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The Current Transcript for February 25, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

MATT GALLOWAY: For those suffering through a mental illness, finding just the right treatment can be a struggle. And for many people, that solution never arrives. This week, we've been hearing about the promise that psychedelic drugs are bringing to the treatment of everything from PTSD and anxiety to depression. This morning, does that promise actually add up in reality? And, your contributions to the dictionary words that don't exist but should, from Gription to quivit. Plus,.

WOMAN: Shock and disbelief. How could we have invested in these companies? We felt we had done our due diligence, but obviously not.

MATT GALLOWAY: Hundreds of millions of dollars vanished in one of the largest fraud cases in Canadian history. "The Fifth Estate's" Mark Kelly is here with the details, along with two people who saw their life savings disappear. We start, though, in northern Ontario, where calls to stay home in the midst of this pandemic are leaving the homeless out in the cold and a community springing to the rescue. Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. This is "The Current".

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Canada’s Road Ahead: Helping the homeless in Sudbury, Ont

Guests: Denise Sandul, Aaron St. Pierre

MATT GALLOWAY: Over the past few weeks, we have been making our way across this country, virtually, in a series that we are calling "Canada's Road Ahead", and along the way, we're hearing from people about how the pandemic has changed their lives and their communities, but also, where they're finding hope in the midst of all of this. From the start of the pandemic, we've been told to shelter in place, to isolate, to stay home. Sounds like pretty simple advice, but for those who are experiencing homelessness, those orders come with unique and, at times insurmountable obstacles. Today, we are in Sudbury, Ontario, where those in need, and a group looking to help, have come together.

JASON: My name is Jason. I've been homeless for about three years. When I see places like this and I see certain people that are volunteering here that I know, you know, it still gives me hope that there's still an opportunity and a chance. I got, uh, a red duffel bag. I got a couple pairs of jeans, some long long Johns, socks, uh, a little bit of goodies. I'm just looking for a winter coat right now. And... and like a lot of them are in very good shape still, you know? Like, a lot of people would say, no, I wouldn't wear that. Like, that's an amazing coat. Like, I'm actually thinking of trying this one on. Yeah, there we go! I'm going to take this coat.

DEBORAH SWYER-BURKE Hello! We'll get it in the grocery bag for you, [a plastic bag rusltles] darling. OK, some homemade cookies. Put those in your bag. Yeah. And then when you're on your way out, you can grab a hot coffee. We've got sandwiches over there.

DEBORAH SWYER-BURKE Hi, my name is Deborah Swyer-Burke. We're in the basement of the Church of the Epiphany. In September, I started coming down here and handing out granola bars and water bottles. And now, we've actually got a little space. And what we're doing or our whole mission statement is anybody who needs anything that's a vulnerable person in our community, they should be able to have access to bottled water, a cookie, and human contact. I got involved because my son was actually downtown about 12 years ago, and I used to come down here to help him and his friends. And now, by the grace of God, he's sober, not living around here anymore. And then, in September, I came down with my other son one day to use a government building. And I was appalled by I counted about 50 people on the sidewalk. And it was the last weekend of August. And I went home, and I said, Sunday, I'm going downtown. I'm going to buy some granola bars and water bottles and see if they need it. I didn't know coming down here on that first Sunday in September if anybody would even want it. Within about an hour-and-a-half, five cases of water and three club packs of granola bars were gone. And I promised them when I left, I will be back next Sunday. I put a call out for a few of my friends, which are here today, to come and meet me for next Sunday. And they showed up, and they brought granola bars and water bottles. By the third Sunday, people were asking for socks, if we had any socks and shoes? And it just went from there. Literally, the people that we started seeing in September, that I started seeing the original Sunday in September, were coming to my truck, the back of my truck with sandals or no shoes at all.

DEBORAH SWYER-BURKE When you put out a call on Facebook or Instagram from our social networks, you wouldn't believe the kindness that is in this city. It blows my hair back to know that people really understand there's a need. They don't want to come down here, per say to do it, but they will absolutely help somebody who is.

WOMAN: [in the distance] I'll see you next Sunday.

DEBORAH SWYER-BURKE OK, next Sunday. There is nothing more heartwarming to know that every single person that walked in here today left a better person. And when I leave here at 4:00, 4:30, including myself.

MATT GALLOWAY: Well, for more on what this group of volunteers is doing, I'm joined by another member of the team, Denise Sandul. Denise, good morning.

DENISE SANDUL: Good morning.

MATT GALLOWAY: We just heard there how the kindness of people in the city blows her hair back. What is that like on those days when you're out handing out food and clothing?

DENISE SANDUL: It's really heartwarming to go out on the streets and provide people with just some simple things. I typically go out three or four times a week on my own, which many of our group do as well. I will have, you know, a trunk full of socks, hats and gloves, often chocolate bars, some cigarettes, hand warmers. These people are so grateful just to receive what they need for that night. I can't save them, but I can make that day a little better for them. Most of them know my son, who passed away September 8th, 2020, from an overdose. One of our members often says, once you see it, you can't unsee it. And that is so true.

MATT GALLOWAY: You mentioned your son. I mean... and you started getting involved with this group after Myles died. Tell me a bit about Myles. Who was he?

DENISE SANDUL: Myles was, you know, he was very sweet. A kind young man. He had a beautiful smile. He was thoughtful. He... he had a happy childhood, came from a loving family. He excelled at sports. A very forgiving person. He always saw the good in people. He never had a, you know, a bad word to say about anybody. And I meet a lot of people on the street that confirm this about my son. Myles was diagnosed with schizophrenia at 18, and that's... his mental health was basically what led him to addiction. You know, he would use drugs to self-medicate and try to quiet those voices in his head. He was compliant most of the time with his... his medication and his outpatient care. However, you know, COVID restrictions happened, and, you know, hospital stays were never long enough to get him well. He wasn't suitable for rehab because his needs were too complex with addiction and mental health. And then Myles passed away of an overdose on September 8th.

MATT GALLOWAY: I'm sorry for that and for what you've been through. It's been a lot. You started this program called Crosses for Change after he died. What was that?

DENISE SANDUL: Well, Myles died in a very public place downtown in front of the Van Horne fire station. For our family, Myles has three sisters, we kind of gravitated to that site. We eventually put up some flowers, like within a couple of days. And shortly after that, my son-in-law made a cross. And I've always thought of the opioid crisis and how... how can we not be looking at this? How can... and I understood the importance of COVID, but how could we be ignoring the fact that so many people were dying of these preventable overdoses? And so I invited through social media, other families to, if they wanted to put up a cross, I volunteered my son in law to make crosses if they couldn't make their own. And I just felt an urgent need to bring this epidemic into the light. And that's basically where it started. Within a few days, there were requests for crosses. And so, at this point, we have 164 crosses up.

MATT GALLOWAY: And those are all crosses to remember people who have died in the midst of this opioid crisis?

DENISE SANDUL: Yes, they are.

MATT GALLOWAY: You mentioned the work that you're doing, the volunteer work and going out three to four times a week with a car full of things. How has what you went through in the death of Myles influenced that work and shaped that volunteer time that you're spending out there?

