O'Toole needs social conservative votes, but can't 'pander' to extreme views on race, abortion: strategist

Guests: Shakir Chambers, Melissa Caouette

CC: Andrew Scheer announced he was stepping down eight months ago. No one could have predicted then how the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party would unfold. An abrupt end to the time honoured tradition of kissing babies and shaking hands, no photo ops at parks, factories or coffee shops and in a bit of a surprise, Erin O'Toole from Bowmanville, Ontario, came out on top.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: To the millions of Canadians that are still up, that I'm meeting tonight for the first time, good morning. I'm Erin O'Toole. You're going to be seeing and hearing a lot from me in the coming weeks and months.

CC: Now that the race is finally over, there's even more work ahead. Two conservative strategists are with me to talk about what the new leader needs to do to unite the party, win over more voters and prepare for an election that may be coming up soon. Shakir Chambers is a senior consultant at Navigator. He's in Toronto. And Melissa Caouette is vice president of business development and government strategy for the Canadian Strategy Group. She splits her time between Edmonton and Vancouver. Good morning to you both after what was a pretty long night.

SHAKIR CHAMBERS: Good morning.

MELISSA CAOUETTE: Good morning. Thanks for having us.

CC: Happy to have you. Happy that you're both up after probably only a couple of hours sleep. Shakir, I want to start with you. We said this was a surprise. Peter MacKay, more of a household name, I think, than Erin O'Toole across the country, but I wonder, was this an upset, do you think?

SHAKIR CHAMBERS: Well if you ask the O'Toole people, it wasn't an upset at all. Right? I think their view is most of the mainstream media and most of the media generally gave it to Peter early on, but they know there hasn't been a lot of polling going on. I don't think they thought the media's really paying attention to this. Erin O'Toole a campaign where he ran to the right of Peter MacKay and I think at the end of the day, they really played out well for him. MacKay didn't get the votes he needed on the first ballot to really distance himself from O'Toole. And I think there was a consensus that the down ballot support of the social conservative candidates, Derek Stone and Leslyn Lewis would gravitate to a tool that played out that way. And I think the O'Toole camp kind of had that strategy and knew he would win at the end. They seemed very confident leading up to the vote.

CC: Melissa, for Canadians who are really just sort of tuning into this now, hearing, OK, there's a new leader. I mean, Shakir gave us a little break down there, sort of how we got here, but what does this say about what's going on with the Conservative Party of Canada that they've chosen Erin O'Toole as their new leader?

MELISSA CAOUETTE: Right. So I think that what this result says is that, you know, our party and our base is still quite strong in its belief of the party needing to be at bit right of centre. It shows us that we have strong, strong regional support in areas that need typically during a general be a little bit ignored. So, for example, a tool came out number one in Alberta, in Quebec, which was really fantastic. And so I think that now we have a leader who has been able to garner support across the country, which is going to bode well for the next election. So we hope. But, yeah, I think, you know, just to Shakir's point, I think that it's not an upset this results, but definitely I think everyone's a little surprised. It's not so simple as who gets the most votes the way that we calculate our leader. There's a lot of difficult maths and some many rounds of voting that went into this. So I think that people are surprised because it's so hard to predict. And as Shakir said, you know, it was difficult for pollsters to actually have a grasp on this. There was polls that said that MacKay was going to take it on the third rounds, so I think that just the way everything shakes out was quite interesting. And I was really, really fascinated, especially by that regional support last night.

CC: Well, especially that combination of Alberta and Quebec, not necessarily something you always see. Shakir, you want to jump in here?

SHAKIR CHAMBERS: Yeah, sorry, I was going to add, one of the biggest surprises for me was just that MacKay didn't do so well in the Atlantic provinces. Like I thought he was on to win 70 percent of the vote in most those provinces. The fact that it held even tightly there, I guess the party just wasn't really buying into his message, right? To my colleague's point, just like he was really framed as a Liberal lite kind of candidate and I don't think the party gravitated to him. I think they rejected his message. And even if you look at the final vote tally in the first round, I mean, Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan had about 35 percent of that vote and their declared social conservative. So this shows that social conservatives are alive and well in our party and going into leadership races, you have to make sure you pay attention to them and their issues.

CC: Melissa.

MELISSA CAOUETTE: And you can build on that.

CC: Well I just wonder what it says about where the party goes from here? The social conservative aspect.

MELISSA CAOUETTE: Well I think what it says about the base that we have right now is that those issues are social conservative issues are still very important to the base in every province west of Quebec, Lewis and Sloan had a plurality of the vote, and those are two candidates that were largely seen as a social conservative. You know, Derek Sloan even more so than Lewis. So I think what it says is that the state that our party is in right now, we still have a very strong desire and tendency for discussion of the social issue issues. And have, you know, a preference for a little bit more right of centre policies, which means that the difficult task for our new leader, Erin O'Toole, is going to be how do you keep that tent together by making those people happy. But he also needs to continue to broaden the base and broaden the appeal with the with the electorate because when you go to an election at any time and it's been proven that those values don't necessarily hold up in areas where we need to gain back support, such as downtown Toronto, such as in Quebec. And so I think that it's going to be a difficult challenge for him to recognize the people who elected him, the base and that grassroots support there, but also, how can we continue to reach across the aisle and broaden that support to keep that big tent growing even bigger.

CC: Shakir, let's talk for a moment about Leslyn Lewis because some people are saying that she was really the story of last night. Not, certainly not a household name. She didn't really have a heck of a lot of political experience, stepped in to the 2015 campaign to replace a candidate at the last moment. So basically a few weeks in federal politics and here she is coming in the first round with 20 percent support. What happened there? Why did Conservatives glom onto her, do you think?

SHAKIR CHAMBERS: Yeah, I wouldn't even say Lewis is the surprise of last night. She's really the surprise of this entire campaign. As you mentioned, she was really a nobody, really an outsider, had struck, most people thought she wouldn't make the first cut of raising $200,000. She ended up raising two million dollars. I think there's a level of authenticity with Leslyn Lewis that people are craving/ the way she talks about the issues, even the social conservative issues. She really shows that they're not just about gay marriage and abortion rights. They have a broader array of issues that they want to discuss. She also showed that they can communicate their views in a very nuanced, sophisticated way. And I think that really play well. I would also say, look at where she did well. She did well in Saskatchewan, she did well in Alberta. She's a black woman who is well educated, articulates very well. I think in terms of what she represents for the party, she has a very good job for our brand moving forward. You don't usually think of someone that looks like Leslyn Lewis as being influential or being at the forefront of a conservative movement, but here she is. Right? She's showing that we are diverse, that we are inclusive, that we have a range of views that just need to be communicated better to voters and it doesn't need to be an off putting way in the way you communicate these things to voters.

