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The Current Transcript for December 8, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

I heard Julia down the hall, almost screaming saying we only came to help China and she was obviously, I could hear she was being taken somewhere, like, out of the building. And at that point I just thought, like, there's eight or ten policemen in the room where I am, I can do nothing.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: They were ambushed as they stepped out of an elevator. Two Canadians surrounded by Chinese intelligence agents accused of being spies in a country notorious for locking people up with no hope of due process. Julia and Kevin Garratt had made China their home for decades. Their two year ordeal would cost them their business, their home. Now back in Canada they're telling their story right here. And later, the training video for call centres insists the customer can do no wrong.

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Apologize an apology makes the angry customer feel heard and understood. You need to apologize to customers regardless of fault.

AMT: But the union that represents those workers says customers are increasingly verbally abusive. It says policies that force workers to listen to sexual, racist, violent taunts and are not even allowed to hang up are the problem. The push for employee protection down the line in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current.

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'We only came to help': Canadian couple imprisoned in China, accused of spying

Guests: Kevin Garratt, Julia Garratt

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: You may remember hearing the story on the news in August of 2014. Two Canadians who owned a coffee shop in China near the North Korean border were suddenly arrested, accused of being spies. It would be the start of a two year ordeal for Kevin and Julia Garrett. And in the process, they would lose three decades of life and work in China. And then, this past September we learned Julia was back and Kevin Garratt was also getting out of prison and returning to Canada. Julia and Kevin Garrett are now ready to talk about what happened to them. And they're with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

JULIA GARRATT: Hi.

KEVIN GARRATT: Hello Anna Maria.

AMT: I want to say welcome home but China has been as much a home to you as Canada.

KEVIN GARRATT: Yes it has been. We went there first in 1984 and stayed for 30 years.

AMT: Why did you first go to China, Julia?

JULIA GARRATT: Because we just graduated from University of Toronto, we were looking for what our next step would be. We were young, we'd heard all kinds of things about China and then we met my professor at university and another friend of a friend who had just returned from China. And we got really interested in the opportunity, they were in looking for English teachers. And so we got an invitation and went there.

AMT: Mm. Where did you settle?

KEVIN GARRATT: The first city we lived in was Changsha in Hunan Province. So south central China. It was actually the home of Mao Zedong, where he kind of grew up right near there.

JULIA GARRATT: And we were invited to work at the National University of Defense Technology. And in fact, we laughed about it so many times because we said they probably think we're the least likely to be spies. [laughs]

KEVIN GARRATT: [laughs]

JULIA GARRATT: And because we know nothing about science and technology.

AMT: What did they want you to do there, teach English?

JULIA GARRATT: Teach English to Russian teachers who were suddenly told that the language was changing that year from Russian to English as a focus. And so, under Deng Xiaoping’s leadership, they were inviting large amounts in their open door policy, large amounts of people to come in to teach English. So we went in there to do that and taught young students and teachers to teach English.

AMT: This was still in the eighties?

KEVIN GARRATT: This is 84, it was--

AMT: A lot of people weren't in there, so they knew you were there and they were happy to have you teaching English?

KEVIN GARRATT: Oh, they invited us. We sent an application in and they invited us and the place they chose for us to teach was the National University of Defense Technology.

JULIA GARRATT: At that time all the invitations went through a central office in Beijing and then they just distributed you wherever they felt they wanted you to teach. It was still a time of ration coupons, we received pay in ration coupons and a small amount of money. So we also were in that same kind of era of China's development at the very beginning.

AMT: That's extraordinary. So you saw the evolution of China from a very, like, clamped down communist society to what it is today. And of course, you've seen all sides of that and we'll get to that.

KEVIN GARRATT: Yeah, we've seen a lot. I mean, I like to tell people we were there before coke and sliced bread. It was just because it was. There was, everyone had a bicycle and there were very few cars around and everything was very very simple and basic.

AMT: What else was life like in China when you got there in those first several years?

JULIA GARRATT: The amazing thing was the hospitality of the Chinese people. And I think that's what attracted us. People had gone through so much in the Cultural Revolution. Their lives had been turned upside down in so many ways and yet they were so hospitable and so kind to us. And receptive, invited us for dinner. We were the first foreigners to work for the Chinese military since 1949. So they were just unbelievably kind to us and I think it really tugged into our hearts and we said, you know, we could give our lives to this. If there's a way we could be useful, why add one more teacher to the teaching pool in Canada when we had this great opportunity? And it was just something that went on and from then it developed into all different kinds of aid and projects that we got involved in.

AMT: You would come home to Canada right? But, like, how did that work?

KEVIN GARRATT: We came home, like, after the first year, we came back to Canada for about, I think, two months in the summer and they had invited us to come back again. So we decided we’ll go back for a second year. And taught at the same school, you know, some of the same students but lots of new students as well. And it was really, I think, in that second year we felt much more in love with China and just enjoyed really everything about it. And it was during that second year we decided I think we'll just stay here, you know. And I don't know what's next but we'll just keep on teaching or we'll see whatever, other things we can do.

JULIA GARRATT: And the school asked us can you find more teachers for us just like you? Because we really really enjoy the way you teach, the way you interact with students. And so, we said well, OK, we'll go back to Canada and we'll just, any connections that we have, people we know, we’ll see what we can do. And so then we also ended up helping them to find more teachers to work in different places in China based on that request. And we didn't come back often during that time because the salary was really low, equivalent of about 50 or 60 Canadian dollars a month ,which couldn't buy an airfare. But the teaching positions included a one way return fare after two years of service, so we basically did that at the beginning.

AMT: And so a one or two years turned into 30. And along the way you raised a family, you've got, like, four kids.

KEVIN GARRATT: Yes. Well, three of our children are Canadian, natural, and we adopted one young girl from China from an orphanage we were working in at the time.

AMT: OK and your kids were there with you growing up then over this whole time. So when did you move to Dandong, where in that process did you move?

KEVIN GARRATT: We moved to Dandong in 2007. We had known about North Korea, we had talked to, you know, to people about North Korea. I really felt well, we've done a lot of things in China at that point and we thought well, maybe we can do something with North Korea. There's a tremendous need there we heard. Both, not just for English teaching, but just aid and help. So we decided we’ll move to Dandong and see what we can do because it's right on the border with China and North Korea.

AMT: So that's well into your life in China. So between moving there and when you were working with the military and teaching English, what else were you doing?

KEVIN GARRATT: Oh, we did quite a few things. We lived in about seven different cities in China. So we taught English first, we worked in Hong Kong for a couple of years where we ran an office for an organization sending teachers to China. So we helped to administrate that. We started a training centre in southern China in Hainan Province. We started also a kindergarten in that school, the first in that province, the first bilingual English kindergarten as far as we know, at least in the southern China was that, we did that. We also started a couple of consulting companies as ways to work in China. And then later on 2007, we moved to Dandong and started a coffee shop.

AMT: Mm.

JULIA GARRATT: And so I think it was, we always tried to find the small towns, the smaller cities that were undeveloped. We at one time had a conversation in Beijing with the bureau officials and said where would you suggest needs the most help in just development, in terms of the welfare sector, in terms of education. Where any of the skills that we may have, which aren't that many, could be of use in getting things started that could be models that could be replicated in different places. We never did anything, you wouldn't find anything in China that would have our name attached to it. And we did that purposely, I mean, our goal was just to come alongside people with anything that we had learned in our education and in our background, in our experience and help set up small models that could be copied in China without a lot of expense. So we went to very small cities, not to any of the large cities, we were usually either the only foreigners in that city or just a group of a very few foreigners in that city. So that was really our idea and we felt because after so many years of doing that in China. I mean, China has developed so much since then, it can basically doesn't need that kind of help in the way that it used to and which is a success then. And we felt like we looked at a country like North Korea as perhaps a country where some of our experience and some of the way we operated, which was quiet behind the scenes sort of helping them set up models to reach international standards in orphan care or in seniors care or in kindergarten education, in university teaching and then we could apply that and maybe set up some models in North Korea. And that's the reason.

AMT: And to be clear, you did tell the Chinese authorities, you'd always tell them where you were moving?