DENISE SANDUL: Well, very much so, Myles used to say he was going downtown to see his friends. And I would say, Myles, they're not your friends. [slight chuckle with sadness] These are drug addicts and drug dealers. And after Myles passed away, I started going downtown, and I started talking to these people. And I very quickly realized that they were as lovable as my son. And I just continued to go and look for them, find them. I know where some of their spots are now.

MATT GALLOWAY: What do you say to people... when you... when you pull up next to them in your car, what do you say to them?

DENISE SANDUL: I always say, hey, what's good? Because that was what my son would say. You know, whenever I'd hear him talking to someone, or on the phone or he'd be... he'd say, hey, what's good? So that's what I do. I pull up, I say, hey, what's good? And then, I'll say, you know, anybody need anything? You need some cigarettes? You need some gloves? You want a chocolate bar? Yeah, I go... I go because that's what my son would have wanted. My son told me he like these people. He loved these people. They were his friends. And I believe my son would want me to help them in any small way I can.

MATT GALLOWAY: We have this... this thing as a society where people will... you'll see somebody who's living on the streets or who is is experiencing homelessness. And we can step over them. We can walk past them. We can not give them change. Or even the way that you're describing people is talking about them as... as, it sounds obvious, but as humans and as friends of your son. How important is that?

DENISE SANDUL: Well, it's very important because they are humans. We all call them our friends now because they are people we care about. They are... they are people we want to share our love with. We want to give them hope. These are people who just need human connection, especially during this time of COVID, where we are all so disconnected. I myself feel disconnected to the world. I can't imagine being a homeless person, where most services are shut down.

MATT GALLOWAY: It's important work, and it's really it's important that you're doing this. And I mean, in some ways, this picks up on what we were talking about at the very beginning, which is this whole idea of in the midst of a pretty bleak time, we're asking people sort of what gives them hope in this moment? In the work that you're doing with... with the volunteer work, but also with Crosses for Change, what's giving you hope right now?

DENISE SANDUL: Well, I find hope every Sunday when we gather together. I didn't know any of these people in this group before, but everyone is so committed all week long to making sure that we have enough stuff. I see hope, and I see people who want to join us now. And the number of crosses, it has brought some awareness to our city. My hope is that we can have this declared a public health crisis. We can get services in place that can help reduce the number of deaths.

MATT GALLOWAY: Thanks for the work that you're doing. It's really important. And I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. I'm sorry for what you've been through over this last year. It's been really hard, but the work that you're doing speaks volumes to who your son was, but also the lessons that you've taken from him. So thank you very much.

DENISE SANDUL: Well, thank you. I just wanted to add that we do recognize that there are community-based organizations who do respond to the needs of our homeless people. But given the COVID restrictions, this is where we saw a gap. And this is where we tried to fill the gap. It's not that we believe they weren't doing the work. It's they had restrictions, and we saw that gap. And we're hoping that we can continue to fill that gap.

MATT GALLOWAY: Good on you, Denise. Thank you very much.

DENISE SANDUL: Thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Take care yourself. Bye-bye.

DENISE SANDUL: Bye-bye.

MATT GALLOWAY: Denise Sandul is the creator of Crosses for Change. She also volunteers with Street Outreach Sudbury and works for Children's Aid. Aaron St. Pierre is with the Native People of Sudbury Development Corporation. It's another group that's working on the issue of homelessness in that city. Aaron, good morning to you.

AARON ST. PIERRE: Good morning.

MATT GALLOWAY: How would you describe the situation in Sudbury right now when it comes to people experiencing homelessness?

AARON ST. PIERRE: So homelessness has been an increasing issue in Sudbury in northern Ontario for quite a while now. And I think, you know, the numbers keep going up. And I think what has happened during the pandemic is the problem's been really exacerbated. You know, services that were more or less, you know, struggling before are, you know, struggling ten times harder. And I think with, you know, the health and safety restrictions and lockdowns and those sorts of things, it's... it's... it's made it a lot more difficult, you know, for a situation that's already quite difficult.

MATT GALLOWAY: How about specifically for Indigenous people? What are those numbers when it comes to how they are being affected by homelessness?

AARON ST. PIERRE: So there's about 3,000 people who are homeless in Sudbury, and that's varying levels of homeless. There's, you know, hidden homeless. There's absolutely homeless. And so there's there's different kind of homelessness. And there's about 3,000 people in greater Sudbury. And of those 3,000 people, about over 40 per cent are Indigenous.

MATT GALLOWAY: Wow! And so what do you do to try and address, specifically for that community, what do you try to do to address the situation that they find themselves in now?

AARON ST. PIERRE: Well, so our organization is an affordable housing organization, so we provide affordable rent, rent-to-income supplements. We also provide a more holistic approach to affordable housing. You know, there's many organizations that provide housing, but, you know, just stick to the basics, you know, landlord duties. But in our case, we try to take care of the the whole person.

MATT GALLOWAY: And when you're able to do that, I mean, as you say, a more holistic approach, what's... what's the outcome?

AARON ST. PIERRE: The outcomes are much better. I'm a proponent of the housing first principle, which states we need to provide housing before anything else. And I think that's what's really missing right now in Sudbury, but also in other cities. When we're talking about a holistic approach, we try to not just think of a person as, you know, a unit that goes into a housing unit. We try to look at the whole person. We try to take care of their spiritual well-being, their mental health, their physical health by really trying to connect the person with the right resources and providing those resources ourselves when we can. We see a lot... we see way more success with these individuals.

MATT GALLOWAY: Can I go back to something you said earlier, which is you referenced the hidden homeless. What does that mean?

AARON ST. PIERRE: So a hidden homeless is a person who is... they don't have a permanent address. They might be couch surfing. They might be staying with friends. They might be staying with family. But it's really temporary. They're hidden, you don't... you don't see them, you know, on the side of the street necessarily, but they don't have, you know, a place to call their own. You see this in many situations, too. Like, so in our housing, you know, people are allowed to visit for up to two weeks, but so then they have to keep moving, right? And this is a... this is a pretty large problem in and of itself as well.

MATT GALLOWAY: Well, and it would be exacerbated, presumably by COVID, where we can't even... we're not even supposed to be going to other people's houses, let alone, you know, sleeping on a couch or something like that.

AARON ST. PIERRE: Absolutely. Yes.

MATT GALLOWAY: The city has tried to address the needs of those experiencing homelessness. Take a listen to the mayor of Sudbury, Brian Bigger.

BRIAN BIGGER: We actually had an ongoing open forum where people can write in, but as well, a... a... a Zoom meeting where we had speakers with lived experiences on one session and as well as our partner agencies talking about homelessness as it is, you know, in the moment, and there are suggestions, solutions for how we could improve the support for people that were facing those challenges.

MATT GALLOWAY: You've been part of that consultation process. What do you want from the city when it comes to dealing with this in a meaningful, and I'll use your word again, holistic way?