CC: Melissa, I want to talk about particularly the mood in Alberta, because when I speak to Conservatives, one of the things they were saying going in to this vote was a real concern about how the new leader is going to deal with Western alienation, frustration, the possibility of a Wexit party. Erin O'Toole was seen as the choice of the two, between Peter MacKay and Erin O'Toole was probably a bit more favourable to Alberta. He got that big Jason Kenney endorsement. But what are Albertans expecting from Mr. O'Toole?

MELISSA CAOUETTE: Right. So, I mean, certainly, Erin O'Toole in Alberta and western Canada was a more favourable candidate. Absolutely. I think, though, that the important point to make about some of these regional differences and this goes for Alberta as well as Quebec, I would say, you know, the issues are very dear. But the way in which the leadership needs to approach them is similar. The issues that Albertans face are not political issues that need to be shared around as a political football. Right. So, I mean, the issues are systemic. They're structural. They have to do with how government operates and how policy is made in this country. And so I think that in order for the leader to be genuinely successful, he first needs to, you know, make sure that he has a commitment to continuing to keep that conversation open. You know that the tendency is, even from leaders that have been elected from western Canada is, you know, caught that Western support during the leadership. You get all those folks on board and then often Alberta is left disappointed when it comes time comes time to actually governing, because a lot of the things that Alberta needs the government to stick up for them on might not bode as well in the places that the government needs to really gain support in downtown Toronto and Montreal. And so I think that a commitment to actually addressing some of the structural concerns that exist is very important. And I think that Erin O'Toole is uniquely equipped to do that, given his relationship with Premier Kenney, given his experience in government. But, you know, that's that's one of the things we're gonna have to look at. And I think that while many people across the country might look to the why, that movement is something that is, you know, nothing to pay attention to. Do I think that they'll be successful? No. Do I think that separation is legitimately on the table right now? No. But we don't want those votes to go somewhere else in the Conservative Party. And that's something that's happened before and that's a real threat. So it's something that the new leader needs to pay attention to, but try not to use it as a political football because it's something that every party needs to pay attention to. And it is something that needs to be addressed and for the greater good of the country and for national unity.

CC: OK, so we've got the question of social conservatives. We've got the question of different regional issues, national unity and, of course, the new leader is also trying to reach out to Canadians as a whole. I want to play a little bit of that pitch that Erin O'Toole made last night in his victory speech. Let's listen.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Whether you are black, white, brown or from any race or creed, whether you are LGBT or straight, whether you are an Indigenous Canadian or have joined the Canadian family three weeks ago or three generations ago, whether you were doing well or barely getting by, whether you worship on Friday, Saturday, Sundays or not at all, you are an important part of Canada and you have a home in the Conservative Party of Canada.

CC: Shakir, how effective do you think that that pitch is, particularly that beginning bit there about LGBTQ, regardless of the colour of your skin?

SHAKIR CHAMBERS: Well, listen, I think for that speech, I think he hit all the right notes, right? You want to give the you want to make sure voters know that we want to be an inclusive party. Do we have work to do? I think every party has work to do. But I think Erin O'Toole is trying to say that as long as I'm leader of this party, I'm going to stand up for the rights of all Canadians. And I think that's a proper pitch. One of the things that happened earlier in the night was Andrew Scheer's speech right? He said something to effect that a lot of people are Conservatives, they just don't know yet. I think when you look at a lot of people who are voters, especially people who do not pay attention to politics that much, but actually vote, I think, again, there's this narrative that I'm just turned off by the Conservative Party because of what I think they are. I think if we actually communicate to voters what we actually are and what we actually stand for, you'll see a lot of what people gravitate towards a party and be willing to cast a vote for our party. So I think that's what O'Toole is trying to play to, to let them know that you are welcome here. Lend me your ears. Let me tell you what we stand for, what we're going to do for you. I think as a start, it was a great start for O'Toole, as far as the speech hitting all the right notes.

CC: Melissa, when you look at this race though, you know, Derek Sloan was a candidate in this race. At the early days, he said, you know, I don't think being gay is a choice, but I'm not a scientist. He made comments about Canada's chief public health officer, Theresa Tam, Dr. Theresa Tam, which even some conservatives believed to be racist, although Mr. Sloan vehemently rejects that association. I just wondered, does that make it harder? Some of the discussion around the potentially racist or homophobic remarks in the course of this campaign, does that make it harder for Erin O'Toole to make the pitch he was making last night?

MELISSA CAOUETTE: Well, I think a lot of Conservatives actually found those remarks to be completely inappropriate and quite racist, and I don't think that Sloan represents the majority of the party. The numbers showed that last night. But what's going to be difficult and this goes back to a lot of the issues I'm talking about earlier with regional, is that we we need for people like Derek Sloan to continue to vote for the Conservative Party, but we cannot pander to those voices. You saw last night that O'Toole had all the candidates up on stage. He was really reaching an olive branch to all of the campaign. I absolutely think that if he wants one, there'll be a place for Peter MacKay in the party. I absolutely think that if she wants one, there'll be a place for Leslyn lewis in the party and in senior leadership ranks. The way to combat some of this negative messaging and the way as Shakir said to effectively message what we truly are as a party is to make sure that there are ways that are not so explicit and leadership centric for people who have demonstrated that they have extremist views. I think that the the the sort of general takes it that O'Toole should should approach is to, you know, have very strict caucus discipline, go in right at the beginning and say, look, we are fighting for our lives. We are going to be in serious trouble if we cannot can vote, convince more people in those urban areas to vote for us. This means that we need to be very, very disciplined in how we elevate some of these views within the party. And so I think that if they come in right away and make that clear and make it known that, you know, spouting those kinds of things on the cusp of an election is not going to be appropriate. You know, we can have those internal conversations and make sure that there's a place for folks that have those views at the grassroots level that there's not going to be room for those folks views, that at the national level and particularly on on things such as racism, such as abortion, which is very, very far right on social issues. I mean, there's there's got to be a full way to discuss them and have genuine policy debates at the grassroots level. That's what a political party is for. But they're not going to become policy. And that needs to be abundantly clear to both caucus and broader groups of Canadians that are going to be voting in the next election.

CC: Let's talk about policy, Shakir, for a moment. I mean, Erin O'Toole's platform was actually a lot like his platform in 2017, not anything necessarily radically different from what Mr. Scheer was offering either. What would you like to see? Is it just about how the party sells itself to Canadians? How they talk to Canadians? What Erin O'Toole was saying there, like, we are here for you or do they need to make some big policy shifts or changes, fresh ideas too?

