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The Current Transcript for December 16, 2016

Host: Piya Chattopadhyay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

THUMPER: Huh Bambi, come on get up. Like this.

[Sound: drum roll and clumsy music]

THUMPER: [laughing]

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Well it may be cute and silly when Bambi falls on the ice but not so much when it's your tush or mine landing on the sidewalk. It's that time of year again when sidewalks get treacherous and thousands of Canadians end up in the ER after a spill. In a few moments, we'll hear a few ideas about how we may cut down on the ice induced injuries, from better boots to some deluxe heated sidewalks that could just be coming soon to a city near you. Then, we're off to India and don't forget to pack your cash.

SOUNDCLIP

[Indian language]

VOICE 1: [Through translator] People don't have any money so how will anyone buy anything? Everyone's pocket is now empty, so what will they do? If this continues then I would be forced to shut down my business.

PC: A government move to make bank notes worthless overnight was designed to help combat the underground economy. But whether it was a bad idea or bad execution, India's been sent into a state of cash chaos. We'll hear from Indians stuck in lengthy ATM queues and from a business owner who isn't sure whether he can weather the currency crisis. That and more in half an hour. Plus..

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But I tell you, having worked in the CIA, if we had been caught interfering in European elections or Asian elections or anywhere in the world, those countries would call for new elections.

PC: Well, caught may just be the operative word from that CIA agent because as the US spy agency calls foul over Russian election interference, more than a few observers find that a little bit rich, given the CIA's past foreign electoral adventures. More on that in an hour. And we'll also be talking about the spike in Canadian prison violence as well. Hello, I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Think big treads on winter boots can stop you from slipping on ice? Nope.

Guests: Geoff Fernie, Nancy DeBoer

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Well, from coast to coast to coast winter seems to have blown in. The season may not officially begin for a few more days but even Vancouver is bracing for a sub-zero day today, while much of the country is well reacquainted with the snow shovel this year. Of course, a little snow and ice may be a welcome sight going into the holidays but the return of wintery conditions also means the return of slips and falls on our icy sidewalks and roads. Each year, thousands of Canadians end up on their posteriors or worse after slipping on an icy patch. In Ontario alone, some 20,000 people end up in the emergency room every year after falling on ice. Nearly as many in Alberta as well. And injuries range from simple cuts and bruises to broken bones, hip fractures and even death. Jenny Howe knows the perils of slippery ice firsthand. The CBC Calgary traffic reporter recalls a nasty spill that she took.

SOUNDCLIP

JENNY HOWE: So the time that I slipped and fell very hard on the ice, it had just snowed the night before but there is just a skiff of snow. Enough snow that you couldn't see what was underneath it but not so much snow that you had to, you know, think about trudging through snow. And I was walking up a driveway and all of a sudden my feet came out from underneath me, the driveway was at a little bit of an angle, a bit of a slope. And I completely fell backwards. And it was that moment, I was in, I was in the air and I thought I am going to land very hard and this is going to hurt my head. And I felt my head slam back on the concrete. And it was that moment of, when they say you see stars, it was just like this flash of stars that came and I didn't, you know, lose consciousness or anything. And it was kind of one of those [flabbergasted gasp] moments and I was lying on my back on this driveway. And I laid there and it was that moment of I hope nobody is looking at me because I'm going to cry, I don't want to cry, I'm going to cry. And then everything just hurt. Initially, I thought well, this is just a fall because I mean, we live in Canada, sometimes you slip and fall in the winter, it's what happens. But I managed to hit my head in just the right spot but that it did actually give me a concussion. I had a headache, it was hard to sleep, it was hard to concentrate. And then I kept going back to my doctor and they said, actually, this is a little more severe than we thought it was, so you're going to have to be off work and do rehabilitation. It was probably five months before I could go back to work full time. All from a little slip and fall on the ice and a little crack with my head.

[Sound: footsteps crunching in snow]

JENNY HOWE: Walking in which is very different for me now. I did actually change my footwear because before I just, I was probably wearing something as silly as ballet flats and now I have a giant pair of boots with very good grips on them. I take smaller steps and I always anticipate that it's going to be icy — always.

PC: That's Jenny Howe in Calgary with her story of an icy slip and fall. Well, our next guest is studying how to prevent accidents like the one Jenny had. Turns out Jenny's on to something actually, a lot of it does come down to winter footwear. Geoff Fernie is the Research Director at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, where they're testing winter boots for traction on ice and snow. The institute has developed a rating system, it's called rate my treads and it's fair to say that most boots on the Canadian market fall woefully short. Geoff Fernie is here with me in Toronto. Hi.

GEOFF FERNIE: Good morning Piya.

PC: Let's check out your boots.

GEOFF FERNIE: Well, actually, I'm wearing the ones that came out top on our rating scale because I thought it’d be kind of silly if I fell over.

PC: Hmm. You know, we don't want to promote any kind of brand or anything but they, like, hold them up for me for a sec. Let's see.

GEOFF FERNIE: [grunts]

PC: Let’s see, they got big, oh there they are. They got some big treads on the bottom and there, well, I don’t know.

GEOFF FERNIE: You know, the tread isn't such a big deal actually, unless you're really going cross country through deep snow. What really matters, as in the little piece that we heard, is when you hit some ice, maybe some ice with a little bit of snow scattered on the top of it. And the tread doesn't make a big deal then, it's the surface of the material that matters.

PC: We'll talk about that. But it's interesting that you say that because I think I'm probably like most Canadians, when I go by a pair of winter boots the first thing I do is turn them upside down and look at the soles.

GEOFF FERNIE: Yeah, it's the same when you go and buy snow tires. You want an aggressive masculine tire with a deep tread that will take you through ten foot of snow and up a mountain. But actually, when you look at the bottom of a boot you can't really tell. Even I can't really tell whether it's going to be a good boot or a bad boot in most cases.

PC: OK. Let's take a step back, we heard from Jenny in Calgary. Familiar story in the sense that we've all, you know, taken that spill on the sidewalk. She got a concussion, less familiar. But is that the kind of story that inspired you to look into what we're wearing on our feet as Canadians in the winter and how good it really is?

GEOFF FERNIE: Yeah. I mean, at Toronto rehab we’re supposed to do rehabilitation research but I think research into preventing people ever coming to the hospital is more important. So a good third of our work is preventing accidents of different kinds, infections and road accidents and back injuries and stuff. So it struck me as being rather silly that so many people fall over and also are frightened to go out in the winter, a lot of elderly people spend their winters inside because they're scared and they get depressed, they get isolated. And, you know, we worry about big snow tires and things but we don't seem to care much about what's on our feet. So we wanted to do something about that.

PC: So it would seem like boots would be, you know, they are a critical part of our winter gear but what I hear from you is that science and attention and research hasn't gone into designing safe boots, say, the same way they have with winter tires.

GEOFF FERNIE: No, not until recently. In fact, most, when you actually talk to people in the industry, most boots and shoes are designed almost just solely by graphic designers who are trying to make them look sexy, look efficient, with colours and dramatic tread looks and stuff but there's only recently been some attention to the materials involved.

PC: OK. I want to talk about the study that you conducted but I want to get inside your labs. So we're going to do that because The Current’s producer Karin Marley visited you there yesterday at the Toronto Rehabilitation Centre. And you and your team helped Karin test her own well-worn winter boots and compare them with another pair from the lab. So let's have a listen to that.