KEVIN GARRATT: Oh yeah, whenever you move in China you have to register with the local police.

JULIA GARRATT: And any foreigner working in China is on what would normally be just the low level radar, what are you doing, where are you going, why are you here? But in this context, we were moved onto a very high radar which completely changed everything.

KEVIN GARRATT: And not even necessarily realizing it, just because, you know, the border with China and North Korea is sensitive to them.

AMT: So you get on a higher radar, this is before you get arrested obviously.

KEVIN GARRATT: Yes.

AMT: But now suddenly you're on a higher radar. Tell me a little bit more about Dandong though. First of all, what was the coffee shop like and what was that city like? What did you like about it?

KEVIN GARRATT: Well, Dandong again, is a smaller city. I mean, by Chinese standards there's a little less than a million. So I mean, it's still good size. [laughs]

AMT: Small, yeah, yeah.

KEVIN GARRATT: By those standards. It's one of the main trade routes to North Korea from China. So there's one bridge there, they've actually just built another one that does most of the trade, maybe 70 to 80 per cent of the trade with China and North Korea comes across that bridge. Our coffee shop was actually within sight of that bridge. And we wanted something, you know, obviously if you’re going to have a business, you want it in a, you know, high volume area. So we were basically on the boardwalk, where hundreds of people were, sometimes thousands of people, especially in the summer, would come along and they would come by our coffee shop.

AMT: That many people go across the border, eh?

KEVIN GARRATT: Not many people come across the border.

AMT: But they’re around there.

KEVIN GARRATT: They were around there. A lot of people, Chinese, will come to the border just to see North Korea.

AMT: Uh huh.

KEVIN GARRATT: Because in many ways, North Korea is what China was, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago, maybe 50 years ago in many ways. Foreign tourists, if they're traveling by train, will travel through Dandong, change trains there and get on a train that goes into North Korea. And we did that a couple of times ourselves.

JULIA GARRATT: And so our business model, we had sort of a small business model, to set up a business where people actually worked eight hours a day instead of longer hours, had two days off a week and which was quite rare at the time. And then, we also tried to raise awareness about special needs by offering trainings in special needs, people that were in the community and how to interact with them and provided special activities in the coffee house where our staff could serve as volunteers and maybe other people that came and attended our events could volunteer.

AMT: Special needs kids.

KEVIN GARRATT: Special needs.

JULIA GARRATT: Special needs kids. So that was one of the areas. And then orphan, connection with local orphanages. So we did on the ground there, some of the things that we were already used to doing. The difference in in Dandong would be that you have the multicultural flavour because you have a lot of North Korean minorities living there, as well as quite a large South Korean population. So you have Korean and Chinese nationalities and so the coffee house had a lot of open discussions about things like that.

AMT: So lots of people from lots of countries would stop in at your cafe, including officials, people on official business. Like, who would go by?

KEVIN GARRATT: Many many people. I mean, of course, lots of local people or else the business wouldn't fly. But we had, any time someone who was doing a story, reporter is doing a story in North Korea, they would come by Dandong and they'd find our coffee shop because we're very close to the border crossing into North Korea. We would get people from embassies who were in North Korea would stop by because we were very close for them. Also, we're right near the customs and that that came out. But also, we just had good coffee and good food. And really the only Western restaurant at the time there.

AMT: With the people who spoke English.

KEVIN GARRATT: Yeah, exactly.

AMT: Because obviously, by this time you also speak Chinese languages.

KEVIN GARRATT: Chinese.

AMT: What were you speaking?

KEVIN GARRATT: Mandarin, Mandarin.

AMT: OK.

KEVIN GARRATT: We studied Mandarin back in 1990-91 in Beijing. And so we, you know, built on that since then. But we got people also from say, the US consulate in Shenyang, which is about a three hour drive from us. Occasionally we got a couple of Canadian people, Canadians from the Canadian embassy would come by but not much.

AMT: You got the Canadian foreign minister at one point, right? John Baird?

KEVIN GARRATT: John Baird, yeah.

AMT: When he was foreign minister?

KEVIN GARRATT: I wasn’t there at the time, Julia had met him.

JULIA GARRATT: Yes. He came on, I don't know what his other business was. Somebody had asked on his behalf if one of us would be willing just to chat with him. But how that interaction happened in our city. So later, that became a bit of an issue.

AMT: OK. So now, you were going into North Korea as well then, what were you, like?

KEVIN GARRATT: The first time we went into North Korea, we went as a tourist. A year later or so, we were invited in to look at some seniors homes and kind of welfare institutions, just to see could we help. And, you know, that later on turned into working, visiting some orphanages and a school for the disabled and handicapped and offering help to them. We actually offered help for flood relief. It built from that.

JULIA GARRATT: So separate from our local business, we had an NGO, Canadian NGO, small NGO that was designed to do small aid projects into North Korea.

AMT: And again, no sneaking around here.

KEVIN GARRATT: No sneaking around.

AMT: You went through official channels.

KEVIN GARRATT: Absolutely.

JULIA GARRATT: You have to get everything stamped a hundred times and visas, passports and everything. And that’s how we went in.

KEVIN GARRATT: Yeah, and you have to go through, you know, all the customs in China, you have to declare, you know, absolutely everything that you're sending into North Korea. And so it was all very plain and clear.

AMT: Were you working with any religious groups or was it a secular project?

KEVIN GARRATT: Well, we came out of a church in Vancouver and that’s the church we’ve belonged to for the last ten or more years. And so they helped to fund that. People would donate to the NGO, which is separate actually from the church. And then those funds we would use then for development or aid work into North Korea.

AMT: And did anyone have a problem with that? With you using that, you know, sometimes they're touchy on both sides of that border about Christianity. Did you find that was an issue?

KEVIN GARRATT: We didn't, you know, say we're Christians we want to help you. But they did actually ask us are you Christians? We said yes. We're not trying to hide it, we're also not waving a flag.

AMT: So what do you think put you on the radar then. Like, you're in Dandong since 2007. When do you think, in retrospect, they had you on some kind of radar?

KEVIN GARRATT: Well, I think there's a number of things. During the investigation, which was actually quite brutal. They told me we've been watching you since you arrived. So that's fairly normal, they actually watch everyone who comes into China more than a few times. So we've been here 30 years, so obviously they're going to watch us. We lived in a sensitive area, the border with China North Korea is sensitive to them. We had a lot of people who came to the coffee shop who were to China very sensitive. People from embassies, reporters, things like that, you know, to us they're just customers and we just talked to them. We really didn't give it a second thought. Also, John Baird who came and met Julia, that became an issue. We also, CSIS talked to us when we were back in Canada, talked to me. But that was kind of a fairly routine thing, you go into North Korea, you have a visa in your passport. What are you doing in North Korea? Again, we told them, we run a coffee shop in Dandong. We’re doing some aid projects in North Korea. We're actually doing some aid in China as well, working with an orphanage. And very upfront, very open with them.

AMT: CSIS can be as suspicious as anybody then right?

KEVIN GARRATT: Exactly, so.

AMT: They want to know what you're up to, they see that in your passport. So take me to August of 2014, that's the day they picked you guys up. What happened?

KEVIN GARRATT: We'd gone out for dinner, we were invited by, through another friend, a couple wanted to talk to us about their daughter actually coming to the University of Toronto to study. That's what we were told. It was kind of a fairly routine, normal thing that we would do with people. And we got to the restaurant, this couple met us and the daughter wasn't there. And I thought well, that’s a little odd. And they said oh, she has a toothache or something like that. And then, it was kind of a, to me, it was a very over-the-top dinner. It was very fancy. You know, in a nice restaurant, and I thought well, OK, some people like to do that, they want to show off because they want a favour from you. So we're always slightly wary of that. After we finished the dinner, the normal thing for Chinese, they send you to the door, they show you off, they might even pay for your taxi if you're going home. But they saw us to the elevator and we went down. So I thought well, that’s a little odd. And as we came out of the elevator, I was just about to tell Julia that dinner was just a little odd, I don't know why but it's just odd. And then--

JULIA GARRATT: And I said to Kevin, oh there must be a wedding or something going on in this lobby, let's move over. And all of a sudden, we realized that there wasn't a wedding and they just suddenly grabbed us. And I didn't know what was going on and all of a sudden the video cameras were running and they grabbed us and stuffed me in a car, a black car with four men and I guess the same thing happened to Kevin. I never saw him again after that for months. And then, I didn't know if it was thugs, I didn't know if it was the police, I didn't know who it was. I was really terrified. I was, like, I honestly was like they totally took the wrong people. I don't know what this is but I think they must have made a big mistake and we started driving off in this black car.