SHAKIR CHAMBERS: Yeah, I think that the leadership platform that Mr. O'Toole has is not going to be his general election platform. I think even what he really said, he said that a obviously he's still taking inputs, still taking ideas. So there's gonna be a lot of shaping going on there. I think what Mr. O'Toole puts forward will be largely dependent on what I think the Liberal Party puts forward in that throne speech. He made it very clear that he's going have to lay out a Conservative vision. I think he's going to have to see what the Liberals see are their policies and how they see Canada being governed moving forward and then he'll have to respond to that, because I think what's at stake in this next election is really the role of government in Canada. How do you see government playing a role to move forward in the years ahead? So how does Erin O'Toole articulate those views? Of course, we're going to need to win votes in Ontario. We're going to need to win votes in Quebec. We're going to need to win votes in B.C. Those are provinces that really care about environmental concerns. There's a lot of other concerns, but environmental concerns have really been at the forefront. So what is our plan there? And as we were saying earlier on this panel, it's gonna be a matter where you have to play to the environment, but there are also concerns in Alberta and we need Albertans to be behind us that maybe don't play as well as strong on the environmental file, right? So how do you bridge that gap? So I think that's a struggle Mr. O'Toole s going to have. How do you ensure you keep Albertans and those on the prairies on your side, but at the same time speaking to those in Ontario and Quebec and ensure that you address their issues, as well as those potential voters who are Liberals who might not like what's going on with a Liberal government and want to switch to Conservative. How do you react at all to policy? It's not an easy job, but again, being a leader of the party shouldn't be an easy job.

CC: Melissa, I know he's been leader for we really can count it in hours at this point, but for Canadians who might be asking themselves how fundamentally different Mr. O'Toole is from Mr. Scheer, what would you say to that?

MELISSA CAOUETTE: I actually say that fundamentally different, I don't know that I'd say fundamentally different. A lot of his policies are good Conservative policies that have been around for a long time. And it's not going to be a huge departure from the policies that we've seen from that we saw from Scheer and even from Harper. The difference between Scheer and O'Toole is that O'Toole actually has more of that it factor than Scheer has. If you look at the speech last night, it was quite different from anything that we've really seen from Scheer. He is a polished speaker. He is not afraid to state his point of view and clearly articulate it. He is not afraid to reach across the aisle. He is had a bit more of a positive tone, I say, for the future and giving a better era of hope for the party and for the country, which is what I think is needed. And I think, you know, he's got the positive vision, all of those attributes. But he's also, you know, he's not afraid to stand up for the Conservative Party, which Scheer wasn't either. So I think it's a more stylistic difference than it is a substantive difference. And I think just the fact that he was able to be so successful regionally across the country is a real hand up for him and he's gonna be able to have it a lot easier time speaking to Canadians based on that success.

CC: Shakir, let's talk about and now it's not about Peter MacKay anymore, right? It is immediately about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And the prime minister does seem to be preparing for a face off, regardless of whether it's just a confidence vote or an election. Already saying, you know, some parties out there don't want you to have more. Obviously, I think he's hinting that that's the Conservatives. What does Erin O'Toole need to do to address that?

SHAKIR CHAMBERS: Well, like I said, it's not about having more. I said this before is that I think the way the Liberals framed this discussion, they frame the discussion as a Liberal Party, as the only party that cares about Canadians, only party willing to invest, only party that wants a fair Canada or that will support women or racialized communities. And that's just not real, that's just not truthful. The Conservative Party cares about those same things, we just have a different view of how you get to those end goals. So I think for Erin O'Toole, listen fiscal responsibility is important. And I think even a lot of Liberals are a little concerned with a debt looming way out of control, and they want to rain in things a little bit. So it's a matter of how do we see that vision? How do we have that vision, but ensure that people that need supports still have those supports, people that want opportunity to have that opportunity to have social mobility, get a income, find jobs, find work, have job security. These are all problems that have Conservative solutions. How do we ensure that we articulate those views and don't get trapped in the narrative that all the Conservative Party cares about is cutting, cutting, cutting programs, all the Conservative Party cares about supporting big business and big companies. How do we show that we care, as Doug Ford was saying in Ontario, care about the little guy? Because I think that's what's gonna be the battleground when we move for the next election.

CC: And that is the question facing Erin O'Toole right now. We are going to have to leave it there, but thank you both so much for your time this morning.

SHAKIR CHAMBERS: Thank you for having us.

MELISSA CAOUETTE: Thanks Catherine.

CC: Shakir Chambers is a Conservative strategist and senior consultant at Navigator. He is in Toronto. And Melissa Caouette is a conservative strategist and vice president of business development and government strategy for the Canadian Strategy Group. She's in Vancouver. The CBC News is next. Then there's been a bit of a theme in the mail coming into the program of late and it is about, well, excrements. That's because we talked about more people heading into the backcountry this summer and leaving all kinds of stuff behind. More on that after the break. I'm Catherine Cullen and you're listening to The Current.

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Your letters about wilderness

Guests: Karin Marley

CC: Hello, I'm Catherine Cullen, and you're listening to The Current.

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CC: Still to come, Episode 6 of Uncover: Dead Wrong, the CBC podcast about a wrongful conviction. But first, people who are making the great outdoors, not so great.

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CC: Another summer weekend is on the books and the countdown to Labour Day is on. The past couple of months will be remembered as the year of the staycation. Canadians looking for adventure close to home. It's meant more people are venturing into parks and wilderness areas and they're not always prepared. Guest host Duncan McCue talked about this on the show last week with author and hiker Stephen Hui in Vancouver, an outdoors enthusiast, Nick Frank, in Alberta.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We're seeing more garbage. We're seeing human waste. We're seeing animal conflicts. We just recently had a black bear put down for somebody failing to clean their garbage up before they went to bed one night. And we're seeing more and more of those conflicts occurring.

VOICE 2: Places that are close to highways and major roads that don't have a day-pass system, they are definitely seeing the impacts from too much traffic, you know, poop and trash and also just the lack of facilities on those trails.

VOICE 1: You know, the biggest thing is pack out what you pack in. Continue to develop your plans ahead of time, understand the area you're going. If you're new to it, stay closer to cell phone service, stay closer to a community that can support you with the critical infrastructure. And as you get more experienced, then spread farther or deeper into the back country, because we have areas where you won't touch a paved road for two or three hours and an of hour of that might be no cell phone service. So understanding the risk you're taking before you take it and get yourself in that situation is uncomfortable, dangerous, life threatening.

CC: That interview brought lots of response to our inbox. Senior producer Karin Marley is here with some of your mail. Good morning, Karin.

KARIN MARLEY: Hey, Catherine. So, Nick Frank was talking about the Bighorn Backcountry specifically there. That's the area right next to Banff and Jasper National Parks. Lynn Martel is writing from just south of there and Canmore, Alberta: As one who spends every weekend exploring the backcountry on foot or skis and winter, hours, sometimes days from the trailhead, I'm happy so many people are getting outside this summer. But in my nearly four decades living and recreating all the trails in the Alberta Rockies, I'm heartbroken to see so much garbage on the trails. Toilet paper, plastic bottles, food scraps, banana and orange peels are garbage. And also our local rescue professionals have responded to record numbers of calls weekend after weekend this summer. People please learn how to visit the wilderness safely.