GEOFF FERNIE: We're deep underground, next to what we call winter lab. A big cube, it’s about big room size, living room size. Inside it's got pink ice on the floor. Glycol controls the temperature of the ice very precisely so we can have it just a little bit melting or we can have it bare cold ice. And you get strapped up in there and there's a mattress at one end and you'll see why in a minute.

KARIN MARLEY: [laughs]

GEOFF FERNIE: And then the whole room is sitting on a platform which gradually tips. And you walk up and down until you reach an angle where you can't walk anymore.

VOICE 1: What's the shoe size?

KARIN MARLEY: Seven.

VOICE 1: Seven? Perfect.

GEOFF FERNIE: Let’s first of all have you walk in your boots. Yeah, well, I would say that you might make three degrees. What do you reckon?

VOICE 1: Oh this one.

VOICE 2: I don't think so.

VOICE 1: [laughs]

KARIN MARLEY: [laughs]

GEOFF FERNIE: You think two? Maybe one.

KARIN MARLEY: Oh, OK. So that’s pretty bad?

GEOFF FERNIE: So let's see if we’re betting. Yeah, that’s pretty bad.

KARIN MARLEY: OK. [laughs]

GEOFF FERNIE: In fact, it's a wonder that you got here today.

KARIN MARLEY: [laughs] But they’re so cute.

GEOFF FERNIE: With respect, they're not even cute.

KARIN MARLEY: Right. [laughs] They are actually falling apart. I need new boots. Alright, let's go in.

GEOFF FERNIE: So let’s put this harness on you.

KARIN MARLEY: Oh, right, right. OK. So we're heading in this giant fridge thing.

[Sound: heavy door closing]

GEOFF FERNIE: Just walk up and down looking straight ahead at a normal pace, up to that end, turn around and come back.

KARIN MARLEY: OK.

GEOFF FERNIE: Alright, off you go.

[Sound: footsteps with harness]

KARIN MARLEY: Alright. So I’m walking super carefully now of course but easy enough on a flat surface.

GEOFF FERNIE: How did that feel?

KARIN MARLEY: Fine.

GEOFF FERNIE: Alright, then let’s go to four.

KARIN MARLEY: Uh oh.

[Sound: footsteps with harness]

KARIN MARLEY: [laughing] Did my terrible boots just [laughing]

GEOFF FERNIE: Yes, your terrible did just fine. Let’s go to eight.

VOICE 1: OK, that’s eight degrees.

KARIN MARLEY: And now, down the hill at eight degrees. I hope that mattress is soft.

[Sound: footsteps with harness]

KARIN MARLEY: Oh, [laughing] oh OK.

GEOFF FERNIE: So that’s described as a failure because both feet slipped. Let’s get you set up with some better boots. When we turn these boots upside down, there's a material here which has got some blue dots in it. And if you rub it with your finger, you'll feel it's kind of felty, it's kind of furry.

KARIN MARLEY: Oh, that’s kind of soft. Yeah, and they’re kind of pretty too actually.

GEOFF FERNIE: Yeah, they’re kind of pretty, they’re alright. Let’s go to 11.

KARIN MARLEY: Alright.

VOICE 1: OK, that’s 11 degrees.

KARIN MARLEY: OK, downhill, 11 degrees.

[Sound: footsteps with harness]

KARIN MARLEY: Whoa, OK, right into the mattress. [laughs]

PC: Alright, Geoff Fernie, Karin’s wearing your boots there, she seems to be struggling a little bit.

GEOFF FERNIE: Well, she did all right. I mean, the boots that we've been testing, the best of the boots this year have got one snowflake on our chart. And we know because we've been testing experimental boots, that in years to come we're going to get to two and three. Some of them got close to two this time but it's still a lot better than none at all. And some of the ones that you can buy that are labeled winter boots, you're actually, you can't stand on level ice.

PC: Hmm.

GEOFF FERNIE: She happened to have a pair of crummy old boots that for some reason--

PC: That you said weren't even nice, yes.

GEOFF FERNIE: Yeah, but they didn't get a snowflake but they didn't do so badly.

PC: The snowflake you’re referring to is this rating system.

GEOFF FERNIE: Yeah.

PC: That you use. And so just explain that.

GEOFF FERNIE: Well, it's what you might expect. Instead of stars for a hotel room or a dinner, we have three snowflakes to make it simple to understand. And one snowflake means that you can go up and down seven degrees. And seven degrees on either melting ice or hard cold ice. And boots vary a lot depending on which you're walking on.

PC: So you studied how many pairs of boots in doing your research?

GEOFF FERNIE: Well, so far on the website, we've listed 98 but actually we’ve studied more and there’s some more going up now.

PC: OK, so about 100. And out of that, how many of those boots are good for a typical Canadian winter, to prevent slips and falls?

GEOFF FERNIE: We found that nine got one snowflake and those nine were all based on one of two kinds of soles. If you turn them upside down, they either had sort of glistening diamonds sticking out of them, and they're not real diamonds obviously, but carbide rough bits, look like rough very rough sandpaper and they worked by scratching the ice. Or they had this felty kind of arctic grip stuff, which is lots of fibers, I suppose but like some animal paws. But the fibers are very interesting and we've been doing some experiments with developing some new fiber materials. And actually, I've walked up and down 22 degrees of wet ice in some of the experimental boots that we're working on.

PC: OK. So most of the boots on the market failed?

GEOFF FERNIE: Yeah, most of them failed, yeah.

PC: OK, because we're all looking for that tread and companies know that and they market that.

GEOFF FERNIE: [crosstalk] And they, you know, that’s right. I mean, they failed on very low angles and it's not that we want people to go up and down steep slopes but the angle that they failed on was the kind of angle you meet at the end of the road when you go down the little ramp for the wheelchair to the road and you really don't want to slide down that under the bus that's turning around the corner. And it's also true that the angle that you can achieve walking up and down is roughly, well not roughly, is rather a good representation of how safe you are on level ice. So it's easy to understand.

PC: So when you took your research to winter boot companies, which I imagine you did, what was their response?

GEOFF FERNIE: Well, it got really interested, a couple of them had got really interested in the last year. I mean, we were actually faced with the problem until this year that if we'd done this, it would've just come up with a rather depressing website that no one would be interested in. And it’s only because a couple of companies have come up with some advances that look promising that we could say yeah. I mean, we actually agonized over it. We got nine boots that did one snowflake, we still went ahead and published it because we realized it's a lot better than none. But there yes, the companies are interested now and of course it's beginning to affect sales and that will make them more interested.

PC: Hmm.

GEOFF FERNIE: And that's part of our objective of course. I mean, one thing we want to do is we want consumers to buy better boots and therefore not fall over. The other is we want to engender some competition and interest in the industry so it continues to improve in future years.

PC: OK. Stick around, Geoff Fernie. We're going to hear about another approach to cutting down on the icy winter accidents — heating roads and sidewalks. Several European cities do it. Montreal is planning to heat its main downtown street Ste. Catherine’s in 2018. But there's a city in Michigan called Holland and that began 25 years ago and it is at the forefront of this in North America. And we've reached the mayor of Holland, Michigan Nancy DeBoer. Hi Nancy.

NANCY DEBOER: Hi.

PC: So you better start by telling us what exactly you mean by heating the streets and sidewalks. How do you even do that?

