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The Current Transcript for November 3, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

I used to have high anxiety, hypervigilance, depression, all that stuff. And you know I still do have it for the most part but I'm able to control it now.

AMT: He’s not the only Canadian veteran who says medical marijuana has helped him deal with the psychological fallout of being deployed in the decade -long Afghan war. In fact, Veterans Affairs paid out more than $12 million in marijuana prescriptions over nine months last year. As the minister reviews the issue and considers what may be stricter rules, there's real disagreement among medical professionals on the benefits of cannabis, especially for those with PTSD. We'll hear the debate in half an hour. Also today, she was instrumental in breaking the story that rocked Quebec—corruption and collusion among construction industry bosses, unions, politicians and organized crime. And this week, Radio-Canada’s Marie-Maude Denis and several other journalists learned police were tracking their phone calls and texts in response to a complaint from a former union boss.

SOUNDCLIP

You take things for granted in our democracy and you can't take these things for granted like basic principle of freedom of press.

AMT: We are looking at the surveillance of journalists by Quebec police and the implications for press freedom across the country in an hour as we follow up on the stories we've been tracking. But we're starting with a tragedy that shadows too many First Nations communities as their young people take their own lives.

SOUNDCLIP

It's really difficult to lose another youth to suicide. We are in a crisis situation.

AMT: We are asking what separates Indigenous communities that have high suicide rates from those that do not. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Finding solutions to the youth suicide crisis in Saskatchewan

Guests: Corey O’Soup, Chris Lalonde, Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux

AMT: Six young girls—the youngest was just 10—have taken their own lives in the past month in northern Saskatchewan. The latest was on Sunday when a 13-year-old girl from La Ronge took her own life. Karen Sanderson runs that Piwapan Women's Centre in La Ronge. She spoke to the host of As It Happens, Carol Off.

SOUNDCLIP

If we could just focus on just certain factors, that would be so much easier, but the girl in La Ronge was you know off the reserve. She was loved by her family, adored by her family. They worked so hard to provide and it just shows that nobody is immune. No matter what community setting you’re from or class setting or racial setting, nobody is immune to this.

AMT: Well, amidst the shock and sorrow in the wake of these deaths, are calls for change and calls for more supports in northern communities. The Saskatchewan premier, Brad Wall, has pledged to do more to help. Today we're asking just what can be done to truly address this and put an end to this crisis. Corey O’Soup is Saskatchewan's advocate for children and youth, a job he only began this week. He calls the youth suicide crisis his first priority. And we have reached him in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Hello.

COREY O’SOUP: Hello.

AMT: What's it been like for you listening to the stories of the most recent suicides in Saskatchewan?

COREY O’SOUP: You know it's such a tragedy for our young people but unfortunately it's not a new story, so you know we just have to deal with it as it comes.

AMT: Well, you're driving north today into some of these communities, are you not?

COREY O’SOUP: Yes. We are in Prince Albert right now. We’re heading up to La Ronge to spend the day up there and to meet with some of the local leaders and hopefully some of the frontline workers.

AMT: What are you hoping to find out?

COREY O’SOUP: You know I think we just want to you know listen and learn and just hear their stories and we just want to pledge our support to the community that our office is there to make sure that the supports continue, that the resources continue. So different things like that.

AMT: Well, what do you think is going on?

COREY O’SOUP: You know I mean for me, I look at it and it's a mental health issue I believe. I mean that's part of it. I mean that's not the only piece. But you know our kids are suffering from mental health issues and it doesn't matter you know how much money you have or how much money you don't have. It's a tragedy.

AMT: And this is not the first state of crisis after a wave of youth suicides. Why do you think the existing response is failing to make a difference?

COREY O’SOUP: You know I would say right now that we're doing a good job responding to the crisis. But you know you can't fix the problem overnight and it’s going to take a long time to do this. And you know the spotlight is on right now. The governments are coming together to support the north, to support the families and the communities. So I really feel like right now is our opportunity to make a difference.

AMT: And so when you go up there, who do you need to listen to?

COREY O’SOUP: You know number one, we need to listen to the students, to the kids, to the children and the youth. And they're the ones that are going to tell us you know what's happening and why things are the way they are. We, as adults, you know sometimes we think we know what's best for our children and we always come up with solutions without asking them. And I think that's the first place that we need to go and our solutions aren't going to come from Regina or Saskatoon. They're going to come from the community. They're going to come from the parents. They’re going to come from the local leaders. They're going to come from the elders.

AMT: How do you think your own background helps your work on this?

COREY O’SOUP: You know being a First Nations person, you know I've walked in their shoes. I continue to walk in their shoes. I grew up on a reserve facing racism, facing the same type of barrier. So I know where they're coming from and it opens up different doors when you are First Nations and you have that same background.

AMT: And you're a dad too, huh?

COREY O’SOUP: You know that strikes close to home. I have five children of my own. Three of them are teenagers and you know we talked to them about suicide and about bullying and about all those different issues and yeah, it really does strike close to home.

AMT: So you're going up there today to speak to people and to talk to the young people as well. How do you—you want to make this a priority. What else will you be doing in the first days?

COREY O’SOUP: You know I think the biggest thing for us is working with the government you know and that's part of what my role is going to be, is to ensure that they are continuing to support, that they're not missing anything. And not only that piece, it's the creation of long term plans, long term solutions, long term resources so that it's not just December and everybody leaves but it's sustainable.

AMT: Okay. Well, Corey O’Soup, thanks for speaking with me.

COREY O’SOUP: Oh, thanks, Anna Maria.

AMT: Corey O’Soup, Saskatchewan's advocate for children and youth. He's in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Just took over that position this week. My next guest studies the factors that influence youth suicide rates in Indigenous communities. Chris Lalonde is a psychology professor at the University of Victoria and we have reached him in Victoria, BC. Hello,

CHRIS LALONDE: Good morning.

AMT: First of all, what does separate Indigenous communities that have high suicide rates from those that do not?

CHRIS LALONDE: Well, in our research we looked at suicide rates in British Columbia and now Manitoba and first of all, I just want to thank Cory for the work that he's doing and thank you for raising this really important issue. We've looked at suicide rates, as I said in British Columbia and Manitoba, and what we're trying to do is figure out why it is that some communities don't have youth suicide and others have really high rates of youth suicide. And part of the problem with the media reports is that whenever there's a crisis, the headlines seem to support a view that there is an epidemic of suicide in the Indigenous population. And I think that's a really sort of dangerous kind of headline to promote because it suggests that Indigenous youth are somehow at higher risk of suicide just because they're Indigenous youth. And that's wrong. And the evidence shows that there is incredible variability in suicide rates across communities and so, trying to figure out why it is that some communities have high rates and others have low rates is I think really important to trying to address this issue. And that's been the focus of the work that we've been doing over the last 20 years.

AMT: Well, so you've looked at suicide rates by band and you found that what, in more than half have no suicides.

CHRIS LALONDE: That's right. That's right and I think that's really important. I think there's a really important lesson to learn there. How is it that those communities have somehow managed to protect their youth from the risk of suicide?

AMT: And so what did you discover as you looked closer?

CHRIS LALONDE: Well, what we found was that those communities that have enjoyed the most success in being able to hang on to their cultural traditions and control of their own kind of civic and political futures are the ones that enjoyed the most success in protecting youth and creating environments where youth can grow and flourish.

