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The Current Transcript for February 13, 2018

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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VOICE 1: They'd love to have all this basalt rock from Digby Neck for the roads of the United States. I don't want to give that up. And 90 percent of the people here don't want to give it up. It’s beautiful.

LAURA LYNCH: Harold Theriault lives in that beautiful sliver of the world, a peninsula bordering the Bay of Fundy. Part of what makes it picturesque is the distinct volcanic rock and that's what an American company wanted to harvest. But the government said no and is now facing a half-billion-dollar penalty due to the provision of NAFTA called Chapter 11. Coming up later, we'll dig in to why a trade agreement trumps government decisions even as Canada, the U.S. and Mexico try to reshape NAFTA or scrap it. And then...

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VOICE 1: We have got to keep improving on those areas. We will keep improving. There have been other incidents. There's been nothing on this scale of the severity. But in every organization, every year, there are incidents of sexual abuse and harassment.

LL: They come in the name of doing good, of helping the world's most vulnerable in their time of greatest need. But it now seems some of those who travel in the name of the charity Oxfam, have also hurt those who needed their assistance. Oxfam UK's CEO Mark Goldring is expressing shame even as the charity admits some of its employees exploited earthquake survivors in Haiti for sex. The lurid tales have aid organizations scrutinizing their own operations in order to ensure workers do no harm in the place where they are sent to help save lives. But we start today with the urgent questions raised by a Canadian who died abroad.

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VOICE 1: The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said they're gravely concerned by the reports of Dr. Kavous Seyed-Emami’s death and obviously the circumstances surrounding his death.

LL: The UN's Stéphane Dujarric is sounding the alarm about the death of Dr. Seyed-Emami, a Canadian-Iranian dual citizen and prominent environmentalist, who died over the weekend in an Iranian jail. The authorities in Tehran say it was suicide. They ordered his family to bury the body quickly. Some are demanding Canada step up to condemn the death and call for an investigation. What can Canada do and will it make any difference? We'll try to answer that question this morning. I'm Laura Lynch. This is The Current.

Death of Iranian-Canadian professor was not suicide, says Evin prison survivor

Guests: Homa Hoodfar, Hadi Ghaemi

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VOICE 1: He quite liked going for long walks. I know he took a trip up to Banff to experience that. So he was a real nature lover and a really interesting and fine human being.

LL: That "fine human being" was Kavous Seyed-Emami. The 63-year-old Iranian-Canadian academic and environmentalist died recently in Iran's notorious Evin prison, just two weeks after being arrested on suspicion of espionage. Trevor Harrison is a professor of sociology at the University of Lethbridge and arranged for Mr. Seyed-Emami to teach there for a semester.

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VOICE 1: He was just a very warm, engaging, intellectually interested person. And I viewed him already as a good colleague at the time he was leaving here. And certainly I hoped that we would have a chance to meet again and do some research together. I was really quite devastated, quite shocked. I think it took a while to sink in that this had actually happened. It just seemed immediately impossible knowing the individual I'd seen less than two months ago.

LL: On January 24th the dual Iranian-Canadian citizen was arrested in Iran along with several colleagues. Iranian authorities told his family last week that Mr. Seyed-Emami killed himself in prison. Some Iranian lawmakers report they saw closed circuit video of him in his cell taking off his shirt to use it as a rope to take his life. His family say they don't believe he committed suicide and have asked for an autopsy, the Iranian authorities have denied this request. Mr. Seyed-Emami is to be buried today, outside of Tehran. This case has drawn comparisons to Zahra Kazemi. She was an Iranian-Canadian arrested in 2003 in Iran and held in Evin prison. She died in custody after being beaten and raped. Homa Hoodfar was also incarcerated in Evin prison. The Canadian-Iranian university professor from Montreal was locked up in Evin prison for 112 days in 2016. Homa Hoodfar joins us now from Montreal. Hello.

HOMA HOODFAR: Hello.

LL: What did you think when you heard that Kavous Seyed-Emami had died in Evin prison?

HOMA HOODFAR: Well it was a shock for me. I had imagined that I wasn't hit as much while I was there, and I have really remained very much myself. But the news early on was shocking for me because it brought back also my experiences of being there. But also the whole point about having and taking environmentally [unintelligible] had work and had tried to support the society with issues that stay away from politics, to be arrested in this way and then killed, it's disheartening.

LL: You say it brought back memories. What memories did it bring back for you of your experience?

HOMA HOODFAR: Well especially the first week that I was taken to Evin prison, the interrogation was very harsh. They would shout and scream and accuse me of working for CIA and MI6 and passing information to intelligence services and working for soft revolution. So these issues when I wasn't very well to start with when they had arrested me, was very hard. And during those times I almost felt that I was dying. And I thought of Zahra Kazemi while I was sitting on the chair facing the wall as they were shouting and accusing me of being a spy for CIA.

LL: Yes, and as we Ms. Kazemi also died in Evin prison. You talk about having health issues while you were in prison. How did they respond to your health needs?

HOMA HOODFAR: Although when they raided in my apartment they did see all of my medication on my desk, but when I was unwell there they accused me of making a scene and acting up, and they know these things and they have seen it; they know all the spies have learned to do scenes. It was really not until after a couple of hours that the doctor came to the Evin prison in the afternoon—usually the doctors come in the afternoon—and they examined me and they actually pointed out that I was very unwell. Those memories are really not easy to remember.

LL: And I am sure it is difficult for you to remember. But given all of your experience, when you hear Mr. Seyed-Emami's family saying they don't believe he killed himself, what do you think?

HOMA HOODFAR: When you are in detention centre, it is absolutely impossible to kill yourself even if you really try hard because there is nothing there. They make sure that there is no window, there is no rope, and there is nowhere to hang your rope. There is nothing. And they even control everything. Even when they brought for me Aspirin or pills, they would give it to me that I put it in my mouth, take it with water, and make sure that I have not kept it. It would be impossible in detention centre for anyone to commit suicide.

LL: Could you—you may not know the answer to this—imagine why if he has as you believe been killed in prison, why was he targeted for that and why were you spared?