NANCY DEBOER: Well, you produce power in your power plant and the water gets heated in that process. And you use the leftover heat in the water to send it underneath all of the sidewalks and street and melt the snow.

PC: And how extensive is this network in Holland, Michigan?

NANCY DEBOER: We now have done about 4.9 miles of snow melt through our downtown and partway up into our residential area as well. That was the first time we have ever done that. We used to generate this power in a coal fired steam plant and had about two and a half miles of capacity. But we are now opening a natural gas power plant in the middle of February and we've installed the auxiliary boilers for that. And those boilers are actually heating the water right now, that is melting our snow. It was just finished December 5. So we were really glad the snow held off till then. [chuckles]

PC: So basically, if I walk down these four miles, it's about seven and a half kilometres of roads in Holland. I got no ice under my feet because of the heat.

NANCY DEBOER: Exactly. It's maybe slightly wet but it's not slippery.

PC: OK.

NANCY DEBOER: And that we find that the best way to do it is with a brick walkway. So the sidewalks are brick with, like, sand in between. And that way if you have to address the pipes in any way, it's much easier to take out the bricks and it seems to work the best for circulation.

PC: It's got to be expensive to do all this, no?

NANCY DEBOER: Yes it is. It was about 1.1 million back in 1988, ‘89, when we put it in. And then we expanded it, doubled it and then it went another 1.5 million, back in 2005. And now we've added this other residential section, it's about another eight or nine block area and that was about a quarter of a million. So yeah, it is not cheap. And then, each of the businesses downtown pay an assessment every year to keep up, based on the number of square feet that they have. And we have a different rate for the second floor and third floor of their businesses to help support it. But it is just gorgeous. And I've been told, yeah, I love shopping in Holland because you don't have to worry about ice or snow, it's a lot easier. We don't have to have the plows downtown, we don't truck things in, it's much better for handicapped people, people walking dogs. I saw somebody this past Sunday morning, running down the new brick walkway in the residential section, in the middle of the snowstorm. That was really cool. [chuckles]

PC: [chuckles]

NANCY DEBOER: Watching that happen.

PC: So you’ve been doing this for years now Nancy, and at the beginning, like, why did you think huh, we should do this at Holland because your city, most Canadian places, we get snow in the winter, almost all Canadian places. So why did you decide to heat some of its streets and sidewalks in Holland originally?

NANCY DEBOER: You know, we get about a hundred inches of snow a year in Holland and we had a very entrepreneurial business man in Holland. And back in ‘88, the main street, 8th street was scheduled for getting redone, they had to replace the underground utilities, sanitary water and storm sewers. Anyway, it was all part of a streetscape program in revitalizing downtown. And he, I think, had seen snow melt in Europe somewhere. And actually, it was a Swedish firm. And he brought that idea to city council not too much before the project was going to begin and no one had ever heard of snow melt. But he is also a wonderful philanthropist and so he put a quarter of a million dollars with his idea and everyone listened, including PBW people who had to quick figure out how do you do this idea? And so they agreed to go for it and people were pretty nervous because the downtown was being revitalized but in a new mall was coming in, so they were all afraid we were going to lose all our business.

PC: [crosstalk] And here you are seven years later and it's working out for you guys.

NANCY DEBOER: Yes. People love it.

PC: Nancy DeBoer, that's good. Nancy DeBoer, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you for your time this morning.

NANCY DEBOER: Oh, thank you.

PC: Bye bye.

NANCY DEBOER: Have a great weekend.

PC: You too.

NANCY DEBOER: Bye bye.

PC: Nancy DeBoer is the mayor of Holland, Michigan. Geoff Fernie, we just got about a minute left. But as you listen to Nancy, you're also doing research in this area, on poor cement right?

GEOFF FERNIE: Yeah, that's the other part of it. Obviously, one of the big problems is thawing and refreezing, thawing and refreezing, it just gets really icy. One of the possibilities is you have porous cement, as it thaws, it drains away rather than sitting in a puddle. And then before it ices. So we’re doing that and we're doing pedestrian crossings. We think that the slope for the wheelchairs is a stupid idea, actually, you should simply be crossing on the level, we need to redesign our intersections.

PC: For people who are in wheelchairs, they need that accessibility point.

GEOFF FERNIE: Oh yeah, but they’ll have better accessibility without a slope, if you just raise the roadbed slightly, so that it drains properly away from the corner and you go across on the level. They do it all over Europe and I've seen it done in China a lot now as well. So yeah, you have to address the surface you're walking on, as well as the shoes of course.

PC: OK. I'm embarrassingly tucking my feet under this desk. Because I showed you my boots you'd make fun of me big time. Good to talk to you. Thank you for coming in.

GEOFF FERNIE: Yeah, fun. Thank you.

PC: Geoff Fernie is the Research Director with the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. He was here with us in our Toronto studio. If you want to see how the winter boots rated in Geoff Fernie’s research, you can go to our website and follow the links. We'll also link to a video with safe walking tips. That's at cbc.ca/thecurrent. And while you're there, let us know how the walking is where you live. If you’ve ever fallen on the ice, send us an email by clicking on the contact link. We’re also on Facebook and Twitter @TheCurrentCBC. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay, the CBC News is headed your way next. And then we go from snow banks to India's cash money madness. You're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Extro]

Back To Top »

Cash crunch grips India one month after move to demonetization

Guests: Shantanu Ray, Abhishek Chakravarty, Devinder Sharma

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Hi, I’m Piya Chattopadhyay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

PC: Still to come..

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.

PC: These days US president-elect Donald Trump called that campaign taunt a joke. But there’s little laughter in the States about apparent election interference by hackers from Russia. The CIA is especially outraged, but that strikes some observers as a little rich, given the CIA's own history of election meddling abroad. We'll pick up that discussion in half an hour. But first, cashing out in India.

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[Sound: crowds yelling and chanting]

PC: That's what it sounds like when overnight 86 per cent of a country's currency is rendered useless. And that's exactly what happened in India last month. The extremely unpopular government move was designed to crack down on India's illegal underground economy but it has caused chaos in a country where 90 per cent of transactions take place in cash. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that 500 and 1,000 rupee notes would no longer be accepted. That's about the equivalent of 10 and 20 Canadian dollar bills. Indians were told to deposit their old notes in a bank by the end of this year and they could withdraw notes of smaller denominations. But things didn't go smoothly. Indians have been lining up at ATMs for hours at a time, where they often find themselves unable to even withdraw the weekly maximum 24,000 rupees they're allowed because there is just a shortage of the new currency. Freelance journalist Shantanu Ray went out to meet people lined up at an ATM in New Delhi. And just a note about terminology, you will hear people refer to Paytm, that's an online payment system that's used in India.

SHANTANU RAY: Tensions, tensions and more tensions outside Indian banks across the country. Everyone is running out of cash.

[Sound: car honk]

SHANTANU RAY: They are saying the banks are not coming and he cash is really in short supply. Across Delhi, the capital of India, more than 500 anytime money machines have gone dry. I’m outside one bank where I’m meeting harassed people, tension written on their faces. All of them are saying they are very tired waiting. Let's talk to one of these gentlemen who's standing right in front of me, Anil Bhan, a filmmaker, what's happening, have you got your money?

