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The Current Transcript for July 20, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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You're not saying forget the debt. We're not going that far. We're telling them just give business owners, small business owners more time.

CATHERINE CULLEN: Hundreds of thousands of small businesses can feel the clock ticking. A loan meant to get them through the pandemic is about to come due. Many are asking the federal government for more time, warning that otherwise some will have to close their doors. Then in half an hour.

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The water has reached levels that they almost never reach. And the fact that they've reached these levels now is still presumably the two hottest months of the summer yet to come is really terrifying.

CC: The seawater south of Florida was as warm as a hot tub. Now scientists there are racing to save coral reefs, and researchers here worry we can't keep up with how fast oceans are changing. Also in an hour, we've got the final episode of the CBC podcast, The No Good. Terribly kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. But first, small businesses struggling to repay the government. I'm Catherine Cullen, sitting in for Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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CEBA repayment deadline looms on small businesses

Guests: Dan Kelly, Anita Agrawal, Franco Terrazzano

CC: When the pandemic hit, many small businesses worried they wouldn't survive. The federal government stepped in with help to keep them afloat, offering an interest free loan known as CEBA or the Canadian Emergency Business Account. Well, it's almost time to pay those loans back, but tens of thousands of small businesses are saying they need more time. Anita Agrawal is one of those affected. She's a jewellery wholesaler in Toronto. Anita, good morning.

ANITA AGRAWAL: Good morning, Catherine.

CC: Why do you think that your business should be given more time to pay back the money? Well.

ANITA AGRAWAL: I think everybody can agree that, you know, currently we're all feeling the pinch and the amount of time that it's been since the pandemic. It's a big chunk of money to be able to pay back in such a short period. A lot of businesses are still struggling. Some are on the verge of closing because things haven't recovered or returned to normal as businesses want it to be. Right. So we don't see the same pre-pandemic sales that we were seeing before. I myself am in a luxury business and with the cost and rise of food, of rent, of everything else, the last thing people want to do is go out and say, Oh, I'm going to splurge on a diamond ring or something, you know? So a lot of businesses are in the same situation that I'm in.

CC: Well, help us understand your situation a bit better. Now, these loans could be between 40 and $60,000. So how much did you access?

ANITA AGRAWAL: I got 60,000.

CC: Okay. And when you decided to apply for this money, what did you use it for?

ANITA AGRAWAL: Basically, just for day to day activities. I had to let go of my staff because I did not know if, you know, they could return back to work. Luckily, I was able to rehire everybody back in August of 2020, but that time was very precarious and so we were heavily reliant on trade shows. So 60% of my sales pre-pandemic came from trade shows and now that's in person. Now I'm transitioning right to getting everything online, which we were very lucky because we had a foundation to start with, but not everybody was at the same level. And so transitioning from in-person to online and then all of a sudden now 60,000, which I used for rent, which I used for production and manufacturing, now that's all of a sudden it's going to have to be paid back. And I have to make some tough decisions now that trade shows are back in season, whether I want to exhibit, which costs $20,000 per trade show or whether I want to manufacture new products so businesses have new inventory for the Christmas season.

CC: And you know that you have this December 31st deadline in front of you. Well, let's stay in the space of that deadline for a minute, because there's something a bit particular about this loan. What happens if you don't have the $60,000, given the way the situation is right now for December 31st?

ANITA AGRAWAL: So until December 31st, you get to you get to pay back. If you pay back the full 60,000, they grant you your 20,000 back. So they say we're going to forgive 20,000 after the December 31st deadline. You have an interest rate which thankfully is a little bit lower, but it's still quite significant for some businesses who are operating on very, very tiny margins, you know.

CC: So basically, if you decide not to make this repayment deadline, it's going to cost you $20,000.

ANITA AGRAWAL: Exactly. Plus interest. Yes, exactly.

CC: Okay. So so you say, well, you know, I would have to make this calculation between doing or business or paying back the loan. What is the case that you would make to the federal government about, you know, you did you did sign an agreement. What's that? What's the pitch to them about why it's important to give you this extra time?

ANITA AGRAWAL: Well, we're not saying, you know, eradicate the loan or forgive the loan entirely. What we're saying is make the repayment terms a little bit more flexible because most small businesses and you have to understand, Catherine, 68% of employees who work in small businesses in Canada. So this is a large population of people that work for small businesses. So what I would say to the government is, look, just give us a little bit more time, be a little bit more flexible and allow us a little bit more forgiveness for that repayment so that we have more time to get ourselves together because everybody feels the pinch. It's not just us, you know?

CC: Mm hmm. The temperature has sort of been turning up on this issue in the past couple of weeks as we get closer to this deadline. What is your feeling right now? I mean, you're a business owner. You've got a plan. What is your sense of the likelihood that the federal government is going to say yes to that extension?

ANITA AGRAWAL: I feel like I'm optimistic. Like I feel like there's enough businesses that have been contacting them. There's enough associations. And I'm very optimistic that they're going to do the right thing and do the right thing by us because we do represent a big chunk of the economy and everyone is feeling it, you know? So, yeah.

CC: I think that's the note. I'd just like to end our conversation on Anita, which is what it is like to be a small business owner at this moment. I mean, would you would you recommend to somebody else getting into running their own business right now?

ANITA AGRAWAL: Okay. So that's a really good question. I'm a part time professor at the Faculty of Business at Centennial College. And I'll tell you, the past three years, most of my students were always like, after they graduate, I'm going to open up a business. At least 20% of my students would say that I haven't had a single student tell me, guess what? I'm going to open up a business because they're terrified. I mean, the costs of running a business in Canada have become really, really difficult. And I'm just worried that the next generation of future entrepreneurs are not going to have that opportunity. And I just want to add one more thing. This is going to significantly impact racialized and women owned businesses in a different way that it impacts mainstream businesses. I myself am a minority woman owned business and we are doubly impacted as we normally are.

CC: So explain why that is. Yeah.

ANITA AGRAWAL: Well, I think that we operate on smaller margins. We're not as publicised and we don't receive as much attention as other businesses. And when people do do business with us, they do expect us to be able to provide cheaper services. And that's for a whole bunch of reasons. Right now we don't have as many access to grants and loans and the letter that we wrote from the Better Way Alliance, which I'm a member of, we partnered with the Black Business Professionals Association and the Canadian Women's Chamber of Commerce. So I just want to say that this is a different impact.

CC: Yeah. Listen, Anita, it was nice to meet you. I appreciate you taking the time to tell us about your situation this morning.

ANITA AGRAWAL: Thank you very much. Have a great day.

CC: You too. Anita Agarwal is a small business owner in Toronto. Well, you heard her referencing the push behind this. This week. A group of more than 250 Canadian business organisations called on the government to extend the CBA repayment deadline. The push is being led by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Dan Kelly is president and CEO. Good morning.