CC: And it's not just Alberta either. Bert Reket from Owen Sound, Ontario, is noticing problems in his area, too. He writes, Social media coverage for these places has exploded and everyone wants to get a selfie there. A case in point is Bruce Peninsula National Park. Staff are doing their best, but simply can't keep up with the influx of people. The number of cars being turned away on a daily basis is staggering. Even worse is the attitude that garbage can be left anywhere. Kind of like the movie theatre experience, where many people simply don't care that someone else has to clean up after them. It would be great to see more staff or enforcement and perhaps even consider a cleanup deposit on camping fees.

KARIN MARLEY: There is one issue that we got a whole lot of letters about. Let's start with Dee Mac in Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island, just about everywhere now, even in campsites, right on trails and just paces away from outhouses, there is evidence of human waste, if not left in piles, right out in the open. Ew. Then in the bright white smears of used toilet paper left to linger for at least a full year against the green undergrowth. People need to understand that this doesn't just immediately disappear. Please use the outhouse or bury your poop and burn or carry out your toilet paper.

CC: Staying with that theme, let's say Jeannine McCormack was listening to the show as she was driving out of a remote camping spot. We'd been on the road for ten months, camping from B.C. to Baja, Mexico to Ontario, and everywhere in between. Where no facilities are available, human waste should be deeply buried, well away from trails and water sources and toilet paper burned and buried, if it is safe to do so, otherwise, pack it out. Toilet paper lasts a very, very long time outside and there's nothing worse than finding it all over a camping spot or hiking trail.

KARIN MARLEY: Final word today goes to Carolyn Lorrain, a long-time backcountry user in the Kootenays in British Columbia: Getting out in nature is a necessity for my well-being, and I'm happy to see so many urban type people discovering it, especially during these difficult times. However, what makes BC so beautiful is not always understood by everyone. The lack of pollution, garbage and noise, the list goes on. That's what makes the outdoors enjoyable. I'm seeing a lot more trash and toilet paper. Please, it's so simple to carry a garbage bag in your car or a Ziploc bag in your backpack. Pack it out. Apparently this concept is not obvious.

CC: So there you have it. Pack it out. Thank you very much, Karin.

KARIN MARLEY: You are welcome.

CC: If you want to add your stories or opinions about anything you hear on the show, visit our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. Find us on Facebook or we're @TheCurrentCBC on Twitter.

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CBC Podcast - Uncover: Dead Wrong – Episode 6

CC: I'm Catherine Cullen, and you're listening to the current. This summer, we've been bringing you the best of CBC podcasts. Today, we continue with the investigative series Uncover: Dead Wrong. And a warning: this podcast has graphic descriptions of violence and murder. Here's Host Tim Bousquet with Episode 6: The Trail of a Killer.

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VO TIM BOUSQUET:

On March 1, 1998, in Moncton, New Brunswick, a man named Glen Bennett / calls police / and tells them he has witnessed a terrible crime. Within hours, Michael McGray is arrested.

The next day, the CBC reports on McGray’s appearance at court.

REPORTER - There was intense security surrounding the appearance this morning of 32 year old Michael McGray. He's been charged with two counts of first degree murder.

The first is in connection with 48-year-old Joan Hicks. A neighbour who identified her body says her throat had been cut and there were several slashes across her upper body. McCray is also charged with murdering the woman's 11-year-old daughter, Nina. No details about the cause of her death have been released. Both bodies have been sent to Halifax for autopsies. Police say the bodies were discovered early Sunday morning in their basement apartment near the Moncton Hospital in the city's north end. The scene was so gruesome that a psychological team will be assembled to counsel the officers involved.

VO BOUSQUET:

Awaiting trial, Michael McGray is placed in prison in Renous, New Brunswick. While there, he starts talking to a fellow prisoner / named Emerie LeBlanc, telling LeBlanc that Joan and Nina Hicks / were just his latest two victims. He has killed many others before them. LeBlanc is so disturbed by the revelation / that he calls a cop he knows. Within weeks, McGray is sitting with police, telling them he is a serial killer.

(beat)

In 2000, CBC reporter Jo-Ann Roberts received a call from McGray from the prison.

JO-ANN ROBERTS - Tell me about these other murders. Why are you talking about them now?

MICHAEL MCGRAY - Well there's a few reasons.

Everybody, all the cops that I've talked to when I was in there saying that you know wanted to help clear up these cases. So for the families know what happened and all that. I'm not going to bullshit you and say that that's the reason because it's not because that's not really a concern to me. I know how it sounds, but it's not. Mostly because I want to get some help and I want to make a deal. There are some other murders that I'm going to confess to, but there's three conditions that I want to have met first, right.

VO BOUSQUET:

We will return to McGray’s conditions a bit later. Roberts’ interview continues:

JO-ANN ROBERTS - There's been a lot of talk about how many other murders there are Mr. McGray. How many are there?

MICHAEL MCGRAY - Counting the ones that I've been charged with? There’s about 16. A couple of them I'm not sure if they lived or died at the time. They might have lived, but I think it was about 16 altogether.

JO-ANN ROBERTS - Where did they happen?

MICHAEL MCGRAY - All over the country. Couple in the States.

JO-ANN ROBERTS - What do you say to someone who says that this might not be true? You're just somebody who wants to be the…

MICHAEL MCGRAY - Well I'm willing to confess. Meet my agreements and I'll confess to all the murders. I confessed to five or six already. And all you got to do is meet my conditions and you'll find out.

JO-ANN ROBERTS - Can you tell us about one of them that might give us some idea of the kind of details you do have?

MICHAEL MCGRAY - OK. Well there's a couple down in Nova Scotia. There’s one from Weymouth. Her name is Gail Tucker. I picked her up hitchhike, I picked her up outside of a bus station actually. She was hitchhiking and there was another guy with me. We were both from Yarmouth, a little small town in Nova Scotia and we just took her in a truck. We took her out of the truck. We offered her something to drink. She wanted something to drink. So we stopped the truck. And when we stopped the truck I just started stabbing her and left her on the side of the road. This road called, I think it's called Concession Road. Her name was Gail Tucker.

VO BOUSQUET:

Gail Tucker was a 17-year-old girl from the north end of Dartmouth / who was killed in 1985 in the woods near Church Point, a small town on the French shore of Nova Scotia. Her murder has gone unsolved for 15 years, and Michael McGray / has just given interviewer Jo-Ann Roberts / information that only the police and the murderer would know.

JO-ANN ROBERTS - How come you've never been caught do you think?

MICHAEL MCGRAY - I think because I was pretty damn smart. ~~There were always,~~ I always made sure that they were strangers. I always I go from city to city. I pop into a city and I lived there for a couple months and I go out and I’d do a prostitute or a homosexual or a homeless person or something like that. Somebody who was not connected to me. I always used to study a lot about forensic scientists and one of my biggest hobbies was studying other serial killers. Stuff like that. I have for years and I don't think it was luck or nothing like that. I think it's because I was always very very careful when I did them. I always knew what I was doing. I always planned them well ahead.

JO-ANN ROBERTS - Are we safer now that you're in jail?

MICHAEL MCGRAY - Oh definitely.

