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The Current Transcript for December 13, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: So the TNT would be like in this.

VOICE 2: It is now.

VOICE 1: It is. Right now?

VOICE 2: This is TNT.

VOICE 1: Oh.

VOICE 2: Yes.

VOICE 1: Good to know. [laughs]

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Well, from the leftovers in what is believed to have been an ISIS bomb factory to the labyrinth of tunnels exposed by bombing. From surrounding towns reduced to rubble and wounded children treated with the most rudimentary of medicines, the trip through Iraq and into Mosul offers a glimpse into a particular kind of civilian hell. Sarah Lawrynuik followed soldiers battling ISIS into Iraq's contested city. What she found in half an hour. Also today, amidst the vows by Indigenous leaders to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline are the voices of other Indigenous leaders who see opportunity coming down that pipe.

SOUNDCLIP

We've become very successful at what we do. We employ all of our people. There is no unemployment in our reserve today. In the last five years, we did $2.3 billion in business.

AMT: Eleven Alberta and 28 BC Indigenous communities have signed agreements with Kinder Morgan. In an hour two First Nations leaders explain why they think working with the pipeline giant is better than working against it. But first, incredulity over Intel.

SOUNDCLIP

I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s just another excuse. I don't believe it. They have no idea if it's Russia or China. It could be somebody sitting in a bed someplace.

AMT: Well, the CIA has pretty well ruled out somebody in his bed someplace. But Donald Trump refuses to accept that. So what are the implications of the gaping impasse between an incoming president and his own intelligence teams? I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

Concern over U.S.-Russia relations ramp up in wake of election hacking reports

Guests: Adam Entous, Thomas Wright

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: The Russians have interfered in a lot of other elections as part of Putin's ambition to regain Russian prominence and dominance in some parts of the world.

VOICE 2: What President Obama said is ridiculous, is this idea that it was meant to help him become president of the United States. There is no evidence of that.

VOICE 3: He called on Russia to hack his opponent. He called on Russia to hack Secretary Clinton. So he certainly had a pretty good sense of whose side this activity was coming down on.

VOICE 4: The Russians are not our friends and I think we ought to approach all of these issues on the assumption that the Russians do not wish us well.

AMT: Well, just some of the fallout since the Russian bombshell that dropped late last week. The CIA has concluded that Russia worked to influence the US presidential election results in President-elect Donald Trump's favour, according to reports by the Washington Post. You heard Republican Senator John McCain, Donald Trump's senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest and finally, Republican US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's voices just now. The president, Barack Obama, has ordered a full review of the matter. It is due on his desk before Mr. Trump is sworn in next month. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton's camp finally added its voice. The Democratic nominee’s campaign chair has demanded information related to Russia's interference be declassified. Adam Entous this is one of the reporters who broke this story for the Washington Post and he's with us from Washington, DC. Hello.

ADAM ENTOUS: Hi. Great to be here. Thank you.

AMT: You have another update on this story in the Washington Post today. Why don't you walk us through what you know about this?

ADAM ENTOUS: Yeah. So the latest update that we had was basically looking at how did the CIA come to its revised assessment which it presented to senators behind closed doors about two weeks ago? And one of the things that we discovered following up on our original story was that they were looking at the prioritization that the Russians had apparently showed in terms of targeting, that they were disproportionately targeting the DNC, the Democrats. And the Republicans, while they made an effort to target the Republicans, it was not as big of a priority. Which means if they did not get in the first time, they didn't necessarily swing back and try again, whereas with the Democrats, it was an effort to come back again and again until they got what they wanted, which was derogatory information that they could leak to WikiLeaks. This is the assessment of Intel officials.

AMT: Okay. So Intel officials are saying what you're reporting today, that they're saying that a lack of a corresponding trove of Republican data suggested to them that the Russians were targeting the Democrats.

ADAM ENTOUS: Yeah. Now this is just you know one piece of the assessment puzzle that we have managed to figure out. Most of the intelligence remains secret that the CIA used to base its assessment. But yes, the idea here is that the CIA believes that the Russians are very sophisticated actors in the cyber realm and if they wanted to get a trove on the Republicans, they could have gotten it. And either they have it and they just decided not to release it or they decided—they looked and they went into these systems and they decided that they can get in at another time to get it if they wanted it and they decided not to collect it.

AMT: Okay. So as you have been reporting this story, the first—am I correct—the first thing that the suspicion was that the Russians had been hacking in to try to intervene in the election?

ADAM ENTOUS: That’s right.

AMT: But more agnostically just to intervene to create problems of legitimacy.

ADAM ENTOUS: Chaos.

AMT: Chaos.

ADAM ENTOUS: Yeah. Yeah. So the assessment over the summer of the intelligence community was that the Russians were intervening in our [inaudible] in order to discredit the system and to basically create chaos and the impression—the correct impression—that they could have an influence over it. Now you know this is something that the Russians have been doing for decades. But obviously the Internet has created new opportunities for exploiting vulnerabilities on the American side and frankly anywhere else. And so in this election cycle, what the CIA and other intelligence agencies here saw was a more concerted effort to try to come in. But over the summer and into the fall before the election, the assessment was much more cautious. It didn't really speak to the intent of the intervention by the Russians. Even though we saw a disproportionate leaking of derogatory material about the Democrats and very little about the Republicans, the CIA was not—and the other intelligence agencies—didn't have what it's referred to as high confidence that the goal was to try to help try.

AMT: But when did they change that?

ADAM ENTOUS: About two weeks ago. About two weeks ago there was you know and like I said, the ability of reporters on the outside to see the details of the intelligence is limited because you know they—to protect sources and methods, the intelligence community tends not to divulge how they got their information whether it's a human source or signals intelligence or a combination of those two things. And so there was a briefing about two weeks ago to the Senate Intelligence Committee, in which the CIA's revised assessment was presented to lawmakers.

AMT: And that is where the information that you're reporting then. You're reporting that the CIA has told the Senate Intelligence Committee this information.

ADAM ENTOUS: Correct. And so that was a change from the previous assessment. And obviously you know since the disclosure of that assessment has been made public, there's been this incredible, very unusual kind of battle that's gone on between the president-elect's transition team and the president-elect himself and intelligence officials. And this is really uncharted territory. From talking to veterans on both sides of this, really not since Richard Nixon have you had such an acrimonious relationship from the start between the CIA and a president-elect.

AMT: Now do all the intelligence agencies agree?