DAN KELLY: Good morning.

CC: You heard Anita talking about her predicament there. How does that compare to what you're hearing from your members?

DAN KELLY: Well, Anita did a great job and what she's saying, sharing is something that we've been hearing from thousands and thousands of business owners. In fact, over 30,000 have signed a petition on our website. See if I B's website to call on the federal government to give more time to repay the cheap loans.

CC: 30,000 that have signed your petition. In fact, about 900,000 businesses took out these loans. What do your own surveys of your members tell you about how many of them are struggling with repayment?

DAN KELLY: Our data shows that only half of Canada's small businesses are back to normal levels of sales. Pre-pandemic levels of sales. Only half. And we're three years out from the pandemic. We had two years of on and off restrictions that really gutted so many firms. And while some of them have been able to bounce back to normal, what business owners are telling us is that they're struggling to outrun their debt. There are lots of viable businesses that just need more time to get the debt anvil off of their necks. And then they have a fighting chance of survival without that. Many are telling us that they're not going to have the money to repay the loan and they may default. And defaulting means that their business is in jeopardy. I think almost 20% of her members said that that that if they lose the forgivable portion of the loan, their business may be done.

CC: I mean, that I guess maybe is the operative word there. But that's stunning when you consider how many businesses are accessing this. Do you really think, Dan Kelley, that we if the federal government doesn't do what you're asking, we're going to see a wave of closures, tens of thousands of businesses?

DAN KELLY: I do. I think, look, there are some of those businesses that even with more time, are not going to make it. And we do have to acknowledge that small businesses do fail in good economic times. Just as you know, that's part of the entrepreneurship model. What's different about this, though, is that the the debt that they took on really was was put in place not because they wanted good debt for good reasons to expand or to grow. They took on debt just to keep the lights on as Anita was sharing. And and that's and that's the debt that's that's really dragging them back. So, yes, I do think that there will be some a large number of business failures if we're not careful. And I think that the federal government has the power to chart a different course if if there is if they're a bit more. And give businesses a little bit more time to get the debt behind them.

CC: What does a little bit more time mean? What is it exactly that you're asking for?

DAN KELLY: We've asked for one to two years of more time. And to the credit of the deputy prime Minister, I remember the phone call when she shared with me that that she would give an additional year to repay the loans. Remember, the original deadline was to have the loan repaid by the end of 2022. But that's when we thought COVID was kind of done. And we had restrictions for months and months and months. I will add that Canada had the longest lockdowns in the entire world. Businesses in the city I'm in Toronto had they were closed restaurants, gyms closed for 430 days. So, you know, these pressures were way longer than we expected. As a result, businesses need more time to get the debt behind them. And I think if they had till the end of 2024 or 2025, we'd see more businesses make it across the COVID finish line.

CC: Can you say anything about the specific type of business businesses that are most vulnerable right now?

DAN KELLY: Yeah, look, I think Anita made a compelling case that the smallest of businesses often run by racialized Canadians, they are right on the front lines of this. But by sector, retail, hospitality, the service sector, arts and entertainment. And, you know, those types of businesses that that that really were the subject of lockdown orders and capacity restrictions, they are the ones that are telling us that they are most vulnerable right now and need the longest to get to get this behind them. I will add that the Seba loan is not the only COVID debt that most businesses have. Our data shows that about 100,000 in debt is the average number that businesses was taken on just to survive. So some of that they are paying interest on right now or they owe to friends and family.

CC: Now, we did ask Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland for an interview. We were told she's not available. Her office sent us a statement and it says that they're very aware of the concerns expressed by businesses and that they remain in contact with a number of these organisations. What do you take from both that statement? And I'm sure you are having other conversations with with government officials?

DAN KELLY: Yes, and with the Deputy Prime Minister herself. Look, we've spoken about this many, many times and and I do sense that the federal government is is hearing the the concerns that businesses and business groups are raising. We've had the NDP now support our call for more cyber a cyber extension. The block could be quite did the same thing. We're hoping to see the Green Party behind this as well. So there is more political pressure on government right now to to to announce an extension. I do take it that that the fact that interest rates have come down a touch sorry that not interest rates but but the fact that inflation numbers have come down a bit may help us in our call for more time, too.

CC: Just in closing quickly. What's your advice to your members? They don't know which way this is going to go. They have to make some pretty big decisions to plan in the next few months. What should they be doing?

DAN KELLY: Well, look, there are those businesses that can repay the loan that have the money. I would I would urge them to do that to to repay these loans as quickly as they possibly can, get this debt off of their books. Those businesses that are struggling, though, they'd need to have a contingency plan in case Ottawa doesn't go down this road. Some of them are taking on other debt right now, taking out a loan to repay the loan. And I'm hoping that we get an announcement out of Ottawa to make this clear, not kicking this forward to the fall economic statement where we're in an announcement I think would be less useful as businesses have already put plans in place.

CC: Okay. I do know that there's some the level of optimism there that it does seem to be about timing. Dan Kelly, we appreciate getting your perspective on this this morning.

DAN KELLY: Anytime.

CC: Dan Kelly is president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Well, joining me now is the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Franco Terrazzano. Good morning.

FRANCO TERRAZZANO: Hey, good morning and thanks for having me on.

CC: Well, thank you for being here. What do you make of these calls to extend the loan deadline?

FRANCO TERRAZZANO: Well, first, I mean, just listening to the last conversations with Anita and Dan, I mean, it's gut wrenching, isn't it, right, to take yourself back to the days of the pandemic and just trying to think about what small business owners in particular had to go through. Right. I mean, these are people who have done everything right. They save they put money away for a rainy day. They hire people into their communities. They want to build their communities. And these people didn't want to go out of business. Right. They're forced out of business. They had to take out loans. They had to do everything they could just to keep the lights on during those years of the pandemic. And now they're facing a high cost of living like everyone else. So I do think it's important for the government to to be compassionate for all of us to be compassionate. But what I will say is we have to really ask, what are they are they pushing for? So on the one hand, you know, they're looking for I mean, right now the government has said essentially businesses, you have to pay if you pay up to 40 K back the loan by the end of the year, $20,000 will be forgiven. If not, then the business is on the hook to pay back the loan over the next two years at a 5% interest rate. Well, I think you can be flexible in terms of repayment, in terms of interest rate, but we're we're against the forgiving of the loan, quite frankly, because it's not the government who's forgiving the loans. And and also.

CC: One of the. Sorry, Frank. I'm going to jump in here because I just want to really make sure I understand your point. Right now, they're not asking for forgiveness. They're asking for an extension. Right. For a year or two. Do you believe that that is something the government should do?