AMT: So you're talking about the sense of self and culture in a community.

CHRIS LALONDE: Absolutely. And so things like the success of preserving traditional languages, success in terms of attaining self-government, of attaining and maintaining access to traditional lands and territories, you know controlling things like the education of the young people in the community or police and fire services or health services—all of those things when communities are able to control those things, youth suicide rates fall.

AMT: So they affect the wider communities’ sense of its own culture and its ability to have control affects individual sense of self?

CHRIS LALONDE: Well, that's what we think. We think that in those communities that have been able to do things like create cultural facilities within the communities, to create brick and mortar buildings where cultural events can happen, that those are communities that enjoy success. And I think it’s reflective of the fact that if you grow up in a community where people think that those kinds of things that are important, that maintaining the culture and controlling how we as a culture move into the future are important, that that promotes you know cultural identity and supports youth health.

AMT: What about factors such as housing and unemployment? How does that factor in?

CHRIS LALONDE: Well, we did look at things you know for instance, unemployment is an interesting one because we looked at you know all of the kind of traditional measures of sort of economic success: so labour force participation, percentage of transfers of income from government, highest education level attained. And it turns out that those things don't actually correlate very well with youth suicide. So you could argue that you know maybe most First Nations are having difficulty in those areas and so you wouldn't expect it to be related to suicide. And it's not. So I think in some ways that's just an indication that if this was a problem that could be solved by just creating jobs or something, it would have been solved a long time ago but it hasn't. And so I think it's less an issue of economics and more an issue of culture, that to the extent that we can support communities in their efforts to promote culture, we can promote health.

AMT: And if a community's identity and culture has been systematically eroded, how do you go about trying to recover that?

CHRIS LALONDE: Well, I think that's the issue that all communities are facing. So if you are an identifiable culture, how is it that you somehow managed to keep your culture together and move into the future? And I think the answer to that is always the same for all cultural communities: it's how do you maintain your kind of cultural traditions? How do you pass them on from one generation to the next? And how do you control the collective future of your community moving forward into the future? And so what you need then, is clear ways of passing the culture onto the next generation and clear ways of controlling your own kind of civic and political future. And if we can support First Nations communities in their efforts to do that, we create the kinds of communities in which youth value their own lives and avoid the kind of risks and dangers of things like suicide and other bad things that can happen to young people.

AMT: And so in the communities that you've identified that can do that, what should we be learning?

CHRIS LALONDE: Well, I think I suppose there's two things and I want to kind of follow up a little bit on what Corey had to say. One is that there are going to be crises in communities and you know may happen far too frequently in this country and we need to have the resources at the ready to deploy to those communities to help them get through those periods of crisis. But more importantly, we need to step back and ask what is it that we can do as a society, as a country, to support communities’ efforts to do the things that they need to do, which is to kind of create a life and a future that's supportive of their youth. And so if we really want to help communities and if we take seriously the fact that to the extent that we support cultural goals, we support health, then we have to ask what is it that we're doing in the long term as a society to support those goals? So how are we—for example we know that in communities where traditional languages are important, that's a protective factor for youth. So what can we do to support the revitalization of traditional languages in communities across this country?

AMT: Chris Lalonde, there are lots to think about there. I've got someone else waiting in the wings to pick up on this so thank you for your thoughts today.

CHRIS LALONDE: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

AMT: Chris Lalonde, psychology professor at the University of Victoria. We reached him in Victoria, BC. La Ronge, Stanley Mission, and Deschambault Lake in Northern Saskatchewan are the latest Indigenous communities grappling with a crisis of children taking their own lives. Earlier this year, the Nishnawbe Aski Nation in Northern Ontario saw 16 children take their lives. Last week, Carolyn Bennett, the minister for indigenous affairs appointed Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux to be her special representative on child welfare. Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux comes to the new position with a long history of working with Indigenous youth. She co-founded the Canadian Roots Exchange and holds the chair on Truth and Reconciliation at Lakehead University. She is in our Toronto studio. Welcome.

CYNTHIA WESLEY-ESQUIMAUX: Good morning.

AMT: What do you think of what Christopher Lalonde was just saying there?

CYNTHIA WESLEY-ESQUIMAUX: I think that I can certainly agree with much of what, well, I think everything that he said and also O’Soup, that there are some real strong issues that we have to deal with in terms of identity, that these kids need to know who they are. And I think that in the other piece though, that they didn't speak about that I think is really important here is also the legacy impacts. And the legacy goes back to the historic trauma that was experienced in many of our communities, especially in the north where it hasn't necessarily been adequately dealt with, of Indian residential schools, of forced removal from lands, of being stuck on small postage stamps as opposed to using traditional territories and being on the land and taking the kids on the land.

AMT: Well, and in fact he talks about the lack of, where there's an erosion of a sense of culture. That was actually the intent of some of that, right? It was to get to wipe out that culture.

CYNTHIA WESLEY-ESQUIMAUX: To wipe it out. And then some of the stuff that's been—out of coming out of that is of course the reaction in the children and some of the pieces that people have picked up to try to help themselves get past the legacy which is sometimes those addictions. The alcohol—I know that there's a book that just came out about firewater in those varied communities.

AMT: Yes. And we’ve had that gentleman on, yeah.

CYNTHIA WESLEY-ESQUIMAUX: Yes. So you know people are saying we have to deal with the legacy piece, we have to deal with the identity piece. There are things like suicide clubs in those communities that we're becoming more aware of. The psychologists are talking about the kids are telling them about on Facebook and private places where they're talking about suicide. There's a lot going on. And then in addition to that, I just came back from the Banff Centre and one of the things that Phil Fontaine said also says to me as somebody is looking at child welfare, 25 years ago we tried to open the conversation up on sexual violence as well, which is also a legacy piece in many of the places that we're talking about. And he said he was shot down by the chiefs at that point in time, although many of them came to him later on and said actually, I was also molested in residential school and I have had those experiences in my community. So we have to look at—it's not just about what's right in front of us that we can see whether it's about economics or education. It's also about what's going on underneath all of that.

AMT: So given the work you've done with youth in various communities, what are we getting wrong in how we're addressing this problem now?

CYNTHIA WESLEY-ESQUIMAUX: Well, I think that Corey was right. We have to talk to the kids themselves. We've got 28,000 kids in care. We've got we've got thousands of kids that are aging out of care that have been in foster care and I've heard them say and they've said to me you know yes, I was taking from my mom because she beat me but then when I was put into foster care, I was beaten by foster parents. I was raped by foster fathers. And when I tried to tell people what had happened to me, they called me a liar. And now that I'm out of there and I'm 19 years old, I’m going to go back to school and I'm going to help those kids because it doesn't seem that anybody else is. So they need to be heard. They have a lot to offer this conversation because of the experience, very upfront and personal that they have had in foster care and in dealing with adoptive care and being removed from their communities or even living in cities.

AMT: You know we always hear about a need for more “resources.” How do you deal with that? Because that comes down to money. How do you decide where the money goes?

CYNTHIA WESLEY-ESQUIMAUX: I think the communities have to put some input into that. And so we want to go from the ground up. We want to talk to the grandmother circles. We want to talk to the youth and community about the kinds of needs they have and where the gaps are from their perspective. We need to talk to the agencies, the Indigenous agencies, the non-Indigenous agencies, the child advocates’ offices. We need to talk to a lot of people here. And I know a lot of research, good research has been done and recommendations have been made. We're not trying to throw those out. We're actually trying to implement those. What we want to do is we want to look at all of that and say what is the 100 most important things—you know short term, mid-term and long term—that have been recommended and how do we implement those right now and how do we do it in a way that's going to make sense to the communities and the kids themselves?