AMT: So they were waiting for you as you got to the lobby in that elevator.

KEVIN GARRATT: Exactly, so.

AMT: Were you set up by that?

KEVIN GARRATT: We were absolutely set up, yeah. Which we didn't realize until later, you know, the dinner was a setup but we didn't know that.

AMT: So, totally, you're taken in separate cars? What happens?

KEVIN GARRATT: Separate cars. We were separated, we hardly had time to, like, I couldn't even call out to Julia. I was just quickly taken off, stuffed you into a car with two big burly guys.

AMT: What are you thinking at this point?

KEVIN GARRATT: I just like, petrified. I just like, what's going on? I mean, I just almost clammed up, like, you're shaking because, like, you see this in movies but it's never obviously happened to us. So we were very very frightened. And then, from there we're taken separately and we didn't actually know each other was in the same building, taken to the ministry of state security building. And I was taken to an office and later I heard Julia down the hallway. And they wanted me to sign this paper that said I agree to be investigated. And this went on for a number of hours because I'm wondering, like, what are you talking about? Investigate for what? Like, what's going on here, explain yourself. And finally they said well, you're accused of being a spy and we want to investigate.

AMT: And are you at this point Julia?

JULIA GARRATT: So I was in another room in that same building. And by the time I got to that building, three people came into the room and said you are a suspect in espionage. But they said in Chinese and I don't know that vocabulary. Like, I don't know spy vocabulary, so I was, like, sorry I don't understand what you're saying. And then they said a spy and I said what? You have like, totally must have the wrong people, like, I think you made a mistake. They then just took all my things, they stripped all my possessions, they took everything, my wedding rings, my earrings, they started, like, taking everything and I was just like sitting on this little cot, like, just like I was crying, they kept videoing it. I was, like, just I can't believe this is happening to me and then everything's running through my mind, like, my son is in the city right now because he was attending university in Dalian, a nearby city and he was home. And I was like what's going to happen? He's not going to realize we just disappeared. And I thought OK, well they’ll figure it out and then they'll take us home within a few hours. But after a few hours there, they suddenly stuffed me back into the car. And I'm like where are we going, is it far? And they're like we're taking you somewhere safe. And I was like, my heart is pounding and I'm like this is not looking good. I don't know what they're doing, am I going to live, am I going to die? I honestly was completely terrified. Nothing like this has ever happened to me in China.

AMT: There is so much more I want to hear about what happened to you. We have to break for the news. Please stay right here. We're going to pick up on this story and what happened to you that night. I am speaking to Kevin and Julia Garratt. Canadians, long time residents of China who were picked up by Chinese authorities and accused of espionage. The CBC News is next. And then Kevin and Julia will return, they'll continue their story right after the news in about five minutes. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come, call centre employees hear death threats and sexually explicit and racist comments from their customers. We'll hear about a new campaign urging them to just hang up on that abuse, in half an hour. But first, before the news I was speaking with Kevin and Julia Garratt, the Canadian couple who'd been living in China for more than 30 years, when their life came to a terrifying halt. In the summer of 2014, they were arrested and accused of spying. They were held by Chinese authorities. That was the beginning of a harrowing ordeal. And if you're just tuning in, you can hear the first part of our conversation online cbc.ca/thecurrent. You can also get it from our podcast, go on the CBC Radio app. Kevin and Julia Garratt are still with me. And Julia, we were talking about the night this all started. And you and Kevin had just had dinner with that other couple and on your way out these guys surround you and throw the two of you in separate cars. And then what happens?

JULIA GARRATT: So then they just started driving me in the car and I still didn't know exactly who was driving me because nobody was wearing uniforms. And they said, I said to the person beside me, I kind of whispered, like, who are you? And they're like think of us as the FBI. And I was like the FBI? This isn't even local police, like, I knew with like local police, they'd like figure it out because the local police always came to our coffee house just for coffee or just to make sure our fire system works or whatever, all the regulations. And I was just like this, like, I must be in a movie, like, I'm going to blink and wake up, this is not happening. And then about an hour later, we arrive at this compound. They had taken me like up the stairs and then all of a sudden there's this big locked door at the top of the stairs. And I'm like this is, like, looks like a jail and then they take you down to the very end of the hall and there's rooms on every side. There's all these rooms and you're in the very last room and you go in and then they're like this is where you're going. And then two guards were posted inside that room and basically the next six months I stayed in that room. In there all the time, the lights were on all the time. They never turned it off. The basically, the guards wrote down everything that was done, I did in a little book, like, she's saying, she stood up, she paced.

AMT: Are these male guards, female guards?

JULIA GARRATT: Female guards. I had female guards.

AMT: They’re in the room with you, the whole time?

JULIA GARRATT: Yeah, they’re in the room with you, you're just in a small room and they're sitting on a little couch and then you're just, like, walking around or sitting on the bed. The bathroom had a door but you couldn't shut it because it had the door knob off. And you're basically in there. That room was where I stayed for every bit of other time, other than when I was interrogated, which was like six hours a day and that was in the room right adjacent to it. So I walked like four steps and went into the next room for the interrogations and it was like six hours a day of that.

AMT: What would they ask you? What would that interrogation be like?

JULIA GARRATT: Basically, they asked everything. I was, like, OK, well if your whole life is an open book good, look at it. You can look at everything I've done and you can see everything. But, like, I was terrified because they just started, like, start when you were born. I’m like OK, you know, and it went from there to like every single person you knew and.

AMT: What language are they speaking?

JULIA GARRATT: They're speaking Chinese. So they tried to have an English translator but he spoke less English than I spoke of Chinese.

AMT: You must have been terrified. I mean, what kinds of things were you thinking, what did your body feel like?

JULIA GARRATT: Your body, you don't even realize what your body's going to do, it's just shaking and your mouth’s trying to talk and answer all these questions but you really just don't even remember right after you've made three sentences what you said. So you go in a room and there's three male investigators sitting there and you're sitting in a chair and you're staring at them and they just start firing all these questions at you.

AMT: Is there a table in front of that chair? Are you just sitting, like, just sitting in a little chair?

JULIA GARRATT: I’m sitting in a chair and they have a table in front of them because they have one computer and then the other person has a notebook and then the other person is the interpreter. And they wear uniforms for this, all the interrogation. So you feel, like, even more intimidated because they're wearing uniforms.

AMT: Any windows, any windows in that room?

JULIA GARRATT: They had a window in both rooms but they had a curtain, like, a big dark curtain covering it. And after a while, I just said you know what I'm going to die if I don't see any daylight. And they're like well, you can't go near the window, you have to stay a metre away from the window if we open the curtain. And then I went back into the room and they put plastic cover on the window so that it was opaque so you couldn't see through. The people on the ground that were there were told these are spies, treat them as spies, interrogate them as spies.

AMT: Did they hurt you physically?

JULIA GARRATT: No, they didn't. And that was part of what they said. We will not hit you. And they were very careful not to do that.

AMT: Did they threaten you though, verbally?

JULIA GARRATT: Of course, they used every other--

KEVIN GARRATT: [crosstalk] A lot of threats.

JULIA GARRATT: Way that they use. Kevin had fought for a Bible for us the first night and I didn't realize that until I met him later, just in September.

KEVIN GARRATT: Two years later. [chuckles]

JULIA GARRATT: But they handed me a Bible on the second day and said we have freedom of religion in China, this has nothing to do with your Christianity, here is your Bible. And they gave it to me.

AMT: So as she's being interrogated in those early days, what's happening to you?