ADAM ENTOUS: We have 17 intelligence agencies here and not all of them do the same sort of thing that the CIA does. So the CIA is the agency here that is mainly responsible for working up kind of an analysis especially of leadership intentions of foreign powers and espionage. The FBI has been more cautious. It provided a briefing a few days after the Senate briefing in which they did not endorse the CIA's assessment. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that the FBI doesn't agree. The FBI tends to make its assessment based on a legal standard—what it will be able to prove in a court—whereas the CIA operates by a preponderance of evidence standard that they can make an assessment based on looking at the available evidence and then basically making a call.

AMT: Now you are also reporting today that officials have—Clinton officials I guess—have joined calls for US intelligence agencies to share their findings with members of the Electoral College before they formally cast their votes. How significant is that?

ADAM ENTOUS: I mean that's also just incredibly—normally this Electoral College procedure is something that people don't even pay attention to here. So it's not clear to me how it's possible for the intelligence community to share this qualified information with these individuals who will be casting these ballots in this Electoral College. So I don't really see the path for that. Obviously what's so remarkable about this is that you basically have Democratic lawmakers on the Intelligence Committee. You have Republican lawmakers on the Intelligence Committee. They're both listening to the same briefing. They’re both seeing the same intelligence and they’re emerging with different opinions. One Republican in one of these hearings said it's almost as if the Republicans are from Venus and the Democrats are from Mars and they're coming out of these Intel briefings and pointing in different directions. We really haven't seen this since basically after the 2003 invasion of Iraq when there were investigations again on the hill into why did the intelligence community botch the assessments that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? You know it's this kind of part is partisanization of the intelligence is really scary because it's just very hard for obviously reporters and for the public to try to figure out what's the truth?

AMT: Adam Entous, it’s fascinating in a very disturbing way. Thank you for your work. Thanks for talking to us today.

ADAM ENTOUS: Yeah. Thank you very much.

AMT: That’s Adam Entous. He covers national security foreign policy and intelligence for the Washington Post—one of the people breaking the story on Russian cyber espionage related to the US election. He's in Washington, DC. Compounding concerns about Russian interference in the election for some is the news this morning that President-elect Trump has chosen Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state. He's the CEO of the oil giant ExxonMobil. He has close business ties to Russia, is understood to be close to the president of Vladimir Putin. In 2013, Mr. Putin awarded Mr. Tillerson the order of friendship—one of the highest honours given to foreign nationals by Russia. Tom Wright is the director of the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. We have reached him in Washington, DC. Hello.

THOMAS WRIGHT: Hi. Hi. It's great to be with you this morning.

AMT: As you're listening to the latest from Adam Entous, what are you thinking in terms of the implications of all of this?

THOMAS WRIGHT: Well, we are, I think as he put it, in uncharted territory. It's unprecedented to have the intelligence community at odds with the president-elect and the incoming administration. As the former director of the CIA Mike Hayden said, what's, I think, unique about this case is that the president-elect is rejecting the assessment of the CIA without disputing the underlying analysis or without sort of going through it in detail. He's just rejecting it out of hand because it's inconvenient. And I think that is obviously very significant in terms of this particular episode, but also it sends a message that intelligence in his view, in Trump's view, should be tailored for his sort of political interests. And I think that's something that will unsettle the intelligence community in general and others as well. And then as you mentioned, it comes in a context in which he has argued for pro-Russia or for foreign policy that's more aligned with Russian concerns and interests than President Obama's or than Hillary Clinton's would have been.

AMT: And even the idea that you have senators from both sides listening to these briefings and each coming away with a different interpretation, are we looking at or is the United States looking at the sort of the—what did he call it—the partisanization of intelligence? Like where does that go?

THOMAS WRIGHT: Yeah. I think it's—we have no idea where it goes but one would hope that the Republicans, particularly on the Intelligence Committee, will be a steadying hand here and would remind everyone of what's at stake. I mean to make an intelligence issue of this magnitude a partisan issue, I think is completely unprecedented. And I think where it will go in a worst case scenario will be a purging of the CIA and other intelligence agencies by the administration to put in their own people and then to send a very clear message that they wanted a particular type of intelligence. That I think would meet with really stiff resistance because it would hold out the prospect of hollowing out America's intelligence capabilities and really damaging the CIA and the community as a whole. So I think we’re likely to see a major, major fight over that.

AMT: And let's just talk about Russia for a minute then. If this is true that individuals connected to the Russian government did try to influence the outcome of the US presidential election, what are the implications of Russia doing that for the US and beyond?

THOMAS WRIGHT: Well, I think it is an unprecedented interference in the US election. Russia has interfered elsewhere but never to that degree here. So I think it raises several immediate questions. One is that there are many people who believe that there should be some cost imposed for doing that, partly to punish Russia for the interference and partly to deter them from interfering in future elections whether it's in France and Germany next year or in the United States in future years. And so that policy response is something that the Obama administration struggled with. And had Hillary Clinton been elected, I think we would be talking about what type of response she and her administration should carry out. Because it's Trump and because he clearly doesn't want to respond to this or wants to deny that it's happening, we are faced with the prospect of a continuing that Russia will continue these type of activities next year in Europe where there are several crucial elections.

AMT: We see a different view of Russia with Donald Trump. Why does that worry so many people?

THOMAS WRIGHT: Well, Donald Trump has had a sort of a supportive view of Russia for quite some time, going back for authoritarianism in Russia, going back as early as 1990 when he went to Russia and came back disillusioned with Gorbachev and favouring a much tougher sort of approach to putting down the protests and democracy at the time. So we don't quite know why he has this view but we do know that it is pretty deeply rooted. And the reason I think that people are concerned—and this is one of the reasons people will be concerned about the appointment of Rex Tillerson—is that they worry that Donald Trump wants to cut a deal of Vladimir Putin, that he wants to work with them in the Middle East, maybe develop a commercial relationship between Russia and the United States and that he has very little interest in protecting America's traditional commitments in Europe. He doesn't talk about defending NATO's traditional mission, of protecting the Baltics. And so people worry that NATO will be on the negotiating table as a bargaining chip that he will negotiate away with Putin.

AMT: I have a clip I want to play for you of Piotr Dutkiewicz. He's a professor of political science at Carleton University and he talks about anti-Russian hysteria.

SOUNDCLIP

Each big country would like to have friendly rulers in other countries and Russia is not an exception. So from two choices—either Clinton or Trump—Russia was preferring Mr. Trump to be the next president of United States. But at the same time, what I see is hysteria—anti-Russian hysteria that comes from many corners. And until we will know the facts, we will be not able to say who was influencing whom and to what extent. I have a feeling that this is less about Russia but more about delegitimizing tactics. I would see the current discussion as an attempt to make as much harm as possible to Mr. Trump and on that way, make legitimization of his election as low as possible.