I’m Tim Bousquet and This is UNCOVER - DEAD WRONG.

VO BOUSQUET:

Roberta, a sex worker whose true identity I’ve been protecting, had identified Glen Assoun at his trial / as the man who had horribly attacked her.

In 2010, she saw a picture of serial killer Michael McGray. She broke down sobbing / and said it was he - McGray — who had attacked her.

But when Jo-Ann Roberts interviewed McGray in the year 2000, no one knew the full extent of his criminal history.

Jo-ann Roberts was working at CBC / as the host of Information Morning in Moncton. Today, she’s the Interim Leader of the Green Party of Canada, and she lives in Halifax. I caught up with her to ask her about her interview with Michael McGray.

00:01:02

JOANN ROBERTS - Michael Wayne McGray has agreed to our interview request

TIM –And you dialed the phone or he called you?

JOANN ROBERTS - He called us. We, I ran down to the studio thinking what do I say? What do I ask? You know talking to you right now I can see myself sitting in that studio, like you with the headphones on, you know. Hello Mr. McGray. I mean that's how it starts. And for about 20 minutes we have this discussion about why he had murdered the woman he had murdered. you know he says he wants to tell me about other murders he has done and he wants to admit that you know he has, I think it was 16 in the interview he said he had killed. And I challenge him and say well how do I know that you don't want to just have a reputation as the person who's killed the most people in Canada. You know some kind of a weird bizarre reputation. And he said well maybe I should describe for you one of the murders that I committed that I've not been found guilty of.

JOANN ROBERTS - You know you kind of catch your breath. Do I want to hear this? I said okay and he does. He describes a murder and he said you can check that with the Halifax police and I said well of course we will.

TIM - That was the Tucker case, was it?

JOANN ROBERTS - Yeah. And he confirmed it. The police confirmed it.

TIM -I'm wondering is your recollection that it should have raised enough issues with the police that they should have been full on? ~~I mean they were full on.~~

00:09:23 – JOANN ROBERTS

Well you know I often wondered why I didn't hear a number of cases were being closed. I wondered though with the details they had and the fact he was talking, that they weren't able to use the information he had to close more cases and that we didn't hear about it.

VO BOUSQUET:

Michael Wayne McGray was born in 1965 in Collingwood, Ontario, but as a child moved to Argyle, a small town near Yarmouth, at the southern tip of Nova Scotia.

When he was 15, Michael was placed in the Shelburne School for Boys. It was called a school but today we would call it a youth correctional facility.

Pretty much everyone in Nova Scotia knows about the Shelburne Schools for Boys: it has a long and documented history of physical and sexual abuse.

Thousands of former students have filed claims against the school. There have been several provincial reviews and hundreds of lawsuits.

Pierre Green was at Shelburne in 1980, alongside Michael McGray. Pierre has filed a lawsuit against the province, and his allegations have not been tested in court. Pierre lives around the corner from me in Dartmouth.

[00:11:32]

PIERRE GREEN - My first day, I got beat up by a counsellor.

This guy grabbed me by the scruff of my, the back of my shirt and whatever I was wearing and my pants and threw me like a bowling ball down into the dorm and I whacked my head off the radiator. I remember I had a bump on the head. He said you're gonna learn the hard way or the easy way. ~~It went bad right from the beginning.~~

VO BOUSQUET:

It’s been 40 years, but Pierre still remembers the abuse he says he suffered and witnessed / like it was yesterday.

[00:27:17]

PIERRE GREEN - And here I am two years or whatever of my life just getting assaulted left, right and centre and not a thing I can do about it. Nothing. You know, like defenceless little kid.

VO BOUSQUET:

I ask Pierre about his memories of Michael McGray at Shelburne.

Pierre Green – He would never back down. If they beat him, he was he would laugh at them. He would say that all you got. You know, or that does nothing to me or whatever. Right. And then they'd do more.

VO BOUSQUET:

Michael McGray would go on to kill a lot of people. So many people that he says he can’t keep track of them all. Here’s what we know from McGray’s court records.

He is 20 years old when he kills Gail Tucker near Church Point. He told CBC reporter Jo-ann Roberts that was his first murder, but he also told her he was 17 or 18 when he first started killing, so who knows, maybe there were previous murders.

At 22, in Saint John, New Brunswick, during a robbery, McGray stabs his accomplice to death. He isn’t charged with the murder, but he gets 5 years for robbery.

In 1991, McGray is in prison in Quebec, and gets a pass for the three-day Easter weekend. On Saturday night, March 30, he goes to The Campus, a strip bar in Montreal’s gay village, and allows himself to be picked up by 59-year-old Robert Assalay. McGray goes to Assalay’s apartment, and the two drink while watching TV. McGray goes to the kitchen, grabs a knife; he returns to Assalay’s room, smashes a lamp over his head, and then stabs him and repeatedly slashes his throat, killing him.

The next night, McGray returns to The Campus and is picked up by 45-year-old Gaetan Ethier. The two go to Ethier’s apartment and watch a hockey game on TV. Ethier makes a pass at McGray. McGray turns him down, and Ethier falls asleep on the couch. For several hours, McGray sits in an armchair and watches Ethier sleep. McGray eventually smashes a beer bottle over Ethier’s head, then stabs him to death.

He returns to prison with no one the wiser for what he has done.

In 1993, McGray is released from jail. He meets a girl, Tammy, on Spring Garden Road in Halifax, and for the next four or five years, the couple wander the country together.

In 1997 Michael McGray, now living in Moncton, kills 48-year-old Joan Hicks by stabbing her and slashing her throat.

He also kills Joan’s 11-year-old daughter, Nina.

McGray is arrested for the killings of Joan and Nina Hicks.

[beat]

After his arrest, McGray confessed and pleaded guilty to the 6 murders I just listed. But McGray said he killed many more people. You’ll recall he told interviewer ~~CBC reporter~~ Jo-Anne Roberts / he killed up to 16 people. At another time he told an investigator that he was so stoned for years at a time that he couldn’t really be sure of how many people he killed.

But McGray told police he wasn’t going to confess to any more murders until they agreed to his conditions. Here are the conditions, in his own words.

00:04:05

Michael McGray -There are some other murders that I'm going to confess to, but there's three conditions that I want to have met first, right.

Jo-ann Roberts - What are those conditions?

Michael McGray - Well, one, there’s two other people that were involved with me and I want to make sure that they're not going to be charged. That's guaranteed, has to be met. There's one person that was involved with me with one murder and there's another one that was involved with me for maybe six or seven, but I'm not haven't been charged with yet. Two is that and this is a main one for me or a pretty big one is that I want to get some kind of treatment. I know that I'm going to be in prison for the rest of my life and rightly so. I agree with that. But I want to get some treatment. I don't know what'll help, but I know that the killings hasn't stopped. I'm almost ready to do another one right now.

And third, I don't want to be charged with the rest of the murders. I don't want to spend the next five years bouncing from province to province. I figure that you know they can make deals with people like Clifford Olsen and Karla Homolka and people like that. Well they want to know about these other murders, then they can make a deal with me.