KEVIN GARRATT: The same night we were arrested, I was, you know, taken to the ministry of state security building as well. After a few hours, it might have been 10, 11, 12 o'clock, I don't know what time it was, I heard Julia down the hall almost screaming saying we only came to help China. And she was obviously, I could hear she was being taken somewhere, like, out of the building. And at that point I just thought, like, there's eight or ten policemen in the room where I am, I can do nothing. And I just, I thought well, I guess I should sign this paper because I don't know what else to do. I mean, obviously they're not going to listen to me. They keep thinking I'm a spy and I'm not.

AMT: And the paper says what?

KEVIN GARRATT: I don't know. It was in Chinese. I don't read Chinese well, I can hardly read Chinese. I can speak, it’s OK. But they said it's you agree to be investigated. Well, like, if you're arrested aren’t you automatically investigated? So I didn't understand that and it wasn't really explained to me. And then as soon as I signed it, they put me back in a car and we had a three or four car convoy and they took me back to our apartment, which is a few kilometres away on the waterfront, on the river there and 18 security officials and some local policemen take me up to my apartment and they ransacked the whole apartment until five or 6:00 in the morning and they go through everything. They think I'm a spy and so they're looking through everything through all the spy material. They find our kids, you know, little binoculars and they think oh spy material. And I’m thinking no, it's our kids little binoculars they look out the window with sometimes. Five, 6:00 in the morning or so they say OK get some clothes for you and Julia and then we're taking you away. They never told me where or what was going on. It was at that point I picked up our Bibles and I said I want to take these too. The person in charge of what I could take, he said no you can't take those. And after some kind of debate, discussion they agreed and so they let us have them. So from day one we had our Bibles with them, which were a huge comfort. And that's what we had for months and months, that’s all.

AMT: But then they bring you back and they put you in solitary confinement as well? And are you in a room kind of like hers?

KEVIN GARRATT: Very similar. There's always two guards in there. There was a bed in there. There's a chair, a little kind of bedside table and a big clock on the wall, a digital clock that shined all night. Lights are on 24/7 and there's two cameras in the room always.

AMT: So you both had someone with you all the time.

KEVIN GARRATT: 24/7.

AMT: Like, that like not on the other side of the door.

KEVIN GARRATT: No no.

AMT: In the room.

KEVIN GARRATT: Right. If I wanted to go to the bathroom, which mine was down the hall, they had to come with me. If I wanted to brush my teeth, I had to ask them to go get me a toothbrush.

AMT: And did they hurt you physically?

KEVIN GARRATT: No, they didn't, but like Julia they threatened a lot.

AMT: What kinds of things did they threaten?

KEVIN GARRATT: The first threat was seven or eight years in prison. The second threat was execution. The third one was to be sent to North Korea. And they made me think that they had the ability to do that and they would do that. And these threats were not once, they were many many times they said these things.

JULIA GARRATT: So then I ended up becoming the main witness against my own husband in the end because they didn't have any other witnesses. And I wasn't, my witness would be did Kevin take this picture? Yes. But then in the way it was written out, it said Kevin took this picture in order to provide it for foreign agencies like CSIS and, you know, the US embassy and such and such. But that wasn't what I fingerprinted, I just fingerprinted this picture was taken by Kevin, and where did you see it? On his computer, yes. So it got so complicated and so difficult and probably we wrote thousands of pages of confessions. Every night after the interrogation of six hours, they gave us homework. And so the homework was either we need more detail, we need more detail, they kept seeing more detail. Anything that you could think of you'd write on this paper as the starting point for the next interrogations.

AMT: How did you cope through all of that?

KEVIN GARRATT: It was difficult. I mean, like Julia I cried, I was upset. I mean, I was shaking, I was terrified. My comfort was my Bible and Prayer. I would sing, you know, and they didn't really like that. They told Julia to do it quietly I found out later, they didn't say too much to me because I wasn't really singing loud. But those kinds of things, Prayer and reading the Bible was my comfort.

AMT: Were you able to engage in conversation with your guards at all or?

KEVIN GARRATT: At first no. For the first two, three or four months really, just necessities, you know, can I have a glass of water or something like that, and they wouldn't talk to me. I never knew their names, they just wore a number, everyone had a number badge on. After two to three months or so, there was a big change in my main investigator. You know, for the first two months I thought he was Jekyll and Hyde, you know, all in one. And one minute he's nice, the next minute he's really he’s kind of shouting and he's threatening. But after two or three months, all of a sudden I noticed a change. He just started talking nicely, like gently. And I think it's at that point they finally realized these guys really aren't spies but they're so far into this they can't change.

AMT: Are you getting any help from the Canadian Embassy at this point?

KEVIN GARRATT: The embassy for the first six months, they came every two weeks. They guarantee once every three months. You know, they do, they visit actually more often than that but that's their policy. The first visit was from a woman and very nice but more businesslike. It was about three days after we were first arrested. And she told me this, we guarantee every three months. But she said this is a little bit different case, so I'm not sure what will happen. And then after that, every two weeks they came but we could never discuss the case.

JULIA GARRATT: They didn’t come to where we were.

KEVIN GARRATT: No.

JULIA GARRATT: We were taken to where they were and that's why I think most people in Canada and the embassy thought we were in a government hotel in town. When we went to the visits, the Chinese coached us and said tell your country to do more because they wanted it to be solved. They knew it wasn't about us and we didn't know what it was about actually. And we were just like not until later on we realized oh there was another political situation going on, there was all sorts of things in the air but in there they just kept saying tell your country to hurry up and do what we want to do and we were like we didn't know what. And I'd say that to the embassy and then they would file a complaint saying you can't unofficially have a message coming out through Julia.

AMT: You’re, Julia, you're in solitary confinement like this for six months.

JULIA GARRATT: Mmhmm.

AMT: So that takes you from August into like--

JULIA GARRATT: February 3rd.

AMT: February, OK. You brought some stuff with you to show me.

JULIA GARRATT: Yeah. I just like, I'm a teacher so I thought OK fine, maybe I can start teaching the guards English. So I said can I teach you English? Well, they weren't allowed to talk to me so I would just do these lessons to them and they would just be sitting there as if they're listening because it used up my time. I'd be like okay let's have a lesson on the weather. [chuckles] And I just tried to just create things to do, so I did that. I set a schedule because I found it made them feel at ease if I set a schedule to my day, which I'm not a very routine person, I'm a very creative person. So I did that. I tried to keep to it, I'd be like OK, I'll sing from this hour, for an hour in the morning I'll sing every song I know, every musical I've ever seen, every song that came to my head. So I sang, I had a leftover scrap of paper, so I divided it into tiny pieces and made tiny little playing cards.

AMT: Can I see that? That's what you’ve got there in a little baggie.

JULIA GARRATT: Sure, those are my playing cards that I created.

AMT: They're just like little tiny squares. Oh my goodness. And you would sit what and play songs?

JULIA GARRATT: So then I’d play solitaire with these teeny tiny cards and--

AMT: What else, you’ve got some.

JULIA GARRATT: And then when it was getting close to Christmas or holidays and I missed my family so much. And I would just be like sitting there crying so much. And I was like OK, I got to do something practical. But I got a magazine from the embassy, an enroute magazine, which was kind of interesting because when they handed it to me they said can't your embassy even buy you a magazine? This one says do not remove from the airplane.

AMT: [laughs]

JULIA GARRATT: They tried to make it look like a crime.

AMT: They gave you an Air Canada magazine?

JULIA GARRATT: So I loved it. So this is what I got and I was like OK, I used it to make a Christmas tree, I folded the papers, I used it to make a wreath which is what I brought.

AMT: We will put pictures of this on our website.

JULIA GARRATT: And then I also took a family photo that my family had sent messages in the embassy after the first few weeks, was able to give messages. We weren't able to keep them at first, later we could and I made them into little Christmas ornaments, which I hung around my room. I had one scarf for winter so I pulled the threads out of it and I made the little things to hang the ornaments and I hung one of each of my family members so I would feel not so lonely at Christmas all by myself. You had to create a world in a box. Despair falls into that world, hopelessness falls into that world very easily, so you have to create things that produce joy so that you can make it through.

AMT: At the six month point, they put you under house arrest? Like, what do they do?

