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The Current Transcript for June 20, 2016

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: theme]

SOUNDCLIP

It seems like a lot of you are talking about moving up here to Canada. It's very flattering and we certainly have the room, but before you sell your house and book a one-way ticket, maybe it makes sense to check us out first. Come on up and test drive Canada.

LAURA LYNCH: Yes, there are Americans who are talking about it, leaving home and moving north if a certain presidential candidate wins the election in November. But there are already thousands of US citizens living and working in Canada for various reasons and they're watching what's happening in their homeland closely. We'll speak with two of them today about Clinton and Trump and a presidential campaign that seems like no other, in our first half hour after that…

SOUNDCLIP

I've never met a murderer I didn't like. Mr. Magnotta, other murderers, they’re generally polite and pleasant to speak to and not unlike speaking to anybody else.

LL: Dr. Joel Watts spends time in the company of killers, including the notorious convicted murderer Luka Magnotta. A forensic psychiatrist, his job isn't to treat them, but to assess their mental health or mental illness. His is a side of the criminal justice system Canadians rarely, if ever, get to hear about. And Dr. Watts offers some fascinating, if not controversial insights into the minds of killers and the often powerful impact it has on doctors like him. Then, in our last half hour, the call for Canadian troops has gone out again.

SOUNDCLIP

NATO will continue to protect and defend all our allies against any threats. At the same time, we don’t want a new Cold War.

LL: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wants Canada to be part of a new force that's aimed at deterring Russian military aggression in Eastern Europe. Canada has yet to say yes or no to the request for hundreds of soldiers to help NATO nations stand up to Russia in countries like Latvia and Poland. Today, we'll dip into the debate about Russia, NATO, and Canada's role in what some worry will indeed become another Cold War. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

Americans in Canada debate Clinton vs. Trump

Guests: Krista Leben, Tom Velk

LL: I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

BARACK OBAMA: Where's my music?

[crowd laughter]

[soft piano]

BARACK OBAMA: Thank you, Congress, for spending eight years wishing you could replace me with a Republican. Or, to put it another way… How do you like me now?

[crowd laughter and cheers]

LL: Well, the whole world is watching closely to see who will be the next person to occupy the Oval Office and, presumably, pal around with TV host Jimmy Fallon too, as US President Barack Obama seems to have enjoyed doing. The election that's shaping up south of the border is easily as riveting as anything else on TV. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the presumptive nominees of the Democratic and Republican Parties are offering starkly different versions of the future. And so, it's no surprise that so many Canadians feel they have a stake in this election. And for a few thousand people north of the border -- the Canadians with dual citizenship, and Americans living and working here -- they'll even get to vote. We're speaking with two such voters today. Krista Leben is originally from Colorado and now lives in Ottawa working on Parliament Hill. She is a Democrat and she's in our Ottawa studio. Tom Velk is the Director of the North American Studies Program at McGill University in Montreal. He is a Republican and today he is in Jay, Vermont. Hello to you both.

TOM VELK: Hi.

KRISTA LEBEN: Thanks for having me.

LL: Krista Leben, you were originally a Bernie Sanders supporter and what is it about Mr. Sanders that appeals to you?

KRISTA LEBEN: Well, I would consider myself on the left wing of the Democratic Party, so Mr. Sanders’ socialist policies were very appealing to me. And there were policies that I felt were really aimed at levelling the playing field for, especially, the middle class and Americans in general. So, that was very appealing to me, especially, as somebody and I guess as a millennium.

LL: Well, that being said, then, how comfortable are you supporting Hillary Clinton?

KRISTA LEBEN: You know, I was actually very conflicted over who to support in the primaries. Wanting to see a female president, as a feminist, was really important to me. So, I ultimately supported Bernie because I felt that his platform and his policies were better for the country. But even though Hillary is more so the centre and there are things that I disagree with with her, I'm still happy to support her in the general election because I ultimately feel about the country is best steered by the Democratic Party.

LL: Okay. Tom Velk, your turn. I understand Marco Rubio was your first choice. What did you like about Mr. Rubio?

TOM VELK: Well, he was young. He's energetic. He's a Hispanic. He's very well spoken. He would be a grand contrast to the kind of nasty old grandma that's running on the other side and he would—

LL: That's quite a characterization of Hillary Clinton, sir.

TOM VELK: Yes. Well, you want to hear my real opinion? I don't think it will-- I'd set the wires on fire between us. I wouldn’t vote for if they put electrodes on my vital organs.

LL: Okay, but—

TOM VELK: But you're asking about what's positive about the current situation, I presume. And I'll tell you, what's important is there's a wave of populism that's going through the country. It's as old as the country itself. There’s a guy named Daniel Shays, way back to the time of Alexander Hamilton who led a bunch of whiskey cookers in a kind of a rebellion against the tax collectors of that long ago time. And the Republican Party now has a chance with Mr. Trump to bring into the tent a whole bunch of new people, populists, take many of them away from the Democratic Party and enlarge the tent which is critical on both sides of the of the aisle, as a matter of fact.

LL: So, you've embraced Donald Trump as your candidate, then?

TOM VELK: Absolutely. No question about it. He's energetic. He does three very big things: He's going to restore American spirit. He's going to be responsible with respect to expenditure, the enormous debt overload. 19-20 trillion dollars is will crush the country. Finally, he's vigorous with respect to our enemies. We are at war--

LL: Okay. I'm wondering , though—

TOM VELK: --with radical Islam and we need to fight it.

LL: What reactions do you get in Canada when you tell people you're voting for Donald Trump?

TOM VELK: Well, the haters, the same kind of people who hated, for example, Mr. Reagan because he did the same kind of things. He restored America's sense of itself. He fought our enemy to the point of surrender. And he diminished the regulatory apparatus that overwhelmed the nearly—

LL: Okay. But what kind of reaction do you get from Canadian voters when you tell them?

TOM VELK: I get, as I said, the kind of reaction that, perhaps, I might be able to elicit if I let you had to get a word in edgewise. But I won't. [laughs] From leftists and haters of the Republican side, they forget about what subtleties, at least, you can put into the Trump position and they make a caricature of him and I do my best to remove the caricature.

LL: Krista Leben, I want to play you a clip. It's Bernie Sanders who is questioning Hillary Clinton's relationship with the Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs after accepting a huge fee for speaking at one of its conferences in 2013.

SOUNDCLIP

If you get paid 225,000 dollars for one speech, it must have been a fantastic speech. So, I think that Secretary Clinton should share that fantastic speech with the whole country.

LL: Now, I'm wondering, in your view, Krista Leben, how convincing is Hillary Clinton when she says she can bring about real change when her past affiliations with Wall Street and Washington runs so deep.