HOMA HOODFAR: What happens is a power game. The non-elected wing of the state is trying to embarrass the government and arresting people like me or environmentalists. He was also not the only one who was arrested. Maybe he was the one least expected to be ever arrested. He was teaching university. He had committed himself to improving society and environment and encouraging people to stay engaged in their society even if it is outside politics with environmental issues. So no one expected for him to be arrested. But in this power game they're trying to embarrass the elected-wing of the body, and also in expectation that this supreme leader, who is old now, will one day soon will not be there and after his death there will be a lot of establishment of who is going to have the power. So it is a very complex situation of the power game within the country. But what it has resulted in is a tragedy for his family, for the country, and for their humanity, and ironically, I think also for the Revolutionary Guards who have made the arrest

LL: Both you and he were dual Canadian-Iranian citizens. What dangers do dual citizens face in Iran?

HOMA HOODFAR: Right now, whether they are Iranian-Canadian or American, they look at them as potential valuable hostages that they can arrest and then negotiate with [unintelligible] regime, but also with the elected body who obviously, according to the protocol, people would write to the president and to the ministry of foreign affairs when a dual national is arrested. And that would put pressure on the elected body to negotiate with non-elected body. And so the whole thing is a very difficult political system.

LL: Isn't it also complicated by the fact that in Canada's case the Canadian government no longer has any direct diplomatic relationship with Iran. They closed the embassy in 2012. Without any strong diplomatic ties, what do you think the Canadian government can do in cases like this?

HOMA HOODFAR: Well this is an unfortunate situation. To me not having an embassy there has been a problem for a lot of Canadians—not just to those who are arrested, but a lot of Canadians who go and have ties and go to visit their family. Even to open a channel to have a conversation, even with the enemies that people are at war with each other, is always helpful. I don't understand why to open a Canadian embassy has taken so long and why we have closed it in the first place. And so in my case, I know if there was a Canadian embassy, it would have helped me because once I was arrested and I was under house arrest and out on bail, I could have reached the Canadian embassy. But it took seven weeks or so before the Canadian government was informed that I was actually arrested in Iran. And then later on of course I was taken to Evin Prison.

LL: Homa Hoodfar, I am glad you are back on Canadian soil and safe, and I appreciate you taking the time today.

HOMA HOODFAR: You're welcome.

LL: Homa Hoodfar is a dual Canadian-Iranian citizen who was jailed by Iranian authorities in 2016. She joined us from Montreal. Dual citizens are not able to receive consular assistance when they are detained in Iran because Iran does not recognize dual nationality. And there are several dual nationals now in Iranian prisons. To name just a few.

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VOICE 1: Iranian-Canadian Abdoulrasoul Dorri Esfahani is believed to be serving a five-year prison on espionage charges. He was on Iran's negotiating team that reached the historic 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Saeed Malekpour is a Canadian permanent resident who was sentenced to life in Iran's notorious Evin prison in 2008. He faced what were widely seen as trumped up charges of working for foreign powers.

VOICE 2: British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held in Evin since early 2016 on allegations of spying while travelling to the country. 81-year-old Iranian-American Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF representative and his businessman's son Siamak Namazi are also in Evin serving 10-year sentences on espionage charges.

LL: My next guest is watching this case closely and is calling on the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take action. Hadi Ghaemi is the executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran. It’s an independent non-partisan group based in New York. We have reached Mr. Ghaemi in New York. Hello.

HADI GHAEMI: Good morning.

LL: What was your reaction when you first heard about the death of Kavous Seyed-Emami?

HADI GHAEMI: I was truly horrified because our work for the past month has been to campaign and seek resolution and information about detainees that were killed in prison during the past month in Iran. We've been very focused on those cases. And to suddenly have someone as prominent professor Emami die in prison as well, in such a short span of time, was very, very hard to swallow and accept. And just the shock of how quickly developments in Iran are deteriorating on that front.

LL: We asked the Iranian Mission to the United Nations in New York for a comment on this and we didn't hear back from them. What do you think really happened to Mr. Kavous Seyed-Emami? They say he committed suicide.

HADI GHAEMI: I can only speculate of course. Nobody knows for sure except the people who were holding him. But just like professor Hoodfar we know for sure that these detainees, during the first few days of their detention and first few weeks, are put under tremendous psychological pressure and sometimes physical pressure as well. Usually they're very careful not to leave behind any physical marks of torture. So in that sense, what we call white torture, which is psychological torture, total isolation, and intimidation of the detainee can really reach a breaking point. I don't know what happened to professor Emami. I would like to know if he had any pre-existing medical conditions that may have been exasperated. I want to know what kind of medications and chemicals they may have given him because we know that people who went to jail recently during the protests have been saying they've been given Methadone and very strange kind of medications that did not need and they didn't know what it was. So there are a lot of questions to be asked. And a real independent medical examination is the only way to know.

LL: Well we also posed questions to Global Affairs Canada about this story and we haven't heard back from them. But opposition members of parliament here have also been demanding answers about the case. Let's listen to what Omar Alghabra had to say when he was asked about this yesterday in the House of Commons. Mr. Alghabra is the parliamentary secretary for consular affairs to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

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VOICE 1: Mr. Speaker we've heard that a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian so will they denounce the killing of this Canadian and repudiate their failing Iran appeasement policy?

[Sound: Applause]

VOICE 2: The parliamentary secretary for consular affairs.

[Sound: Applause]

OMAR ALGHABRA: Mr. Speaker on behalf of the Canadian government and the House of Commons I want to extend our sympathies to the families of Mr. Seyed-Emami. We are deeply concerned about the circumstances surrounding his death and we call on the Iranian government to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into his death. On behalf of the Canadian government we are asking for answers Mr. Speaker.

LL: Hadi Ghaemi, what do you think of the response from the Canadian government so far?

HADI GHAEMI: Well to be honest I've been highly disappointed. In general I have been very optimistic since the new Canadian government under Prime Minister Trudeau came to power and wanted to restore consular relations with Iran. I believe that's the right way to go. That is not appeasement. However, in this case they have shown an absolute lack of courage in taking the lead internationally, calling for independent investigations, and supporting the family. I think they are miscalculating big time. And again why not having an embassy in Tehran is a problem? Having an embassy doesn't mean you're appeasing or approving of the government's action. It means that you're actually on the ground and know what is happening. Besides the statement we heard, Canada has been very absent from the scene and I believe this is going to hurt Canadian interests in Iran and among Iranians in the short and long-term because there are sometimes just moments of moral clarity that one expects leaders who do the talk and walk and act on their talk. I've been very disappointed in that lack of action by Canadians. The government has said it has its officials in Ankara, which is its nearest diplomatic mission actively seeking answers in this case. Why isn't that good enough?

