Mexico and Canada must work together — and keep Trump under control, says former president Vicente Fox

Guests: Vicente Fox

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VOICE: Hello. It's me, Vicente Fox, with another message for last year's rotten Halloween pumpkin. Donald, every time I make fun of you, which I do alot, people say, why can't you be our president? America, I feel your pain. We all do. And that is why today I'm proud to announce my candidacy for president of the United States.

AMT: Well of course, he's kidding in that satirical online video, but you heard the former Mexican president referred to the U.S. president, Donald Trump, as a rotten Halloween pumpkin. That's the quote. Vicente Fox has been trolling Mr. Trump on Twitter for months. It's cutting commentary and it has made him a favorite on the late night talk show circuit and attracted 1.24 million Twitter followers. But it was back in 2000 that Vicente Fox really rocked the political world. When he was elected 55th president of Mexico, it was historic. He was the first opposition politician in 71 years to unseat the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party. Now these days Vicente Fox has taken on another political project. He is pushing for international drug decriminalization and marijuana legalization in particular. He's one of the newest members of the board with a Canadian medical cannabis company called Khiron Life Sciences Corp. and that brought him to Toronto last week. Vicente Fox came into the studio to speak with me just as Donald Trump's NAFTA renegotiation Friday deadline was looming. And as it turns out, that deadline came and went with no deal and over the weekend the U.S. president threatened to cut Canada out entirely, if concessions are not made. He was tweeting, "There is no political necessity to keep Canada in the NAFTA deal." Well talks will now resume Wednesday. My conversation with former Mexican President Vicente Fox began with trade. Here it is. Hello and welcome.

VICENTE FOX: Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. Great city, great country. We love each other, Mexico and Canada and looking at the future with a lot of optimism.

AMT: You were smiling as we played that clip of you in that video.

VF: It was fun. It was fun.

AMT: You've had a lot of fun with that.

VF: Yes. Yes he's been good sparring to us and I guess the first round was won by Mexico and now we have a trade agreement. We have NAFTA again and I think it's going to be very successful this next 25 years of NAFTA. I hope Canada joins in. A decision has to be made by Prime Minister and of course parliament. What is the choice of Canada, but if I could give a suggestion, it should be let's keep together. We have built this North America very successfully and we still have a long way to go. And we must stick together because the challenges are on the East are in other economies and we have to remain strong, remain successful, remain competitive, remain provocative.

AMT: So in your view is there a good trade deal without Canada? Does Canada need to be part of that deal?

VF: I think it needs at least on the Mexican side because we have had a great relationship. Usually we get together when we're going to meet the elephant in between us and it's been useful for the two of us to defend ourselves together. And I think it's going to happen. I think Canada's choice is going to be to have an agreement. You cannot avoid dealing with the largest economy in the world. It brings us a lot of benefits. It brings you a lot of headaches also, but mostly it's very beneficial. It's been to Canada. It's been to Mexico.

AMT: Well Mexico did sign this deal with the U.S. without Canada. Did Mexico turn its back on Canada?

VF: Well you know it's incredible. At the very beginning Prime Minister Trudeau said that he would protect Canadian interest, even if Mexico was not there. And at the end of the picture, it happened the opposite. So Mexico signed the contract without making important concessions and getting some advantages from the United States and I'm sure Canada will do it. Why did we go like this? I don't know. I don't have an explanation, but yet the objective is to have a NAFTA and I think it will continue. And we will have for sure a trade relationship with Canada. Canada and Mexico, if anything else happens.

AMT: Mr. Trudeau originally said that he wanted to make sure Mexico was part of it though. I think that Canadians kind of got thrown by this one.

VF: Well yes that was one day. The other day he said that he had to defend Canadian interests and it's ok. I mean it's business. It's trading and you have to look for a good deal. You have negotiate. You have to concede. You have to get bad, good things from the other, but trade is always a win-win situation. And this is what Trump doesn't understand. He thinks that trade agreements in the case of United States is for United States to have a surplus. He see it only for one side and it's not the truth. Trade agreements bring good things for both countries.

AMT: Donald Trump likes to boast about being a tough negotiator. Do you think he got the best of the Mexican president? Do you know enough about the deal?

VF: Well I think now we know Trump much better than before. And he is not a good dealer. He was not a good leader as businessman. It's clear his game, he attacks first, he tries to reduce the capacities of the opponent and then he takes all the marbles and like a good kid he runs away with the marbles. That not going to be happening in the world. He now learned that all countries have dignity. That we all nations have interest and that we all nations have learned that working in harmony, that working together is a way to bring to the world so many great things. I mean the progress of the world these last two decades has been fantastic. Has been incredible. The reduction on poverty is unbelievable and the increase in middle class as you'd think China, 300 million families now are middle class and used to be poor. So the world is performing incredibly and we should stay on that path. But now some people like Trump, some people like in Britain, they have decided that they want to take the world in their respective countries back to a hundred years ago to nation states. That's the way they describing. Nation states that control their borders, that control the people, that control media and that's not the way humanity is moving along. That's not the future. The future is different to that, so we must keep on going, progressing, doing the things that we know how to do and the things that have worked well for all of us.

AMT: You talk about borders. Mr. Trump still seems to think Mexico is still going to pay for that wall. Is there, we know there are barriers now.

VF: Not that wall. That F wall.

AMT: OK. Well and will the wall as he talks about it, exist ever, do you think?

VF: No it will not, unless he wants to pay for it or unless U.S. citizens and taxpayers want to pay for that beautiful wall as he calls it. It's nonsense. It's a useless wall. It's not the way to go. Walls don't work. It didn't work in Berlin. It didn't work in China. But this guy is stubborn. He wants to build that wall and maybe put his name on the wall, the Trump Wall. So he thinks that's his legacy. It's a stupid decision. It's wasting U.S. money. Wasting 35 billion U.S. dollars. I mean imagine what we could do with 35 billion U.S. dollars. How many universities we could build up. How many successful ventures and economies we could fix. How many jobs we could bring and if we would invest that amount of money in developing Central America, which right now is a source of migration coming to the United States because Mexico is not anymore. Mexicans are going back to Mexico, not coming in to United States, but if you would invest those 35 billion, it would develop jobs. It would develop economy, it would develop opportunities for all the people that is migrating.

