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The Current Transcript for August 22, 2017

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

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EZRA LEVANT: I've had a rough week. No, it's not what you think. It is not because the liberal media is criticizing us for being too right wing. That happens all the time.

MATT GALLOWAY: Yes indeed it has been a very rough week for Ezra Levant, the self-proclaimed commander of the right wing media site, The Rebel, has been accused of hosting coverage tolerant of white supremacists in Charlottesville. Seen a number of his star contributors leave, watch politicians distanced themselves from the site and he's even had his Caribbean cruise canceled this morning. As the vultures circle, we ask whether The Rebel has lost its yell. That is up first, and then the story of Ramona Wilson who was 16 when she was murdered on the Highway of Tears.

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And we continue to bring awareness about her death and about the injustice that has happened through all these years. Her killer has never been prosecuted.

MG: That's Ramona's sister Brenda. As uncertainty continues to swirl around the national inquiry, we bring you some of the most moving and heartbreaking stories from Prince George, British Columbia and our first town hall on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. My name is Matt Galloway and this is the summer edition of The Current.

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Is there a future for right-wing Rebel Media?

Guests: Richard Warnica, Scaachi Koul

MG: It rose from the ashes of Sun News Network to become what has been called Breitbart North. Like Breitbart, Rebel Media is a hard right online news site. It is in a no holds barred fight against liberals, Muslims and refugees. But while Breitbart celebrates the return of former White House strategist Steve Bannon to its editorial war room this week, things are not going nearly as well for Rebel Media. Co-founded two years ago, by lawyer activist and provocateur Ezra Levant, Rebel Media is suddenly facing internal revolt and public shaming in the wake of its coverage of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. It all started when one of its star personalities, Faith Goldy, came under fire for her coverage of the events which critics said was sympathetic to white supremacists. Here's part of her recent post responding to that criticism.

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FAITH GOLDY: A word to the growing chorus of haters, who have called me every slanderous name: You don't define them. So, please, allow me to define myself. I do not bathe in tears of white guilt. That doesn't make me a white supremacist. I oppose state multiculturalism and affirmative action. That doesn't make me a racist. I love my country and I want its borders protected. That doesn't make me alt-right. And for Pete's sakes I work for a Jewish boss and I'm a Christian Advocate for the one state solution for Israel. I'm not a damn neo-Nazi.

MG: According to Ezra Levant, Faith Goldy was fired for appearing on a podcast produced by a neo-Nazi website. Levant has also said that Rebel Media is in no way part of the so-called alt-right or sympathetic to white nationalists or white supremacists. Nonetheless some of rebel media's top contributors have left the fold. And several politicians, most notably federal Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer, are distancing themselves from the site. Sheer has said he will no longer grant interviews to The Rebel. As part of our recurring series, Eye on the Media, we're asking where Rebel Media is headed and what the political fallout of all this might be. I'm joined now by two journalists who have been paying very close attention to this. Richard Warnica is a writer for The National Post who recently penned a long profile on Ezra Levant and rebel media. He's here in our Toronto studio. And Scaachi Koul is a culture writer for BuzzFeed news. She is in New York City. Hello to you both.

RICHARD WARNICA: Morning Matt.

SCAACHI KOUL: Hi

MG: Richard Warnica, for people who've never seen The Rebel, never paid any attention to its coverage at all, describe just briefly what it is that they do.

RICHARD WARNICA: Sure. So as you mentioned, The Rebel basically started out of the ashes of Sun News Network. It was Ezra Levant’s attempt to make something like that that was unbound by any rules, unbound by broadcast laws. The coverage on it is, you know you can go on there and see the things Ezra Levant has been hammering on about for decades, even a liberalist environmentalist socialists [unintelligible].What I found really striking I when I did my story, and I spent a lot of time watching Rebel content, reading rebel content is just the amount of coverage about Muslims and Islam and almost universally hostile coverage of Muslims and Islam.

MG: What do you think the key, before these last 10 days, what do you think the key to its success has been?

RICHARD WARNICA: I mean I think the business model is the key to success, which is essentially you gin outrage. You gin up anger. You push your readers to a point where they feel they should give money, not just to support use of media organizations, but to support your cause, to support – as a rebel would put it really - the fate of the Western world. The man who really built that business model, who put the spine in place that allows them to function, is Hamish Marshall who ran Andrew Scheer's leadership campaign.

