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The Current Transcript for September 23, 2016

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

A young man who was on probationary employment told his employer that he was going to get genetically tested. He had showed that he carried the Huntington's gene. He was fired.

LAURA LYNCH: It's one of the latest frontiers in the battle against discrimination. Scientific advances have allowed us to know more and more about our genetic makeup — and our genetic flaws. But for some, it not only means a risk to their health, it's also a risk to their jobs and the chance to purchase insurance. Parliament is debating a new law meant to put a stop to genetic discrimination, but insurers are warning against it. That's first up. After that...

SOUNDCLIP

A dramatic drop in home sales. Sales are down between 47 and 54 per cent. And not only that but also Richmond, Burnaby and Surrey.

LL: Sales began dropping almost right away after BC imposed a new tax meant to cool down a hot housing market. And the latest data shows the slide is continuing. But a class action lawsuit claims the province is running afoul of the constitution and international treaties. And then...

SOUNDCLIP

Let's create characters, social avatars. We’ll go online and we’ll lure ISIS to see if they'll try to recruit them. We're going to see if ISIS falls for the bait or not.

LL: Journalist Martin Himel set the trap. And after months of creating the right kind of online personas, ISIS came calling. What he learned led him on a journey to meet an ISIS recruiter. He'll tell us about his new documentary Undercover in ISIS. I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

Can genetic discrimination bill protect patients from insurance hikes?

Guests: Yvonne Bombard, Frank Swedlove, Françoise Baylis

SOUNDCLIP

Every one of us in this house may want to undertake a genetic test at some point. And none of us should be afraid of having a genetic test for fear of discrimination.

LAURA LYNCH: That is Liberal MP Rob Oliphant introducing a new bill in the House of Commons this week Bill S-201, an act to prohibit and prevent genetic discrimination. And as you heard him say, genetic discrimination is something each and every one of us may have to think about someday. For some people like Lindsay, it's already a reality. Her father has a rare genetic mutation which means he's certain to develop Alzheimer's, and likely early onset. It also means that she and her brother have a 50/50 chance of carrying the same genetic mutation. That's why we're only using Lindsay's first name to protect her from potentially being discriminated against by employers, insurers, or others because of her genes.

SOUNDCLIP

In the last month, me and my brother applied for life insurance now, even though we are still very young and don't really need to be thinking about that at this point. We've done it now rather than later, because we haven't been tested yet and we don't want the results of our test to affect the kind of coverage that we could get. We both just got approved. So, without any exceptions related Alzheimer’s or anything like that. So, now that it's in place no matter what our testing shows, they can't take back the approval, I guess. So it feels good. But I mean, life insurance isn’t something that 20-year-olds really think about.

LL: Lindsay isn't alone in her fear of facing genetic discrimination. Yvonne Bombard is a genomics health services researcher at St. Michael's Hospital. In one study, she documented the extent of genetic discrimination faced by those at risk for hunting for Huntington's disease. And she joins me in our Toronto studio. Hi.

YVONNE BOMBARD: Good morning.

LL: I want to get to this new bill in a moment, but I just want to ask you, what's your reaction to what you just heard? How typical is her case?

YVONNE BOMBARD: Unfortunately, her case is very typical in the research that I conducted with many clinics across the country. We show that 86 per cent of the population that we sample that are at risk for Huntington's disease are very concerned about the possibility of genetic discrimination for themselves and for their families. And this leads to a high degree of psychological distress. And for individuals to employ these types of strategies, to put insurance in place before going for genetic testing or potentially withholding the fact that there is a family history of a disease in the family, in order for their children to be unaware of this while they essentially continue in their lives, and go forward for jobs or apply for insurance policies. And as you can imagine, has health implications as well as for their families and for their reproductive decisions. So it's a pervasive issue that is of significant concern to the communities and families that we speak to every day in our practices, that I've researched across the country, and that has caused individuals to employ a range of different type of strategies, that often is at the deterrent of their own health.

LL: OK, and we'll get into that. But just first of all, your study focused on Huntington's disease. Can you just remind us what Huntington's disease is?

YVONNE BOMBARD: Of course. So Huntington's disease is a genetic disease, it's caused by one gene, and it's a neurological disorder. It's often described as a combination of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. And it's described as one of the most devastating disorders of the 20th century, way back when we were talking about genetic testing for these types of neurodegenerative diseases. Individuals who carry this mutation for the disorder, as your introduction has implied, have a 50, sorry, individuals who have parents that carry this mutation have a 50/50 chance of also carrying the mutation. But those that have the mutation will with near certainty develop the disease.

LL: OK, now, in your study what proportion of those who tested positive eventually faced discrimination?

YVONNE BOMBARD: 40 per cent to our surprise had reported at least one experience of genetic discrimination themselves, and most frequently it was reported to have occurred in the insurance setting.

LL: So tell us exactly what that means, what happened?

YVONNE BOMBARD: So, to our surprise when we asked individuals from a series of 23 possible settings in areas where they could potentially experience genetic discrimination, we asked them two questions. In what of these areas are you concerned about, the possibility of discrimination? And in which of these areas have you actually experienced genetic discrimination? So 86 per cent of the population that we sampled across the country had indicated that they were very concerned about genetic discrimination for themselves and for their family members in insurance, employment, etc. And to our surprise, 40 per cent had reported at least one experience of genetic discrimination across those settings. And mostly those settings were insurance.

LL: But do you know what that means? Does that mean that they were turned down for insurance, or were the insurance companies demanding higher premiums?

YVONNE BOMBARD: It was both those two issues. They were denied insurance and they were asked to pay exorbitant rates to even take on the insurance policy. Or they were requested or coerced to take a genetic test in order to even be considered, as part of their contract.

LL: How does the insurance company find out?

YVONNE BOMBARD: It's quite typical. Another study that I did was to look at how often it is that an insurance application would ask about a family history. Which is part of, you know, an individual's medical information. And once an individual indicates on their application that they have a family history of a certain disorder in their family, then the insurer might ask, not as part of necessarily as part of that application, but as a follow up question verbally. Have you had a genetic test? And it's to your benefit, or go out and get a genetic test, so we can then consider your application.

LL: OK, so let's talk about the bill. How does it protect people against genetic discrimination?

YVONNE BOMBARD: Sure. So there are three parts of the bill. The first part would add the terms genetic characteristics to the Canadian Human Rights Act, and then therefore make genetic tests and genetic characteristics another prohibited grounds for discrimination. The second aspect would be making amendments to the Canadian Labour Code, which would incorporate a new complaints procedure for individuals who are employed by federally regulated industries. But the most important part of the bill is called the Genetics Non-Discrimination Act, which is actually the part of the bill that would prevent individuals from even engaging in this type of discriminatory behaviour to begin with. And it would effectively make it a criminal offence to require an individual to take a genetic test, or disclose the results of genetic test before entering into a contract or providing a service.

LL: Very briefly, how do you anticipate the bill would change the future of medical research and diagnosis under genetic testing?

YVONNE BOMBARD: I think it would have a enormous impact, because we know that the fear of genetic discrimination is one of the major concerns, and therefore barriers to undergoing a genetic test to inform someone's health management, to inform someone's reproductive decisions, to inform their entire life plans. And often, people take a genetic test in order to help their families. And in fact, the fear of genetic discrimination is a reason why people don't participate in genetic research, which has been a major impact on precision or personalized medicine.