AMT: So you have to identify the communities, the individual communities and really like laser focus.

CYNTHIA WESLEY-ESQUIMAUX: Dig right in.

AMT: Right? Right?

CYNTHIA WESLEY-ESQUIMAUX: Yes, absolutely.

AMT: Because what we just heard our last guest say not every community is facing this and we need to stop thinking that this is every community as well.

CYNTHIA WESLEY-ESQUIMAUX: That this is every community. Because some of the communities are incredibly successful and they are already doing child welfare reform. They're calling it child well-being in many instances. They’re not calling child welfare, they're calling it well-being. And there are communities that are doing some really terrific work and so we want to identify those communities and we want to help them continue to do the great work that they're doing. And the communities that are struggling, we're going to try to get them the help that they need whether it's from inside the community or whether it's a local college-university setting that's going to help them put together a plan. We want them to do the visioning exercises in their own community so they can talk about where they want to go. Where are we at? Where do we want to go? How are we going to get there?

AMT: We're talking about youth suicide in Indigenous communities. Is there something to learn in wider Canadian communities?

CYNTHIA WESLEY-ESQUIMAUX: I think so. I think kids are kids. I think kids have a right to be heard and their voices traditionally have not been. And I think it's very important that we speak to kids from all backgrounds because when we start to separate children from each other and say well, we're going to deal with this bunch and not that bunch, we're actually setting up more racism. We're setting up more difference. And I think we need to say let's bring all kids into a circle and have them all talk about their experiences. We do that in the north when we talk about language. All kids get Ojibway, not just the little brown kids. All of them take it. And I think that that's the way to do this. If we're going to have reconciliation in this country, which is another piece that we're talking about here, it's the kids in this country that are going to carry that forward.

AMT: Thanks for coming in.

CYNTHIA WESLEY-ESQUIMAUX: Thank you.

AMT: Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux is the minister of indigenous affairs special representative on child welfare. She joined me in our Toronto studio. Stay with us. The news is next and then we're talking about PTSD and Canadian veterans. A growing number are turning to medical marijuana for help. We'll hear from one of those people in our next half hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM and online on www.cbc.ca/thecurrent.

[Music: Sting]

Veterans say medical marijuana helps treat PTSD

Guests: Robert Martin, Dr. Matthew Hill, Dr. Deepak Cyril D’Souza

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, police surveillance of journalists in Quebec. More cases have come to light now, including some of the leading lights of CBC's French language service, Radio-Canada. In half an hour, I'll be joined by the executive director of the CJFE, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, who says he's not surprised. But first, a new weapon in the war against PTSD.

SOUNDCLIP

What does medical cannabis does for my husband? It changes life. Medical cannabis helps him cope with his PTSD on so many levels. People need to put the stigmas down. They need to open their heart and their mind. They need to acknowledge the facts.

AMT: Well, that's the wife of a Canadian Forces veteran and her testimonial is part of an ad for a company that connects people to medical marijuana. Increasing numbers of Canadian veterans have been doing just that to treat injuries including PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. An Auditor General's report in May found the number of veterans using medical marijuana increased from just over 100 to more than 1,300 in the space of three years. And the costs are significant—Veterans Affairs paid out more than $12 million in marijuana prescriptions in just nine months of 2015. That's about one-third of all drug payouts to veterans. There are concerns that some may be abusing the system but it's important to know that the prescriptions for medical marijuana have ballooned, fewer vets are being prescribed opioids and tranquilizers than before. The minister of veterans affairs has launched an internal review into the matter. The results are expected this month with stricter rules around prescriptions expected. In the meantime, many former soldiers say that medical marijuana helps them cope with PTSD and they include retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert Martin. We have reached him at his home at Cranberry Lake, north of Kingston, Ontario. Hello.

ROBERT MARTIN: Good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: Now before I ask you about medical marijuana, I want to hear a little bit about your story. How long did you serve in the Canadian military?

ROBERT MARTIN: A little over 34 years. I joined in 1976.

AMT: And you did two tours in Afghanistan?

ROBERT MARTIN: Yes, I did. The first tour was with Colonel Pat Stogran’s battlegroup: the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in 2002. And the second was in 2008, 2009.

AMT: And how would you describe that time in your life?

ROBERT MARTIN: That's what I trained for. I felt like I was the right person doing the right job in the right place although it had its—what would be the word? Collateral impacts on my life and the life of my family.

AMT: Well, if I look at those times, 2000 to 2009, there were a lot of soldiers dying around then.

ROBERT MARTIN: We lost 25 soldiers on my watch alone. Canadian soldiers, not counting countless British and US and Afghanis and Afghan citizens. Yeah, it was a tough time.

AMT: You say on your watch.

ROBERT MARTIN: Well, I was there for 10 months. I was in a very high level intelligence circle and I think within the intelligence domain, we all felt it personally. Every death we looked at it as what did I miss? You know what piece of the needle in the haystack that I overlooked that would potentially have saved their lives or taken out the bad guys who placed the IUDs?

AMT: And did those questions follow you home then?

ROBERT MARTIN: [laughs] They haunted me, absolutely. Concurrent with that was also—which was a big factor for me—was the kidnapping of your colleague Mellissa Fung in October of 2008. That was a difficult time. We were still fighting the war heavily in southern Afghanistan in Kandahar province and she was not in the south, he was in the north so it was a greater challenge for us.

AMT: You were part of the intelligence team, were you?

ROBERT MARTIN: I was, yes.

AMT: And so at some point, you were diagnosed with PTSD. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

ROBERT MARTIN: Certainly. I came back in February of 2009 and my wife at the time realized something was drastically wrong but I wouldn't listen. Anger, restlessness, a lack of sleep. So in the fall of 2009, I had lost 35 pounds in about six weeks. I'd failed a Canadian Forces physical fitness test for the first time in my 34-year career. I felt that my career was over because of that, I was no longer a leader because I could not lead from the front, lead by example. And one of my friends said go see a doctor you know. And on the night of December 2009, I did go see a doctor and in the discussions I broke down and she said well, Rob, you know this may not be just you and I said thank god. It was a relief to know that there was perhaps something else that was causing this.

AMT: And so what happened after that? Did the doctor actually use the term post-traumatic stress disorder?

ROBERT MARTIN: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I got into—I started taking medication—I called them pharmaceuticals at the time—for clinical depression and then the therapy started shortly after that. Well, I didn't have therapy since and I'm still on medication. I left the military in the fall of 2010 and started a job in the public service which I sustained for a couple of years and then I could no longer—I could just no longer cope with my injury. In the interim I also left my family. It was more a survival issue. So yeah, a lot happens in that period of time. I felt like a total failure. Failed my family, failed my country, failed my service, failed my branch, failed myself.

AMT: How desperate did you get?

ROBERT MARTIN: Suicidal desperate. Even up until last year. Have I attempted? I'm not sure if I would say I've attempted. I've done some pretty close reconnaissance on how I would end my life and I'm very grateful to be here. But by the grace of god, go I.