KRISTA LEBEN: You know, I think we generally have a problem in the United States where there are people who have been entrenched in the system for a while and like Ms. Clinton have affiliations with Wall Street. And the challenge that we have is and the reason why I supported Bernie originally is that we need to look at what kind of influence places like Wall Street and big banks have on our political process and try to break that. So, again, this brings about some inner struggle for me in terms of supporting Ms. Clinton. We need a big shift in the US and I'm not sure that Mr. Trump can bring the correct shift. But we need to break those ties and ensure that the political process is a bit more fair and a bit more of a level playing field for everyone involved.

LL: Given your lukewarm feelings about Ms. Clinton, did you ever consider not voting?

KRISTA LEBEN: Absolutely not. I think it's very important to exercise your democratic right. Even if that means voting, like, writing in a candidates or voting for someone else, but I absolutely think it's important to exercise that right.

LL: Tom, I'd like to play a clip for you now. This is CNN's Jake Tapper asking Donald Trump about whether his comments were racist when he accused a Hispanic American judge, who was presiding over the Trump University case, of being biased.

SOUNDCLIP

JAKE TAPPER: If you're saying he can't do his job because of his race, is that not the definition of racism?

DONALD TRUMP: No. I don't think so at all.

JAKE TAPPER: No?

DONALD TRUMP: No. He’s proud of his heritage. I respect him for that.

JAKE TAPPER: You’re saying he can’t do his job because of it.

DONALD TRUMP: Look, he's proud of his heritage, okay. I’m building a wall. He is giving us very unfair rulings. The best lawyers - I have spoken to so many lawyers - they said this is not a case; this is a case that should have ended. Now, I say why? I’m building a wall, okay, and it’s a wall between Mexico, not another country.

JAKE TAPPER: He’s not from Mexico.

DONALD TRUMP: In my opinion—

JAKE TAPPER: He’s from Indiana.

DONALD TRUMP: He has Mexican heritage and he's very proud of it.

LL: Now, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said Donald Trump's words were, quote, “the textbook definition of a racist comment,” unquote. But he also didn't rescind his support. I’m wondering how you square those two things.

TOM VELK: He is not racist at all and it's perfectly silly of Paul Ryan-- I respect him. He’s from my home state, but he is completely wrong-headed. That judge is a left wing judge. He was appointed by Obama and, of course, it is true that Mr. Trump's position has been pretty aggressive vis-à-vis immigration-- Illegal immigration, illegal, I'm going to say a third time, illegal immigration from Mexico and it's appropriate, I think, that we stop illegal immigration. I'm a pro-immigrant Republican. In that respect, I'm a Bush Republican. I'm a grandchild of immigrants. I can tell the difference between a racist and a guy who is simply making largely an economic point about illegal immigration and making a political point about judges. Judges are not apolitical. They carry their politics with them. This guy is a left wing judge appointed by a left wing president. I would be damned suspicious of him if I were Mr. Trump.

LL: You don't think what Trump said was racist?

TOM VELK: Listen, I’m going to repeat it. The judge is a radical left wing judge appointed by a radical left wing president. That's my evaluation of the current president. It's perfectly appropriate that Mr. Trump, who is certainly not a left wing guy, would view such a judge as an inappropriate judge who ought to recuse himself. That's what he was asking for. I think is appropriate, perfectly appropriate request. It has nothing to do with the race of the guy. It's not a race anyhow. He's a Mexican. It's a nationality.

LL: He's actually American.

TOM VELK: I said it's not a race at all. It's a nationality. It has a national heritage that's associated with Mexico and that is, I think, an appropriate connection to make because there is a political issue involved, to repeat myself. There is an enormous amount of illegal immigration from south of the American border. Mr. Trump is opposed to it and it's appropriate that he's opposed to it. It's illegal. It's against the law. It's illegal, I'll say it again. That judge could very well have some—Some of that judges politics would be associated with these same kind of pro-illegal immigration that I see associated with the Democratic Party.

LL: Okay. I bet we could spend the whole time talking about this issue, but let's get some other things. Krista Leben, what do you see as the most important issue in the election?

KRISTA LEBEN: Well, I think, after the massacre in Orlando, we're going to see a lot of talk, as we typically do, about gun control in the US. I also think that both candidates’ positions on the fight against ISIS are going to be very essential. And generally, you know, economic policies and how, given that Mr. Trump is apparently so populist, such a populist candidate, economic policies and how they affect the, quote-unquote, “middle class” will be a big issue as well.

LL: When you look at the candidates here, they both have low likability ratings, Krista Leben. Do you think personality has become more important than policy in the campaign?

KRISTA LEBEN: I think that it absolutely has become a big part of the campaign, almost to a detriment, honestly. You have a situation where, especially, the media kind of - and I use the term media very widely – The 24-hour news cycle in the US really supports candidates only being put out in sound bites, which is very unfortunate because it helps advance this idea of personality politics as opposed to actually talking about issues and getting down to the bulk of things and so that's a bit of a challenge. You do have two candidates that are very divisive and personality certainly plays a big role and I think will have a really big impact on how both candidates, obviously, ultimately do in November.

LL: Do you think, Tom, that personality has overtaken policy?

TOM VELK: Yeah. I was looking for an opportunity to stretch out a friendly hand across the aisle to my fellow American and this is my chance to do it. One of the reasons, as I said off the top, that I like Rubio is he's a very likable guy and I think exactly-- Because Mrs. Clinton is not a likable woman, he would have, I think, stood up pretty well against her. The news cycle is part of it. The inability of the media to think past much further than its nose is another part of it. They don't like to think about serious and deep and complicated issues of policy and they'd sooner go after a guy because of his hairstyle or because of his vulgarities, or, in her case, if you don't mind, her crookedness vis-à-vis the banking industry. Those are easy to understand the complexities of where are you going to settle the many refugees coming out of the Middle East, whether you clear out a space in Saudi Arabia for them or whether you bring them into Montreal and Toronto and New York and Los Angeles is tougher to talk about. They don’t.

LL: We've certainly seen examinations too of Trump's history in business and whether he was always honest and straight as an arrow too. I'm wondering if you think, both of you, as time goes on in the election campaign, will you start hearing more about policy? Particularly when we get into presidential debates.

KRISTA LEBEN: I certainly hope so, especially with Mr. Trump, because we haven't seen too many policies put forward as of yet. So I hope that we can get down to those brass tacks. Mrs. Clinton has a bit more history in elected office so we know where she stands and she has changed her position on some policies, but at least we have a bit of a track record to look at. But I hope there's more focus on policy so that voters can be educated and know what they're choosing come November.

LL: Tom Velk, do you think the debates will make a difference?