FRANCO TERRAZZANO: Well, okay. So let me let me take a little bit of a nuanced approach here. So what I think the government should do, I think the government is fine in terms of being flexible on when the full loan is repaid. Okay. And also being flexible on what interest rate is. Is each business going to pay back? Okay. We can we can arm wrestle those out. We can have some flexibility. What I don't think should happen is forgiveness of any of the loans. One of your earlier guests, she rightly said that everyone is struggling. Well, it's not the government per se that is forgiving the loan that that's money that's being placed on the on the backs of other taxpayers who are also struggling. How many other people in the community are living paycheque to paycheque right now? And that paycheque seems to be getting smaller as the price of ground beef, as the price of chicken, as the price of necessities of the price of gasoline is going up. Right. So it's not the government that would be forgiving any portion of this loan. It's really money that the taxpayer would have to pay back.

CC: Yeah, I think it is important to point out, though, you do keep saying forgiving and I, I'm not aware of anyone who is saying, please just forgive all this money. Are you?

FRANCO TERRAZZANO: No, But what we already have seen is that if businesses are able to pay back up to $40,000 of the loan by the end of this year, then about 20 K will be forgiven. So that portion. Right. What we're saying there, that portion - thank you for the clarification - we don't believe that should be forgiven. This was always a loan, right? When the government or anyone loans you the money, you pay it back. This isn't a grant. This isn't that type of subsidy. Or at least we don't think it should be.

CC: But you're comfortable with the existing forgiveness. You just don't want businesses to be able to say, okay, I'm not going to--.

FRANCO TERRAZZANO: No.

CC: You're not comfortable with the existing forgiveness.

FRANCO TERRAZZANO: No, I'm glad you clarified that. Look, I think we can be very flexible and compassionate for some businesses. And I think the government doesn't need a one size fits none type of policy. Right. And the government would have better data than I would and the businesses would have better data than I would on that, but I think-

CC: And yet the government sorry, the government - And again, I just want to make sure that we are all on the same page and understand what you're advocating for the government. When all of these 900,000 businesses signed these loan agreements, it was that there's a forgiveness portion baked into it. So if you take a $40,000 loan amount. And you're not saying the government should go back agreeing with that?

FRANCO TERRAZZANO: I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm saying I don't think that's the right policy. That's what I'm saying. Right. That's what we're saying here. What we're also saying, too, is I think the government, when we talk about all the different pandemic subsidies, I think the government should take a broader view on this. Right. Because we have seen an auditor general report and it might not specifically be talking about the CEBA loan, but we've seen the Auditor general point to about $32 billion, potentially more in subsidies that went out the door that were ineligible or subsidies that went out the door that were questionable. Now, to be completely frank, I really do believe that that's where the priority should be for this government in reclaiming the money. Right? Because to go back to what some of your other what Anita or Dan were saying, look, how much blood can you draw from a stone.

CC: Yeah.

FRANCO TERRAZZANO: Right. So instead of sending the hounds out after small businesses, making them repay quickly, I would suggest going after some of those subsidies that the Auditor General has already flagged.

CC: And we should and we should say and you made this point, Franco, that that auditor general's report that flagged billions in dollars that need investigation and actually didn't talk about CEBA at all, but it did, as you say, raise questions about more questions that need to be asked about these billions in dollars of spending.

FRANCO TERRAZZANO: Yes.

CC: Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us this morning.

FRANCO TERRAZZANO: Well, thank you.

CC: Appreciate it. Franco Terrazzano is federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. And we did invite the government to speak to us about the CEBA repayment plan. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland was not available. Neither was her parliamentary secretary nor anyone to speak for the government. The CBC news is next. Then.

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In a situation where you have annual coral bleaching, you're essentially creating a scenario where the coral is never going to have a chance to recover.

CC: There is a rush to save coral reefs off the coast of Florida after seawater became as warm as hot tubs. The worry that this is only the beginning of a global trend. In 6 minutes, we're going to talk about rescuing reefs before it is too late. I'm Catherine Cullen and you are listening to The Current.

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Warming waters raise concerns about marine life

Guests: Phanor Montoya-Maya, Cynthia Lewis, Susanna Fuller

CC: I'm Catherine Cullen and you're listening to The Current. Florida is in hot water, literally. A heat wave has caused areas between the Florida Keys to heat up to 101 degrees Fahrenheit. For a little perspective, a hot tub is usually around 100 degrees. Now a race is on to save coral species from what could be a massive die off event. Phanor Montoya-Maya is a marine biologist with the Coral Restoration Foundation and Cynthia Lewis is the lead scientist and director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography. Keys Marine Laboratory. We reached them both in the Florida Keys. Good morning to you both.

GUESTS: Good morning. Good morning, everyone.

CC: Fanner, I want to start with you. You have been diving to see the coral. Just how warm is the water?

PHANOR MONTOYA-MAYA: I'm You said it is like a hot tub and we experienced like two week two weeks ago. Sorry. When we predicted the mortality, it was, you know, 90 degrees Fahrenheit, 32 degrees centigrade. So it was really hot. And it was heartbreaking to see how the temperature was affecting the corals.

CC: Describe to me what you saw.

PHANOR MONTOYA-MAYA: We were targeting some el conqueror acropora pal mata that they were in the wall at Sombrero Reef of Marathon City, and we were going to rescue those corals for Gene Bank. And that was a standard procedure that we were working with Noah to rescue these species. And when we jump to the water, we were looking for the core of these are large colonies. And the first thing that we saw was white. There were all white. And not only those corals, but also the wild colonies, but also the the Stockholm corals that we have been unplanted for the last three years there. And some were brown as well. So we said, okay, so some part is just bleaching which you expect this time of, in summer. But then when we had a closer look, it was just sparkling white and already with no tissue at all. So they were certainly dead. And those brown area that we saw thinking that that was life tissue, it was not. It was just tissue a what we called rapid tissue loss or tissue sludge that is just degraded. And it seems like the corals just burned to death. And that was very heartbreaking. I was diving with two of my employees there, lower keys coordinator and see them crying and look at these corals. That was devastating to me.

CC: Cynthia, I want to bring you in here. As I understand it, you've been sort of chained to your desk trying to help with your portion of all of this. What is it like to hear that description?

CYNTHIA LEWIS: It's heartbreaking and it certainly brings me to tears. It's a very emotional thing to just hear this even second-hand from our friends and colleagues and what they're seeing.

CC: Help us, for those of us who don't have your expertise in this area, Vianna was talking about coral bleaching. What is that?