VO BOUSQUET:

But police will make no deals with McGray. Instead, various police investigators interview McGray, but get nowhere — they get no new information about any other murders. McGray stops talking.

In 2002, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police assigns the Michael McGray case to a special unit of the RCMP called Viclas — the Violent Crime Linkage Anal-is-sis System. It’s now up to the Viclas unit to find out who else Michael McGray killed through the years.

Who were Michael McGray’s 16 victims?

VO BOUSQUET:

By 2019, I had been researching the Glen Assoun story for five years. Going through court records, finding people who knew Brenda and Glen, talking with lawyers, piecing together Glen’s 20-year journey through the courts and in prison.

I knew there were several possible suspects / who were around the Dartmouth stroll / at the time of Brenda’s murder.

Which, if any, of these suspects killed Brenda? I couldn’t say.

(beat)

Then one morning, as I always do, I get up at 6am, start the coffee, and fire up my laptop. There is a Facebook message waiting for me / from a former RCMP officer named Dave Moore.

He wants to talk about Glen Assoun. “Follow his story,” Dave tells me. Our Facebook messages start awkwardly, each of us holding back information from the other. But we talk every day, sometimes for hours at a time, typing over each other.

He provides me with new information about Glen’s case, and makes some startling claims.

So in January, producer Janice Evans, and I fly to Tampa, Florida, and drive to Sarasota to meet Dave Moore in person.

Recorded voice - Welcome to Stony Brook. Please have the name or address [trails off]

Bousquet - In a gated community. But of apparently modest houses despite the gate. ~~And it's.~~ Palm trees. We’re in Florida. … One story, small bungalow. Let’s see what we have.

00:04:02

[knocks on door]

Dave Moore - Hello.

Tim Bousquet - Dave Moore.

Dave Moore- Hey, Tim Bousquet, how are you? Welcome. Come on in. How are you?

Tim Bousquet - Is this a shoes off?

Dave Moore - Shoes off, boys. Don't be annoying. In the room.

[dogs barking]

Tim Bousquet - Hello, I’m Tim.

Sandy - Sandra, nice to meet you. Dave’s wife.

Dave Moore - We have PTSD animals here two brothers, Hoody and Blackie. deal with the PTSD as a result of all this nonsense that I've been going through. And anyway, we live here in a very modest home. And as you can see, good friends, good people. And that’s it.

VO BOUSQUET:

Dave Moore is a giant man, built like a refrigerator. He’s maybe 6’ 2” and 350 pounds. He’s got catcher mitt hands. I wouldn’t want to be on his wrong side. But he’s a joy to be with. We have a couple of glasses of wine, play with the dogs, get to know each other. The next day, we get to work.

Dave spends almost two entire days relating his story.

[00:03:19]

Dave Moore - I'm ~~from~~ from Ottawa, Ontario, the capital I grew up in a large family, seven kids, ~~parents.~~ My father worked for Atomic Energy of Canada and my mom was a systems analyst for Revenue Canada...

Dave Moore - And I went on to business school and that's where I learned software development, software design....

Dave Moore - The early stuff was a 32 bit encryption software that I was working on for national security. And then the RCMP came along and said, we need people like you. You're at the top of the curve. They hand selected a group of people to move the organization forward. They realized it was stuck in the 50s and they were bringing in innovation. So that was the sales pitch I was given.

VO BOUSQUET:

Dave went to basic training in Regina, then, in 1986, was assigned to a detachment near Summerside, on Prince Edward Island.

They were screaming at the time, the quote was intelligence based organization. That means you're hiring intelligent people to do the job. But then when you get in the field, they squash you like a bug. I ran into difficulty right from the beginning. There's an old expression that follows the RCMP. There's the right way of doing things, the wrong way of doing things. Then there's the RCMP way of doing things.

VO BOUSQUET:

What happened to Dave Moore on PEI is a long and complex story. The short version, as he tells it - is this: Dave butts heads with his superiors and is transferred to Nova Scotia. He gets bounced around from one detachment to another, and then, in 2000, he’s assigned to the Viclas unit in Halifax.

[beat]

Viclas was created as a result of the Paul Bernado case.

Paul Bernardo was a serial rapist, and then a serial murderer, whose crimes spanned across Ontario in the 1980s and 1990s. He was assisted in three murders by his girlfriend, who then became his wife, Karla Homolka.

A review by the Ontario government found that the arrests were delayed and the attacks had continued basically because of police turf wars — details of the investigations were not being shared between different police agencies.

As a result, the RCMP created a computer database called the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System — Viclas for short.

Here’s how Viclas works: Whenever a violent crime — a rape or a murder — happens, the investigating police agency / notes all the known details of the crime — the scene of the crime, the method of attack, the kind of weapon, the victim’s age, race, hair colour, and characteristics of the suspect or person accused, if they’re known.

The idea is that if a crime occurs in one part of the country, the evidence from that crime can be matched to the evidence from other similar crimes in other parts of the country.

The RCMP trains Viclas analysts to interpret the data. These investigators are part psychological profilers, part computer experts.

That was Dave Moore’s job, and he was the Viclas officer who was assigned to the Michael McGray file. It was Dave’s job to find McGray’s other victims.

(beat)

Dave Moore - I flowcharted every missing and murdered person across North America. Every single person. Then once I geographically put them on a timescale on a geographic scale, I then looked for potential murderers because ~~it wasn't~~ it was a needle in the haystack with Michael McGray. He doesn't conform to any of the criteria that Viclas is based on. Viclas is based on the narrowing down of circumstances with regard to pattern behavior. This guy's an exception to the rule. He, His victimology is all over the place. He kills little girls and he kills women and girls, grannies and he kills men and he kills gays. So there's no you can't put a thumb on him. He's all over the map geographically because he is a traveler and ~~and~~ a vagabond, if you want to call him that or a drifter. You have to look right across North America. So that's a wide spectrum. And so by plotting the information across a flowchart, it showed a 15 year period in which I could place him incarcerated at the beginning and incarcerated at the end, and everything in between was wide open. So then you go, OK.

Dave Moore - I was having a lot of difficulty, but one of the main consistencies in his murders was that he killed them right where they stood. There was no attempt to camouflage anything. And in that decision to look at that. You also stretched yourself from a behavioral point of view because this person is cunning and he's very smart. This guy is not a dummy. A dummy is gonna get caught. This guy knows well enough to kill somebody and hide it, but not take away the body. But there is also other patterns of behavior. He didn't stick around after he committed murders. He would always leave with 24 or 48 hours, 72 hours. He was gone. You have to put him at the murder. This was very difficult for me because he's a traveler across the country over a 15-year period with probably 700 murders across North America, so that the volume of information was overwhelming. So I look to say, OK, how can I narrow this down? So the only thing I could come up with was. If this guy is on welfare, he's got to pick up a welfare cheque and he's got to physically be where the welfare cheque is. So therefore, in order to pick up the welfare cheque, he's got to present I.D. He can't present false I.D. It's got to be in his name through the government auspices of the welfare. So I was able to determine at any given point in time when he received the cheque that he was in a given town. I couldn't say four hours later that he was there and I couldn't say four hours before. But I could tell you that at noon when he cashed it at the at the pay cheque place, that he presented the same I.D. that he did at the at the government offices. And then I put him on the chart.

