadists from…?

RALPH GOODALE: Anna Maria, I simply cannot answer that question, from a factual point of view. We're not to that point yet in our examination of the issues, but efficacy is one of the measures that we're going to be looking at here. We want to make sure that the provisions in our law, and the procedures that we have undertaken on behalf of Canadian police and security agencies, that they are doing what they need to do to keep Canadians safe. And at the same time, we need to make sure that the values of Canadians, their rights and freedoms under the Charter, the open, democratic character of our country, are being properly respected and safeguarded. And that's sometimes a difficult circle to square.

AMT: To that, and I want to ask about the expansion of CSIS powers, because your government has pledged to ensure that all CSIS warrants will respect the Charter. How will you do that with this new bill?

RALPH GOODALE: Well, we will engage Canadians in serious consultation about how to address and fix these issues. As we go forward, we need to base it upon real, meaningful consultation. With other political parties, with subject matter experts, with Canadians generally, so that we get our security framework right. And all of this will be part of the examination that I'm now mandated by the prime minister to undertake.

AMT: How long do you think that'll take?

RALPH GOODALE: Well, we want to do it expeditiously, because these issues are, in some cases, urgent and pressing. At the same time, we need to take the time to ensure that we do it properly, and that people, at the end of the day, can say yes, we were consulted, and it was meaningful, and we see ourselves reflected in in the result. These are very serious issues, both on the side of keeping Canadians safe, they expect their government to do that without fail, and at the same time, ensuring that rights and freedoms are properly respected. We need to make sure that Canadians are satisfied that we have achieved both of those objectives, and thorough, effective consultation is part of the process of doing that.

AMT: Now, we do know the prime minister has announced a new parliamentary committee to review national security issues. What role will that committee play when it comes to oversight?

RALPH GOODALE: Well, that is one of the elements of the response to what used to be Bill C-51. There are three components to this: the technical amendments, the very specific legal amendments that we've just been discussing; secondly, the creation of stronger review and scrutiny mechanisms, including a committee of parliamentarians to be part of the watchdogging process, to make sure that our security agencies are doing what they need to do to achieve safety, and at the same time are respecting the rights and freedoms of Canadians; a third element is a major new initiative on community outreach and counter radicalization. To try to identify the risk of radicalization, and the causes of radicalization in advance, and to be able to intervene at the right time in the right way, to prevent that from turning into violence. So there are those three dimensions of our response to C-51 that we are pursuing simultaneously, and the parliamentary committee will be a brand new element in the review and scrutiny of what our security agencies do. And it may well require more than just the establishment of a parliamentary committee. That is an absolutely indispensable tool that we have to implement in our system, but it may take more than that. Experts both in Canada and in the U.K. and France and other countries do have other recommendations to make. Like, for example, an independent reviewer of security legislation.

AMT: Like a civilian?

RALPH GOODALE: Yes, in the U.K., it’s David Anderson, a very highly respected. U.K. citizen that performs this function of independent review. They have a number of commissions that supervise different elements of their security operations. They have a tribunal consisting of both judges and others that provide redress mechanisms. As we go about creating and implementing the parliamentary committee, it may well be, as we put together a uniquely Canadian response of the situation, it may be valuable for us to have some other elements of review as well. Some people have called for a Super CIRC. For example, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which presently oversees CSIS, but not other elements of our security system. Are we properly providing oversight for the R.C.M.P., for example, or for the communications establishment within the Department of National Defense? For the Canada Border Services Agency, there's no review mechanism at all, at the moment. So there inconsistencies in the way this has been done in Canada. We need to give this very thoughtful consideration, and learn from the experience of other countries to hopefully implement here in Canada the best system in the world for the kind of review and scrutiny that's necessary.

AMT: Mr. Goodale, thank you for your time.

RALPH GOODALE: Well, thank you.

AMT: Ralph Goodale, Canada's Minister of Public Safety, we reached him in Ottawa.

Credit ratings agencies making same mistakes as in 2008, says SEC

Guests: Gretchen Morgenson

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: All right, let's move onto another topic.

SOUNDCLIP

The changed conditions of modern life cause people to crowd together more than they ever did before. The jostling of these crowds against each other makes it easy for lice to spread from one person to another.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Well, head lice has been around a long time, but longstanding school board policies about how to deal with head lice are changing. Many school boards across our country are now saying that children with head lice are welcome to attend school, and that head lice is not a medical concern. Here’s some of what we heard last Thursday.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Public education is about equity of access for all, and we don't believe in exclusion anymore for something that we don't consider to be a serious issue.