CYNTHIA LEWIS: Well, it's when there's a photosynthetic algae that's golden, brown coloured and lives in the tissue or the skin of the coral, the symbiosis. And that produces the sunlight, produces food for the coral. And when the coral is stressed, as in this warm water situation, they expel that algae leaving their translucent tissues. And this all you're seeing is this white skeleton below. It looks like somebody has dumped bleach all over the reef. It's just start white. It's it's startling.

CC: So bleached coral isn't dead coral, It's sick coral to some extent.

CYNTHIA LEWIS: Correct. It's at the bare minimum. It's stressed, it's starving. So it's not getting the food that photosynthetic algae that lives in tissue provides more than 90% of the nutrients that the coral needs to grow and survive. So it's lost that ability to feed itself in that manner, although it still can feed on small particles in the in the water, it's not enough to sustain it. And on top of that, with these hot temperatures that FINAU mentioned and the coral tissue itself, the coral animal is under extreme stress. And just that stress alone, the physiological stress of basically sitting in that hot tub of water is enough to kill them.

CC: You are doing something called coral triage. Explain the for again, for those of us without your expertise. What is that?

CYNTHIA LEWIS: Well, here at the Keys Marine lab, we have temperature controlled seawater systems with good quality reef water so they know where and all of his associates can bring these corals in from the hot temperatures out on the reef, gradually acclimate them to the cooler temperatures that they prefer that we have here at the lab. And so they transition them in big coolers and putting cooler water from our tables into the coolers to slowly cool them down and get them into our tables. So that's the first part of triage is getting them acclimated and then to cooler water. But then it's monitoring them and caring for them and cleaning them, cutting away any dead or potentially disease tissue. So that's not infecting the other girls.

CC: Phanor, tell me more about what the work is like on your end to try to save this coral.

PHANOR MONTOYA-MAYA: Well, we seem to mention we are in the two phase mission now. The first phase was to rescue as much genetic diversity that the different restoration practitioners have in their nurseries of the different species that we we have. We, you know, depending on the practitioner, we have several amount of species, the Coral Restoration Foundation, we have over 20 species. So that was the first a mission is try to get as much representation as we can of that coral genetic diversity from the Florida reef trucked in to land based systems to have the Bruce stock in case we lose every team in the sea does. That's done and takes the coordination of nine things to the support of the kids. Murray love to hold those corals there before they're sent to the different gene banking destinations. And the second phase is the one that we are on right now and is trying to rescue as much of the production is stock that we have. Remember that we we use asexual propagation of corals to increase the numbers of corals. And we just add that probably a nursery, which is the world's largest underwater nursery, we have over 35,000 corals. So right now we are doing triage within that, within the three agencies, trying to rescue as much of those 35,000 corals, you know, moving them into a more tanks that the Keys Marine love has facilitated for us. And some of those we are actually looking for pools or other locations that we can put thousands of corals A out of the of these hot temperatures.

CC: Is this a day found or that you sort of you've been waiting for this moment? I mean, we know that climate change is is changing our environment. There's obviously a complex system you've put in place. Have you have you just been thinking the time is going to come, that I'm going to go down there and this is what I'm going to see?

PHANOR MONTOYA-MAYA: And we know that bleaching is a recurrent a condition in case a record event has happened before 1998, 2010, 2017, and now again, those are like the severe bleaching event. So when we were looking at El Nino for this year, but also, you know, how much climate action we have done, which is pretty much nothing, we knew that these are stronger and stronger [unintelliglbe] will cause severe bleaching, so we were already expecting something strong to happen and difficult to happen this year. We were not expecting it to see it this soon, this quickly. We will expecting these for end of August. You know, on September the temperature started decreasing, but it just happened too soon, too fast that we had to speed up our plans and we managed to to respond accordingly. We have learned from previous situations and we, you know, use all that knowhow and knowledge do to respond to this. And we are going to continue learning to for the next time that these this happen. Because until we don't take climate action, these unfortunately will continue to happen.

CC: Cynthia, help us understand what's at stake here, why these reefs are so important.

CYNTHIA LEWIS: Well. And these reefs here, this is the only living reef in the continental United States, and it is the third largest barrier reef system. And as a barrier reef system offshore from the Florida Keys. But the state of Florida, it's about three to five miles offshore. It provides a barrier of protection against wave action, but it's also incredibly economically important. The barrier that it provides to wave action, it's the first line of defence for hurricanes and storms and all that wave energy coming ashore. So it does prevent flooding and erosion on our coastal areas. But additionally, the economic importance is incredible. It's a multibillion dollar and economic impact here and in the state of Florida and elsewhere. But it's, the reefs provide tourism and all aspects of tourism that you can possibly think of and the jobs associated with it, such as snorkelling and scuba diving and recreational fishing. Not only that, it's important, very economically important to all of our commercial fisheries, including the lobster. So this is the habitat that they live in and they need this habitat in order to survive. These are essentially the rainforests of the ocean as far as their life and diversity that they provide for us. So incredibly important for Florida.

CC: So how hopeful are you that you are going to be able to save, as you put it, these rainforests of the ocean?

CYNTHIA LEWIS: Well, my hope is lies with the folks like Fandor and many others that are, you know, frantically trying to do this restoration work or they've been diligently doing the restoration work over several decades. And we continue to do that, restoring essentially growing and planting corals back out on the reef to try to help Mother Nature along and preserving this reef structure. Not only that, but preserving this genetic diversity as vain or said by bringing these corals in to land based nurseries where we can protect the genetic diversity and breed corals onshore. And that's that's my hope for the future.

CC: Well, listen, we wish you we wish you both good luck with what sounds like very demanding work. Thank you for taking the time to help us understand it.

PHANOR MONTOYA-MAYA: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for the invitation.

CC: Phanor Montoya-Maya is a marine biologist with the Coral Restoration Foundation, and Cynthia Lewis is the lead scientist and director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography Keys Marine Laboratory. We reached them both in the Florida Keys. Well, in Canada, we have seen the impacts of extreme heat on marine life from coast to coast. Researchers in British Columbia believe one billion seashore creatures died along the Pacific coastline during the heat dome of 2021. And this year, on the East Coast, ocean temperatures have been hitting record highs. Susanna Fuller is vice president of conservation at Oceans North. She is in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Good morning.

SUSANNA FULLER: Good morning.

CC: What was going through your mind listening to that conversation?

SUSANNA FULLER: It's heartbreaking. You know, I think the efforts that people are making to really save species and ecosystems and get ahead of some of the impacts of climate change that we have known were coming. I think even when you know something is coming, when it happens, it's you're still not ready for it, right? So I yeah, I find it I find their stories heartbreaking and just the intense effort to just save species, even if they're not still in the ocean. And then the descriptions of the importance of the Barrier Reef to so many aspects of the Florida economy and culture and environment, and knowing that they may not be there in the future, I think is it's quite devastating.