LL: Alright, we'll leave it there. Yvonne Bombard is a genomics health services researcher at St. Michael's Hospital. And she's in our Toronto studio. Bill S-201 is not without its critics. Frank Swedlove is the President and CEO of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association. And he is here in our Toronto studio. Hello to you.

FRANK SWEDLOVE: Good morning.

LL: Do you believe genetic discrimination exists?

FRANK SWEDLOVE: Well, it's, the whole thing about insurance is a contract whereby there is equal knowledge by the person who's applying for the insurance and with the insurance company. That is the basis of how insurance works. And if you don't have that equal knowledge, there's the ability for example of an individual, if they know of circumstances that may lead to adverse consequences, that they could, for example, bulk up on insurance, and that would increase the cost of insurance for everybody else. So the concept of equal knowledge is incorporated in every provincial act, or in every province in the country.

LL: But then I guess what you're saying is discrimination is built into the system. You do have different levels of premiums for different kinds of conditions correct?

FRANK SWEDLOVE: That's correct. Always when an insurance contract is written, one looks at the risks associated with entering into that contract. And where there is greater risk, obviously the costs will go up.

LL: Now, other developed countries have decided that citizens need legal protection against genetic discrimination, so why not Canada?

FRANK SWEDLOVE: Well, when it comes to insurance, there is a claim that all G7 countries have laws to protect privacy with respect to genetic testing. And that actually isn't the case. In Japan — and I'm talking specifically about insurance — in Japan, there are no restrictions on insurance companies asking for the results of genetic tests, and they routinely do so. In the United States, federal legislation actually exempts insurance from the genetic testing act that they have at the federal level. So US Congress has stated that insurance is an exception to that principle.

LL: And there are some European countries though that do prevent it from being shared with insurance companies.

FRANK SWEDLOVE: And with respect to continental Europe, there are restrictions. But in continental Europe, insurance companies sell short-term policies generally no more than five years. And obviously, the risk associated with a short-term policy is very different from the kinds of policies that we sell in Canada, where there are commitments for 30 and 40 years, where a genetic test result would have a significant impact.

LL: So what do you say will happen if this legislation becomes law?

FRANK SWEDLOVE: Well, I think what will happen is that there'll be an increase in the cost of insurance--

LL: [interposing] Tell me how that would work.

FRANK SWEDLOVE: Well, what would happen is those people who know the results of a genetic test, and know that there are, you know, there’s a sort of a negative test result will obviously want to protect their families, and they'll go out and buy more insurance than one normally would have bought. And if they do that, that's going to increase claims, which will eventually increase costs. The Canadian Institute of Actuaries, which is a professional organization, independent organization, has estimated that the cost of life insurance will increase by 30 per cent for men and 50 per cent for women. So this would be a significant increase in costs. And at the end of the day, some people won't buy insurance anymore and they won't be protected and they would be the real losers with respect to this bill.

LL: Have you got any examples though? And I understand you've got actuarial research on this, but since there are some real life examples of countries where they are stopping this from happening. Is there any data from those countries suggesting what you're saying? That people will bulk up on insurance and the payouts are bigger?

FRANK SWEDLOVE: Well, it's only human nature that that would occur.

LL: I'm just asking you though, have you got any research to back it up?

FRANK SWEDLOVE: Well, there aren't many examples around the world which are similar, where our markets are similar, and where this kind of law takes place.

LL: Now, Yvonne Bombard, you said some genetic testing is definitive. Others show only a predisposition toward a certain disease, and a person may never develop it if they make proper lifestyle choices. How does an insurance company address those cases without being punitive?

FRANK SWEDLOVE: Well the vast majority of genetic testing markers are not relevant with respect to the cost of insurance. So it's only roughly 15 to 20 genetic markers that may increase the cost of insurance, because they significantly have an impact on either life expectancy or the chance of getting a disease. So that I think is a very relevant point. Also, if one can modify their circumstances through good life practices, then that would be could be taken into account by the by the insurer.

LL: Now you heard her describe though the fear on the part of those, in her case for the Huntington's disease genetic marker, the fear that is going to perhaps even stop them from being tested at all. And her worry that there will be more broadly based refusals to genetic test and getting treatment. Do you worry about that, having that impact?

FRANK SWEDLOVE: Well, I think the clip that you did at the beginning with Lindsay, I think she did the very responsible thing by going out, buying insurance and she got a low rate for the insurance, and then take her genetic test. That's always open to an individual if that's a concern.

LL: Get your insurance first and then find out your disease later, and you'll still be covered.

FRANK SWEDLOVE: Absolutely, your insurance rate will not go up after you've bought the insurance, if you buy a whole life policy. And that's what Lindsay did in her example, and it doesn't matter what the genetic test result would be after that.

LL: Alright, we thank you for coming in. Frank Swedlove is the President and CEO of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association. And he was in our Toronto studio. Now to talk about the bigger ethical issues at play in this question of genetic discrimination. I'm joined by Françoise Baylis. She's a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy at Dalhousie University. And she is in Halifax. Hello.

FRANÇOISE BAYLIS: Good morning.

LL: What do you think are the most significant ethical issues when it comes to genetic discrimination?

FRANÇOISE BAYLIS: Well, I think the concerns that have been raised by both of the previous speakers are legitimate and well-focused. And I think that they are in fact responding to the three pillars, if you will, of the proposal with this bill that's going forward. So people are genuinely concerned about discrimination, both in terms of insurance and employment, and people are concerned about discrimination more broadly, which is why we're seeing proposed changes to the Human Rights Act.

LL: Do you support the idea of having this law signed into force?

FRANÇOISE BAYLIS: Absolutely. I think it's a very good piece of legislation and I have to say that I'm not persuaded by the kinds of concerns that have been raised by the insurance industry. Let me take one example, the previous speaker made the point right at the outset, that insurance is a contract between parties with equal knowledge. That's just not true. The bottom line is if it truly was that we both had equal knowledge, we wouldn't have the kind of insurance company business that we have right now. Insurance companies have all kinds of experts in actuarial science. They know how to take the data about me, but not only the data about me, the data about lots of people like me. They use that data to come up with probabilities, and then they engage in a betting game with me. I think we really need to rethink what insurance is about. It's a certain kind of gamble. And when I buy insurance, in fact I'm betting against myself. I'm betting that I'm going to die early and if I do, you're going to have to pay out a lot of money to my family. And the insurance company is betting that I'm going to live a very long time, and they're not going to have to pay out any more than what they've already collected from me in terms of premiums. So the way this game works will be radically shifted as the insurance company says, oh no, I want more and more and more information about you. Well, if they ever reach 100 per cent, we're not going to have an insurance industry because there's no more the gamble, the play. Why would I pay you? And the other thing you're going to find is that you'll see a certain kind of cherry picking, which we've already seen in other jurisdictions, for example, around health insurance. Now, health insurance doesn't apply in Canada, but the phenomenon of cherry picking is very important. And that's where basically companies are going to choose really healthy people, so they're never going to have to pay out on anything. And they're going to shy away from contracts with people who represent a real risk.

LL: But you heard his argument that if you bar them from getting a hold of any of this information then perhaps those who have the genetic predispositions or markers will game the system the other way. That they're going to buy more insurance than they need and it's going to lead to bigger payouts and higher costs for everyone.

