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The Current Transcript for April 25, 2017

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

The big question for me was I've been dealing with the trauma from this abuse for over 20 years. Has this affected him in any way?

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: What happens when a woman who had suffered severe abuse at the hands of her former partner asks him to talk about what he did to her with a camera rolling? How does his memory of those days fit with what she remembers? What does he think about what he did now with hindsight? And what can she learn about him and even herself by doing this? Attiya Khan had many harrowing memories and unanswered questions. Her former partner Steve agreed to meet with her with a therapist. The film she made with his consent asks you to consider many things, including whether he is now a better man. She joins me in an hour. This is a day when we are invited into the lives of several people whose realities are unflinching and where the questions are tough. We're going to hear today from Don MacPherson as well. When he first started pushing ideas to end high rates of overdoses, the drugs that were killing so many was heroin. Now it's fentanyl. Different drug same problem.

SOUNDCLIP

As a society we regulate most things. Why we haven't chosen to do that with these other small category of drugs, what's stopping us?

AMT: He has pushed politicians for decades to regulate and make available with supervision illicit drugs that are killing so many Canadians in so many cities. He's not giving up. Don McPherson joins me in half an hour. But we begin with a story that starts in Chechnya, with the Russian state targeting of those who are gay.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: [Russian speaking language] [through translator] They started beating you with their fists and feet. They wanted to get names of my gay friends from me. Then they tied wires to my hands and put metal clippers on my ears to electrocute me.

AMT: It's a story that is now in Canada via the work of the Rainbow Railroad. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current.

Back To Top »

Persecuted LGBTQ in Chechnya need help from Canada, says activist

Guests: Kimahli Powell, Lorne Waldman, Michelle Rempel

SOUNDCLIP

CROWD: Quand les hommes vivront d'amour.

[singing in French]

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: When men will live by love. That is what supporters were singing at a vigil in Montreal last Friday, in solidarity with the LGBTQ community in Chechnya. Being gay in that semi-autonomous Russian republic, a place still recovering from two brutal wars, has long been taboo. But in recent weeks, authorities have been on the attack. Gay men have been tracked down, imprisoned, and according to reports tortured. The leader of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov has dismissed what he describes as provocative reports. But one of the journalists who first broke this story from the newspaper Novaya Gazeta says it is now too dangerous for her to remain in Russia. Elena Milashina spoke with As It Happens just last week.

SOUNDCLIP

On the third of April they pulled together 15,000 religious people at the main mosque of Chechnya and announced jihad actually on all staff of Novaya Gazeta. I'm planning to leave the country because this is the first time when I feel that I should take much stronger measures of safety. Because I am planning to continue this work, I should probably leave the country.

AMT: And many a gay man in Chechnya are attempting to flee the region. There are calls for Canada and other countries to help resettle them. More on that in a moment. But first, the Rainbow Railroad is one group with experience in helping persecuted LGBTQ community members around the globe get to safety. The group is based in Toronto and we have reached the Executive Director Kimahli Powell who happens to be in San Francisco today. Hello.

KIMAHLI POWELL: Hello good morning.

AMT: What did you think when you first heard about these stories coming out of Chechnya?

KIMAHLI POWELL: Well we were very concerned and very mortified and concerned for the individuals. We do this work every day, we get requests for help from people all over the world. And so as soon as the news broke and we heard the reports, we just tried to get as much information as we could very quickly to try to help.

AMT: How many gay men do you think are under threat?

KIMAHLI POWELL: We hear it’s up to 200 who are immediately have been rounded up in these camps. How many are under threat? Who knows. It could be many more.

AMT: And so you're trying to help members of the LGBT community around the world who are persecuted. How do you do that in Chechnya?

KIMAHLI POWELL: So specifically we reached out to the LGBT, the Russian LGBT Network, which has been the point organization in Chechnya. They have been doing some heroic work, setting up a hotline, reaching out to individuals, they have established a safe house where they have housed people who have escaped Chechnya in Russia, and those individuals have made decisions to leave the country.

AMT: OK. And we know that Ramzan Kadyrov has said that they can't be doing this because there are no LGBTQ people in Chechnya. Associated Press is saying Moscow wants to protect human rights but has no reason to believe reports of about the persecution of gay men in Chechnya. What are they up against there? That kind of denial coming out of all official channels?

KIMAHLI POWELL: Well, let's just be clear that Russia does not have a great human rights record, that civil society do not have freedoms to help people or individuals. Individuals face human rights abuses all over the spectrum. So while they're in a safe haven from Chechnya, many of those people still need assistance. And so this is not new, in 2013 Russia passed an anti LGBTQ bill that put a lot of people at risk. So this is just another example of the threat that LGBTQ people face in the region.

AMT: And what do you think of Canada's response so far?

KIMAHLI POWELL: You know, I'm hopeful that I think it was important that officials made statements condemning the actions. I'm hoping for even more action speaking out. We're hopeful that Canada can be in a position to help facilitate emergency travel from people in Chechnya, and not just in Chechnya but people around the world. Again, we received over 700 requests last year, we were able to help bring 81 people to safety last year. It is really heartening that the Chechnya situation has put a spotlight on this issue. But there are many many people who face persecution that we help without media attention. And so we are hopeful and optimistic that we, that Canada has a really clear opportunity to take a leadership role in helping bring people into the country. There are 30 people who are ready to travel, many of them would like to come to Canada and so we were just waiting to see what the Canadian government will do.

AMT: And what do you say to those who say that helping those 30 would essentially be queue jumping, that there are other persecuted groups in danger as well?

KIMAHLI POWELL: It's I think a more robust thorough policy facing persecuted individuals is the way we'd like to, is the reaction we like the government to take. I am sympathetic with those arguments. Right now we are focused on getting the people in this situation to safety and following the statements from the government, we just think there is an opportunity to help people who are at risk. This is forced migration, these individuals six weeks ago were just living their lives and through a series of actions they’ve been put in immediate danger. And so this is a unique opportunity to help.

AMT: OK, so you're saying that you'd like to see policy changes that would help them and others also facing persecution.

KIMAHLI POWELL: That's right. The government has labeled the LGBTQ, two-spirited community as a vulnerable population. And so that does require a thorough policy to help those individuals reach safety.

AMT: OK. Kimahli Powell, thanks for speaking with me.

KIMAHLI POWELL: Thank you for having me.