HADI GHAEMI: Because already we have already missed a very important window of opportunity, the last 48 hours before the burial of professor Emami’s body. This was a critical moment that Canada could have led international efforts publicly and privately calling for the body to be in possession of the family and they have their own ability to conduct an independent autopsy. Canada could have done a lot to support and call for that. But I don't recall much action on the UN front or the international front or using the UN mechanisms. So in that sense they have really failed to be on the scene. I don't think any Iranian within Iran is aware of Canadian government even having done much or said much.

LL: We only have about 30 seconds left and I'm just wondering given all of this, what would your advice be to dual nationals who are living in Iran or are planning to visit?

HADI GHAEMI: It is very difficult. We do know hundreds of thousands of them go back and forth, and I don't want that to come to a stop. But what I hope is that all the dual nationals urge their home countries where they reside to take a position against Iran's action or Revolutionary Guards action and not keep expanding their economic trade ties while dual nationals are being targeted like this.

LL: Mr. Ghaemi, thank you very much.

HADI GHAEMI: Thank you.

LL: Hadi Ghaemi is the executive director of the New-York based Center for Human Rights in Iran. We reached him in New York City. The CBC News is coming up next. Then…

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VOICE 1: It's pitting people against people. It's been a raw sore ever since it started.

LL: How NAFTA turned the tide in a fight between Canadians and Americans on the Bay of Fundy. I'm Laura Lynch in for Anna Maria Tremonti. And you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

How NAFTA helped an American company sue Canada — and won

Guest: Amir Attaran

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come, an international aid organization is accused of sexual exploitation in an already suffering nation. But first, how American companies are using NAFTA to sue the Canadian government for hundreds of millions of dollars and why they are winning.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU: We are not going to take any old deal. Canada is willing to walk away from NAFTA if the United States proposes us a bad deal.

DONALD TRUMP: I don't think we can make a deal because we have been so badly taken advantage of that I don't think we can make a deal.

LL: Deal, or no deal. The future of the North American Free Trade Agreement has never been more uncertain. And as representatives from Canada, Mexico and the United States meet to hash out new terms on paper, the reality of NAFTA and its contentious Chapter 11 section, is playing out dramatically on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. Digby Neck, Nova Scotia, is a fishing community, where the locals call themselves "Neckers." Back in 2002, an American concrete company chose the remote, rocky peninsula of Digby Neck, as the site of a new, giant quarry. And a giant NAFTA fight ensued one that's still making waves in the community.

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VOICE 1: If you crushed this entire peninsula up and put it on the roads of the United States. It wouldn't quite cover them once. Our family's been here 14 generations. I don't think it would see another 14 generations. Not with a door like that open for this little peninsula.

VOICE 2: What it still does to the community. It's pitting people against people. It's been a raw sore ever since it started.

VOICE 1: There are a lot of people for it because of the jobs that were being promised, fairly good paying jobs for 20-30 people. It pitted people against people. There was even a local store that was for the quarry. They thought it would give them a little more business from the traffic on the road or something. They ended up leaving because the people in the area wouldn't even go to their store to buy gas from them.

VOICE 2: You got to fight for what you believe in and continuity of families on the Neck is what I really believe in.

LL: The Delaware-based company, Bilcon, had its sights set on a type of volcanic rock that you may never even have heard of: basalt. And as we just heard from locals Dianne and Harold Theriault, Neckers fought tooth and nail against Bilcon extracting it.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: See that rock there? You could stand here and smash that up. It's like smashing hard glass. Great stuff. Beautiful stuff. Burnt rock [laughs]. Basalt rock. Volcanic rock. Beautiful for crushing up and making roads. They'd love to have all this basalt rock from Digby Neck for the roads of the United States. I don't want to give that up. And 90 percent of the people here don't want to give it up. It’s beautiful. It's a beautiful place and we want to keep it that way.

[Sound: Walking stick]

VOICE 1: It’s good to have a walking stick. It’s like having three legs [laughs]. We could see that if you open the door here for this beautiful peninsula to be crushed up and put on roads in another country. We didn't want that. We use it for our own roads. It's all we got. But we're not going to let this go to another country to build roads with. So much for 20-30 jobs they promised. What's that worth? That's not worth much. Not to what this land is to us.

LL: The community held chowder fundraisers, made signs, and when the time came for an environmental assessment, they lined up to have their say. And it paid off, Canada rejected the quarry. But then the company sued Canada under NAFTA's Chapter 11, which guarantees foreign companies that if they do business in Canada, they'll be treated the same as a Canadian company. And Bilcon won. The company argued it hadn't been treated fairly. It said the environmental assessment was ad hoc, non-transparent, didn't follow the rules and took way too long. And a NAFTA tribunal agreed. Now Bilcon is seeking more than $500 million in compensation from Canada.

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VOICE 1: And the worst part of it is if this government has to pay this company $500 million because they stopped them from doing it. I'm going to look into going to the US and buy a piece of land somewhere for a quarry and hope to god they stop me. They'll be another fight. We'll take this fight right to the United States if we have to.

LL: Canada is also fighting back. Last month it urged a federal court judge to set aside the NAFTA ruling. Amir Attaran is a lawyer with the Ecojustice Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Ottawa. He's representing two intervener environmental groups pro bono in the federal case. He's also a professor of law and medicine at the university. He's in Ottawa. Hello.

AMIR ATTARAN: Good morning.

LL: Why do you think Bilcon shouldn't be entitled to compensation?

AMIR ATTARAN: As we've just heard Billcon is an American company that wanted to tear up one of the most beautiful, environmentally sensitive peninsulas in the Atlantic. And it proposed to do this, and like any company, had to go through an environmental assessment process. It failed the environmental assessment. The environmental process set out by Canada's laws said simply 'don't let this project go ahead'. Now they want a half billion dollars for having failed their environmental assessments. Since when do you get rewarded in business for being a failure? Yet it seems that's what the NAFTA system allows companies to do when they're intent on destroying Canada's environment and Canada's communities.

LL: OK. We're going to dig into that some more. But just let's step back for a second. What did Bilcon want to build in Digby Neck?

AMIR ATTARAN: An enormous quarry. A quarry of about 150 hectares. And an enormous marine terminal—one at which you could tie ships 200 metres long. That's two football fields long. And the local community felt that this would be far too disruptive. One has to agree with them. I mean this is a traditional community. It’s a UNESCO protected area. There is whale habitat right where that marine terminal would be endangered whales. Now you can imagine when that's true that the company would fail its environmental assessment and it did. But now it wants compensation. Compensation for having Canada's environmental laws apply. The laws apply to all of us all the time. Why does an American company get compensated for having to follow our laws?