FRANÇOISE BAYLIS: But we actually don't know that, and we don't know that exactly because of the points made by the first speaker. What you have is information about probabilities. And in fact, you have an incentive as a person to make all the kinds of lifestyle changes that you might want to make, because you actually do want to live longer and you want to live healthier. And so I don't know that this, you know, sort of prediction is going to play out in the way that people think. And also part of the prediction requires you to be buying whole life insurance. Most people when they're very young can't in fact afford that, and they buy term insurance. And so, I think it's a lot more complicated than the way in which it's being presented.

LL: OK, genetics aren't the only predictor of health. How does this fixation on genetic information not serve us properly?

FRANÇOISE BAYLIS: Well, I actually think that's one of the areas in which, although I'm supportive of the bill, I'm not actually supportive of some of the rhetoric around the bill. If you go back and you look at it, which I have done, you know, what Rob Oliphant actually said in the house. You know, he basically ends up saying, you know, that our genetic makeup is more fundamental than our ethnicity our gender our race, even our sexual orientation. Well, I disagree with that. You know, he says genes tell us who we are and where we come from. I disagree with that. Those kinds of statements allow people to think that our genes are us and that's fundamentally wrong. And I think that kind of thinking, I don't want to encourage. I want people to get a better understanding of both the genetics and the ethics. And part of the genetics here, is understanding that there's a gene environment interaction, and having a gene is not necessarily going to in all cases mean for sure that you're actually going to get that gene expressed in a particular way that will create disease. And then if I can, from an ethics point of view, I'm really concerned when people say as part of their argument, well, that's going to increase the cost of insurance. Because when you bring forward those kinds of arguments, you're actually encouraging people to think selfishly. You're saying, look, we don't want our premiums to go up so let's throw these folks out of the boat. That's not what insurance is about. Insurance is about a pooled risk. It's about shared risk. And that's the context in which Canadians typically understand their commitment to health insurance. And why not also their commitment to life insurance. We're in this together. Some of us are born healthy and some of us are born less healthy. Some of us make more demands on the health care system, some of us make less demands. And the same is going to play out here.

LL: OK, we will leave it there. Thank you.

FRANÇOISE BAYLIS: Thank you.

LL: Françoise Baylis is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy at Dalhousie University. And she was in Halifax. The news is coming up next. Then Vancouver's foreign homebuyer tax has been in effect for almost two months now and there's a class action lawsuit challenging the law. I'm Laura Lynch, you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Extro]

Foreign buyers sue B.C. over property sales tax

Guests: Luciana Brasil, Josh Gordon, Benjamin Tal

LAURA LYNCH: Hello, I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come, ISIS is notorious for courting young men and women from Western nations online, turning social media into a recruitment tool. So filmmaker Martin Himel decided to see for himself how the process works. He joins us in half an hour, to discuss his new documentary Undercover in ISIS. But first, pouring cold water on a tax intended to cool down the housing markets.

SOUNDCLIP

I cannot move forward, and also I can’t go back.

LL: Jing Li feels stuck in the middle. Squeezed by the foreign buyers tax, British Columbia introduced in August. She moved to Canada from China to study. Graduated from university last spring, then moved to Burnaby, BC to work as a charity fundraiser. But the townhouse she was in the process of buying in the suburb of Langley suddenly got a lot more expensive. 84,000 dollars more expensive, when the 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers kicked in last month.

SOUNDCLIP

I just can't understand the current BC government. If they want to do this policy, OK, but they should let us know before purchasing the house. Because the price of the house isn't very small.

It's my parents whole life saving money.

LL: The new tax is intended to slow down the flow of foreign money into Vancouver's housing market and address what many are calling an affordability crisis. But the tax has its critics. And now Jing Li is the lead plaintiff in a legal challenge representing foreign buyers in a class action lawsuit which has yet to be certified by the courts. Lawyer Luciana Brasil is representing Jing Li and other foreign homebuyers. She is in Vancouver. Hello.

LUCIANA BRASIL: Good morning.

LL: Tell me about Jing Li, why is she buying the house in Vancouver, in the Vancouver suburbs?

LUCIANA BRASIL: Well, she's just like everyone else. She's had a dream of homeownership and according to the Chinese culture, it's very important to own a home. And she moved to Canada three years ago and pursued her studies in Saskatchewan. Then she worked during her studies in retail and Starbucks like anybody else. Moved to Vancouver, a beautiful place and decided that she wanted to buy a home. And then she tried very hard to come up with the amounts and her family used their life savings to help her come down with the 35 per cent down payment that she had to put down. And now she finds herself having to pay an additional 80,000 dollars.

LL: She got caught sort of in the limbo that this tax created. Tell me about her case.

LUCIANA BRASIL: Well, she sits in this group of people that the tax was declared that it was coming into force, but there was no provision made to accommodate people that were already in contracts, and had already paid their non-refundable deposits and couldn't get out of the deal. So those people had two options either pay the tax or forfeit the deposit, and both options involve them paying money that they didn't anticipate having to lose.

LL: When we hear about the price of housing in Vancouver and we hear about wealthy foreigners who are buying homes as investments. This isn't her case, is it?

LUCIANA BRASIL: No, and I think a lot of the problem in terms of the feedback in relation to the lawsuit and some of the more antagonistic comments is this issue of foreigner. Is that, you know, when you think foreigner, people are equating that with very wealthy people that are living outside of the country, and that have no intention of living in these homes and the homes will sit vacant. Well, there is a lot of people in British Columbia that are purchasing homes, but they don't have permanent resident status, they don't have Canadian citizenship, and for that reason they fall squarely within the tax. But they're here. They want to live in the home just like anybody else.

LL: Is that the main problem that you see with the tax?

LUCIANA BRASIL: No, the main problem that I see with the tax is the legality of it. It’s the fact that it was levied by the provincial government on the basis of nationality and residency status in Canada, both of which we say falls squarely within the area of federal jurisdiction. So, having chosen that as a trigger for the tax, we say the province has overstepped its powers.

LL: And I know you’re challenging it on a number of grounds, that one about federal jurisdiction, I know that the premier has said that this falls squarely within provincial jurisdiction, these are transactions taking place within the province of British Columbia.

LUCIANA BRASIL: Well, that will be the fight that we're going to have in the case. It will be interesting and I'll look forward to it.

LL: You're also challenging it constitutionally?

LUCIANA BRASIL: Well, that's a constitutional challenge, right? The question of whether or not they had the power to issue the tax is a constitutional issue, because it derives from division of powers. But there's also a related issue, which is the contradiction between the tax and the agreements that Canada has made with over 30 countries. And those agreements include provisions that say we're not going to treat the nationals of your countries any less favourably than we treat our own. And when I can go and purchase the same home that Jing Li purchased, and I don't have to pay the 80,000 dollars because I happen to be lucky enough to have a Canadian passport, well, that's treating her less favourably than Canadians.

LL: Well, why shouldn't the government be able to tax people who aren’t from Canada differently?

LUCIANA BRASIL: Because that's, you know, discriminatory and that's within an area that's not their purview. It relates to the regulation of foreign trade and aliens and so forth, all of which belong to the federal government.

LL: But you're well aware, also, that there are other provinces in Canada who limit the way that foreign nationals own property in their provinces. Prince Edward Island you have to apply to be able to buy certain kinds of properties, and you also have to be resident in those properties. Are there other kinds of systems that you think are more amenable or more agreeable?

LUCIANA BRASIL: The difference here, and that's the key point, is that in PEI, the trigger is residents like, physical residency in the province, and that applies whether you are a Canadian citizen or not. So if you are a Canadian citizen but you're not resident in PEI, then you're going to be bound by those restrictions as well.

LL: So would a PEI system be acceptable to you and your client?