AMT: Kimahli Powell is the Executive Director of Rainbow Railroad. It's an international group based in Toronto, it helps persecuted members of the LGBTQ community get to safety around the globe. Well in response to the call for Canada to help resettle gay people facing persecution in Chechnya, we requested an interview with the immigration minister in Canada Ahmed Hussen. He is not available. Toronto immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman can outline some of the options for the government. He's in our Toronto studio. Hi.

LORNE WALDMAN: Good morning.

AMT: So I guess first of all, the Rainbow Railroad tries to bring people in. What kind of options are available to government in a case like this?

LORNE WALDMAN: Well in a case where there is an urgent need, like they identified 30 individuals, the Minister of Immigration has the power to issue ministerial permits that would allow them to travel immediately to Canada. They have done this in the past in case of people who are in imminent danger. And so there is a policy that allows them to do it. So if the Canadian government wishes to act and if there are people who have been identified who are in this very critical situation, it would be possible for the government to issue permits to them to allow them to come immediately to Canada.

AMT: So you don't need a policy change because the minister has discretion?

LORNE WALDMAN: The Minister has the discretion. Having said that, I think the point that the previous speaker said is true, we need to look at these issues and we need to sort of develop a policy to deal with urgent cases. There isn't one now. And we need to have criteria as to when we would intervene in these types of situations. And I would suggest that these type of people who are in a very precarious situation, if I understand they're in a safe house in Russia, having fled Chechnya where their lives were in danger, they have no protection in Russia because Russia is denying that there is any problem and so they are at grave risk in Russia. That would be the type of case where I would think a policy that would allow the government to intervene in special urgent cases could apply.

AMT: And how would that process work? There's no consulate in Chechnya that it's a semi-autonomous Republic so they go to Russia. What happens when they cross that border even though it's a republic?

LORNE WALDMAN: Well, from a legal point of view I'm not sure if they're citizens of Russia or Chechnya, I believe they're citizens of Russia. So their legal situation hasn't changed, but they're at least outside of the place where they're in the most grave danger. We have consular officials in Russia who could meet with them, could determine whether they're satisfied that they're at risk, and if they are at risk they could be issued permits and then allowed to travel to Canada. There may be some complications in terms do they have passports, do they have travel documents? That could pose impediments. But there certainly would be ways to overcome those problems.

AMT: And the group Rainbow Railroad actually does some of that verification with people on the ground. Can a group, like, we've seen private sponsorship in the last year, two years with Syrian refugees. Can a group sponsor privately some of the people who are at risk right now?

LORNE WALDMAN: Yeah, the problem in the case of the Chechen LGBT community is that they are, given that you can't be a refugee if you're still inside your country of citizenship. And if they're technically citizens of Russia they're not refugees if they're still in Russia, they would have to leave Russia. So that may make a sponsorship more difficult. But there are ways around that. As I said there could be a permit and an undertaking by the organization to provide the support when they get here. It would be an informal process but it could be done. For sure.

AMT: And what would that be a temporary residence permit?

LORNE WALDMAN: A temporary resident permit, yeah.

AMT: And what about a permanent resident status on humanitarian grounds?

LORNE WALDMAN: Well the problem is that if they're in imminent danger it takes a while to process that. So the idea is using a permit to allow people who are in imminent risk to come immediately to Canada and then they would be processed for permanent resident status once they're here. If the risk isn’t imminent then they can be processed on humanitarian grounds through the process in place in Russia.

AMT: The Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland has spoken out on this and condemned it. She's called it reprehensible. Does that suggest the Canadian government is open to doing something?

LORNE WALDMAN: Well, I would think that if the minister spoke out that it is a strong indication that there's a lot of sympathy in the government for the people in this situation. So I would hope that it will lead to some concrete action in the near future.

AMT: You spend your life working with people who are attempting to get here claim refugee status, claim asylum, people who are persecuted. Where do you see the government, in terms of its policies, have the policies changed significantly over the last several years? What needs to be done?

LORNE WALDMAN: Well, I think the government, the current government is obviously much more sympathetic. They brought in a large number of Syrian refugees, they've increased the quota of refugees. So I think that there has been a sea change in terms of the attitude towards refugees. I think there has been a bit of pushback recently because of the Trump administration. And I think there is concern in the government as to how public opinion might have shifted because of the election of President Trump in the United States. So I see the government now being more fearful in terms of taking more concrete steps. But I still believe that the people who are in place in the key positions in the government are sympathetic. They just need to be prodded a bit more to action.

AMT: Have you seen a chill in your own work because of that? Because of what's going on in the States?

LORNE WALDMAN: Yeah, I've seen a chill in the movements that the government has said they were going to make towards undoing some of the reforms of the previous Conservative government. They had promised to take action and those steps haven't concretized yet.

AMT: Do you think given all of this, that the LGBT community in Chechnya can get some of its members here?

LORNE WALDMAN: I think on something like this, given the broad based public support in Canada for this type of situation, I would expect that the government will take action quickly and I'm quite hopeful that we'll see something concrete soon.

AMT: OK. Lorne Waldman, thanks for coming in.

LORNE WALDMAN: Thank you.

AMT: Lorne Waldman, immigration lawyer in Toronto joined me in our studio. Opposition parties are among those calling on the Liberal government to do more to help out in this particular situation. Michelle Rempel is the Conservative member for Parliament in Calgary Nose Hill. She is the party's immigration critic. And she is in Calgary. Hi Ms. Rempel.

MICHELLE REMPEL: Good morning.

AMT: So what specifically would you like to see the federal government do to help the people who we're talking about in Chechnya?

MICHELLE REMPEL: Well there's a couple of things. First of all, as was mentioned, the government has the authority to issue permits for those who are in immediate danger. Certainly I think the situation satisfies that criteria and we need to act when essentially this is like a pogrom for gay men in Chechnya. This is one of the things that Canada has a hallmark internationally for being able to respond. We have a legislative tool to do this and we have organizations that are on the ground that are willing to help. My concern is that to date when asked whether or not the government would intervene and use these tools the government has not said that they're going to do so. So I think the community needs to put pressure on the government to act. In the past when there's been a situation like this with this government, for example the Yazidi genocide, the community has really had to come out and put pressure on the bureaucracy and the government to use this tool. So I hope that that happens. And the second thing is is that there has been a pilot program in the past that’s provided funding to Rainbow Refugees, the organization that you just had on to help sponsor LGBTQ refugees to Canada. That funding has not been renewed. And I think that those are two really easy things that the government could do to take concrete action beyond just condemning the situation to help these people.