LL: But here is where Chapter 11 under NAFTA comes in. The company certainly was within its right to file an appeal of the decision—perhaps not an appeal—but a case under a NAFTA tribunal, under Chapter 11. And it won that case. So why shouldn't it be entitled to compensation? It won.

AMIR ATTARAN: It won that case. But it did so because the NAFTA tribunal—before which it argued and won—made serious errors in its reasoning. What that tribunal said was that Canada's environmental law had been violated. But a NAFTA tribunal is not supposed to be sitting in judgement on Canada's laws. That's what the Canadian court is meant to do. That NAFTA tribunal overstepped its authority, pretended to have jurisdiction over Canada's laws, which it certainly does not. And that's why the decision is wrong and that's why Canada shouldn't be paying Bilcon a cent.

LL: Under Chapter 11, the case the company would make is that it wasn't treated fairly, wasn't treated the same as a Canadian company. I just wonder if you can explain for our listeners, what exactly is Chapter 11?

AMIR ATTARAN: Chapter 11 is a part of NAFTA that says, if Canada mistreats an American or Mexican investor or if the shoe is on the other foot—the United States mistreats a Canadian investor—that they may be liable for doing that. But there was no mistreatment here. Not under NAFTA. Not even under Canadian environmental law. If Bilcon felt that it failed the environmental assessment, that it was bound to do and field unfairly, it could have chosen to take that to Canada's courts and let a Canadian judge decide. It never did so.

LL: But let's just talk about this issue of fairness because the company was actually courted by the provincial government to come there and to establish this quarry. So it comes fully expecting that it's going to be able to do business. It turns around and they can't do it. Shouldn't they be compensated for that?

AMIR ATTARAN: Of course not. Of course not. I mean government’s court business all the time. But they're not entitled to promise businesses: if you come to our province and open up a quarry or a mill or what have you, none of our environmental laws will apply to you. That's not something a government can promise. The laws continue to apply. All that a government can ever promises is, ‘you're welcome to come here and try to do business, but like any other company you'll have to follow our laws’.

LL: Aside from this particular case. What's your view of Chapter 11?

AMIR ATTARAN: I think it's a travesty. I think it is so unacceptable that unless it is removed during the present renegotiations, we should walk out of NAFTA. And what's ironic is the Trump administration—it is a rare day that I agree with Donald Trump—has said that they want to leave Chapter 11 behind. They want to get rid of it. It's the Trudeau government that is clinging to it.

LL: That's right. They still want it in place because it also has a potential to benefit Canadian companies who might risk their projects being rejected in the United States after environmental assessment. Isn't that valid?

AMIR ATTARAN: I think it's nonsense. I mean the United States and Mexico and Canada all have really well functioning court systems. We're not talking about Haiti or Congo, where there is no rule of law or a very weak one. We're talking about three advanced countries. If companies are unfairly treated in those three countries, they can go to the courts. They don't need a separate justice system, and I use the word “ironically” because it isn't justice, through NAFTA. It's a completely unnecessary intrusion of an unfair adjudication system—these NAFTA tribunals—in what's otherwise a very good idea free trade.

LL: Why do you call it unfair? I mean it is an established tribunal. It's got a process that's been set up under the NAFTA agreement and it actually helps to provide businesses with some certainty. So is the fact that Canada has to open itself up to these cases simply the cost of doing business?

AMIR ATTARAN: Of course not. I mean there are many countries that don't allow investor state protection mechanisms like NAFTA Chapter 11. Germany refuses. Brazil refuses. Many countries adamantly will not get into any trade treaty that includes these provisions. They’re the ones who see this correctly. Canada is simply, I think sacrificing our environmental quality and the identity of our communities to this sort of thing. We don't need to have a NAFTA with Chapter 11. Donald Trump is willing, even wants to cut it out of NAFTA. We should agree.

LL: What's Canada's track record been with these cases?

AMIR ATTARAN: Well this is part of the reason I say we should get rid of it. The United States has never lost a NAFTA Chapter 11 case. Canada has lost plenty. And those cases together had potential liabilities in the billions of dollars. We keep losing under this system as Canadians and we are the ones who want to keep it. The Americans keep winning and they want to get rid of it. How perverse is that?

LL: Billions—my latest number on this was somewhere around a half a billion that had been paid out in compensation by Canada so far over the course of losing several cases.

AMIR ATTARAN: Yes, you're right. And the claims have been in the billions. Thankfully some of those claims were not paid in full. But let's assume that the Bilcon is paid in full. The liability of that case alone is going to be over $500 million to Canadians. That's $15 for every Canadian woman man and child just because a company failed an environmental assessment? That's preposterous. That amount of money—a half billion dollars—would pay if we chose for about 7,000 school teachers in this country or 7,000 nurses. There is not a school teacher or a nurse in this country who has done less for our community well-being than Bilcon. Those are the people that build this country. Those are the people that build our communities. Those are the people that make Canada great. Not an American investor that simply wants to tear up a pristine peninsula, destroy the communities where they sit, destroy the environment, that failed an environmental assessment, and therefore wants to be paid out.

LL: At the end of the day though the peninsula hasn't been torn up, so the Canadian system worked. In your view I would think because the peninsula is not being developed.

AMIR ATTARAN: The Canadian Environmental Assessment System worked and Bilcon had a fair hearing there that they sent as many as about 20 expert witnesses to testify at a hearing that went on for days. They got to say their side of the story. But in the end they were unable to persuade, if you will, our environmental assessment judges—those on the environmental assessment panel that the federal government in Nova Scotia convened—that this project should go ahead.

LL: Amir Attaran, we will leave it there. Thank you.

AMIR ATTARAN: Thank you very much.

LL: Amir Attaran is a lawyer with the Ecojustice Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Ottawa, where he is also a professor of law and medicine. We requested an interview with Bilcon's lawyer, but he declined. We also invited Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, to speak to us, but she was not available. Ed Fast has been watching the NAFTA talks with keen interest. He served as Canada's International Trade Minister under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. And he is currently the Conservative critic for environment and climate change. He's in Ottawa. Hello.

ED FAST: Good morning.