AMT: And this was that you were you were getting treatment but it's a long journey, right?

ROBERT MARTIN: Oh, it's a long journey. At this point, Anna Maria, I can say that I'm blessed by my injury because it's given me a lot of insight into my own character and myself that I never would have looked at otherwise. I mean I think, again speaking just for myself, we're on a quest for inner peace. If we can find that, and I'm slowly getting to that point, it is a beautiful journey.

AMT: Hmm. How has medical marijuana been part of that journey?

ROBERT MARTIN: I was initially reticent to consider that but I was on a very highly addictive sleep sedative called Zopiclone. It is a sedative that depresses the central nervous system and it leaves you in a fog. So you're not really functioning enough in a capacity that you'd like to be or that you were before. I started medical marijuana in February of this year. And just for sleep. A very small dose. I was prescribed one gram a day but my goodness, I would use maybe a quarter of a gram per night and vaporizing. And within two days I was off my highly addictive chemical sleep sedative and was using medical marijuana. You immediately become tired and go to sleep and it's a restful, restful sleep with no side effects in the morning. You don't wake up groggy. You don't wake up slow. You don't wake up with cognitive dysfunction. It's beautiful. Sleep, Anna Maria, in PTSD or coping with illness or injury is critical. If you don't have it, you don't survive.

AMT: So you're one of those people who would have been counted in the so-called ballooning of medical marijuana prescriptions but also your prescription for pharmaceuticals dropped and disappeared.

ROBERT MARTIN: One of them did, yes. I mean I would be happy to be off all of my medications but that's just not possible right now. I mean none of us wants to be medicated but it keeps us on the right side of the grass. I mean that's the significance and I recommend it to my friends. Absolutely. Why not try it? Like what harm is going to be done?

AMT: What's the reaction?

ROBERT MARTIN: Well, there's skepticism. I mean there's still a stigma associated with the use of medical marijuana, marijuana in general. I mean I grew up in the seventies. It was weed or grass or dope and I mean as a commanding officer within the Canadian army, I kicked soldiers out of my unit and out of the forces for illegal drug use, marijuana being one of them. I look at it now as being rather ironic that it's part of my part of my health, my process and my life.

AMT: Now the minister of veterans affairs is currently reviewing the departmental rules around medical marijuana. What would you like them to know then about the drug?

ROBERT MARTIN: I would like them to know from, again from my perspective, that it is a powerful medication for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Keep supporting us please. It's beneficial for the soldiers.

AMT: Well, Rob Martin, I wish you well. Thank you.

ROBERT MARTIN: Thank you very much, Anna Maria. It's been a pleasure speaking with you.

AMT: Rob Martin is a retired lieutenant colonel with the Canadian military. He was at his home on Cranberry Lake, north of Kingston, Ontario. Well, the medical community is divided on the effectiveness of medical marijuana as a treatment for PTSD. Dr. Matthew Hill is an associate professor with the departments of cell biology, anatomy and psychiatry at the University of Calgary. He's also a member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute. Dr. Matthew Hill joins us from our Calgary studio. Hello.

MATTHEW HILL: Hello.

AMT: How much evidence is there about using marijuana to treat PTSD?

MATTHEW HILL: I think a lot of people wish there was a lot more to be honest. I mean I think as is the case with pretty much everything regarding medical marijuana and any condition, there's generally a paucity of any well-controlled, very informative clinical studies. But at the same time, this is something I think very similar to the story we just heard that there has been anecdotes coming out about from war vets in Israel and the United States and Canada for quite some time. And within the last few years there's actually been a very small little bit of clinical trials actually done by the Canadian military looking at the efficacy of kind of a synthetic version of THC from cannabis and its impact in symptoms of PTSD. And what's interesting is actually very similar to the story we just heard. The data that they've seen with their small sample size has been really regarding the ability of cannabinoids to improve sleep and reduce nightmares and have quite a beneficial effect on the syndrome in the context of those symptoms especially.

AMT: Well, how does THC, that active ingredient in marijuana then, affect the brain?

MATTHEW HILL: THC largely exerts its effects through activation of what we call cannabinoid receptors so they are receptors in the brain that—they obviously weren't built for THC. Very similar to the way that endorphins are kind of the brain's natural version of morphine, the brain makes its own similar version of a molecule that behaves somewhat like THC. And so in the brain normally, release of these kind of endogenous versions of THC are very important and buffering aspects of the stress response.

AMT: Okay. And so help us understand the biology of the brain, how that stress response maybe changes with PTSD? Like what's the connection here?

MATTHEW HILL: So I think as is the case with all aspects of stress, a lot of the impact stress has on someone is due to the way that they perceive the environment around them. And there's a lot of complex circuitry in the brain that's involved in kind of ascribing emotional salience to the different aspects of the environment. But I'd say in the context of PTSD, where a lot of research is focused, there's this little part of the brain called the amygdala which primarily acts as somewhat of a threat detection centre. And this is a part of the brain that generally neuroimaging studies in humans have found shows hyper active levels of metabolism and activity in individuals that have anxiety disorders, especially PTSD. And I think what's interesting in the context of what cannabinoids are doing is that both clinical work using imaging studies, as well as animal work looking at electrical communication between nerve cells in this part of the brain have both demonstrated that activation of cannabinoid receptors by either endocannabinoids, the brain's version of it, or through THC both seem to reduce neural activity in this part of the brain, the amygdala, that's involved in generating kind of states of anxiety and fear.

AMT: So in your opinion, should veterans like Rob Martin be able to access marijuana to treat PTSD?

MATTHEW HILL: I would certainly say it's a reasonable option for people to investigate and I think when you hear stories like Rob’s, they're very compelling. I have a lot of psychiatrist friends. Not being a clinician myself, I don't have experience actually in directly treating patients but a lot of psychiatrists that I'm friends with have said very similar stories from their patients where they've been on a slew of medications that have had little to moderate efficacy at best. And when they've tried using cannabis especially in the context of what Rob was saying, right before bed, they found that their patients claim it's more effective than almost anything else they've done. I mean as with everything, it certainly doesn't seem to be an across the board response. This isn't what everyone says but that's not surprising. There’s a lot of variance in who responds to what kinds of medications.

AMT: Well, Dr. Hill, stay with us. I want to bring someone else into the conversation. Dr. Deepak Cyril D'Souza is a psychiatrist who works with veterans. He's a professor of psychiatry at Yale University. He serves on the physician's advisory board for the state of Connecticut’s medical marijuana program and he joins us from New Haven, Connecticut. Hello, Dr. D'Souza.

DEEPAK CYRIL D’SOUZA: Hello. Hi.

AMT: How would you evaluate the scientific evidence that exists around medical marijuana as a treatment for PTSD?