AMIR BAN: Look, everyday rules are changing, it’s so difficult to keep up with these things. Like, say if you’re going to the bank today. They are saying that OK the government says 23,000, 24,000 you can take up at one go for a week. But where is the money? When I go into the bank they are saying that we can give you 6,000, we can give you 10,000, but we can't give you any money, come back tomorrow. It's a total chaos situation and it’s so difficult to get hand to the ATMs. There’s huge lines outside the ATM, people are waiting for the time when those ATM people will come and submit money into the ATM. And then when do we work? Half the day goes in search of money, there is no cash in hand. It's been so many days and we are not seeing that, any change is not visible. There's nothing's that’s going to change very soon it seems.

SHANTANU RAY: Amir Ban, filmmaker, let me ask you one very simple question. Cashless society is a great society, plastic money is the way forward because we as a nation are known to hoard money and gold. So what you have to say to that?

AMIR BAN: Yes, the holding thing, look, it’s happening. What's happening is that when people are getting any form of money, any amount of real cash in their hand, they are keeping it at home. They're not spending it out. Now whatever money comes into our hand, we’re keeping it at our home. You'll never know when the emergency comes in and when the emergency comes in your cashless system might not work. The only system that has actually taken this cashless thing seriously are the ATMs. They are totally cashless. Then don’t have any cash actually.

[Sound: cars honking]

SHANTANU RAY: OK, Amir Ban, thank you. Let's go on to some more people. I can see many harassed faces all around me. OK, so now let's see, we are with Pornadash and there's no cash in the bank. And she's saying that it is indeed a matter of concern for her and her family. Horna what do you have to say to this?

PORNADASH: Well, so it is a matter of concern, grave concern in fact. It has been more than a month and we are completely, like, flustered about this. We are hoarding cash like there's no tomorrow. I have to spend five rupees, I have to really, you know, think about that.

SHANTANU RAY: OK, so Pornadash and you were saying that you are really not liking it, you are trying to save some money at home. So how are you coping with this current crisis?

PORNADASH: Very difficult in fact. So like for example my maid, she actually was almost in tears, she was like I don't mind if you give me my salary, you know, middle of the month on whenever but please give it to me new notes because in other houses they’ve kind of forced her to take it an old notes and then now she has to go to the bank with all of it. So I didn't have the heart to do that to her. And then we had to have other cash, you know, for household expenses we needed cash. So me and my flatmate we are like, you know, literally borrowing money, petty cash from people. In this office I have three people from who I've borrowed 120 bucks one day, 50 bucks and 100 bucks one day, somebody lent me 300. Because we don't need cash for, you know, bulk transactions, that we can do online. But I for example, I need substantial cash for my transport and that's not something that I can always afford to do Paytm or Jugnoo or anything.

SHANTANU RAY: There’s one point I would like to ask. A cashless society is also a very good society. The west has already adopted a system where they try and use very little cash in hand. So do you sincerely believe that the move, however difficulty it may be at this point of time will eventually produce some good results?

PORNADASH: There have to be several moving parts to this for the move to eventually produce good results, which is not the case right now. Personally, I feel that at this point in time there was only one angle which was looked at, even that wasn't looked at holistically. For having a cashless society, it's equally important to have good strong network signals. It's important to have people who have the wherewithal to buy Android phones, which can’t be said for all of India. It is also very very important to have security checks in place because there have been massive ID thefts and, you know, interbank money laundering, which has happened only very recently, about I think four or five months ago in India with a lot of private banks. So I agree, it’s a good intent and a cashless society is also of course a very hassle free system to manage things but not without these checks and balances in place. And as we speak, there are no such checks and balances.

SHANTANU RAY: Pornadash, thank you very much for your time. Let’s ask this gentleman, can I have your name sir, what’s your name sir?

DEEPAN JUNAT: Deepan Junat.

SHANTANU RAY: Deepan Junat, tell us, I mean, without cash how do you survive?

DEEPAN JUNAT: Well, it is very difficult and we are having to stand in long queues in front of the ATM to get our cash and sometimes we are having to turn back without getting the cash because the cash is over. Overall, it has been very very difficult but still one of the biggest problem is that I cannot always do cashless transaction through my ATM. Because everywhere that I'm going to do that kind of transaction, people are not accepting any transaction less than 100 rupees or less than 200 rupees. Even if I am going to the groceries or anything, I mean, I'm not always buying my stuff from grocery mart or any of these bigger outlet. If I have to buy some little stuff, say maybe one kilo of onion or one kilo of potato. I’ll still have to go to that vendor on the street side. But there is a silver lining, which is that sometimes when I don’t have cash and if I have some friend who has a card system with him, so I can just tell him you take the money that I owe you and then you also take some more money so that you can give it to me in cash. We need the money. I mean, if I'm not getting that money from the ATM, then I’ll need the money from somewhere.

SHANTANU RAY: So I think probably what I see here is with lot many people standing, I think the key lies in the hands of the bank manager. He decides how much money he has to give you and if he decides, he may not give you the whole money. So that becomes a problem?

DEEPAN JUNAT: I think the rabbit hole goes much deeper than the manager because with this demonetization thing, we have so many policies to be handled and everything but yeah, to an extent, obviously the bank manager does have the key to our.

SHANTANU RAY: Thank you. Thank you very much for your time. OK. Let me talk to the young lady standing next to me. What's your name ma'am? What’s your name?

ANANYA SARCAR: I’m Ananya Sarcar. I'm working in a production house for business development.

SHANTANU RAY: OK, so how are you handling of cash?

ANANYA SARCAR: See because I'm working and I don't have much time to stand in the queue for withdrawing cash, so what I'm doing right now is I'm borrowing money from my parents. So that is what I'm doing because in these days you don't have time to invest like two hours of your day to just withdraw cash. So yeah, I'm using Paytm but then that doesn't come handy all the time because you can’t do pay by Paytm to a rickshaw wallah. If I need to travel half a kilometre and I need to pay 30 rupees to an auto rickshaw, I can’t Paytm it.

SHANTANU RAY: One last question. One last question. What happens when the parents stop paying?

ANANYA SARCAR: Ah, then we are doomed.

PC: [laughs] That's freelance journalist, thank you to Shantanu Ray for that report. Well, Abhishek Chakravarty is the owner of Bhukkad Belly, it's a service that delivers a tiffin lunch to office workers. He started his business just four months ago but it's now struggling with the cash crunch. Abhishek Chakravarty is in Delhi. Hello.

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: Hello.

PC: So how much can you relate to what we heard in that tape there of people in the bank lineup?

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: Pretty much, because what's happening to me is in my business we have to buy a lot of raw material to make a final product. And we are unable to buy that because of a shortage of cash. And every time you can’t buy things pay through Paytm because the small vendors they don't have a Paytm card or something with them, so you have to pay them 80 rupees, 90 rupees in cash. Which in the end of the day we are unable to pay because we are not getting our payments on the right time.

PC: So Abhishek, when you say raw materials, you mean food. You're, like, going to the corner store, the corner market to buy vegetables and food and you have to pay cash. There’s no option to pay any other way.

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: Yes.

PC: Well, tell us a bit about your business. You make something called tiffin lunches, I don’t think most Canadians will be familiar with the idea of tiffin delivery. So tell us about your business.