LL: Help us understand why Canada is fighting to keep a part of NAFTA that has allowed this relatively long list of foreign companies to sue us?

ED FAST: Well first of all, I'll challenge that assertion in a moment. But let's understand what Chapter 11 is. It effectively is a section of NAFTA that is intended to encourage and support investment, flowing both ways. American and Mexican investment in Canada and Canadian investment in those two countries. And effectively what Chapter 11 does, it says, if a company from the United States or Mexico invests in Canada, effectively it's going to be treated fairly in accordance with international standards and furthermore that it will not be treated any differently than a Canadian company would. There will be no discrimination between the foreign company and the Canadian company.

LL: Right. But as you just heard, the Americans have never lost a tribunal case. And Canada has lost several. So why would Canada be in the position of wanting to keep this in place?

ED FAST: Because it encourages investment in Canada, it is an assurance that investments will be protected in Canada, that investments from the United States and Mexico will be treated fairly in accordance with international standards, and that those investors will be treated no differently than a Canadian investor would be. And keep in mind there somewhere in the order of 40 to 50 cases that have played out under NAFTA Chapter 11. Most of those cases actually were either settled, they were dropped, or they were dismissed.

LL: But that still has resulted in governments paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in cases that had been as you say settled or where Canada has lost.

ED FAST: Yeah it's about $300 million worth of settlements that have been paid out by the government of Canada since the beginning of NAFTA, some 20 to 25 years ago.

LL: And more than $100 million cases that they've lost. Is this just the cost of doing business? Is that what you're saying?

ED FAST: Yes. Yes. The cost of doing business is there we're prepared to stand behind fairness and the rule of law. And remember, over that same period of time, when about $300 million in settlements were paid out, $400 billion of investment has flowed from the United States into Canada, creating jobs, creating prosperity across the country. I mean those billions of dollars of investments flow to Canada because investors know that we have the rule of law and that they will be treated fairly.

LL: We heard the people in Digby Neck describe their fight to save their local environment. How well does Chapter 11 serve communities of people who don't want a big industrial project?

ED FAST: There is nothing under Chapter 11 that compels a Canadian government at any level to act in a certain way. It simply says if you act in a certain way and the way you've treated that foreign investor is unfair, there is compensation to be paid for that. It does not compel that level of government to actually reverse its decision. So there is a suggestion out there that Chapter 11 is actually imposing the will of a foreign government or foreign company on the Canadian context. And that is not the case. It simply says if there is a violation of national treatment or a minimum standard of treatment that duty of fairness, that there is compensation that that company is entitled to receive. I think most Canadians, once they understand the context within which Chapter 11 operates, will say 'you know what? That's reasonable. We want to attract investment to Canada. We want to make sure that foreign investors see our investment environment as a very welcoming one'.

LL: One thing that I find curious is Chapter 11 sets up this tribunal process, but there are ready are legal remedies for companies that feel a decision against them—even foreign companies—is unfair. They can apply to a court to review the decision. Why isn't that good enough? We have a stable court system. It's universally recognized as upholding the rule of law. Why not just use our normal system to do it?

ED FAST: We do have court systems that generally apply the rule of law that are fair, but they're not perfect. And we've seen a number of cases of companies that have invested in Canada. By the way we've seen a number of cases of Canadian companies that have invested abroad and have used investor state dispute settlement mechanisms to seek their remedy. So it cuts both ways. If a foreign investor is looking to Canada, they're saying 'yes, it's a country that has a strong rule of law'. But there is still a perception that there may be some bias within the court system in Canada. Remember this is the perception of a foreign company. There may be a perception of bias when decisions are made with respect to that company's investor.

LL: Have you heard companies say that? I don't know that I've ever heard a company voice that concern?

ED FAST: I don't know. I haven't spoken to American companies that have invested in Canada because those companies have seen Canada as a great investment destination. They've had Chapter 11. What I would say is this; I have spoken to companies that have invested in places like South America, in places like China. Can you imagine a Canadian company investing in China and then having a dispute and that is the case? There are a number of cases where Canadian companies have invested in China and after they've made an investment of hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, that investment was effectively expropriated by local governments that have said, 'we'd rather have a local company benefit from this business. Sorry, you're out of luck’.

LL: Right. But you're making my point then that the Canadian system does work—the Canadian judicial system. You mentioned earlier examples of Canadian companies that have used this type of investors state protection when they’re trying to do business elsewhere Can you give us a couple of examples of that?

ED FAST: I won't name the name. For example, there is a Canadian company that invested in a mine. They were doing exploration of a mine in China. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars doing that. And they found gold. And they were all ready to apply for the production permit. The local governments said, 'well you know what? We know you've spent all this money prospecting, exploring, and finding this deposit, but we think it should be Chinese companies that benefit from this. So I'm sorry, but we're not going to issue the permit'. Now clearly in that situation Canadians would feel, 'you know what? Fairness dictates that this company have the right to now benefit from the investment it has made'. There are investments in South America that have been made by large Canadian companies. One bank in particular, where again it was an investor state dispute settlement provision that eventually compelled that country to compensate the Canadian company. And it was only pennies on the dollar, but that was the settlement the company came to. So all things considered, investor state dispute settlement provisions, which effectively is what Chapter 11 is, are a reasonable approach to provide foreign investors with assurance in Canada that they will be treated fairly and an assurance that Canadian investors will be treated fairly in that foreign jurisdiction. By the way most developed countries have those kinds of agreements with other countries around the world.

LL: So much more we could talk about. Thank you very much.

ED FAST: You're very welcome.

LL: Ed Fast served as Canada’s international trade minister under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He is the Conservative critic for environment and climate change. He was in Ottawa. I want to take a moment to tell you about a special town hall series coming up on The Current. Anna Maria Tremonti is in Halifax to kick off our series called "Facing Race" which will explore some of the most pressing race issues facing Canadians. The first of the town halls is Friday at the Halifax Central Library, where Anna Maria Tremonti will speak with residents from different communities in Nova Scotia. Louise Delisle will be one of her guests. She has lived in South Shelburne her whole life, and worries about the impact a nearby dump has had on her community.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We have a right to good clean air, good clean water, and a healthy life. That right was taken away from us by placing this dump in our community. It was wrong.