MG: How and why - I want to start more about that in a moment - the connection between Andrew Scheer, the Conservative Party and The Rebels. But if you go back to the last 10 days or so, Ezra Levant in his own words, says it has been a rough week, how bad has it been?

RICHARD WARNICA: I mean he told me that it's not a crisis but I think it's hard to define it as anything. You know, he lost. He fired Faith Goldy, who was one of his three premium stars. Gavin McInnes left the site, who is another one. Barbara Kay, John Robson, Brian Lilley all abandon the site. Andrew Scheer said he's not doing interviews, Brian Jean said he's not doing interviews. Just yesterday there was news that his servers were shut down in the United States. He was no longer available for a time in the United States. I mean, by any definition, this is a crisis.

MG: Scaachi Koul, if you take a look at the list of people who are now out of The Rebel, what does it say to you, that those people either have cut ties to the organization, or have seen themselves cut out of the organization?

SCAACHI KOUL: I mean I think if you're a media organization and Gavin McInnes decides he's going to step away from you, you should be very concerned about that on a lot of levels. But I don't see any of this is as anything other than a business decision for these people. They didn't have any problem when The Rebel was largely trafficking and anti-Muslim and anti-Islam sentiment but neo-Nazi ism and, you know a murdered white woman is a bridge too far.

MG: A bridge too far. What do you mean by that?

SCAACHI KOUL: I think if the woman who had been killed in Charlottesville was a woman of color, we would not have seen the same reaction, from an institution like The Rebel, that we did end up seeing.

MG: Why?

SCAACHI KOUL: Because of white supremacy [laughs].Because all dead white women ends up getting a different kind of media attention than a dead brown or black woman, without question. And I think it is much harder for someone like Ezra to justify what was happening there when that was the woman that ended up being the victim of what was essentially a hate crime. If it was a Muslim woman, I think we would have seen a very different reaction from Levant and all of the other people around him.

MG: You both mentioned Gavin McInnes. He's a guy who has generated a lot of heat for what he has said on Rebel. Have a listen to a clip from an episode that aired on the 5th of May of this year. He's taking aim at Islamic Hip-Hop.

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GAVIN MCINNES: We've got this new sort of rap trend, yo, where we're trying to coolify Islam and that is of course [unintelligible], which is the Muslim trick of lying to spread Jihad.

MG: Richard Warnaco, how representative is that little clip of The Rebels broad coverage, I can put it that way, of Islam?

RICHARD WARNACO: It certainly wouldn't be unusual to see something like that. Any random day you go on The Rebel. I mean it really surprised me when I watched a whole week of coverage, at one point. Everything they put out, it to me was the single predominant theme.

MG: And the tone of the… I mean, that's a little bit of it there, but the tone of that theme generally and that coverage as well.

RICHARD WARNACO: I mean it's almost universally hostile. I mean they are they are a platform for a theory that advocates the idea that Muslims are deliberately trying to take over the Western world, that they are lying to fit in, that their goal is to infiltrate communities and spread Sharia law. It's by any definition I would say extreme.

MG: You've made connections as well with The Rebel Media and the so-called counter Jihad movement. What is that?

RICHARD WARNACO: The counter Jihad is, it's basically what I just described there. It's a theory that started in Europe basically and spread to the United States that in certain strains believes there's no such thing as moderate Islam. It believes that Muslims are bound to try to take over the West, that they are trying to create a thing called Eurabia. It was for a time and extreme fringe. I mean it's not stuff that I had really heard of, almost until I started doing this story, and it's pervasive on The Rebel.

MG: And is there a clear link between that movement in The Rebel and what you found in your research?

RICHARD WARNACO: Yes, there is. There is. One of the most frequent writers on The Rebel is, he writes anonymously by the name, Victor Laszlo. And there is significant evidence that I lay out in my piece that Victor Laszlo, also runs a blog called Vlad Tepes, which has been identified by researchers on the far right as a major platform and basically the most prominent Canadian platform for the counter Jihad.

MG: Scaachi, what do you think the impact of that tone of that coverage, by The Rebel, of Muslims and Islam broadly has had in this country in the political discourse in this country?