AMT: There are many Americans concerned about the illegal immigration over the Mexican border. You make the point of where it's coming from. What responsibility does Mexico have in that?

VF: Well to promote opportunities for Mexicans. To develop the region together with Central America, so that we go to the source of the problem. The source of the problem is that in those communities, in those places, you don't have jobs. You cannot generate income to your families, so you move like Canada, like United States. This two great nations have been built all along by migrants. It's migrant forces, migrant challenge that has developed this. Now I understand that any nation has to cast the right to control its borders. That's correct. And number two the migration maybe today is overdoing, maybe it's too many. But migration has brought great things to our nation. So what we need is to sit down, use our wisdom, discuss, negotiate and come up with something that will solve the problem. And the way, the only way I see that the problem of migration today can be solved is bringing opportunities to the source. So how you would comprehend or understand people in Syria. I mean when everyday is violence, is bombings, is killings, you run away from violence and those migrants are desperate or you run away from hunger or you run away from disease. So migration is pretty well explained behind, there is a reason for it. So what we have to do is solve things in Syria. And I urge the United Nations and United States and Russia to stop the fighting, to stop creating violence and to bring opportunities to Syrians because it's very sad to see those kids in the Mediterranean Sea dying in the arms of their parents.

AMT: You know that the Trump administration is not only talking about people coming over the border, it's talking about sending people who came over the border years ago back to the other side of the border. How do you respond to those, that growing view that we hear? Not only in the U.S., we're starting to hear you know hundreds of asylum seekers have come to Canada over irregular border crossings. We're hearing some of the same phrases in Canada as well. How do you respond to what you hear?

VF: It's the price of success. At the very end, migration is an economic issue. It's supply and demand. Why the people move? Because where you make one dollar in Mexico, by crossing the Rio Grande or by jumping the wall, you make ten. Who would not go for that incentive? That motivation of making ten times more than what you're doing. When you can do that and improve the quality of life of your family. So it's the price of success. Successful nations are a place where everyone wants to come. Now that's why we need to find solutions. It's not good to have open borders. It's not good for anybody just to move from one nation to another. We must bring order and that can be done. I call it supply and demand because remember, when the U.S. economy was growing, at a pace of three or four per cent during the 70s, the 80s and the 90s, they needed labour. They needed to import labour and they did it. About a half a million workers would come into the United States and find immediately a job, working for corporations, for farming, for cattle ranching or whatever. And that's when Mexicans came in. The opportunities were here and United States needed that. Let's take the case of nursing. Nursing is something that United States do not have enough and each day more elderly population needing nursing. So you have to address the issues where it's an advantage for migration, but again, I absolutely agree. Countries have the right to control their borders, but you don't have to be, you don't have the right to be inhumane. You don't have to be the tough guy that Trump is, that he doesn't look at the suffering of people or the tears of kids that are lacking the opportunities. We must become compassive and that's what that great nation United States has been all along. But this guy comes in and he says I'm going to build a wall. I'm going to kick the ass of everybody out. Those Mexicans go back to their country and those Muslims or those others guys, we don't want them here. He is crazy. That will never work. You cannot isolate yourself. You cannot get yourself between four walls. There will never be a wall high enough to retain people that is hungry, that needs food, that needs opportunities. They will jump walls and they will go work. This is why my concept is we must have a responsible banker. Government should enhance and promote that banker to keep being successful, but always linked to the real guard. If those forgotten ones, in that regard we don't attend, we get what we have today, is violence, is migration and these people looking for opportunities. This world stated it very clear, belongs to 8 billion people. This world does not belong to Trump or does not belong to United States. This world is our home of 8 billion people and we must have the opportunity. The fair opportunities we all need.

AMT: What is it about Donald Trump that bothers you so much?

VF: His personality. His ego. His soberbia. I mean it's not possible that you have a human being like him. Presumptuous, he talks about the U.S. economy as if it was the greatest and fastest growing economy in the world. United States economy is only less than 20 per cent of the world's economy. There is a huge, great world out there. 80 per cent of world gross product comes from other places and he wants to isolate the United States. Why would he sacrifice U.S. citizens to take him out of the global arena and bring him in and close him in four walls. That's a big mistake.

AMT: Do you think he's being provocative, that he knows he's just being provocative or do you think he believes that stuff he tweets?

VF: You cannot be provocative when you're on the public arena. When you're a president of a nation. Where you represent 300 million Americans. When you have the power to destroy with atomic bombs or with an army, you have to be responsible. You have to be prudent and he's not. I don't know why American people, 35 per cent of them, chose this guy as president of that great nation. That said, that presidency deserves a much better leader, a compassive leader with a human attitude because that responsibility is global. It's not for the United States. It's not making America great. We have to make the world great. We have to make Canada great. We have to make Mexico and Latin America great. We have to work together. Nobody on its own will be able to survive in this globe. Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, I spoke with him last Thursday. Stay with us to hear more of our conversation after the news. You won't want to miss his take on drug decriminalization and on Mexico's soon to be president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

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[Chanting of Viva Mexico at rally]

VOICE: The former mayor of Mexico City, who's known as AnLo, will become Mexico's first leftist president in decades. During a victory speech on Sunday night, he vowed to transform Mexico by reducing corruption and violence.

AMT: What kind of president do you think he'll be?