AMT: Tom Wright, what do you think of that? Less about Russia more about domestic US politics?

THOMAS WRIGHT: Well, I mean it's hard to—it's hard to say for sure given that we can’t see the evidence. But what he said would seem to fly in the face of what the CIA calls overwhelming evidence of Russian interference. So it's hardly hysteria if it's a proven fact or if it's a preponderance of evidence that it occurred. And so I think assuming that it did occur and then I think it is appropriate to think about how to respond particularly—as I mentioned earlier—particularly to deter it from happening in the future. I mean the fact that this, you know that this pattern that we saw is already being repeated in Germany where German intelligence officials believe Russia is about to engage in the same type of selective leaking of emails and political warfare, I think is very, very significant and it occurs with an agenda in mind. I mean they're doing it for a reason. It’s not happening just because they have the opportunity. They have you know, they have a purpose in mind. And so I think it's important to focus on what that is.

AMT: Before I let you go then, you've said Republicans are facing a moment of truth right now. What do you mean by that?

THOMAS WRIGHT: Well, they were in a very difficult spot because most of them are traditionally Russia hawks. I think they take the national security of the country very seriously but they're in a situation where their candidate has benefited from Russian interference and it is distinctly uncomfortable for them. But I think that they must prove a bipartisan investigation by respected figures to congressionally mandate it, to get to the bottom of this and to offer choices for how the country should respond to what is essentially an act of aggression against American democracy. And this, I think has been getting some steam on the Hill over the last few days. Mitch McConnell endorsed it yesterday, I think. McCain, Graham and others have as well. And so I think where this is headed is for a major commission like the 9/11 commission that will look into it, maybe chaired by people like you know [inaudible].

AMT: Well, we'll see who chairs it and we'll see if it goes ahead. But fascinating again, in all sorts of ways no one expected. Tom Wright, thank you for your time.

THOMAS WRIGHT: Great. Thank you very much.

AMT: Tom Wright, director of the Project on International Order and Strategy. He’s at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Let us know what you think. You can tweet us. We are @thecurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook or go to our website, www.cbc.ca/thecurrent, and click on contact link. Stay with us. The news is next and then a trip on a dangerous road into Mosul. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

'We were all prisoners; now, we are free': Meet Iraqis fleeing ISIS in Mosul

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion has been met with opposition from many First Nations leaders. But some on that route say economically and environmentally, they see a benefit in getting agreements with Kinder Morgan. We will hear from two of them. But first, the road to Mosul. It takes less than an hour to drive the stretch of highway between the city of Erbil, and Mosul, in Iraq. It is only about the distance between Toronto and Hamilton or Moose Jaw and Regina. But life changes dramatically on that stretch of road, going from relative safety to a life ruled by the Islamic militants of ISIS. The city of Mosul, of course, is under siege and in dispute as Iraqi Security Forces fight to regain control from ISIS. CBC producer Sarah Lawrynuik recently travelled to Iraq on her own time to see how people there are coping. The documentary she made is called, 70 K to Mosul, and it takes us down that road toward the city under siege. And a warning: some of what she encountered may be disturbing.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Cars passing by]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: The road to Mosul feels much longer than 70 kilometres. Despite some freshly paved parts, it's largely dilapidated. And with a lack of lines, the number of lanes is up to interpretation. And so is the speed. Once we leave the relative safety of Erbil, it's about 30 kilometres down the road to our first stop. It means passing a handful of checkpoints guarded by the Kurdish army called the Peshmerga. We are advised not to record at the checkpoints because we might get in trouble. The journey also takes us over a single lane temporary bridge crossing the Great Zab River. The main bridge was bombed out by ISIS two years ago.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Children talking]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Our first stop along the road to Mosul is Al Khazer camp. This is the place where the people who are displaced by the violence in Mosul are coming. There are other camps, but this is the one that still has space on the eastern side of Mosul. And kids have the run of the place. And the adults are congregating around the water taps, doing laundry and washing dishes. According to the United Nations, there's already 29,000 people calling this camp home. Many of the people I'm meeting are actually really happy to be here. That really catches me off guard because I can't imagine being happy in this crowded tent city. But it's safe and their families are together. On the other hand, there are the people and as soon as you meet them, you can see it in their eyes—they've just lived real life horror stories. When I spoke with Talal Jarbo Sliman, he had been at the camp for less than 24 hours and he was one of the first people that got there from the city of Mosul. I met him in a crowded line with a bunch of people that were waiting for goods from the Norwegian Refugee Council.

SOUNDCLIP

[Through translator] ISIS captured my three brothers and they killed them. It was a massacre and afterwards they wouldn't even give us their bodies for a proper burial.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: And as if that wasn't enough, four of his nephews were killed as well. ISIS said that their crime was helping the Peshmerga and the Iraqi army to help the Yazidis escape ISIS back in 2014. Talal pulls out this letter and he shows it to me and it's from the courts that ISIS had set up in Mosul. The letter was given to him as the proof of his brother's death.

SOUNDCLIP

[Through translator] Two years I have cried for my brothers and I don't even have their bodies. We were all prisoners and now we are free.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: So he folds the letter back up and he puts it in the breast pocket of his jacket where it takes up permanent residence.

[Sound: Construction site]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: As the construction crews come in and continue to expand the camp, there will be plenty more room for stories like Talal’s. So we leave the camp and we drive another 20 kilometres down the road and then we turn left. Down that road, we come to the Assyrian Christian city of Qaraqosh. The story of the city is that in 2014 in August, tens of thousands of people had to flee in mere hours before ISIS came in and took the city. The city is completely deserted.

[Sound: Footsteps]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Iraqi soldiers are the only people there. They retook control of Qaraqosh back in October. The city is destroyed. And honestly, destroyed is probably an understatement. Every single house and business is torched. Rubble and downed power lines are everywhere in the streets. But it's the churches that bear the brunt of the damage. Father George Jahola, a local priest, has made his way back to the city to evaluate the damage.

SOUNDCLIP

It's a moment of shock because the city is destroyed.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: So we come up to this church and it's the biggest one in Iraq. It's beautiful despite the fact that everything inside is charred. We walk out into the courtyard and it's clear that ISIS militants have used it as a targeting range. On one end, there's TVs and murals. Basically anything they could find in a church was piled up. And it was all pockmarked with bullet holes. And then in the middle of the courtyard, there was a big pile of ash which I couldn't understand what it was at first, but after asking someone they explained that the manuscripts and all of the books in the church had been burned before ISIS left. And there was just one or two books that sat on the top that had managed to survive the fire.