VO BOUSQUET:

By studying McGray’s movements and the victimology, Dave Moore is convinced that he has discovered several of McGray’s other victims. One is a man killed in a cafe bathroom in Vancouver.

And Dave tells me he thinks one of the 13 murders in the Spokane, Washington area / attributed to serial killer Robert Lee Yates / was actually committed by McGray.

Dave also tells me that he thinks McGray killed a third man in Montreal during that weekend in 1991.

Dave keeps studying McGray, and even starts corresponding with him in prison. McGray sends Dave quotes from the Bible. And Dave responds with other Bible quotes, in hope of getting inside McGray’s head. Dave even buys the same Bible McGray has so the verses are the same.

And then Dave expands his research by doing one more thing.

Dave Moore - I thought it's possible somebody is wrongfully convicted for a murder that he committed any community wants to clean up this crime that's terrorizing the neighborhood. So there's a potential for the wrong person being in jail because of political pressures put on the police department to solve this crime quickly. And in doing so is the human error. So I've said no, I want to also input all of the solved murders across North America. So you're looking for somebody who's using a knife, someone who's doing a very violent attack.

VO BOUSQUET:

Dave includes / in his search / those at high risk / of being victims of violence, including sex workers. So what happened was I put that into Viclas and Brenda Way's murder came out.

VO BOUSQUET:

So along with all the murders across North America, Dave Moore discovers a possible murder / committed by Michael McGray in his own backyard. The problem is / he says the RCMP’s Halifax division / says he isn’t supposed to be / looking into solved cases.

And this case has been solved. Glen Assoun has now been in jail for five years. But Dave is determined. He sets to work re-investigating the Brenda Way murder.

00:12:44

Dave Moore - The offender behavior in the case of Brenda Way was so explosive, so frenzied an attack. Normally there's organized and disorganized murders. Typically somebody who does a murder for the first time is disorganized. They don't know what they're doing. It happened and then they panic. How am I gonna cover this up? They don't know they stepped in the blood. They don't know, you know they have the knife in their hand with fingerprints on it. When you get a seasoned murderer, he covers all the bases. So in other words, he didn't step in the blood trail. He's not leaving a shoe print. He's of the mind that he's going to take this person out, it's gonna be clean. And even if there’s blood splatter on his clothes, you're not going to know it. He's not going to dispose of those clothing on the site of the murder. So what my visual was on the Brenda Way murder that it was a frenzied attack, a gruesome frenzied attack. And it's not the first time, whoever did this has murdered somebody. Clearly to me that was somebody who's done multiple murders.

Dave Moore- I believe that the left shoe and the panties were taken by the killer in this case, but the shoe. You certainly wear a shoe. You're not going to walk around with one shoe. That's illogical, unless you're being chased out of somewhere or something happens. So from that perspective it told me it was an organized killer, not a disorganized killer.

00:21:14

Dave Moore - The main thing with Michael McGray, he killed and dropped them where they were. Now other police officers have gone to hundreds of thousand dollars worth of expense with Mr. McGray who never got it right with this guy. To me they were untrained and they should have known better and they should've relied on people that actually knew him. Even if they had taken the time to read his psychiatric reports which are extensive voluminous reports. You'd get a real good idea of what this guy is like. He's not interested in being deceptive and hiding bodies and digging a grave and shoveling. He drops them where he sees them. You piss me off, you're dead. It's that simple. And there'll be no historical reports that the police department that he's been harassing me, that he's attempted to hurt me or he's previously assaulted me. That's not going to happen with Michael McGray. It's there's gonna be none of that. It's just gonna be boom. I've decided this urge has come across me, you've pissed me off, you’re dead. Totally different mentality.

VO BOUSQUET:

Dave Moore talks with Gilles Blinn, his fellow Viclas worker in New Brunswick, about the Brenda Way murder.

Gilles Blinn -

Well Michael McGray if I recall here ~~it took~~ it wasn't an overnight query it wasn't an overnight investigation and you know Dave was always meticulous and did great work.

00:31:16

GIlles Blinn -

With respect to Brenda Way, she came up as a victim of a potential crime that McGray could have committed based on the signs of Viclas. And Dave had asked me to check this if it made sense and I did. I recall checking the queries the boxes he he did the cells and I found it was very credible, very well done and extremely likely that McGray could have committed that murder.

I said you know what. You're you're bang on it's actually bang on.

VO BOUSQUET:

Dave uses the Viclas system to come up with Michael McGray as the potential murderer of Brenda Way. But that isn’t enough. A computer database isn’t evidence. So Dave investigates further.

Dave Moore - So the way it worked was even though the RCMP had given me the task to solve these murders, it would seem that I had to do it on my own time. I was not getting. There was one unit vehicle. The boss kept it the whole time. The staff never got use of it. And so they're saying, do this work. But we're gonna, you know. So I'm going in my private car in a cesspool of criminals to conduct interviews and people in on it don't like to drive my personal vehicle because they might track it. And I was dumbfounded that, okay, what are you doing this for amusement. Are you not expecting me to find results out of this? Whatever. I'm entitled to my lunch. I go get the car, go into Dartmouth, do one interview per lunch hour notebook on each one.

VO BOUSQUET:

Dave works on reinvestigating the Brenda Way murder and connecting it back to Michael McGray. He has several hundred entries in the Viclas computer system. He has notebooks full of interviews with witnesses; which he keeps in a locked cabinet in his office. He has a 4-foot by 3-foot flowchart tracking McGray’s movements on his office wall. The chart has an onion skin overlay, which shows when and where McGray cashed his welfare cheques.

Meanwhile, he is continuing to write letters to McGray, exchanging Bible verses with him. He writes to McGray five times. McGray writes back three times.

Dave is convinced that Glen Assoun did not kill Brenda Way, and that Michael McGray did.

Dave says that Glen Assoun is an innocent man sitting in prison for a crime he did not commit.

He brings his theories to his boss.

[02:22:39]

Dave Moore - So I brought it to the attention of my direct supervisor, who is Ken Bradley of the Halifax Regional Police. And he went ballistic on me. Who do you think you are? And he's my direct supervisor. He is checking my work on a weekly basis to make sure that everything is done according to what they propose it to be. And he's also been my supervisor right from the beginning. So he knows my work.

Anyway, getting back to the Viclas relative to Brenda Way, I found immediately a pushback. If it's good enough for the Supreme Court of Canada, it's fucking good enough for me.