CC: Yeah, hard to hear. Even though you knew, as you say, that. I mean, we were going to be having these discussions based on what we know about what climate change is doing to our planet.

SUSANNA FULLER: Yeah. Yeah.

CC: So let's talk about Canada. In July, off the coast of Newfoundland, scientists recorded ocean temperatures that were five to 10 degrees above normal for that time of year. In 2021, ocean temperatures in Atlantic Canada set record highs. What effect is that having on sea life?

SUSANNA FULLER: Well, you know, I think we're still learning. I mean, the temperatures in the North Atlantic this summer are what scientists have called off the charts, which means literally they are things. They're at a level that we have not seen before and we have some predictive ability. And that's a lot of what scientists have been working on is trying to understand. As temperatures increase and as emissions increase, what we might be able to predict. But I think what happens is when when things go off the charts, that predictive ability changes and we are going to be constantly dealing with things that we didn't expect to happen. And the North Atlantic, you know, in the Gulf of Maine, for example, it's already been warming two or three times faster than other parts of the ocean. And we've been contending with that over the years with species changes and shifts. But I think the part that we're behind on is actually how do we manage and adapt to that?

CC: Tell me you say it's unpredictable. Tell me about something that shocked you that you've seen.

SUSANNA FULLER: Well, you know, I think just a few years ago it was 2017. All of a sudden, right whales showed up in an area that nobody predicted them to be. So a ton of work and right whales are, you know, critically endangered. Lots of work has been done in the Bay of Fundy to avoid contact with fishing gear and to monitor them. All of a sudden, 100 whales showed up in 2017 in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where they had not been before. And we had massive mortality of those whales because we weren't used to them being there and they were entangled in fishing gear and hit by ships. So that's something that really shocked. That was shocking, right? We didn't know that they were going there and the management had to be of a crisis. I think the other things that are more maybe expected. We know that cod populations in both the Gulf of Maine and the Gulf St Lawrence have been at very low levels since overfishing. But I think we expected that once we start fishing them or, you know, kind of reduced fishing effort, they would start to recover. We haven't seen that. We haven't seen recovery of some species that we anticipated would recover if we manage them better from a fishing perspective. So I think that's another thing that we're the usual things that we could do to recover populations are not working because they are vulnerable to climate change and their life histories are being interrupted.

CC: Well, let's stay with the people who are actually doing, for instance, cold water commercial fishing right now. I mean, I mean, you talk about the stocks being affected. What does the future look like for them? That piece of this discussion.

SUSANNA FULLER: Well, I think it's going to depend a little bit on species by species. Atlantic Canada, for example, we have a huge reliance on species like lobster and snow crab. They're extremely valuable fisheries and shrimp. And we have seen the shrimp fishery in the Gulf of Maine is completely hasn't happened in over a decade. On the Scotian shelf, the shrimp stocks are lower and lower every year. We know from some work that's been done recently by scientists looking at climate risk, that as climate change increases and the ocean and the ocean increases in temperature in Atlantic Canada, we're going to get increasing number of bottom heat waves, which basically means the seafloor temperature is also going up. And those species that live on the seafloor, like lobster crabs, shrimp, are increasingly vulnerable into the future. So they will move they are moving further north right now. And that becomes a disconnect of where people fish and where the fish are and who fishes and how those communities are affected. We've also seen new species coming into Canada, like the black bellied rose fish. We didn't used to have it before. We're seeing Atlanta ification of some of the Arctic ecosystems where species typically known for further down, you know, further south in the Atlantic are now getting into Arctic waters. So we're seeing a real shift of where species are. And I don't think we are ready. Canada hasn't done a lot of planning on the socioeconomic consequences of that. And then how do those communities who have typically fished, what is the economic basis of those going forward?

CC: So what does need to be done for us to try to better adapt to these changes?

SUSANNA FULLER: Well, I think, number one, you know, Canada does have a national adaptation strategy. I don't think it's got enough about oceans and fisheries and coastal ecosystems. The US UN launched a National Ocean Climate Action Plan. Canada does not have one of those, despite having the longest coastline in the world. I think that we really need to up what we're doing in coastal provinces and through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and just developing an ocean climate action plan that is really focussed on adaptation. I think we can do a lot more around emissions reductions in the fishing industry, in the shipping industry, and some of that is starting to move. But generally we have to double down and redouble our efforts globally on reducing emissions. That's the biggest thing that we can do for the ocean. But at the local level, we know that adaptation and planning for jobs and economies is going to be extremely vital over the next decade.

CC: We know that, you know, there are many Canadians whose livelihood or their professional passion depends on what happens in the oceans. But there are a lot of Canadians whose lives are also really pretty divorced from nature in big cities. What would you want them to take away from what they're hearing today about what's happening in our waters?

SUSANNA FULLER: Well, you know, the oceans impact, you know, our climate. They are so much a part of who we are as a country, even we are far away from them. And I think it's an it's a just as you know, those of us who live near the coast are deeply impacted by wildfires in the central in the middle of the country. There is trauma. And we feel for people who have to move there, move homes and communities. I think it is in the same way the oceans don't burn, but their increasing temperature will result in similar catastrophic impacts to some coastal communities who are so dependent on the ocean for their livelihoods. So I do think that we as Canadians, we really are feeling for communities who are facing the impacts. And they I think in central Canada, we're not immune to those same impacts, even if they're far away.

CC: What is it like to be a scientist watching this change take place?

SUSANNA FULLER: Well, you know, I switched my life from being a full on scientist many years ago to being much more involved in advocacy and policy, in part because I was so frustrated by the fact that no one, no matter how much information and data and warnings coming out of scientists, you know, 40 years ago, we knew climate change was starting to happen. In 2019, we had the IPCC report on the oceans and the cryosphere. We know what's going to happen, and we're not using that information for policymaking right now. We're just not moving fast enough. So I think for scientists and I feel in my heart I am one, it's deeply emotional, I think, for policymakers in trying to make change. There's a sense of urgency. That is it is just increasing, right, as we're facing these real impacts which have been predicted and some of which are not predicted. Things are moving faster than we anticipated. It's it's a sense of, I think, for many scientists, sense of powerlessness because the information is out there. And in my world, working for a non-government organisation, I try to feel empowered on on making changes. But that becomes increasingly difficult when we get things like are happening this summer with such so much faster warming than we anticipated in the North Atlantic in particular.

CC: Well, thank you for giving us some insight into it today. We appreciate it.

SUSANNA FULLER: You're welcome.

CC: Susanna Fuller is the vice president of conservation at Oceans North.

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CC: Dr. Charles Bradley with the world coming up after your regional update will conclude the Cbbc podcast. The no good. Terribly kind, wonderful Lives and tragic deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. I'm Catherine Cullen and you're listening to The Current. Stay with us.