LL: Louise Delisle will be one of the guests at a live town hall at the Halifax Central Library this Friday, February 16th. We'll be tweeting about the series using the hashtag #CBCFacingRace. Tickets are sold out for this event, but you can watch it on Facebook Live. Go to our website, cbc.ca/the current for more information about how to watch and be part of it, and to hear about other town halls in Vancouver and Montreal. And if you miss it on Friday, we'll be broadcasting it next week on The Current. Coming up in our next half hour, less than charitable. Allegations of sexual exploitation by members of Oxfam in Haiti shakes one of the world's great aid organizations. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Canadian aid agencies say Oxfam's sex scandal symptomatic of sector-wide abuse

Guests: Julie Delahanty, Bill Chambers, Nathaniel Raymond

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Some of the verbal information from the locals was that these folks come to Haiti pretending that they are here to help, but then again they were exploiting the locals, sexually, and in any ways, they are leading the lavish lives.

LL: Wizda Bryant worked for Oxfam in Haiti from the year 2009 to 2012, and says she heard stories of aid workers sexually exploiting locals. And last week specific stories came to light and with much more detail. There are allegations that senior staffers at Oxfam in Haiti hired prostitutes while responding to the 2010 earthquake that they turned a villa rented by the organization into a makeshift brothel, and employed prostitutes wearing only Oxfam t-shirts. The deputy chief executive of Oxfam UK, Penny Lawrence, resigned yesterday over Oxfam's handling of the scandal and of allegations of similar behaviour in Chad. Then, on the heels of those allegations, another former Oxfam employee revealed she had been asking senior leadership to do more to stop incidents of sexual misconduct by staff.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: And it was just a continual fight to try to get more resources, and it was so frustrating because I felt our failure to adequately resource was putting people at risk.

VOICE 2: Sounds like they didn't take those allegations seriously, women getting harassed, assaulted, raped, didn't really register with the senior team?

VOICE 1: I struggle to understand why they didn't respond immediately to that call for additional resource. I really struggle, and I still struggle with that.

LL: That was Helen Evans, formerly Oxfam’s global head of safeguarding speaking on the BBC yesterday. Surveys by her department found more than 10 percent of staff had either witnessed or experienced sexual assault. More than a quarter of the allegations involved children. There were also reports of women in need of aid being coerced into sex by Oxfam workers. The revelations have caused a political firestorm in the UK and prompted a heated debate about funding for humanitarian aid. I'm joined now by Julie Delahanty, executive director of Oxfam Canada. She is in Ottawa. Hello.

JULIE DELAHANTY: Hello Laura.

LL: Let's start with the allegations from Haiti. I realize Oxfam Canada wasn't in the country at the time. But what can you tell us about what went on there?

LL: Well even just listening to that headline, it doesn't get any easier for us to hear. We're so shocked and horrified by what happened by the fact that there was this group of privileged men that took advantage of their power and influence in the country to take advantage of vulnerable women that were in vulnerable situations. This just continues to appal the staff and the people who work at Oxfam overall. What happened at the time from what I understand is that there was a whistleblower about was happening overall in Haiti. There were clearly problems or problems beyond that. There were other issues around bullying and intimidation. And Oxfam Great Britain sent an investigative team to Haiti. The team determined that there was considerable misconduct, including sexual misconduct. People were fired. Four staff were fired. A number of others either resigned or left the country. And Oxfam Great Britain issued a press release saying that they had launched an investigation. They issued another one saying that they had completed it and what some of the issues were. They let their donors know. They talked to the UK Charity Commission. So they took a number of steps. What they didn't do was they didn't more explicitly talk about what were the allegations, the sexual nature, and the misconduct that was going on at the time. They didn't fire their country director. They allowed him to resign. There were clear moral leadership failures in 2011 in Haiti by Oxfam Great Britain.

LL: I know it's not exactly the same as Oxfam Canada, but you disavow the fact that they didn't take stronger action when they became aware of the misconduct in Haiti.

JULIE DELAHANTY: Well of course we're shocked that they didn't. It's difficult to understand what happened in 2011 and why that happened. I believe that a lot of the leadership were acting in what they thought was good faith. I fail to understand why certain things happened the way they happened. But I don't disavow myself of Oxfam simply of what happened at the time in 2011. I also fail to understand.

LL: Haiti is demanding that Oxfam identify the workers who may have exploited its citizens to face prosecution. What's your response to that?

JULIE DELAHANTY: I guess it's up to the Haitian government to decide how they're going to move forward. I think at the time the reason that it wasn't what I understand from Oxfam Great Britain is that they received legal advice at the time about whether they should pursue charges and given the state of the country at the time and state of the police system they were advised that it was unlikely that there would be any justice that would come out of that investigation and prosecution. Of course at the time prostitution was illegal in Haiti and the people who would have been most likely to have suffered probably would have been the Haitian women who were involved.

JULIE DELAHANTY: What is Oxfam Canada doing then to ensure its workers aren't exploiting those who are supposed to benefit from its work?

LL: Since 2011 there were massive changes in the organization around how we respond to these kinds of problems. There was a whistleblower policy put in place—a stronger one. There is a hotline that people can call at any time that includes Oxfam Canada staff. We do significant training around these issues, checks on people. We have a global safeguarding team for the entire consideration that goes and investigates issues of complaints. The fact that we have seen so many more complaints and so many more people coming forward on these issues is really a testament to how some of these things are working and that's what we really need to do moving forward with the sector is ensure that people are able to disclose, that they can talk about these issues more openly, and that we have transparency around we're dealing with them. This is an issue of Oxfam, but it is an issue of the entire sector where you have vulnerable people, you have people who are preying on those people moving into those areas. And there are other issues around how programmatically how we can respond in terms of people who are vulnerable to sex work. What are we doing to support women who are vulnerable to that kind that sex work. There are so many elements to this and it’s part of the global safeguarding taskforce.

LL: Ms. Delahanty, I'm wondering Oxfam has always been very active in protecting women's rights. What do you say to people who might doubt your organization's commitment to that issue now?

JULIE DELAHANTY: That's a good question and it's hard for me to answer. I think since 2011, as I said there have been some significant changes were seen as having some of the better policies around safeguarding. We have a strong commitment and that is what gets me through these times right now is thinking about the women that I've met around the world and the kind of work that we do, and how important it is to continue that work because it does make a difference in the lives of women.

LL: We are hearing debate and discussion in Europe that there is a reconsideration of even funding groups like Oxfam. How concerned are you that governments may in fact pull funding of Oxfam's work in light of all of this?

