Safety at Ukraine nuclear plant not designed with 'full-scale war in mind': expert

Guests: Philip Crowther, Mariana Budjeryn

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Change in the area of drug policy is very, very slow. It's incremental, and it's that incrementalism is very deadly.

MICHELLE SHEPHARD: Don McPherson has dedicated decades trying to save the lives of some of Canada's most vulnerable. Now, as he leaves his post as executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, he reflects on the failures to save lives from toxic drugs as the epidemic gets worse. That's coming up in 30 minutes. Then in an hour, we hear from Boris Mihajlovich, a former neo-Nazi, sharing his opinion on the prevalence of far right ideology in the Canadian military.

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People here in the military, they get drawn to our ideology or are already in the military before that kind of presents itself. Most people you'll encounter in the military are like right wing.

MS: We continue our presentation of my podcast, White Hot Heat. In today's episode, we ask, Does the Canadian military have a neo-Nazi problem? But we begin in Ukraine, where a nuclear power plant under Russian occupation has the international community warning of potential catastrophe. Good morning. I'm Michelle Shephard in for Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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The situation is looking like Ukrainian stuff is working under barrels of gum off of Russian barrels agian. So the stuff is still Ukrainian. Maybe only because of that we don't have any huge catastrophe or problem or issue yet because they used to work there. They know their station. They're professionals.

MS: That's Ukraine's ambassador to international organisations speaking Monday about a nuclear facility in Zaporizhzhia. The region has been under Russian control since March, but the power plant is still operated by Ukrainian workers. Over the weekend, Ukraine and Russia both accused the other of shelling the area, pushing U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres to call for immediate inspections.

Speaker 3: Any attack to a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing, and I hope that those attacks will end. And at the same time, I hope that the IAEA will be able to have access to the plant.

MS: The international community is calling for the area to be made a military free zone. With concerns that continued bombings risk a potential nuclear disaster. Phillip Crowther is the international affiliate correspondent for the Associated Press. He is in Lviv. Philip, hello.

PHILLIP CROWTHER: Hi there. Good to be with you.

MS: Thanks for joining us. I want to get to the nuclear reactor in a moment. But first, this war is now in its fifth month. What is the latest that you can tell us on who is in control of the area?

PHILLIP CROWTHER: All look, the eastern part of Ukraine, the Donbas region, is the part that Russia has stated very openly it wants to control in its entirety and has not succeeded in doing so so far. There have been slow, steady advances for Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, but they have been very slow. The Ukrainian military has impressed itself and most people around the world in how well it has been able to stem those Russian attacks. And of course, with the added help of Western weapons, the Ukrainian military believes that it could even start staging counter offensives. And that is something that is expected to happen in the south of the country, where also Russian forces occupy a relatively large part. So we're still seeing a dynamic battlefield, but one that is moving pretty slowly, but depending on which area you're looking at in both directions.

MS: And what about the cities like Lviv, where you are and Kiev? Are they still being bombed at this point?

PHILLIP CROWTHER: Lviv is a city that has almost not been bombed throughout this whole Russian invasion. There have been some attacks on military targets in this region. And Kyiv, the capital city, has also been quiet for quite a few weeks now. It was under serious risk of being taken over, or at least of Russian forces getting very close to the centre of the capital city. But of course, they were pushed back by Ukrainian forces, leading to the discovery, of course, of those gruesome scenes in the outskirts of the capital city in in the north and and in the west of Kiev. These are two cities that feel almost normal at this point, but other cities are not in that situation. Kharkiv, for example, is Ukraine's second largest city in the northeast of the country that is still being continually shelled by Russian forces.

MS: And what is the mindset of the Ukrainians that you come Ukrainians that you come in contact with each day? Where where are they at at this point in the war?

PHILLIP CROWTHER: Oh, it's difficult to summarise, but it's pride more than anything. There's a lot of stoicism here as well with what has happened and some of the awful things that have happened to Ukrainian civilians. But more than anything, there is pride here in the armed forces. There's pride in the national identity as well. I think this is a country that is more united now than it was before Russia began its invasion here at the at the end of February. It's also a country, I think, that is quite grateful right now also for the military aid that has come its way from Western governments, from the United States, from Canada as well, for example. And finally, I'd say that this is a people in the country that believe that they can win this, who are not ready for any kind of a negotiated settlement or a cease fire, any kind of a peace deal, as unrealistic as it seems right now. This is a country that thinks it can push back Russian forces to where they came from.

MS: And in terms of what happened over the weekend, the reports of Russia and Ukraine shelling Zaporizhzhia, the nuclear complex there, what can you tell us about that?

PHILLIP CROWTHER: Well, the warnings from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, are very stark. He is speaking about the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe and he is making the direct correlation or comparison, rather, with Chernobyl. Chernobyl, of course, is a place that was also overrun by Russian forces on the very first day of its invasion of Ukraine at the end of February. And that too much like what you heard from the clip there, it was a nuclear power station that there was not a functioning that was still being run by Ukrainian technicians, by Ukrainian workers, but who were being overseen or maybe pressured, rather, by Russian soldiers who had taken over Chernobyl. And that's exactly what's happening is up here right now. Ukrainians believe the Ukrainian government believe that there are attacks being staged from inside the nuclear power plant toward the city of Nico Paul, the city of Nicopolis, just to the north, the other side of the Dnipro River from these operating a nuclear plant and that is controlled by Ukrainians still being fought over, still being attacked. And geography here is particularly important because there is a Russian belief that Ukraine, in turn, is staging attacks on or around the nuclear plant. As a response to that, we are seeing right now two completely differing points of view on what is happening around that nuclear plant.

MS: And perhaps this is an obvious question, but why is it potentially so strategic to control that facility?