SOUNDCLIP

We must leave it like this to show the cruelty of ISIS. We want to leave it like this.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: The small contingent of soldiers that are in the city are part of the Nineveh Plains Protection Units or the NPU. And this group is made up of Syrian Christians from the region. And Athra Kado is one of the ones I meet.

SOUNDCLIP

ATHRA KADO: This is filled by exploded material, which is like C4, TNT and so on.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: He takes us on a tour of a second church in the city. And in this one place, ISIS set up a bomb factory.

SOUNDCLIP

ATHRA KADO: So when the fire comes here with this, the fire comes inside the material and it explodes.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Okay. So the TNT would be like in this.

ATHRA KADO: It is now in it.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: It is? Right now? Great. [laughs]

ATHRA KADO: Yes. This is TNT.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Oh. Good to know. [laughs]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: They made improvised explosive devices, rocket propelled grenades, rocket launchers, you name it. Buckets of chemicals sit on the floor and they're inert for now, unless they're combined with what’s ever in the bucket next to it. There's a sign sitting in front of the buckets. In Arabic it says what the recipe for a bomb is.

SOUNDCLIP

ATHRA KADO: Two-hundred fifty grams of sugar. It's like 2050, 550 grams. And shrapnel, they make it like from a pipe. A small pipe.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Athra takes great pride in protecting the city.

ATHRA KADO: Well, actually, this is—what you are doing now is a result of what happened before. We trust the governments. We trust the armies, the forces on the ground. But they left us in 2014. So we just decided to do it by ourselves. Because we knew that if we will not do that by our hands, nobody will help us.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: And so the NPU was formed. Technically the unit falls under the umbrella of the Iraqi army but at the same time, the unit is clearly separate from the other soldiers.

ATHRA KADO: It's like the meaning of this is saving our people in our land.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Qaraqosh has been taken back by the army, but there is an expansive network of tunnels ISIS built underneath the city that's keeping the soldiers on edge. So they take me to a home on the outskirts of town and we walk in and the cement floor in the house is blown out with TNT. And beneath the floor, you can see one of these massive tunnels. It's objectively quite impressive. But the Iraqi soldiers don't feel comfortable bringing me into this particular tunnel in the main network because it's still too dangerous. Instead, Athra Kado and about half a dozen other soldiers into a field behind the house and they showed me a much smaller tunnel. It was narrow and probably only about 10 metres long. This tunnel was severed from the rest of the network by an American airstrike. So as we walk up to the tunnel, it's quite clear that the soldiers are still pretty anxious. Debris from nearby houses covers the entry and they remove the pipes and the stray door. And then they catch me by surprise and without my recorder running—they fire shots into the dark hole just to make sure. Two of the soldiers then go into the tunnel to make sure there's no straggling militants before they let me go in.

SOUNDCLIP

ATHRA KADO: You can go in. It’s safe.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: I’m just going to fall. That’s all.

[Sound: Crumbling noises]

ATHRA KADO: So because we can't fight inside a tunnel, like you have one direction—you either die or die.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: So then they got creative in clearing the tunnels so they would block one end.

ATHRA KADO: and there is other ways which is like burning a tire and making a smoke inside a tunnel so they will find another way to go out.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Crumbling noises]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: That is a lot of dirt down my back.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: It's been weeks since the soldiers captured the city but Athra tells me that occasionally, a militant still pops out and surprises them. This conflict hasn't even ended yet and already the next one is beginning.

ATHRA KADO: Because the people who entered and stole our houses, looted them and helped ISIS with making us flee from our land, like these people, these neighbours, like of course, we can't live with them as we were. We have to be careful this time.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: It’s a sentiment echoed by the captain of the NPU—Captain Mubarak Behnam.

MUBARAK BEHNAM: [Through translator] We are a peaceful people. We don't want to hurt anyone. We can kill. We can make horrible things happen but we don't. Christianity dictates that and thank God we are back now. We have friends among Muslims, Shia and Sunni, and we are going to work with them but we have names. We found documents inside the town—the names of all the people that supported by Daesh, ISIS. We know them well. Life will be different.

[Sound: Car door slam]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: As the crow flies, we're about 14 kilometres from Mosul now. We head north and we meet up with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces holding the lines on the outskirts of the city of Bashiqa. I'm standing with Peshmerga soldiers on a roof—the roof of an abandoned family home that they're using is a lookout. American fighter jets are rumbling overhead and they bring me tea which feels very weird while I'm wearing a ballistic helmet and a bulletproof vest.

[Sound: Pop song in background]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Some of the soldiers are playing American Top 40 tunes on their phones. It is all very surreal. When I introduce myself as Canadi, or Canadian, every time I get the same reaction and it's just a big smile. And they're clear that I owe this reaction to my fellow Canadians in uniform. None of the Peshmerga soldiers would go on tape with me talking about their relationship with the Canadian Special Forces that were training them. But at least five if not more soldiers recounted the same story to me about something that had happened a couple of nights before. They told me the story about how under the cover of night, a bunch of ISIS militants were trying to escape the city of Bashiqa and they were running across this field they were monitoring. The Canadians could see them running away because of the superior technology they had for night vision. But the Peshmerga couldn't see them at all. And so the Canadians shot and killed them. The Peshmerga soldiers show me photos and video of the bodies they say they found in the morning.

SOUNDCLIP

PESHMERGA SOLDIER: Do you have a GPS?

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: GPS? On my cell phone, yeah.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: From where we stand, sipping tea, we are 13 kilometres from Mosul.

[Sound: Car door slam]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Now, to get back to the main road from Bashiqa, we plowed down this gravel path in the middle of this field and it's littered on the side with improvised explosive devices that have been dug up and are just marked with red flags. They sit there and they're waiting for someone to come and pick them up. And we pass all of these light posts that still have the black flags with ISIS emblems clinging to them. So now back on the main road, we passed the last Iraqi checkpoint. It's only the military and journalists that get special permission that are allowed past. We cross over onto the other side of the road since our lane is blocked with light poles and rubble from destroyed buildings.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: How many kilometres was that? Or is this it?

VOICE 2: We are at the gate. No kilometres.

VOICE 1: This is the gate to the city.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: And just like that, the road to Mosul has run out. We are in Mosul. My lifeline here, otherwise known as a fixer, is Adham Moshin.

SOUNDCLIP

We are going very fast guys. There might be snipers.

[Sound: Truck revving]

Hold on, hold on.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: While so many of the cities we visited have been completely deserted, Mosul is different. There's many families here who haven't left. Instead, they put a white flag at their door as if it's a plea for mercy. There's people that are actually going around business as usual. Kids and their parents running errands, getting fresh eggs. I don't know where from. They're also carrying those white flags as if it's somehow going to protect them from the war that's going on around them. Instead of a flag, I see one girl that's actually carrying around an empty brown rice bag on the end of a stick. And I guess that's close enough. I stop an Iraqi soldier to ask where we are and what's going on. Nassar is 19 years old.