AMT: And well, from the sounds of it too there would no political opposition to that. You are calling for this and the NDP is also calling for the government to do more.

MICHELLE REMPEL: This is a no brainer. You know, when we talk about never again, this is a never again situation. And, you know, I've been very frustrated with the amount of inertia within the immigration department and in the immigration ministry to act in situations like this. Again I’ll reference the Yazidi genocide, it took us close to a year to see any movement on that. So, you know, for me I really don't want to make this a partisan issue because I think that the government has all of the tools at its disposal, there's a very clear case of need, you know, for anyone listening this is really a matter of putting political pressure. This is a matter of political will on the minister, on the prime minister to use this legislative tool to act. Your previous guests were a little bit softer in their ask, I’m going to be much more, you know, blunt. If the community doesn't get excited about this and doesn't put pressure on the government I don't think that they will act. But there's no reason why we shouldn't.

AMT: You mentioned the Yazidi women and children persecution by ISIS of course, in that case. We've seen the government act on Syrian refugees. How does the situation facing gay Chechens compare to those?

MICHELLE REMPEL: I think that the point that you made earlier, your previous guest with regard to Canada needing a policy on how we prioritize refugees is very pertinent. It's a tough conversation to have because there are groups of people around the world who are, you know, in dire need. But we rely on the United Nations and their lists for government sponsored refugees. And in many situations those lists don't reflect people who are in the most need because people can't make it to camp, as you were discussing earlier, to get onto those lists. So how does Canada help in situations where there's genocide? Where there are people who are, you know, under immediate threat of death given a change in government or religious philosophy in a region. That's something that I think Canada needs to consider for a long term policy. That said, we shouldn't let that discussion stop us from helping out in this situation. There's an immediate threat. We have the tools at our disposal. This is really a matter of political will. And every day that the government wastes in issuing these permits is another day that gay men die.

AMT: So again, you make the point, there can be action right now and then in terms of long term policy it's a bit of a labyrinth eh? Who gets to be classified as a refugee and how the UN plays into this?

MICHELLE REMPEL: Well, and we started this discussion over a year ago with a parliamentary study on internally displaced people. This was an emergency study that was triggered by the Yazidi genocide, and the fact that the UN had not referred a single genocide victim to Canada for resettlement. So, you know, I'm sorry if I sound a little frustrated this morning, it's just to me Canada is very generous in its refugee policy. We've set very high targets for refugee resettlement. And I think to have long term social license and to ensure that there is funding available for these types of programs, Canada needs to be very clear on how we act in these situations. I think it would, you know, and to me it’s also a diplomatic tool. When Canada says we are going and resettling internally displaced persons, that's very, it's beyond a sternly worded letter. It’s saying we're having to resettle people from your country because of persecution. So maybe you should get your own house in order. You know, I think this is a very easy low hanging fruit tool for Canada to expand upon and probably put a little bit more formality around in terms of how we use it and when.

AMT: OK. Well, Michelle Rempel thanks for your thoughts today.

MICHELLE REMPEL: Thank you.

AMT: Michelle Rempel, Conservative MP for Calgary Nose Hill and the immigration critic for the official opposition. She joined us from Calgary. Stay with us, the news is next. And then..

SOUNDCLIP

The illegal market in Vancouver is toxic. It will kill you. It's a warning sign that our system is not working.

AMT: Don MacPherson has worked for decades to fix what he sees as a broken system. The solution as he sees it is legalizing and regulating illicit drugs. Hear him after the news. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current.

[Music: Extro]

Back To Top »

Drug controls are 'absolutely pathetic,' activist says regulation will save lives

Guest: Don MacPherson

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

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, sitting down face to face with a former partner who had violently abused you. It's hard to imagine, but filmmaker Attiya Khan did that with the cameras rolling. Her powerful new documentary is called A Better Man. And it premiers this weekend at Hot Docs. She joins me in half an hour. But first, disrupting the drug scene.

[Music: The Disruptors theme]

AMT: If this country's fentanyl crisis has a ground zero it's Vancouver's downtown eastside. I was in that neighbourhood in January and local advocates had set up a big tent and a trailer, what they called a pop up overdose prevention site to allow people to smoke or inject opioids. They were monitored by volunteers with naloxone kits, basically overdose antidote kits. I met a man who told me his name is Kyle.

SOUNDCLIP

AMT: What did you come here today to do?

KYLE: To use drugs. And you know you’re going to be fricking safe.

AMT: What do you use?

KYLE: Heroin and crack.

AMT: Mhm. How long have you known about this place?

KYLE: When I got here three weeks ago. Yeah, like I was surprised they actually had something like this and it’s made me happy to actually find it, just because, you know, it’s comfortable, you can actually sit, you know, there’s actually no wind. I don’t know, you can just use your drugs peacefully here, right? You’re not in some alley crunched over fricking smoking crack right?

AMT: Yeah. You worried about all the stuff about fentanyl and carfentanil now on the street?

KYLE: Honestly, I look for it, so not really.

AMT: You look for it because?

KYLE: Because it’s strong, it gets you high.

AMT: Do you worry you could OD on it?

KYLE: There’s always that thing in my head. It’s not, if I’m going to OD, it’s pretty much when, right? You gotta look at it that way. You gotta be ready to die pretty much when you’re using these drugs so.

AMT: But you don't really want to die.

KYLE: No, but you just got to be ready to right?

AMT: Are you glad to be here or you want to get out?

KYLE: Of this place?

[Sound: sirens]

AMT: Yeah.

KYLE: Yeah, I definitely want to get out. It’s not a good place. You get sucked in pretty easy down here. And once you get sucked in, it’s pretty fricking pretty hard to get out of here right? Like most people.

AMT: Let’s just take your chances.

KYLE: Yeah. Like I said, it’s not if it’s when you’re going to OD, right?

AMT: Well I hope there’s somebody there for you if it happens.

KYLE: Yeah.

AMT: Take care of yourself.

KYLE: Yeah.