AARON ST. PIERRE: I think the real solution from all levels of government is to create more affordable housing. I think without that, you're... you're just basically providing band-aid solutions, temporary solutions. In these kind of situations, you're left treating the symptoms and the after-effects. So you're, you know, providing, you know, a soup kitchen, or you're providing clothing and things like that. But what people really need, you know, at the root of everything is a safe place to sleep and live. And you can't really have proper health, you can't really have proper mental health, job opportunities. You know, all these things are hinged really on having a safe place to live.

MATT GALLOWAY: So just before I let you go, I'll ask you the same question that I asked Denise, which is in the midst of this, and it's a huge, almost overwhelming issue, but where are you finding hope and the work that you're doing?

AARON ST. PIERRE: I think, like I said, the previous... the consultations that have been happening are good. You know, your previous guest, her story was, you know, so, so amazing and so wonderful. And, you know, it's I think that... I think that just goes to show that it is possible. You know, there's... there's a lot of people in this world who are committed to helping people and to to doing good. And, you know, they're in our community. They're in our schools. They're in our government. And I think if, you know, we get enough of them together and if we get enough people working together on these issues, you know, we can we can help solve this.

MATT GALLOWAY: I'm glad to have had the chance to hear about the work that you're doing. Thanks for that. And thanks for being with us this morning.

AARON ST. PIERRE: Thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Take care. Bye-bye.

AARON ST. PIERRE: Bye.

MATT GALLOWAY: Aaron St. Pierre Is with Native People of Sudbury Development Corporation. He joined us from Sudbury, Ontario. Next week, we keep this virtual road trip rolling. "Canada's Road Ahead" pulls into Steinbach, Manitoba. Your CBC News is next. And then.

MONA STRELAEFF: I went from doctor to doctor, from pill to pill, and I could not find any relief.

MATT GALLOWAY: Some people struggling with mental health challenges are turning to psychedelic drugs for that relief. In our continuing series, a look at why some doctors say it's too early yet to tell if this is a treatment worth pursuing. That's coming up in about six minutes time. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to "The Current" on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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Using psilocybin, found in magic mushrooms, to treat anxiety

Guests: Bruce Tobin, Ishrat Husain

MATT GALLOWAY: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to "The Current".

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MATT GALLOWAY: Still to come, millions of dollars, people's entire life savings just vanish. We will look at one of the biggest investment frauds in Canada. But first, psychedelics could be a new frontier for mental health treatment. So what are the risks?

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MATT GALLOWAY: Today, we're wrapping up our series, "Psychedelic Therapy, New Hope in Mental Health Treatment". As we've been hearing this week, new research is exploring the potential of psychedelic drugs to help treat people with mental illness, people who do not respond to existing treatments when the drugs are used under proper supervision and together with psychotherapy, the results seem promising. We've even heard the word cure from a doctor doing work with MDMA and a nurse studying ketamine-assisted therapy. Today, we're looking at psilocybin. You might know that as magic mushrooms. A warning, this story contains discussion of child abuse and suicidal thoughts. This is Mona Strelaeff from Victoria, British Columbia.

MONA STRELAEFF: All my life, I've suffered from depression and anxiety, ever since I was a little girl. I grew up in a household; my father was an alcoholic. My mother was bipolar. I left home when I was 17. I was escaping abuse by an adult member of family in my own home. I ended up getting married. I had three children by the time I was 22. But throughout, as I was looking after my young family, I had trouble. I was going through depression. My mental health just kept deteriorating. I started drinking heavier and heavier to try to mask my pain.

MATT GALLOWAY: Mona lived with that pain for years, and looked all over for help.

MONA STRELAEFF: I went from doctor to doctor, psychiatrist and psychiatrist, from psychologist to psychologist, from failed pill to pill, and I could not find any relief. I ended up so sick that my family figured that I'm going to commit suicide. I was struggling really badly.

MATT GALLOWAY: Mona Strelaeff says she finally found relief through psychotherapy done with psilocybin. Her psychologist is Dr. Bruce Tobin. He's the founder of the non-profit organization Therapsil on Vancouver Island, and he was the first clinician to receive Health Canada's permission to use psilocybin in treatment. Doctor, good morning.

BRUCE TOBIN: Good morning, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: How did you go about getting permission to treat patients with psilocybin?

BRUCE TOBIN: Well, it's been a long journey. I met Mona... oh, about 12 years ago. And she was the patient that really stimulated my interest in what was going on with the research at that time with psychedelics. So I found myself in a particular professional dilemma. On one hand, I've got a professional code of ethics that says always behave in your patient's best interests. Well, here I was confronted with a patient that had tried all the conventional treatments and was still in abject misery at the time. I felt that I had an ethical and a moral obligation to respond to her distress. And secondly, the science at the time seemed advanced and robust enough so that there was justification for what we'll call compassionate treatment, that is, allowing a patient access to drugs that are still considered experimental because nothing else has worked.

MATT GALLOWAY: But this was generally, this permission, was generally given for those who are facing a terminal diagnosis.

BRUCE TOBIN: It is.

MATT GALLOWAY: Mona is a non-palliative patient. So how is it that she was available for this sort of therapy?

BRUCE TOBIN: Part of Mona's story is that she had a cancer diagnosis.

MATT GALLOWAY: Right.

BRUCE TOBIN: When I first met her, she was in remission. But we refer to it as end-of-life distress, the anxiety, the depression, the demoralization that goes hand-in-hand for so many patients when they receive a terminal diagnosis. So in 2017, I made an application to Health Canada to get approval for terminal cancer patients who had tried other treatments without success to get them an exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

MATT GALLOWAY: I want to talk about the work that you're doing, but I think most people's experience with psilocybin is recreationally, eating or, you know, drinking the tea made from magic mushrooms.

BRUCE TOBIN: Yes, I think psilocybin mushrooms have been on the planet as long as human culture has. They have been used in religious, spiritual and ceremonial activities among many different cultures. And yes, in our culture, for about the last 50 years, they have been used by some people on a recreational basis and others for spiritual or medical purposes.

MATT GALLOWAY: Let's take a listen to Mona. This is Mona Strelaeff describing what it was like for her to take psilocybin under your care.

MONA STRELAEFF: I drank my psilocybin tea, and I laid on the bed. We said a prayer to the creator. And I started trying to give myself to the moment, and I started to feel the calm and the beauty. So that's how the journey started. It didn't end there, though. I started to feel anger building up, and building up, and building up, until I just felt rage. And all my feelings that were coming were so extreme. And after that, came fear. [sniffle] I was really, really afraid. And I started almost feeling like I was becoming a small child again. [beginning to cry] And I was calling for God to help me because a monster was trying to get me. I felt betrayed because God did not come and help me, [deep sniffle] but left me there. And I was starting to feel empathy towards my abuser. And try to understand what on earth had happened for this person to grow up to be such a monster? And I could feel forgiveness, forgiveness in my heart. So, through forgiveness, there's healing. And after that, I.. I saw temple, a beautiful temple. I could feel that I was in a spiritual space, everybody was welcome in that same space. And it was just it was so beautiful and so peaceful and so spiritual that I felt that even death can't take that space. I believe that that is that space.