PHILLIP CROWTHER: Well, it gives the Russians an enormous amount of power, doesn't it? This is a nuclear power plant that gives electricity to a very large part of Ukraine and is still getting it, by the way, from there. It just gives them an enormous amount of power and possibly also the potential to give it to hand it to Russian control, entirely meaning to the Russian states nuclear power company. That is something that might be in the offing in the near future. It's also of enormous symbolic value. This is Europe's largest nuclear power plant. And Ukraine, of course, wants to control it. More and maybe more importantly in the immediate future is what is believed to be a major counter-offensive that is being planned by Ukrainian forces in the south of the country. That would include the area around the zapper easier power plant. It could come into play again. It could be fought over on the ground again. And that, of course, would bring it even closer to a very, very dangerous scenario.

MS: And as we heard, there's a call for new U.N. nuclear inspectors to be given access to investigate. How do you expect Russia to react to that or how have they reacted to that?

PHILLIP CROWTHER: Well, we've seen some indications from the very highest echelons of the Russian government that they also would like to see an international mission from the IAEA, from the U.N. nuclear watchdog go to the Zarya power plant. Ukraine has called specifically for that as well. It sounds like an agreement, but it doesn't really sound realistic to us that this would happen, that Russian forces would allow international inspectors through what is a war zone right now, through Russian occupied Ukraine, toward a nuclear power plant that is currently being held by Russians but is being run by Ukrainians. And where some of the allegations from the Ukrainian side are very serious, that there have been explosives planted inside of that nuclear plant, that also Russia is currently staging tanks, explosives, weapons inside of the buildings there. These presumably are things that Russia would prefer international inspectors not to see. So it does seem a very unlikely prospect and also, it must be said, a very dangerous trip, a very dangerous mission for international inspectors to go to this place at this precise moment.

MS: And in just in the last minute here that we have, the U.S. has announced another billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. What do you think that will mean on the ground to Ukraine's efforts to defend itself?

PHILLIP CROWTHER: Well, the effects of these promises from Western governments are only seen most of the time a few weeks or even a few months further down the line. In this case, the United States has promised a lot more ammunition for the medium range weapons systems that Ukraine had called for. In fact, Ukraine wanted long range weapons systems and did not get them because the fear was that Ukraine could possibly attack some objectives within Russia. That's something that the United States does not want to see happen. But Ukraine believes that these weapons and the ammunition that has been coming from the United States has made a real difference. It has not changed the course of this war, but it has given Ukraine the possibility to defend itself a lot better and to stem the tide of Russian advances quite considerably, and also gives Ukraine that possibility to even think about counter offensives and indeed to already begin them, because Ukraine has already taken back dozens of towns and villages in the southern Hudson region, for example. So we are seeing these weapons make a difference on the battlefield. And I think it's it's an alternate reality to think about what this country would be like right now without Western weapons shipments, it would probably not have been able to defend itself as well as it has.

MS: We'll have to leave it there for today. Philip, thank you for joining me. Thank for that. Thank you for the reporting you're doing there.

PHILLIP CROWTHER: Thank you.

MS: Philip Crowther is the international affiliate correspondent for the Associated Press. He's in Lviv. As we heard, the U.N. has called for inspectors to be granted access to the power plant for an immediate end to bombings in the area. However, if that does not happen, there remain questions about what exactly could happen to this operation nuclear power plant. Mariana Budjeryn is a Ukrainian nuclear expert. She's a senior research associate on the project Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Centre. And she joins me now. Hello.

MARIANA BUDJERYN: Hi.

MS: Could you, Mariana, could you put into perspective what we're hearing right now about Zebari? How concerned are you?

MARIANA BUDJERYN: Well, in short, I am extremely concerned. What we're seeing happening right now is truly unprecedented. This has never happened before that such a large civilian nuclear facility would be trapped in the middle of a full-scale war, and that one of the belligerents would be, you know, actively using this facility as a kind of nuclear fortress, as a as a way to fortify its position and leverage as its military operations. Of course, the information that's coming from there is difficult to corroborate, but there have been numerous reports of Russians staging artillery and heavy armour, as we heard Philip report from Ukraine. There have been shellings reportedly from that nuclear facility of Ukrainian positions and Ukrainian civilian civilians. And those are basically cheap shots. You cannot you cannot should back. Right. Because these these armaments are based in a in a nuclear facility. So that's one of the strategic that one of the points of strategic importance of the Russian occupation of the region, where a power plant.

MS: And what protections do we know that are in place to protect the worse from happening there at the plant?

MARIANA BUDJERYN: Right. So, I mean, it is somewhat somewhat kind of what's the word I'm looking for.

PHILLIP CROWTHER: It allleviates some of the worries that nuclear facilities are highly complex, you know, really well-protected facilities. There has been a lot of attention paid, especially in the last few decades after Chernobyl and after the accident in Japan at Fukushima Daiichi, to the safety and security of these facilities. So there are rigorous safety and security protocols and systems in place. For instance, active reactor cores are protected by very robust, reinforced concrete structures, containment chambers. So should there be a release of radioactivity inside the reactor core — something should go wrong with the reactor core, it might melt down and there's a release of radioactivity — theoretically, that containment chamber should prevent the release into the atmosphere, beyond the, beyond the reactor. Those structures are also designed to withstand some level of outside impact, so shelling. Or it's not so easy to breach to damage those structures. But again Michelle, none of these safety and security systems were designed with a full-scale war in mind. So we are we really don't know for sure. We can make calculations on the back of the envelope at this point and say, all right, you know, if sustained shelling happens for such and such time, then maybe the structure will withstand, there are also backup cooling systems, for instance, because cooling of a nuclear reactor core, but also of of spent fuel parts and the fuel that has already been kind of used up in the reactor core, but it's still rather radioactive. So rather hot. It's taken out in its cooled for some time in these in these pools. And the safe operation of both the reactor and the spent fuel pools depends very much on the circulation of of water, of cool water through them to take to take that heat out of the reactor core and out of those pools. And, of course, this safe operation of these cooling systems relies on the safe operation of pumps and water and and the provision of electricity to them.

MS: Well, and I guess also, I guess also Marianne and the staff, I mean, we're hearing these reports of Ukrainian staff working under extreme circumstances, even some reports saying they're being held at gunpoint. What do we know about that and how does that impact the safety?