DEEPAK CYRIL D’SOUZA: So I think we have a paper out two months ago looking at the evidence for PTSD and we used a system that’s widely accepted called the green system. And in our opinion—not our opinion, in our careful evaluation—we find the evidence is actually very low to support the use of cannabis in the treatment of PTSD. I think that when I talk about evidence, I think there are different kinds of evidence. There’s some very compelling evidence that we’ve heard from the colonel, which I would say is anecdotal evidence. On the other side of the spectrum is the double blind randomized placebo controlled trial which provides us the highest quality evidence and that's the kind of evidence that we have relied on as physicians over the last 20 to 30 years. And that's the kind of evidence that's used by regulatory agencies like the US FDA and other Western agencies to approve drugs for use by large groups of people. And I think if we're going to make decisions about medications that might be used by large groups of people, then we need to rely on the highest quality evidence and that highest quality evidence is that double blind placebo controlled randomized trial. And to date, there are no double blind controlled randomized trials with marijuana. There are studies with components of marijuana such as THC. There are studies with Nabilone, which is a synthetic cannabinoid, but there are no studies with marijuana, the entire plant. And I think that's an important distinction to be made between the entire plant of cannabis or marijuana and its isolated components. I think that the governments need to provide the resources for investigators to conduct the kind of studies that would yield the high quality evidence that we need to be able to make the decisions that are going to have a bearing on large swaths of the population.

AMT: So these studies aren't going on through pharmaceutical companies, so you're saying the government should just—should actually pay for them and get it done.

DEEPAK CYRIL D’SOUZA: Well, there may be studies going on by pharmaceutical companies, small pharmaceutical companies, but one of the arguments that I've heard is that the reason there's no evidence out there is for example in the US, the US government has made it very difficult for researchers to conduct these studies. And so what I'm saying is that if the government wants to make decisions about approving medical marijuana for veterans or for anyone, they need to pony up. They need to provide the resources, give researchers the money and resources to get large studies done with adequate sample sizes.

AMT: So what would you tell Canada's minister of veterans affairs as he reviews the government's policy of reimbursing veterans for medical marijuana?

DEEPAK CYRIL D’SOUZA: I would say we need more evidence. So what I'm not saying is that this may not work. What I'm saying is that we need the kind of evidence, the highest quality evidence, that looks at both efficacy and safety.

AMT: Dr. Matthew Hill, what do you think?

MATTHEW HILL: I mean I completely agree with the fact that the evidence is lacking from a clinical perspective and that it's required. And I also agree that it's the onus of the government to be picking up the slack here, to be funding research like this. And I think that these are the kind of things that should have been happening in Colorado and Washington with revenue that was generated through the sale of cannabis and I think it's something that should definitely be happening in Canada with the kind of impending changes and legalization that are going to be occurring. I would say it's absolutely necessary. But at the same time I would say in the absence of that evidence being there, I think that there is there is a bit of an ethical conundrum here in the sense that you have a very significant number of individuals who have basically said the exact same thing repeatedly, which is the level of efficacy they've had from using a drug such as this relative to the other options that they've had. And I think it's very difficult and questionable from an ethical standpoint to go back to those people and say I'm sorry but that is not accessible to you because we just don't have the evidence as of yet to tell you that your personal experience in the situation is not relevant for your treatment.

AMT: Dr. D'Souza, have your patients reacted to marijuana?

DEEPAK CYRIL D’SOUZA: So yeah, so I should point out that we did a very large study involving about 2,000 patients where they looked at people with PTSD, veterans with PTSD, who were hospitalized for specialized PTSD treatment. And they looked at those who were using before those who were not using and what happened to them after they completed the study. And we surprisingly found that despite anecdotal evidence that marijuana might help, when you look at group data it looked like those who continue to use or who started using marijuana actually had worse outcomes. So this was a substantial, a fairly large sample study done by Wilkinson and Rosenheck that was published earlier this year. So there are some patients who do come to me and ask me for a medical marijuana card. And what I tell them is that I think the evidence is not quite there for me to recommend this for medical reasons as yet. Perhaps in a few years we’ll have the kind of evidence that would make me comfortable prescribing or certifying someone for medical marijuana.

AMT: At the same time, we've heard that fewer veterans are being prescribed opioids and tranquilizers as the numbers of medical marijuana have gone up. And could one not also question the efficacy of opioids long term?

DEEPAK CYRIL D’SOUZA: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I don't—I haven't seen that evidence, that convincing evidence that since the introduction of medical marijuana, the rates of opioid use have gone down. That is something that has been reported from time to time but I don't think there's enough evidence to back that up.

AMT: Matthew Hill?

MATTHEW HILL: I mean I agree. I've heard this lots. I can't say I've seen hard data on it. Although the one thing I'm familiar with was in the state of Colorado at least, in the first year where marijuana had become legal, the actual number of opiate overdoses I thought had actually gone down quite significantly in terms of—it’s obviously correlational data but that was the closest that I'd heard with respect to that. I mean I will also point out that like Dr. D'Souza is saying he is a clinician and I am not. So it's very different for me to stand where I am and you know express my opinions about what I've seen in the science versus having a patient in the office so I can understand the position that he's in as well.

AMT: Dr. D'Souza, are there negative effects that medical marijuana can have then down the road? Is that what you're saying?

DEEPAK CYRIL D’SOUZA: Absolutely. Like with all drugs including opioids and many other psychotropic drugs, we have to balance efficacy with safety. And to say that or to support the notion that medical marijuana is completely benign is—it would be doing people a disservice. There are significant side effects that some people are more vulnerable to. There's also, as Dr. Hill would tell you, the idea of tolerance and dependence that develops both in animals and in humans. And so the idea is that if you continue to use the medical marijuana, cannabinoids, over time, you will become tolerant to it and you will require greater doses of it. There's also data that there’s cross tolerance between opioids and cannabinoids that I’m sure Dr. Hill will tell you about. So I think there are side effects. My concern is also the message that young people get, especially adolescents who use cannabis. There are significant side effects that one needs to be aware of.

AMT: You know but we're having this conversation at a time when opioid abuse is off the charts in both Canada and the US—fentanyl deaths related to opioid abuse. In that context, where does the issue of medical marijuana fit in?

DEEPAK CYRIL D’SOUZA: So I think that's pretty good evidence that medical marijuana might have a role in the treatment of neuropathic pain. And I think it's pretty clear that the side effect profile of medical marijuana might be favourable relative to opioids. And so I would say that in that particular condition, there's a role for medical marijuana in the treatment of neuropathic pain. Yeah.

AMT: It brings us back to the point that you both make is that we need more studies and we need governments to step up. [chuckles]

MATTHEW HILL: Yeah.

AMT: Okay. Well, we have to leave it there. Thank you both for weighing in on this today. I appreciate your time.

MATTHEW HILL: Thanks.

DEEPAK CYRIL D’SOUZA: Thank you.

AMT: That's Matthew Hill, associate professor in the department of cell biology, anatomy and psychiatry at the University of Calgary and a member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute. Dr. Hill is in Calgary. And Dr. Deepak D'Souza is a psychiatrist who works with veterans. He's a professor of psychiatry at Yale University. He joined us from New Haven, Connecticut. The Veterans Affairs Canada is reviewing the policy. We did ask for an interview. The ministry is not available but we have received a statement saying the minister consulted with medical professionals, license producers, stakeholders and veterans beneficiaries and that Veterans Canada will continue to monitor developments and adjust the approach as required. That's part of the statement that they sent us. If you want to weigh in, go to the website www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. Find us on Facebook. Go to Twitter. We are @thecurrentCBC. And stay with us. Dave Seglins is waiting in the wings. He is our Friday host and we're going through your tweets, posts and e-mails. We're talking about the stuff that we've been talking about all week. This is The Current.

Surveillance of journalists 'makes Canada more dangerous'

Guests: Tom Henheffer

AMT: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to The Current.

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VOICE 1: I think we have to stop seeing everything as potentially infectious and it’s going to kill you because this is a hangover for the last century of hygiene we've had.