MATT GALLOWAY: Bruce Tobin, that sounds like a very intense experience. What do we know about what psilocybin is doing that might help in addressing mental illness?

BRUCE TOBIN: Well, we know that psilocybin is operating concurrently on a number of levels. On the emotional level, there's... there's going to be a loosening of emotional defences. Patients let out the fear, the anger, the anxiety, the grief, old resentments so many of us tend to hold. And that all comes out. So success in a psychedelic session is all about being able to just surrender to the experience and to let whatever wants to happen inside happen.

MATT GALLOWAY: What do you do... what do you do after that, when whatever, you know, wants to happen inside happens? What do you do in the sessions following to... to put the pieces back together, if I can put it that way?

BRUCE TOBIN: Well, the interesting thing here is that it's not so much the therapist that puts the pieces back together. In the course of the psychedelic session, those pieces tend to organize themselves and the patient comes out feeling more whole and integrated and at peace. And as Mona's therapist, I had the privilege of... of witnessing a profound transformation that happened over about five hours.

MATT GALLOWAY: How much peer-reviewed science has been done in this field?

BRUCE TOBIN: Well, actually, there's been a great deal of research done from about 1965 to 1972, when psychedelics were made illegal because of, I think, political concerns. And then, because psychedelics became a kind of street drugs and people had used them in very foolish contexts, psychedelic research was virtually shut down for about 40 years. And about 15 years ago, researchers started to revive their interest in it. And at the end of 2016, two landmark clinical research papers came out, one from Johns Hopkins University and one from New York University. And the Hopkins Group summed up their research by saying psilocybin produced large and significant decreases in clinician-rated and self-rated measures of depression, anxiety or mood disturbance, and increases in measures of quality of life, life meaning death acceptance and optimism. These effects were sustained at six months' follow up.

MATT GALLOWAY: Just finally, where would you like to see this go next?

BRUCE TOBIN: I have always had a great respect for science and it's always been important to me that practice does not get out ahead of science. But science is moving smartly forward on this now. And five years ago, I wasn't meeting very many doctors who knew much about it or were very supportive of it. I would say that things have changed dramatically. At this point, we have many doctors who are very interested in learning more about this therapy, many doctors that are signed up for our training program. And I feel very confident that we're going to see the promise of psilocybin confirmed rather than discredited. We're well over a tipping point now, and I expect to see our focus broadened from end-of-life issues to include other mental disorders, including treatment resistant-depression, chronic anxiety, addictions and PTSD.

MATT GALLOWAY: Bruce Tobin, it's great to speak with you about this. Thank you very much.

BRUCE TOBIN: And thank you.

MATT GALLOWAY: Dr. Bruce Tobin is a clinical psychologist and the founder of the non-profit organization Therapsil. If you or someone you know needs immediate mental health support, including for thoughts of suicide, you can call Crisis Services Canada at: 1833-456-4566. We did ask Health Canada about its policy regarding psychedelics in mental health treatment. Health Canada sent us this statement. "Health Canada thoroughly reviews all requests for exemption and makes decisions after taking into account the risks and benefits. We still have much to learn about the risks, which is why the sale and possession of psilocybin is still illegal. Until there is sufficient evidence base, Health Canada will review each request for an exemption on a case-by-case basis.

MATT GALLOWAY: The use of psychedelics in mental health treatment is still rare. More conventional treatment remains the go-to for patients and clinicians while that research continues to be gathered. Dr. Ishrat Husain is a clinical scientist and psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. Doctor, good morning to you.

ISHRAT HUSAIN: Good morning, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: How common is the use of psychedelics right now from your perspective? I said that it was rare. What do you make of what's happening right now?

ISHRAT HUSAIN: So I think, clinically, the use of psychedelics remains rare, as you described it. They continue to be used recreationally by a number of people in the community. But as clinicians, these aren't standard treatments by any means.

MATT GALLOWAY: A number of drugs would fall under that umbrella of psychedelics. I mean, we've been talking about psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine. How would they compare each of them?

ISHRAT HUSAIN: So they have different modes of action. The psilocybin, which is the chemical component of magic mushrooms, for instance, acts on a particular neurotransmitter in the brain quite strongly, that's serotonin. And others, like ketamine and MDMA, act on different chemicals in the brain. So they have different modes of action. And the effects that they produce are also very different, including the psychological effects. So... so in essence, they fall under the same umbrella, but they are very different in the way they work and the effects that they cause.

MATT GALLOWAY: Broadly, why is it that these substances could perhaps be more helpful than the available antidepressants or antianxiety medications that people might have access to?

ISHRAT HUSAIN: So I think it's because of their different mode of action. And I think that they have very potent psychological effects and very compelling psychological effects in terms of the changes to personality that they can lead to. The way that these treatments are delivered are also very different from your standard pharmacological treatments in mental health conditions. So these treatments or these compounds are currently being studied as... as an add-on to psychotherapy, which is very different in the way the current pharmacological treatments that we prescribe are delivered. So that also has a very important role to play in their potential therapeutic effects.

MATT GALLOWAY: We have heard claims this week suggesting that, you know, there's a trial that found 70 per cent of patients no longer showed signs of PTSD after therapy sessions with MDMA. There was a study into ketamine-assisted therapy. The 11 participants who had PTSD all screened negative after the treatment. And the word that gets thrown around is cure. That these patients have been cured of what ailed them. When you hear that word applied. What goes through your mind?

ISHRAT HUSAIN: I am a bit worried by that word, actually. I am an evidence-based clinician, so I think we have to take a critical look at the evidence that, although it's very promising and very compelling, we also have to look at the limitations of the studies that have currently been published. So, for instance, the studies that you referred to and other studies in depression as well have been in a small group of patients by our general standards of... of clinical trials of any new treatment. So that also reduces the generalizability. It reduces the interpretation of the findings. Also, you have to look at the design of these studies. Very few of them compared these treatments to... to our standard available treatments. Very few of them compared them to even a robust control group, like a placebo group. So I think we have to take a critical lens, Matt, and appreciate that although these studies are very promising, and I'm very, very pleased that we're shining a light on the need for mental health research, which is chronically underfunded, and the need for new treatments. I do think we need to be cautiously optimistic and take a critical look before we just bring them into clinical... clinical practice because we don't want to bring the cart before the horse.

MATT GALLOWAY: What do we know about the long-term effects of the sort of treatment of using these drugs in this context?

ISHRAT HUSAIN: Not much. So, most of the clinical trials have been looking at six months follow-up after the treatment session. There was one study from the U.K. That looked at a year on from the psilocybin session. But again, it was a very small group of people. And those studies, again, the results were promising, but a very small group of people were included. And the duration of follow-up wasn't what you would consider long-term. So I think, at this point, we can't really comment on what the long-term benefits or drawbacks of these compounds are.

MATT GALLOWAY: What we've talked about this week has been the use of these drugs within a controlled setting. Are you concerned about patients choosing to use these drugs on their own after having completed treatment within a controlled environment?