TOM VELK: Oh, yes, it will be quite fascinating. I think and hope, as a good Republican, that he will take her apart. He certainly won't stand still for meaningless and silly attacks, personality attacks about whether he's pro-woman or anti-woman, that sort of thing. I think he does have -- and one of the things that the media has successfully created about him -- he does have a lot of detailed positions on a policy kind, mainly put out by his people rather than-- He follows the strategy that the media makes available to him, of these personality attacks, because they work. It doesn't mean that there aren't policies behind the scenes and there are plenty of them and if you wanted me to rattle on about them I’d be pleased to do it.

LL: That's okay. [laughs]

TOM VELK: [Laughs] Yes, I bet you’d like that. [Laughs]

LL: I'm wondering what the one thing is that you think Canadians need to understand in this election campaign that hasn't been made clear yet.

TOM VELK: For me, I think it's the importance of populism and domestically and which party will be smart enough to grab those populists and create a big tent model, which has been fallen by the wayside in respect of both parties. Both parties have become far too narrow in their bases. And the other big thing is to say that the Americans, as long as Mr. Trump wins, are going to finally awaken from their sleep and deal very aggressively with the war that we are currently fighting with the savages that are out there waiting to kill us.

LL: Krista Leben, what do you think Canadians need to understand about the campaign?

KRISTA LEBEN: I mean, I think it would be really interesting to get a better and clearer picture of what relations with the US would be like under both candidates for Canada, to see if the current kind of warm relationship that we have between Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Obama would continue and what kind of impact that would have, especially with issues like Keystone XL pipelines. The US and Canada are obviously very close partners and the election will have a substantial impact on the relationship they have, so I'd love to see more information on how each candidate would kind of handle that relationship.

LL: When you return to the United States for holidays do you think you see the US election differently than your relatives and friends in the US because you live in Canada?

KRISTA LEBEN: I have a lot of friends who are quite dismayed with the current election and the candidates that are out there, both on the Republican and the Democratic side, a lot of friends who are Bernie supporters who are upset with the way that things have happened, that he's not the candidate. And I think, yeah, I think absolutely - the moment that you move outside of the US, and I have been outside of the US for the past nine years, it gives you a different perspective. It gives you a bit of distance to look back and see how your country compares to others. The one thing that I think is most disheartening for me is to look back at the US and feel dismayed with the direction that the country is headed in. When you have a candidate like Donald Trump rise to the top as the presumptive nominee Republican nominee that's a bit scary.

LL: I'm going to cut in there, because we just have about 30 seconds left. Tom Velk, how has living in Canada changed the way you see US politics?

TOM VELK: It makes you a patriot, I think, and it makes you understand American exceptionalism and its value to the rest of the world. And it has done that for me for the past many years. It's not that we Americans, or Americans like me at least, think that we're better than anybody else, but we do understand that we are different from almost anybody else and it is, to quote my one of my heroes, Mr. Tocqueville, it's democracy in America that is, in some sense, the most advanced and interesting form that democracy takes anywhere in the world.

LL: All right. Many, many thanks to both of you. It'll be interesting to watch how this plays out. Bye bye.

KRISTA LEBEN: Thanks very much.

TOM VELK: Bye bye.

LL: Krista Leben is an American living in Ottawa and is voting for Hillary Clinton in the upcoming US Election. We reached her in Ottawa. Tom Velk is the Director of the North American Studies Program at McGill University in Montreal. He is voting Republican and is in Jay, Vermont. If you're voting in the upcoming US Election, we want to hear from you. What do you think? On Twitter, we're @thecurrentCBC or me @lauralynchCBC. Leave us a comment on Facebook. Send us an email through our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent. I'm Laura Lynch in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you are listening to The Current.

Forensic psychiatrist opens up on his hours of analyzing killer Luka Magnotta

Guests: Dr. Joel Watts

LAURA LYNCH: Hello, I’m Laura Lynch and you’re listening to The Current. Luka Magnotta’s return to Canada has been much anticipated ever since he was caught at an Internet cafe in Berlin. He's accused of killing 33-year old can Concordia student, Jun Lin, dismembering his body and shipping hands and feet to political parties in Ottawa and to schools out west. The federal government issued a statement today confirming Magnotta is in transit on a Canadian military plane. It's not clear when or where it will arrive in Canada. The government says Magnotta is on the flight with Montreal police officers. Once he's on Canadian soil he's expected to face charges of first degree murder and threatening politicians. It was four years ago this month that Luka Magnotta, then one of the world's most wanted fugitives, was captured in Germany and returned to Canada to be tried for that grisly murder. The police escort that Luka Magnotta was traveling with on that Berlin to Montreal flight included Dr. Joel Watts. He's a forensic psychiatrist at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre and president of the Quebec branch of the Canadian Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. He has written about his work with that notorious killer in an essay titled The Case of Luka Rocco Magnotta: A Forensic Adventure Down the Rabbit Hole. His essay is included in the new book, Shrunk: Crime and Disorders of the Mind. True Cases by Forensic Psychologists and Psychiatrists. And a warning, we will be discussing some grisly crimes and other material that some people may find disturbing and which may not be suitable for younger listeners. Joel Watts is in our Ottawa studio. Hello.

JOEL WATTS: Hello.

LL: What was it like being on that plane flying back to Canada from Berlin with Luka Magnotta?

JOEL WATTS: It was kind of a surreal experience. It was something that I had never done before, obviously. It was, in fact, a first for anybody in my profession to do anything like that, so there were a lot of things going on in my mind at that time.

LL: Tell me what was going through your mind.

JOEL WATTS: Well, it was initially a very hot flight because we were stuck on the tarmac in Berlin where we had a jet engine malfunction that needed to be fixed. And so it was a sweltering day and we were sweating quite profusely. And then as the plane took off and we realized that we were going to be flying back into a media frenzy and we didn't know where we were going to be landing. It was tense. Personally, I was feeling exhausted because I had been up for a long period of time and was jet lagged and had not gotten a lot of sleep since leaving Montreal only about a day and a half before. I was trying to be alert and thinking carefully about my role and what I was supposed to be doing.

LL: Okay, well let's just back up for a second. Tell me how you first came to be involved in the story of Luka Magnotta and in his case.

JOEL WATTS: I started out by being asked by a colleague of mine who is the clinical director in our department at the hospital where I was working at the time in Montreal. She asked me if I would be willing to accompany the Montreal police to go and pick him up and bring him back. The Montreal police had been asked by the German authorities and specifically by the psychiatrist who was treating Mr. Magnotta over in Berlin in the jail; that he would need to be accompanied by a doctor. They had reached out to my hospital and they specifically asked me if I was available and interested.

LL: And why did you decide to say yes?

JOEL WATTS: [laughs] Good question. I wasn't seeking this sort of experience. I couldn't predict in advance exactly what it was going to entail obviously, but I was intrigued by this and I did know that this was not a usual sort of request and would be challenging and interesting from a professional standpoint. I was available and I thought I could do it, so I agreed.