JULIE DELAHANTY: I think that the government continues to have strong faith in Oxfam. We have talked about the mechanisms that we have in place to prevent this kind of abuse and what we're hoping to do in the future to strengthen it even further. I think that the work of the organization it's a large organization working in many countries around the world and doing excellent work. We have a very strong relationship with our government funders, so I believe that it will continue.

LL: Do you have any meetings scheduled the government in the coming days?

JULIE DELAHANTY: We have already spoken to the government.

LL: And what was the result of that discussion?

JULIE DELAHANTY: They wanted to know more about our policies and protections that we put in place and hope that we would be leaders in the sector on the issue.

LL: And you feel that you reassured them enough?

JULIE DELAHANTY: I believe so.

LL: Ms. Delahanty, I thank you for your time.

JULIE DELAHANTY: Thank you so much.

LL: Julie Delahanty is the executive director of Oxfam Canada. She was in Ottawa. Oxfam isn't the only international charity that's had to confront this issue. Save The Children has been tracking it for at least a decade. Bill Chambers is the President and CEO of Save The Children Canada. At one time several years ago he was on the senior executive team at the CBC. And he's in our Toronto studio. Hello.

BILL CHAMBERS: Happy to be back.

LL: What do you think about what you just heard from Julie Delahunty?

BILL CHAMBERS: Well first of all my heart goes out to the humanitarian workers who spend their sweat, their soul, and put themselves in danger on behalf of beneficiaries around the world who trust them. And a small number of truly evil people putting the life's work of those truly dedicated people at risk and in question is heart wrenching. And as much as this is an Oxfam related issue, the sector needs to do much more to prevent this kind of activity. Each of us has our own policies and practices. Some of ours are extremely stringent. I can't speak for Oxfam's. But Julie just has. And yet we feel that there are some gaps between agencies that need to be filled to ensure this kind of activity is not only prevented, but when it does happen that it can be pursued and brought to justice.

LL: OK, let's get to those gaps in a second. I just want to stay with Oxfam for another moment because the focus right now is not just on what happened, but also how Oxfam handled the allegations. What do you think about how they handled it?

BILL CHAMBERS: Well I read the headlines in the UK papers, I assume like you. And it sounds like there was a serious gap between their safeguarding function and their senior executive. That's all I can say at this time. I hope the same gap—I trust the same gap—does not exist in our organization. We have increased the resources devoted to child safeguarding over the last year and over the last ten years regularly. But it continues to be a concern because we operate in environments that are tracked. We have the most vulnerable people. Imagine 650,000 Rohingya arriving in southern Bangladesh in the last four months with none of their points of reference. None of their neighbours. Everything is new. Everything is foreign. That is a circumstance in which a predator will try to find their way in, so we need better systems.

LL: How do you keep predators from getting involved with your organization? Do you do background criminal checks? Is that enough?

BILL CHAMBERS: Everyone who works for Save The Children Canada gets background criminal checks. Everyone who works for Save The Children Canada has mandatory training in child safeguarding. They have to renew it every two years. The background checks have to be repeated every three years. When you arrive in a country—when I arrived in Bangladesh a couple of months ago—the first briefing I had from country staff is child safeguarding. What is the context in which we're going to be working? What should we be looking for? What are the laws in that region? And yet it's not enough because people come into a humanitarian circumstance. They're there for six months and then they go off. And if they're dismissed, it's all we know. We need to build systems across the sector, around the globe to ensure that those people can't just disappear back into the system, that they are caught and brought to justice.

LL: Is that one of the gaps you're talking about between organizations?

BILL CHAMBERS: Absolutely.

LL: Someone leaves one organization and joins another.

BILL CHAMBERS: Someone leaves a humanitarian circumstance ends in Haiti and they go off to Myanmar.

LL: So what do you do about that?

BILL CHAMBERS: Well we think that there are three things we need to do. The first is a global centre for excellence in safeguarding in emergencies. So that would be a rapid response team that could be sent in when there is evidence of exploitation, sexual exploitation, or behaviour of that type in that kind of context. That would be a permanent standing organization and it would be probably U.N. based. The second is creating what we think of as a humanitarian passports. So to work in the sector, anyone who is reprimanded or dismissed, would have that on a record. In order to work in a humanitarian context you would need to be registered and have a permanent file so the people who are dismissed or are reprimanded for bad behaviour have that on their record and we can see. The problem with the person who went from Haiti to Myanmar, there is no way of knowing in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, what that person's background is. And finally, a look at global regulatory standards to ensure that humanitarian agencies have an obligation to report any dismissals and the cause of those dismissals so that there is a public record.

LL: Who enforces the standards?

BILL CHAMBERS: Well that would have to be done through a global system. So probably through a U.N. system or through a voluntary cross-sector organization. The humanitarian sector has multiple global functions. We regulate ourselves sometimes and we are regulated by others. We need to come to terms with who that should be. But it should be an independent voice that can put in place the infrastructure, not easy to do, but I think it's necessary.

LL: I just wonder if the U.N. would want to get involved with this because it had its own issues with having problems abroad. So if not the U.N., who could do this and who would accept the responsibility because it would sometimes come the possibility of liability?

BILL CHAMBERS: Well then it would have to be the sector itself, right?

LL: Self-regulating.

BILL CHAMBERS: If there is no other body that can do it. Thinking that the sector doesn't want to get to the root of this is a misunderstanding. There are bad actors and they are the bane of our existence. These are the people who spend their lives going out to protect children and vulnerable people for the vast majority. The people who abuse that trust, we’re much angry than the average person.

LL: Can I ask you what I asked Ms. Delahanty about? The workers in Haiti. Haiti wants to know who they are. Haiti wants to go after them criminally. Do you think the names should be turned over?

BILL CHAMBERS: We're saying that there should be a systematic process for all of these circumstances to be made public and to be transparent. Yes.

LL: Yes. To expose them to criminal charges, potentially.

BILL CHAMBERS: So in the case of Save the Children we were asked by a news agency last year in November and we reported publicly. Now you have to understand we're a large organization. We have 17,000 field workers in over 100 countries. And we have identified over the last two years—2016 and 2017—31 instances of sexual harassment among staff, not to beneficiaries. Of those, 16 were dismissed and 10 were turned over to the police and civil authorities. And we think the kind of transparency is required automatically and across the board throughout the system, both for the sake of trust and for the sake of the safety of the children.

LL: Do you worry about how this story is going to affect perceptions of aid organizations?