ISHRAT HUSAIN: Absolutely. So I am a clinician first and foremost. I work on the front lines of mental health care. And I think that even some of the... the coverage around and the excitement around psychedelics is leading to use in uncontrolled settings. So I have seen young people who have been trying to medicate themselves by micro-dosing with psychedelics like psilocybin. And, as yet, we don't even know what the appropriate dose for these compounds is. We don't know who will respond to these. We don't know who will have side effects. So I'm very concerned. And, as I said, I'm seeing it on the front lines of mental health care, whereby there are particularly young people who are going out and using these substances in hopes to medicate themselves but are having some side effects. So I think that we... we should continue to research these compounds, given the promising effects. But we need robust clinical trials. We need good governance of those studies. We need a critical appraisal of the evidence. And they need to be regulated. Their use definitely needs to be regulated because we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past and allow this to slip into unregulated or uncontrolled use.

MATT GALLOWAY: Do you understand the enthusiasm around this, though? I mean, we've heard from guests this week who say that there is in some ways an ethical imperative to pursue this sort of research, that these are people who have treatment-resistant symptoms and that this has offered them real hope. And that they see an opportunity here where traditional forms of treatment may not have... have worked. And say that that because of that, we need to park some of the stigma around the use of these drugs and the critical eye that we might have. And move, you know, as fast as possible towards this, because it's offering some hope to people who had, you know, diminished hope before.

ISHRAT HUSAIN: I very much understand that perspective. My my research is focussed at looking at finding new treatments for mental health conditions. A lot of my patients have treatment refractory symptoms. So I do really understand that hope and optimism. But I do need to urge the need for caution. I do think that we need to continue to... to research these compounds. I encourage that research, but I think that we need the findings of that research and the research needs to be well designed and controlled before we can recommend it for... for... for clinical practise. So... so my answer to your question is, I do understand it. And I encourage work in this area and looking at new ways to treat mental health conditions, which one in five Canadians experience symptoms of.

MATT GALLOWAY: There's a study in the British Medical Journal suggesting that esketamine, a nasal spray, has been approved by the European Commission as a short-term treatment for adults with moderate to severe episodes of a major depressive disorder. Is this the beginning of that work that you're calling for, and the rigorous study, the robust evidence-based research, that's needed to move forward on this?

ISHRAT HUSAIN: Yeah, so taking as esketamine as an example, that... that... that has been approved for clinical use because of findings from a very well-designed, multicenter, international clinical trial, which showed that it had quite a compelling and positive impact on symptoms of depression, including suicidal ideation. So that is an example and a template to follow for other psychedelic compounds as well, including psilocybin.

MATT GALLOWAY: Just in the remaining minute or so that we have given the concerns that you have, but also, as you say, the work that needs to be done to... to follow through on some of the promise that's been delivered. What role do you think psychedelics would have in the future in the treatment of... of mental illness?

ISHRAT HUSAIN: So I think that they would have a role for a particular group of individuals who don't respond to our first line treatments. And I think that if the well-designed and regulated studies show that they're helpful, I think that the treatment would need to be delivered and scaled up in a controlled specialist setting, where it would be delivered alongside psychotherapy in a controlled clinical environment. All the studies that have looked at these compounds have had these clinical environments where, you know, there's a certain lighting, certain music playing, there's trained psychotherapists involved, and it's almost a whole day's treatment. So that's not your typical prescription that you go off to your pharmacy and pick up. I think the way it will be delivered is... is in a controlled clinical settings, even if we do find that they are effective.

MATT GALLOWAY: Dr. Husain, it's great to speak with you about this. Thank you very much.

ISHRAT HUSAIN: Thank you very much.

MATT GALLOWAY: Dr. Israt Husain, clinical scientist and psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. Your regional update is next. And then,.

WOMAN: We were in disbelief for so long. And, of course, then we got very angry. We were embarrassed that we had invested our life savings, and this is what happened to it.

MATT GALLOWAY: All that money gone and no explanation. That's next. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to "The Current" on CBC Radio One. We're back in 90 seconds.

And The Fifth Estate's investigation into missing millions in one of Canada’s largest Ponzi schemes

Guest: Mark Kelley, Catherine MacDonald, Janet Watson

MATT GALLOWAY: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to "The Current". How do hundreds of millions of dollars just disappear? This is a question that many investors who lost their life savings have been asking for years as part of one of the biggest financial fraud cases in Canadian history. New clues uncovered by the CBC's "The Fifth Estate" could provide some answers. Mark Kelley is co-host of "The Fifth" and he's with me now. Mark, good morning.

MARK KELLEY: Good morning, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: What case are we talking about here?

MARK KELLEY: Well, this is a story, Matt, about loss. This is a story about injustice. And I believe this is a story to some extent about indifference, what we... how we deal with financial fraud in this country. This is a story that goes back to the late 90s, the year 2000, was a company called Norshield. A billion dollars in assets, a hedge fund. So they're attracting investments from people. Seemed to be a safe investment for people who want to make a little bit of money. It was attracting a lot of mom and pop investors, everyday investors. It also it attracted a company called Cinar. Do you remember "Caillou"? You remember "Arthur". Those cartoon shows?

MATT GALLOWAY: Yeah, yeah, I watched them with my kids.

MARK KELLEY: Absolutely. That teach you about being honest, being good. Well, Cinar was a successful "Disney of the North", the company was called. And was run by a guy named Ronald Weinberg. He took 120 million dollars of Cinar's money, and he invested it in Norshield. Problem is, Matt, he didn't get permission to do that from his board of investors. That is illegal to do that. And what happened there is when that money went into Norshield, there were lawyers who were hired to go find it. And not put a lot of attention on Norshield. What's going on with this money? Where is this money? And that's what got a lot of people concerned when they started saying that maybe Norshield wasn't exactly as it was represented to be.

MATT GALLOWAY: You mentioned mom and pop investors. I mean, who is investing in these companies?

MARK KELLEY: All kinds of the. We looked at about 2000 investors, a lot of them in Ontario and Quebec. And... and a lot of them, we would learn would be pensioners, people who are taking their life savings and putting money into this. I mean, these were people not who were rolling the dice and taking something here like this.. this was a long shot bet. These were people who were dealing with financial institutions. They were dealing with banks. They were dealing with their financial advisers who said, put your money into Norshield. It's a safe thing. But when we started to get a little bit more scrutiny, we realized it was a bit of a some would say a Ponzi scheme. And that is you attract investors, to get investors. They pay out a little bit of money to some people, but really they're taking money for themselves. And then that money is moved offshore to keep it away from creditors, to keep it away from lawyers who are looking for this money. And that's exactly what happened in this case. There was one institution that was hired to find the money for these mom and pop investors. They figured the mom and pop investors were owed about 500-million dollars.

MATT GALLOWAY: Wow!

MARK KELLEY: These lawyers go down to look for it, they can only find 31-million dollars. So the question, Matt, is where's the money? And this is a story that "The Fifth Estate" and our and our French counterparts at Radio Canada "Enquete" we've been working on for years to try to figure out where is that money?