SCAACHI KOUL: I mean I think it's really terrifying that a lot of politicians for a period there thought that this was a new source that they wanted to be a part of and thought that The Rebels were speaking to an audience that they wanted to speak to. I think it is really cynical. Now they're you know jumping ship and saying that this isn't a place that they wanted to be associated with. Again all of that was fine for the last two years when The Rebel was doing a lot of stuff about how the Muslims were going to take over and things that had these characteristics of Islamophobia and felt very familiar I think to any Muslim person in Canada in terms of how they are sometimes spoken to and about.

MG: You wrote in the piece that you did for Buzzfeed, these are your words: “You can't unring a racist bell.” What do you mean by that?

SCAACHI KOUL: Sure can't.

MG: What do you what do you mean by that?

SCAACHI KOUL: Well, like if Ezra wants to take a big step back from the thing that he built, that's really cute. But I think the damage is done at this point. You don't get to engage in race baiting, in the anxiety of the other, in language that I would consider personally offensive and then when things get kind of dicey for you, you run away from it. And I certainly don't think that the people who were involved with The Rebels, for the last two years, get to run away from either; politician or journalist or contributor.

MG: It's interesting because nothing has happened in the last 10 days. And after Charlottesville he posted up a video distancing Rebel Media from what is known as the alt-right. Have a listen to a little bit of this:

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EZRA LEVANT: When I heard of the alt-right, for the first time about a year ago, I thought of it as the insurgent right, the politically incorrect right, the grass roots right, the nationalistic right. It was unashamed right wing in this with a sense of humor. That's my kind of right wing is. But the alt-right has changed into something new, especially since Trump’s election. Now the leading figure, at least in terms of media attention, is Richard Spencer and other white nationalists. By that I mean people whose central organizing principle is race and that's the starting point. There are also white supremacists and even some neo-Nazis amongst them. And there were actually some Nazi swastika flags in Charlottesville. Spencer released an explicitly racist manifesto in Charlottesville. He is someone who believes your race is your key characteristic. Well, I'm sorry. We disagree and by we, I mean conservatives and I certainly mean The Rebel.

MG: Scaachi Koul, why do you think Ezra Levant posted that video now?

SCAACHI KOUL: Because I don't think he knows what he wants. I think he wanted the attention of sort of being this bombastic, frankly alt-right outlet but he didn't want to deal with the backlash around it. I think he didn't realize how, maybe, unwilling people were to sort of engage with that. But all of it again feels so flimsy and so facile. I mean, seriously, like what does he want? Like he did this for two years and now he's saying “oh I didn't know it meant this and I didn't know this was what was going to happen”. I mean what was he expecting?

MG: As I mentioned he's faced a lot of heat in the wake of Charlottesville, and not just he, those who contribute to The Rebel as well. We received a statement from Ezra Levant and it reads in part, and this is a quotation: “We're conservative, and the new way for leftists to demonize conservatives is to call us Nazis, calling us Russians didn't work last month. In fact I'm a proud Jew. We're pro-Israel. Our staff are multi-racial. To equate us with Neo-Nazis is absurd. We have never been alt-right.” What do you make of that, Scaachi?

SCAACHI KOUL: I don't believe that conservatism is akin to neo-Nazi ism. But I don't think Ezra would be considered your prototypical Canadian conservative. I think he was speaking to a much lower base. And I think he's using this as an argument to get away from what he, again, has been engaging with for more than two years. I mean The Rebel isn't the only thing that he has brought. I mean when he was on Sun News he wore a burka and went on television to talk about how it was a one person prison. This isn't new for him. This isn't a new shtick for him. I'm sure he will rise from these ashes and do something else that will make all of us crazy.

MG: Richard Warnica, what do you make of Ezra, trying to find daylight there between his site and the alt-right?

RICHARD WARNICA: I mean it's interesting. I think that if you look at the history of Ezra Levant, it's a series of peaks and valleys. It doesn't necessarily surprise me to see him going through a crisis now. And it also wouldn't surprise me, no matter who else comes out of this permanently tarred or unable to work to see Ezra Levant doing something new and, by his measures, successful in two years. I mean that's been the pattern of his career for decades.

MG: But what has happened? You wrote on Twitter, when The Rebel has come under sustained fire and passed it hasn't been for its anti-Muslim comment.