LL: Did you have any idea what you were in for?

JOEL WATTS: No, it would be probably pretty disingenuous of me to say that I did. I do pride myself in trying to think things through clearly and to anticipate much in advance the different kinds of cases but, no I don't think I could have predicted the amount of stress and the number of hours, the sheer hours involved, in the entire case.

LL: So you get on a plane and fly over there. You meet him. What was your first thought when you met him?

JOEL WATTS: Well, I had been briefed by the police the morning very early on Monday June 18^th about what they knew and they told me what they knew about the case. I had no knowledge of Mr. Magnotta. I had no idea that he actually was quite well known for suffering from schizophrenia for many years. When I met the new psychiatrist in Berlin, Dr. Barth, he informed me that Mr. Magnotta was quite unwell, was in a psychotic state, he was hallucinating, he was having delusions, he was even a little disorganized in his thinking and then I met Mr. Magnotta. He was brought into Dr. Barth's office along with a nurse and the doctor was there and despite hearing what I had heard from Dr. Barth. I was a little skeptical. As a forensic psychiatrist I'm always conscious of the fact that people may not always be genuine about their symptoms particularly if it's high stakes and my initial impression was wow, this guy looks really, really unwell. Is this possibly true? So, I was a little skeptical initially but I was really struck at how unwell he looked; how much in fact he appeared to be genuinely quite psychotic.

LL: Well, describe that for me when you say he looked unwell. What did he look like?

JOEL WATTS: He was talking about someone looking at him through the window, being persecuted by a woman named Debbie, he was talking about Stephen Harper persecuting him, his hygiene was not so good, his emotional expression was quite flattened and blunted which is quite typical of what we call negative symptoms of psychosis, his thinking was not organized in the usual way that a non-psychotic person’s thinking would be. There were many things that really struck me as him presenting much like a truly unwell patient.

LL: So that's your first encounter, then you end up, if I'm not mistaken, sitting beside him all the way back on the flight, is that correct?

JOEL WATTS: Yes, I mean the airplane is quite a large airplane. Most of it was actually cargo space, but there was a small passenger compartment in the rear and it was three rows. He was shackled in the middle seat and two officers were very close by with him at all times and I chose to sit in the aisle next to him so I could observe him and on occasion ask him if he needed anything or assess whether or not he was in distress of some kind. I also had to administer him medications which may sound odd, but that's the first time that I had ever actually been the one to administer a patient their medication.

LL: Because usually they administer their medications themselves, or a nurse takes care of that sort thing.

JOEL WATTS: That's right. So I think my role essentially was to observe him, to assess him essentially if he presented any acute risk of being a danger to himself or other people that couldn't be managed by the officers, then I would have requested the police to take him to a hospital for a formal psychiatric evaluation upon landing, which is similar to what happens if someone is arrested for a serious crime. If the police think that they need to be seen by a doctor for some reason immediately then they do that and they're taken into custody afterwards once they're medically cleared.

LL: You might have thought that the trip on the plane would have been your last encounter with him, but then you went on to work for the defense. What were they asking you to determine as an expert witness?

JOEL WATTS: So, I was asked specifically to do a criminal responsibility assessment to determine whether or not in my opinion he met the criteria for being found not criminally responsible under their criminal code.

LL: Explain to me what that means.

JOEL WATTS: Essentially what it means is did Mr. Magnotta suffer from an illness or something that that we in law would be considered a mental disorder, and if that mental disorder caused him to either not be able to appreciate materially what he was doing with relation to his charges, so in his case that would have been killing Mr. Lin. dismembering him, producing the notorious video, and then mailing body parts and threatening the political class. And the other part of the NCR criteria, which is actually more commonly met, is whether or not the mental disorder that he may or may not have had, whether that caused him to know that it was wrong or not. I had to assess those two things but firstly had to figure out if he actually had what would be considered a mental disorder.

LL: But wait a second. Even before that, you had to decide whether you were ready to take on this case.

JOEL WATTS: That is true. It was not an easy thing to do. I was concerned initially because I had been on the airplane and had been asked by police to accompany him. I wanted to be sure that I wasn't in a conflict of interest, so I clarified that with the legal organization that that helps physicians with these sorts of matters and I talked it out with his Mr. Magnotta’s attorney at the time, as well and so we felt that I was able to proceed in taking on a new role as a defense expert.

LL: And what was it about this case that drew you in? You must have had a feeling that this would be challenging or something new for you. Why did you want to do it?

JOEL WATTS: I think that was it. It was because it was challenging and because it was it was going to be intellectually quite interesting. I mean, I think I was I was very much hesitant as well, initially. I wasn't totally naïve. I had only been in practice as a forensic psychiatrist for less than five years but I wasn’t naïve. I knew I was going to be getting into something that would be the most difficult case yet of my career, and that I would be facing some pretty strong cross-examination if ever I delivered an opinion that was going to be essentially a yes to whether or not he was criminally responsible. I think I was also thinking well, I don't think there's a very good likelihood that he's actually going to meet this criteria so my involvement is going to be pretty short. I’ll assess him and then I'll probably say to his lawyer, no I don't think he meets the criteria and that will be it.

LL: So you were still pretty skeptical about all of his behaviours and whether it actually amounted to not criminally responsible. So you have to start interviewing him. How long did you spend interviewing Magnotta?

JOEL WATTS: A very long time. I had never done anything like that before in the sense that usually in a complicated murder case I might interview somebody for-- my interviews tend to view on the longer side which is in keeping with the profession-- but maybe for four or five hours at a time, but then usually after two or three interviews you're done. With Mr. Magnotta, they kept stretching on and on and on because of his symptoms and because of his difficulty being able to talk about the subject material. So, the interviews ended up going on over months and months. I would meet him for two or three hours, four hours at a time, and I think in total it ended up being over 44 hours of actual face-to-face interview time with him.

LL: And what did you eventually decide?

JOEL WATTS: Well, in early 2013, I started to get more and more nervous because as I was putting things together, I realized he actually meets the criteria. He actually has, it was clear to me at that point that he suffers from a psychotic illness and has for ten years prior to this event that had been well documented. But on top of that, I also felt that the most likely explanation for why he did what he did to Mr. Lin and then all of the behaviours afterwards, was actually psychotically motivated and this caused me quite a bit of concern because I then realized, uh-oh I'm going to have to actually testify at trial and my opinion is not going to be really popular.

LL: Why were you nervous about that? If this was your job and you were satisfied, why did that make you nervous?