MATT GALLOWAY: We have a couple of those investors on the line with us now, Janet Watson and Catherine MacDonald, two of the thousands of people, as you mentioned, who lost their money. They actually became friends over the course of this as they searched for answers. Janet and Catherine join me now from Quebec. Good morning to you both.

BOTH: Good morning.

MATT GALLOWAY: Catherine, I want to start with you. Take me back to when you decided to invest. What sort of investment did you think that you were making at that time?

CATHERINE MACDONALD: Well, we had been investing with our financial advisor for over seven years. And in 1997, he advised us to invest in Norshield. And in 2000, he suggested Mount Real. We followed his advice, and these companies seemed to be able to guarantee our investment capital. He showed us press releases, prospectus about Norshield. We heard the Royal Bank of Canada was helping to set up companies in Norshield, and we felt that this was a very safe investment for our retirement.

MATT GALLOWAY: What about for you, Janet? Same sort of thing. I mean, you felt as though things were above board?

JANET WATSON: Oh, yes, absolutely. I only invested in Mount Real on the advice of my financial advisor, who'd been sort of pushing the company for a couple of years. The financial statements were public, and they were showing profitability. They were being audited by very reputable firms like Deloitte and Touche. Mount Real was listed on the stock exchange. Our financial advisor was registered with the AMF. Everything looked very much above board. And we had done our due diligence and thought everything was going to be guaranteed and fine.

MATT GALLOWAY: Do you mind me asking, and you don't have to answer, but how much money did you invest?

JANET WATSON: I invested 68,000 dollars, which was the amount that was in my RRSP at the time.

MATT GALLOWAY: And what about for you, Catherine?

CATHERINE MACDONALD: My husband and I together invested 500,000 dollars. For my husband, it was his entire life savings. He had no pension plan, so it was his pension.

MATT GALLOWAY: That's a lot of money.

CATHERINE MACDONALD: Yes.

MATT GALLOWAY: When did you realize, Janet, that your money, that 68,000 dollars was in trouble?

JANET WATSON: Well, we started seeing articles in the paper, and it was in the spring of 2005, towards the summer, it seemed to get worse. I checked with friends of mine who were actually receiving interest payments, and they told me that they weren't getting them and that they weren't getting answers when they called the company. So that's when we really started to get worried, and everything just fell apart.

MATT GALLOWAY: When you say fell apart. What do you mean fell apart?

JANET WATSON: The AMF appointed Raymond Chabot to become the provisional administrator to take over Mount Real and look at the day-to-day business of the company. And they basically said it was an empty shell. It was very little business being done. And, of course, this was all made public. And then Mont Real was forced into bankruptcy. And Raymond Chabot took over as the bankruptcy trustee and contacted all the victims.

MATT GALLOWAY: And for you, Catherine, I mean, when did, you know, the alarm bells start to go off for you?

CATHERINE MACDONALD: Well, if I speak about Nortshield, there was the Cinar-Norshield scandal. And in June 2005, I wanted my money out of Norshield, but I was told I would have to wait because there was a high redemption rate at that point, so I couldn't get my money out. And that was in June 2005. And over the summer after, as Janet said, having read reports in the newspaper, I phoned the AMF to make sure that Mount Real was listed with them. And also about our adviser, was he a member of the professional association? Answers to both questions were yes. The end of my conversation was, if you find out anything else, call us back. So they didn't seem to know very much about these two companies. They were looking into them.

MATT GALLOWAY: These were your entire life savings, as you mentioned, Catherine.

CATHERINE MACDONALD: Yes.

MATT GALLOWAY: What goes through your mind as... as you start to realize that this money is gone?

CATHERINE MACDONALD: Shock and disbelief. How could we have invested in these companies? We felt we had done our due diligence, but obviously not. And we felt very disappointed that the government wasn't taking any action. They'd been looking into Mount Real, and yet they didn't put up any red flags. Companies that were auditing the two companies didn't say anything. We were in disbelief for so long. And, of course, then we got very angry. We were embarrassed that we had invested our life savings. And this is what happened to it.

MATT GALLOWAY: I mean, practically, what does that mean on your life? I mean, and the impact that you have... when you put this money away, and it's set for retirement, as you mentioned, your husband does have a pension funds. And so this is... this is meant to provide for for the years ahead. What does that mean?

CATHERINE MACDONALD: It meant that we had to continue working. And we felt we had lost a part of our lives at a time when we should have, you know, been enjoying our retirement. We had no specific plans for our retirement, but we knew we would be financially secure. And now, there was [chuckling] ahead of us. We had lost all our life savings. So, as I say, we... we continued to work. In my case, another eleven years, and my husband is still working part-time.

MATT GALLOWAY: Janet, for you, I mean, a similar story, and then you end up getting in touch with other people who had also lost their savings. What was the value in that? In trying to create some sort of network there?

JANET WATSON: I just felt that people needed information, and they wanted to be kept informed. And I wanted information, and I wanted to know what was going on and what was being done. So I did become a bankruptcy inspector, working with Raymond Chabot. And through that, I got access to emails from many, many of the creditors. I had a creditors list, and we started looking them up. And I just over the years set up a network where I would write to them regularly and just let them know what was happening because many, many, many of these people were elderly and couldn't attend court. And they depended on my communiques to let them know what was happening with our case.

MATT GALLOWAY: You described it as an empty shell. I mean, the big... big banks got their money paid out from this investment, and people like yourself are left holding the bag. What does that tell you?

JANET WATSON: Well, [chuckle] it just tells you that there's not enough oversight and that laws need to be changed and governments need to step in. I mean, even when you consider the penalties that these three men received, they got the maximum sentences here, and two of them are already out. You know, in Canada, our laws are not strict enough, and there doesn't seem to be enough government oversight. There should have been red flags all over the place for both these companies.

MATT GALLOWAY: I mean, there are two parts to that. Is that what you're looking for in terms of what you would want to see come out of this one? Is that those red flags, the warning signs are there and that they're there for investors like yourself. But also, if something untoward happens and your money disappears, that those who are responsible actually pay some sort of reasonable cost for that?

JANET WATSON: We did lobby the government, and they did change a couple of the laws. And one of them was that fraudsters would be required to pay restitution to the victims. The problem is that by the time they're caught, the money has disappeared or it's been placed in, you know, relatives names or God only knows what. I, mean in the case of Mount Real, Raymond Chabot was only able to trace a small portion of the money. Of the 130-million dollars that was lost, they recovered five-million. And we paid three-and-a-half million in fees to lawyers and to to the trustee. So restitution is fine, except that the money is usually long gone, and it can only be traced so far and then it's just too costly to try and trace this money once it's left the country.

MATT GALLOWAY: Catherine, you said something earlier about feeling ashamed. Can you tell me more about that? I mean, and the stigma that surrounds something like this? Because, in part, I think people would be reluctant to talk about something like this because of that stigma. What were you ashamed of?