LUCIANA BRASIL: I haven't thought about that, so I'm not going to make a comment off the cuff on that. And the beauty of my position is I don't have to have an answer to that. I just need to be able to point out to something that we say is unlawful, I don't need to come up with a solution to the prices of homes in Vancouver.

LL: Do you agree that there is a problem with housing in Vancouver in particular?

LUCIANA BRASIL: Well, I don't know about a problem. I agree that it is expensive to live in Vancouver, but look around you, I just drove into the studio this morning and I drove over Lion's Gate Bridge and through the Stanley Park, which is repeatedly voted one of the most beautiful parks in the world. Vancouver is an incredible, beautiful city. It's not surprising that a lot of people want to live here. And when you have a lot of people wanting to live in the same place, it's going to cause the prices to go up.

LL: It appears that the tax is seeming to have an effect, it seems to be cooling off at least part of the market in Vancouver. And I'm wondering what kind of reaction you're getting to this case and to Jing Li’s story?

LUCIANA BRASIL: Well, I think it is kind of early to say that it's having a positive effect. I've read that the market was already slowing down a little bit before the implementation of the tax. There's also reports of a lot of transactions that were going to happen in August having been accelerated to July to avoid the payment of the tax, and in fact it appears that the land title system crashed on the day prior to the attacks coming into place. So I think it is too early to say that the tax itself has had a positive effect.

LL: I'm just wondering though are you hearing any kind of backlash to the challenge that you're mounting?

LUCIANA BRASIL: I'm hearing mixed reviews. There's always going to be backlash in something that is controversial and polarizing as this issue is. And so, that's not unexpected. But I'm also getting a fair amount of support.

LL: Have you got others ready to sign up if you can certify the class action?

LUCIANA BRASIL: We have lots of people interested in participating. The beauty of a class action is that if those persons are living in BC, they don't need to sign up because they're automatically included in the class. The people that will need to actively sign up for the class are people that are living elsewhere. But that will all happen if the case is certified.

LL: The other thing about this is these cases, as you well know, can take a long time to make their way through the courts, it could take years. What does Jing Li and others like her do in the meantime?

LUCIANA BRASIL: Well, they have to come up with the money, right? Unfortunately, they are in a Catch 22 situation at this time.

LL: Luciana Brasil, thank you.

LUCIANA BRASIL: Thank you for having me.

LL: Goodbye.

LUCIANA BRASIL: Goodbye.

LUCIANA BRASIL: Luciana Brasil is a Partner with Branch MacMaster Barristers and Solicitors in Vancouver. We requested an interview with someone from the BC government and received a statement which reads in part, quote, generally all legislation goes through constitutional and legislative analysis, and our view is the changes build on tax policy that has been in place for almost 30 years. The constitution allows provinces to impose taxes within the province to raise revenue for provincial purposes, end quote. Well, we're just beginning to get some understanding of how the Vancouver housing market is reacting to this new tax. The province only started to track the nationalities of buyers last June, but the data then suggested that at least one in ten homes sold in Greater Vancouver was to a foreign buyer. After the taxes introduction in August though, the figure dropped precipitously to less than 1 per cent last month. As for the price of homes, it remains to be seen whether they will come back closer to Earth. The average price of a detached home in the Vancouver area remains in the neighborhood of 1.5 million dollars. Josh Gordon has been watching the price explosion in recent years. He's an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University. And he is in Vancouver. Hello.

JOSH GORDON: Hi, thanks for having me on.

LL: You were listening to Luciana Brasil, what did you think when as you were listening to her?

JOSH GORDON: The basis for the case to my ear doesn't sound all that solid. Universities distinguish between foreign and kind of nationals students, and that's under the jurisdiction of the provinces. Provinces under certain immigration programs have control over who arrives, especially Quebec. So again, it's not clear to me that this is necessarily a federal jurisdiction. This is about tax policy and provinces have control over that, as far as I can tell on this one.

LL: What do you think of the foreign homebuyers tax?

JOSH GORDON: I think it's a good idea. It's good in a couple of respects. First, it it stops the money that's coming over that's kind of helping to overheat the market by kind of creating a lot of intense competition for housing. But it also, and probably more importantly, affects the mindset of BC residents and Canadians. The perception for a long time was that there was a ton of foreign money coming into the market and that was largely accurate, and that that was going to continue endlessly. And what the tax has done has to suggest to people that maybe that money won't be coming over in nearly as large quantities. And so, there might be some price respite. And so, a lot of people are now not so panicked into buying this kind of fear of missing out phenomenon.

LL: I know you're not a politician, but can you just remind us what were the politics and pressures facing the government as it was grappling with how to handle the real estate prices, these ever increasing, ever more difficult to afford housing prices?

JOSH GORDON: Yes, this was clearly a political move. There was a poll out in May, I think, that put housing as the top issue for British Columbians. And their approval rating on it was very low, something like 15 per cent of the province thought they were doing a good job. Something like 70 per cent thought that they were doing a bad job. So they clearly had to move on it. And we already see again, early indications of success on that front too. I just read that the approval rating for Christy Clark jumped seven per cent since the introduction of the tax. So I think this was clearly a political move based on needing to get ahead of this in terms of the election next year.

LL: Yes, yes, an upcoming election. But the issue is all that much more sensitive because we have heard the allegations of racism that surround all of this. How did that play into the government's response or perhaps even its reluctance to get involved sooner?

JOSH GORDON: Yeah, that's been a feature of the debate here. I think that that accusation has been used quite cynically by a number of people in the debate. This is not fundamentally about as, you know, phobia or racism. This is a concern about affordability and kind of understanding the true causes of it. And the issue has become that the housing market has become to an extent disconnected from the labour market, and that's what upsets people. People feel they can't compete. They don't have the same access to sources of income and wealth that these foreign buyers do. Some of the money is seen to be of questionable origin. And so there's resentment about that. And frankly, the effects of this stuff where people and their friends and family are being priced out, that cuts across ethnicity, that cuts across race. And so, you see broad support for measures like this. There was something like 90 per cent support in the first couple of weeks for this tax in Vancouver.

LL: Now there's been debate for years over the impact of foreign ownership on the cost of housing. What does the research tell you? You've aggregated some research on this.

JOSH GORDON: That's right. My sense is that it is playing a major role. Probably the central role. There are other things that are going on. We have land constraints, interest rates are low.

LL: When you talk about land constraints, you actually mean the physical setting of Vancouver?

JOSH GORDON: That's right, exactly, the geographical constraints because of mountains and water. But I mean, you have two distinct phases to the influence of foreign capital in the market. First, you have a wave of wealth migration that happens mostly starting in kind of the eighties and that grows and grows, and that's through the investor immigration program. And that kind of decoupled the housing market from the local labour market, because a lot of the people who arrived, arrived with a lot of wealth and they invested that in real estate, but they weren't working in the local labour market. And so, the incomes remained fairly stagnant while housing was pushed up, because essentially it was as if you had a bunch of millionaires living in the city that weren't making income here. And also, you have individuals that want to live in the neighbourhoods where they grew up, or near their family and friends, and so they really stretched themselves in terms of debt to try to get there. And so, that dynamic of competition between foreign money and locals exacerbated price pressures. But then, secondarily, you have in the last couple of years, especially from China, a big exodus of capital. Something like a trillion dollars left China in 2015. And that's why we've seen a surge of prices, something like 30 per cent in the past year and a bit. And nothing else really changed fundamentally that would have explained that. So that, you can kind of put to foreign capital and so it's played a huge role here.