RICHARD WARNICA: Yes and I don't think it is because of its anti-Muslim stuff. Now it has come under fire. I mean you look at the two times that The Rebel has really pierced into the mainstream. The first time was when Gavin McInnes posted a video making, I would say by any definition, anti-Semitic remarks. The second time is after Charlottesville when Faith Goldie is essentially playing footsie with white nationalist themes. The day in day out hostility towards Muslims still is not the thing that they're being criticized for. It's not the thing that Ezra Levant is responding to in his statement. It's not necessarily something that I think they could distance themselves from.

MG: We have seen, as I mentioned, politicians step away from this site, including the federal Conservative leader Andrew! Cheer. You were talking earlier about the ties that you have seen between the Conservative Party and The Rebel. What are those ties?

RICHARD WARNICA: I mean I don't think there's any doubt that The Rebels had significant influence in the Conservative leadership campaign. They were a major push driving the debate around the M103 motion which became a huge sort of hinge point in the leadership campaign. Hamish Marshall, who ran Andrew Shear's campaign, really built the system that allows The Rebel to work. He was one of three board members for a long time. He has consistently said that he's never had input on editorial and that he's backing away. But I describe it in my piece but I honestly don't think you can separate the business from the editorial of The Rebels. One doesn't work functionally without the other.

MG: And now we have the Conservative Party leader saying that he's no longer going to grant interviews to Rebel Media. He's been asked about this people have been asking questions about why he's making this decision now. Here is part of an interview that Andrew Scheer did with CBC News Network host Carole MacNeil on that.

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CAROLE MACNEIL: What was it specifically that you saw where you said, okay I can't be part of this?

ANDREW SCHEER: It was the nature of the coverage. It was the way that you know, in any way that that outlet or the people involved in producing those shows kind of went beyond just saying “here's what's happening” and gave it extra legitimacy of voice, you know, in any way kind of concurring or validating some of the points. And I felt that that was going on, while that was happening.

MG: Scaachi, what do you make of Andrew Scheer’s rationale as to why he's no longer going to talk to The Rebel?

SCAACHI KOUL: Oh well, allow me to give him a big pat on the back for deciding that he didn't want to pan on that website anymore. I mean I don't remember him saying anything when Faith Goldy was doing a segment about white genocide because people were breeding in different races. I mean that didn't come up in any interview and he certainly didn't say that that was content that maybe he didn't want to be associated with. But again, what we have now is a case where you're looking at white trauma, and we are uncomfortable with white trauma, and we're uncomfortable with white death as we should be. We should be comfortable of everything that happened over the weekend. But that is the reason why this has become a cross too heavy to bear for everybody involved with The Rebel.

MG: It's probably worth mentioning that Andrew Scheer was asked that question a number of times and didn't really answer; why he was stepping aside from The Rebel now in terms of offering interviews or doing interviews with them. What do you make of that Richard? You said that that nothing they did before Charlottesville was particularly new, nothing that they did in Charlottesville was particularly new. So why now?

RICHARD WARNICA: No, I mean that's the big open question, isn't it? Why now? Because Charlottesville, as Scaachi pointed out, wasn't new in terms of Faith Goldy’s coverage. It certainly wasn't new in terms of the idea of The Rebel participating in the news, as opposed to covering the news. That's literally in their business model. It's written down in the decks as “we participate in the news we don't just cover”.

MG: So what are the questions that Andrew Scheer still needs to answer do you think?

RICHARD WARNICA: I think the questions are: What is substantially different now that you've made this decision? Were you comfortable with what you saw on The Rebel, when you twice said it was a go to source for your reading in the leadership campaign and after the leadership campaign? Were you comfortable with the work that Hamish Marshall was doing for you, when he was running your campaign?

MG: Just a couple of minutes left. As I mentioned at the beginning, this has been a difficult week for Ezra Levant, for The Rebel as well. Vultures are circling people are suggesting maybe this is the beginning of the end, it is the end. What does the future look like?

RICHARD WARNICA: Well, the one thing I would say is that The Rebel has built a model that is harder to disrupt than most traditional media. You know there's an ad boycott campaign, but I don't think ads are a huge part of their business. Their business is getting money directly from their readers and their viewers. I would be surprised if everything that's happened in the last week has seriously dented the people who are who are loyal Rebel readers and loyal Rebel subscribers.