VF: Who knows? Because what he showed campaigning is that he's a populist. That he's a demagogue. That he's a extreme leftist and that he can take Mexico to the route of Venezuela. But once he got close to be president and once he's assuming the responsibility, he might be behaving like a Lula. Lula did great things for Brazil and he came from the far left, but he decided to invite the business community to help them generate wealth so that he could distribute wealth.

AMT: More with former Mexican President, Vicente Fox, right after the CBC News. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come, a look at a very Canadian type of special victims unit. We're talking about crimes, such as stolen cattle, pilfered oysters and mysteriously butchered pigs. They are farm crimes and while they may seem like small potatoes to some, they cut to the heart of many agricultural workers' livelihoods every year. There's a new CBC documentary series all about farm crimes and the people who investigate them. I'm going to speak to the director, as well as a victim and an RCMP agent involved in solving some of these crimes in half an hour. But first, more from a former Mexican leader who is no amigo of Donald Trump's.

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AMT: Vicente Fox served as Mexico's 55th president from 2000 to 2006. If you were listening before the news, you would have heard us talking about his thoughts on trade, border walls and global cooperation. Vicente Fox was in Toronto last week for one of his latest projects, the expanding market for medical marijuana. He's on the board of and a strategic adviser to the Canadian medical cannabis company, Khiron Life Sciences Corp. Vincente Fox joined me in our studio and here's the second part of my conversation with him. I want to talk about what brings you to Canada today. You work with the cannabis company Khiron Life Sciences. Why did you decide to join this company's board of directors?

VF: I've been on the on the space of the cannabis drug 12 years. I've been very close to the Holland phenomena to the Portugal legalization to Uruguay to every state in United States because I want answers for Mexico. I want answers for Mexico's violence that we're living every day. I want answers for those who need products to solve their health problem and this company has that. This company is focused on consumers, focused on patients, on using this beautiful plant to solve people's health problems. And that's why this company, Khiron, acquired a hospital and a network of pharmacies in Colombia that attend over a hundred thousand patients and now they're going to get solutions to their problems. And they are developing a source of production in Colombia. We are developing the source. We already have plans, specific plans for Mexico, as soon as the legalization of medical use has a regulation because it's already been approved. As soon as new government that has expressed, being a very liberal government, that they will also approve recreational use. So now we're going to by the side of the leader on this industry and it's Canada. And the surprise is that you can change and take away this beautiful plant from criminals, from underground, from illegality, from crime, from cartels and put it in the hands of responsible people, responsible corporations. Put them in the hands of academic, scientifics and businessmen to make out of this industry, one of the industries of the future, creating jobs, creating wealth and solving health problems for many people.

AMT: How much opportunity for growth do you see in the medical cannabis market in Latin America?

VF: I don't think you can put a limit to it. As long as we stay on the responsible side of the management of this industry, as long as it keeps innovating and bringing in products to solve people's problems. There's no limit. We are 500 million Latin Americans. We're 120 million Mexicans and we have purchasing power today. Mexico's market is the largest for any consumer product in the world. So it's a big market with purchasing capacity, with middle classes and with needs. So when you understand that and you create products and you create companies, you use technology, you use science to do that, you're successful.

AMT: Have you ever taken cannabis for medical purposes?

VF: No. Myself personally, no.

AMT: What makes you believe in the virtues of medical cannabis?

VF: Because I see what I see because I've been around. When I originally visited places like Seattle, all this region, that long ago they had huge amount of consumption, Vancouver. I was invited to do conferences. I was invited to speak about the industry and at that time I would sit down with this people with long horsetail hair, with earrings on their ears, with jeans and today you go there and you see people with jacket and a tie, professionals. It's a total transformation of the industry. Those who think about this industry as junkies and people just smoking marijuana, that's over. It's either you smoke or use the product, it's with moderation, with responsibility and it's yours to calm down and use it for breaking your stress, moments of the day. So I have not experienced personally, but I have experienced with many people, many friends that I've been around in the last ten years.

AMT: The Canadian Medical Association has said that the vast majority of physicians in Canada are not comfortable with prescribing medical cannabis because of a lack of evidence about its efficacy. How do you respond to that?

VF: Well you could say the same to alcohol or sugar or cigarette.

AMT: But doctors don't prescribe alcohol.

VF: Well that's the good thing about this plant. That you can use it for recreational use and those are part of the fact that you get on a cigarette. You take your own risk. This is why I'm always in support of freedom, the exercise your freedom with responsibility. I'm fully 100 per cent on the side of advocating, informating. People needs to know what happens if you smoke in excess.

AMT: Right. No, I'm just asking about the disconnect though because there is a Canadian company looking to grow medical marijuana in other countries, when in the country that it's here, you have concerns being raised domestically by the Canadian Medical Association.

VF: Well they have to re-evaluate a little bit more. They have to come in and discuss. Get information. Because what I see here is millions of patients, most of them already being attended or about to be attended and it's working. It's working. Now again, any consumption without moderation will bring problems to you. So I mean medical associations have not accepted many drugs in the past and finally they had to accept them because at the same time they can harm or they can be useful to you. Just look at morphine. Just look at heroin. It's used in every single hospital in the world and they're not good products if you use them wrongly. And that's exactly the change. Now this plant and very nearly in Mexico, the Amapola plant, where you get out the morphine and the heroin, it's going to be legalized. And I think it's the right decision because if you get one state company to control all buying of that flower from all the producers, we will stop this killing, this war we have there, with 50 to 100 people die every day, fighting for that little flower.

AMT: I want to ask you about that because this is part of a continuum. You believe in the decriminalization of other drugs as well.

VF: Yeah.

AMT: Explain why that, how that works, in terms of what that will do to the problems we see.