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The deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman

CC: I'm Catherine Cullen and you're listening to The Current. Throughout the summer, we're bringing you some of CBC's best podcasts. Today, we're concluding - The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. The host is Kathleen Goldhar.

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MARK MENDELSOHN: Any homicide detective will tell you that you have to let the evidence lead the course of the investigation. The evidence is what you follow.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Whenever I tell anybody that I'm working on this podcast, the first question I get asked is, Do you have a theory about who did it? The second question, how could police ever have thought that Barry died by suicide when he was found sitting down? Let's start there because it's a good question and one that I put to former homicide detective Mark Mendelsohn. But before we hear from him, I want to say that in this episode, we'll be discussing ways in which people take their own lives and ways people can be killed. So please take care while listening. But back to that question I had for Mark Mendelsohn concerning the position they found Barry in.

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MARK MENDELSOHN: It's absolutely happened. And I've seen it. I've had people who I was brought in because it was deemed to be a homicide by the initial investigators. You know, a man who used a ligature, not a belt, but a different like a rope and actually hanged himself off a radiator in his home. So it can be done. It's not unheard of. Have I ever come across a situation where there are two people dead and a murder suicide was done with the same mechanism of death? I can't see that I have.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Do you ever remember going to a scene and thinking you saw, let's say, a homicide and it ended up being a suicide or the other way around?

MARK MENDELSOHN: It certainly happened to me. I can think of a number of occasions where somebody died by way of a weapon, and the assumption was that they died on their own by their own hand. But the scene didn't make any sense in terms of where the gun was found in relation to the body. No history of mental illness, no discussion with anybody, no financial issues, no marital issues, no criminal activity issues. Nothing seemed to fit. You know, so you've got to go through your whole forensic toolbox to try and prove or disprove. I can think of more situations where we have found people who have died, and I think any homicide detective would look at that particular scene in that victim and be absolutely 100% sure that that person was murdered. And yet you get into the autopsy and despite, you know, very specialized examinations and, you know, forensic examinations, toxicology, biology, everything in the forensic departments toolbox, you have no anatomical cause of death. And you know, that person was murdered just by the nature of where they were found. But you have no cause of death. You have no anatomical cause of death. Therefore you don't have murder. And that's a really frustrating situation.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: We know that when police first found the Shermans, their theory was murder suicide. While they didn't officially state it, police sources were whispering it to lawyers and some reporters. And according to the initial search warrants, they were only looking into Honey's murder.

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RYAN GREENSPAN: Thank you for your attendance today. My name is Ryan Greenspan. On Saturday, December 16th, 2017, the day after the shocking discovery of the murders of Barry and Honey Sherman, I was routine to advise the Sherman family as to the manner in which they might contribute to the investigation of their parents double homicide.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The speed in which the police seemed to conclude that Honey and Barry died by murder suicide was pretty unusual. And for the Sherman family, it was devastating.

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RYAN GREENSPAN: The family had been understandably outraged by the unfounded police statement on Friday evening, which they believed from the outset had jeopardized and indeed compromised the integrity of the investigation.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: If you look back in Canadian law history, you'll see Brian Greenspan's name attached to a lot of high profile cases. And many of his clients are famously wealthy. If he's in your corner, you have the advantage.

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RYAN GREENSPAN: My mandate at the outset included assembling a distinguished group of homicide and forensic investigators with the commitment which we first expressed to the Toronto Police Service.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And standing there holding court in front of dozens of reporters, photographers and cameras. Brian Greenspan introduced his team of investigators.

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RYAN GREENSPAN: Tom Klatt, who organized our efforts, enjoyed a celebrated career with the Toronto Police Service, which spanned over two decades, Ray Zar, which he spent as a member of the Toronto Police Services for 33 years. Dennis Bogan served with the Toronto Police Service for 35 years. Alan Ventress, a member of the Toronto Police Service for over 30 years. Dr. David Chasen, former chief pathologist of Ontario.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The Sherman children were accusing the Toronto police via their lawyer of tunnel vision, that the police were so set on the idea that their dad killed their mom and then killed himself that the investigation had gone awry.

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RYAN GREENSPAN: Their experiences during the course of the investigation have led the family to reluctantly conclude that they must publicly share their concerns. And moving forward. After more than ten months of silence and frustration.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: To illustrate just how badly things have gone, Brian Greenspan went over what his team had discovered during the course of their investigation.

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RYAN GREENSPAN: Toronto Police service failed to follow best practices and did not vacuum the area in their failure to conduct a thorough examination of the points of entry into the home. If this best practice had been followed, they would have located a point of entry to the home, which would have seriously undermined their misleading and irresponsible conclusion that there had been no forced entry. One of the first steps in a murder investigation is to collect all fingerprints and potential DNA from the scene and to compare those fingerprints and bodily fluids with those from everyone known to have been present at the scene at a time proximate to the crime. We know that today, more than ten months after the murders, this preliminary and simple task has not yet been completed. Aside from failing to complete the standard protocol of fingerprint elimination, the police also missed at least 25 palm or fingerprint impressions that were discovered by our private team at the scene.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Nine months before this press conference, the Toronto police had shifted gears and began investigating this German deaths as a double murder. The problem for the German kids was that nothing had happened since the family conducted their own private autopsy, which David Chasen, Ontario's former chief forensic pathologist, performed five days after the bodies were found. But standing alongside him was the pathologist who had conducted the police autopsy. Dr. Michael Pickup. And he had brought along evidence with him to share the crime scene photos. Toronto Star reporter Kevin Donovan, who's followed this case relentlessly, notes these details in his book about the Shermans. And he writes that Dr. Pickup told Dr. Chasen that he wanted to be helpful.

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RYAN GREENSPAN: At the conclusion of Dr. Chasen's postmortem examinations of Berry and Honey Sherman, it became clear that they were both murdered.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: According to Kevin's articles in the Toronto Star, Dr. Chasen honed in on a couple of key points that he said were misinterpreted during the first autopsy. He made note of blood vessel damage under the skin of their wrists that he said prove the Shermans had been tied up, even though no bindings were ever found on the scene. It's been reported that their hands were behind their backs, but only loosely held there by their coats, which had been pushed down from their shoulders. Dr. Chasen also doubted that this Shermans were killed by the belts that were found around their necks. Again, according to the Toronto Star, he noted thin lines on the skin under the belts, indicating that the Shermans were strangled with something else, something thinner, and that the belts were only used there to hold up their bodies. These findings to Dr. Chasen tipped the scales in favor of a double homicide theory.