MG: Scaachi, how much public appetite do you think there is for what The Rebel is offering?

SCAACHI KOUL: Oh, I am perpetually shocked at how much appetite is for what The Rebel is offering. It somehow seems to exist. I wrote this in the piece before that a lot of the contributors that have been working for The Rebel have slowly started to infiltrate the US. I think that'll continue happening Ezra will always find another thing to build, that will sort of always have that very similar tone that we know of what the rabble had. None of this feels like a mystery to me. You said earlier that sort of the question is you know why this. I think we know why this. So the question for me is can he override his involvement in Charlottesville to build something else? Not whether or not that can be sustained.

MG: And if it were to disappear then, with the demand for what it's producing and the message that it is delivering, would that demand grow?

SCAACHI KOUL: Why not? [Laughs] Listen, as a brown woman who lives in this country, I have no doubt that there is an appetite for the kind of things that The Rebel was very happy to say.

MG: Scaachi Koul, we'll leave it there. Richard, thank you so much.

RICHARD WARNICA: Thanks so much, Matt.

MG: Richard Wanaka is a writer for The National Post. He recently wrote a profile on Ezra Levant and Rebel Media. It's in The Post. You can read it on their website. He was in our Toronto studio. Saatchi Cole is a culture writer for BuzzFeed news. She was in New York City. We would love to hear from you on this. You can get in touch, tweet us @TheCurrentCBC, Facebook.com/cbcthecurrent or go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Your thoughts welcome there as well. The CBC News is next. And then, you'll hear from some of the voices of those who speak for the missing and murdered women and girls who died on the highway of tears and beyond. CBC News and The Current did a series of town halls on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. And as the national inquiry into those stories continues to flounder, there are questions as to whether it should be reset or not. We're going to go back and hear some of the most moving and powerful stories from those town halls. My name is Mac Galloway. You're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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Families still full of doubts one year after MMIW inquiry

Guests: Brenda Wilson, Kym Gouchie, Wayne Clary, Mary Teegee, Rena Zatorski

MG: Hello I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to the summer edition of The Current. This past season, The Current hosted of a series of moving public forums across this country, examining the tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. The project was launched in October in Prince George, a city in northern British Columbia on the infamous Highway of Tears. The forum featured the story of Ramona Wilson who was murdered when she was 16 years old. It also included the voices of community leaders and RCMP officer and even a songwriter. Here are some of the highlights from that show.

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[Indigenous language greeting]

MARCEL GAGNON: Grandfather, grandmother, ancestors, we thank you. We ask that you hear our prayer.

ANNA-MARIA TREMONTI: An Indigenous blessing from Marcel Gagnon, an elder from the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation. One of the many First Nations communities that has lost its women and girls to violence along the isolated stretch of road in northern BC, officially known as Highway 16, universally known as the Highway of Tears. It got that name more than a decade ago, as women of all ages, from teens onward, began to disappear as they walked to school, as they hitchhiked toward cities in the south as they headed out to meet friends or to get to jobs. And what began as an emotional shorthand for the trauma in this region is now a symbol for the wider disturbing reality afflicting so many Indigenous females in Canada. We are doing something different with this conversation. We are using virtual reality technology to illustrate the enormity of this issue. Our short four minute documentary takes viewers to the Highway of Tears and tells the story of one family's loss. That's right, VR, virtual reality brought to you by The Current. This is for a conversation that begins here at the Prince George Civic Centre. It continues on the air and online. And yes, you will be able to view it no matter where you are. All of this to help us connect the dots and examine the problems and solutions so many Indigenous leaders have been pleading with Canadian politicians and the Canadian public to confront. I'm Anna-Maria Tremonti, coming to you before an audience in Prince George, British Columbia. This is a special edition of The Current.

[Sound: crowd applause]

AMT: Thank you all for coming out to be with us here today. In the virtual reality documentary that we brought with us, which many of you have seen and those listening will have an opportunity to see, we focus on the story of one particular young woman. Let's hear from her mother.

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MATILDA WILSON: My name is Matilda Wilson, I have six children all together and Ramona is the youngest one. She was 16 years old when she was murdered on June 11, 1994. They hired her in June to be a peer counselor for the Smithers community service and she was so ecstatic about that. Saturday was the day she was to meet her friends, and you know, there's no buses running or transits or anything like that. She never made it there.