VF: Number one ethical issue, governments do not have the right to impose behaviour, to impose people one thing or another. We should decide on our own and government should not control our conscious. So that freedom, that extended freedom is the founding fathers' dream. It's God's creation and that is my feeling. So ethical reasons. Number two because things can be good for you, as long as you know what you need them for, what you want to use them for. So as I said, morphine, heroin in the hands of the bad hombres, as Trump says, it's terrible. But heroin and morphine in the hands of doctors and doctors association is very good. Good thing for our families and for our patients.

AMT: How did you come around to this way of thinking? Because you were running a government that was part of a war on drugs.

VF: OK. This is a personal evolvement based on freedom and based on my beliefs. And when you're governing, the case is different. You're governing for people, you have to respect people. And the best way to respect people and citizens is to give them freedom because if you impose a dogma like Trump, he wants everybody to be evangelical and he's supporting his very weak presidency on evangelicals. That's wrong. I mean dogmas, religion, should not be part of government, more so they limit our freedom. And same thing happens with political parties. I don't understand why United States has Democrats and Republicans. You're born Democrat and you die Democrat. You're born Republican and you die Republican. You're losing your freedom. They impose you too many beliefs, too many dogmas. That's why I see political parties and ideologies disappearing from the face of the earth.

AMT: But can I bring you back to the idea of the of the decriminalization of wider drugs, of heroin, of cocaine. How did you come along around to this way of thinking given the battles and what we've seen in Mexico over the last decades?

VF: Well the battle is because you're repressing because you are imposing prohibitions. Look at this and this is facts. When I ended up my administration back in 2006, Mexico reached it's best point in the rate of crime, nine crimes for each 100,000 inhabitants. When Calderon came in, the next president, he decided to bring the army, on the thinking that through the army, he will finish the cartels. He would get rid of all the criminals and that in six months, peace will come back to Mexico. Well that year, when he came in and he brought the army, the crime rate went from nine up to 28. 300 per cent increase in one year, of homicides, crimes and killings and blub. Prohibitions don't work. You cannot impose to human beings, prohibitions, we were created free. Give you an additional common, garden of Eden, Adam and Eve. God told Adam and Eve, this is for you. This is my gift to you. Enjoy. Have fun, have sex, whatever you want. All of this is yours, but please, this apple, don't eat it. It's prohibited. What's the first thing that Adam and Eve did is go for the apple and they ate it and they were thrown out of paradise. What if God would have told them, look Adam, this is yours, enjoy, but be careful with this apple. This will hurt your stomach. This will break your health. Don't eat it because of this and this, it has worms, it's not good for you. I'm sure Adam and Eve would have understood and would have, with information given, taking the right decision. So that's exactly what I say about this prohibition, they don't work.

AMT: And you're not the only former politician who has been very involved with their country with the war on drugs and seen great crime, who says there's got to be another way, this way isn't working. But you're also not the only former politician to get involved in the legalization of drugs, after they're legalized. And I'm just wondering, how do we square that as citizens, when we watch the very politicians who uphold those laws, leave power and then get into the business of using those very drugs.

VF: Let's go to the essence, Mexico does not consume drugs, significantly. We don't produce drugs, significantly. Mexico is just in between the drug produced in the south, in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and that drug comes to the north. Comes to United States and Canada. The big, the huge consumer markets of drugs is United States and secondarily is Canada. So Mexico is in between. It's not a war, but we're in this war because of Calderon and because of the United States because United States say I don't want drugs in my territory.

AMT: Can you do what you believe you need to do with the legalization and decriminalization of many drugs, without the United States? Or do you have to get, the man you talk about, Mr. Trump, on board?

VF: No. The contrast and the conflict is that same United States has a conflict. State level approved and legalized. Federal level, prohibition and punishment. And so it's a conflict between the state, local authorities and federal authorities. That's why the difference in Canada. That's why Canada is today moving very fast with the leader of this new industry and Khiron in the leader, also this industry on the medical side. And why this is possible because Canada is taking the decision federal, to all the provinces, national. So that makes the whole game totally different.

AMT: Is there any turning back now? Do you see.

VF: I hope not.

AMT: Do you see these other countries moving forward on this?

VF: I hope not. As long as we prove that we can act with responsibility. As we prove that this is an industry that can generate jobs, generate wealth and solve human beings problems in relation to health, it's going to be there forever and expanding and growing. And my forecast is that not long from now, like Holland did, like Portugal did, it's totally approved. All drugs. And they have regulation in Portugal, you can get drug on the supermarket. You got drug in the dispensaries, you have to go through a process of registering yourself. You have to get your prescription from an approved doctor. And once all that happens, you can have your heroin or you can have your morphine because doctor approval. Same thing with Holland.

VF: I want to wind back to your own country. On December 1st, Mexico will have a new president, Mr. Lopez Obrador. What kind of president do you think he'll be?

VF: Who knows. Because what he showed campaigning is that he's a populist. That he's a demagogue. That he's a extreme leftist and that he can take Mexico to the route of Venezuela or Cuba or Argentina. But once he got close to being president and once he's assuming the responsibility, he might be behaving like a Lula. Lula did great things for Brazil and he came from the far left, but he decided to invite the business community, the investors, the markets to help him generate wealth, so that he could distribute wealth. You cannot distribute wealth, if you don't generate wealth. So we have to wait and see Lopez Obrador. When you sit in a responsible chair that demands from you to be responsible, you change and to the fortune of Mexico, Lopez Obrador seems, I don't yet give him all the credit. Seems to be behaving well, in opposite of Trump. When he got to that chair, he said, wow I'm president now. I have all the power in the world. I can destroy the world or I can kick out Mexicans out of my country. I can build walls. That's stupid thinking. I don't know why they gave him so much power. So I hope November is the day, it's the day, when Democrats will take over Congress and there the wild horse, the wild beast will be domesticated. We need checks and balances in every country, every nation, otherwise these guys go crazy. There are messiahs. He will go as crazy as Maduro or Chavez in Venezuela. So Trump has to be controlled. He has not shown the capacity to control himself. He has not shown a capacity to be prudent, to be responsible, to be compassion. So we must stop him.