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: So at Bhukkad Belly, what we do, we provide lunch or dinner to corporates or to the paying guests who live on a bachelor pad or something like that and doesn't have an access to kitchen. So we provide foods to them. So what happens that when we get any order, so it's a very minimal amount for 70 INR and 90 INR.

PC: Yeah, that's Indian rupees, about a dollar fifty in Canada.

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: Yes.

PC: OK.

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: Yes. So people doesn’t have the change right now. So if they order one meal from me. So that will cost them INR 70. And they don't have a change right now, they just have a 2,000 note, the new 2,000 note, which has been published by the government. And we don't have change to give them. So people are unable to order or they are not willing because they don't have cash, they are not getting payments on time. So it has, you know, our business has been affected on a big note. It's a 70 per cent dip in the business. I used to get around 50 to 60 orders on a daily basis but now it's around 20 to 25. Which is very less for me because the kind of expenses that I have, I have to pay rent and I have to give salaries to my employees. So it is, for me to get the costs, day-to-day costs is also very tough. I'm unable to get the payments on right time and I'm unable to pay the people. Today one of my employee asked 1,500 rupees, which I don't have.

PC: So you're having a hard time getting your supplies because you pay for that in cash. You're having a hard time making change for customers when they order your food and you're having a hard time paying your employees. And that's all because within four hours, the prime minister said we're not using these small denominations in the country anymore?

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: Yes. And until 31st December, you have to submit all the notes. And there's a huge line outside the ATMs, two hours, three hours lineup at ATM. I myself have faced it so many times.

PC: You've been standing in line at ATMs. How much time were you spending in a bank queue or an ATM queue to get cash?

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: Two, two and a half hours just to get 2,000 rupees because the amount is 2,500 but there is a shortage of 500 rupee notes and there are only 2,000 rupees notes in the bank. So you can’t take out 2,500 which has been allotted. So it's only 2,000 which you can take out after standing two, two and a half hours per day.

PC: And so how do you even, because I imagine lots of ATMs and banks, this is in India as well, a very populous country, have long lineups. So how do you even figure out, like, should I go to that ATM or should I go to that ATM down the street? How do you figure that out?

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: There is an app which shows if there is a long queue or a short queue. But even if it’s a short queue, it will take one, one and half hours. And if you take out money through cheque, so the amount is 24,000 per week but they will only give you 10,000 per week.

PC: Hm. And sometimes when you get to the front of the line does the cash run out?

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: Yes. It has happened to me. I stood for two hours and when my turn came, it was, the ATM was cashless because people are using two to three debit cards to take out their money. Each card you can take out 2,000. So many people have six, seven cards, so they are taking money from each and every card.

PC: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says that it's called demonetization, is how the government is selling it. Is a first step towards creating a cashless economy in India. What do you think about that?

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: I think the step is good but he should have given us some time because many people don't have bank accounts. So you have to pay them cash any which way, especially the daily workers. My delivery boy, he needs money on a daily basis, he's a daily wage worker. To me, to pay 200 rupees daily basis, right now, is very tough. So I would like to use cashless thing but the people don't have bank accounts or they don't have Android phones so that we can do Paytm or free charge. So It's a problem for us, he should have given us some time.

PC: Abhishek, how much longer do you think you can keep doing this? How much longer can you hang on to your business under the current circumstances?

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: I think another two months, two, two and a half months. But for me, as a start-up, it has affected us a lot.

PC: Well, do you support Prime Minister Modi's idea to crack down on corruption? That's what he says this is all about.

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: I do support but still there is a lot of corruption already going on. There are many ministers who have new notes in bulk. 80 lakh rupees in new notes, people doesn't have a single 2,000 note and there are people who have 80 lakhs value of new notes. So I don’t think so that corruption has stopped totally.

PC: So the rich are hoarding the money? The new bills.

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: Yes.

PC: Yeah, that's what you’re saying.

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: Yes. They know where to spend that, they can change it to gold.

PC: Abhishek, thank you. Nice talking to you.

ABHISHEK CHAKRAVARTY: Thank you.

PC: Abhishek Chakravarty is the owner of Bhukkad Belly. He was in Delhi. Well, for more of a sense of what this demonetization will mean for the broader Indian economy, we're joined by Devinder Sharma. He is a food and trade policy analyst, who's been tracking the developments as Indians adjust to their new economic reality. And we've reached him in Chandigarh, India. Hello.

DEVINDER SHARMA: Yeah, hi.

PC: So can you first just, you know, give us a sense about why the Indian government has brought this policy into effect?

DEVINDER SHARMA: Well, in my understanding, this policy became necessary because the Indian banks were in a terrible shape. And for quite some time, I think, for a year or so there was a need for capitalization or, you know, infusing capital in the banking system and the government didn't have much money because what they have promised in the next 4 years would be [unintelligible] part of the money required by banks. And, you know, if you recall in 2008, 2009 when Lehman Brothers, the big bank in America burst, you know, it turned into an economic meltdown globally. So if one of the Indian banks had gone burst, I'm sure it would have been an economic meltdown in India too. So I think basically their objective was to draw out the household savings and get that deposited in the banks or let the banks go moving. And which means you could set the balance sheets of the banks and at the same time, banks could then go in for lending to the corporates or to the industries and to the business. That I think was the primary objective, which the government of course didn't say openly and so they I think used it very cleverly, or I would say they thought it would give them a particular advantage if they say that, you know, it is the crackdown on black money. So that is how I see this entire move.

PC: There's also people who say that the government is doing this because so much of the Indian economy is cash based and people don't pay taxes on cash. You can hoard it, you can hide it under your mattress and that this is a way for the government to get a handle on that.

DEVINDER SHARMA: It is true that, you know, there have been hoarding and there's black money operating in this country. But many estimates show that it's only between three to six per cent, the black money in cash and the rest of it is either invested in stocks or invested in infrastructure or in gold. And the people who have that money are the ones now we see in the last few days, a crackdown on illegal hoarding and we see massive amounts of money coming out. There should have been a crackdown on them in any case and the people shouldn’t have been put to the kind of suffering that they had to undergo. So I think their objective should be very clear. If you really want to stop a black money, then I think this is not the route that we follow. Everyone in this country know who has the money but somehow nobody wants to really act against them.

PC: Who has the money? Meaning it's the rich upper class that are having the money.

DEVINDER SHARMA: That's right and it is quite evident. In the last few days, we have seen money being kept or hidden in the toilets and money being hidden by multinational corporation in the lockers. And, you know, we've seen money getting into, you know, all kinds of shops and so on, business establishments are now, you know, after the crackdown, the money's coming out. So it clearly shows that if that crackdown had in fact taken place without harassing the general public, we would have achieved the goal. It’s now the government is going to crack down because there has been a lot of backlash, people have been standing up and saying why are they undergoing this suffering? You know, because if you ask a labourer, if you ask agriculture worker, the answer has been that I don't even have white money, why is the government expecting black money from me? So these are not the people who carry black money. We all know who carry black money and then the action should have been on them. The point I'm trying to make is that this perhaps was not the right approach in handling or in trying to bring a crackdown, as far as black money is concerned.

PC: You know, you mentioned the rural farmers and people who really do live in India off a really small amount of money and really, it's all cash. What effect does all this have on India’s ability to produce food in the near term?