MARIANA BUDJERYN: Well, precisely, Michel. We have been focussing so much on the technological side of things in any sort of power plant, but there's a whole human dimension. Nuclear power plants are staffed with highly qualified people. They're not really easily replaceable, they have to be there. They're specialists. They're working under extreme duress; they're working under military occupation, under, you know, military people, generals, that it is safe to assume know very little about the safe operation of a nuclear power plant. So I can imagine they would have to justify their actions. They have to walk on eggshells around the military folk under constant threat of, you know, of terror. And the satellite city and that whole that where most of their families live, it is there to to to service that where this nuclear power plant is also occupied. Their families, their kids are living under occupation. So, you know, a lot of a big part of a safe and secure operation of a nuclear facility is the human part, right? It's being able to complete these stringent safety protocols and this very demanding job in a healthy, normal environment. And this is so far not possible. Another dimension of this is should anything happen — maybe not a terrible catastrophe, but some kind of mishap at a plant — there really is no way to get relief aid, to get firefighters, to get any kind of way to mitigate the consequences of it. And that could be a multiplier for the harm that is done by any kind of accident at the nuclear power plant.

MS: And we just have a minute left and I have a big question to end it off with. But what do you think the international response to be should be to this?

MARIANA BUDJERYN: Well, the IAEA has been very active. In particular, the Director General Grossi has been very, very active, and they're trying to get that mission to the Zaporizhzhia power plant. But I think ultimately what we're finding out, Michelle, is that the system of global nuclear governance is really not up to this task. We don't have a very good way of managing the situation. One way would be what Ukraine is demanding, is to deploy some kind of peacekeeping force that could demilitarize and keep this area secure. That, of course, would depend on the decision of the UN Security Council, at which Russia wields a veto power. So there's a dead end there. The short answer is there is no good way to manage the situation. We have to do our best with what we have and hope to avoid a disaster.

MS: So this idea of militarisation, you think, is very unlikely.

MARIANA BUDJERYN: Under the circumstances, it's not very likely because we simply don't have the tools to authorise such an operation without the Russian cooperation.

MS: Well, thank you very much for joining me today. We're going to leave it there. But obviously we'll be watching this situation very closely.

MARIANA BUDJERYN: Thank you for having me.

MS: Mariana Budjeryn is a Ukrainian nuclear expert. She's a senior research associate on the project Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Centre. The CBC News is next. Then.

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The situation now is a catastrophic failure of public policy.

MS: For decades, Don McPherson has been on the front lines of Canada's drug epidemic. Now, as he steps down as executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, he reflects on Canada's failure to save lives. I'm Michelle Shephard. The current is back in six minutes.

Donald MacPherson reflects on decades of drug policy in Canada

Guest: Donald McPherson

MS: Hello. I'm Michelle Shephard and you're listening to The Current.

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MS: Still to come in my podcast, White Hot Heat, we look into a potential neo-Nazi problem in the Canadian Armed Forces. But first, Donald McPherson reflects on a lifetime dedicated to helping this country's most vulnerable.

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LISA LAPOINTE: Don McPherson has done more to provide a rational, compassionate, evidence based perspective on drug use than anybody I know. And he has used that credibility and his experience to really make the lives of so many people better. And the work he has done will continue to improve lives for years to come. We will look back and see Don as a visionary, truly.

MS: That is British Columbia's chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe. Last year, B.C. set a record for the most drug related deaths in its history. This crisis has been raging for decades, and the man she calls a visionary, Donald McPherson, has been doing everything he can to end it. He is a staunch advocate for harm reduction and a regulated, safe supply.

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LISA LAPOINTE: He is a person who will take a lot of credit for some of the significant changes we're seeing in drug policy and changing hearts and minds around drug users. He talked about people who use drugs as regular people, and there was not that understanding for so many years. People who use drugs were really vilified and marginalised and as you know, that has caused so much harm. And Don was not that person. Don was always advocating for people who use drugs are making choices. And we need to support people in their choices to be healthy.

MS: After decades of work as the founding executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition at Simon Fraser University. Donald McPherson is stepping down from that position to continue his advocacy in other ways. For a look back and ahead, Donald McPherson is joining me now. Good morning.

DONALD MCPHERSON: Good morning, Michelle.

MS: You've never over the years lost sight of the fact that a drug user is a regular person when so many others have. How did you manage to always avoid that stigma?

DONALD MCPHERSON: I think by just being around people who use the drugs. I mean, we all use drugs and so many of us use drugs in different ways. Coffee. Alcohol. Tobacco. Now cannabis. Legal drugs. Pharmaceutical products. My work in the literacy movement in the late eighties and early nineties brought me to a place in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver where I, I met lots of people who were using other kinds of drugs as well as legal drugs.

MS: Well, maybe that's a good place to start to go back to the late eighties and nineties when you worked for the City of Vancouver as its first drug policy coordinator. I think it was you were the first person in North America to have that role. Can you describe what was going on at that time in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside?

DONALD MCPHERSON: Well, in the late eighties and early nineties, something changed in the drugs market in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. The Downtown Eastside had always been a place where people could buy illegal drugs, heroin and diverted pharmaceutical products. It's not a new phenomenon in Vancouver, and it wasn't then, but something changed in the illegal drug market and the drugs became more unpredictable and stronger. And combined with alcohol and other sedatives, they became much more deadly. And we saw a and over what we called in an overdose crisis emerge in the early nineties and run right through the nineties when hundreds and hundreds of people in British Columbia died preventable deaths from drug overdoses.

MS: And I just want to bring you to what is happening today. I mean, we know that toxic drug deaths have surged across the country. How would you describe the situation now? Can you put it into perspective?

DONALD MCPHERSON: The situation now is a catastrophic failure of public policy. And wwe're looking at numbers that are five times as bad than they were in the nineties. In the nineties in British Columbia. The worst months. The worst years were 2003 and 2008, when 400 people died in British Columbia. Last year in British Columbia, 2200 people died of drug toxicity deaths. We used to refer to them as overdose deaths, but the chief coroner of B.C. now refers to them as drug toxicity deaths. Because as the drug market changed in the nineties, which precipitated the overdose crisis in the nineties, the drug market has changed again beginning around 2012. And with the onset of toxic, illegal fentanyl and fentanyl analogues and other substances in the illegal drug market, that has caused a very, very steep increase in drug toxicity deaths we've seen for the last- since 2016. This started happening in 2012 and 13, but in 2016 there was an extreme increase in deaths and a public health emergency was declared in British Columbia, should have been declared and other provinces should have been eventually declared by the federal government.