CATHERINE MACDONALD: Well, I didn't stay ashamed for very long, [everyone laughs] but there is a shame to having badly invested your money. First of all, you have money to invest, so you're lucky, right? You know, you're perhaps greedy, or you didn't research, and you just gave it away like that without doing any investigation into what you were investing in. I think the numbers tell the story also. There were 1,600 victims in Mont Real. And how many victims have come forward to give interviews, to be on TV? [laughing] Very few. So people are embarrassed and ashamed. When it was time to recuperate some money in a class action suit, many of the people there were children. The parents had died. And they were telling stories of they didn't even know this had happened to their parents until they had passed away.

MATT GALLOWAY: The two of you, as I mentioned in the introduction, have become friends over the course of this. Catherine, what has that mean to you?

CATHERINE MACDONALD: Janet has become a very good friend. And we were both on the same page. We both wanted to be proactive and not victims in all of this. We... we wanted to face the fraudsters to try and understand and to learn how they managed to commit this fraud. Over the years, we have become very good friends. [Janet and Catherine chuckle warmly] So out of this disaster, a friendship grew.

MATT GALLOWAY: That you can laugh about, you know, as you say, out of this disaster, which is... is true that something as good as a friendship comes out of it, Janet, says something about... about what you're looking for and, you know, the strength in numbers in some ways.

JANET WATSON: Exactly. And yeah, and Catherine has just, you know, been such a... a support for everything that I tried to do. And we were on the same page. We didn't want to be seen as victims. We wanted to be seen as... as fighters, and stare down the people that that did this to us, which we had the opportunity to do in court.

MATT GALLOWAY: I really appreciate speaking with you both. Thank you very much.

JANET WATSON: Thank you.

CATHERINE MACDONALD: Thank you, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: Janet Watson and Cathrine MacDonald were in Quebec. Mark Kelley, co-host of "The Fifth Estate", is with me in studio. I touched on this briefly. But you think of small investors. This is their life savings that Catherine and Janet put into this. What sort of protection do they have when something like this happens?

MARK KELLEY: You know, listening to that conversation, Matt, it's just a reminder about why I became a journalist when I hear these women talking about who is going to fight for these people?

MATT GALLOWAY: Yeah.

MARK KELLEY: So what kind of the protections they have? Well, they were talking about the AMF. The AMF is in Quebec. It's the version of the Ontario Securities Commission. So they're supposed to be regulating the market, regulating these firms to make sure that they're not fraudsters. And they were failed by... by the AMF because they didn't find these guys before the fraud was committed. There was the RCMP, you know, they took a look at this whole fraud, and they reportedly said it was too complicated. They didn't have the resources to be able to pursue these guys. So they were failed by the RCMP. And then there were... In Quebec, we had two Crown prosecutors who said, well, we're going to lay criminal charges against these guys. They spent two years. It was the longest jury trial in Canadian history to finally bring these guys to court and to justice. And in the end, they only had to serve one-sixth of their sentence.. It was two years in jail for these guys. So this is the problem. Like who's fighting for them? Well, in the end, it was some journalists who went out to try to fight for these people, but they were fighting for themselves. And I think that's the the real heart of this story is how far that these women have gone to try to see to get justice and say, where did that money go?

MATT GALLOWAY: You mentioned the money going offshore, a few different destinations. Perhaps one is the Isle of Man. What was going on in the Isle of Man?

MARK KELLEY: Well, I have to give total props here to... to my colleagues. Harvey Cashore, Frederic Zalac from "Enqute". These guys have spent years, Matt, years. I've been working on this story for months. They've been working on this story for years to try to piece together this money trail. Because as one guy told me, who's an expert in fraud, he says, to find out where the money is, you have to find out where the money was. So this is what we were looking at. Where did that money go? So, Harvey Cashore was able to find that there were four accounts set up in the Isle of Man. The Isle of Man is a tax haven. What does it offer? Well, it offers for wealthy Canadians, well, wealthy people around the world. It offers a way where you can put your money, and you don't have to pay taxes on it. It also offers confidentiality. That you can put it there, and nobody knows who owns these companies. So we found four companies that were set up there right when this fraud started. Three of the four were closed down right as the fraud was exposed. We believe that these companies are linked. We believe that these companies are where that money went. A lot of this money that came from Norsheild and Mount Real, it was put there to keep it away from prying eyes, the creditors, the Janet and Catherines of the world who were looking for their money.

MATT GALLOWAY: What about the Bahamas or Bermuda?

MARK KELLEY: So it's incredible. We talked to one lawyer who was working on this, and she was saying that she would be speaking to officials in four different countries a day. That it would go... you'd say, OK, here's the money. You would find a trail. It's in Bermuda. And then it's in Bahamas. And then it's in in Anguilla. And then it's in New York. And then it's in the U.K. And this is how money gets transferred from place to place to place, always keeping it one step ahead of the creditors, the lawyers, the courts that are looking for it. It's as easy as clicking a button right now to transfer that money somewhere. And this is the problem. It takes the time, it takes the resources to be able to track this down. And what happens, it's a war of attrition. Like, who's going to go in for the long run to look for this?

MATT GALLOWAY: Because it costs you money to find the money?

MARK KELLEY: Absolutely. And this is as Janet and Catherine were mentioning, they spent millions to be able to find this. And, at a certain point, there's a law of diminishing returns. She's saying we're spending millions and millions and millions to try to find this money, and we're not finding a lot of it because the bad guys are good at what they do to keep that money away from people. So you give up, you say, well, we're going to settle for pennies on the dollar, which is what happened in this case here.

MATT GALLOWAY: You spoke with Lino Matteo, who is said to be the mastermind behind this scheme. What did Lino Matteo have to say?

MARK KELLEY: You know, it's incredible, Matt. You know, we... we reach out to people for interviews all the time, especially at "The Fifth Estate". You know, we like to hold people accountable. So Harvey Cashore, he contacts Lino Matteo and says, look, let's have a little chat on background. And then said, would you come on camera and speak to us? Never in our lives did we think that the guy who went to jail for fraud, the guy who's been said to be the ringleader, would actually agree to sit down with us. But he did. And as you'll see on the program tonight, it's a... it's a big part of our investigation was sitting down with him, to get that kind of insight and to somebody who can run something like this. But, of course, when you ask him were you running a fraud here? Absolutely not. Maybe others were, he says, but I was not running a fraud. There was no fraud. There was no wrongdoing whatsoever. And... nd on and on we went. But, of course, I'm pressing him. So where's the money? What happened? And he's intimidating. He's a bully. He tried to browbeat me. And then eventually, he said, you know what? I find your questions insulting. And that was that. And he stood. And for one brief minute there, Matt, I thought he was going to take a swing at me, but he turned on his heels and walked out of our interview.

MATT GALLOWAY: We will watch that this evening. In the meantime, just we have like 90 seconds left. You said at the beginning, in many ways, this is a story about a number of things, including indifference.