AMT: It's interesting what you say about Lopez Obrador though because you actually when he was second.

VF: I don't like him.

AMT: When he was mayor of Mexico, you didn't want him to run.

VF: But I am a Democrat. I'm a Democrat. If he won, he won. If people gave him support, 52 per cent of Mexicans, I'm a Democrat. I accept that. That doesn't mean that I accept if he starts doing things wrong. So I will wait and see if he keeps going the path that he seems to have elected. If he keeps this, almost half of his cabinet comes from my government, so that brings me peace and tranquility and that he's surrounded by good people. That he accepted now that he's elected president, to speak with the business community. He used to call them the mafia. Now he sits down with them because he understands that he needs them. So what I would think democracy brings us, a guy like him, a populist and a demagogue, all of the sudden, coming to reason. This is why I believe in enlightenment. Enlightenment is number one, reason. You have to reason things, you have to think think. Number two is science. You have to use all the resources that we have in this world, technology, innovation, science. And number three, humanism. Humanism is the key ingredient. We must be humane. Shortcut to happiness is being for others. It's understanding the other. It's putting myself in the shoes of the other. Compassion is a key ingredient of the good things that are going to happen in this world in the 21st century.

AMT: Anyone who's listening who's a Trump supporter will say, why won't you respect the democracy that brought him to power?

VF: I'm not doing anything against that. I know he's there. We negotiated a trade agreement that came out good for Mexico and the wall is not going to be paid by Mexico. He wants to build a wall, let him build. If he going to waste 35 billion U.S. dollars and U.S. citizens taxpayers. We don't care. We don't care that he builds a wall. It's his privilege, it's his right, but with his own money.

AMT: Do you miss it? Do you miss the presidential seat?

VF: Not at all. Really I mean it's, I think that's something that everybody that is in power should learn. There's time for serving people. There's time for working in foundations like Matt and I are doing. And I hope I live another 76 years and I keep on doing things because I'm happy today. Martha's happy today. We have a great love affair. We worked together. I miss her. This time she didn't come with me. As long as I have life, we're going to be doing things for others. Best advice I can give anybody. Do for others, give, and you will receive much more in exchange.

AMT: Vicente Fox, thank you for coming in. Good to speak to you.

VF: Muchas gracias. Felicidades Canada. Let's go ahead with NAFTA. Prime Minister Trudeau, get it going.

AMT: Might have to call it something else I hear.

VF: No more. I'm not using dirty words anymore.

AMT: Vicente Fox, President of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. He joined me in our Toronto studio. He recorded that conversation a few days ago. What do you think? He pulls no punches. Tweet us with your thoughts. We are @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook or go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on contact and let us know. And stay with us. Coming up in our next half hour, a new crime series that's decidedly not set in the big city streets. I'll speak with the creator of Farm Crimes, which is a documentary series from CBC. He'd been realizing that as people are victims of farm crimes, those of us reporting from urban places tend to make jokes out of it, instead of taking it seriously. And he thought that wasn't right. He'll talk about the very real crime affecting farmers fishers and others who work the land or water to feed us. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. You are listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. It's Labour Day. We're back with a new season of The Current today. Stay with us.

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CBC doc series chronicles how 'Farm Crime' hits vulnerable family businesses

Guests: Geoff Morrison, George Dowdle, Lindsay Anderson

AMT: Hi. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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VOICE: Thieves in Canada may have pulled off the sweetest heist of all time. Millions of dollars worth of maple syrup has been siphoned off from storage in Quebec. It's not yet clear exactly how much was stolen, but the warehouse held more than $30 million worth of syrup. Enough to fill one and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools.

AMT: And that's a news report from 2012. Remember that? More than 1000 barrels of maple syrup were stolen from a Quebec warehouse, $18 million worth of maple gold. They called it The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist and it made headlines around the world. At home, it helped to inspire a new CBC documentary series called, Farm crime. That series focuses on stories that don't always make the front page. Larceny unfolding in pastures and paddocks across Canada. We're going to hear from some of those affected in a few moments. But first, I'm joined by the creator of this series. Geoff Morrison is with me in Toronto. Hi.

GEOFF MORRISON: Hello.

AMT: How did that maple syrup heist lead to the creation of this series?

GM: I'm a nut for maple syrup. I just love it and I heard that story and I watched it really closely and I think a lot of people thought it was hilarious that someone had stolen $18 million of maple syrup. But I was, I was just like stunned by it. For one, the fact that someone would come up with the idea to steal that much maple syrup and that an agricultural product would be worth so much on the black market. I was just stunned by it. And you know, the more I thought about it and the more that story stayed in the news over the following years, the more I started to notice other kinds of farm crimes taking place. And I just thought it would be an interesting world to explore like looking at these incidents, but taking them quite seriously, as opposed to some of the tongue in cheek approaches of other media organizations.

AMT: Well we just heard in that report, "the sweetest heist." Tell me a little bit more about the media treatment that you noticed and what it told you about how journalists, most of them are urban, deal with this stuff.

GM: These stories when they you know, when they make like a national newspaper, usually it's a big city reporter writing them in. I think the perspective of someone from the city is that, oh you know, I'm not familiar with something like this. When does it ever happen? This is hilarious. Five million bees were stolen, $18 million dollars of maple syrup was stolen, but obviously to the people that were involved, it's very, very serious. And you know the more I started seeing these bigger reports, the more I started doing a bit more research into some of the smaller stories. So these stories do get written about in small town newspapers and in trade papers as well and certainly the coverage in those instances is totally straight. Like there's no joking at all.

AMT: And when you started digging into these stories, how willing were people to share their experiences?