VOICE 2: I was almost hit by a car. I like just like saw it as I got up. It scared the crap out of me. [laughs] I stopped using my phone while walking because of that.

VOICE 3: You know there is no crime at all when you threaten criminals with death. You destroy my country, I’ll kill you. If you destroy our young children, I will kill you. That is a very correct statement.

AMT: Well, some sounds of the past week here on The Current. As always, we’ve received lots of feedback about all the stories we’ve been covering. And here to help me go through some of your emails, tweets and posts is this week’s Friday host. Dave Seglins is an investigative reporter with CBC News. You’re back.

DAVE SEGLINS: Good morning. Happy Thursday.

AMT: Happy Thursday to you. Let's get to it. Tuesday, we talked to microbiologist B. Brett Finlay—the author of Let Them Eat Dirt—about how too much cleanliness is actually harming our kids.

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The areas we're finding these microbes help our bodies develop is they train the immune system. If you look at curves of let’s say, Western society diseases—so I’m including things like asthma, like allergies, like obesity, like type two diabetes, like inflammatory bowel disease, like depression, like stress, like anxiety, like autism—these things actually all have microbial links and only recently we’ve started to realize this.

DAVE SEGLINS: Well, after that interview, we asked you to write in with some of the most disgusting things that your kids has ever put in their mouths. And a warning to those of you might still eating breakfast” you might want to put down that cereal spoon for one moment.

AMT: That’s an ick factor alert. It’s amazing when we ask for participation—the stuff we can get. Meredith Powell tweeted: “My two-year-old got on her hands and knees and licked yogurt off the floor at McDonald's.” Okay. @kidsincapital wrote: “My kid once removed her diaper and tried a sampling of her own poop. She promptly gagged.”

DAVE SEGLINS: Ugh. Irene Kim tweeted: “We don't use hand sanitizer and are okay with our toddler mouthing things, but this weekend I put my foot down when he licked the pavement. Yuck!” Debbie Buott-Matheson from Brookfield, Nova Scotia wrote: “When my oldest son was about eight months old, he ate cat vomit. Surprisingly I did not freak out. I now have three boys. So, eating dirt, grass, bugs—you name it—is pretty standard!

AMT: Can I go on the record? I have never eaten a bug, okay?

DAVE SEGLINS: Nor cat vomit, I hope.

AMT: Let’s move on. [laughs] It came as a shock earlier this week when it was revealed that Montreal police had obtained a warrant to track the cellphone of Quebec journalist Patrick Lagacé. Then, yesterday, word that at least six other Quebec journalists have been tracked by police including Radio-Canada investigative reporter Marie-Maude Denis.

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It’s a widespread practice. With the facts we have now, it was a widespread practice. And I have no information that there was any consequences for our sources so far. But we should keep in mind that this is a very serious matter and we should get to the bottom of it.

AMT: Marie Maude-Denis of Radio-Canada’s Enquête, investigative program, instrumental in breaking the story of Quebec corruption in the construction industry that had tentacles into unions, politicians and businesses and organized crime. So to help us get to the bottom of what's been going on in Quebec and what it means for freedom of the press, I'm joined by Tom Henheffer. He is executive director of the CJFE, the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. He’s in our Toronto studio. Hi.

TOM HENHEFFER: Hello.

AMT: So give us a better idea of what actually came to light.

TOM HENHEFFER: So originally there was one journalist which is Lagacé, who was being spied on and that came out a few days ago. And now it's turned out that there were an additional two journalists that were spied on by the SPVM, that's the Montreal police. And then three journalists from Radio-Canada, that's the Enquête journalists, who were spied on by the SQ, which is the Quebec provincial police, the Sûreté du Quebec.

AMT: And when you say spied on, what were they actually doing?

TOM HENHEFFER: They were looking at the phones, at their phones’ metadata. So they weren't listening to the cell phone conversations but they were able to identify everyone that they were calling which in this instance basically means that they were easily able to determine who their sources would have been within the police or within anything else. It goes to show there's often an argument in Canada that metadata isn't data, it's data about data and that's completely false. Whereas listening to someone's conversations can tell you what they're saying in a traditional wiretap sense, seeing people's metadata can tell you what they're thinking and what they're doing and where they are, where their location is, who they're talking to. Everything from political affiliation to religious affiliation to who their friends are, their family, what their job is. All of that can be revealed through metadata.

AMT: And in fact in the case of Patrick Lagacé, they were actually following—they made it clear they were following the GPS signals of the phones as well.

TOM HENHEFFER: Yeah. They were actually tracking where he was and once you have a warrant for metadata, you can get that kind of information, no problem.

AMT: So I mean they were looking for leaks in the police department. Basically they were looking to see who was talking to reporters and who was meeting where.

TOM HENHEFFER: I mean we live in a post-privacy world where there is such a lack of oversight and such the ability, so much impunity within these police forces that they can—they're literally using a legal warrant process. This is legal what the police did. This isn't illegal. This isn't bad actors. This was approved by a justice of the peace. To track journalists so that they can determine who's giving information to them so they can stop information about wrongdoing from police forces from getting out to the public. That is not what's supposed to happen in a democracy. That's not what police forces exist for. That certainly isn't what the warrant process is for. This is a huge abuse of process. But it's completely legal under the current system which shows there needs to be legislative changes.

AMT: And Montreal Police did say their investigators violated no rules, that this was exceptional circumstance or exceptional situation. What is required to police to get a warrant for this type of information?

TOM HENHEFFER: For this it's plain and simple: they just go to a justice of the peace and they ask for it. The warrant process—they didn't go to a judge. They went to a justice of the peace. So basically if they suspect anything they can go and they can get it approved. And we live in—you know the culture has shifted so much in the past five, six years around this thing that cops—they can get a warrant for anything. This was a complete fishing expedition. There was no real justification for it. But that doesn't seem to matter and it doesn't matter that these reporters hadn't committed a crime. The very fact that there was you know some potential crime somewhere because some police officer may have been breaching their duty by leaking this information was enough for them to get the warrant. There needs to be a higher threshold.

AMT: How representative are these revelations of police surveillance in Canada generally?

TOM HENHEFFER: This is just one more smoking gun in a year that has been full of smoking guns. I mean we have—you know this comes at the same time as it was revealed that police in BC are using IMSI- catchers or sting rays which are basically like a suitcase sized thing you can put in a car and then it masquerades as a cell phone tower. So every cell phone in the area pings off of that briefcase instead of going to the cell phone tower which allows—cops actually have the ability using these—we don't know which type exactly they have in Canada because there's no transparency around it. But they can listen to phone calls. They can intercept text messages and change text messages before they go out. And this is something that every cell phone within a kilometre or two kilometre range of these things goes to that. So they're collecting data on thousands of innocent people who have nothing to do with these investigations. It comes at a time when there have been revelations that CSC and CSIS have been tracking Canadians’ metadata all across the country and sharing it with other government agencies and even other countries. And at the same time you also have you know this comes in the country where we had the Juliet O’Neill case in Ottawa where her stuff was seized by the RCMP. There's also been cases where in Ottawa, a journalist was being tailed by the police.

AMT: Well, there’s a VICE journalist as well who’s—what’s going on there?