AMT: That’s Kyle, he’s in his early 20s, and I met him at a pop up overdose prevention site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The number of drug overdoses has continued to rise in Vancouver, across BC, across the country. In March there were more than 120 overdose deaths in BC. Last year province wide the total was more than 900. Nationwide 2,000 people died of opioid overdoses. Officials are scrambling for solutions. And my next guest has some ideas. Don MacPherson is a drug policy researcher in Vancouver. He's trying to disrupt. 16 years ago he published his four pillars approach to drug policy. That was an outside the box approach that outraged a lot of people at the time. But Don MacPherson has continued pushing for this approach in the chilling era of fentanyl he says the decriminalization and regulation of illicit drugs is crucial. Don MacPherson is the Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. And as part of our season long project The Disruptors, he joins me from Vancouver. Hello.

DON MACPHERSON: Hello Anna Maria.

AMT: I’ve got to tell you I was really surprised to hear Kyle tell me he was actually looking for fentanyl.

DON MACPHERSON: Yes. There's a market out there for strong opioids and he's looking for them. And unfortunately what he will get he will not know how strong it is.

AMT: And he says you've got to be ready to die. How familiar is what he was saying to you?

DON MACPHERSON: Well it's very familiar and it's a result of our drug policies over the last 100 years, focusing on criminalization and punishment. I'm assuming he's addicted to opioids and he seeks out opioids that work for him, kill the pain, whatever that may be. And he's sort of accepted the reality of our drug policies, which is a very bleak reality that at any time he could take a dose and die.

AMT: You know, fentanyl overdoses dominate the news these days, but around the time you started working on the Downtown Eastside heroin was the big killer. What did you see? What was happening?

DON MACPHERSON: Well, in the late eighties, early nineties, we had a very similar situation. It was high potency heroin came into the market because of some business decision somewhere else in the world and with the drug cartels in British Columbia for some reason heroin became very powerful, very strong and people began to overdose. In 1988 there were 17 overdoses in Vancouver. By 1993 there were 200 overdoses. So we saw the same patterns that we've seen in the last three years with regard to fentanyl. A change in the product at the street level and people not being able to ascertain exactly the dose that they are taking when they're using their drugs and many of them dying. It was a tragedy then and it's a tragedy now.

AMT: How did police and community leaders react at the time?

DON MACPHERSON: Well early in the day and in the early nineties there was sort of the usual discourse around, you know, people need to stop using drugs, just say no to drugs. There was lots of enforcement. The Vancouver police used to throw lots of police in the neighbourhood. They'd sweep the neighbourhood arrest 70 drug dealers, the drug market would calm down for a day or two and then everything would be back to normal. It came to the point where the police were saying we can't arrest our way out of this. You'll hear that often now too. And we need social, health programs to deal with this problem.

AMT: And what were you doing at the time? What were you thinking as you saw all this happening?

DON MACPHERSON: I was thinking that this is an absolutely absurd situation in a modern advanced society with scientific knowledge about substance use, addiction, that we were basically stuck in this emergency situation, which was declared in the mid-nineties too, Vancouver Richmond health board declared a public health emergency, but no one knew what to do because we lapsed to the same old same old. Oh, we need more treatment beds, oh we need more policing. Oh, the judges have to put dealers away for a longer times. And that was the discourse until well into the nineties, when we began to shift the discussion towards more of a public health approach.

AMT: And you traveled to some European cities to see how some of them were dealing with the same illegal drug issues. What did you see? What was your take away?

DON MACPHERSON: Well I was on the corner of Main and Hastings running the Carnegie Centre, and I really didn't know much about this but I'd heard that the situation we had at the corner of Main and Hastings was a very similar situation that the Europeans had experienced in Switzerland and Germany and the Netherlands about 10 years before. So I set off to Europe, as others were in Vancouver at that time, trying to figure out what a new approach might look like. And of course landed in Switzerland, who had pioneered, over time they'd arrived at a situation that really did reduce overdose deaths, reduce HIV transmission, brought people in from the cold connected them to services, housing, employment, et cetera. And it was quite stunning to have the president of Switzerland at a conference I was at just sort of outline this with her PowerPoint presentation and it made total sense. And came back to Vancouver and decided to try and influence people enough that it would get implemented in Vancouver.

AMT: Mm. And so in around 2000-2001 you were working for the city of Vancouver under Mayor Phillip Owen, and you authored that report, the four pillar approach to drug problems in Vancouver based on that research?

DON MACPHERSON: That's right. We basically said look, if it worked here it will work in Canada. Because the Swiss had been through a real good process of trying different things. The ethos in Switzerland was well, if it's not working let's try something new. In Canada it was always 101 ways why you can't do something. Oh supervised injection sites won't work in Canada. Well, why?

AMT: And what are the four pillars?

DON MACPHERSON: The four pillars are treatment, prevention, policing, and harm reduction.

AMT: And why is that revolutionary?

DON MACPHERSON: Well, it was revolutionary at the time because harm reduction was seen as a bad thing in those days. We had one of the largest needle exchanges in North America and we had an HIV epidemic. And people were connecting those two things and there was a lot of angst about harm reduction. You know, people need to stop using drugs, harm reduction is enabling drug use. When in fact harm reduction was actually helping people live another day to make decisions about their life the next day. Advocating for heroin prescription programs, so treating people with heroin addictions with heroin and surrounding them with other kinds of supportive services. These were quite radical at the time. And it's sad to say that we're still stuck with one small heroin treatment program in Vancouver and only two supervised consumption services here in Vancouver.

AMT: I'm wondering, fentanyl entered as a legal drug. It's actually prescribed. We know many opioid addicts actually began with legal prescriptions. Is there a difference now in how we have to look at this?

DON MACPHERSON: I think there is a difference. I think what you're seeing now is that the illegal drug market, which is a pre-existing market, it's existed for many years and from time to time it becomes toxic. In Vancouver and Alberta and Ontario, well, I'd say the illegal market in Vancouver is toxic. So it will kill you. It's a warning sign that our system is not working anymore. It is a total mess and it is deadly and we need to really rethink what we're doing.

AMT: So what would you see? Like if you could say do this this and this, what would you have them do?

DON MACPHERSON: I would have governments, it could ideally be a federal government, do what has been called for since the early seventies. Which is to look at in a critical review of drug prohibition and see if we can come up with a better system of controlling drugs. The irony of our drug control strategies, and that's what they're called, they don't control drugs. They actually create a free market for these substances and the free market is managed by organized criminal gangs with a global reach. So it's a bit of an irony that our drug control strategies do that. So we need to do what we do with all the other drugs. We need to move towards regulating and controlling them through public policy analysis. That's what we do as a society, we regulate most things, we regulate as much as we can, in terms of property and cities and height of countertops and alcohol and tobacco. Why we haven't chosen to do that with these other small category of drugs is again, it's a question that has bothered me since I got involved in this field. What's stopping us from actually moving towards a better system?