DEVINDER SHARMA: That's a very serious issue. And this time we have seen when the notes were withdrawn on November 8, that was the peak time for sowing of the winter crops in India. And we have seen that the farmers were very negatively impacted because they didn't have money to buy seed, didn’t have money to buy fertilizer and subsequently pesticides and so on. And this has definitely impacted this particular sowing of the rabi crops. Rabi is the winter crops that we call in India. The other part is that sowing is one aspect but I'm more worried about the income the farmers normally derive. Now, the income is already very very low in this country, farmers are at the lowest rung. Now even that is going to be hit very badly because the prices of agriculture commodities have crashed across the country. Whether it is cotton, whether it is soyabean, whether it is basmati rice or the fruits and vegetables, the prices have come down for the farmers. In fact, in many places farmers have actually dumped tomatoes onto the streets because what they were getting was not even peanuts. So yes, agriculture is in crisis.

PC: And how does that tie into the demonetization issues that are going on now?

DEVINDER SHARMA: Well, it has to be understood that at a time when the economic slowdown is taking place and that too we have created that, this is impacting not only the livelihood security of people in the urban areas but we are witnessing a reverse migration taking place now from the urban areas to the rural areas. And these are the people who would bank upon becoming a farm labourer when they go back into the rural areas. You know, they’re coming from infrastructure, industry and so on, now they go back because they have been off laid.. So these people when they go back into the rural areas, they're looking for a livelihood option, which comes from, you know, daily wage workers. But unfortunately, farmers have no money even to pay them. So I think that there is a double whammy for them. You know, so I said it's a huge livelihood security problem that we’re going to witness in rural areas.

PC: What do you think this all means? This was a big step by the prime minister, by Modi. What do you think this policy will mean for his political fortunes?

DEVINDER SHARMA: Well that's a big question. But all I can foresee is the next elections are going to be hopefully in February in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. This will be a litmus test for Mr. Modi’s political future. And I think if the people go for a resounding no, then I think it will be difficult for the BJP, the message would be very loud and clear. Whereas if the people come out overwhelmingly support of Mr. Modi, then I think it will be, the message will be that Mr. Modi had succeeded in conveying to the country that what he intended to do he has done.

PC: Devinder Sharma, thank you for your time.

DEVINDER SHARMA: My pleasure.

PC: Devinder Sharma is a food and trade policy analyst. He was in Chandigarh, India. By the way, we did request an interview with the acting High Commissioner of India in Canada but Arun Kumar Sahu was unavailable. If you want to comment on the stories we bring you here on The Current, please do so. There are many ways to get in touch, you can find us on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC or if you prefer Facebook, facebook.com/cbcthecurrent is how you find us. Or you can email us by going through our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and once you get there you click on the contact us link. And while you're there you can check out pictures, links and download the podcast. It's all at cbc.ca/thecurrent. Today we will have a link up to those winter boots we were talking about earlier in the show. You can see how they fared in the snowflake rating system. That's all at cbc.ca/thecurrent. Alright. Well, coming up next, whatever Russian hackers did during last month's US presidential election, the CIA has its own long history of meddling in the elections in other countries. We'll be talking about that. As well, prison violence is on the rise across our country. A riot in a Saskatchewan prison this week left one man dead is proof of that. We'll get some insights from a man who knows the system well from both inside and out. That's all coming up. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay, you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. We're back in just a bit.

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Whatever Russia did, CIA has its own history of meddling in elections

Guests: Richard Immerman

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Hi, I’m Piya Chattopadhyay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. Well, news that the US Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, believes that Russian hackers meddled in the recent American presidential election has dominated the news agenda this week. And those allegations are only getting more serious. Yesterday, the Obama administration suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally authorized the hacking of the Democrat's emails, something the Russian leader denies but which the White House is holding fast to. When we first touched on this story earlier this week, we spoke with Adam Entous, one of The Washington Post reporters who first broke this story. And he said the CIA believes that the Russian involvement was designed to benefit one candidate in particular.

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They were disproportionately targeting the DNC, the Democrats. And while they made an effort to target 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.

PC: Well, we received a lot of feedback from you our listeners after that interview. Including quite a few of you that found the CIA's assessment of the situation a little ironic, given the American spy agencies own rich history of meddling in foreign elections. John Smola of Sutton, Quebec writes, “this is like the pot calling the kettle black. The CIA was involved in putting Saddam Hussein into power and many other covert political missions around the world. It even published a classified assessment of an invasion of Canada and what actions could be taken by the US if Quebec separated. The only reason they're bringing it out in the press is because they're mad that Trump won and are trying to muddy the waters.” Elizabeth Block of Toronto quoted Tom Lehrer and his parody song Send the Marines. “For Might makes right, until they've seen the light. They've got to be protected, all their rights respected, till somebody we like can be elected.”Ms. Block said she would have sang it for our listening pleasure if we still had our talkback line open. Note to self, got to get that going again. Well, we have a guest on the line now to help fill in some of the details about how the CIA and other US intelligence agencies have worked to influence foreign elections and governments in the past. Richard Immerman is a History Professor at Temple University and he's authored several books about the CIA. We've reached him in Philadelphia. Hello.

RICHARD IMMERMAN: Good morning.

PC: So I want to ask you about the CIA's history. But before I do that, I want to talk about the allegations from yesterday that the Russian president Vladimir Putin was directly involved in the hacks. What do you make of that?

RICHARD IMMERMAN: Well, I mean, a couple of things. First of all, it certainly would be unprecedented in terms of a power such as Russia, a great power, intervening directly in the elections of the United States. And secondly, I have no reason to suspect that the CIA assessment is anything other than an honest assessment on the part of the CIA. In other words, that is politicized or in any way reflects something other than the corporate assessment of not just the CIA but in fact to a large extent, the intelligence community.

PC: And do you think, because the allegation from yesterday is that Putin had direct involvement. So do you think that these are rogue Russian hackers working alone or directly from the Russian government?

RICHARD IMMERMAN: That frankly I have no way of assessing it. It's certainly conceivable that this is some type of rogue operation. The Soviet system is certainly a not a well-greased machine. So it is possible. On the other hand, there would be a logic that Putin was involved. So I'm very reluctant to go out on a limb and make any sort of judgment on that because I have not seen the assessment. I probably will not see the assessment. So I have no basis to make it, to reach a judgment.

PC: OK. I want to pick up on something you said just a bit ago, which was this idea that you see it is an honest assessment. NBC News broke yesterday's Putin story relying on anonymous US intelligence sources. We've heard complaints that these reports have been based on anonymous leaks, that the CIA has become heavily politicized and that the agency itself has never liked Trump. So why should we believe what the CIA is saying about Russian meddling?

RICHARD IMMERMAN: First of all, the Central Intelligence Agency is a very professional organization. This note that it has been politicized, I think it is really a lot of sort of atmospherics being sort of used by political organizations on both sides. Why there would be the claim that the CIA has never liked Trump, again, there's really no basis for that. I have studied the intelligence community and the CIA for a long time, I had some experience when working in Washington. And the CIA isn't even set up in a way that it could readily politicize intelligence in that way. It's not as if, it is, I used the word before, a corporate assessment, that is based on a number of different individuals and the process which is then vetted throughout the agency. In all likelihood, had we seen it, there is a judgment in which it would say, and that word was used, it has high confidence in that. But there would also be here are alternate ways of perhaps interpreting this same information.

PC: OK.