LL: You live there, I'm wondering what the experience is like for someone who lives there. And this obviously isn’t scientific, it’s anecdotal, but is every conversation in Vancouver around the dinner table about what's going on with housing?

JOSH GORDON: Most conversations at one point or another circle back to it. It's definitely a hot topic. Jeffrey Simpson, in a column called us boring conversationally, because it was always coming back to real estate. So, absolutely it's an extremely hot topic. And for good reason in a way right? You know, prices are such that it really is putting strains on communities, on people. A lot of young people are extremely fed up, they’re contemplating leaving. They're stretched to the limits. You now have a rental crisis as well. So again, you know, this is a big issue.

LL: What are you hoping that the the foreign buyers tax will ultimately achieve?

JOSH GORDON: Yeah. The hope is that it cools the market without crashing it. That you deter foreign buyers, which then means that the competition isn't as is intense. And secondarily, that you affect the mindset of Canadian buyers, such that they feel that they can kind of hold off, that they don't need to constantly bid over the asking price and things of that sort.

LL: Yeah, but I suppose the other concern with something like this though, with all of the pressure on the housing market, it did bring an awful lot of foreign investment into the city. Which has certainly buoyed the economy or helped to buoy the economy.

JOSH GORDON: Yes and no. There has been a continuous flow of foreign capital into the market in Vancouver, and yet Vancouver incomes remain amongst the lowest in Canada. So it's not right to call it kind of foreign investment in the typical sense, where you're investing in productive apparatus. That's not what's going on. We're talking about buying houses. What I will say is that in housing booms, people feel rich. They feel equity rich and so they spend money. People are able to lend their kids money and there's construction jobs and a variety of other things, and so you have this process called leveraging, where essentially people are taking on debt. And that does create economic activity and that creates a lot of jobs and so on and so, you know, I would argue that a large part of the reason, maybe the central reason why the BC economy is so strong is because of this kind of housing boom. But, as we've learned from the United States and other places around the world, housing booms and housing bubbles are fundamentally unstable and usually they redound and the consequences are not pretty.

LL: We will be watching, thank you very much.

JOSH GORDON: Thank you.

LL: Josh Gordon is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University. He was in our Vancouver studio. It starts in BC, but some economists are warning that other parts of the country might have to follow the lead of Vancouver and take action on foreign homebuyers. Benjamin Tal is the Deputy Chief Economist at CIBC. He is in Toronto. Hello.

BENJAMIN TAL: Hi.

LL: What impact might the BC tax have on the rest of the country?

BENJAMIN TAL: Well, I think the main issue of course is in Toronto, because you don't see much foreign investment elsewhere in the country. So the story is really Vancouver versus Toronto now. BC is not the only place that is introducing taxes. We see it in the UK, in New Zealand, Australia, so many foreign investors are basically looking at the globe and say, OK, where is more inviting? And at this point, it's welcome to Ontario. OK, so is it having an impact now? Too early to say, some [unintelligible] from Seattle are telling us some buyers are going to Seattle as opposed to Vancouver. But we don't have the same information as we see in the US. It's not exact, it's not timely. So in many ways, when it comes to measuring foreign investment, we are flying blind. And that's something that we have to really change, because if it's so important, we at least should have the numbers. And I think that you will see more and more money and energy going towards trying to get this information.

LL: What do you think of the approach BC's taking?

BENJAMIN TAL: That's a good question. I think that foreign investment is one reasons, not the only reason why prices in Vancouver are in the sky. You know, of course, the geography is clearly one of them and low interest rates basically inflating everything. So I think foreign investment is like number three or four, not the main reason why prices are rising. But it's an easy target. Regardless, I think that some sort of taxation is fine. I don't know if 15 per cent is the right one. Some people telling me that for many Chinese billionaires it's basically nothing, it’s just the cost of doing business. But I think it's probably changing some of the activity there. I think that flipping tax, empty unit tax clearly should be there. Flipping is a very important part.

LL: Let's just define flipping, What is flipping again?

BENJAMIN TAL: Well, If you buy today and sell tomorrow in order to make money, that's flipping. In New Zealand they introduced a taxing, basically if you sell within two years, we're going to tax you in a very significant way. I think that there is some flipping activity among foreign buyers in Vancouver and in Toronto, not huge, but I think that that’s a clear easy target. Vancouver went with the 15 per cent, and we'll see if they can do it. According to your previous conversation, it's not so clear. But we'll see if that can do it. If they can, I think it will either change, it will impact the market, but it will not derail it by any stretch of the imagination.

LL: And the other tax that you were suggesting is a tax on vacant properties. Tell me more about that.

BENJAMIN TAL: I think it's a relatively easy way of raising money and it's a very popular tax and it makes sense. In Australia for example, they're saying, OK, if you are a foreign investor, you can only invest in new construction, basically a new building, by doing so you're basically adding GDP to the economy, you're creating jobs basically, so that's a good thing. If you play in the re-sell market, you basically contribute nothing.

LL: Now I'm wondering about the big picture here. How dangerous is it for the Canadian economy to have these major housing markets to be so inflated, the prices so high?

BENJAMIN TAL: It is big. It's dangerous and it's something that we have to monitor. I know that everybody's talking about real estate and it's a major issue. However, I think that we have to put things in perspective. Focusing only on foreign investment is wrong, because that's not the main reason, especially not in the GTA, where in Toronto where foreign investment is much less significant than in Vancouver. And even in Vancouver it's not the number one reason. I think that the big story is really land. There is no land. In Vancouver for many reasons, because of geography. In Toronto, it's because of government policy. You know, we have the places to grow policy. The aim is to put people close to infrastructure, which makes sense, you know, next to transportation as opposed to rebuild infrastructure. It makes a lot of sense, but it means that there is no land. If you are a developer in the city of Toronto and you have land, you sit on it. The others are basically fighting over it. And the price of land are basically doubling over the course of breakfast.

LL: Does the Ontario government need to respond soon?

BENJAMIN TAL: I think that probably when it comes to foreign investment, I think they probably will have to do something, because again as I said, the only large city that is not doing anything is Toronto, and at one point there will be a lot of pressure on them to do so. But I think the big story is really rent. I think we are, and that's very important to understand if you care about housing in Toronto, we are in a twilight zone of prices. In which prices are elevated enough to increase the propensity to rent, like in places like New York. But we haven't seen the propensity to rent rising in any significant way, because many people are blinded by the mirage of affordability. It's an affordability mirage that we are living in, because of low interest rates, so people are taking those huge mortgages and then as a society we become extremely sensitive to the risk of higher interest rates. And we will be tested when interest rates starts rising, and that's why we have to do something now, we have two college rental mentality. We have to supply purpose built rental in order to allow young families to rent before they buy, because buying now is simply too expensive for them. And they should not be buying if they cannot do so.

LL: Thank you very much for your time.

BENJAMIN TAL: A pleasure, thank you.

LL: Goodbye.

BENJAMIN TAL: Goodbye.