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RYAN GREENSPAN: We offered access to those conclusions, but it was not until January 24th, 2018, that the lead investigator from the Toronto Police Service met with Dr. Chasen. It was our understanding that this discussion impacted and contributed to the belated public announcement by the Toronto Police Service on January 26th, 2018, that Barry and Honey Sherman with the victims of a targeted double homicide.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Have you ever, ever experienced that before? A very wealthy, powerful family hires its own investigative team.

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MARK MENDELSOHN: Not when I was at Homicide, but I've certainly been retained in that capacity. You know, since since I retired and opened up the private investigation side of my life.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Former homicide detective Mark Mendelsohn again.

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MARK MENDELSOHN: But having said that, I think it's important to note that if I was sitting in Homicide and it was my case or I was the unit commander, and I found out that anybody had hired a private investigator to sort of reinvent the wheel of my investigation, one thing's for sure, I would be not sharing any information with that private investigator. The information goes one way. It goes to the police because they have carriage of the investigation. It is not appropriate by any stretch of the imagination, especially when you're thinking about court two years down the road to start sharing intimate details and evidence with a private investigator or lawyer or a lawyer for for the family, for that matter. Because once somebody else has that information, you've got no control over where it goes.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: However, according to Kevin Donovan's reporting, the police did share evidence with the Greenspan investigation. Those crime scene photos and although it's not unprecedented for police to share evidence with a private investigation team, it is rare. But Greenspan says his shadow investigation was what made the Toronto police shift their theory. We've asked both Greenspan and the police to comment, but neither have responded.

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ETIEL DRAWER: Have you seen the movie E.T.? Yeah. Extraterrestrials are just add the letter L, So it's pronounced E.T.L.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Etiel.

ETIEL DRAWER: Perfect.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Etiel Drawer is a cognitive neuroscience researcher and expert on the human brain and how cognitive biases affect our decisions.

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ETIEL DRAWER: Okay, so there are a number of points to make. Point number one, we know that people are not rational. This is not new. What I brought to the table is showing that even scientists, even experts, are supposedly objective and impartial. They, too, have bias. The people who do science are also susceptible to bias biases that people in everyday life have without a church experience. How the training, how motivation or ideology, how a working environment, the organizational, cultural loyalty, the whole bunch of different factors that relate to the expert, to the person doing the autopsy, making the forensic decision, nothing about the case. It's something about them personally.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So in the case of the first set of experts, their unconscious bias might have led them to quickly assume this was a murder suicide. Maybe because the crime took place in a home, maybe because nothing was reportedly stolen and maybe because there was no sign of forced entry. But according to Etiel, the second team would have also brought their own set of biases. It's hard to ignore the fact that the second team was hired by the Sherman family because they were furious over reports that Berry had killed Honey and then himself.

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ETIEL DRAWER: We have looked at experts where we hired over 100 experts and told half of them, Hello, I'm from the prosecution. Can you look at this case? And we thought the other half. Hello, I'm from the public defender. Can you look at this case and give them the exact same information? And they conducted a forensic analysis that has been published in the literature as being objective. And we found a huge impact with college elite research when they believe they're working for the prosecution. Their conclusion aligned more with the prosecution perspective. When they believe they're working for the defense, then their conclusion aligned with the defense. And this is an organization that back door.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: In other words, experts are not infallible. You assume it's obvious to them the difference between a homicide and a suicide, but it's not. I mean, I learned that in creative writing class.

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ETIEL DRAWER: Some cases are more difficult to determine. The ambiguous cases. Ambiguous cases that the forensic pathologist can always say undetermined. I cannot determine the manner of death. So if they're not sure that the two are side homicide, they don't have to decide. So when they decide they should reserve it, when they're very, very confident in their conclusion.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Since the original pathologist determined that the cause of death was ligature neck compression, but could not conclusively determine the manner of death. You could argue that that's exactly what he was doing. Reserving his judgment.

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ETIEL DRAWER: Even lawyers, even judges have misconceptions about forensic science. Forensic science is very good, but it's not perfect. And the cognitive and the human factors that influence a human element is huge in most forensic domain. The human expert is the instrument of analysis. It's a human brain. It's a human making judgment.

DOUG YOUNG: You know, managing bias. That's a huge thing in forensic science. We talk about it in almost every training that we go to. Every conference that I attend, it comes up.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Doug Young is a forensic scientist.

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DOUG YOUNG: One of the things that I think investigators sometimes get caught up with is tunnel vision. So they go in and they decide, okay, this looks like something, and then they stick with that. And that's something we constantly have to fight, myself included. But you have to go in and you have to look at it objectively, look at it with both eyes, so to speak. So this case is very complex, obviously. And then you break that complex problem down into its individual components. The first thing we're going to do is document the scene as we found it. That can be done through photography, through video notes and sketching all of those things. Then you move into doing a walk through with the investigator and just getting a feel for the scene. What is the scene telling us? The scene plays a huge part in it.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, we don't have access to either autopsy report. We had a researcher gather all the reporting that there was about them, and she created a side by side fact sheet of both autopsies. We showed it to Doug Young.

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DOUG YOUNG: And looking at the autopsies. And again, I'm not going to know definitive answer. But, you know, just for me, if they the hands were bound, for instance, Right. He would have to hang her, then bind his hands and get them behind his back. Okay. So you'd have to do that before he had the belt, Right. How does that work? I mean, it's very complicated to be able to accomplish that. Is it impossible? No, it's not impossible. I have seen suicides where their hands are behind the back, but. It's not common. Not common. And, you know, I think, again, we have to take into account we're not talking about someone who's at a younger age. How easy would that be for someone the 75 to do? I'm 53 and I couldn't do it right. It would be very uncomfortable. So I think a lot of factors go into what's going on with the scene with the case, because when you just put it together, it makes more sense to me that it's a double homicide than it is a murder suicide. And I take a lot of that from the pathologist through the binding, the smart ligature underneath the belts. But the information that I do have, I would more link to a double murder.

KERRY WINTER: All the listeners listening to this should know there will never be an arrest. There is no doubt in my mind that Barry killed Honey and committed suicide.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So Kerry Winter definitely disagrees with Doug Young.