JOEL WATTS: Well, at the time-- for many, many years our profession has flown under the radar. Very few people are found criminally not responsible in Canada despite what often gets portrayed. Only one in 1000 criminal cases end up with an NCR verdict, and it's not always these big high profile awful murder cases. Most the time it's much more minor, but in 2012, at that point I was working in Montreal and there had been the Guy Turcotte case which had upset the public greatly when he was found not criminally responsible initially—

LL: And he had killed his children, is that right?

JOEL WATTS: That's right. He stabbed them to death, it was a horrific and gruesome crime and there were starting to be pressures politically to do something about this NCR thing, and eventually there was. There was the not truly responsible reform act that came in precisely because of these high profile cases, not because it made sense. With this backdrop within my own profession of psychiatry in Montreal, I was becoming more and more aware that my own colleagues were starting to have pretty negative views of what we do as forensic psychiatrists, and at the best they were calling us incompetent, and at the worst they were calling us shills for the court, or hired guns.

LL: It sounds like you were just afraid of being unpopular.

JOEL WATTS: I was afraid of not just being unpopular, but I was worried about would I do something to further tarnish the reputation of my colleagues and drag them even more down in the mud. I know that you work very hard at being a credible witness and maintaining your integrity and your objectivity throughout your career, but all it takes is one minor slip up and your reputation is tarnished forever.

LL: But you were bound, you were duty bound at this point. So, no backing out.

JOEL WATTS: I mean, I felt duty bound to his attorney. I had answered his question and my conclusion was I believe he actually has an NCR defense, not a super-strong one, but I felt that it was enough that I needed to share that, and I felt that the jury need to hear at least my opinion despite the fact that I knew that it would be difficult overall for them to accept, and that most likely he was going to be convicted.

LL: For the listeners, can you describe in as succinct a way as possible, what you mean when you say that Luka Magnotta committed his crime during a psychotic episode and wasn't criminally responsible.

JOEL WATTS: Well, so I think that more likely than not, the primary motivating reason why he committed the offenses that he did; why he killed Mr. Lin, why he dismembered him and did all those other awful things that he did to his body, and mailed the body parts and wrote threatening letters to the Prime Minister at the time, I think the reason that he, the primary motivation for that was because he had delusional beliefs. Because he had talked about hearing voices, he was known to suffer from hallucinations for many years and he was describing hearing the voice of an individual he called Manny who was seeming to direct his behaviours, but more than that, the other different rational motives that I was thinking about and analyzed, they didn't add up as being the primary driving reason as to why he would have done what he did, so I kept coming back to the psychotic motive was more likely the driving motive.

LL: How long did you testify for?

JOEL WATTS: [chuckles] Longer than I would have liked. I think I spent a total of five days under oath.

LL: And how much of that was being cross-examined?

JOEL WATTS: More than half of it. I think actually all the experts in the trial we spent about three days each under cross-examination.

LL: Because the Crown is wanting to pick apart what you're saying, but something else that happened, and I have to ask you about this, it later came out that you billed Montreal police $26,000 and were paid $17,000 for the trip to Berlin. Was that a mistake looking back?

JOEL WATTS: No, I don't think so. I mean, it sounds on the face of outrageous, but I didn't just make that decision willy-nilly. And I actually want to thank you for reporting the actual amount I got paid because that wasn't reported initially. I consulted with several colleagues who were very senior and had a lot of experience and they said, look you're being asked to do something that's never been done before, you're being asked to do this essentially to be on call and leave at the drop of a hat on the weekend to go and assess somebody you've never seen before; you know nothing about; high stress, high stakes, you're going to be flying, you're going to be in a completely different jurisdiction and you won't really know what you're supposed to be doing and exactly how to document it, you are being asked to do things that nobody's ever been asked to do and so you shouldn’t just be doing that for a normal salary, you should ask for an exceptional note because it's an exceptional circumstance. I was initially uncomfortable, but when I thought about it, I thought you know I think this is justifiable. I don't think I would change it if I had to do it again. I knew going into the trial that the Crown was going to make a big deal about this because why wouldn't they? It’s a juicy piece of information to use to try and discredit me.

LL: And in the end, the judge did agree that the remuneration was alright.

JOEL WATTS: Yes, in fact he told the Crown in no uncertain terms, this happened when the jury was out of the room, but he told the Crown basically look I don't really buy your arguments. If you knew how much myself and other legal professionals were paid in exceptional circumstances, I don't think you'd find a Dr. Watts's remuneration for this was particularly outrageous.

LL: You end your testimony and then the jury goes away and what does the jury decide?

JOEL WATTS: They decided that he was guilty on all the charges and so he was convicted and sentenced to a life sentence.

LL: Then he goes to jail. You actually did speak to him again after it was all over, what did he tell you?

JOEL WATTS: Well, we had quite a wide ranging discussion. I mean, the purpose of me going to see him again, I hadn't expected that I would. His lawyer was appealing his conviction, which often happens, and his lawyer wanted me to go and talk to him because he'd suddenly decided, look I don't want to appeal this anymore. I just want to focus on doing my time in rehabilitation, and so his lawyer wanted me to go and see him to essentially see is he fit to make this decision much akin to somebody needing to be fit to stand trial. His lawyer wanted to make sure that he wasn't making this decision based on psychotic symptoms or delusions. He wanted to make sure he was of sound mind to make this very important decision. So I went and asked him some questions about that and discovered that in fact, no, it was a pretty sound and reasoned decision; that he actually had some pretty decent, intelligent, excellent reasons for wanting to do that. We also talked about the trial itself and whether he was surprised with the verdict. He wasn't, he'd been prepared well in advance by his lawyer that he would likely be convicted and I also wanted to know if he, you know if he'd had one over on me, too. I just had some lingering doubts. I probably shouldn't have as I’d spent 44 hours with him, but he remained much the same as he had been before despite the fact that now there wasn't any--arguably there wasn't much stakes for him to want to try and keep lying. He'd been convicted. If, in fact, he had been lying about his symptoms, basically I came to a conclusion that no, I had been right all along. He was the same individual that I thought he was and he was not a psychopath, and he was not a narcissist, and he really did have schizophrenia and that was that.

LL: Now Dr. Watts, I'd like to play you a clip from the film In Cold Blood. It tells the true story of two drifters who murder a family of four in Kansas in the 1950s. The voice you're about to hear is an actor playing a reporter who covered the case. Have a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

[train whistle in the background]

VOICE 1: It took four hours to pick the jury. It took the state three days to present its case. It took the defense one hour and a half. It took the jury 40 minutes to bring in the verdict.

VOICE 2: He had to be crazy.

VOICE 1: No. Maybe stupid, but perfectly sane.

VOICE 2: How can a perfectly sane man commit an absolutely crazy act?

LL: Okay, Joel Watts, how do you answer that question? How can a perfectly sane man commit an absolutely crazy act?