SOUNDCLIP

This area, we call it Al-Samah. And we are here in the front lines. So we just got front lines there, about one kilometre from here. All of the Iraqi forces is there. So we're just you know we are around the area that ISIS be in. We are around the area so we’re just waiting for order to take this area.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: And he gives me my first tip to keep safe at the front: keep your head down or the snipers will get you.

SOUNDCLIP

NASSAR: Don’t [unintelligible] and you know if you are [unintelligible], they will catch you in your head. So you just have to lie down.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: With that in mind, we make our way over to the Iraqi Special Operations Forces medic centre. They're set up in a dusty field between houses at the end of a city block. No roof, no walls—just a series of cots, tables and an ambulance.

[Sound: Bang]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: That's outgoing artillery fire from behind us flying over our heads and into ISIS-held territory. Tanks, trucks and armoured vehicles drive by, heading to and from the frontlines. When we arrive, there is a bandaged up Iraqi soldier that's eager to talk to me. But our conversation is brief.

SOUNDCLIP

ASSER HASSAN: This is Iraqi Special Operation Forces. I’m Captain Asser.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: And can you tell me what we're looking at, what we can see?

ASSER HASSAN: A bomb car bombed against us from ISIS. And a lot of injuries, but still, I got just like—I don’t know, maybe break my fingers?

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Your wrist?

ASSER HASSAN: Maybe. So gonna go to the hospital and then we come back to continue battlefield.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Right.

ASSER HASSAN: Okay?

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Okay.

ASSER HASSAN: I'm not going home. I'm back to the battlefield.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: On that note, Captain Asser Hassan is taken an ambulance to a hospital in Erbil, off to fix whatever it is that's going on under that huge splint on his arm. A 14-year-old boy limps up looking for treatment and his father is keeping close watch. The boy sits down on one of the green cots that's stained with blood. His injuries aren't that serious but he has a number of shrapnel wounds in his knee. The medics drench it with iodine using the old water bottles it's stored in. And I ask his father, Salem, if they'll stay in the city.

SOUNDCLIP

[Through translator] We won't leave. We are the sons of the city. We grew up here and we are not ready to leave it. Of course, we are scared. We are afraid. But we are not more valuable than Iraqi security forces.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: I try to talk to the boy. But he says he can't. He's too tired.

[Sound: Banging noises]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: To clean up, the medics pick up the cots on one side and bang them against the ground. The bandages and the other garbage is being burned in a pile nearby and then another boy comes to the medic centre.

[Sound: Child crying]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: And this one can't be more than 10 years old. Initially, it's impossible to see what his injuries even are. And the medics start removing the bandages from the boy's hands and the blood starts flowing as the bandages come off. And again, they start dousing the wounds with iodine.

[Sound: Child shouting “No”]

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: As the medics are pouring on the iodine, it finds the path of least resistance and it's right through the penetrating hole in the boy’s palm. The medic plugs the hole and slows the bleeding with his gloved thumb. And the boy's mother and father and siblings are all standing there watching in horror. His mother tells me how a suicide car bomb—an ISIS specialty—had been parked outside of their flat keeping them from leaving. But the boy's mother had had enough and after three days of endless bombardment from both sides, they decided to get out of Mosul. It was in their escape that her son was struck with exploding shrapnel. The boy gets re-bandaged and his family walk towards the waiting military transport trucks. And these are essentially dump trucks which are hauling people out of Mosul to the displaced persons camp east of the city. As a result, there's a constant flow of civilians that are passing the medic station hoping to find safety somewhere outside the city. Hizm Younis lives in a house nearby. He's in his late fifties but he looks and sounds much older.

HIZM YOUNIS: [Through translator] We were here when ISIS came and we could do nothing. It was our fate. It is our life. We couldn't say anything.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Hizm was born in Mosul and he's never left. Now he can't leave the city as much as he might want to. He has a 23-year-old son at home who's paralyzed and bedridden. The last two years under ISIS rule have been trying in every way.

HIZM YOUNIS: [Through translator] It was very difficult. We were just trying to get away from them. Especially at the mosque, we would try to stay away. We are all Muslims. We are all brothers. But it was very difficult. I am an employee at an oil distribution company. It's been two years and five months since I received a salary.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: He says his son has been deprived of the medications he needs. Life is precarious here and survival almost seems random. Hizm recalls a run-in he had with ISIS soldiers.

HIZM YOUNIS: [Through translator] Their judgment was swift. I went to the market and they arrested me because my dress was too long. I was afraid of them. They took my ID card. They wanted to punish me but I am old. I couldn't take it. The ISIS soldier kept saying I will punish you, I will punish you, I will punish you. He said it three times. Then by the grace of God, suddenly things got easier and I survived. I survived by chance.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Hizm says that since Iraqi forces have moved into fight for the city, there is promise for the one and a half million people who call it home. Freedom might still come.

HIZM YOUNIS: [Through translator] When we saw the army in this city and saw the Iraqi flag on buildings again, we were all happy. Even my disabled son shouted, “Allahu Akbar,” from his bed. Thank God. When the army came into the city, we knew we had survived. We hope this never happens again.

SARAH LAWRYNUIK: Regardless of how many more weeks or months this battle rages on, it's obvious that anything resembling a normal life is a long way away.

AMT: We’ve been listening to 70 K to Mosul produced by Sarah Lawrynuik and The Current’s documentary editor, Joan Webber. Our thanks to the following Vancouver based actors: Patrick Sabongui was the voice in translation of Hizm Younis. Lee Majdoub spoke the words of Talal Jarbo Sliman. And Amad Sharmrou voiced the words of Salem Ahmed. And from Montreal, actor Mark Ghanime spoke the words of Captain Mubarak Behnam. To see video and pictures from inside Mosul, go to our website: www.cbc.ca/thecurrent.

[Music: Bridge]

AMT: You are listening to The Current on CBC Radio One and Sirius XM. Just a reminder that if you’re joining us partway through, you can listen on the app, on the CBC Radio app. You can get it on Google Play. You can listen online. We archive everything on our site: www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. Let us know what you’re thinking as you listen to our program today. You can tweet us. We are @thecurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook or go right to the site and click on the contact link.