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KERRY WINTER: Why would he snap? Why would he kill Honey in a rage? Why would he end up killing himself? And there lies the perfect storm that I know about. And there's only one person I've ever known who's got a temper like him. And that's me. When Barry would take off his glasses and he'd lose his fuckin mind and he'd lose his temper. He was scary. Anybody who knew Barry can say he was kind and generous and roly poly and sweet talking and soft spoken. But anybody who knew Barry catch him on a bad day. Catch him when he was angry and he was downright scary. And that day, when he came home from Apotex, something happened in that house. Something happened in that house. And they were not targeted. Murderers did not come into the colony and kill Barry by dragging them to a pool. They would have come and put two bullets in each one of them. End of story.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: This clearly is not the end of the story. But to play out Kerry's theory, we wondered if there was any way that Barry had been pushed to the edge, what was happening in the days and the months before his death. Remember that by the end of 2016, Barry was under investigation by the federal lobbying commissioner for that Liberal Party fundraiser that he threw at his house. Then just a few months later, Barry fired an Apotex chemist for allegedly stealing millions of dollars worth of drug formulations and selling them to a rival drug company in Pakistan. Around the same time, there was that scandal with then Apotex CEO Jeremy Desai, who allegedly had an affair with a rival drug company employee who reportedly passed on Company Secrets to Dhesi that same year. Apotex lost a huge patent case to the tune of $580 million. And there's one more event that we haven't talked about in the last few weeks of his life. Barry launched a lawsuit against a convicted fraudster who allegedly duped him out of $150,000, which seems like a trivial amount for a billionaire. And then there were, of course, the matters closer to home. Two weeks before his death, according to Donovan's reporting, Barry had been emailing his son urgently trying to get Jonathan to pay back a $50 million loan.

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SAUL RUBINEK AS BARRY SHERMAN: We might have to pay the 580 million judgment in January. We just need to take steps to improve liquidity. Case needed. Are those requests that you arrange first mortgages to enable paying 50 to 60 million to serve them? If possible, please do within weeks.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And the long standing lawsuit with his cousin Kerry Winter. According to Kerry, his legal action, made things even more stressful at home. He said Honey was furious. Not only was she mad at Kerry, but Kerry says she was also upset about what she perceived as gossip going around the Jewish community.

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KERRY WINTER: Are they whispering that maybe he stole, maybe he ripped off orphans? You know, I think that you'd have to be Jewish living in this city to understand the fallout of this scandal, this ongoing litigation.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And on top of all of this, there's Honey's dream home. Plans were underway to construct a 16,000 square foot mansion from police interviews we know that Barry was very much against the idea. All of this had to be stressful, for sure. But it's not like Barry wasn't used to this kind of thing. He seemed to relish fights when after people long after his own lawyers told him to stop. So were the last months of his life really more difficult than any other period of time?

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KERRY WINTER: My misfortune was his good luck. I lost my parents. He scooped up Uncle Lou's business and he ran with it. And I said, But Barry's interesting. He's in the front of a locomotive train. The train is going faster, faster and faster. And he's this maniac on the front of the train. And as the train's going faster and faster down the track, left and right by the side of the railroad tracks are bags of money. And he's grabbing each bag and he's throwing the bags in the back. And he keeps going faster and faster and faster. But he's in this frantic state. And that was Barry all the bags of money he grabbed. He never had a chance to smell the roses. He never enjoyed his money. The money never brought him happiness. He was a man who was lonely, pathetic, antisocial, didn't know love, didn't have friends, just made money, ran his companies. That's all he lived and died for.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: By the time this podcast is out, the Shermans will have been gone for more than five years and there are rumors of deep rifts within the family. Jonathan told the Toronto Star that his sister thinks he had something to do with the crime, something he denies. Both Kaelen and Alexander's marriages have broken up since the deaths of their parents. Kaelen's only lasted a few months, and things between Aunt Mary and the Sherman kids got so bad that she wasn't even invited to Kaelen's wedding. In 2019, the Sherman family's investigative team, headed by Brian Greenspan, quietly disbanded with no public comment about their work. More recently, Jonathan Sherman reportedly hired yet another former Toronto homicide detective to keep digging. And according to media reports, it's not a move supported by all of his siblings. And there's been a lot of upheaval at Apotex as well. CEO Jeremy Desai eventually resigned. He was replaced by longtime Apotex employee and Barry's right hand man, Jack. But Jack, who worked beside Barry for 35 years and considered him a dear friend, was unceremoniously march out of Apotex by Barry son Jonathan in December of 2018. A few days before the first anniversary of Barry and Hani's deaths. And then in September 2022, Barry's children sold his beloved company to an American pharmaceutical firm for an undisclosed amount of money. Despite Barry's long held desire to keep Apotex Canadian. To mark the five year anniversary of their deaths. Two of the Sherman children made rare public comments. Both Jonathan and his sister Alexandra, issued separate statements. Alexandra spoke of the need to have this resolved to bring some kind of closure. Jonathan said much the same thing, but added a monetary incentive. He upped the reward for finding his parents killers to $35 million. For more than two years, the house on Old Colony Road stayed empty. I was told by someone who knew the family that when the house finally came down, everything was still inside. We also spoke off the record to one of the people who worked on the demolition. We asked him what was inside of the house when they tore it down. Everything he confirmed. Clothes, cutlery, plants, everything.

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LEO SEWELL: This is a couple that I feel quite sure that I made in the seventies.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What about Leo Sewell's sculptures?

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LEO SEWELL: Well, they look like they're within a foot of one another, and he's appropriately little taller than she is. And I don't know if they look so Sphinx like.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Philadelphia artist Leo Sewell picked through garbage to create his sculpture of a man and a woman sitting side by side, legs outstretched. The one that was displayed in the Sherman home. Perhaps that sculpture has also now been returned to a junk pile. Maybe for other people to pick over and repurpose, giving the parts new meaning.

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LEO SEWELL: Well, there's a sign over there that says trash is truth. When you pick trash, there's nobody editing it except you. And it's just so much fun to resurrect these things and put them back in people's lives.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: In a way, I guess that's what we tried to do, make meaning out of a bunch of different elements of a baffling crime. But where did we land? Without a doubt. Honey Sherman was murdered that day. There is no one disputing that fact. As for Barry's death?

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SAUL RUBINEK AS BARRY SHERMAN: It is clear that numerous questions can be asked for, which we have no answers and may never have answers. Time have a beginning. How could the universe have had a beginning without there being something present to cause the beginning? Is the universe finite? Are there other universes?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: As we said in the beginning, we didn't set out to solve the case of who killed the Shermans. If it was a stranger, a hit man, someone close to Barry, or even Barry himself. But what we can say is that every theory involves money. Kerry told me that Barry's money was coerced and maybe in the end he was right.

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SAUL RUBINEK AS BARRY SHERMAN: In summary, I hold the following to be self-evident truths. One. There is no God. Two. There is a universe and we do exist. Three. We and all other species are here as a result of evolution. Four. Mass and energy, behave in space and time according to laws of physics that have been largely but not yet entirely elucidated. Five. Free will is an illusion. Six. Life has no meaning or purpose.

CC: That was The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. The full series is available on the CBC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts. Tomorrow, we'll begin our presentation of the CBC podcast Love, Janessa. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. I'm Catherine Cullen, in for Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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Wednesday August 2, 2023 Episode Transcript

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