AMT: Matilda Wilson is with us tonight in the front row. Matilda, thank you for being here.

[Sound: crowd applause]

AMT: You know, Ramona's body was not found until almost a year later and she's just one of the many whose names are forever linked to that ribbon of asphalt that runs through this region, Highway 16. Members of her family now advocate for those families who are going through what the Wilson family continues to go through. Brenda Wilson is Ramona's sister. She is the Highway of Tears initiative coordinator for the Carrier Sekani Family Services. Welcome Brenda.

BRENDA WILSON: Thank you.

AMT: Brenda, talk to us a little bit about Ramona. What do you remember about the time when she went missing?

BRENDA WILSON: I remember she was just a really vibrant young lady. She just turned 16, we had celebrated her birthday in February, and it was June was the last time we had seen her. She had so much going for her, she was going to school, high school, she was on the baseball team, she was a peer counselor, and most of all she was our baby sister. She had quite a few nieces and nephews at that time, including my children which she used to babysit. And she was also a big part of our family because she spent a lot of time with us. It was very difficult when she went missing because we just felt that we had no place to turn in 1994. When we tried to put out posters we’re looking, we had posters that were printed on a black and white photocopier. We didn't have internet or social media to put it out there quickly or to get the information to all her friends or family, and also to try to get help from the RCMP at that time and from our community was really difficult. We weren't really a part of our community, we weren't considered important because our family was a single parent family.

AMT: Brenda, how has her death, her disappearance, affected your family in the years since then?

BRENDA WILSON: It has taken a toll on our family, but our family is resilient. It's been 22 years this year and we continue to bring awareness about her death and about the unjustice that has happened through all these years. Her killer has never been prosecuted. So each year we bring awareness by doing a walk in the small community of Smithers which has brought national attention to this issue.

AMT: Brenda, I have to ask you. That highway is symbolic now, but it's also a highway you have to use. I'm wondering what that is like for you?

BRENDA WILSON: Well, just recently this year, we did a cleansing the highway walk. And that was to bring attention to the Highway of Tears and how many families were still not listened to. Not everybody has heard their stories, even though we had a family gathering here in Prince George and also a pre inquiry meeting here in Prince George. Still a lot of our families are not heard, because they couldn't even afford to be at that meeting. To ensure the families felt that they were heard, we started this walk in Prince Rupert and we stopped in each of the communities. And each of those families got to tell their stories in their own communities to their own members, so that their members had the opportunity to assist them and to try to help them in any way.

AMT: And may I ask who else needs to hear these stories? Are the police listening?

BRENDA WILSON: Some of the police were involved in some of the forums that we had. But you know, it's very important that more of the RCMP are involved in hearing those stories so that they understand what the families are going through and to be able to show a little bit of compassion to those families as they go through that.

AMT: What is your own experience with the police in the case of your own sister?

BRENDA WILSON: In 1994 there was no relationship with the RCMP. We were, as I said before, a family with a single mom, and we were stigmatized as a dysfunctional family. Nobody knew how much we loved each other as a family, we were very close, and that's what bonded us and that's why we were able to survive. My mom made sure that as a single mom and five kids she was able to give us happiness. She ensured our birthdays were celebrated. She ensured we had Christmas gifts every Christmas, and we just celebrated all our birthdays, which was just something that, you know, many mothers today might not be able to do but she did that.

AMT: And as the years went by, did you get information when the police had information? Did they at least liaise with you? How did that, did it change over time?

BRENDA WILSON: In the first, probably about the first five years, we didn't get a lot of cooperation until Carrier Sekani Family Services had the symposium, and there were recommendations made. And that was when we started to hear more from the RCMP and they wanted to know what they could do for us, and so that, you know, that relationship started to build from there. But, you know, there's still a lot that needs to be done, because although we've built that relationship with the RCMP and the investigators, that relationship is not the same with other families. And, you know, I think that relationship needs to happen with all the families, not only us. I mean, it's taken 22 years for that to happen and it shouldn't take that long.

AMT: And so, a federal inquiry is now in place. How are you feeling about the very fact that it has begun?