VOICE 2: Children, the same as when they have chickenpox, the first thing they do is they itch and they scratch. And when you're constantly itching and scratching at your skin, you're getting open sores.

VOICE 3: Some parents and some school personnel will proclaim that by changing policy, it will lead to massive epidemics. There will be lice marauding down the corridors of the schools, carrying children to their demise.

VOICE 1: So I think about how stigmatizing it is for students to be identified as having head lice sent down to the office, and then having to wait for their parent to come and pick them up.

AMT: We’re back to the marauding down the corridors.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: [murmurs in agreement]

AMT: After hearing that, Anne Peltekian of Halifax sent these thoughts: “I can appreciate both sides of this argument as a parent and retired nurse. But there are many more serious health issues. Pour yourself a glass of wine and pick those nits out. How you respond as a parent will go a long way to the comfort of your children.”

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Duly noted, Anne. I haven't had lice yet in my household, but I will, I’ll pour myself a glass of wine. Good advice. Ljuba Gerow of London, Ontario, wrote to tell us about an incident when her children were young and her daughter got lice: “I washed everything and everyone in the house - all the bedding, animals, the rugs. I worked without sleep for 24 hours. The next day I went to see the principal. He had a conversation with one of the mothers whose children were known for spreading lice. When he said, "you have to buy louse shampoo," she said she didn't have enough money for the children's supper. When he told her to vacuum the rugs, she didn't have a vacuum cleaner.”

AMT: Suzanne Duiker-Kroon of Guelph, Ontario shared another experience: “Hearing Richard Pollard so blithely assuring us that using a variety of chemicals on children's heads is nothing to be concerned about - I'm SO furious! Decades ago, I experienced anger, frustration and shame when my kids came home with head lice. Several times my life was turned upside down as I obsessively laundered, vacuumed, and nit-picked. I'm still bitter about our neighbourhood hairdresser's indignant refusal to cut their hair ... and trying so hard to avoid making my kids feel self-blame or shame.”

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: All right, we also got a couple of tweets on this same subject. Here's a couple of them. Laurie Scheer of Ottawa tweeted: “Letting kids in school with lice is all about letting parents off the hook for staying home with their kids. Kids take time.”

AMT: Teri McGurk posted this comment: “School sent my daughter home at 1 pm with lice, not the end of the day with a letter. Then they call her brother over the PA, so his class knows. Nice.” Well, onto a different topic now. on December 28th, while most of us were resting at home during the holidays, the American Securities and Exchange Commission, the S.E.C., released its most recent report, evaluating credit ratings agencies such as Moody's and Standard and Poor's. What it found has business watchers troubled. The S.E.C. reported that several big agencies are still behaving as they did in the lead up to the 2008 global financial crisis. The ratings provided by these agencies are meant to help investors understand the risk associated with buying corporate or government debt, but in 2007, several agencies helped trigger the U.S. mortgage crisis by giving high ratings to risky mortgage bonds. So, if these agencies haven't reformed, is the U.S. in danger of another financial meltdown? Gretchen Morgenson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning business journalist at The New York Times, and she is in New York, hello.

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Hi, how are you, Anna Maria?

AMT: I'm just fine, and I'm interested in knowing how you see all of this. What were the most glaring faults found by the S.E.C., when it comes to writing credit rating agencies?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Well, I think one of the most disturbing aspects of the report was the fact that, they don't name the agencies, keep in mind, so it's very difficult to know who we're talking about here, but they did identify them as larger, which means the big ones, the big three. And one of the most troubling aspects of the report was a fact of a larger rating agency, who was really trying to do a rating, produce a rating for market share reasons. Now, what that means is that they were looking to be hired by the issuer of the debt to assign the rating. As you know, these companies have a deeply conflicted business model. The issuers whose ratings they assign pay them for those ratings. So during the aftermath of the crisis, there was a lot of discussion about whether this business model should be changed, so that the conflict would be eradicated, and it wasn't. So there was nothing really done about this conflict. And here we are, yet again, years later, having a situation where the S.E.C. found a ratings agency was producing a rating to pursue market share, meaning profits. That was one of the most discouraging aspects, but others were that the companies were, you know, not paying attention to their general rubric, or their general outlines for how rating should be assigned. Some of the ratings were being overridden by higher management, so a ratings committee would come up with a rating based on their protocols, and it would be overridden by upper management. So again, these are the same kinds of issues that really helped produce the trillions in losses that investors sustained during the mortgage crisis, so the fact they haven't been addressed is problematic.