JOEL WATTS: Well, human nature I've come to learn is such that it's unfortunately potentially within all of us in the right or, more rightly perhaps the wrong kinds of circumstances, to commit what we would otherwise believe is unthinkable. Obviously, that doesn't make everybody a murderer, but more often really horrible acts of violence are not perpetrated by people suffering from mental illness, they're perpetrated by people who in fact don't have some kind of psychosis or an illness that's driving that behavior.

LL: There were times when you were describing them-- when you were getting ready to testify in this case when you had to look at a lot of awful things. You had to actually view some of the video of Luka Magnotta committing the crime. I'm sure there have been other cases that you've had to see some pretty ghastly things. What effect does it have on you?

JOEL WATTS: Actually there's not as much of an effect of being close to them or interviewing them, so the first part of that would be obviously viewing this material potentially can cause some traumatic symptoms. I think that CBC has reported, and a lot of people reported, about a colleague of mine who suffered from PTSD related to watching murder videos by Russell Williams and by Paul Bernardo. So, I'm aware and I'm cautious to a certain extent how I go about looking at this material and how much time I spend looking at it, but the other thing is there is a very small number of cases where you will actually get videos that will be very very, very, highly likely to cause trauma to you. This video in Mr. Magnotta’s case in particular, it may sound callous of me and flippant and I hope not, but it wasn't as traumatic to watch for instance as if the video had shown Mr. Magnotta in the act of actually killing Mr. Lin, which it did not. That would have been far more traumatic to watch. So, the other part of that is and then how do I deal with meeting these individuals, well I found over the years that I've met many individuals who have committed murders and it's actually not--[chuckles] my supervisor when I was a forensic psychiatry fellow in Cleveland, Dr. Phillip Resnick is quite well known, and I think he said it best when he was interviewed once, I've never met a murderer I didn't like.

LL: Really?

JOEL WATTS: Yeah, you know, Mr. Magnotta, other murderers who I have met, they are generally polite and pleasant to speak to, not unlike speaking to anybody else that you might have talked to. Obviously, what I'm talking to them about is very personal and quite violent but—

LL: You understand how that might be highly offensive to people who might be listening to this.

JOEL WATTS: I do understand that and I don't say that lightly but it is true that, and I think that people need to understand that akin to your earlier question about how is it possible for regular people to commit such horrible things; people who don't have mental illness, human beings are capable of horrible things but those same human beings can also be not unpleasant to speak to one on one. That doesn't mean that I condone what they do or would want to be friends with them, but the reality is is that it's not an unpleasant thing to do to spend time getting to know these individuals and trying to understand why it is they did what they did.

LL: You say, and this is a quote from you, you believe “the truth is more complex and perhaps stranger than we would like to believe”. How so?

JOEL WATTS: There are enough cases that I've had to be involved with where you never really have a clear cut understanding of why they did what they did and people want to have an easy answer. People want to have closure, that's normal for people emotionally to want that and to seek that out, but I think it's just not true that we can have an easy explanation for everything. There are often many, many layers and it is impossible sometimes in my profession to always know exactly what is motivating people all the time.

LL: Dr. Watts, I thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. It's been really interesting.

JOEL WATTS: Thanks very much, good bye.

LL: Dr. Joel Watts is a forensic psychiatrist at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. His essay about the Luka Magnotta case is in the new book, Shrunk: Crime and Disorders of the Mind. True Cases by Forensic Psychologists and Psychiatrists. Dr. Joel Watts was in our Ottawa studio. I'm Laura Lynch in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

NATO calls on Canada to help defend Baltic states from Russia

Guests: Murray Brewster, Christian Leuprecht, Scott Taylor

LAURA LYNCH: You're listening to The Current. I'm Laura Lynch, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. And now, we turn to NATO and what it wants from Canada.

SOUNDCLIP

I'm glad to see that Canada is among several NATO allies which are considering to contribute to this forward presence. Canada is already contributing to our collective defence in Europe with air policing, with naval presence in Mediterranean, in the Black Sea with training. So we are very grateful for the contributions, but we would welcome even more as part of our forward presence.

LL: That was NATO's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaking on CBC's Power and Politics last week. With both NATO and Russia bringing some heat to Eastern Europe right now, some commentators are talking about the return of a Cold War stance. The military alliance is mounting a special force in the Baltics to put a brake on growing Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin had this to say about NATO when he took questions from CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Friday:

SOUNDCLIP

FAREED ZAKARIA: President Putin. NATO has announced just this week that it is going to build up forces in states that border Russia. Russia has announced its own buildup. Are we settling into a low grade, lower level Cold War?

MURRAY BREWSTER: Hi, Laura.

LL: Why is NATO assembling the allies?

MURRAY BREWSTER: Well, this has been something that's been in the works for a couple of years, ever since the Russian annexation of Crimea. back at the Wales summit in 2014, NATO agreed to expand what it's called its rapid reaction force, which was approximately 10,000 soldiers that were available for a crisis anywhere within the member states. And the leaders at that time promised to increase it to 40,000, but also they promised to create what was called a very high readiness force, which would be of about 4,000 troops, or a brigade size. And that would be ready to move within the approximately 48 hours of a crisis, and this is the force that Canada is being asked to join. Essentially, it's four battalions with heavy equipment, including artillery and tanks, etcetera. And Canada is being asked to not only contribute troops to one of those four battalions, but also to possibly lead it.

LL: What's Russia been doing to provoke NATO?

MURRAY BREWSTER: Well, there have been concerns about potential Russian interference in the Baltic states, in particular, now, some of your listeners may know or they may not know the fact that the Baltic states-- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania-- are all part of NATO. they joined NATO in the first tranche of new membership after the Cold War, and there has been increasing concern for a number of reasons: because of a high ethnic Russian population within their borders; but also, too, because of their proximity to Russia. And there has been the suggestion that there has been interference in those countries, and that if there was going to be a next target for Russia, it would be the Baltic states. And potentially, at least some elements of this high readiness brigade would be stationed in the Baltics.

LL: You just heard Vladimir Putin belittling NATO, sort of questioning its relevance. What did you make of his comments?

MURRAY BREWSTER: I'm not surprised because he's made those comments before, and NATO for Russia is the bogeyman. And I don't want to diminish the Russian concerns, I'm trying to be somewhat even-handed here because both sides have made provocative moves, and there are people who I talk to in the defense community both in Canada in the United States and at NATO that seem to be more concerned than ever at this point that we are on the cusp of a new cold war. Partly because of Russian aggression in Ukraine, but also, too, Russia has made some other rather threatening or provocative moves in the sense that a year ago, as an example, the Russians conducted a snap exercise of their troops along their western frontier in the Arctic involving tens of thousands of Russian troops. And there was no notice for this exercise, which startled and concerned NATO. It happened as tensions were increased over Ukraine. There have been other disturbing data points that experts who watch this very closely have been pointing to. For example, Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic is almost at Cold War levels, or even sometimes surpassing it. The number of flights in the north where unannounced exercises of air flights where Canada or NORAD has had to scramble CF-18s or fighters to intercept have increased, as well. So there have been provocative actions, and I think that NATO is a convenient strawman for Putin sometimes, because Russia's economy is not doing very well and it's a familiar scene within Russia to be raising fear of outside enemies.