TOM HENHEFFER: Yeah, and of course Ben Makuch is the national security reporter at VICE and he's refused to turn over his notes to the RCMP about an interview we did with an alleged terrorist. And he's facing jail time as a result of that and CJFE and the CBC are both intervening in his case. But the prosecution is fighting it tooth and nail and there's a real chance that he could wind up in prison. There is such a lack of respect for press freedom in this country. It is horrifying. And Canadians do not realize that this democratic institution that is so incredibly important is really, really suffering and in a lot of trouble and that there needs to be serious, serious change.

AMT: And well, what is it in the law that allows this now? Is this part of Bill C-51?

TOM HENHEFFER: No. This was authorized—I mean what's happened with Bill C-51 is there's been a culture shift. We now live in a post-privacy era. It is now expected that police will be able to spy on anyone at any time. And that's a problem. But this was before Bill C-51. So police had these powers before that came into place. Now that this is in place, things are going to get even worse. And not only that, but under the new green paper that's come out from the Liberals, we’re engaged in the process we're trying to—the government has asked us to come in to advise them on how to modify the national security legislation. There's no guarantee that they're going to listen to us. But if you have a real careful read of the green paper that they released, it looks like they want to get police agencies even more power without any effective oversight. Things are really going in the wrong direction.

AMT: So police say they need this for security but if we go back to the Quebec case, this is about police trying to figure out who's leaking and one news story talked about the police talking about a culture of leaks that they needed to stop within the police departments. And of course it was police leaks partially that led to the Enquête stories and the La Presse stories also that led to the Charbonneau commission of all that corruption.

TOM HENHEFFER: And we gave Enquête an award for that at our gala in 2012, I believe. But yeah. Police should be concentrating on ending corruption in their ranks and working on corruption in political players in these provinces, not on trying to stop leaks. And they say that they need this for security. There has never been an eminent terrorist threat stopped by metadata collection. That has never happened. What does get stopped? Sources get chilled from speaking to journalists. Whistleblowers won't come forward because they're afraid that police are eavesdropping on everything journalists say and their identities are going to get found out and they're going to get fired. That's what this stuff chills. It chills the—it makes it impossible for journalists to do their job which means democracy suffers and the public suffers, the dialectic suffers. It does nothing to make Canada more secure. It just makes Canada more dangerous and it breeds corruption and it puts things underground and it makes whistleblowers fearful. And if we keep going in this direction, journalism is in a really hard spot in Canada and not just journalism, but all Canadians’ privacy.

AMT: Okay. Tom Henheffer, thanks for coming in.

TOM HENHEFFER: Thanks.

AMT: Tom Henheffer is the executive director of the CJFE, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. He's in our Toronto studio. The Current requested interviews with Montreal police and the Sûreté du Quebec. We did not receive a response. Let's go on to another story we brought you this week. Monday, we walked right into the controversy around pedestrians using smartphones while out on the streets. Toronto city Councillor Shelley Carroll told us she's advocating for a ban on distracted walking.

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Everyone has that close call and then you question it and you stop doing it. But for those who just have close call after close call, like the ban on using your cell phone behind the wheel of the car, we’re starting to see that we may have to impose the same thing on the pedestrian. A ban generally isn’t enforced every minute of the day, but what it does give us is a wide and resourced education program. And that’s what we have to do: educate people that this can be fatal.

DAVE SEGLINS: Well, a lot of you took steps—pun intended—to make your voices heard in this discussion. Alex Johnson from New Westminster, BC, wrote: “The focus on distracted walking is classic blaming the victim. No distracted walker ever killed anyone except themselves. Catherine Spezowka from Langley, BC agreed: “I was furious to hear city Councillor Shelley Carroll's remarks about banning distracted walking. Pedestrians should not be scapegoated for poor infrastructure and even poorer driving.”

AMT: Aaron Glover from Kelowna, BC, disagreed: “The real problem is that pedestrians feel as though it doesn't matter where they are, they have the right of way and vehicle traffic should bend to their will.” Gordon Mack Scott shared this story: “Once,” he writes, “while my car was stopped at a red light, a young guy on foot, fully engrossed in his phone, cut through the stopped traffic and walked right into my fender, face planting on my hood. His phone went flying. He picked himself up and cursed me loudly.”

DAVE SEGLINS: And finally, Chuck Dyck from Winnipeg had a different idea on how to address this problem: “I think it is time to make smartphone manufacturers responsible for making their products more safe,” he writes. “A smartphone is dangerous if used while moving - whether in a car, on a bike or walking. All smartphones have a GPS in them. The manufacturers could program them so that if the operator is moving, all screens and keyboards are disabled.”

Amnesty investigates impact of resource development on Indigenous women

Guests: Connie Greyeyes

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Tracking the story.

AMT: Amnesty International is releasing a report today into the impact of resource development projects on Indigenous women and girls. The study looks specifically at the situation in Fort St. John in northern BC. It's documented some serious risks to the lives and safety of local Indigenous women. It is something women in the community have known for some time. Connie Greyeyes is from the Bigstone Cree First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Alberta. She's a local activist in Fort St. John. It was her work that first led Amnesty International to begin research in northeast BC. Connie Greyeyes joins me now. Hello.

CONNIE GREYEYES: Hello. How are you this morning?

AMT: Well, I'm well and I'm curious to know what you are seeing around you. Can you describe the resource development underway around Fort St. John?

CONNIE GREYEYES: If anybody was to travel down the highways, in any direction they see the impacts of resource development right from the sides of the road with you know pump jacks on the side of the road. There is many access roads that have you know hundreds of signs on them from local oil field businesses directing employees which roads they happen to be working on that day. If you go to the lookout point here in Fort St. John you can see the results of the site C dam off to the right—the clear cutting that has already occurred. It's a terrible thing to see on a regular basis.

AMT: And how has that changed your community?

CONNIE GREYEYES: You know with these big projects that are approved and come into the community, comes a lot of transient workers from all over and they come to Fort St. John and they start working here and make tons of money. You know entry level jobs in the oil patch pays really well. You know for a 19, 20-year-old kid coming to a community like Fort St. John with money to burn so to say, it's a dangerous mixture. You know they’re people that don't owe anything to this community. Act as they please.

AMT: Do they move into the community for like months at a time or how does that work?

CONNIE GREYEYES: Yes. Our hotels are generally filled with workers that come for 24 days on, four days off, that kind of structure, right?

AMT: We're talking predominantly men, right?

CONNIE GREYEYES: Yes. Yes.

AMT: Okay. And so when you talk about dangerous mix, what are you—spell it out for me.

CONNIE GREYEYES: I’m referring to you know even on the weekends, even when I was still a drinker and that, you know we would go out and there would be the bars filled with people that are not from here. Lots of money, you know partying. And it's a dangerous mix for our young women in the community you know. Lots of times I've spoken to women who have been assaulted by complete strangers and when you're from a small town, you know everybody. As an Indigenous woman who also you know frequents the Women's Resource Centre to volunteer and things and we see it on a regular basis.

AMT: Well, who's coming into the women’s centre? What are their stories? What are they telling you?

CONNIE GREYEYES: You know about assault, they talk of you know strangers being attacked and not wanting to go to the police because nothing will get done or they might get in trouble. You know we're talking about vulnerable people being put into even more vulnerable situations with the influx of workers that frequent Fort. St. John during the wintertime when the industry really starts to get going you know.

AMT: You actually have worked in the oil industry, have you not?