LL: Benjamin Tal is the Deputy Chief Economist at CIBC. He was in Toronto. And now over to you. What are your thoughts on British Columbia's foreign ownership tax? You can reach us by email, on Facebook, on Twitter. Just go to cbc.ca/thecurrent for all of our contact information. Coming up in our next half hour. We want you. That is the famous recruitment slogan from Uncle Sam in the US. Disaffected young people today may be more likely to hear a message like that from an agent of ISIS. Undercover in ISIS is a new documentary that shows the online recruitment process from start to finish. I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Extro]

Documentary reveals how ISIS recruits young radicals on social media

Guests: Martin Himel

LAURA LYNCH: Hello I'm Laura Lynch, and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[ominous music]

We all talk about social media, we all talk about this power to recruit by ISIS, but we never really see it. So we created these social avatars, these fictitious people, but there's real people behind those fictitious characters. One is Theo, a Swede, and the other is Sara, an Australian. Security and anonymity is a key, so we're hiding their identity, and we're going to see if ISIS falls for the bait or not.

[ominous music]

LL: Well ISIS did fall for the bait. That was journalist and filmmaker Martin Himel. And over the course of several months, he and his team developed fake online relationships with two ISIS recruiters. Both Theo and Sara, which are assumed names, developed relationships with ISIS members first using Twitter and then moving to encrypted channels. Eventually both received offers to travel to and join the Islamic State. It was all recorded, and the resulting documentary offers a new window into how ISIS has managed to lure tens of thousands of foreign fighters from around the world to join their cause. The documentary is called Undercover in ISIS, and it premieres this Sunday on the CBC documentary channel. Martin Himel directed the film and he joins me in Toronto. Hello.

MARTIN HIMEL: Hello, thank you for having me.

LL: How did your, well, let's call them operatives, Theo and Sara manage to attract the attention of the ISIS recruiters?

MARTIN HIMEL: The key is in what we call character modeling. This all started with me raising an idea with people who were retired from the Secret Service agencies in various parts of the world. And I said gosh, what does it take to get two people to lure ISIS to try to recruit them? And they thought that was a really cool idea. And then it got more serious and they said, well it's all in the character modeling. What that means is, let's ticket a couple of cases and point the most recent, which is the New York, New Jersey bombing. This person seemed to have come from a very troubled family history, he had big problems with his father. And the key there is the family trouble, maybe socially isolated, cannot find friends. And so, they're looking for a super friend, a super family, somewhere where the world is right and wrong, where there are clear values. And often, that is found in a very extremist form of maybe, fundamentalism or an ideology, and that's where ISIS fits the bill. And as we progress in this story, we saw that ISIS is actually looking for those type of people and that's what really worked here. So we worked very hard at creating the character model, the back story. Sara, an Australian, was coming from a family that was split up and a father that was absent. She really wasn't Muslim, but the father was but only in name only. Same thing we did with Theo out of Sweden. And those backstories were learned and relearned and the details were learned, and that's very very important.

LL: OK, so how do you make the bait as attractive as you possibly can?

MARTIN HIMEL: First of all, the hard part is you have to be passive. You have to be out there and passive. You cannot take initiative. So, they go out there and they tweet and retweet statements that are very sympathetic to ISIS. All sorts of slogans, videos, etc. And not in an aggressive way, in a very passive way, in that they're looking for meaning as a Muslim, they're looking for their identity, and they give the impression they're susceptible.

LL: Well, OK, so you say that they had to lure them with all of the tweets and everything they were doing. How much of a commitment was it for them, how much time did it take?

MARTIN HIMEL: You see, you know, in documentaries we all compress reality, it's inevitable because we got to put it into one hour. But this effort went on for months. And it's not like you're on the Twitter every minute, it involves, to tell you the truth, it involves, they were also working out of special computers and evolved servers. Things are slow, answers don't come quickly, they take time. It involves putting a good hour a day initially into it, and then us screen saving everything and then doing extensive interviews every so often. See where you've got. It's very painstaking slow work, until you start hitting someone, until you start getting someone who wants to talk to you. And then it becomes much more exciting and interesting, and it moves a lot faster. But most of the time, it's very slow, an hour here an hour there, checking in, and then meeting with the people who are the experts in character modeling and saying where are we going to go now? Everything is done in a collective way, in that sense what should you emphasize, what should you do not emphasize, et cetera.

LL: We're talking months and months, though?

MARTIN HIMEL: Yes, months.

LL: So they both make contact with people who we believe to be ISIS recruiters, and I want to hear about both of them, but we'll start with Theo. What's the nature of his first contact with Rashid?

MARTIN HIMEL: Well, the attraction with Rashid is that Rashid seems to come from the same background. A troubled background in France, looking for an identity, finding Islam, and of course I want to stress that the Islam they're finding is not modern mainstream Islam, we're talking about a very perverted form of Islam that's ISIS, but they're looking for something, and instead of finding true Islam, they're finding ISIS Islam. And they are searching, and they both had this Muslim background in their families, which they didn't know and that's how they bond. That's the key thing there. And then we let Rashid lead. And Rashid offers all sorts of interesting ways of getting to ISIS. And we just tagged along, basically.

LL: You're putting up this deception. How do you know that Rashid isn't doing the same thing? That's an excellent question.

MARTIN HIMEL: And at one point when Rashid basically leads us to a point that we have to think that Theo will have to actually act on this, either or go to Syria or go meet cells in Brussels, we were really in a quandary. And we said ourselves and we have to violate our sacred rule at this point, because there's nowhere to go, you stayed passive. Now we have to suddenly go active. And so we said to ourselves, we are going to go for broke because we're not going to send anybody to Syria to meet terrorists or whatever. We said we're going to offer a Skype, let's go on Skype and meet. And we knew that, we said two things. If it was an intelligence agent, they will jump in a minute and want to go on Skype because they'll think we're the real deal and want to see who we are, and then we might have a problem. And if we lose him or they get suspicious, then we think we're really on to something. And unfortunately, that's what that's basically where we go with Rashid, he gets very suspicious about us. And then months and months and months later, we heard about these attacks in Brussels, and the cells there, then we thought wow, we probably were onto something. If Rashid jumped at it, we thought maybe it was intelligence agent.

LL: Alright, let's turn to Sara then. She does get further than Theo. She has a phone conversation with a woman named Umhamza. How did their relationship develop to that point?

MARTIN HIMEL: Well, this is the whole point we said about passivity. Actually for about two months, she was going nowhere. She just got a lot of wannabes, everybody was wannabe. Everybody was saying, we got to kill infidels, ra ra ISIS. Yes, ISIS is the best thing, non-Muslims should be killed. Terrible stuff, horrible videos putting around but it's all wannabes. And we weren't getting anywhere. And I was just about to say, throw in the towel to Sara, because Theo was going somewhere with Rashid and then that ended, and I said well, I guess that's as far as it's going to go, which is not bad. I never thought it would go that far. And literally just about a week before we're going to finish, somebody contacted me and she says she's in Raqqa, and her name is Umhamza. So I said OK, we all agreed, go with it, let's see where it goes. And they developed this, I would call it some sort of a feminine relationship, a relationship between two women. And it goes places.

LL: Yeah, and just to be clear Raqqa is considered to be the capital of the Islamic State in Syria. At first they're exchanging just online. What kinds of things were they saying to each other?

MARTIN HIMEL: Well, for instance Umhamza was trying to show that as Raqqa is a very livable place. So, the kids go to school, she hasn’t shown faces or anything like that, she shows back of heads and books. You can get good smoothies in Raqqa and she shows that. There’s lots of cats and pets. There's a lot of tweets we didn't put in the film about cars and the lack of cars and trying to get some, you know, good junk food you can't get there, but maybe you can get it. And, you know, about life. And then the conversation develops to what are the kids like and what's it like when your husband goes to fight, are you worried? I have a daughter in law. All of these, it's basically a conversation about life, but a very unusual place in life.