GM: It's hard you know, these people were all like victims of crime. They've gone through very traumatic experiences. We encountered some people that were not willing and in part because of the trauma that they had gone through and what that might have been like to go through that trauma again. And then we also encountered people like the participants in the project who wanted their story told. They wanted it to go to a broader audience and to know that some of the struggles in their communities and in their industry and make sure that people do know about these things that are going on and that they do take them seriously. The second episode in your series is called, Hive Heist. We're going to play a little news clip from that episode.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Francis Labonte can't believe more than five million of his bees are gone.

[French speech]

VOICE: It probably happened in the middle of the night he said. More than 180 beehive crates like these, stolen. We work 24 hours a day to keep these bees healthy he says, but with growing demand and some bee populations on the decline, prices are up.

AMT: You can hear the emotion in Mr. Labonte's response there. Tell us more about his story.

GM: Well, Francis Labonte, he is the, I guess the third generation beekeeper in the Labonte honey family. They've been harvesting honey in Victoriaville, Quebec since 1937. And you know, for him and his brother who run the beekeeping operation, you know, something that's not often known is that a lot of beekeepers make most of their money not from producing honey, but from leasing their bees to pollinate fields in the summertime. And so for them to go their yard and find you know 180 odd hives stolen, five million bees, like that's their livelihood. Like that's how they're gonna make their money for the year. You know the theft was valued at $200,000. And it's not just a job to him, like this has been his life since grew up. You know his kids are now working in the industry as well.

AMT: So what happened? Did somebody take a truck and just drive all that stuff away, do they know?

GM: Somebody, so it was, it happened in the spring time. Pretty soon after the bees were taken outside, someone took a truck and loaded up, I think it was like a 184 hives and they were gone. They were just gone. The hives were never recovered. The bees were never found. Some people were prosecuted, but at the end of the day, I don't think the Labonte family feels like they were served justice. They lost around, you know thousands and tens of thousands of dollars.

AMT: Not to mention, whoever was going to lease those bees for pollination, they had to go somewhere else. They had to find somebody else with that volume of bees.

GM: And that's for sure. And you know there's a theory posited in the episode as to what the motivation was.

AMT: OK. Well let's move on from that and not do any spoilers, but you've got another episode, Cattle Cop. That was an alliteration there. We're going to talk to a real life cattle cop in a few moments. Tell us what happened to the man in your story, Walter Suntjens.

GM: So another like just unbelievable story, Walter, and similar to the Labonte family, his family had been farming this stretch of pasture just outside of Alberta for you know since the early 1900s. And he had a pretty significant operation, about 500 head of cattle, and he went on vacation with his wife, leaving the ranch in charge of his hired person.

AMT: Who they really trusted and who was a good worker.

GM: He was a great worker. He had hired him about five months earlier, paid to move him and his family and his five children into the ranch hand's house. And when he came back from his vacation, the whole house had been trashed. So his hired man was gone. There are about 50 head of cattle that were gone. The rest of his herd had been starved because they hadn't been fed and you know he immediately knew who did it. It was pretty clear, especially because the house was trashed. This guy stole the kitchen sink. Walter just bought a new kitchen sink for that house, no joke and he stole the kitchen sink.

AMT: Wow. And what happened? Did they find him?

GM: So again, you know I'm trying to avoid the spoilers, but so, Walter call the RCMP and his case didn't get a lot of attention. It was 50 head of cattle. Some you know damage to his property, but then he found out about this special livestock detail in Alberta. It was a two person livestock detail. One person carries, he's responsible for the north and one person is responsible for the south. And he started talking to this livestock investigator, there was genuine interest in his case. And this person, obviously had the expertise and the special knowledge, to try and catch someone who would commit a crime like this. And you know, I'm not spoiling anything by saying he stole the cattle on Kijiji, which is how a lot of livestock are sold and traded these days. And so you know, you put up an ad for cattle at a huge discount on Kijiji, you're going to attract buyers.

AMT: You make the point that the media doesn't always take these stories seriously. What about the justice system?

GM: The justice system is the justice system. You know theft over $5000 is a pretty broad charge to lay. It can you know incorporate so much. There can be such great loss and not even just talking about the value but the personal loss. You know take the example of the cattle rancher, so Walter, I think 20 of Walter's cattle were sold to an 18-year-old rancher, who was just starting out his first herd. He took out a bank loan to buy these cattle and the RCMP ended up finding those cattle and his possession. They matched the brand and they had to take them back. And so here's this kid who's out you know $20,000 dollars or whatever it is and sure the criminal in that case was brought to justice, ordered to pay restitution. Did this kid see any restitution? Nothing. There's no justice.

AMT: Really fascinating stuff. So what do you want people to take away from this?

GM: Again, just kind of a greater appreciation and awareness for these types of crimes and these types of incidents that go on in communities that you might not otherwise think about. And especially in farming communities, this is where, you know this is where we're getting our meat. This is where we're getting our blueberries. This is where we're getting our honey, our oysters from Prince Edward Island and these people are all taking a hit when these kinds of crimes happen.

AMT: Well we're going to talk to an oyster farmer in Prince Edward Island next. So thanks for coming in.

GM: Thank you.

AMT: Geoff Morrison created and directed the true crime documentary series, Farm Crime. He joined us in our Toronto studio. You can stream Farm Crime online at cbc.ca/farmcrime. Now talk about stolen cattle and bees and pigeons, those are just a few of the incidents that farm crime investigates. My next guest was on the wrong end of one of these crimes. George Dowdle farms oysters in the Southwest River in Prince Edward Island. He's in New London, Prince Edward Island. Hello.

GEORGE DOWDLE: How are you today?

AMT: Well I'm really curious to know what happened to you. Let's first of all talk about your oyster operation. What does it look like?

GD: The same as a farm on land, only this is in the water.

AMT: OK. And if someone was interested in helping themselves to some of those oysters, how vulnerable are your oyster beds?