RICHARD IMMERMAN: So as I say, I not only do I have no reason to suspect that that assessment is politicized but it would be very difficult to do it, given all of the safeguards that have been put in place, particularly since the reform legislation of 2004.

PC: Alright. Help me understand this one because the FBI says there isn't enough evidence to support Russia's involvement. So why is the CIA's intel more credible on this than the FBI’s?

RICHARD IMMERMAN: So there are two different issues. One is that if I say it’s not a question of is more credible, the question really is, is one the extent to which both agencies at this point have access to the same evidence. And more than that, it has to do with how one assesses that evidence. And, you know, intelligence assessments are an art they’re not a science. And there are different ways to look at that information. So usually there are disputes and there can be dissent and that is something that is actually settled within the intelligence community and it's not at all evident how much of that type of information has gone public. I will say that most of the public in the United States, and that includes the press, really does not understand how the intelligence community operates.

PC: Alright. But one of the things that's been coming out this week Richard Immerman, and we heard it from, you know, some of our listeners who said, you know, this is a bit rich coming from the CIA given its influence on foreign elections and governments in the past in different countries. So I want to talk to you about that. How far back does those kinds of efforts go when it comes to the CIA?

RICHARD IMMERMAN: Really since the creation of the CIA. The CIA was established in 1947, it received its authorities to engage in covert action in 1948 and in 1948 it became involved in attempting to influence the election in Italy. The CIA actually was not particularly effective. What effect the United States had really stemmed more from the diplomatic corps than it did from the CIA. It was a very new organization and not particularly effective. But in any event, the foundation was laid and subsequently the CIA has, as your listeners have said, been involved in multiple cases of trying to influence elections.

PC: Yeah. France, Germany, Philippines, Vietnam, you know, throughout the Cold War. There's certainly a list of them. What do you think is the most egregious example of CIA influence over the years?

RICHARD IMMERMAN: Wow, that's a really difficult one. I mean, I would, so there are cases such as Iran and Guatemala in the early days, in which the CIA was directly responsible for what we now call regime change, in which one government was replaced or overthrown by another. Guatemala probably being the classic example of basically instigating a military coup. Chile is one of the more sort of interesting cases in which the CIA was involved deeply in trying to overthrow a government that of Salvador Allende. In all likelihood, from what we know, the CIA was not decisive but it did play a role and that is significant because Allende eventually killed himself.

PC: And the support of the coup in the seventies, essentially, is what the CIA did.

RICHARD IMMERMAN: Yes. Yes. That was in the seventies. And probably the most famous case of course is the Bay of Pigs operation. CIA was involved in massive cases. CIA was involved in the assassination of Diem in Vietnam. Although again, it was not sort of the pivotal player, that was more indigenous, throughout the Middle East. I mean, you just go on and on and on.

PC: And so Richard Immerman, do you agree that it's a bit rich for the CIA to be pointing the finger at Russian hackers right now?

RICHARD IMMERMAN: I guess it would depend on what you mean is rich. So first of all--

PC: [crosstalk] Well, hypocritical.

RICHARD IMMERMAN: I mean, the issue is that, you know, it’s the old saying two wrongs don't make a right. So the fact that the CIA was involved does not justify the Soviet, the Russian involvement. Secondly, in terms of that and there's no way to say and we don't know what the effect, but as I say, this is really sort of unprecedented, the extent to which sort of one great power is involved in trying to influence the other.

PC: Hm.

RICHARD IMMERMAN: But I as I said, I don't in any way think that it is, one should excuse Russian behaviour, assuming that this assessment turns out to be true because the United States behaved as it did in the past. That just, history shouldn't work that way. So there is an irony but, you know, history is replete with irony.

PC: [laughs] Richard Immerman, thank you for your time I appreciate it.

RICHARD IMMERMAN: My pleasure.

PC: Richard Immerman is a History Professor at Temple University and he's also the author of several books on the CIA. His most recent one is called The Hidden Hand: A Brief History of the CIA. Richard Immerman is in Philadelphia. I’m Piya Chattopadhyay, you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. If you have more to say on that story, as many of you already have, this week or anything else, do get in touch with us here at The Current, @TheCurrentCBC is where to find us on Twitter. I’m there as well, my handle is @Piya, P-I-Y-A. And you can email us from our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and find us on Facebook by searching for CBC The Current.

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Prison violence won't stop until overcrowding addressed, says former inmate

Guests: Lee Chapelle

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NEWS ANCHOR 1: An inmate is dead and the Saskatchewan penitentiary is on lockdown after a violent riot..

NEWS ANCHOR 2: Officials say a 43-year-old inmate died after being stabbed.

NEWS ANCHOR 3: Now, what officials say is that guards attempted to break up this knife fight. And 185 inmates refused to go back to their cells.

NEWS ANCHOR 4: Six inmates were hurt after being shot by prison guards. Five of them were taken to hospital. One was treated on scene.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: It is not clear exactly how it all began, but we do know how it has ended. 43-year-old Jason Leonard Bird has died after this week's riot at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary in PA, in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Bird was serving a sentence of two years and seven months for breaking and entering. He was pronounced dead within 40 minutes of being rushed to hospital. News of prison riots may be alarming but not necessarily surprising, at least not to those familiar with this country's correctional facilities. Violence in prisons has been rising steadily for years across Canada. In BC, Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia, rates of violence are up sharply. In Alberta, the number of assaults in prisons has doubled since 2007. And at the federal level, inmate on inmate assaults have risen by 93 per cent in the last decade. Lee Chapelle is the Founder and President of Canadian Prison Consulting. He helps inmates prepare for life on the inside after they've been convicted and for life on the outside after they've been paroled. And he advocates for better conditions for inmates while they're serving their sentences. Mr. Chapelle has an interesting perspective on all of this, on all these issues because he has 100 convictions on his record, all of them for property related and nonviolent crimes in nature he says. Lee spent 21 years in prison before finally turning his life around in 2010. Lee Chapelle is here with me in our Toronto studio. Hi.

LEE CHAPELLE: Hi, good morning.

PC: You have clients inside the Sask pen, where the riot took place just yesterday.

LEE CHAPELLE: Yes.

PC: Were you surprised to hear about it?

LEE CHAPELLE: No. Frankly, I'm surprised that there hasn't been more uprisings in Canada in recent years. We're looking at the residual effects of more than ten years of a constant erosion of not only prisoner rights but human rights not being met within our Canadian facilities. The tough on crime regime that was implemented for a lengthy period has a considerable residual effects that are occurring now.

PC: So connect the dots for me on that. You said you're not surprised that there hasn’t been more, you say that legislation has in, so take me inside that prison or a prison to say what you would see that you think there would probably be riots.

LEE CHAPELLE: Right. So my sentence began in 1986 and it concluded in 2010. So I have a pretty good window into the course of what was going on. In the eighties and nineties, Canada had implemented the CCRA, CCRRs, which is a Canadian Conditional Release Act and Rules and Regulations, the Charter of Rights, it was the birth of the parole board, Correctional Service of Canada. This was all subsequent to the 1970s, where we had major riots in our prisons. And it was real determined effort to look at causality, to look at restorative, rehabilitative approach to corrections. More community type corrections rather than just being angry at people and putting them in prison, we were finding alternatives. And for the people that we were scared of and that were violent, yes they were incarcerated but there was a real effort put in towards working, programming, working towards coming out, helping people, you know, again I think what results in real public safety and that is looking at causality, trying to work with people so that when they come out they don't return. We left that in mid-2000s, under the Conservative government when they came into play and they had a very strong ideology of tough on crime. I know they believed in it, I think clearly they wouldn't have done it if they hadn't but it had a considerable counter effect and we are now seeing the effects of that.