MARK KELLEY: Mm-hmm. You know, there's the RCMP could open an investigation into this if they had the will, but they've already passed on that opportunity. But there's one last institution. It's an important one, parliament. Parliament has the power to fight for these investors. The Finance Committee actually was looking into the Isle of Man back in 2016, and they called down that investigation, looking at Canadian accounting firms and what they're doing to hide money from Canada Revenue Agency, or take the money that from mom and pop investors has been defrauded of these people. They have the power to do that. They have the power to subpoena people, the people who have been involved, accountants that we know, Canadians who've been involved in the scheme, they have the power to do it, Matt, the only question is, do they have the will to do it? I put it to them.

MATT GALLOWAY: And if they don't, then that speaks to the indifference that you spoke of at the very beginning of this.

MARK KELLEY: Absolutely.

MATT GALLOWAY: Mark, we will watch for this this evening. Thank you.

MARK KELLEY: Thanks, Matt.

MATT GALLOWAY: Mark Kelley, co-host of the CBC's "The Fifth Estate". His latest investigation, "The Missing Millions", airs tonight at 9:00 on CBC.

[Music: Folk]

MATT GALLOWAY: You're listening to "The Current" on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. Yesterday I spoke with the author, Eley Williams, about her fantastic debut novel. It's called "The Liar's Dictionary". It is a real treat for world lovers, and raises questions about how language changes over time, and who gets to change it.

MATT GALLOWAY: Casiculation.

ELEY WILLIAMS That's right.

MATT GALLOWAY: What does that mean or not mean?

ELEY WILLIAMS Well, I hope I remember correctly! That is the act of walking through spider silk.

MATT GALLOWAY: Fantastic.

ELEY WILLIAMS Oh, great! And, I mean, again, with that kind of word, we've all we all recognize that feeling, and either with if it's first thing in the morning, a kind of horrified stickiness. [chuckling] And and maybe it's peculiar enough to not require a word for us all to know and to have a currency in society. But it also reveals how there are these gaps in language, even though their shared experiences.

MATT GALLOWAY: Casiculation is an example of a mountweazel, which is a fake word inserted in a dictionary. We asked you what mountweazels, fake words, might be in your vernacular. Your responses could fill up a dictionary of their own. Karin Marley, senior producer of "The Current", is here to sift through some of them. KarIn, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning. Let's start with something that's relevant to the times, and a tongue twister. Nancy Berkhout from Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, sent in incredumaskcation. She says it means a verbal reaction of distress when encountering inadequate PPE apparel.

MATT GALLOWAY: Can you say that again?

KARIN MARLEY: Incredumaskcation.

MATT GALLOWAY: Very good. Well done. Claire LeSage from Kingston, Ontario, has one that comes out of some icy weather, gription. She explains it this way. Cold and icy conditions require footwear with Gription.

KARIN MARLEY: Lynda Rive from Calgary says, I have lots, but my late husband and I had the ideal word for the person sitting in the passenger seat in the car. That would be me, she says, nagavator

MATT GALLOWAY: That's fantastic. These words aren't just for everyday life. Theo Wiederkehr in Mildmay, Ontario, uses them in a family game called "Dictionary". He adds, We simply take our dictionary, and have many identical sheets of paper out, as many as there are players. One person finds a word in the dictionary, which no one else knows, and spells it out. Then each person secretively writes a plausible sounding definition, and hands it in to the first person who's written the actual definition down. This person shuffles the papers, reads out all the definitions, preferably without laughing, and then the other people must try to guess which is the true definition of that word. Points are awarded for guessing the right definition, for getting votes for your fake definition, or if you are the reader, for coming up with a word which no one guesses. We often play many rounds but don't usually keep much track of scores. A few words have actually entered household use through this game.

KARIN MARLEY: We used to play the board game version of this "Balderdash", but I guess you don't really need anything other than a dictionary and paper and pen. So there we go.

MATT GALLOWAY: And an ability to read the words and the definition without laughing out loud.

KARIN MARLEY: [laughing out loud] Yeah, that is a skill on its own. That's true. Turning to a sweet story from Pearl Benyk in Yellowknife, she says, When I was a young child, I lived in a fish camp in northern Manitoba with my parents. I made up words. I'm now nearly 72, and remember only two of them. One was ta-latch, which was the name for the bowl-shaped depression in the snow formed when my mother put warm food on the packed snow close to the outside door of our cabin for my pet dog. The food's temperature, and my dog's licking formed the smooth round hole in the snow. I love it, but it's very specific. [Matt laughs] The other word was mlieoh, to describe the optical illusion of a dog's feet and legs when it is running. To my childish eyes, my pet dog Bobby's legs and feet formed a blurry circular shape when I watched from the cariole of my father's dog sled pulled by his sled dogs. Later, when I was describing for my mother the experience, I would say Bobby's legs were going mlieoh, melioh. He was running so fast.

MATT GALLOWAY: Could we also just emphasise the excellent use of the word cariole there in that letter? Well done! Got some responses on Twitter as well. This from Patricia Wachowich, who says, our youngest son came up with the word favourtinistic. It means you are excited about your most favourite thing, person, or memorable moment, only certain exceptional moments or people earn that title.

KARIN MARLEY: And something for those who might need some rest these days, Valerie Pugh gives us quivate, meaning quiet and private, a request for both quietude and privacy at the same time.

MATT GALLOWAY: Is there a word that you have read in these letters, Karin, that you will add to your lexicon?

KARIN MARLEY: I'm going to have to tell my husband about quivate. He was doing most of the home schooling where the kids were at home, and I think that is a word [laughing] he has been thinking about a lot.

MATT GALLOWAY: Gription, I think, is the word that I would use. I have had some experience in slipping on ice, and I'm very cautious of the possibility of falling down. I could use better footwear with some gription on it. [Karin chuckle] Karin, thank you.

KARIN MARLEY: You're welcome.

MATT GALLOWAY: Karin Marley, senior producer of "The Current". If you would like to contribute a word or two to the great CBC lexicon, you can email us: thecurrent@cbc.ca.. Find us on Twitter: @TheCurrentCBC. Of course, there are all sorts of words that have been created portmanteau, a couple of words kind of smashed together over the course of this pandemic. Covidiot it is one that people have been using for those who perhaps have not been following some of the guidelines, flaunting some of the guidelines. If there are words that you think perhaps we should know about, you can get in touch. Again, Twitter: @TheCurrentCBC. Or email us: thecurrent@cbc.ca. And of course, there is a long tradition of those sorts of words being aired on CBC. Jane Farrow, long-time former CBC Radio producer, helped put together a book called "Wanted Words", which was a segment that aired on "CBC Radio This Morning", and was very, very funny at helping to pull together the words that we don't have, that we should have. So shout out to Jane and the work that she did all those years ago. That's it for "The Current" for today. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's "q". Tallia Schlanger is in the host's chair this morning, speaking with Serinda Swan, one of the actors on the CBC's series "Coroner", who did research for her role by watching real-life autopsies to better understand the work of pathologists. You'll hear Serinda Swan speaking with Tallia Schlanger coming up in just a few moments on CBC Radio. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to "The Current". Take care. And we'll talk to you tomorrow.

February 25, 2021 Episode Transcript

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