JULIA GARRATT: So at six months they came to me and said OK, the interrogation period is over but we're not finished, you can't. I'm like oh, can I leave? And they're like no, but you can go back to your apartment with no I.D. and limited mobility. We'll be watching you the whole time. Anything you do you need to report to us and your case is still going to go to trial in one year. And I had actually prayed please let me go back to my apartment so that I can just greet people and say sorry [voice shaking] that they all lost their jobs at the coffee house, like, instantly, like they all these people who were just ordinary workers, you know, that worked hard for us and served in just so many ways just lost their jobs because of that, instantly. And they had families to feed and I wanted to go and say sorry. And I really, that was something really that bothered me. I didn't pay the taxi driver the last night and I was like I want to pay that debt. It's not very much but I knew the person because it was a friend of ours that drove the van and had driven us to that dinner and I'm like I don't want to leave China without paying that hundred kwai to that man. And so those things, I was able to go back and through my son Peter, who I did have contact with, was able to at least apologize to some of those people because they know how much we love China. And in fact, all the investigators at the end, I said to them why did you pick us when you know how much we love China? They said because you have the most potential to hurt China. I said we also have the most potential to love your country. And so the biggest thing wasn't anger, it was sadness.

AMT: Kevin, she does get to the apartment and I can hear the struggle even being there. But they take you to a prison then after that do they?

KEVIN GARRATT: Yeah, we had a brief meeting about a week or so before Julia was sent home and I was taken to prison. And at that point, it was actually Julia's birthday, January 24th and she didn't know I was being sent to prison. And I was just, I was scared. I just thought how can I, I just can't do this. And at that, you know, we had about ten minutes together, which was kind of them but we had 10 minutes to talk on January 24th. And I just said I can't do this. And Julia just said yes you can. You’ve see prisons in movies but it's completely different when it's you and you're in a prison. And so--

AMT: What was it like?

KEVIN GARRATT: You know, February 3rd, 2015 I was taken to that prison. I was put in a cell that I stayed in for the next 19 months. Cell 318, that's in the hospital wing of the prison. There were up to 14 other inmates in that room. The room was yeah, about the size of this cell maybe, 12 paces by five. And so there's not a lot of room to move around but I was in a good cell. There were other cells that would hold up to 28 or 29 people in the exact same size. You did everything in there, I never left the cell except for the monthly 30 minute embassy visits. By that point, the embassy visits were only allowed once a month for 30 minutes. You ate in that cell, you showered in that cell, everything you did in that cell. The bathroom walls were glass, so the cameras could watch everything, you had 30 minutes of hot water on a sunny day because it is all solar heated. So you're only given 30 minutes, you got 14 people, 15 people to have a shower. Now that's kind of tough.

AMT: And were you able to talk to these other prisoners, who were they?

KEVIN GARRATT: I had something like 80 to 90 people pass through that cell in those 19 months. Everything from petty thief, he stole some copper wire to someone who had murdered someone to drug addicts to corrupt officials, many different kinds of people, drug addicts were passed through as well. Many kinds of people but I was able to talk to them and generally they were pretty nice.

AMT: You're here but it's still hard huh?

KEVIN GARRATT: It's very hard, it's very close to the surface. It's only, it hasn't even been quite three months since we've been back and, you know, almost every time we’d talk about it and especially in a public setting, it brings up a lot of emotion, a lot of feeling. And, you know, it brings up all those fears you had before. And there was a lot of fear. When I first walked into that cell, they put me in there and, you know, they gave me a little plastic bag with a toothbrush about two inches tall, that was your toothbrush, you know, a cloth, I think there was a plastic bowl, a plastic spoon and a bar of soap.

AMT: You said it was a hospital wing too, were you sick?

KEVIN GARRATT: I had high blood pressure. I actually had developed a lot of other medical issues while I was there including, you know, a heart arrhythmia, I had appendicitis. There's numbers of different things like that happened. I developed a double hernia, I found out, which I'm actually having surgery for next month.

AMT: This is all related to your confinement?

KEVIN GARRATT: This is all related to my confinement because I'm on a, every prisoner has a wooden bunk, basically a metal frame wooden bunk bed. And so it's very hard, there's a very thin cotton pad on it and it's absolutely not comfortable.

AMT: And then at some point they actually put you on trial?

KEVIN GARRATT: They put me on trial April 20th of this year. I had three days notice, we'd been waiting months and months and, you know, China, and I've read and papers here in Toronto that, you know, and I knew it there, there's a 99.999 per cent conviction rate in China because basically once you're arrested — you're guilty.

AMT: They did actually pronounce you guilty.

KEVIN GARRATT: Yeah, on September 13th of this year I was sentenced to eight years in prison. But the word I heard in there and the actually, embassy representatives were allowed to be there during that. And the word they heard was deportation. And so right after the verdict hearing September 13th afternoon, I talked to the embassy and he said we've been told you could be deported as early as Thursday, that was September 15th. In the verdict, they fined me as well.

AMT: They fined you?

KEVIN GARRATT: Fined me, yes. Equivalent of about 20,000 dollars, plus I had to pay for, I think it was medical expenses during my six months investigation and I had to pay for all the medical expenses quote, I think it’s medical expenses during my 19 months in prison. And actually in prison, you have to pay for absolutely everything, from a toothbrush to anything you eat, to water to toilet paper, you buy everything.

AMT: And if you don't have money, do they make you work? What do you do?

KEVIN GARRATT: No, if you don't have money, you get a steam bread, piece of steam bread, in Chinese it’s mantou and you may get in the morning, you'll get a kind of a corn porridge a corn congee it would be. But what I found in prison is that everyone shares. People who don't have money, you know, they can't buy anything, they can’t even buy toilet paper, so someone will give them a roll of toilet paper. They can't eat much, so someone else will give them some food. And that was very very common. And I think during the whole time there, usually a quarter to a third of my cell didn't have money. And so people shared and there’d become almost like a little family, a little community there.

AMT: It's extraordinary huh?

KEVIN GARRATT: Mmhmm.

AMT: So they find you, what did they actually find you guilty of? What did they pronounce you guilty of, not find?

KEVIN GARRATT: I believe it was espionage and, you know, spying for the Canadian government and one other spy related charge. Obviously, I hope everyone knows we're not spies. We never have been. You know, and I told them this, I said the most I know about spying is I've watched James Bond before. You know, I don't know anything else. And they asked me about CSIS and I said I have no idea what they do, I don't know. I met them once and they just inquired about, you know, our work into North Korea to make sure we were obeying the sanctions and we're not causing any, you know, causing the Canadian government any problems.

AMT: So you guys have hinted at this, when like, when you first got on the radar. Were there things that the Canadians did?

JULIA GARRATT: Nobody did anything intentionally. Looking back, having those meetings and with high level people and having multiple high profile people visiting our coffee house and interacting with us, some on a regular basis coming just to drink the coffee. I think that there could have been a few disclaimers, like CSIS could have said, you know, once we meet you, you working in a sensitive area may change. It's nobody's fault that this happened because China will choose however they choose. It's a sad choice we felt because we lost our lives, in terms of all our future, our career. Canada tried their best on many fronts and especially the people working on the ground in Beijing. No matter why this happened, the response of Canada was in that front, in terms of trying their best to secure our release, they did a lot of good.

AMT: Are you able to sleep at night? Like, do you have residual effects from what you've been through?

KEVIN GARRATT: At first I had trouble sleeping, especially with the lights off. I guess you can get used to anything in some ways. But I got used to being imprisoned and I got up very early. Every morning I got up at three or 3:30 and I would just read and pray during those first two or three hours until the cell had to wake up at six. I did that and again, you develop routines, you don't eat all the time because they don't serve food all the time, you just learn to live with that way.

JULIA GARRATT: The kindness that we saw in 1984 when we went to China, we still saw even in in this whole two years. Human moments when people were kind of saying I know you're not really a spy and here eat this Snickers bar.

AMT: You still seem to have so much respect and love for the Chinese people. Do you see yourself ever going back?

KEVIN GARRATT: We'd like to at some point. I was told I can't go back for five years. You know, after that has run out, they said we can go back. They said Julia could go back anytime because there's no charge against her.