LL: Would NATO's bolstered presence, though, actually be capable of taking on the Russian military if it decided to make a move?

MURRAY BREWSTER: It is a token force. There was a report by the RAND Corporation back in the winter which had suggested that if NATO was serious about defending the Baltics and not just perhaps slowing down some kind of conventional Russian intervention, then they would have to station at least seven armoured brigades in the region. And we're talking one brigade, possibly a portion of a brigade in the Baltics. So it may not necessarily be seen as a credible deterrence, and you've had Lithuania's defense ministry even saying that last week.

LL: Okay, well, the Canadian government, as we said, has not yet announced its decision. We requested an interview with the Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan. He was unavailable, but its office sent us this statement: "As a committed NATO Ally, Canada is actively considering options to effectively contribute to NATO's strengthened defense and deterrence posture. Canada's commitment to NATO remains rock solid, and our Allies can continue to count on Canada today and into the future, as they have for the past 67 years." Murray, I know you've been talking to people in the defense department who are weighing these options, what do you think is going on behind the scenes?

MURRAY BREWSTER: Well, what I think is going on is there are political promises that the government had made to get re-involved in peacekeeping in a big way, and I think the sort of options that are being analyzed is what will a commitment to NATO, perhaps six months, nine months rotation, what will that do to the government's plans to perhaps become involved in peacekeeping in West Africa? And what the army you're saying privately to the government is that it can be involved. It can do both NATO and a potential peacekeeping mission in Africa, if the government decides that's the direction they want to go. The government hasn't identified or put its finger on the map as to where it would want to put peacekeeping troops. So you have this, not commitment, but this-- what the allies are sort of expecting if Canada. And it's real, it's tangible. So there is quite a bit of debate going back and forth right now within the government.

LL: Okay. We will leave it there. Thanks very much, Murray.

MURRAY BREWSTER: You're welcome.

LL: Murray Brewster is the CBC's Senior Defence Reporter. He was in Ottawa. We also requested an interview with the Russia's embassy in Ottawa. No one was available, but an embassy official provided us with this written statement: "We believe that the NATO build-up on Russia's doorstep, which is reminiscent of Cold War saber rattling, is a complete waste of money and resources, diverting them from the real existential threat of international terrorism. Given that terrorists make no distinction between Russians and Canadians, as well as reports claiming 151 nationals of Canada are on an ISIS kill list, common sense and pragmatism dictate the need to join efforts, as opposed to reincarnation of Cold War containment." Now, to discuss Canada's involvement in this NATO effort, I'm joined by two Canadian military watchers. Christian Leuprecht is a political science professor at the Royal Military College and Queen's University. And he joins us from Kingston, Ontario. Scott Taylor is the editor of the Canadian military magazine, Esprit De Corps. He's in Ottawa. Hello to both of you.

SCOTT TAYLOR: Good morning.

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Hello.

LL: Scott, going to start with you. What do you make of the statement from the Russian embassy, is this a return to Cold War saber rattling?

SCOTT TAYLOR: I think it very much is, and the idea of us putting troops on a permanent, albeit rotational basis up in the Baltic is completely unnecessary, given those nations are part of the NATO alliance. If Russia does make an aggressive move towards them, it's going to mean the alliance is at war with Russia. So then we've got a whole new ball game in terms that. Meaning, we were committed to their defense already, so putting people in a forward position is doing nothing more than basically pushing them up against the Russian doorstep, and that's exactly what Putin has said. That it's been a steady encroachment since the reunification of Germany, a steady encroachment eastward. And they've been watching this very carefully, of course.

LL: Christian Leuprecht, how do you respond?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Well, this is what NATO has decades of experience doing, which is to contain Russia. What NATO is meant to do, what it does best: and this is essentially signaling. The comparison here isn't perfect, but in Kuwait in 1990, there's a lot of people who argue that if the Americans had put a couple of thousand Marines in Kuwait, then Iraq would have never invaded. And we have clear signaling by NATO when it comes to the airspace over the Baltics, and when it comes to the sea, but we haven't had a clear signaling when it comes to what NATO is prepared to do on land. And so sending a battalion is about the smallest commitment that NATO can reasonably make should look credible without really going any much beyond needlessly agitating Russia.

LL: So do you think it's a good idea?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: I think this is a decision that NATO has effectively taken, and so Canada can either stand on the sidelines, or it can try to have influence over the means and ends of this particular decision. Canada is a significant-sized ally. We're working with some of our closest allies, the U.S., the Brits, and the Germans here, and given that the Germans, I mean, this is a country that's not known for either expeditionist adventures or an offensive culture in recent decades. So given that the Germans are stepping up here, I think this has a lot of benefits for Canada. Aside from the immediate effect that we tactively achieve on the ground.

LL: Scott Taylor, what should Canada do?

SCOTT TAYLOR: If we're throwing back in history, I mean, of course, the Germans were allied with the Baltic states against the Soviet Union, World War II. And the idea about putting U.S. Marines into Kuwait to thwart the Iraqi invasion, in fact, that was a very ambiguous statement made by the U.S. ambassador at the time giving Saddam Hussein basically the green light. He asked if they would get involved if he was to do that, and he said they had no position on Arab-Arab affairs. So I mean essentially, there was no intention to deter Saddam Hussein back then. But anyway, as far as the current situation goes, I don't think there's any need for us to push troops up against the border. I think that the Russians-- I mean, if you look at their defense budget, in total, it's about 42 billion USD, which is dwarfed by the U.K., Germany, France-- all spend more than that. The Americans spend $569 billion on defense: it's about 20 times the number is spent on NATO combined against Russia. So to think he's going to provoke or be an aggressor in these circumstances is absolutely ludicrous, I mean, that's just crazy.

LL: But NATO is going ahead with this mission. Canada is part of NATO, is it not obligated, then, to take part?

SCOTT TAYLOR: No. In fact, there's like 28 member nations, and we're going to be one of four. I don't see why Canada, being one of the furthest away from this particular Baltic state, would be the one that would step up and do this first. It's a very large commitment of our resources: we don't have that many troops. We have nine infantry battalions. If we have a battalion plus placed in the Baltic, we're going to have one battalion training to go there, one deployed, and one just coming back. So it's going to be essentially a little more than one third of our resources committed on a permanent basis, which I don't think is a very wise move.

LL: What does Canada stand to lose if it since troops over there?