MS: And you've said in the past that provincial and federal government policies have led directly to the toxic, the current toxic supply of drugs flooding the streets. Can you explain that a little bit more?

DONALD MCPHERSON: Yeah. Our current policies maintain and prop up and support and resource a system designed in the early 1900s. It's a system called drug prohibition, which does not work to protect the health and safety of Canadians in any way. It creates a robust transnational market in illegal substances that brings drugs to your community across Canada, no matter how big or how small your community has an illegal drug market delivered to you by drug prohibition. There is no regulated substances in this market. The there are no age restrictions. People don't know the composition of the drugs they are buying. And that is what we're seeing happening since 2014-15. We're seeing the drug market become so much more toxic and so many more people dying from it.

MS: And B.C. will soon be the first province to decriminalise small amounts of illicit drugs. How significant is that in the context of what you're describing?

DONALD MCPHERSON: Well, any change such as decriminalisation of people of drugs and people who use them is a very significant change. It's a beginning. It's another step in dismantling what I referred to before as this catastrophic failure of a public policy. So decriminalisation is a very good thing. People should not be criminalised for using a substance. It is it is a barbaric practise that continues and stems from attitudes, colonial and racist attitudes in the early 1900s. It makes no sense in the modern day that we treat people as badly as we do simply because they use a substance that we have declared illegal. When you can drive into your liquor store, load up your pickup truck with cases of whisky and drive off for a wild weekend of drinking as much as you want. There's no logic to our drug policies. And we really need to bring them back into a configuration that manages alcohol, tobacco, cannabis and the currently illegal drugs in a different way that begins to bring them into a regulatory system that people can access. People know what they're buying. They know the composition and the dosage level of the substance. And we can, you know, get beyond this this barbaric approach that is very wasteful of tax dollars. A Canadian should be livid that we continue to prop up this system. It's a total waste of money and is so harmful to communities, to families and to individuals in this country.

MS: It does seem as if B.C. is a little ahead in terms of the what you're advocating for than the rest of the province in in addition to the decriminalisation. Canada's first publicly funded fentanyl dispensary is operating now in Vancouver. Can you explain what they're doing there?

DONALD MCPHERSON: Well, I don't know the details, but what you're seeing with the B.C. decriminalisation model, that's a step in the right direction. It's unfortunate that the federal government is not decriminalising drugs in terms of equity across the country. You know, you will have decriminalisation for simple possession of substances in B.C., but not in Alberta or Ontario. So that's not an equitable policy. The the the the dispensing of prescribing of fentanyl in a very small pilot project in Vancouver is another attempt, another crack in the regime of this drug prohibition. It's trying to bring a safer way of that. People can access substances so that they they won't they know the dose research is clear from the European context. If people are prescribed heroin at a dose that works for them, that that can go on for years. That is not a problem. It's the precariousness and the unpredictability of the drug market. That is the main problem here. When you don't know exactly what you're getting, you don't know that dose and you know there's going to be strong substances in it.

MS: We actually spoke with the the doctor who runs the fentanyl dispensary, Dr. Christy Sutherland, and she actually credits you with paving the way.

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DR. SUTHERLAND: You know, when people are ahead of their time and talking about something that actually makes so much sense, but it takes the rest of the world decades to catch up. And I think that that's who Donald is. I really feel that we're at a moment of change in Canada for drug policy, and I think it's due to Donald and his work. And I'm so hopeful for the future that we'll see a legal, regulated market for drugs and that people will be provided safety in that way.

MS: She's optimistic. How close do you think the rest of the community, especially law enforcement and politicians, are to catching up?

DONALD MCPHERSON: I think if people to take a really serious look at the harms that our current policies create, which is something we don't acknowledge. We don't acknowledge that our our policies are actually creating the toxic drug market. Our policies are actually pushing people away from getting help and services by criminalising people of the harms if our policies are actually worse than the harms of the substances. If you could get substances of knowing, knowing dose and composition, I'd like to think that there will be a tipping point when we wake up. I know law enforcement is supportive of the heroin prescription programme and they should be because people are getting pharmaceutical grade substances. I know the Vancouver police have said they're supportive of the Safe Supply initiative and other police have said that as well. So the safe supply programmes are another incremental move forward to try and get people an access to pharmaceutical grade drugs instead of forcing people to get to use the toxic, illegal, terribly controlled drug market. What we did with cannabis, what did we do with cannabis? It seemed impossible that cannabis was going to ever be regulated, but all of a sudden it was regulated. So. What happened there? Well, we got beyond whether to do this to how to do it. And once you get to that, how to do it. All parties want to be at the table. Everyone has an opinion and that's when you get into a design process. We need to design a new system that starts to ask the questions of how can we change what we have now? Which is a total free for all, an unregulated and toxic free for all that's killing people and harming people and supporting organised crime too. One that brings much more of a regulatory regime in place and prioritises the public health and safety of Canadians.

MS: With all the important work you've done, Donald, and the incremental changes that have come, people are still dying more than ever. That must be really hard for you personally to come to terms with.