JULIA GARRATT: My chief investigator, the last time I met him he said if you come back to China we'll treat you the same as any other foreigner. And he said after all we've done to you will you hate us? And I looked at him and I said what was done to me was the system. Like, when I think of China, I still think of all the people that were hospitable, that received us in that very first year. People so gracious to us, we learned as much as we did for China, which was very small. We learned much more from China. And I think that's why we have a deep respect for that. Doesn't mean I agree with many things but I do have a deep respect for many of the people that we met along this journey.

AMT: You express great generosity, it's really important to hear your story. Kevin, Julia Garratt, thank you for sharing your story.

KEVIN GARRATT: Thank you and you're welcome.

JULIA GARRATT: [sniffs] Thank you.

AMT: Kevin and Julia Garratt were imprisoned in China, beginning in 2014. They were accused of being Canadian spies. Kevin was found guilty of espionage by a Chinese court. The Garratts and the Canadian government insists this is all a fabrication. We have pictures and videos of the Garratts on our Facebook page, you can see the Christmas ornaments and those playing cards that Julia made. Go to our Facebook page, tell us what you think. We are online, cbc.ca/thecurrent, tweet us we @TheCurrentCBC. This is The Current, stay with us.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current. Yesterday, we aired our second public forum on missing and murdered Indigenous women, it's part of our virtual reality project on the Highway of Tears. And we were in Winnipeg and families were really emotional about the tensions and frustrations they have with police. This clip is Bernadette Smith, her sister has been missing since 2008. She raised an example that wasn't about her own family but about the Winnipeg police announcement of an arrest made last week in connection with the murder of Angela Marie Poorman.

SOUNDCLIP

The narrative that was used was, you know, was involved in an act of sex for money when she was murdered. Do we really need to be using that language? And I think the details should be focused on the case was solved, someone was brought to justice and a family has some closure. You know, and not re victimizing this woman who's been murdered and her family really.

AMT: Well, on Tuesday Winnipeg’s Police Chief Danny Smyth apologized for that characterization.

SOUNDCLIP

You know, all I can say is we are trying to make steps to be really careful with our language when we describe these kinds of things. And, you know, I acknowledge and offer an apology to the Poorman family and the Indigenous community. You know, I'm not sure why we characterized it the way we did but we'll be more cautious about that going forward.

AMT: Winnipeg Police Chief Danny Smyth, speaking to reporters yesterday. Now, he was one of our guests at the public forum. He and RCMP officers spoke directly with the Indigenous families who were there and it was pretty powerful. Many of you felt that way too. Debra tweeted, “I'm heartbroken. What powerful questions. What horrific, unacceptable stories. Canada can do better. On Facebook Suzanne Langlois Mooney sent a message to Bernice Catcheway, whose daughter Jennifer disappeared eight years ago, she writes, “Jennifer and I share a birthday, and I have put her on my prayer list to ask for news of her so that your soul and hers may be at rest. I cannot imagine anything worse and I pray this horrible trial will end.” If you missed our special from Winnipeg, you can find it on our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. You can download our podcast. You can also find out how to play the virtual reality documentary Highway of Tears from our site cbc.ca/thecurrent or on our Facebook page or listen to it on the CBC Radio app.

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'Get cancer and die': Campaign urges call centre workers to hang up on abuse

Guests: Michelle Dey, Ken Neumann, John Bardawil

[Music: electronic techno sounds]

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: This is The Current on CBC Radio One, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I'm going to come over there and kill you.

VOICE 2: I hope you get cancer and die.

VOICE 3: Listen, I'm a f--king lawyer. My time is worth a lot and I'm wasting it talking to [expletive] like you right now.

VOICE 4: Oh I'm so glad to hear that you're white.

VOICE 5: Listen honey, could you put a man on the phone for me who knows how to do his job?

AMT: Well, those are real life examples of some of the violent, racist and sexist things that have been said to call centre employees working at some of Canada's biggest companies. What you just heard is part of a new campaign launched yesterday by the United Steelworkers Union called Hang Up On Abuse. Its goal is to stop what it calls the dehumanizing treatment of its call centre members by the public. My next guest has been on the receiving end of some of those abusive comments. Michelle Dey has worked at call centres for 25 years. She's in Vancouver. Hello Michelle.

MICHELLE DEY: Good morning Anna Maria, how are you?

AMT: Well I'm fine, I'm wondering though, does that sound familiar, that kind of thing?

MICHELLE DEY: Yes, very much so. And give me some examples of the things that you've had to face then?

MICHELLE DEY: Well, personally, I've had my share of being subjected to verbal abuse, swearing, cursing. And in addition, I've had the unfortunate calls such as, you know, what colour panties am I wearing, I have had a gentleman sitting in a hot tub pleasuring himself while he asks me intelligent questions. I've had co-workers who are of colour who have been addressed by callers as thank God I'm speaking to a white person. Numerous scenarios of sexual or racial harassment, ethnic or homophobic slurs. It goes on and on.

AMT: So and how do you react when that happens?

MICHELLE DEY: Well, we're expected to try to control the call but unfortunately in some of those type of calls you're not really dealing with an actual customer, so to control or try to resolve an issue makes it a very difficult situation.

AMT: And when that kind of thing happens to you, what do you think about it later?

MICHELLE DEY: Well, yeah, it definitely spills over into your home life. I mean, you take it home, family and friends, it makes it difficult to have relationships sometimes. The thing is that can happen more than once in a day or it can go for a couple of weeks before you get another bad call. It can be cumulative, so it may not affect you for, you know, the first few calls but after a while it builds up and then it does start to affect how you feel emotionally and physically and in your life.

AMT: And when this happens, what are you allowed to do? Can you say stop that, can you hang up?

MICHELLE DEY: Well, you can let the customer know that it's a professional call, that it is a business call and try to get the call back on track. But to actually physically hang up on the client, no that's not tolerated.

AMT: So you have to just take it?

MICHELLE DEY: Yes.

AMT: And so is there training for this kind of thing? Like, what do they tell you when they train people?

MICHELLE DEY: Well, you get your basic customer service training. But I think training to deal with these type of situations, there needs to be further training. So and we need to have training for managers on how to be able to support workers who are being verbally abused or sexually abused over the phones.

AMT: And what kind of, like, what would be good for managers to be able to do? I mean, first of all can you just move this call along to somebody who can tell them off or that's just not allowed?

MICHELLE DEY: Well, in some companies you would have escalation processes but those escalations are going to either a senior representative, who would be again just a call centre representative or if they are being escalated to a manager, that's not going to be an instant escalation to a manager, there’s going to be a callback required most likely. So that's only, you know, can escalate the abuse. But managers and senior escalation reps are also human beings and they shouldn't have to be subjected to that kind of abuse either.

AMT: Because it will just continue on the next call is what you're saying.

MICHELLE DEY: Yeah.

AMT: Yeah. So you've been doing this for 25 years?

MICHELLE DEY: Close to, yes.

AMT: Different call centres, same one?

MICHELLE DEY: No, same one.

AMT: Uh huh. And it’s getting worse is it for you?

MICHELLE DEY: We find over the years it's becoming more of a common occurrence. And, you know, it could just be the way that our Canadian culture is changing. People are a little bit more bold, people are definitely more bold on the phone. They're not talking to you face to face, so it's a different interaction than if you were at a Tim Horton's.

AMT: Yeah, but you remember it all huh? Like, you could give me those perfect examples of what happened to you.

MICHELLE DEY: Yes. And the hot tub incident actually happened probably about five to six years ago but it always stays forefront in my mind.

AMT: Yeah. And if you want help then, what do you do?

MICHELLE DEY: Well, in some situations, I mean, you have supervisors who are very sympathetic and then you will have some supervisors who think that you should be able to just have it roll off your back. Everybody's perception are different. And like I said too, it may be something that may not affect you for, you know, years and then all of a sudden they start to become more common and it starts to build up. So if you have a sympathetic manager then you’re lucky. But they may be bound by policies of the company as well.

AMT: OK. Well, Michelle Dey, thank you for speaking with me today about this.

MICHELLE DEY: Thank you very much for having me.

AMT: Michelle Dey has worked at a call centre for over 25 years. She's in Vancouver. Now, United Steelworkers Union of Canada is spearheading this new Hang Up On Abuse campaign. Ken Neumann is the National Director of the United Steelworkers Union of Canada. He's in our Toronto studio. Hello.