AMT: And you make the point that they don't name them. Remind us who the big three are.

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Moody's Investor Service, Standard and Poor's ratings, and Fitch Ratings are the largest. There are ten altogether, but those are the real, you know, the big three, as they call them.

AMT: And what is the risk to the average investor with this situation playing out like?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Well, the average investor, or even the institutional investor, Anna Maria, relies heavily on ratings. They rely on these ratings agencies to warn them of companies or dead issuers that are going to sustain problems, that may have difficulty repaying their debt. That's what a credit rating is all about. And so, if we can't rely on them to be completely accurate, thorough assessments of an issuer’s ability to repay this obligation, then that's a real problem for any investor, anywhere. But it's particularly a problem for institutional investors, such as money market funds, bond funds, which then, in turn, make it a problem for individual investors who own those funds.

AMT: And so how similar is this behavior to what we saw in the lead up to the U.S. mortgage crisis?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Well, it's very similar. It is not as pervasive, probably. I would say that one thing that has happened, is I think that the ratings agencies having been absolutely humiliated by what came out of the different investigations into their practices are trying harder to conduct themselves in a more careful, and perhaps aggressive way. I mean, one of the most egregious examples of the problems in the lead up to the crisis was how long the ratings agencies waited to downgrade the debt issues that these mortgage bonds that were really just toxic waste. And it took them a very long time to acknowledge their mistakes. So I think maybe the agencies are coming forward a little bit faster when they're looking, maybe more aggressive in trying to identify potential problems before they erupt. But certainly the failure to abide by the protocols, the inaccuracies that the S.E.C. found in some of the ratings, the potential conflict and desire of market share, the fact that higher management is overriding a ratings committee, all of these things were a part of the years leading up to the crisis.

AMT: And just spell it out for us, the desire of market share, what are you really saying there?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Well, what that means is, you know, Moody's and Standard and Poor's compete with each other. A company that issues debt or a mortgage bond issuer goes to the ratings agencies and says, okay, I want you to write this piece of paper for me. And, you know, it's a competition. And so if you rate it better, you’re going to get the assignment, and so that's what the chasing market share is all about. It's the potential that a ratings agency would assign a higher rating than is really necessary, or really worthy, in exchange for getting the assignment to rate the bond or the mortgage security.

AMT: And what about the enforcement side of the S.E.C.?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Well, this is sort of the sixty four trillion dollar question: is the S.E.C. going to go after these ratings agencies? Okay, so the group within the S.E.C. that did this report is their office of examinations. So, they are not the enforcement unit. The enforcement unit is the one that does have to go after those that it believes are breaking the rules. And so, what I'm waiting to see is some evidence that they will actually go after the agencies that were identified in this report. Now if they don't, that's a problem. If they do, then yes, perhaps that'll be the old stick at work and that they will encourage these ratings agencies to do the right thing and to beef up their internal policing. But if they don't go after them, then really, what is the point of this whole exercise?

AMT: So the real change has to come from legislation, does it not?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Well, the real change could come from the regulators. Dodd-Frank, the July 2010 legislation that was supposed to reform our system, required the S.E.C. to come up with new rules that would eliminate the problems of the ratings agencies. It did not, and so the rules that it came up with were sort of a thin gruel. Nothing that was really revolutionary, that would really have changed the entire situation. So, I would lay it at the door of the regulators, they just did not do the job that they needed to do.

AMT: Do you see that changing somewhere along the line? Like, isn't that the issue after ‘08?

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: I don't see it changing. I mean, if we really didn't get the kind of overhaul and change and reform immediately after that debacle, you know, with the passage of time comes a sort of a complacency that really, oh, well, maybe we don't really need to do anything about it until the next problem erupts. But the fact is, you know, if you can't get change after a conflagration that immense, what is the likelihood of getting change eight years later?

AMT: Okay, well, Gretchen Morgenson, thank you for your insights.

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: Well, thank you.