GD: Well we try to do our best to be vigilant. Like between other agriculturists or leaseholders here, the farmers, whatever you want to call us, we keep an eye for each other and that helps a lot. And then with the budget cuts continually on the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, there's no one to really police or maintain.

AMT: So what happened to you in 2016?

GD: Well, just previous to that incident my wife was diagnosed with gliobastoma, which was ten brain tumours in the right side of her head. So you know we were dealing with that and trying to run an operation. And in the fall here, there's a wall fishery, so licensed fishers can come into the watershed and fish wild oysters that occur naturally, but they're not allowed to fish or harvest on your property or on your aquaculture sites. So having said that, we were going to the cancer treatment centre in Charlottetown and had an appointment with the cancer doctor and with the radiation therapy for the figure for a mask. And you know I'm waving at this guy, I've known him for like 40 years. You know he's a wild fisher, but he's been in the industry you know basically his whole life.

AMT: Waving at him on the road, as you drive away, I toward the cancer centre. Yeah.

GD: Yeah. Like everybody knew that my wife was sick. I mean the oyster communities is a very, very small spot. Even globally, it's a very small spot. Everybody knows everybody, either by name or by reputation. So you know, so then I'm down there with her and you know we're trying to deal with this and you know it's still pretty fresh like she was diagnosed probably four days, five days before this. So you know, anyway I get a call. Aquaculturists beside me said there's someone in the middle of your property you're leasing. I called the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and they said you know this is, I'm getting tired of this because it's an ongoing thing. It's been a continual problem. You know, you need to come down there right away because you know I'm coming home at about 120 mile an hour and when I go down there, he aint going to like what he gets because I'm sick of it. Right? And I call the co-owners of that particular spot and I said you know, go down, don't make him aware that you're there, but take as many pictures as you possibly can get right? Because the last three or four times conservation protection officers saying you need to take some pictures. You know, he's not here now, right. And now we had pictures as proof. So this time that's what we did right and the co-owner Andy Black, he took I think there's around 250 pictures of him. And then DFO came finally and they confronted him and he admitted that he was moving the boundary buoys, so he could fish on the lease and he admitted to knowing that my wife was sick and the whole nine yards. Right, so.

AMT: So he took advantage of your vulnerability because of your wife's health?

GD: Yeah.

AMT: And he moved the buoys because it would look like, oh he's not in your area, but he really was?

GD: Exactly. Exactly and he moved it more than once.

AMT: How many times had had this happen to you by the time you actually got pictures of the guy?

GD: Over the past 10 years, two, three times a year this happens.

AMT: So when you got the call that day that it was happening again, what did you think?

GD: Oh well, put it this way, you ever hear the expression, you're losing your [BLEEP]. Well it was way worse than that.

AMT: Especially on a day when you were with your wife trying to get treatment.

GD: Yeah exactly. I mean here she is, terminal of cancer and we're you know, we're trying to deal with that and we're trying. I'm trying to be very upbeat for her you know and it's you know you're still spinning from it because you know, you just got told your wife's gonna die. And they at that point, they were giving her a week to live. So you know and you know this is happening again and again and again and again. So this time I was getting really aggravated and you know I put it to the conservation officer, probably in the wrong way, but I was so fed up you know I've probably lost over $100,000 dollars just in stolen oysters, stolen equipment, you know. So where does it stop, right? We're not a big operation. We were basically a family thing and you know it's basically hand-to-mouth.

AMT: And in the in the case that we're talking about where you actually got pictures, that became am I right, the first time in Canadian history that an oyster thief was actually caught and prosecuted and convicted?

GD: Yes ma'am. The first time ever. It's a precedent setting case. It's strange, I didn't realize at first that you know this is the first time. And oyster fishing in PEI is like 200 years old. So it was the first time that there was ever a conviction.

AMT: What kind of sentence did he get?

GD: Well he got a $5000 fine and I was asked to supply victims impact statement. And in that statement, I asked the judge for no fine. I didn't feel that the fine was warranted. I felt that a suspension of his public fishery license for one year was more in tune with what had happened and a lot of my fellow fishermen felt that he should lose his license permanently.

AMT: That didn't happen?

GD: No.

AMT: So do you feel justice was served?

GD: No. Not at all.

AMT: No. And as you point out, you've lost a lot of money over all of this.

GD: Oh yeah. Like even for seven months, I was at the hospital with my wife. I never left her side. And you know, like to take time out of that to go to court because this individual pleaded not guilty, even though he was caught solidly. So those moments I never get back. They're lost for good.

AMT: Your wife passed away in April of 2017.

GD: Yes ma'am.

AMT: How are you doing these days?

GD: I have days where it's not that hot. Other days where it's you know, but you know she fished with me for over 30 years, every day. We were never apart. Not one day were we apart. So you know, when you're used to someone with you, day in day out, it takes a lot of getting used to.

AMT: So they were stealing from her too eh, just at her moment of great vulnerability.

GD: Yup. When you're at your worst, that's when it happens.

AMT: George, I'm sorry this happened to you and I'm so sorry for the loss of your wife.

GD: Just think it's a tailspin. Marlene was always the type that was saying that women were never recognized in her industry for what the contributions they do. So just after her passing, I approached the International Shellfish Festival in Charlottetown and we've created an award for women and it's around oyster shucking, but it's more to recognize women in the industry for their contribution. And I was contacted this spring by some people in the world organization and they're telling me that they now recognize that as the only award for women in Canada. Hopefully it brings like Marlene wanted. More awareness to women in the industry.

AMT: And it sounds like a really beautiful way for you to keep her memory alive.

GD: You'll have to come down and check it out.

AMT: Try some of those oysters.

GD: Oh anytime.

AMT: George, thank you for speaking with me today.

GD: It was my pleasure.

AMT: Take care.

GD: Thank you.