BRENDA WILSON: The day that the public inquiry was announced, it was a day of overjoyment, I was getting e-mails and, you know, messages from quite a few people that I worked with over the years and there was joy, you know, tears of joy that this was actually happening. And, you know, as we went through talking more about it, we realized that what if this doesn't happen, you know, what if it's just something that they're saying to keep us quiet for now. I’m at a point where I am skeptical about the whole thing, and, you know, I'm hoping that they'll be able to keep their promises.

[Music]

AMT: Brenda Wilson is the Highway of Tears initiative coordinator for Carrier Sekani Family Services. Her sister, Ramona Wilson, went missing in 1994. She was found murdered.

[Music]

AMT: I would like to welcome Wayne Clary, he is with the RCMP’s project E-Pana. This unit was launched in 2005 to investigate the disappearances and murders of 18 women on the so-called Highway of Tears. Hello Wayne Clary, welcome.

WAYNE CLARY: Thanks for having me.

AMT: It is not the first time you have heard the stories, but I wonder what you think as you listen to the story of Ramona Wilson and the experience that Brenda relates to, all of those years dealing with her death?

WAYNE CLARY: Well, I actually find it upsetting listening to her experience. I'm happy now that we've progressed a long way and we've made many many steps. Personally, I've dealt with many many families that have dealt with trauma and murder and all kinds of other bad things happen to families and loved ones. And I saw what it would do to the families when there's some compassion with the police and dealing with them.

AMT: And tell us a little bit about investigations, because they have been going on for a long time and yet families are looking for answers. How likely is it that you will be able to tell the families of these women and girls what happened to them?

WAYNE CLARY: These kinds of investigations, essentially when we're looking at a stranger on stranger situation, are the toughest to investigate. In particular along here in this geographic area, where it's very isolated, it’s very lonely, a lot of these crimes happened long time ago when there's, you know, there's no video, there's no cell phone, there's no cell phone towers. It's a big hurdle to overcome. Some of our victims they don't get found, some don't get found right away. And so evidence is lost and it's a tough road. But as the saying goes if you don't shake the tree, nothing will fall out. And that's essentially what we try to do.

AMT: And what do you tell the families then?

WAYNE CLARY: Well, I've been honest with our families and I say perhaps they’ll never be solved. But I think I've left them with the impression that we care and we're trying, and we'll keep following up on tips and interviews and whatever we have to do as they come in. I'd like to say, and thank Brenda for her walk that she did this past summer, and I told her this but because of the publicity from that, we received a spike in tips from the general public. It's important to keep this alive.

AMT: And tips for one specific case or just tips overall?

WAYNE CLARY: Overall and in particular we had a couple on this case as well, so that we're following up on.

AMT: And so the very fact that families can share their stories and continue to share their stories matters to your investigations?

WAYNE CLARY: It's huge. At this stage of the game, it's the communities that are going to solve these crimes. We have turned over every stone we can, to a large degree, we're still carrying on, but crimes of this nature, it's the people out there in the public that are going to help us to lead us where we need to go.AMT: Have any of the 18 cases on E-Pana’s list been solved?

WAYNE CLARY: Yes.

AMT: What can you tell us?

WAYNE CLARY: We believe we solved three from the mid 1970s. We had DNA from one fellow Bobby Jack Fowler, who unfortunately died in jail in Oregon, but we believe he killed three of our girls. And a couple of years ago, we charged a fellow who killed Monica Jack out of Merritt and Kathryn Mary Herbert, who was not in the E-Pana file from Abbotsford back in the seventies. So that was very very satisfying for our group to finally put the handcuffs on somebody and put them in jail.

AMT: You actually retired at one point and were brought back, am I right?

WAYNE CLARY: Yes.

AMT: So as you go through this and you meet with families, I'm wondering how much this keeps you awake at night?

WAYNE CLARY: You know, I'd like nothing rather to sit down with Matilda and Brenda and tell them, you know, we've found out who killed Ramona. I know that we did that, we sat down with Monica Jack’s family, it was a very emotional, uplifting experience for police. It was very gratifying.

AMT: And what do you say to those who feel that the disappearances of their loved ones were not considered fast enough or seriously enough when they first reported them?

WAYNE CLARY: Well, I'm going to call that the old days, it’s upsetting when I hear that kind of talk. It happened, and I'd like to say going forward it’ll never happen again and nor should it. Victims’ families deserve that kind of attention and it's the right thing to do.