And from a police personnel perspective, there's nothing wrong with that. He's an emotional guy. I get that. But ~~the the~~ things don't add up for me. So I'm just gonna continue. I understand your position, Ken, but I think differently than you.

VO BOUSQUET:

There are two things you need to know here.

First, Halifax is the only municipality in the country that has what’s known as a “blended” police force. The Halifax Regional Police Department patrols in the urban area, while the RCMP works in the suburban / and rural areas.

But the major crime investigation unit has both Halifax PD and RCMP members in it. And so does the Viclas unit. So Dave Moore was an RCMP officer, but his boss, Ken Bradley, worked for the Halifax police.

Here’s the second thing you need to know: Back in 1996, after Brenda Way was killed, Ken Bradley worked on the investigation into her murder. And now, nine years later, he’s Dave Moore’s boss when Dave is telling him the wrong man was convicted.

[02:23:50]

Tim Bousquet - Did you know at that time that he was involved in the original investigation in the Brenda Way murder?

Dave Moore: Yeah, I did. Yeah, he told me that. He told me right from the onset. So what he did. I believe he was the ident processing officer.

The question is, did it cloud his judgment going forward in being able to do his job effectively in the Viclas unit? And I went to Chief ~~Bradley, sorry Beazeey~~, Frank Beazeley, and said, I have a problem. I'm being intimidated by this guy.

Tim Bousquet: Let me stop you right there. You went to Frank Beazely, the chief of the Halifax police department ? When was that?

Dave Moore - So the order of pecking was I went to Dick Hutchings, who's the unit commander. And he also was of negative pre-disposition on this. Then I waited for him to go on holidays. And I went to Andy Latham, who's in charge of the major crime section in Halifax. And what I basically was looking for with Andy, I had explained to him what was going on. I explained the interoffice politics and what I was really wanting him to do. He was just upstairs. I wanted him to move me upstairs or at the very least, change who I was reporting to.

Tim Bousquet: So when you say move you upstairs, you wanted to be moved out of Viclas and into major crimes?

Dave Moore: Correct.

VO BOUSQUET

Let’s recap: as Dave Moore tells it, in 2004, he takes his suspicions that Glen Assoun is innocent of the murder of Brenda Way to his boss in Viclas, Ken Bradley, who was involved in the original murder investigation that led to Glen Assoun’s conviction. Bradley tells Moore to forget it, Glen Assoun is guilty.

Next, Dave Moore goes to Dick Hutchings, who is the commander of the Halifax Viclas unit. Hutchings also tells Moore to drop the matter.

Dave then talks to the Chief of Police in Halifax, Frank Beazely, to tell Beazely that one of his cops — Ken Bradley — has a conflict of interest. Beazely tells him he can’t do anything about it.

[02:25:37]

Dave Moore - I was getting too much friction from those people, in lieu of the fact that they tasked me to do this investigation and basically were obstructing my investigation.

VO BOUSQUET:

Next, Dave Moore goes to Andy Latham, who’s in charge of major crime for the RCMP in Halifax, and asks for a transfer / so he can investigate the Brenda Way murder. Latham says, look you’re stepping on Halifax police toes, and there’s a lot of inter-department politics going on.

Latham wants to help. Latham says, bring me some hard evidence, and if you can do that / I’ll get you transferred to major crime / so you can keep investigating the Brenda Way murder.

That conversation with Andy Latham happens on a Friday/ in March of 2004.

The next day, ~~Saturday,~~ Dave goes on vacation for two weeks.

Dave More - When I came back from my holidays, my transfer notice was on the front doorstep to my house. It was underneath the mat with wet, damp from somebody had left it there. And I didn't know what was going on. I was to report immediately ~~to him~~ at nine o'clock in the morning at 9:30, whatever it was. In the meantime, I went into the Viclas unit. And so the first thing that happened was my my pass didn't work. I couldn't get in the door and I couldn't get into the office and I'm gone, OK? The only thing it was there at the secretary's desk was a box with some personal belongings. I was kicked out of the unit.

VO BOUSQUET:

With no advance notice, Dave Moore comes back from vacation and finds that he’s been transferred out of Viclas. He’s being moved to the RCMP’s gambling division.

He makes another discovery: everything is missing from his office. Years’ worth of research, interview notes, his flowchart tracking McGray’s movements — all of it, gone.

Dave Moore- They had stripped out all of my war room flowcharts. This big chart with the 15 year period on it, the overlay or onion skin overlay was missing. I had noted that the lock was busted off of the file cabinet, that I kept all of the written documents in. So I was livid. I was absolutely livid.

Dave Moore - The bottom file cabinet drawer had ten notebooks. I use that smaller version of a notebook for every person I interviewed. Every person had an individual notebook. On top of that, there were psychiatric reports on McGray. I had other suspects that I also had psychiatric reports on. I had a copy of the Moncton file, the entire file, not just what was on the system, but all the Hicks’ information. There was a lot to that file that I didn't understand. I needed to have a closer look. All of that was gone, all of the corroborating documents that I had obtained from correctional services, psychiatric reports from his school, Michael's School. So all of that was missing.

VO BOUSQUET:

That’s not all. Dave Moore gets another Viclas analyst to look on the computer system. That is, to look at the hundreds of files Dave had put on the system about Michael McGray.

Dave Moore - A coworker, Karen Broydel, was there. I went over to her office and I said, go in. Let me see what's in there. So she. She was already on the system. She'd already gained access with all her passwords or whatever. And I went to look at my files and they'd all been deleted.

(beat)

Dave Moore - And I was just told by the secretary. Got to be at Inspector Tanner's office by 9:30.

VO BOUSQUET:

Inspector Tanner is Dan Tanner, with the Criminal Investigative / Bureau of the RCMP in Halifax. I said to him, I don't give a shit what you do with me. I really don't care. But there's an innocent man in prison. What are you gonna do about that? And I said, Glen Assoun is an innocent person, you know it. I know it. And the documents stolen from my office, prove it. Now, are you gonna do anything about it? And his response was. Tsk, tsk, tsk. And if you know that man, that expression is known across Canada. He says that tsk, tsk, tsk. No one cares about Glen Assoun.

CC: We've been listening to the CBC Podcast, Uncover: Dead Wrong. In the next episode, Glen Assoun gets one last hope when a new investigation leads to a hearing at the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. That part of the story tomorrow on The Current. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. The Go-Go's were the first all female band to hit number one on the charts, writing and playing all their own material, but drugs, ego and money squabbles tore them apart after just a few years in the spotlight. This morning, guitarist and songwriter Charlotte Caffey will speak to Talia Schlanger about why the group decided to tell their story in the new documentary, The Go-Go's. That's on Q, which is up next. CBC Listen is the new free app that lets you discover the very best in Canadian audio from CBC Radio, CBC Podcasts and CBC Music. Listen to The Current live from anywhere on your phone or tablet and catch up on show highlights on demand, anytime. I'm Catherine Cullen, sitting in this week for Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Music: theme]

The Current Transcript for August 24, 2020

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