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Why some Indigenous leaders see benefits to Kinder Morgan pipeline

Guests: Michael LeBourdais, Aaron Sam

AMT: Hi. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current. Indigenous representatives from across Canada we're gathering in Gatineau, Quebec last week for the Assembly of First Nations annual meeting. And it may come as little surprise that pipelines were a hot topic of debate in the wake of Ottawa's approval of the Trans Mountain expansion project. If that goes ahead, it will triple the existing pipelines’ capacity. It will bring oil from the Alberta oil sands to the coast of British Columbia. Here is National Chief Perry Bellgarde.

SOUNDCLIP

We support rights and the most important right that we will support is that right to self-determination. And I've always said that means the right to say yes and the right to say no.

AMT: Well, of course, it's the right to say yes to pipelines that has proven more controversial among First Nations. Many avowed to fight the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. At least 39 indigenous groups have signed agreements with the pipeline company Kinder Morgan. I'm joined by two chiefs from First Nations communities who have seriously considered the benefits of a pipeline. Michael LeBourdais is chair of the Tulo Centre of Indigenous Economics. He's the former chief of the Whispering Pines/Clinton Indian Band. His band signed an agreement with Kinder Morgan in 2014. Michael LeBourdais is in Kamloops, BC. Aaron Sam is the chief of the Lower Nicola Indian Band. His community has just signed a conditional agreement with Kinder Morgan. He joins us from Merritt, BC. Hello to you both.

AARON SAM: Good morning.

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: Michael LeBourdais, let's begin with you. What was your reaction when the government approved that pipeline?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Well, we thought they were going to approve it all along because of pre-existing right of way and the right that Canada held in the right of way. I mean it wasn't a big surprise to us because we’d lived with a pipe, like Aaron’s community, since it was installed back in 1953. The difference today is you know we have Aboriginal title and rights that need to be considered and we have consultation and accommodation. And so that's where we went with that in 2014. We’d come to an agreement with Kinder Morgan.

AMT: Aaron Sam, how did you react to this approval?

AARON SAM: We had and still have concerns in relation to the project. This project is of such magnitude it is going to affect our people for generations, really. We felt that the window to sit down and consult and accommodate us was unfortunately too short.

AMT: So Aaron Sam, your community signed a conditional agreement with the company one day after the approval happened. Why did you do that?

AARON SAM: Well, in some respects it was a very difficult decision. We felt that if we didn't sign something at the time that we would lose leverage and we felt that we negotiated the best agreement we could with Kinder Morgan. The reason it's conditional is because we felt that the best thing to do was to go to our community members and ask them whether this is something that they would like to endorse or not.

AMT: So you're having—are you having like a referendum?

AARON SAM: That's correct. We are going to have a referendum in early February.

AMT: Okay. So in the clip we just heard, Perry Bellgarde did say that self-determination is about the right to say no. Do you have the right to say no?

AARON SAM: Well, I do believe yes, we do, and that's why we're having the referendum. I think many times in this country, First Nations automatically do think they need to say yes but saying no is definitely an option. It is difficult when you have issues of high unemployment and poverty in First Nation communities. But I do believe there is some projects that any First Nation has a right to say no. That's their right.

AMT: And Michael LeBourdais?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Yeah. That's where we want to be but that's not where we are today. I mean we do have those in our community and in any demographic that are opposed to the pipeline. But when we had our referendum—we're a little ahead of the curve—in 2014, they looked at the risks because that's what all of this is about. If you can't protect the environment, you can't protect the moose fawning grounds, the deer fawning grounds or the waterways and the salmon, then there's no point in doing this. And so they were comfortable enough with the operations. The National Energy Board came twice. TMX operations personnel came twice. We had independent consultants, lawyers, all this kind of stuff, do presentations. And the comfort level got to the point where yeah, we can live with this. The risks are minimal and the benefits are great because what we are looking for is the respect of our jurisdiction because that pipe is a part of our community. And so they invested in our elders, they invested in our youth and they certainly incorporated our environmental bylaws, cultural bylaws and heritage bylaws into the pipe, so that got us to the point where we had the ability to say yes.

AMT: So Michael, tell me a bit more about your community. How big is it?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Tiny. We’re one of the smallest Indian bands in the Shuswap nation. But the pipe goes from one end to the other. We have 155 band members.

AMT: Okay. And if done poorly, how would that pipeline alter the landscape where you live?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Well, that’s in the agreement too. So we have to be made whole. What we do have built in is joint management committee into our agreement, where Kinder Morgan and Whispering Pines/Clinton Indian Band members have a committee that they meet every three months, every quarter and they go over operations. And then our environmental engineers will have oversight into the installation of the pipe and oversight of the operations and maintenance of the pipe and so all of this gives the community comfort that it's going to be operated safely.

AMT: When you say that it has to be made whole again, what do you mean?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Well, it’s like somebody rips off your car then well, you better get a new one, right, that's made whole. So that's in the agreement as well.

AMT: What's the biggest challenge in your community, Michael?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Well, the biggest challenge was respecting our authority. The very first day I met Ian Anderson, he came into the office and we sat down and he said I'm going to build a pump house on your Indian reserve. And I looked at him and I said I'm the chief around these parts. You're not building nothing.

AMT: Who’s—let me stop you. Ian Anderson? Remind us who he is.

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: He's the president of Kinder Morgan.

AMT: And so he came to see you.

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: He came to tell us that he was doing a pump house on our reserve and I looked at him. I've never met the guy before. And so we had this stranger walk in and say I own the pipe now and I’m going to put a pump house on your reserve and we're looking at him, no, you’re not. You’re not doing anything like that. And so that triggered our legal team to fight with theirs. So we did a lot of research on right of ways and all this kind of stuff. And so we actually fought for about five years. Spent a few hundred thousand dollars on legal fees and that kind of thing and then one day, we're in Vancouver, Ian and I and all the other bands with their lawyers, and we're going back and forth. And we’re accomplishing nothing. We're spinning our wheels so to speak. And I said can I talk to you alone? And my lawyer objected and his lawyer objected and then he said yeah, sure. And so we got alone in a room and he says what do you want? I said I want you to keep the damn oil in the pipe. I said most of all, I want you to respect our jurisdiction and authority. I want you to invest in our community and I want you, you know to let us work with you. And he looks at me and he says I want that too. And so we called our lawyers back in and that was what, January 2012, and we started working on a mutual benefits agreement and it was ratified January 2014.

AMT: And so when you say mutual benefits, can you give me an idea what's in there?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Well, there's the investment in our elders. Some of our elders don't own their homes. We don't own our Indian reserve. And so they have all the equity stranded in their homes and so you know most Canadians can retire using their home as a retirement option. We can't do that on Indian reserves. And so Kinder Morgan will provide funds to ease your retirement. There's also a component of that where they will invest in our university students and the programs that we have there. But most importantly was the environment, right—the oversight in the installation and operations and maintenance by our environmental engineers and our cultural people.