LL: OK. I want to play a clip from the documentary. This is actually from the stage where it's moved into where they're having phone conversation. So this is a conversation between Sara and Umhamza and it's followed by an interview with Sara.

SOUNDCLIP

UMHAMZA: But you have your, you still are for 22 of May?

SARA: Yes, I’m still, my flight is still on the 22nd of May, and it feels like it’s coming close.

UMHAMZA: OK, I guess time is running out now. Maybe we don’t talk about that over here. [unintelligible]

SARA: Yeah.

UMHAMZA: The date, and so on.

SARA: Yeah of course.

UMHAMZA: We don’t know who is with us now.

SARA: I feel that I am a lot of the times manipulating her. And it's not a comfortable feeling. It's difficult to continue to lie to this woman, because she does seem like she’s genuine.

LL: So how difficult was it for Sara to keep up that facade, based on what she's just saying there?

MARTIN HIMEL: Well, two things I’d like to say. It’s good you took that point. This is the true strength of an incredible recruiter. Sara knows full well that she's a terrorist, that she's luring gullible women to come to Syria, it's a one way ticket to a horrible existence. And yet she can't help liking her. And the true recruiter, talking to experts, etc. is the one that connects with you emotionally, not cognitively. She succeeded, Umhamza has succeeded in connecting with Sara somewhere in her personal psyche to bond with her as a person. She likes Sara, likes Umhamza, knowing full well that Umhamza is a terrorist. So, what happened was at this particular point, she started to say I don't know if I can keep going on. And I thought the reason was that, you know, gosh, we never thought this would go so far, and that she's talking to real terrorists, she's going to talk to a killer. The son-in-law is a killer. He's an active jihadi fighter. And she could be very understandably scared. I made one iron rule in this whole thing, not knowing where it’s going to go. Any time Theo or Sara want to walk away, no questions asked, it's done. But I decided not to talk to her about this. What I did, I spoke to, it was called Team Leader in the project, who’s the expert. And he said I'll talk to her, because they had a certain relationship, that they knew each other well, etc. they trusted each other. And then he came back to me, and he said something really astounding. He said the problem is not that she's scared, she's not scared at all, she's fine with this. The problem is, is that I've seen this many times before, he said, and security services are aware of it, that there is almost a subtle form of Stockholm syndrome. Maybe I should explain that for a second. But Stockholm Syndrome is basically if you're surrounded by a certain type of people, whether you believe what they believe or not, their ideology and their beliefs and their emotional attachment to something sort of seeps into your psyche, it's inevitable, especially if you're trying to win their trust. So she was pulled by an unconscious emotional liking to Umhamza, and that also showed us Umhamza’s real power. Now, imagine if you're a gullible girl and you're not trying to pull this off, and you're wooed by her. She has a lot of power.

LL: But she was willing to stick with it, obviously. And you just alluded to something else that happened later on, Umhamza offered marriage to Sara, between Sara and her son-in-law.

MARTIN HIMEL: Correct.

LL: And who is as you said, a jihadi, a Swedish jihadi named Michael Skramo. Tell us how that first came up.

MARTIN HIMEL: The important thing, as I said before, is passivity. So, there was a long time period on Twitter, etc. where they were talking about, well, should you come here married or not? And so, then the discussion evolved, well it would be ideal if you got married here. And then the discussion went what kind of husband you looking for? And there was all sorts of discussion about whether you would want to marry an Arab husband, or a Middle Eastern husband, somebody who's been married before or not, a European. And then the discussion sort of went well, I think I'd rather have a European husband, it's a mentality I know. And then she said I'll look around. And the weird thing is, you've got to understand, the camera’s not always on. The weird thing is I was filming something with Sara, and suddenly she says, hey I just got another message. And that's when the question came, do you want to marry our son-in-law? And it blew her away, blew all of us away. And so that's how it came up. You must let them lead and they did lead.

LL: And what did you find out about Michael Skramo?

MARTIN HIMEL: Michael Skramo, you could say he's either number one or tied to number one, Swedish terrorist. He is very well known in Sweden as a terrorist, as someone who’s left for ISIS. He is native Swede. He's not somebody that came from maybe a Middle Eastern background, that was a Muslim before. He embraced the faith in 2004 and then he got into Wahhabism, which is a more extreme form of Islam and then into ISIS Islam. And then one day, he basically preached a lot, and he had a lot of records of his preaching. And then one day he just tweeted, I took the whole family to ISIS, I've moved. And from that moment on he's been on Facebook, and he's posting terrible things. He's posted I call on all Muslims in Sweden to kill infidels, to kill non-Muslims. We have to attack and kill them. He's expressed total support for the Paris bombings, the Brussels bombings, the downing of airplanes. He's a very tough character. He talks about his battles, that God saved him in certain battles from the American attacks. He's done videos calling on Swedes to join ISIS and come. He's very very active.

LL: And yet here he is in this position, where he's trying to charm Sara into marrying him and they end up talking. What was that like? What was the exchange between them like?

MARTIN HIMEL: Well the exchange, this is where Sara’s great ability is, in my opinion Unbelievability. Where she might have had an emotional problem with Umhamza, she does not have an emotional problem with Michael Skramos. She sees him as a killer, and she detests his ego, and his hey look, I'm a real tough sort of fighter. But she knows how to manipulate him so beautifully. It's, you know, it made me feel as a man to some degree, are we that dumb? You know, it's just amazing she says I just talked to his ego, I butter him up, and then get him talking and talking and talking. And he just gives away how to get into Syria, where to go, how easy it is, don't wear this, wear that. They talk about how they're going to fool the ISIS authorities to get in there, so he can take her immediately. She basically seduced him into really wanting her.

LL: So then how did the relationship end, I guess, is the best way to say that?

MARTIN HIMEL: Well, we reached also a point where you heard it, May 22nd. She's either going to show up or not. And we were toying with the idea of doing a Skype video, but Sara said that's a line I'm not going to cross. And so we said fine, you know, we would have make up and we're going to do everything. But she said that's not a line I'm going to go through. I said fine. And so, there was no choice, it had to end. And as you understand, we had some real experts on computers, ISIS is trying all the time to figure out where the computers are, who the people are. There were all sorts of games they were playing that we were aware of. And so, we just had to end it. And so the person who took all the precautions in making sure that were not spotted just basically, just cut everything down and we disappeared into oblivion.

LL: Sara was no more.

MARTIN HIMEL: Sara was no more.

LL: So you decide to eventually travel to Sweden, because you want to fill up Michael Skramos’ story now that you know who he is. And amazingly you get an in-person interview with Umhamza, who is Sara's recruiter and Skramos’ mother-in-law. And she had actually returned from Syria. I don't think you knew that when you were first going there.

MARTIN HIMEL: When we went there, the thing that you realize really is to how effective ISIS. Well, we wanted to find old friends of his, we wanted to find family. We wanted to do that. Nobody would talk. They were terrified of him, absolutely terrified of him. One person said they were going to talk, somebody who went to chef school. He was a chef apparently. And he was a juggler and he was a few other things. Said he would talk, but he never showed up. It was really really hard. So we went through the police and we went through other sources to get information. Thank God he left a big trail of video, so we used that too. We sort of browsed around and wondered what they knew about Michael and Amanda, his wife, and the mother-in-law. Where are, you know, what's happening in Syria? And then somebody popped up. Hey we just heard the mother-in-law came back and is in Gothenberg, where we were. And so, look, we had to do something, we didn't know what, we had to do something. And then basically, we found out where she lived and that's how we came to it. But to tell you the truth. I never thought she was going to talk to us.