CONNIE GREYEYES: I have. I actually used to be a medic on drilling rigs and service rigs when I was in my early twenties, mid-twenties. And I tell you, you know it's a man's world out there. It was very apparent. Even in our break room, there was plasters of naked women in what they call the dog houses. And you quickly learn what your place is there.

AMT: So you've seen it from all sides then, both as a worker and then as somebody living in the community and as an Indigenous woman obviously. How has your life changed over the years in Fort St. John?

CONNIE GREYEYES: You know I was just telling this to a good friend of mine the other day that I remember the days when we could walk down the street and we weren't scared of being attacked or having nasty things said to you as you're walking about—being native or you know the Indians on the streets, the bums. And I've seen this community change so drastically. My children—I don't even allow them to walk to school anymore. I don't feel that it's safe. I am so worried that something is going to be said to them or they're going to be grabbed. You know when you're dealing with families and having interactions with the families that I have, with their children missing or being murdered, it's really hard not to have that fear that it's going to happen to you or your children. And when you live in a town such as Fort St. John where there is such a huge number of people that do not live here that are here working, it's a scary thought.

AMT: You made the point that—you mentioned missing and murdered Indigenous women. Do you know women who have disappeared, who have been murdered?

CONNIE GREYEYES: I do. I do. I have some close friends who have been murdered, who are missing currently. And that's how this whole thing started. You know I want to know where Ramona and Stacey and Shirley and Pam and Sandra were. I wanted to know what happened to them.

AMT: How many women do you know who went missing or were murdered?

CONNIE GREYEYES: I know Ramona Schuler who's currently missing. Stacey Rogers was a close friend of mine as well who went missing when we were both 15 years old. Shirley Clethroe was a friend of mine who I used to play cards with and chum around with. Pam Napoleon is somebody that I knew quite well as well. I know her children. Sandra Calahasen. She was a family friend. She used to babysit us. And I also used to babysit her children.

AMT: I was just going to say that's a lot of women that you just named.

CONNIE GREYEYES: There's families that have more than one family member who is missing or who’s been murdered. My nephew Christopher was murdered a few years ago here in Fort St. John. You know and there's something going on. And if this report raises awareness and causes somebody to say—hey, what is happening, you know there's some things that we need to bridge gaps on here—then all of it is worth it.

AMT: Connie Greyeyes, thanks for raising your concerns.

CONNIE GREYEYES: Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity. I really appreciate it.

AMT: Connie Greyeyes from the Bigstone Cree First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Alberta, local activist in Fort St. John, BC. Amnesty International releases its report today.

DAVE SEGLINS: Well, we have time for your reaction to one more story. This one from yesterday's show about Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and his war on drugs that's left thousands dead. We spoke with Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phelim Kine.

SOUNDCLIP

You know President Rodrigo Duterte took office on a platform promising Filipinos that he would rid the Philippines of crime, criminality and drug within six months by whatever means necessary. And he made campaign promises such as promising to fill Manila Bay with the bodies of thousands of executed suspected criminals. And he is delivering on his campaign pledges with a vengeance. We have seen President Duterte and senior members of his government incite, encourage and praise police to take action against suspected drug users and drug dealers, essentially giving them a license to kill.

DAVE SEGLINS: Well, after that we heard from Peter Lavina, deputy cabinet secretary in President Duterte’s government who argued that these killings are not in fact government policy.

SOUNDCLIP

That was taken out of context. The president way of saying things is very unique. The only way you deal with criminal syndicates is to be tough against them.

AMT: Well, many of you wrote in with your thoughts on that segment, particularly about the interview with the government's representative. Emily Silbert tweeted: “Wow. That was a shocking and eye-opening piece of journalism. Thank you for not letting your interviewee off the hook.”

DAVE SEGLINS: But Helen Akol wrote in support of the government's actions: “In order to control and solve the worsening drug problems in a developing country, you have to get down to the root cause to eliminate it. It's unfortunate that dealing with these undesirables involves drastic measures. I was deeply offended by the remark you made against the Philippines officials who are trying to put right what seems to be a hopeless, ever-growing problem.” Bill Tiessen from Crystal City, Manitoba though disagrees: “Duterte and his so-called war on drugs should be a cautionary tale to others who believe the answer to this societal ill is extra- judicial force and turning a blind eye to blatant violations of human rights and the rule of law. I fear that we have among us those who would cheer on this sort of tough-on-crime perversion and they would vote for a strongman like Duterte in a heartbeat.

AMT: Time to give some credit where credit is due. The week that was on The Current was produced by Idella Sturino, Shannon Higgins, Howard Goldenthal, Ines Colabrese and Lara O'Brien.

DAVE SEGLINS: Julian Uzielli, Josh Bloch, Pacinthe Mattar, Sujata Berry, Liz Hoath, Karin Marley, Kristin Nelson, John Chipman and Willow Smith.

AMT: Special thanks to network producers Alex Mason in Halifax, Susan McKenzie in Montreal and producer Jake Costello in Vancouver.

DAVE SEGLINS: The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Our technical producer this week is Jennifer Rowley. Our senior documentary editor is Joan Webber.

AMT: Our senior producers are Richard Goddard in Toronto and Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Kathleen Goldhar. Dave Seglins, what are you doing tomorrow?

DAVE SEGLINS: Well, in the Friday chair, one of the topics: how best to educate gifted children. Should they be part of a regular destreamed classroom or do they learn differently? And do we need special programs? And in a public system that’s struggling for resources, should they have classes of their own over say, special education for those who are struggling?

AMT: Ahh, it’s interesting, huh? Big question and it’s a money question too.

DAVE SEGLINS: It is a money question but it's also a education pedagogical question.

AMT: Okay. We'll be listening. Dave Seglins is an investigative reporter with CBC News. He is The Current’s Friday host this week. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for q, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Spice Girls’ debut album Spice and they're having a q listening party over the Spice Girls. Next week on The Current I'll speak with Colin Henthorne. He was the captain of the BC ferry the Queen of the North when it tragically sunk on the night of March 22^nd, 2006. He has rarely shared his story in public. You can hear him Monday as part of our project, The Disruptors. Now before we go, some say it was a miracle—after 108 years, the Chicago Cubs have broken the so-called curse of the billy goat and won Major League Baseball's World Series last night. After one of the most dramatic World Series games played, the Cubs knocked off Cleveland 8-7 in 10 innings of Game 7. One of the biggest Chicago fans out there is actor Bill Murray. He has been a constant at Wrigley Field during the series and he was beside himself with joy after his team won. Back in Game 3 of the series, he serenaded the crowd with his version of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” So we're giving Bill Murray the last word today. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

It’s the bottom of the seventh inning. The last chance to order a beer.

[Crowd cheers]

But we didn’t come here to drink beer. We came here to win this ball game.

[Crowd cheers]

I said to the Uber boy, I said take me out with the crowd. And in order to sing the right lyric, take me out with the crowd. You need to sing it like our greatest American entertainer: Mr. Daffy Duck. So I want you to spray it and don’t say it. A-one, a-two, a-three…

[Organ starts playing]

[Singing] Take me out to the ball game. Take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack. I don’t care if I never get back. Let me root, root, root for the Cubbies. If they don’t win, it’s a shame for it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out at the old ball game.

[Crowd cheers]

Let’s get some runs, suckers.

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November 3, 2016 full episode transcript

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