DONALD MCPHERSON: It's gutting. It's gutting to see how how bad things are now and how after all of the work we've done and all of the courageous leadership at the community level, the advocacy, that's been immense. Politicians like Filipo and others and crusaders like Larry Campbell, Like coroner, Lisa Lapointe, the coroner in B.C. now is doing a remarkable job of trying to educate our politicians and the public about the seriousness of this of it. It is discouraging. I can quote I was on a death review panel that the chief coroner of B.C. convened last a few months ago with 25 other people. And we were astounded. We reviewed the deaths of 6007 deaths in British Columbia. And it was a it was a gruelling process. And it was really awful to just see the sheer numbers. People in the prime of their lives. By and large, most people are dying or dying between 20 and 49. It's just such a needless loss that our coroner in the report that came out of that. She basically said until new regulatory approaches are implemented within the National Drug Policy Framework and improvements in the quality and reach of the continuum of support, harm reduction and treatment services are made. The risk of significant harms deaths and the public health emergency are unlikely to improve. That is sobering for someone like me who likes to live on the edge of what is possible. Her comment there is sort of it sets the challenge for us. And in this field, we see too much of more of the same. More of the same is not going to fix is more harm reduction services, more treatment programmes, more prevention programmes are not going to be the appropriate response. We need to pull these substances into a regulatory framework. People need to have access to them in the context of this emergency. We need to maximise access to the safe supply of drugs, which was the number one priority in that coroner's review. Number one recommendation. And that could lead us, that provision of safe supply in as broad a way possible that could lead us out of this. And that is my hope for the right now is that the urgency to get people a safe supply of substances will kick start an approach that we will be able to build upon and move into a totally new redesigned approach to how we manage substances in our society.

MS: And as you are set to pass the baton as executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, who will you want to see leading the charge you started? Perhaps just what type of work that you'd like to see go forth?

DONALD MCPHERSON: Well, let me put it this way. I think when I started this work, just accidentally really in the late eighties or early nineties, the the ignorance in society, the institutional ignorance, the stigma, the barriers of were were immense. And it was stunning. It was as if we had all lived in a cave for 100 years. And our attitudes towards people who use drugs were so awful, so terrible. Much of this still persists. But if I look across the country and I look at the education that's happened within that nursing community, let's say the harm reduction workers that are on the front lines of this, the organisations of people who use drugs that are re-emerging in every province and territory, carrying, carrying the banner of change and reminding us that, you know, people's lives are at stake. Families, families, lives are at stake here. I become optimistic because I see a new leadership emerging that it's clear that we're at a point where we can't just do more of the same. We can't just add a few of this or add a few of that. We need a complete overhaul of the system. And while daunting that that should happen, we do that all the time with other in other areas. But with drug policy. Drug policy is so ingrained in the way we think. Drug prohibition is so ingrained in the way we think. We have a real problem trying to see a different way of doing it. And people think that that, you know, things will get worse or it'll be a free for all. And I'm saying, how can how can they get worse than this? This is a free for all=-0987654321§ it's an unregulated, toxic disaster. And we're going to make it better. We're going to we're going to fix this problem and bring it into a more ordered and regulated context. So I am optimistic that there are people in this country who really understand the need for significant change, including some at the political level in in in various political parties, probably. There are people in all political parties. Well, I know there are people in all political parties that know we need to consider a new way to get to move forward of it. Having the courage to take that up and bring that to your local context, your city council, your local health authority, your provincial MLA or federal MP. That's the only way things are going to change if people really, really rattle the cages of those in power and support those those individual politicians to step up. And they they are out there. I know that. I know them. They're out there ready to lead. A significant change in this area. They need public support and they need to actually come out of there, out of their offices and into the into the public.

MS: And before we go, I have a message for you from your friend Larry Campbell.

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I don't know, Donald. I look in the mirror every once in a while, and we're not kids anymore. You know, we've got the scars mentally, not physically, but mentally of of the fight. So it's time to you know, we've we have a younger generation who are way more hip, way more understanding of social media, which is important, way more understanding of how to reach people, and I think more compassionate. But he's a long way from finished. I know he thinks he's going to just sit back and play his players stringed instruments and spoons and sing P.E.I. songs, but I don't think he's going to get there. I love him. I love you, man. Seriously? Without him, I wouldn't be the person I am for good or bad.

MS: And what do you say to that?

DONALD MCPHERSON: Oh, Larry Campbell. Well, he he was he was that crusading coroner in in Vancouver, the Vancouver coroner. I remember hosting a meeting with Larry Campbell at the Carnegie Community Centre on that Gordon remained in Hastings and it was a packed house and he was so hot that we were not seeing the action that needed to happen because, you know, people were dying. And the coroner is your last friend there, the last person that sees you on the planet. And he was very passionate about this issue. We took him to an overdose conference in Seattle. I remember he had a big dustup with about Osborne, our our famous poet, who was such a great advocate for supervised injection sites and prevent do even Larry Campbell going at it in the hallway of a hotel. And that, I think, changed Larry's life as well.

MS: And I imagine what he said there is right that you're not done, you're not retiring. Do you know what you'll do next?

DONALD MCPHERSON: I'm going to take a break next. I need to recover and I'm going to you know, I'm going to see how I can help the cause from a different vantage point. And and also support the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, which I think has emerged to be a very strong voice in this area.

MS: Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Donald. I really appreciate it.

DONALD MCPHERSON: Okay. Thank you.

MS: Donald McPherson is stepping down as the executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. Coming up after your regional update, we continue our presentation of my CBC podcast, White Hot Hate. I'm Michel Shephard, and you're listening to The Current.

Episode two of CBC podcast White Hot Hate

MS: I'm Michel Sheppard, and you're listening to The Current. We're presenting my CBC podcast, White Hot Hate this week. And today we follow Winnipeg Free Press journalist Ryan Thorpe as he decides to go undercover and infiltrate the neo-Nazi group The Base. Here's episode two. Best of Both Worlds.

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MS: The response was immediate. After Ryan Thorpe's investigation, Home Grown Hate was splashed on the front page of the Winnipeg Free Press. Canadian journalists scrambled to catch up on the story, and people took to social media to express their disbelief, fear or scepticism. Some readers were contacting Ryan directly about the man he'd met while undercover. But there was one tip that stood out.

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RYAN: I had one individual follow me on Twitter and then send me a direct message immediately. I'm excited because I think that maybe this is kind of the tip I've been waiting for.

MS: It was Saturday, August 17th, 2019. Not even 24 hours since the story was posted online. Ryan gave the man his number and they set up a time to talk later in the day.

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RYAN: He was very cagey. Clearly, he wanted to speak with a reporter, but struck me as one of those individuals who doesn't have experience dealing with journalists isn't particularly media savvy, was, you know, nervous and apprehensive about the, you know, the process or speaking to me.