AMT: I’m going to pick up on your choice of words because you say regulation. You're not talking about like, we often hear about legalization, decriminalization. You're talking about having control but allowing use of.

DON MACPHERSON: That’s right.

AMT: In a way that is controlled. Tell me more about how it would be controlled?

DON MACPHERSON: Well, you would treat it like you would other substances. So and people, you know, when you say legalize drugs they say well heroin and 7-Elevens, that won't happen. We don't want that. Well that's not what we're talking about. Right now we have a clinical model of heroin regulation. We learned that again from the Swiss. There's a small program in Vancouver that allows access to legal pharmaceutical grade heroin at the dose that works for the individual in a clinic. And so it's the same substance as molecularly what people are searching for on the streets. It's just no one overdoses in this clinic, no one dies in this clinic because they know exactly what they're getting, they’re experienced drug users and it's a health program. Their health improves, their mental health improves, their housing proves, their employment opportunities improve because they're no longer living day to day, suffering multiple non-fatal overdoses, ending up in the emergency wards or being evicted from their hotel rooms or housing.

AMT: So in other words, you're saying that they're like anyone else who has medication as they go through their life? This is just their medication.

DON MACPHERSON: That's right. And the results of the Swiss study show that, you know, a certain percentage of people cease using heroin. When everything else gets better, when you start to deal with some of the traumas that led you to addiction in the first place then you have the inner courage and strength to move on in life. And sometimes that means you stop using heroin.

AMT: And I was going to ask but I might answer. So someone might say yes but then they're still addicted, and how do you know it isn't going to destroy their life? But we could say that about alcohol addiction as well.

DON MACPHERSON: You can say that about sugar addiction. People are addicted to sugar, junk food, we joke about it. We have to separate the harms from our drug policies from the harms of addiction. We can treat addiction, we can manage addiction. Fentanyl is a product of prohibition. Prohibition favours substances that are highly concentrated, easily transportable in small packages and delivered clandestinely through the mail. I sit across from the port every morning and watch container ships coming into Vancouver. You can imagine how easy it is to get a small package of fentanyl in within a container ship. The borders aren't going to stop fentanyl from coming in, no matter what they do. And I fear that the illegal market has changed forever and that is going to force us to change our ways. And it's a matter of how long will it take us? How many people have to die before we start to look at a new approach?

AMT: So you're saying essentially that if people who are addicted can go to a place that is safe and use that drug they're not going to go to the street at all. The street will dry up because it will be available to them but they will be taken care of and then they can actually live a life.

DON MACPHERSON: Absolutely. And if you look at the Swiss and Dutch results, the Swiss will say that they see very little uptake among young people. They're dealing with aging heroin users now, they've come a long way.

AMT: And you think you can replicate that, that new users won't be intrigued by the highs of the illicit drug?

DON MACPHERSON: It's not cool to have to go to a clinic three times a day and hang out with doctors and social workers and counselors. So it starts to deconstruct the illegal market.

AMT: What about the cost?

DON MACPHERSON: Well, the cost of prohibition is immense. Billions of dollars are spent. Ralph Goodale our Minister for Public Safety commented in releasing the cannabis legislation, two to three billion dollars are spent by enforcement agencies on cannabis enforcement today in Canada. You can't tell me we're going to not save a lot of money when we bring cannabis into the fold and treat it like a regulated legal product.

AMT: So it would be the same for all these other illicit drugs?

DON MACPHERSON: Yes it would and it wouldn't be perfect. Remember it's not going to solve your addiction problem, that is something that is the drivers of addiction will remain the same, trauma, poverty, displacement. That's an issue we have to address and that's what we should be doing. We should be putting our resources into figuring out how to help people who become dependent on these drugs because most people do not become dependent on these substances.

AMT: Prime Minister Trudeau was on the Downtown Eastside in March and he was asked about this. He was adamant that there will be no legalization or decriminalization or regulation of drugs beyond marijuana. Listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: I always listen very carefully to what people have to say. But at the same time I will absolutely confirm that we are moving forward on a framework to regulate and control marijuana, to protect our kids and to keep our communities safer from criminals and organized crime. And we are not planning on including any other illicit substances in the movement towards legalizing and controlling and regulating.

AMT: Don MacPherson, that sounds definitive. Is that door closed?

DON MACPHERSON: He has to say that. It's all political Anna Maria, and that's why we have to encourage and look for those courageous politicians. And I will give Trudeau credit. Look what's happening with cannabis. I suspect he gets it, he's no fool. He can look at the evidence, as other political leaders can as well. Maybe mayors are the ones that lead this discussion. They're closer to the ground, they're closer to the reality. Look at some of the comments that Gregor Robertson, city of Vancouver has made recently about the drug issue. It's so political and that's sad, that's very sad that a government that says they want to base their policies on evidence has to be forced into saying that denial of moving forward with any other drugs. That’s because it's political suicide.

AMT: You've been pushing for this for decades. Do you ever get tired? Do you ever get mad?

DON MACPHERSON: I get very angry. I get very angry. And unfortunately, my experience is that many people have to die before something comes along. People were dying in the nineties, 200 a year in Vancouver, 400 a year in BC. The idea of establishing a supervised consumption service was in the air in 1996-97. It was implemented in 2003, so six years went by, thousands of people had to die before we opened one little service in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. We’re one year, we celebrated, well celebrate is the wrong word. The one year anniversary of the public health emergency declared by the province of BC around the fentanyl issue. It's clear that everything we're doing is not working. Those overdose prevention tents that you interviewed Kyle at, they're a godsend. But is that the best we can do? It's absolutely pathetic that we cannot move beyond this paradigm that we have supported for so many years and at the cost of so many lives.

AMT: Some people would walk away by now Don.

DON MACPHERSON: [laughs] You can't walk away from this.

AMT: Why does it matter to you so much?

DON MACPHERSON: Because it's one of the unspoken about and largest social injustices of our time. And we've been able to make significant movement in other areas on social justice issues but for some reason this issue is difficult to move and it's unconscionable for our society to allow this to continue.