AMT: So you have jobs within the community working on, like looking after that pipeline.

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Yeah. We have the oversight but we also have direct awards in the installation of the pipe and the maintenance. And so that will benefit the communities, all our working class guys. And they're going to give us a new band office [unintelligible].

AMT: And so you came to this agreement because you sat down with the president of Kinder Morgan and the two of you just worked it out. That said you're going to do this.

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: It took a few minutes at the beginning and then it took about 20 negotiation meetings and eight community meetings to get that comfort level.

AMT: What's your relationship like now?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: With Ian?

AMT: Yeah.

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Good. You know I was in Calgary last April and he came down. We had some chicken wings and there's a Irish pub at the bottom of this building there. I don't think we talked about pipelines and stuff. His son’s in hockey and my grandsons are in hockey and so one of my grandsons is a goalie, his son’s a goalie. So that's what we talked about—the goalie problems in the NHL and the goalie problems in the mini hockey league.

AMT: Aaron Sam, as you listen to Michael LeBourdais, is there a relationship you think you can build with Kinder Morgan and their top leader?

AARON SAM: Well, I've had the good fortune of meeting with Mr. Ian Anderson on a few different occasions. And if our community decides to ratify this conditional agreement, yes, it's really important that we have a good relationship with Kinder Morgan and it's going to be interesting to see what happens with our referendum in February.

AMT: Can you describe life in your community now, Aaron?

AARON SAM: Well, we’re a community of over 1,200 community members and the pipeline goes through our reserve. We had our first community consultation. We had a table actually at our Christmas dinner providing information to our community members about the expansion. And you know we're like many other communities in Canada. We have people that support the project. We have community members that are looking for work. We have community members that see the benefits in the agreement. We also have people in our community that are adamantly opposed to the project. And for example, we have some community members that are organizing a meeting in the new year to provide information and from what I can see, state their opposition to the project. And then we have many community members that are in the middle and haven't made a decision yet.

AMT: What will your community gain if this agreement with Kinder Morgan gets a go ahead in a referendum then, Aaron Sam?

AARON SAM: Well, we have different components in our agreement. The financial component is getting money over the next 20 years. There's also a say when it comes to environmental management. As well, one of the important components is relating to contracting and procurement. When the pipeline is to be built, it's going to be built, in my understanding, over an 18-month to two-year period and it will involve us getting direct awards at the time of construction.

AMT: Last week I spoke with Kanesatake Grand Chief Serge Simon, a Quebec Mohawk leader who is opposed to pipelines. Listen to a bit of what he said.

SOUNDCLIP

No, no. Nobody's going against economic development, for God's sakes. We're saying some of us are just saying no to the tar sands for obvious reasons. We have differing views for sure. But you know what? I would be careful if I were those First Nations in Alberta. You look at the up and down prices of oil. One of these days, it's going to go down and it's going to stay down. Now you’ve got to start diversifying. They don't have to rely solely on oil. There's other alternatives where they can make a lot of money. They could create wealth and they don't need to go that road.

AMT: Okay. He's talking about Alberta Indigenous leaders but clearly BC as well, where the pipeline goes. Michael LeBourdais, how do you respond to what he's saying there?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Well, I appreciate his concerns about the environment. But the Fort McMurray bands, Chippewas and all those, I'm sure the chiefs up there have done their very best to protect their community and that's what we're doing down here in the Shuswap nation. The amount of the pipe that flows through the Shuswap nation, we make sure that we have environmental oversight and those kinds of things so that it gives our community, our people comfort. So you know I can appreciate his concerns but I wonder how far his jurisdiction goes as a Mohawk.

AMT: Aaron Sam, what do you think?

AARON SAM: Well, I think it's important to listen to what other leaders have to say and you know looking at these type of projects from my perspective, it's really important to look at them not only from your own community's perspective. The reason we're having this discussion today, I believe, is because projects like the Kinder Morgan expansion doesn't just affect one community. It affects British Columbia. It affects Alberta. It affects Canada. It affects us on an international level when you look at issues for example like climate change and resource extraction. So you know when we make a decision on our referendum in February, I believe it's important for our community to not make a decision in a silo, to look at the issues that affect us all, and you know listen to the Stó:lō and the coastal First Nations and the non-First Nations communities and then make an informed decision. I think that's the best way to move forward.

AMT: Well, you both expressed environmental concerns related to spills but Michael LeBourdais, how concerned are you about the wider issues tied to the pipeline such as climate change?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: I live in a valley. In my oral history, there's a story of [unintelligible], the coyote. He’s the jokester. He's the trickster. In the story, he's playing on a glacier that's six, seven hundred feet thick. That glacier’s in a [unintelligible] and that's what we call the North Thompson River. It's gone now. It melted away about 2,000 years ago. So for First Nations, the climate has always been changing. And so yes, there's a manmade opponent to that climate change. How much we can influence I have not seen you know I'm not as well-versed as others in it. But for us, the pipeline was a lot narrower. The approval and the comfort level of the pipeline was a lot narrower. Climate change certainly has to be done by other leaders, whether it be Justin Trudeau, China, India. That’s for those guys to address. But you know for my little 155 Indian reserves here, we're comfortable with the pipe.

AMT: Aaron Sam?

AARON SAM: Well, from my perspective, my job as chief of my community is to ensure the health and well-being of our community members, to take care of the environment in a sustainable way not just today but into the future. And you know I do believe that we also have a wider responsibility not just to Lower Nicola Band, but we're part of an Indigenous nation—the Nlaka’pamux Nation—which has 15 bands and we have a responsibility to our neighbours. And you know that's why these decisions are so difficult, right, because our communities do suffer from poverty and high unemployment. But we also want to do everything we can to take care of our lands and our waters in a way that reflects our values as Indigenous or Nlaka’pamux people.

AMT: Well then, maybe I can play another clip for you. The morning after the government approved the Trans Mountain pipeline, we spoke with Rueben George from Tsleil-Waututh Nation. That community is on the coast of BC. It is adamantly opposed to the pipeline. Listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

My son's 20. He’s been to Standing Rock. He’s been down in Central America working with Indigenous people. He’s been to Australia and New Zealand. And he’s seen the devastating effects of those things that happen. He goes, those people are dying and he goes Dad, I love where I live so much that I would do the same.

AMT: Chief Aaron Sam, when you hear a fellow leader vowing to fight the project, what do you make of that?

AARON SAM: Well, I know Rueben and I've met him on several occasions and I have the utmost respect for him and I do believe we, here in our nation and at Lower Nicola Band, we have to make an informed decision and it's important for us to hear from people like Rueben. It's also important for us to hear from industry and government and other First Nations that support the project. And when I talk about our community being informed, it means I'm hearing different and diverse opinions.