AMT: Gretchen Morgenson is a business journalist at The New York Times and co-author of the book Reckless Endangerment: How outsized Ambition, Greed and Corruption led to Economic Armageddon. She joined us from New York City. I just want to say, Piya, I'm a huge fan of Gretchen Morgenson and her work. Love her work.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: And, you know, just to pick up on some of the points she was making there. The Big Short, nominated for a bunch of Oscars.

AMT: [murmurs in agreement]

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Based on the lead up to the 2008-9 financial crisis. Lots of characters, but interesting because kind of the same conclusions.

AMT: That's right. Long memory, available at a theatre near you.

[both laugh]

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Or, in reality, by Gretchen. All right, let's move on. Yesterday in the program, Anna Maria and her guest tackled the legalization of marijuana with a focus on the pragmatics of how it should be implemented.

SOUNDCLIP

GEORGE SMITHERMAN: Oh, I think that the model that the government should, and I suspect will move forward on, is one where growing of marijuana takes place in Canada with licensed producers making it, and with Health Canada strictly regulating it.

KIRK TOUSAW: One of the real dangers of legalization is actually failing to eliminate the black market, because we let enough people that are currently in the marijuana industry participate in the new legal industry.

AMT: That’s Kirk Tousaw, a lawyer who works in the cannabis industry. Before him, George Smitherman, former deputy premier and health minister in the Liberal government of Ontario. Today runs THC Meds Ontario, a company seeking a medical marijuana licence.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Now that discussion on this program sent many of you to your computers, as well as to your phones. Ernie Yacub of Cumberland, B.C., writes: “Taxing and regulating is not going to make cannabis more affordable, especially for people with serious illnesses that need to use a lot of it. At current rates, some people would need to spend $500-1000 a month. I say, decriminalize so that we can grow our own medicine and share it with others who can't grow.”

AMT: Finally, Ian Stewart in St. Jerome, Quebec, writes: “My younger self would have been very gung-ho..... But what a drag legality is looking to become!”

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: That is it. That's all the time we have for today. So to add your voice to anything you hear here on The Current, you can weigh in on Twitter, @thecurrentcbc. If you want to join the conversation about The Current’s season long project, “Ripple Effect” you can use the hash tag #RippleCBC, please. And you can find all the “Ripple Effect” stories by going to the website and clicking on features. It's all at cbc.ca/thecurrent.

AMT: Post on Facebook email us from the site, cbc.ca/thecurrent. Subscribe to our podcast, check out links, all sorts of information, on the website.

[Music: Sting]

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Well it is now time to give credit where credit is definitely due. The week that was on The Current was produced by Idella Sturino, Shannon Higgins, Howard Goldenthal, Kinsey Clarke, Ines Colabrese, Julian Uzielli, Pacinthe Mattar, Gord Westmacott, Marino Greco, Sujata Berry, Liz Hoath, Marc Apollonio, Catherine Kalbfleisch, John Chipman, Leif Zapf-Gilje and Karin Marley. Special thanks to our network producers, Matthew Kupfer in Ottawa, Michael O'Halloran in Calgary, Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg, Susan McKenzie in Montreal, and Anne Penman in Vancouver. We also want to thank Hallie Cotnam at CBC Ottawa, Sharon Wu from CBC News and Vancouver freelance journalist, Daisy Xiong.

AMT: The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Our technicians are Carole Ito and Jennifer Rowley. Our senior documentary editor is Joan Webber. Our senior producers are Richard Goddard in Toronto, Cathy Simon in Vancouver. And our executive producer of The Current is Kathleen Goldhar. That’s all the time we have for today. Stay with Radio one for q, Shad is waiting in the wings, and Piya Chattopadhyay, you will be here tomorrow. I'll just move over, and you can have the chair.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: I’ll just sneak in there.

AMT: Okay, well, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, she’s Piya Chattopadhyay, thank you for listening to The Current.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: See you tomorrow.

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The Current Transcript for January 21st, 2016

IN THIS EPISODE

Prologue:

Private Sponsors frustrated as Syrian refugees wait in hotel limbo

Close to 40 per cent of civilians killed by police are in mental crisis

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale on government plans for Bill C-51

Credit ratings agencies making same mistakes as in 2008, says SEC

The Current Transcript for January 21^st, 2016

January 21st, 2016 Episode Transcript

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