AMT: Mm. This is more than policy for you. This is emotion, this is in your heart.

DON MACPHERSON: [deep breath] Yes it is, very much so. I've known way too many people who have lost their lives, who have burned out trying to work on this issue. [sobbing]

AMT: I didn't mean to make you do that.

DON MACPHERSON: Thank you. Thanks a lot.

AMT: [laughs]

DON MACPHERSON: Yeah, it's happening to me a lot these days and it's happening to others. I've been at several conferences when, you know, where CEOs or doctors will get up and start to talk about the epidemic and yeah, they'll start to cry.

AMT: Yeah.

DON MACPHERSON: You know, there are people in positions of power and authority who are rightfully confused and desperate and feel they don't have the control. But it's on our watch that this is happening. So the imperative to explore new approaches when there is decades of scholarship around the area of regulation that we're ignoring and we're choosing to put aside. Something has got to give. And I guess that's why I become emotional because it seemed so difficult to even broach the issue, have the discussion, explore what regulation would look like. So people go back to their offices and they try and work within the box, they try and work within the system and the system doesn't work.

AMT: But you're telling me there's a critical mass of both the public and people who work in this field who really want this change now?

DON MACPHERSON: Absolutely. The public health community is united on a new approach, a public health approach. We talk about a public health approach to drugs but we don't implement a public health approach to drugs. We continue to criminalize people who use drugs and to use drug prohibition as our primary response. So the public health community, the Canadian Public Health Association released a paper last year, which basically said we should regulate and control all drugs. That’s what a public health approach does, it regulates the manufacturing, the dosage, the distribution of these substances. Right now, the Hell’s Angels and other organized criminals are regulating all of that stuff. So the public health people get it and they're not being listened to.

AMT: Don MacPherson, thank you for your ideas. Thank you very much.

DON MACPHERSON: Thank you Anna Maria.

AMT: Don MacPherson is the Executive Director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction at Simon Fraser University. He joined us from Vancouver. What do you think? Is it time to try regulating and decriminalizing drugs now considered illicit? Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC, find us on Facebook, send us an email on this from our site cbc.ca/thecurrent. And stay with us, in our next half hour exploring the damage done decades ago in an abusive relationship with filmmaker Attiya Khan talks about her new film A Better Man. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, this is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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'Has it affected him?' Woman confronts her abuser in documentary 'A Better Man'

Guest: Attiya Khan

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello, I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

ATTIYA KHAN: Describe the day we met.

STEVE: Yeah. I think you were 17.

ATTIYA KHAN: 16.

STEVE: Really?

ATTIYA KHAN: Yeah.

STEVE: And I was turning 18.

ATTIYA KHAN: Yeah.

AMT: That's filmmaker Attiya Khan sitting down on camera for a talk with her first boyfriend Steve. It's a scene from a new documentary called A Better Man and it explores the two year relationship between Attiya and Steve two decades ago. But it is far from a fond reminiscence because after that first meeting their relationship turned dark. Steve became violent and abusive and the trauma haunted Attiya for years. It is with the help of a therapist that the two of them revisit those difficult memories for brave and candid conversations in this new film. Though it all seemed so promising at the very beginning.

SOUNDCLIP

ATTIYA KHAN: I mean, the reason I asked the first question as the day that we met is because for me that’s the most, it was a very happy day.

STEVE: It was a great day.

ATTIYA KHAN: It was an amazing day. It was the amazing day of I feel like.

AMT: Well, A Better Man premieres this weekend at Toronto's Hot Docs Film Festival. Attiya Khan is with me in studio. And I want to warn you as you listen that we will be speaking in some detail about intimate partner violence. Attiya Khan hello.

ATTIYA KHAN: Hi. Thanks for having me.

AMT: You still remember that meeting with Steve felt like an amazing day.

ATTIYA KHAN: It was an amazing day.

AMT: And you were 16 in high school?

ATTIYA KHAN: Yes.

AMT: What was going on in your life then?

ATTIYA KHAN: I was actually really happy at that point. I had a best friend who was with me the day I met Steve. We hung out all the time. I was a really good student, I was active, I had a lot of friends. I feel like I was just a teenager who was starting to think about, you know, dating people. I have a big family and I have ten brothers and sisters. There's a unique set of challenges that goes along with that. You know, we were quite poor. And so when I met Steve I really, I fell in love with him instantly. It was like the moment I met him I liked him. And we were teenagers so when I met him it was like he was really he was stylish, he was funny, he was exciting. We had quite a lot in common actually when it came to music, which is a big deal when you're a teenager. And I remember him complimenting me about things. He was really impressed that I could speak French.

AMT: How old were you when you moved in together?

ATTIYA KHAN: I was 16.

AMT: And did you leave school? Like, you moved in together but you were still in school?

ATTIYA KHAN: Yes. The day I met Steve the following day he left, he didn't live in Ottawa. And he went back home, which was few hours away from Ottawa, and we talked on the phone every day for about a month. And then he was at my place in Ottawa and living with my family. And, you know, that was our first relationship right? And so we went from knowing each other one day to having him live in my family home, and that's how our relationship started. And it was within two months when we were asked to leave from my home. And so we were out and we were living, we found an apartment. So I'm 16, he's 17 and we didn't have a lot of money, I was working, and all of a sudden we're living together. The violence started at my family home. So it started early.

AMT: And when the violence was going on at your family home, did anyone notice?

ATTIYA KHAN: No. No. And, you know, violence escalates over time and it had just started. And my room was in the basement and that's where he was staying as well, in another part of the basement. And so if anyone noticed I wasn't told.

AMT: And you weren't talking.

ATTIYA KHAN: I wasn't talking. I didn't know what was going on.

AMT: And the relationship lasts two years.

ATTIYA KHAN: Two years.

AMT: And how many years pass before you ask Steve to talk to you about this relationship and to do it with a camera rolling?

ATTIYA KHAN: It was just over 20 years.

AMT: OK.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm.

AMT: And what was his reaction when you asked him?