MS: That's because the stakes were particularly high for the caller, Patrick, the man who had been talking about derailing trains and setting off explosives. Well, it turns out he hadn't been lying about his military experience. And the caller knew this because he was also in the military. They had trained together and were still enlisted in the Army Reserves. Ryan promised the tipster anonymity.

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RYAN: So after we agreed to kind of ground rules, I start confirming details about Patrick that I had learnt in the meeting in the park.

MS: Patrick did grow up in London. The caller told him he had an ex-girlfriend who was black. And he also told Ryan Patrick's last name. It was Matthews. Patrick Matthews.

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RYAN: And eventually we kind of get into Patrick's experience in the military because this guy served, you know, quite closely with him. And he said that I've participated with explosives trainings with Patrick on countless occasions. So the follow up was in Monday's edition of The Free Press, identifying MATTHEWS as a member of the Canadian Army Reserves and a master corporal trained as a combat engineer. And then, you know, things start moving really quickly.

MS: People wanted to know how was it possible that this man who spewed such hate was enlisted with the Canadian Armed Forces? How many more like him were out there? And did the military have a problem with neo-Nazis in its ranks? Reservists are a special branch within the military. You can be part time. And most have civilian careers. Or are students enrolled in college or other post-high school education? For all intents and purposes, though, you're a train soldier, just like the regular force. If deployed, you'd be shoulder to shoulder without distinction. I wondered if it was especially significant that Patrick MATTHEWS was in the Reserves. He wasn't the only Canadian in recent years whose connexions to dangerous far right ideologies were exposed. There was Brandon Cameron, who Vice reported as living a double life in Nova Scotia as a member of both the Canadian Reserves and a neo-Nazi acceleration group in British Columbia. It was revealed that Reservist Eric Bigland was involved with two far right extremist groups. The three percenters and soldiers of Odin.

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NEWSCASTER: Believe that former reservist Eric Miglin was more than an ordinary member of the 3% movement, which has now been declared a terrorist organisation by the Federal Government. Miglin was, according to the documents, the President and commanding officer of the B.C. Yukon 3% chapter.

MS: Then there's Manitoba Reservist Corey Heron who rammed through the gates of the governor general's residence with his truck and then made his way on foot and heavily armed to confront Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Curran was detained before he could reach him and he later pled guilty to weapons charges and mischief and was sentenced to six years in prison. In researching this podcast, we talked to dozens of current and former reservists. They wanted to emphasise that they were horrified by these cases and the stain it left on their reputation. The reserves for many as a noble, serious, full time profession. But they did concede that for some it was more of a testosterone fuelled adventure. A chance to get your war on playing real life call of Duty. But what if that hobby had a sinister edge? Were accelerationism those who wanted to spark a race war using the reserves to get the training they needed.

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NEWSCASTER: A CBC exclusive investigation has revealed that a website popular with neo-Nazis appears to have had a large number of Canadian participants.

MS: In November 2019, anti-fascist activists leaked a huge data dump from a known white supremacist message board called Iron March. Hundreds of thousands of posts and private messages. The CBC journalists saw there were a disturbing number of discussions about the military, whether to join up, how easy it was to enlist, and what skills you might learn. One of the most prolific posters went by the name Moon Lord. He said he was Canadian and a reservist. He encouraged others on the forum to enlist. Once writing, the government will pay you to get you ready for the race war. Literally no reason not to do military service. Moon Lord was outed almost simultaneously in December 2019 by a U.S. website and the CBC investigation. He was a Calgary based Naval reservist named Boris.

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BORIS: My name is Boris Milovic, which I am probably known for being on a few CBC articles. I was involved with some far right groups in my past, and since then I've kind of left that behind.

MS: At the time, Boris had his identity and personal details revealed to the world, doxxed as activists and extremists would describe it. He said he'd already left behind the ideology and had been working with a deradicalisation support group. More than a year on. He agreed to talk to me with certain conditions. He said he worried about his safety. What are you able to say about yourself currently where you are location wise and what do you want to stay away from?

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BORIS: Well, I'm in Canada. That's all I'll say about that. I won't answer any questions about specific questions about groups or individuals.

MS: Boris is 26 today. He claims that his ideological leanings have swung dramatically in the last decade.

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BORIS: My politics coming out of high school is like radical left wing. I was a member of a group. That was what someone would call like an anti-fascist group.

MS: So you came out of high school, kind of a lefty.

BORIS: Yeah. Very, very far left, yeah.

MS: But once Boris went to university, he became more isolated and increasingly lived online, pulled in a different direction.

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BORIS: I struggled a lot with my home life. Like with school. I had a I was living on my own first time, which, you know, didn't go well. I had like no friends, like no social support systems since they all moved away for university to other provinces. And I just kind of became isolated and kind of drifted into these online spaces that were not great. For example, for China, I was unfortunate a lot.

MS: Fortune is an anonymous image board, an infamous hub for Internet subculture.

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BORIS: There's a board for different subjects in the one I was on was called Politically Incorrect. And that's where you would find predominantly like far right views. They put out a lot of kind of like, I guess propaganda, maybe you would call it.

MS: In private messages sent as Moon Lord. Boris also wrote that he was part of Blood and Honour, a neo-Nazi group whose roots go back to the UK skinhead movement. According to the CBC investigation, in 2015, Boris registered a website for the Calgary chapter of Blood and Honour, using his real name and home address. And yet, a year after that, he was able to join the Canadian Forces Naval Reserves. In those private messages, Boris wrote that one of his superiors was made aware of his group affiliation shortly after he enlisted, saying, quote, I was talked to by an officer at the base about not divulging sensitive military information and not being part of any racist groups that wasn't accused or threatened. But I got the message. They could have just discharged me immediately. But when I asked him about this, Boris told me he had never been flagged by a supervisor, never confronted by an officer.

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BORIS: And just lied about it.

MS: Why would you lie about that?

BORIS: I have no idea. I have no idea.