[Sound: crowd applause]

AMT: You got support for that. And how is the RCMP working to improve relations then?

WAYNE CLARY: Well, I know in major crime our officer in charge, about four years ago, he made that process formal. And now, of course there's the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights, which is now legislation, so it has to be done.

AMT: OK, Wayne Clary, thank you.

[Music]

MARY TEEGEE: We know the stats, that I am as just being an Indigenous woman, you know, sometimes I've heard in some reports three times more likely, four times more likely to be murdered or die a violent death than my non-Indigenous counterpart. And that is scary, so when we look at our nieces, our sisters, our young girls, I mean, that's the harsh reality in Canada. So when we look at the broader issue of why our young girls and women are vulnerable, we have to look at the impacts of residential school. And I know people have heard that again and again. We hear comments like, why don't you just get over it. It’s become almost trite, but that is at the crux, that is at the heart of the matter, is the impacts of colonization, the impacts of residential school. It is systemic racism. As long as there's that systemic racism and as long as Canadian citizens don't face it and look at themselves in the mirror and say I am going to be part of the solution to overcome the impacts of residential school, to overcome the impacts of colonization. Imagine, you know, 50 women missing from West Vancouver. What would the outcry? Well, for one thing the number would never rather reach that ever in West Vancouver or North Vancouver.

[Sound: crowd applause]

AMT: And so, I'm interested in hearing from all of you about the point that Rena made at the beginning. You said you had your first child, who would now be about ten, right?

RENA ZATORSKI: 12.

AMT: 12, OK. Do you think enough has changed for her? What do you worry about? What do you want to see changed?

RENA ZATORSKI: [quietly crying]

AMT: It's OK Rena, it's an emotional question because you care so much.

RENA ZATORSKI: [deep sigh] It's a worry that I have every day, every morning. The exploitation and the abuse, the systemic racism. I know that during my entire life, you're fighting every day, you're not treated equal. So every day you're spending countless hours out of your day essentially trying to defend your existence, your life really. Because I think that what we represent to the Canadian society is that it's OK to abuse and we're not all equal, and we can brush things under the carpet and we don't need to talk about it. So with my daughter, every morning I'm shaken, because you hear a lot on the news about systemic violence. And she is going to probably most likely, and same as my son, grow up potentially being victimized. And I think it's abhorrent that people in this day and age essentially live that type of life, that they have to defend their very life and who they are.

[Music]

AMT: That is Rena Zatorski, who organized the first big meeting, the symposium to talk about missing and murdered Indigenous women in Prince George in 2006. Mary Teegee is the Director of Child and Family Services at Carrier Sekani Family Services. Thank you. And we're going to end on a special note. Kym Gouchie is a Prince George singer and songwriter. You have written a song about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

KYM GOUCHIE: That is correct, yes.

AMT: Tell us a little bit about the song that we're going to hear from you.

KYM GOUCHIE: Well, the song that I'm going to play today, because I've brought my hand drum, is a song that I wrote while on the Highway of Tears walk with Brenda Wilson. And I was alone on the highway, I had a really strong sense of the feeling of what could have possibly happened, and knowing that you're on a highway where there's no vehicles for sometimes up to five minutes and a lot can happen in that time period. But I pushed the fear aside and I began to drum and a song came to me, and the song has now been known amongst us as Cleansing the Highway song.

AMT: Well, we will leave our audience with you and this song. I want to thank everyone for being part of this discussion in Prince George, BC. I'm Anna-Maria Tremonti, thank you for being part of The Current.

[Sound: hand drum beating]

KYM GOUCHIE: I don't know if many of you have walked that highway. But I encourage you to someday, to step out and do a little bit of walking and feel the strong sense of the spirit and the energy, and you can feel the voices of these women.

[Sound: hand drum beating]

KYM GOUCHIE: [Singing] Oh. We are cleansing the Highway of Tears as we walk, as we walk. We are cleansing the Highway of Tears as we walk, as we walk. Oh.

MG: Those are highlights from The Current first town hall and missing and murdered indigenous women in October. Go to the website to see and hear more from the public events that were held across the country and to see the virtual reality documentary as well. You'll find all of that at cbc.ca/thecurrent. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to CBC Radio One for On Drugs. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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August 22, 2017 Full Episode Transcript

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