ATTIYA KHAN: He was shocked. I had been running into him on the streets in Toronto every few years for that 20 years. And at first when I’d bump into him I was terrified and I didn't understand what he was doing in Toronto. And I ended up living in fear, constantly looking over my shoulder, having nightmares and not just anticipating violence from him but from other people as well. And so when I bumped into him again and again and again I realized that I was safe. It got to a point where we were comfortable with each other and we were able to have really civil conversations. They were short. We’d just ask each other how we were but it got to the point where our conversations got a little longer. And I went from a point where I was scared of him to a point where I looked at him for the first time as someone who hadn't used, like, as someone who didn't use violence against me. And I just and I noticed that he wasn't doing well. He didn't seem happy. To me it just seemed like he was suffering in some way. And when those thoughts passed through me, I actually started to become curious about him. And when those thoughts crossed my mind I also felt guilty for having those thoughts because I could feel judgment against me. Like, I even used it against me where I was like why should I care about him? Why should I wonder how he's doing? Why should I give him a voice? But there was something in me where I was like I want to know, I want to know how he's doing. The big question for me was I've been dealing with the trauma from this abuse for over 20 years since he's done it. Has this affected him in any way? And I also became curious because I work in the field and I've been working with survivors of violence and children who witness violence. I realize there's, you know, we don't ever talk about the people who are using violence. And so I started to research and I wanted to find out are there services available? Are there therapists who work with people who use violence? Are there programs? Are there books?

AMT: Or are they written off and is that it?

ATTIYA KHAN: Or are they written off?

AMT: Right.

ATTIYA KHAN: But I found out that there are.

AMT: And so he agrees.

ATTIYA KHAN: He agrees. His initial response was my gut is telling me that this is the right thing to do. And if I can help even one young man change his path and not use violence then it will be worth it. But I need to think about it. And so he gave me his number. I texted him right away saying I'm serious about this. And I didn't hear from him for six months. And then I got a text that said I'm ready to talk if you're ready to listen. And I said absolutely, there will be cameras.

AMT: And you set out to have these conversations with him and you brought in a therapist. What role does the therapist have in these sessions?

ATTIYA KHAN: Well in the initial conversation at the cafe, the first conversation we had, that was just Steve and I and I had my friend Jennifer Rowsom film it. And I didn't think that he was going to participate again. But when I spoke with him that I want to go further with this, he agreed to participate again. And I felt like I couldn't do this alone, I thought it would be helpful to have someone who works in the field, who has worked both with women and with men. I looked up services for men and this Tod-Augusta Scott's name came up and he is the Executive Director of a place called Bridges Institute in Halifax. And so I contacted him, told him what I was doing and he immediately replied and said that he would love to be able to facilitate these conversations between Steve and I.

AMT: I want to play a few excerpts from your conversations.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm.

AMT: And we're going to start with the one where the therapist asked Steve to talk about what he remembers about the times that he was abusive to you. Let's listen to that.

SOUNDCLIP

TOD-AUGUSTA SCOTT: What do you remember?

STEVE: Just choking, punching.

TOD-AUGUSTA SCOTT: Mhm. Choking, punching. Is there any particular incident that stands out for you?

STEVE: There's plenty.

TOD-AUGUSTA SCOTT: Would you be willing to talk about one of them?

STEVE: You know, almost every instance was unbelievable. There was one day Attiya had fainted.

TOD-AUGUSTA SCOTT: Do you know where you were?

STEVE: In our place. These things only take place in where you can get away with it, where it isn’t seen.

AMT: It's very telling huh? These things happen where you can get away with it.

ATTIYA KHAN: Absolutely. [sighs]

AMT: You told them why you would sometimes pass out. I want our audience to hear what you had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

TOD-AUGUSTA SCOTT: What do you mean by the sleeper?

ATTIYA KHAN: It’s when you put your hands on, it’s strangling until you pass out. [sighs] God. So it’s just something that was easy to do at a certain point. And, you know, when you’ve had that done a lot it doesn't actually take much to have you pass out. And my neck was always swollen and used to it, but it was just you’d go like this and I would faint, you know.

TOD-AUGUSTA SCOTT: What’s it like to recall that?

ATTIYA KHAN: I hate that one, I just hate it. [chuckles] Oh God. [sighs] It's the form of violence that I feel like it's very symbolic, you know, right? Like, when someone has their hands around you like, your life is literally in their hands. And I always thought this is the way I'm going to die. And I always wondered like who did that to you? I always thought someone must have done that to you, you know, to do it to me. You don't have to answer, I just it’s always something that I've wondered. You know, to have something that's so violent but so easily used.

TOD-AUGUSTA SCOTT: Steve, do you remember that?

STEVE: I do now.

AMT: He says I do now.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm.

AMT: It's so vivid to you after 20 years. I could barely listen to that. What was it like for you to realize he doesn't remember the way you do?

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm. It was hard. But in a way it's not surprising. I just think about people who have hurt other people and how you bury these things. You know, you bury them deep, which is quite clear to me that Steve had buried this and that he had never talked about it before with anyone. [sighs] At the same time there was such a sense of relief for me to be able to tell him what he had done to me and to have him listen and he never once through this whole process denied that he had done anything to me. He never minimized it. And that is huge. That's all part of being accountable and taking responsibility. And so for me being able to name what he had done, even if he had never responded and he just sat there and listened, for me that was huge. [sighs] And what I realize is for so much of the violence because it did, you know, it happened at home most of the time, there weren't any witnesses. And so in a way Steve was my only witness to so much of this. So to have him listen and respond and start to remember is incredibly validating because women, we’re not believed and we don't get a chance to share our stories. And we, so many of us don't have the opportunity to seek justice on our own terms. We're not allowed to recover. And so for me this is so powerful because what I didn't expect from this whole process is that I would start to heal.

AMT: So as painful as it was to talk about it, it actually put you, it started to propel you to another place that you hadn't been able to go to for 20 years.

ATTIYA KHAN: Absolutely.

AMT: I want to ask you the sleeper. It's such an awful thing that he would, you weren't telling anyone at the time that this was happening to you, am I right?

ATTIYA KHAN: At that point no I wasn't. I didn't start telling anyone about it until the end of our relationship.

AMT: And so you must have had marks on your neck.

ATTIYA KHAN: I had visible marks all over my body.

AMT: And you covered them all up didn’t you?

ATTIYA KHAN: Sometimes, sometimes they couldn't be covered up. Yes. There's so much silence around this issue. People turn away or, you know, people who knew us didn't think that this could possibly be happening to us. Language like Tiya I can't believe that you let that happen. Or Steve, you know, he's such a nice guy like it could never, it's just hard to believe that he would do that. But the truth is like it was happening and it's also true that Steve was a nice guy at times. But I think that's the hard part when it comes to intimate partner violence is that you love people, you love the people that are hurting you.