BILL CHAMBERS: Well on one hand of course you do. On the other hand, when we see a case of sexual abuse in a school, we don't say we need to close schools. We don't say we need to reduce the funding of schools. In fact we probably need to increase the funding of the schools. We need to fix the problem. And the problem isn't humanitarian aid. The problem is detecting, preventing, and reporting bad actors within that system. And that clearly people should be concerned about and we're concerned about. We have an obligation and a duty to satisfy our donors that we take that as seriously as can be imagined.

LL: Bill Chambers, thank you for coming in.

BILL CHAMBERS: Delighted.

LL: Bill Chambers is the president and CEO of Save The Children Canada, He is in Toronto. These latest allegations are raising questions about what can be done to bring more accountability to the humanitarian aid sector. And Nathaniel Raymond may have some of the answers. He was an aid worker for both Oxfam America and Oxfam International, from 2002 to 2006. He's also the founding director of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He’s in New Haven, Connecticut. Hello.

NATHANIEL RAYMOND: Thank you for having me.

LL: What was your reaction when you heard the revelations that have been coming out over the last several days about Oxfam?

NATHANIEL RAYMOND: In short, I was furious. I was heartbroken. For me, I learned everything I know about humanitarian ethics and about what it means to be a humanitarian serving in Oxfam. And this was fundamentally a betrayal of everything that I've been taught.

LL: Were you surprised?

NATHANIEL RAYMOND: I was surprised in two ways. One in my time in the field with Oxfam I never saw anything approaching this. This was in my mind outside the realm of possibility given our values, given our protections, and given the heart of our brand is that we are a rights-based organization. The second way was shocking for me beyond the issue of policies and procedures is the initial response, I thought was flatfooted by Oxfam Great Britain. The first message should not have been "We're trying to look forward." It should have been "We're trying to look back." The first call should have been for an independent review similar to Penn State, Joe Paterno allegations.

LL: This is the football team, yes.

NATHANIEL RAYMOND: Yes. Sorry for the American reference. But in that case the university called Louis Freeh, the former director of the FBI, to initiate an independent investigation. That similar move is required here. And the fact that I didn't hear that one day one, and you've heard a drip, drip of allegations from Haiti to Chad, and now Helen Evans, the safeguarding head who came forward on BBC on Channel 4 News. They need to have an independent review and I haven't heard that yet.

LL: OK. You heard Bill Chamber's just talking now as well about his ideas for possible solutions. But it seems for every kind of solution there is another problem with the solution. Why is this so hard is this to stop?

NATHANIEL RAYMOND: That is a very complex question. But a couple of simple facts. I think this issue goes to the heart of the broader coordination problems in the broader co-operation problems in humanitarian aid. Well we do have the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance, the type of bodies as you heard from Bill, that are required to have centralized human resource coordination background checks and referrals don't exist. And so we're at a pivot point now. This pivot point requires a holistic view of whether our means of coordination as it relates to protection as it relates to protection from aid workers, and it breaks my heart to say that, are fit for purpose. The clear answer is they are not. And so we need to look right now to U.N. leadership to come forward and say, 'OK. This is similar to the crisis we faced in 1994 in the Great Lakes crisis after Rwanda that led to the modern humanitarian system. We're at a similar Great Lakes crisis moment now, where to restore trust, it requires systemic reform'

LL: But you heard me mention to Mr. Chambers, the U.N. has had its own problems in Haiti even with some missions. Why is the U.N. the right body to provide the answers to this?

NATHANIEL RAYMOND: Absolutely. As someone who has served as a consultant for U.N. peacekeeping that has been rocked by similar or in some cases even more severe scandals in some ways about peacekeepers trading protection for sex. It is a fair question. The issue is that the humanitarian community is coordinated through the United Nations. And so the question is, as Bill posed it, it's either going to continue through those coordination structures or we need to create a separate non-U.N. coordination structure for this issue. There is no silver bullet here. But we have to grapple with the seriousness of this moment. This is a five alarm fire.

LL: The paradox here is that aid organizations are of course doing good work. They're saving lives. But they're working in really difficult conditions. How does that complicate the issue trying to address the bad behaviour of some aid workers?

NATHANIEL RAYMOND: Of course it complicates it. But I will say as an aid worker first and foremost it is not an excuse. And I think that has to be taken off the table. Anyone who says that the complex, non-permissive conflict environments which aid workers operate is somehow in any way obviates and mitigates this behaviour. As we say where I am from, "that dog don't hunt." The fact of the matter is that we are rights-based and protection-based profession. And fundamentally if we can’t do that function then we can operate. Our most important asset, in many cases our only asset, is trust. When that trust is violated we are working without a net. When I was with Oxfam and I went into a community, sometimes in very dangerous places like Afghanistan conflict areas, in East Africa, Sri Lanka and I said I was with Oxfam, that meant something. That was trust. And that was my safety and protection was the safety and protection of the folks on the ground. So at the end of the day if we cannot restore trust then we can’t do aid work.

LL: Mr. Raymond, some also suggest that one of the root problems here is that this really is a male-dominated—not profession—but a male-dominated area, and that you need to shake up the old boys club to get more women involved. What do you think of that?

NATHANIEL RAYMOND: I agree, 100 percent absolutely. There is no getting around that. The aid field is very male-dominated and very white male-dominated in many cases. While that's changed and is continuing to change and aid is increasingly localizing and more women and women of colour from different backgrounds are moving into senior leadership positions that can't just be a gradual evolution. It has to be an intentional one. And yes I've seen in the environments I've operated in what can only be called sexism. That is a fact. So the question is 'OK. What are we going to do about it?' And I think we have been reactionary for too long. And my concern here is that we'll be reactionary rather than proactive. That this will happen, it will become a blip, and then we go back to business as usual. This is an inflection point. If we use it right, it is only a crisis, it's an opportunity.

LL: Mr. Raymond, I thank you for your time.

NATHANIEL RAYMOND: It's been an honour to be here. Thank you for discussing this issue.

LL: Nathaniel Raymond is founding director of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He was in New Haven, Connecticut. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. And remember—you can always take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app. It lets you browse through past episodes of our show and start listening in just a few seconds. You can search for stories you missed or want to hear again, or listen LIVE to your local CBC station, right from your smartphone or tablet. Hear the day's top stories; even make your own playlist of your favourite stuff to listen to later. It's free from the App Store or Google Play. I'm Laura Lynch, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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February 13, 2018 Episode Transcript

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