LL: And there you are, and you get led into the apartment. And she starts talking. I want to play a clip from that interview, and you are actually using a hidden camera in this.

MARTIN HIMEL: Yes.

LL: So, it's not perfect audio but you can certainly understand her. This is Umhamza talking about life under ISIS.

SOUNDCLIP

UMHAMZA: And living there, it was awesome, it was good. And it was safer for me there, than going here.

MARTIN HIMEL: Really?

UMHAMZA: Yes.

MARTIN HIMEL: Why is that?

UMHAMZA: No one harasses me, attacks me, rude to me like here. I felt more free there, than here.

LL: Now, she says she felt more free under ISIS in Syria, than at home in Sweden. Did that surprise you?

MARTIN HIMEL: Well, first of all, you have to understand the conditions this was happening in. And the most important thing I wanted to do when I walked in, is I wanted to prove that it was her. I could not conclusively prove that that woman was Umhamza until I actually met her and then everything was proven. The voice was the same, and those birds you hear, on all her tweets, she has lots of things about birds and parrots. It made perfect sense. But basically, she is dressed in full niqab. You know, which I’ll just explain, full black and her face is covered. just the eyes are evident. And she is a very very very strict Islamic woman in the Wahabi ISIS way. And so she says that she's hassled a lot in Sweden. And there, following those very very strict rules of Islam, she said she felt more comfortable and she's comfortable with their ideology.

LL: Then why did she leave?

MARTIN HIMEL: She left because, while she was very active in social media and advocating for ISIS and everything in 2015, the game changed in 2016. The allies, the Americans, NATO started to really bomb Raqqa and the other areas really hard. It became very dangerous, since even our interview, the route to Turkey is cut off, the route to Mosul is under siege. It's not fun being there anymore. It's very dangerous. And she has four children, one always stayed in Sweden, one was married to Michael Skramo, and two were preteens, and they were there. And I think that she felt a tremendous threat to herself and them, and it got to be too dangerous and she wanted out. She didn't announce to ISIS I'm going, you can't leave. She escaped.

LL: Yeah, because I understand it's very very hard to--

MARTIN HIMEL: [interposing] It’s death, you’re caught, it’s death.

LL: So that does that mean that she has renounced ISIS?

MARTIN HIMEL: No, she hasn't renounced, the way she put it, ISIS is great, ISIS treats a Muslim person the way it should be. There's only one thing wrong with them. They don't let you leave, and that's not very Islamic. That's all she had to say about that.

LL: Well, then what's her legal status in Sweden if she's an avowed ISIS supporter?

MARTIN HIMEL: Now it's very tenuous, because we're coming out with this documentary. But you see, part of the problem with Europe that's changing, and Sweden has not changed very much, and this is the issue, is that they were not very vigilant about this. In Sweden, the law until 2016 was if you went to Syria and there was something called ISIS there, and you came back and there was no eyewitness or concrete visual proof that you were involved in killing people, there's no reason to convict you of anything. And the result of that is there are 100 active jihadis walking around Sweden today, active, people who fought and killed people, only two were convicted because they were stupid enough to film themselves executing people, because they thought it was cool and they are in jail. Then in 2016, April, May, the way was told me from the police, after the Brussels bombings and the Paris bombings, they changed the law. That if you went there you're going to be arrested, but not retroactively. So she came in before 2016 and she came in probably as, oh, you know, my son-in-law brought me there and it wasn't my idea and all that. But I think when this film comes out, that's all going to change very fast, because she's now shown as actively advocating for ISIS.

LL: Now that will be interesting to see what happens to her next. I'm also wondering though, in the interview, why you didn't confront her? You had an opportunity to actually say we know what you were doing, you were a recruiter, why?

MARTIN HIMEL: Yes. I must tell you, maybe that was a mistake on my part. I had three things going through my mind at that time. One was first of all, I was extremely surprised I was sitting there too. Am I even getting any of this, because I really wanted to express her support for ISIS more than anything else. That was very very important for me. And three, I developed a very strong bond with Theo and Sara, and somehow and I probably was mistaken, but somehow I felt that if I raised that there, I was threatening them in some way at that particular minute. And I just didn't want to do it. In retrospect, I probably should have raised it but I didn't.

LL: So she doesn't know and she won't find out until this airs about what happened in your deception?

MARTIN HIMEL: I think the full impact will come out this weekend.

LL: Do you think that that puts you or Theo or Sarah in any danger?

MARTIN HIMEL: I'm not worried about Theo and Sara, to tell you the truth I'm not very worried about myself too. I don't think I'm that important. I don't think that my presence is that important. I think that people in ISIS are way way too preoccupied with just surviving right now, because they are under almost existential threat. And I think it will get much worse in the coming months. And they seem to work more through lone wolves, just killing as many people as possible. So maybe Michael Skramo, he likes to threaten everybody. Michael Skramo threatens people all the time. He might issue some threats and all that, but I don't take them very seriously. I felt it was very important that somebody visually will come out and stand by the story, because a lot of people who are not visually identified [laughs] coming with such a story is a big problem.

LL: Interesting glimpse inside ISIS. Martin, thank you very much.

MARTIN HIMEL: Thank you.

LL: Martin Himel is the director of the documentary Undercover in ISIS, which airs this Sunday on the CBC documentary channel at 8:00 pm Eastern, 5:00 pm Pacific. And it will air again Monday night at 9:00 pm Eastern and 6:00 pm Pacific. That is it for our program for today. And finally today, the winner of this year's CBC creative nonfiction prize was announced this week. Leslie A. Davidson’s winning essay is titled Adaptation. In 2011, she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and 18 months later her husband Lincoln was diagnosed with young onset dementia. As Leslie learned to manage her own condition, she was also learning to care for a partner who would forget where he was and who she was. This new and difficult reality was the inspiration for Leslie's essay. We caught up with Leslie Davidson and asked her to read a passage from Adaptation. And we’ll give her the last word today. I'm Laura Lynch, thank you for listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

Listen to CBC's Creative Nonfiction Prize-winning story

LESLIE A. DAVIDSON: I know I have to get this right the first time. Perhaps I shouldn't have brought him on such a long walk. I don't have a plan for what I will do if he is determined to head up river, if he decides to go I will have to go with him. I take silent inventory of the amount of water we have, the snacks, whether or not I packed my meds. I'm not used to having to carry them everywhere. I just wanted to take advantage of a beautiful spring morning, to go for a walk. Look at the river honey, I say, see, it's flowing that way it's going to town, it's going home like us, see. Remember all those times in the canoe? We came this way, the river flows this way. We follow it home just like we always have. I am not used to this. I am not used to being the one in charge. The boss of both of us. I am not used to living with Parkinson's disease. I am not used to being shaken by tremors and slowed by unresponsive muscles. I am not used to relying on pills. I am not used to his spontaneous episodes of paranoia. His belief that though I look like his wife, I am not she. I am nearly a stranger to myself and I hate being a stranger to him. I hate to be not trusted, to be not believed. The irony of it is I do lie to him. I sneak his medication into his juice at dinner. I tell him the library is closed sometimes when it isn't, because I don't want him to go alone and he doesn't want me with him. The dementia literature tells me it's OK to do that. I still feel guilty. I'm not used to this.

[Music: Extro]

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September 23, 2016 full episode transcript

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