AMT: George Dowdle, he lives in New London, Prince Edward Island. And you can hear more about his story on episode three of the CBC original series, Farm Crime.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The RCMP have a lot of different experts within the police world and this is one of them. This is my working uniform and that's what producers have grown to accept and want.

AMT: Well that particular RCMP uniform includes a cowboy hat and boots and that particular officer is known as a "cattle cop," the person you call when you lose 50 head of cattle to theft. Officially, the RCMP calls it the livestock section. And in Alberta, that's a two person operation. It's responsible for five million head of cattle across the province. Lindsay Anderson is one half of that team. She is a cattle cop who appears in the first episode of Farm Crime and she's in Airdrie, Alberta today. Hello, Lindsay Anderson.

LINDSAY ANDERSON: Hello.

AMT: So tell me about your responsibilities as a cattle cop.

LA: I do go out and I deal with the public and I have several files on the go. I do wear blue jeans and I guess cowboy or cowgirl attire to work. And you know, you have to fit in with your clients. We deal with obviously theft of cattle. I've had a file where I dealt with theft of horses on a couple of occasions and we deal with the Stray Animals Act and the Livestock Identification and Commerce Act.

AMT: And the episode you’re in deals with serious cattle theft. We heard a little bit about it already, but I mean cattle starved, cows sold, others missing. How big a problem is that kind of theft in Alberta and other parts of Canada?

LA: It's always ongoing and it's tough sometimes to identify, especially if it's not an inside job, who might be responsible for the thefts because a lot of times they're in remote areas and they're not on camera and by the time the person or the owner of the animal learns that they are missing cattle, it may be you know not three four months after the thefts actually occurred. We get a lot of calls when farmers go out to gather their cattle at the end of the grazing season and then at that time they notice they are missing cattle.

AMT: It's really interesting because like you say there are no cameras. I mean we're talking big pieces of land here, you can't possibly be on it every day, as the owner of a ranch, right. It's just too big.

LA: No it's not possible, but it is important to have somebody or I mean a lot of times guys will have hired men that go out and count the cattle for them.

AMT: But it's really an industry built on trust, right? They don't expect somebody to drive down the highway and just take the cattle.

LA: For sure.

AMT: Yeah.

LA: Yeah.

AMT: So how does this crime affect the people and the communities that you serve?

LA: Well for a lot of these farmers, the cattle are their life. It's what they live on, it's what they do for a living and they work very, very hard to run their operations. And for someone to go in and steal their animals, just like they would oysters, it's their life, it's their livelihood. It's what they live and need those animals to make their living.

AMT: And do you get a sense that the people in those communities feel supported by law enforcement or would they like more of you out there?

LA: I think it takes a very I mean you have to have a passion for the work. And that's where I mean I absolutely love what I do. Having a bit of a farming background and just being a victim of crime myself when I was growing up on the farm, definitely plays a part of me doing what I am doing today and just taking the time like I said to deal with the farmers and to actually show that we care is a big part of our job in the farming community.

AMT: What happened to you? Can you tell us?

LA: Yeah for sure. So I grew up in a very rural location in northern Saskatchewan and mostly property crime. Trucks, gasoline, snowmobiles, quads that sort of thing were stolen and you know as a kid, when you get home from school you want to go for a snowmobile ride or a quad ride and it's gone. And you don't want to believe it, but yeah in fact it is stolen. So it was tough because when you called the RCMP, you know they didn't really care. They didn't even come out and respond to the call, it's just another theft. And I know my aunt that lives up the road, probably two miles from us, her house was broken into and she was assaulted here about six months ago. And she's in her 80s and lives alone. So the crime is still happening. I wish I could stop it. And in that particular case, like I said with my aunt, the RCMP did a great job and the guy responsible was convicted, but it's ongoing. The real crime is tough because the RCMP is basically such a big area and sometimes you don't have the resources.

AMT: Your response time can't always be fast then.

LA: Exactly.

AMT: Because of the geographical area you're talking about.

LA: Yeah. So if your response time is 45 minutes, a lot can happen in that time.

AMT: Have you got some cases that really stand out for you so far then?

LA: I've got a couple on the go right now that are very interesting. Unfortunately, I can't speak about them. It's definitely something I would love to talk about later perhaps.

AMT: Maybe we'll do follow up.

LA: On Farm Crime episode two. But there is one particular case that was very interesting. It actually was involving a couple of horses that were boarded at a location south of Lethbridge in Alberta. The place where the horses were boarded. The lady that was taking care of them, unfortunately she passed away. So the horses needed to be removed from the property. So the owner had arranged for transportation and sent her daughter down to pick the horses up, but the horses weren't there. Unfortunately, a gentleman had taken them to the processing facility in Fort Macleod and they were processed prior to us learning about the case.

AMT: They were killed, in other words.

LA: So in order for him to do that, he had to fill out paperwork to declare the horses were his. He transported them there. And they were slaughtered. So he's been charged with theft of cattle and trafficking stolen property and uttering forged documents. And that matter is still before the courts.

AMT: And so for the purposes of the law, a horse and cattle are the same thing?

LA: They are. Yeah, under the criminal code of Canada, horse is considered cattle.

AMT: So interesting. Well and you're saying that one is well underway then.

LA: It is, yeah.

AMT: OK. Well I guess we should listen for updates, when we can get them. Thank you for speaking to me today. It's really fascinating.

LA: Yeah, you're very welcome.

AMT: That is Lindsay Anderson, livestock investigator with the RCMP's livestock section and she joined us from Airdrie, Alberta. Again, you can stream the entire farm crime series online go to cbc.ca/farmcrime. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Canadian rock royalty, Bryan Adams, is on the show today to talk about his first Broadway musical. Remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app. Free from the App Store or Google Play. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Happy Labour Day and thank you for listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

The Current Transcript for September 3, 2018

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CBC doc series chronicles how 'Farm Crime' hits vulnerable family businesses

Sept. 3, 2018 episode transcript

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