SCOTT TAYLOR: Well, we probably should be doing other things besides provoking the Russian bear. And I mean, looking back, it's been five years since the Libyan uprising, and we took a lead role in deposing Muammar Gaddafi, and that country's been plunged into a complete state of violent anarchy. No one's talking about fixing the mess that NATO made there and they should be. This is something which is affecting everybody, including Europe with the migrant crisis, they're pouring out of Libya. That country is in complete chaos and ISIS has got a foothold there, and no one's talking about going back and fixing it. Instead, we're going to go and deploy troops on the northern front against Russia. We're not at war with Russia. Let's put that aside for now. In fact, Russians are helping in coordinating with the very same Kurdish forces in northern Iraq that we're training. We're standing side by side in northern Iraq with these guys, and then we're going to send troops up into the Baltic to just make sure that there are deterrents, makes no sense.

LL: Although, Canada is not formally in any kind of an alliance with Russia. But Christian Leuprecht, Scott Taylor raises this point about how unrealistic he thinks it is to expect Russia to actually do anything. How do you view that?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: Well, but that's exactly the point. So this is arguably that Canada's deployment to Germany during the Cold War was Canada's most successful peacekeeping mission overall, given the amount and the extent of that particular deployment, because ultimately, it did not result in war. And it's going to be much cheaper for us to may have a small footprint on the ground and try to avert a confrontation that could be strategically and in all other ways extremely expensive for Canada. gives the Canadian Army an important leadership role, which the teen army has not had on a consistent basis since it withdrew from Cyprus. There's a multinational leadership experience, it allows Canada to punch above its weight. There's a risk of lurking U.S. isolationism after the change in the presidency, and so this is a way of also making sure the Americans stay committed here. And let's remember, also, that if there was sort of a confrontational provocation on one of the Baltic states' borders, we want to make sure we have some leverage over how those states respond. And so being part of an alliance also means not just to be able to defend allies, but also have some control over how those allies respond. It also, if the Russians decide to deploy more forces along that border, it means we're stretching Russia's forces and defense spending which means that those forces that are then ultimately not available to Russia to try to cause mischief elsewhere. And for Canada, there's really no downside here. We have virtually no trade with Russia. It might make things a bit more difficult on the Arctic issues overall, but the Russians and the Americans, despite the antagonism, for instance, in Eastern Europe, have coordinated somewhat reasonably well in recent months when it comes to Syria. And so I think this will likely be a long term deployment, but it's about as limited as Canada can with about 500 troops, that has comfortable benefits for Canada and for the alliance overall.

LL: You're talking like it's a done deal.

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: From a NATO perspective, it is certainly a done deal. I don't want to speak for the Canadian Government here, but I think we're sandwiched in between the Brits and the Germans, both with whom we have the largest sort of liaison, and the interactions within Europe are already plussed, and the Americans taking the leadership most likely on the on Poland. So in that sense, I think there are only upsides to this, and for Canada, virtually no downsides. And the cost is relatively small, and sends a significant and important signal to the Russians.

LL: Scott Taylor, I'm sure you heard Murray Brewster talking before we brought you on and saying that there is debate within government about whether this is the right thing for Canada to be doing, especially with this government's promises about peacekeeping missions. Do you expect Canada to say yes?

SCOTT TAYLOR: I think it already is a done deal. I think this is all just window dressing now for us to be asked, I mean, we've been selected by the NATO Secretary General, the Grand Poobah himself is asking for Canada in particular. But I think the decision was already made, and it's unfortunate, because I mean even, just as was mentioned that there was there was no trade with Russia, that's absolutely insane. The Russians were both to buy five billion dollars' worth of aircraft from Bombardier before the latest wave of sanctions over the Ukraine. So there is a whole whack of potential, and there's a whole lot to be lost by Canada continuing to provoke and to push against the Russian Bear.

LL: What else stands to be lost?

SCOTT TAYLOR: In terms of committing our military resources, I mean, as I said, we've only got nine infantry battalions, and if we commit one, that means we're committing three to the ongoing rotation, and that means quite a big chunk of what we have as a reserve for future involvement.

LL: Do you think deterrence is ever a worthwhile thing to do?

SCOTT TAYLOR: The very deterrence is the fact that NATO is committed to the protection of all the member states in terms of their sovereignty, and that's there, that's a given. Unless people think that NATO's not going to act upon it if the Baltic states are invaded, which is crazy. And of course, if it does happen and Russia goes mad and invades and sends tanks into the streets, I mean, how far beyond that is nuclear war? I mean, that's always a possibility while both Russia and NATO both maintain nuclear arsenals.

LL: Christian Leuprecht, how big of a risk is it that this deterrence effort could transform into a real war?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: I think without deploying, there's a much greater risk of maneuvers: either by Russia that might attempt to cause further division and strife within Baltic countries within NATO and within the E.U., or possibly also an overreaction by any of the member states in that particular region. And so this is about as opportune a peacekeeping mission as Canada's going to have, in terms of making sure that we retain unity and stability, not just within the old Europe, but also with a new Europe. And Canada, of course, has been chastised for not being active enough in Eastern Europe. And so I think this is a sensible commitment for Canada to consider engaging, and it gives the army important leadership, multinational leadership experience and credibility, that currently it does not have on an ongoing basis in the way this opportunity offers.

LL: I wonder, though, how you sell it to Canadians who saw Canadian troops go into Kandahar, and believed and were told it was going to be a short mission, and then it became a years-long mission where many Canadian troops were killed and injured?

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: I'm under no illusion that if the government decides to deploy here, that this will be a deployment that is likely going to last many years, similar to Canada's deployment during the Cold War to Germany and to other European countries. And I think that was a successful deployment overall, if you look in the history books, and I think this is exactly the contribution that Canada is making here to NATO, and to do exactly what NATO was meant to do, and why Canada joined up with NATO to begin with.

LL: Scott Taylor, very briefly. Do you think Canadians will be willing to accept this?

SCOTT TAYLOR: I think this is going to be something that people won't even give a second thought to. I mean, they're going to send them up there, whether on a training exercise, or wherever they need to deploy the troops. They're not going to be in harm's way, because World War III is not about to happen. So I think it's not really much of an issue for them, for the public.

LL: Well, thanks to both of you. Bye bye.

SCOTT TAYLOR: Bye bye.

CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT: It's been my pleasure.

LL: Christian Leuprecht teaches political science at Royal Military College and Queen's University. He joined us from Kingston, Ontario. Scott Taylor is the editor of Esprit De Corps military magazine, and he was in Ottawa. We want to hear your thoughts on this - do you think Canada should send troops to join the NATO mission? Send us an email by going to our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent. Find us on Facebook or Twitter, @TheCurrentCBC.

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June 20, 2016 full episode transcript

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