MS: And Boris is far right. Activity wasn't limited to just registering Web sites and other private messages. On Iron March, Moon Ward appeared to organise international illegal arms deals for weapons such as pistols, AK 47 and RPGs or rocket propelled grenades.

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MS: There are various things. I won't read them all out, but because they're so, so many. But there was someone known as French soldier and there was plans about going to France and I think Croatia. Did you ever leave Canada or meet with others outside of Canada?

BORIS: You know, I can't answer that. Like I said in the beginning, like the super sensitive questions that kind of compromised my safety or off limits.

MS: Are you able to say if if law enforcement ever.

BORIS: No, I'm not able to say that.

MS: The Navy said it was not aware of any of this activity until Boris was outed in the media. And while his online record as Moon Lord suggests he joined the military as a strategy, Boris believes for most to end up in violent Far-Right movements. It works the other way around that these groups look to the reserves to recruit.

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BORIS: People who were in the military, they get drawn to our ideology or are already in the military before that kind of presents itself. Most people you'll encounter in the military are like right wing.

MS: Did you did you find that in your experience when you were there?

BORIS: Oh, certainly. These kind of pseudo alright misogynist views or or just like casual racism. I don't think it's a big step to go from that to like more extreme ideology.

MS: Boris is no longer a sailor first class with the Canadian Naval Reserves. He was suspended after the CBC reports on his Iron March posts, but an administrative review paved the way for him to return to duty. The officer in charge said he believed in rehabilitation over retribution, but there was an outcry from the public and from within the force over his reinstatement and a second review concluded he could no longer serve.

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MS: And how do you deal with it now? Do people let you move on or is it still hanging over you?

BORIS: I think it's still kind of hanging over me bit, but mostly mostly people kind of. Let me move on. But. Like I'm still being conducted by you guys. So it's not really done.

MS: No. And I mean, it's you Google your name and it's the first thing that comes up. I mean, I guess the question is, how do you prove that you've changed your views?

BORIS: Oh, well, I'm I people are free to believe what they want, I suppose. I think my actions speak for themselves. I was kind of involved in deradicalization before I ever had any idea I would be having my name published. And then these articles are I've been like a volunteer at a non-profit that helps immigrants. If you don't believe that I've changed, that's up to whoever is kind of making that assessment. Like there's nothing there's nothing else to say in that regard.

MS: Boris was never criminally charged for his online activity. And the whole episode raises an ethical question. When do you out? Someone for expressing hateful views. You could ruin this person's life or roadblock their rehabilitation, or potentially radicalise them even further and make them more dangerous. It's something Ryan had to consider when it came to his reporting on Patrick Matthews.

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RYAN: Obviously, he had been exposed in the pages of a daily newspaper at that point in time. I thought he was a serious potential threat to the community, but I can't think of any laws he may have even broken that they could have necessarily arrested him on. Perhaps it's naive of me to think that this would have been some sort of warning sign that maybe he needs to take a step back from the ledge and, like, reorient his life in a better direction. I certainly exposed him. If you want to call that doxing then you know, I guess you can call it dark saying I consider reporting what I did, but he's responsible for his actions after that point on.

MS: The day Ryan's story ran, citing sources to confirm Patrick MATTHEWS was in the Canadian Armed Forces. The newspaper sent a team to MATTHEWS home in Beausejour, Manitoba.

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RYAN: They took some photos of Matthew's home, and he was there and he had shaved his face. So he was clean shaven now, which I assumed was in response to the article in me describing him physically and him panicking.

MS: And then later that night.

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RYAN: All of a sudden, I get a message that's like, Oh. MATTHEWS Home in Beausejour is being raided by the RCMP. I just begin working sources that I have in Winnipeg, people who might know and begin digging through stuff on social media to try and find someone who maybe witnessed things. And probably within half an hour, I come across an individual's posted a video of the raid to social media.

MS: Now, I know it's a media cliche, but Matthews really did live on a quiet tree lined street in a small town. And the neighbours, they didn't know what to think.

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NEIGHBOUR: SWAT team was all around our property. They were all busy working, doing their had their tactical gear, went in with a robot and checked out the house. We'd like to keep to ourselves kind of thing and to have that kind of thing that happened in small town beausejour. It's quite frightening.

MS: After the raid and media storm, the Canadian Armed Forces couldn't remain silent anymore. And so the next day.

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NEWSCASTER 2: And because we're just taking our viewers to a military update on those allegations against a member of the Canadian Forces, Colonel Gwenn Bourque is speaking on the phone from Saskatoon. We'll listen in.

MS: Colonel Bourque is the commander of the 30th Canadian Brigade Group where Patrick Matthews served as a master corporal.

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BORQUE: As an organisation, we do promote the value in diversity, and we do...

MS: Colonel Bourque told reporters that news of Matthew's involvement in the base came as a great shock and officially confirmed for the first time that he was a member of the Canadian Army Reserve.

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BORQUE: I wanted to also assure everyone that my cripple Matthews has no ability to obtain explosives through the military, and he does not have the authorisation, and he doesn't hold any of the requisite qualifications in order to draw any type of explosives.

MS: While she reassured the public that Mattews didn't possess any military issued weapons, that didn't mean he couldn't acquire guns elsewhere. He had a firearm licence. Colonel Borg also told journalists that essentially the Army had not been aware of what Matthews had been doing with this neo-Nazi acceleration, this group.

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BORQUE: So the investigation is ongoing. We do really appreciate the Winnipeg Free Press for bringing some new information to light, because we do understand the importance of of the information that was provided.

MS: But Bourque had actually been left in the dark because two days later the military did an about face. The Defence Chief General, Jonathan Vance, told the press that MATTHEWS had been flagged for months before Ryan's story.

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VANCE: On the current situation with regard to Marshal. Mathews I want you to know that this was a signal we did not miss. The Canadian Forces National Counterintelligence Unit had already begun to deal with him by the time that story broke. We are not a place for sick hobbyists to practise their vile ideology and we won't stand for it. We will react.