AMT: Michael LeBourdais, you know that some people would accuse you of selling out by signing on. How do you see that view?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: I don't think that's accurate because we're not—we don't have the authority to say no. People don't understand that. That's what Rueben is looking for. Right? Today we don't have the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous people. We don't have free prior and informed consent and the ability to say no. Right now, we're operating under a set of laws that were outlined by the Supreme Court of Canada called Delgamuukw, where we have to be consulted and accommodated. And so that's what I did. We made Kinder Morgan consult. We made them accommodate. We put it in front of the community and they ratified it. The people who call me sellouts—I honestly, you know thank you for your opinion, but it doesn't bother me.

AMT: I have another clip I'd like to play for you. This is Stephen Buffalo. He's the president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council.

SOUNDCLIP

There's money going through that pipeline for the next 35 years. How can we prepare ourselves to be a part of that equation? You know and that's economic opportunity that we have to present to the people. The driving force is really the betterment of our people, you know, not to be poor again. My fear is that if these projects continue and we're standing on the sidelines with nothing because we can't come to terms on some of these issues.

AMT: Michael LeBourdais, how do you respond to that?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Well, how can we prepare ourselves? What he's looking for is the tax jurisdiction. Right. There's two components to every government—mine, Aaron’s, the province, Justin Trudeau’s—and that’s an economic component and a fiscal component. The fiscal component is my ability as a First Nation to tax the pipeline, to tax the forest activities, to tax the mining activities because this is Aboriginal title land. We were here first. And so we were here long before Columbus got lost and we had a tax system in place. That was all taken away when the Indian Act came. And so what we're trying to do and what this guy's talking about is re-institute that so that we're not relying on Indian Affairs for transfers every year and fighting with the Department of Indian Affairs over funding.

AMT: So Michael LeBourdais, if things were different, if your community wasn't dealing with poverty, if you did have the right to say no, would you have made a different decision?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: Well, again, I would have looked towards the community for a referendum. We would put that same question. But we had our lawyers explain to us we're not there. Consultation is required by Kinder Morgan and Canada and accommodation if we can get it. And so that's what we did.

AMT: Is there any part of you that mourns that decision?

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: No.

AMT: Aaron Sam, what are you thinking?

AARON SAM: Well, I respectfully disagree with Michael LeBourdais. I do believe that First Nation communities have a right to say no. That's why we're doing the referendum. It is really, really difficult though. You know our people have suffered through the residential school system. And you know my parents went to residential school and many of our communities met with the residential school and they were you know beaten into submission and they weren't able to say no to things. And you know unfortunately what happened there still affects our leadership today. But I do believe things are changing and I think that our leadership are finally starting to stand up for what we believe to protect and take care of ourselves and take care of the land and the waters. It's very, very important that we make informed decisions and that we stand up and say no when we believe it's the right time to do so.

AMT: I really appreciate both of you talking to me about this today. Thank you.

AARON SAM: Thank you both.

MICHAEL LEBOURDAIS: You're welcome.

AMT: Well, Michael LeBourdais is the chair of the Tulo Centre for Indigenous Economics. He's the former chief of the Whispering Pines/Clinton Indian Band. He joined us from Kamloops, BC. Aaron Sam is chief of the Lower Nicola Indian Band. He's in Merritt, BC. Let us know what you think of what they have to say. You can find us by going to our website, www.cbc.ca/thecurrent or on Twitter @thecurrentCBC. I want to share some of your responses to yesterday's program. We were looking at the crisis of intimate partner violence. A Canadian woman is killed every six days by an intimate partner. Now some are calling on all doctors to actively screen for signs of spousal and familial abuse among their patients. But Farrah Khan, the coordinator of Ryerson University's Office of Sexual Violence Support and Education said that still wouldn't be enough.

SOUNDCLIP

When it comes to screening, yes, we can have screening at hospitals, but if I'm a doctor, I may not go to a hospital or get a screening. So it's important to know about other parts and everyone being educated about. Here's a resource in my community. Here's what safety planning looks like. Here's who are experts in safety planning. Because here's the piece that I think is important to know with this case that are coming through is that the most dangerous time for women is when they leave, yet we tell women to leave. But when they leave, it's the most dangerous time. So we need to think about what are the supports in place, be it our police, our judges, our court systems, our community supports that can hold space so it doesn't become the most dangerous time?

AMT: Well, after that discussion, we heard from Jocelyn in Stratford, Ontario. She was abused and she writes: “I have mixed feelings about the medical community screening for intimate partner violence. On the one hand, if it could help just a small number of women facing violence, then it's worth pursuing. But when I think about my situation, I would never have admitted to my doctor that I was being abused. Perhaps that's because those of us who are victims of this type of abuse have been so psychologically beaten down that we can't or won't truly see the position we're in until we get out of it.” Lee Adamson of Toronto writes: “Discussions of violence at home always seem to end with solving the immediate problem which is to get the endangered person out of the situation. But won't the violent partner simply move on to do the same thing to their next partner? It seems to me the problem on both sides of the relationship needs to be addressed.” And Illa from Alberta wrote: “This subject matter rings loudly with me. As a child, I became aware of my father's abuse toward my mother in particular, but all the older children too. Abused women feel terrible shame because their abuser has convinced them of their lack of worth. Society in general is ignorant and judgemental about this crisis and why it is perpetuated. We need better laws, police, education and open discussions in the schools.” Well, really moving and thoughtful responses and thanks to all of you for sharing your thoughts and you can comment as well. Find us on Facebook. Tweet us @thecurrentCBC. Email us from our website: www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. That's our program for today but stay with Radio One. Tom Power is waiting with q and he is joined by Patrick Haggerty—the musician best known for having released the first ever openly gay country album four decades ago. Remember you can always take The Current with you to go on the free CBC Radio app. It's free from the App Store or Google Play. If you're missing something, if you're just joining us partway through, go to the app. And now we started today's show talking about the connections between Russia and the incoming Trump administration. Of course, during the campaign, Mr. Trump spoke of his experience doing deals with Russians and that would include Miss Universe 2013, the pageant in which Mr. Trump went to Moscow. He held it in Moscow. We're going to end with a bit of music from that international summit. The Azerbaijani pop star Emin performed at the pageant. In a special music video featuring several Miss Universe contestants, Donald Trump made a cameo appearance rousing Emin from a daydream at the end of the song. Here's just a bit of that song, “In Another Life.” I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Music: “In Another Life” – Emin]

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December 13, 2016 full episode transcript

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