KEN NEUMANN: Hello.

AMT: What percentage of call centre workers are actually unionized?

KEN NEUMANN: Well, our prediction is there's 175,000 call workers in Canada, the Steelworkers itself represents in excess of 10,000. So there may be other organizations that represent workers but from the steel workers perspective it's over 10,000 that we represent.

AMT: And so how big is the problem? We hear that Michelle has seen this over the years. What are you hearing from other members?

KEN NEUMANN: Well I think that Michelle lays it out very clearly. It is getting worse and how we become onto this is that many of our members have reached out to the health and safety committees and talked about the increase of these kind of activities and it’s for that reason that our union has taken this bold move to put a video together, which you played at the beginning of the show. We've now put it on our Facebook and on our Facebook within less than just over 24 hours, we've had over 80,000 people. Since yesterday when we launched it, we have hundreds and hundreds of people sending in comments similar, with complaints of harassment that are presently taking place at the work sites. So it just goes to show in a very short period of time that we're reaching out to the public that this is a serious event that we're going to have to deal with.

AMT: And so they are calling the health and safety committee. What are they telling you about how this affects their mental health, how this affects their feeling of safety?

KEN NEUMANN: Well, our health and safety committees are very active in all of our workplaces. The fact is that what's paramount to good workplace is that you should be able to go to work at a safe and healthy environment without abuse. It's not just what, you know, the terrible comments that are made online is that you take that home with you. How do you get off of a line and try to go to the next caller when you've just been berated in regards to sexual acts or whatever the circumstances are? So it is having a tremendous effect. So for that reason that we've put this campaign out, we're going to reach out to the employers and we want the employers to stand on the side of the workers and to make sure that they have very clear and unequivocal policies that you do have the ability to hang up.

AMT: And you're also making sure that customers understand that their words have consequences.

KEN NEUMANN: Of course.

AMT: Even the very fact that you're doing this might make people think twice.

KEN NEUMANN: Of course.

AMT: But let's talk about the policy. So is this common, you're just not allowed to hang up?

KEN NEUMANN: We're hearing some reports where companies say, the employees are saying that you have to give the individual three warnings and then in some circumstances you have the ability to hang up. I think there's also some where you may have, you turn it over to a supervisor. We're also having people tell us where for example, where employers, supervisors are kind of given a pat on the back to the worker that has just been abused. To say thanks for hanging in there. That is not acceptable, that is not any place that should be in a work site.

AMT: Can they be disciplined if they hang up?

KEN NEUMANN: Well I'm sure they have because companies have a policy. I mean, a lot of this is recorded and if they have a no hang up, I mean, if they don't have that policy, workers are threatened and intimidated.

AMT: Have you raised this with companies?

KEN NEUMANN: In some of the unionized places that we have, we're working with it. But we've now just--

AMT: What do you mean you're working with it? Have you raised it with management to say you can’t do this?

KEN NEUMANN: Yes, yes. Well, companies are saying that, you know, some companies are saying that look, we have zero tolerance. I think the issue is Anna is that they have to, it's not being brought right down to the level, that people have to be assured that there'll be no repercussions if they hang up when someone calls in and is abusive The other thing is that if there is abusive and threatening calls that these calls also need to be turned over to the authorities.

AMT: Well yeah, if they're being threatened--

KEN NEUMANN: Of course.

AMT: If people say I'm going to come and get you, I mean, that’s illegal right?

KEN NEUMANN: That’s right, that’s right.

AMT: But you do you know? Have had their calls gone to the police?

KEN NEUMANN: Well, we don't know that. Like I say, we've just started this campaign and you can just see by the amount of people that are responding in the hundreds, we're just going to keep on to this and we're going to reach out to the employers to make sure that the workers across the country are protected, that they don't have to be intimidated in such a way. That they're there to make a living the same as the rest of us and they need to work in a health and safety environment.

AMT: Have you filed any grievances over this stuff?

KEN NEUMANN: Not to my knowledge, that I'm aware of that. But I know that there's been some discussions with the employers.

AMT: OK, so you want the employers to step up and basically take care of their employees.

KEN NEUMANN: Stand on the side of the employer, have a clear policy that you have the right to hang up with no repercussions. Period.

AMT: OK, well, thank you for coming in.

KEN NEUMANN: Thank you.

AMT: Ken Neumann, National Director of the United Steelworkers of Canada, with me in our Toronto studio. John Bardawil is also here, he works closely with companies that operate call centres. He's the managing director of TMG International Inc., it provides consulting services to companies such as VIA rail, RBC Insurance, Aeroplan, Rogers Communication. And as I say John Bardawil is here. Welcome.

JOHN BARDAWIL: Good morning.

AMT: So first of all, I'm naming those companies, they have not named any companies. But you are someone who works with the kind of companies that make calls, that have call centres?

JOHN BARDAWIL: Yes, we work with companies that do call centres, have online web services and other multi-channel services.

AMT: Have you heard of this before?

JOHN BARDAWIL: I have heard of it, yes. Is it something that is typical? Absolutely not. I think most organizations are very focused on insuring, both from a customer experience standpoint to do the best they can, and that includes making sure that their employees are well-motivated, happy and in most comfortable position possible to do their job.

AMT: And what about this policy, this no hang up policy, what can you tell us?

JOHN BARDAWIL: I haven't heard of that. And typically, most organizations that we work with, in fact, all organizations have what I call one strike policy. So they will, the agent is typically instructed to, if they're in that situation, to warn the customer that in the event that they continue on they'll be hanging up and if they continue on, then they typically hang up right away.

AMT: OK, but these people are saying they're not allowed to, that somehow that, you know, I mean, they're there to deal with customers and if they I guess, what they're saying is they're intimidated into keeping them on the lines, that they're not allowed to do this.

JOHN BARDAWIL: And I'm sure there's possibly examples of that. I'm not disagreeing, I just have not typically heard of it. That's not something I would say that's normal in the industry at all.

AMT: Is there any kind of an industry standard in dealing with abusive calls?

JOHN BARDAWIL: I wouldn't say an industry wide, but that's generally accepted, one strike process is typically the way that it is managed. And that's generally what people will talk about.

AMT: And, you know, we all know that when you call in for customer service, they tell you this call is being monitored for quality service and all this. So does that mean they're being recorded, like, is there a way to go back and find out who's been abusive?

JOHN BARDAWIL: Absolutely. Yes, yes. Which prompts the question of, you know, how many people would actually want to do this because they are being recorded. If they’re an existing customer, all their data and information is available. In fact, they have to recognize themselves or announce themselves to the agents so they typically have a record of who that person is.

AMT: And what do these companies, do they do something with that? Have you heard of any example where they actually do chase down somebody who's been abusive or threatening like some of those things?

JOHN BARDAWIL: Well if they're threatening, absolutely, they are generally, the information is turned over to the police and there's a case filed usually presented on it. Yes.

AMT: And again, what do companies do with their workers? We also heard that this is cumulative, that over time if you get this kind of thing and it's random, you don't know when it's coming and you get this barrage of really verbally abusive stuff on the other end of the phone. What do companies, do they have places that workers can go and get help on this front?

JOHN BARDAWIL: Absolutely. Many companies have everything from supervisory support to also calming rooms in their offices, where the agent can be taken off the phone and spend some time in there, there's counseling available, et cetera as well. So there are a number of services--

AMT: How often is that used, do you know?

JOHN BARDAWIL: It's really, in many cases it's up to the agent themselves. They have time off, they can request time off during the day depending on the organization and spend some time in there. So there are some avenues available outside of the traditional ones.

AMT: Do you think this is a good campaign that the union’s doing?

JOHN BARDAWIL: I think it's an important campaign in that it recognizes that a call centre agent can be in many times under a pretty challenging circumstance and under stressful situation. I think the real point though is that I think one of the things that has to be recognized is that the industry is changing pretty dramatically. You've got an awful lot of pressures on both organizations and agents going forward. One of the things that I don't think is well understood is that over the last ten years, agents are having to handle much more complicated calls than they ever had before. The reason for that is because websites have taken on more of the daily easy transactions like address changes and so on.