PC: So then, but take me into a prison. How does that manifest itself on the ground?

LEE CHAPELLE: Well, there's a long list of things, so throughout the course of that ten years, inmate pay was cut in half, inmate pay in a federal system. And the federal system it's a microcosm of the world, you have people who are there that are there forever and many for decades. So it's not like a provincial, transient nature institution. In the federal system, it's built where inmates essentially run the institution when it comes to plumbing, electrical, painting all that work is done by inmate labour. So I mean, essentially, the town runs off of the backs of the inmates and there's a pay there and it was like 6 dollars a day. So a number of things have occurred over the last ten years. One is less paroles, less programming, less availability to psychologists and psychiatrists and programs, pay being cut in half, farm programs, work programs being dismantled. So what's occurred there, and I was an Inmate Committee Chairman throughout a lot of my years, which is a position that's like vis-à-vis a union rep, working with administration and inmate populations and trying to always work through issues and prisoner rights and those sort of things. I would be hard pressed today to try to maintain peace in an institution because the vested interest has absolutely been eradicated. There's no pay, there's no work, there's no programming, there's no aspiration for parole. It's very very difficult right now to, the food, we've gone down to powdered milk, this is a recent development. There's so many factors that have made it very difficult for old school cons who are in there, who are part of the statue that try to keep places together and have always worked in collusion with the security. There's nothing to say hey, if we blow up we're going to lose this this and this.

PC: Hm.

LEE CHAPELLE: Because there's nothing left to lose.

PC: There’s no consequences.

LEE CHAPELLE: There's nothing left to lose at this point.

PC: So how does then, typically, so they're frustrated, I think is what you’re saying.

LEE CHAPELLE: The frustration and the bleak atmosphere is at an all time high.

PC: How does that, on the ground again, turn into, like, how does a prison violence typically break out?

LEE CHAPELLE: Well, you know, I mean, typically it's domestic issues. I mean, most people don't realize that--

PC: [interposing] What does that mean?

LEE CHAPELLE: Well, we watch movies and we see these big things going down and something growing and building and then it escalates. But more often than not, I mean, there was an eight month period in Joyceville Penitentiary, where there was three murders when I was there and they all stem from domestic issues. Somebody whose job was to wash the floor, clean and wax it. Another inmate without paying attention happened to walk on it and then that person was inflamed and said you disrespected my floor and it got out of hand.

PC: Out of hand to the point where there’s riots and fires and things like that?

LEE CHAPELLE: It just flares up. It's not preplanned. I'm sure, you know, I’ve heard the talk about this being food. I don't know what the story is at this point but it would have been something I believe that was not a pre-planned thing, it just took a life on its own, it's very fluid. And once one thing triggers and the frustrations are running at the point that they've been for a long time, it doesn't take much for it then to escalate.

PC: And in the Saskatchewan example of this week.

LEE CHAPELLE: Yes.

PC: The guards came in, I think, a number of people, they shot them, I think, a number of people.

LEE CHAPELLE: Yeah, that happens.

PC: How do these things normally get resolved? Or is that normal?

LEE CHAPELLE: Well, you know, I was in a riot in Joyceville in 1989 and that was one of the last ones that I can recall prior to this one. That was full-scale. So, you know, at that point--

PC: [interposing] Why’d you get involved?

LEE CHAPELLE: Well, I was there, I had two broken feet, I wasn't much of a participant, I wasn't physically able at the time. But it was somebody who was drunk on a range, one person, and an officer did a walk and more often than not in those days, an officer would recognize this, make sure that person was put into their cell, deal with the consequences the following day. But let's do it the most simple way, get in the cell, be polite, once he's locked in there that's contained it's done. But in this case, that officer wanted to handcuff and take him away and that caused, you know, just a domino effect. The whole place ended up, officers ran away through the basement tunnels that they have in prisons that are designed there and inmates were left to basically run the institution, cause fires and cause havoc. Now, the end of that, at the end of which, it resulted with the OPP and the military surrounding the perimeter of the institution and eventually being walked in six at a time but there were shots fired. It took quite a bit for them to contain it when it was a full scale riot.

PC: Hm. Wow. [laughs]

LEE CHAPELLE: [laughs]

PC: I want to ask you about something else because, you know, you were listing the things that are happening on the ground that you say, you know, causes the frustrations and then goes on to violence and in some cases riots. What about overcrowding? Because that's something that we've heard a lot about. What impact does overcrowding have on prison violence?

LEE CHAPELLE: Right. So that's a huge factor. Studies have shown, I mean, and this is very real empirical or clinical knowledge but both, that double bunking and triple bunking is absolutely a catalyst for violence and tends to be. When I talk about, you know, the floor, there was another one over toothbrushes. Two cellmates one used the other one's toothbrush mistakenly and that ended up in unfortunately in somebody dying. These things are inflamed. We were talking about very very small cells to begin with. It's proven through study after study that single bonking is absolutely the best way to go. Overcrowding again, just exasperates. You know, I'll put it to you like this, most people don't think of it like this but just imagine 50 or 60 men or women living in a very small area, sharing everything from toilet to food and all the domestic issues that could arise from that. And when it's overcrowded, it's just exasperating.

PC: Hm. So what needs to be done? What do you think should be done now to make Canada's prison system work better for the people that are incarcerated inside them?

LEE CHAPELLE: Well, there's a lot of things certainly that we can look at. I mean, I think for the ten years that we were doing tough on crime, denunciation and deterrence overrode public safety. I think public safety should come to the forefront now. I think when we look at cases and people who've made mistakes and have committed crimes, if they're not violent, scary people and don't have a long history, let's look at alternative sentencing, restorative. I think we really need to restore our belief in the potential of rehabilitation. I think one thing that can be done and I've talked to both provincial and federal governments about this, is really strengthening our reception and intake process in our prisons. I think it's a critical part. When people first come in, to be able to have an area where there is a thorough review, thorough orientation, health care needs are met, mental health. Let's get a full read on who is there and then from there, be able to place them in areas that will be more compatible.

PC: Lee Chapelle, good to talk to you.

LEE CHAPELLE: Thank you.

PC: Lee Chapelle is the Founder and President of Canadian Prison Consulting. He's with me here in our Toronto studio. We did request an interview with the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Ralph Goodale. He was not available but his office sent us a statement which reads in part quote, “the government is reviewing the changes made to our criminal justice system and sentencing reforms over the past decade to assess the merit of those changes. We will ensure that they are increasing the safety of our communities and that they are aligned with smart public policy objectives.” That's the end of the quote but we're going to post the full statement on our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. That is The Current for this Friday. And remember, you can always take The Current with you on the go on the CBC Radio app, it's free from the App Store or Google Play. Finally today, we didn't get to hear from listener Elizabeth Block and her rendition of Tom Lehrer’s song Send the Marines during our earlier segment about the CIA. So we thought we'd end things with a taste of the original by Tom himself. I’m Piya Chattopadhyay, thank you for lending us your ear here for this Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Tom Lehrer]

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December 16, 2016 full episode transcript

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