MS: But whether Patrick Matthews and his racist activity were previously known to the military or not, his case did serve as a wake up call, and it shouldn't have. It's not the first time there have been incidents, and it's certainly an issue looking at militaries abroad. In the U.S., there is now a task force to try to root out violent extremism within the military's ranks. In Germany, an elite Special Forces unit known as the KSK was partially disbanded after growing criticism over right wing extremism in its ranks. So after the recent high profile incidents involving Matthews and others in the military, the Canadian Armed Forces finally had to take action.

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BARBARA: The CRF as a whole. And then each of the branches now have policies around hateful conduct, very explicit, very concrete policies in terms of defining what hateful conduct is.

MS: Barbara Perry is the director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University. She helps the Canadian Armed Forces craft these new policies.

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BARBARA: As are those narratives. So it's an after conduct, including the display or communication of words, symbols or images. I see if member that they knew or reasonably to have known would constitute, encourage, justify or promote violence or hatred against a person or persons of an identifiable group.

MS: There wasn't a policy like that beforehand.

BARBARA: Certainly not.

MS: It's pretty shocking that the Canadian military lacked this clear definition. Considering what happened three decades ago.

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NEWSCASTER 3: The Somalia fair is right up there with the world's worst military scandals. Central to the matter, the Canadian Airborne Regiment. Several of the paratroops were charged with a number of offences relating to the murder of the young Somalian boy. And then to make matters worse, videotapes from the troops themselves appeared showing the Canadian paratroopers in Somalia before the murder with Nazi tattoos, drinking beer and making racial slurs.

MS: In April 2020, the Canadian Armed Forces awarded Barbara and her colleagues a research grant worth three quarters of $1,000,000. The idea is that the report's recommendations will help the military weed out hateful ideologies and extremism.

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BARBARA: This is really the first comprehensive study looking at the far right in the context of the Canadian Armed Services. Those very celebrated cases that have drawn attention and I think that have motivated the funding that we have no doubt that's the tip of the iceberg. But how big that iceberg is, we really don't know.

MS: Over some of the reasons that this was, you know, flying under the radar.

BARBARA: Well, I think it was a combination of factors. I mean, we were not that far on the heels or long after the 911 attacks in New York and because they're associated with with Muslims. That remained a concern, this preoccupation with only Islamist inspired extremism. But I think it was also to do with because this is one of the things we heard from law enforcement was sort of a denial or minimisation of the presence as well as the risks associated with the far right. They just weren't watching. They weren't looking for them.

MS: Barbara believes the military was amongst the institutions underplaying this risk when she first started working with them. She was surprised by how little attention the higher ups paid to the online activity of its members.

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MS: I mean, aside from obvious privacy concerns, what do you think the reluctance is to to look into that?

BARBARA: Maybe fear of what they'll find. We actually asked that question at one point. What kinds of mechanisms can use at screening to get at these folks? And we said, how deep dive do you take in social media? Oh, well, we don't look at it at all. And we were we were just stunned.

MS: I asked Barbara if she felt it was significant that the spate of recent high profile Canadian cases had all been reservists.

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BARBARA: Yeah. Such great questions. And again, part of what we really want to unpack. They're not that committed that they want to, you know, serve active duty. They don't want to devote their whole life to the military. It's a very strategic and pragmatic reason for enlisting. So they're still embedded in their own communities. So I think it's in some respects easier for them to fly under the radar. And I think what's happening is people are already radicalised and they enlist, especially in the reservist, to get what they think is the training, the appropriate training. But then you also get the impact of the likes of Patrick Matthews, for example, who was a recruiter and trying to bring others into the movement as well.

MS: From his perspective, Boris Mihajlovic says increased security may have stopped him from joining the naval reserves or flagged him earlier.

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BORIS: The culture in the caf is like changing, I guess quite a bit, but it's still like, I don't know if it's been like as successful as they maybe want to portray it as.

MS: Why do you think that is?

BORIS: Well, like, when do they begin trying to kind of root out racism is in the nineties. I was enrolled in 2016 and like I said, you know, casual racism isn't like uncommon. Like misogyny is not uncommon. I've only been out for a few years. It's not going to happen overnight, I suppose.

MS: When Boris read about Patrick Matthews, he says he could identify with him.

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BORIS: I don't want to sympathise with him because I don't like a situation similar and I kind of feel like, you know, I could have been in that situation myself if I had stay involved. From what I read about him, he kind of moves pretty fast in the direction of becoming a spy, being involved in this like, you know, terrorist group. Just like I said, it's like, kind of crazy.

MS: On August 28th, 2019, about a week after Patrick Matthews had been exposed and the RCMP had raided his home. Ryan was in the newsroom.

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RYAN: Just working on this story, you know, working the phones. And I think an editor comes down to my desk and says, CBC's reporting that he's missing.

NEWSCASTER 2: New details to bring you now on a story we told you about last week. The Army reservist alleged to have links to a neo-Nazi group is now missing.

RYAN: That's after I can remember feeling kind of sick to my stomach, actually. I was worried that he was going to harm himself. And I just that would have been a terrible end to the whole situation. And I know I would have felt terrible. But I can also remember folks in the newsroom coming up to me being like, are you okay? Are you worried? Like, their mind seemed to go, oh, he's missing. Maybe he's going to come after you. Whereas my first thought was, he's missing. Is he going to, you know, disappear somewhere and do something dumb?

MS: Tomorrow, we'll continue to bring you my podcast, White Hot Hate. Episode three takes us into neo-Nazi hate camps. If you have any thoughts about the podcast or anything from the show, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at thecurrent@cbc.ca. Or you can tweet us at the current CBC or head to our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. That's our programme for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. Reba McEntire is today one of the best selling country musicians of all time. But it took two decades before Reba broke through to the mainstream with her 1990 album Rumour Has It. Reba McEntire takes a look back on that album and her career. That's coming up after the news. I'm Michelle Sheppard. Thanks for listening to The Current.

The Current Transcript for August 9, 2022

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Safety at Ukraine nuclear plant not designed with 'full-scale war in mind': expert

Donald MacPherson reflects on decades of drug policy in Canada

Episode two of CBC podcast White Hot Hate

Tuesday August 9, 2022 Full Transcript

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