AMT: Yeah, but so those are companies, do they have a responsibility then to make sure their agents are backed up enough?

JOHN BARDAWIL: Absolutely. Oh absolutely. And I think they're trying to do that with the nature of the training, the type of training, there's a lot more of what I call complaint management training going on in a lot of organizations to try and manage that.

AMT: OK. So we'll have to track this and see how it goes. Thanks for coming in.

JOHN BARDAWIL: You're welcome.

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Meet The Current's Friday host Nam Kiwanuka

Guests: Nam Kiwanuka

AMT: John Bardawil, Managing Director of TMG International Incorporated. He's in our Toronto studio. Now, we're almost out of time. Before I go, I want to introduce you to the person who's going to be our Friday host tomorrow and next Friday. Namugenyi Kiwanuka is a journalist, a broadcaster and a former Much Music VJ. Viewers in Ontario may know her because she's been filling in as the summer host for TV Ontario’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin. Nam Kiwanuka is with me now. Hello.

NAM KIWANUKA: Hello.

AMT: I want to hear your story, you're originally from Uganda but your family had to flee. How old were you?

NAM KIWANUKA: I was about 10 or 11 and we had to leave the civil war in Uganda. I think a lot of people know about Idi Amin but after Idi Amin, there was a succession of different presidents and there was a civil war and so we had to leave Uganda. And we walked by foot from Uganda to the Kenyan border.

AMT: How far was that?

NAM KIWANUKA: I think it's the distance from, like, walking from here to Windsor and then back or something like that. It's far.

AMT: So who was with you?

NAM KIWANUKA: It was my father, my three siblings and my uncle.

AMT: What was that trip like?

NAM KIWANUKA: It was, I don't thankfully, I don't remember very much of it. My father does though and I feel that that's probably one of the reasons why he's really struggled because it was really traumatic. We had to walk during the night because it was dangerous during the day and we had to walk through the woods, through the forest, through the jungle you might say. And at that time, even just trying to find food was difficult but once we got to the refugee camp we were safe at least.

AMT: And so the refugee camp was over the border in Kenya?

NAM KIWANUKA: Yeah, in Thika, Thika, Kenya.

AMT: And what was that like?

NAM KIWANUKA: For me, it was great. Like, we were finally together because my father usually had to be on the run trying to find us something to eat. So we were in the same place. But, you know, as things happen, there's so much chaos and there's so much happening, that things happen to children and people aren't paying attention. But for me it was the first time that we had one meal a day guaranteed. So it was great.

AMT: How did you get to Canada?

NAM KIWANUKA: A woman from London, Ontario found out about our story and she became so impressed by my dad, because my dad was a single father and he was raising four kids and she sponsored us to Canada.

AMT: And so, when you got here, what was that like?

NAM KIWANUKA: we were so excited. I remember on the plane we were like, oh, finally we get to eat apples and we get to see snow. And it was just this whole because we just heard so many great things about Canada. And when we got here it was traumatic but I think because my grandmother was there, this is the woman who sponsored us, she made the adjustment so much easier.

AMT: So you call her your grandmother. She meet you at the airport?

NAM KIWANUKA: She did.

AMT: The first time you saw her.

NAM KIWANUKA: First time I saw her.

AMT: What did she look like?

NAM KIWANUKA: She was oh, wow, she was tall, slim, a white woman with white hair, shocking head of white hair and glasses and she was just so kind and she just gave us a hug. The minute we met we were just family, it just felt like I'd known her my whole life.

AMT: What's her name?

NAM KIWANUKA: Sidney Tebbutt.

AMT: And you call her granny?

NAM KIWANUKA: Yes.

AMT: Why?

NAM KIWANUKA: She was family to me. She was the only grandma, I had a grandmother when I was younger in Uganda, my mother's mother. But she was the first person to say I love you and she was the first person that made me feel safe. She was like a mother figure because my mother left us when we were really young. She really helped us to integrate into Canadian life and we became part of her life and she became part of ours. Sundays we would go over there and she would make a Sunday dinner, we would watch Gone With The Wind, all these black and white movies. And it just felt like a fairy tale, it really did because it didn't have to hear bombs, I didn't have to hear guns, there was no conflict. Yeah, and we would play on her piano, heart and Soul. [laughs] That's the only thing I ever learned.

AMT: [laughs] And what was it like for your dad being here?

NAM KIWANUKA: It was difficult for my father. I think a lot of people don't realize that when people come here, especially when you come from a patriarchal society, when you come here I find there’s lots of services for women. And, you know, they have support systems but for men they don't. And he became a different person. He became abusive, he became an alcoholic and he wasn’t those things when we were in Uganda. And I think even if he just needed some kind of support system to deal with, like, the PTSD that he experienced and he used to have to bike to work three hours a day, even in the winter he was on his bicycle. He was really working hard to help his family and he was a proud man and he wouldn't take government assistance. So just some kind of support system for men because, you know, when you come to Canada it's like, everything is possible you can do anything. But again, if you come from an environment where you were the head of the family and then now you're in a place where you are at the bottom, it causes a lot of conflict and the people who suffer the most are the people inside the house.

AMT: And so Granny, how did she help you navigate that with your dad?

NAM KIWANUKA: She was amazing, she wasn't judgmental. Like, I didn't know at the time, I only found out after she had passed away that, you know, I would go to her for comfort and advice and to cry and to, you know, just to escape. And then my dad used to do the same thing and he would ask her for advice, like what am I doing? This is what I'm doing, I'm so ashamed, that kind of thing. She never passed judgment, she just tried to help him.

AMT: How old were you when she died?

NAM KIWANUKA: I was 16.

AMT: Mmm. And but obviously, you've taken, you've learned a lot from her.

NAM KIWANUKA: Yes. She's my foundation. She's my foundation. I always think that you only need one person to see you and to lift you up. And that love from her, I think it's one of the things why I've worked so hard because I was given an opportunity that so many people back home didn't get. And for me to come here and not to take advantage of that opportunity, it's like failing them and mostly failing her and which I would never want to do.

AMT: So as we do all of these stories, of Syrians coming to Canada and you see those little girls in those families of Syrians. You see them in a way, you understand who they are on a whole other level don't you?

NAM KIWANUKA: Yes I do. And I feel so much compassion for them. This is why I don't understand when people say well, you know, we don't want refugees. Listen, if someone is going to put their family on a boat, on a rickety boat with 80 other people, that means that whatever they're leaving or whatever they're running from is worse than what they're going to because they don't know where they're going. I would never, of sound mind, put my child on a boat with 80 other people unless I was desperate. Unless if it was the only thing that I could do. And I think being in Canada, no matter what economic status you are, we live in a very privileged country. You don't have to wake up with the sound of bombs, you don't have to fear just walking down the street. I mean, in some places yes, I'm not that naive. But I'm just saying that on the bigger context, we live in a very privileged country. And if we can share that space with other people, I think we need to do that. Like, we have to do that.

AMT: OK well, Nam Kiwanuka, it's going to be really good to hear you tomorrow on The Current. And since you're here as the Friday host, why don't you help me read the credits for this week.

[Music: Credits Theme]

AMT: This week on The Current is produced by Idella Sturino, Shannon Higgins, Howard Goldenthal, Ines Calabrese and Lara O'Brien.

NAM KIWANUKA: Julian Uzielli, Josh Bloch, Sujata Berry, Liz Hoath, Samira Mohyeddin, Karin Marley, Kristin Nelson, John Chipman and Willow Smith.

AMT: Special thanks this week to network producers Michael O'Halloran in Calgary and Anne Penman in Vancouver and Suzanne Defresne in Winnipeg.

NAM KIWANUKA: The Current’s writer is Pacinte Mattar, our web producer is Lisa Ayuso with help from Eunice Kim and Rignam Wangkhang and Ruby Buiza. Our technical producer is Gary Francis. Our documentary editor is Joan Webber.

AMT: Our senior producers are Richard Goddard in Toronto, Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Kathleen Goldhar. That is our program for today. Nam Kiwanuka will be here tomorrow. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, thank you for listening to The Current.

[Music: Extro]

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December 8, 2016 full episode transcript

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