AMT: I'm going to play another clip now. In this clip you're trying to understand why he hurt you the way he did. And this is a clip where the therapist is trying to get at the root of why he was abusive. Let's listen.

SOUNDCLIP

TOD-AUGUSTA SCOTT: Is there a relationship between what happened to you before the age of 18 and the choices that you made when you were in your relationship with Attiya?

STEVE: To some degree yeah, yeah. I think that this might be as far as I'll take it. But I think somethings occurred with me that got me so frustrated and angry that even when those things didn’t occur my life anymore I was so frustrated and angry and I brought that with me. So, you know, these instances did occur, it's just that I didn't have the capacity to let it go at that age, you know.

TOD-AUGUSTA SCOTT: So injustices that you experienced?

STEVE: Yeah.

AMT: Attiya, what did you learn about Steve that helps you understand his violence?

ATTIYA KHAN: [sighs] It was really important for me to know that he had also experienced violence. I think that was something else actually that I had to get over. I felt really guilty because I was like is this giving him an excuse? But it's not, it provides context. And the truth is that there is a lot of violence in this world and it's a known fact that people who have experienced violence when they were children are possibly going to either experience violence themselves or they may use violence. And for me that's key. And so for me what's so important about this film is it shows people that people who use violence do need help and that help does exist. There are therapists who do this work. And that provides a lot of hope for both people who have experienced violence and people who use violence.

AMT: It's interesting because you talk to him in the film about how much he scared you.

ATTIYA KHAN: Yeah.

AMT: And he talks about the want, the need to control, and like there's a vulnerability in the people who appear to have so much strength who can scare you are often the people who lack strength somewhere.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mm.

AMT: But it's hard to explore that right? And as you peeled away the layers you began to see that, even if you don't know all the detail.

ATTIYA KHAN: Absolutely.

AMT: You understand that. You make the point that you didn't tell people till the end.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm.

AMT: But you go through many instances of severe abuse.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm.

AMT: And you're still at one point in a high school?

ATTIYA KHAN: Yes.

AMT: And you're showing up with bruises.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm.

AMT: You end up having a conversation years later. Tell me about that conversation with the teacher.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm. I wanted to go back to the high school that Steve and I went to and, you know, over the 20 years I wanted to go back to the places where I'd experienced violence. And when I walked in the school I went straight to the office and I saw our guidance counselor and she was still there. And she recognized me and she's the one person who I feel like both Steve and I feel like she helped us and she was concerned for us and she cared for us. While I was talking with her a teacher walked in and she immediately was like oh my goodness. Wow. How are you? And I remember being like I'm good, I'm good. And I did recognize her but I couldn't figure out which teacher she was. And she said wow, you know, you've always been on my mind, I've never forgotten about you. And I was like oh, why? And she's like well, [sighs] I remember seeing you, I remember seeing you in class and I remember seeing bruises on you. [sighs] And we never talked about that, she never approached me, which is really hard, it's really hurtful. It's painful. You know, she's not the only one who noticed and didn't do anything. And it makes me sad because I feel like there was a possibility there that Steve and I could have been helped, even if she had just approached me to have a conversation just to let me know that she noticed because it made me feel invisible.

AMT: Mm. There's a lesson there for any teacher who's listening right now.

ATTIYA KHAN: There certainly is.

AMT: Do you think you would have been open to talking to her in your 16, 17-year-old self?

ATTIYA KHAN: That's a great question. I wonder that myself because I was very protective of Steve and I also didn't want to make things worse. But I do think if she talked to me privately it would have made a difference. In addition to that, I also think that it was really important for someone to talk to Steve. We both needed help. I had no idea that resources were available. I never knew, I didn't know shelters existed.

AMT: Well you were a teenager who, you know, had not had experience with this, right? So how would you have known? Yeah.

ATTIYA KHAN: Exactly.

AMT: I want to explore a little bit more the very idea of all these years later sitting down with the man who was so abusive to you.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm.

AMT: And as you go through this process we begin to see him remembering and talking to you. You actually go and you visit certain places, you stand outside your old apartment at one point and you're physically ill. Like, you can't even stand there.

ATTIYA KHAN: Yes.

AMT: The very idea that you would go through this process with him.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm. It's hard to understand isn't it?

AMT: Well it's interesting. Well, it's also really interesting that he agreed.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm. I think that, well I know that this gave him an opportunity to sit down with me and, you know, take responsibility for what he did. Most of us don't get that opportunity to sit down and talk to the people that we've harmed in such a severe way. And for him, when I first asked him he, you know, he said if he could help one person change their path and not use violence it would be worth it. And I think as we progressed and sat down and had more conversations, he realized that by listening to me and by starting to talk about some of the abuse that he used against me that this was helping me. It was more than coping like I was starting to heal. He realized that. And I think that's why he participated again. And by the end of it he realized not only is it facilitating healing for me but it's actually facilitating some healing for him.

AMT: You spent many years working with women and children who are abused.

ATTIYA KHAN: Mhm.

AMT: It's not a coincidence.

ATTIYA KHAN: It's not. The second I left Steve I knew immediately that I wanted to work with women who were experiencing violence. I don't know where it came from but I had this rush of energy in the first few years after leaving him, and all I wanted to do was tell people about my story. It's like I was desperate to tell people. And I had to go back to school, I had to upgrade a lot of my courses and I still can't believe it, I don't know how I did it looking back. I don't think I could do the same thing now. And I got into university and I took women's studies, psychology. After university I took this feminist counseling program specifically to work with women who had experienced violence. And it's just like, my whole life since living with Steve has been dedicated to trying to find ways to end violence against women. And I remember the day at work, I was working at the YWCA December 6 Fund, that offers interest free loans to help women leave a domestic violence situation. And I was getting endless calls that day that were women who were terrified and they were really extreme instances of violence. And I remember getting off the phone and just being like what is going on? What are we not doing? And then I thought what's going on with men who are using violence? What's happening? And that's when I went online and I just, I looked up services for men who are using violence. And all of a sudden all of these organizations and therapists names started popping up. And I was like what this exists? How have I not heard about this? I work in the field. How do I not know that there's services for men who are using violence? This is so important. We need to be helping both people in the relationship in order to end it. We need to get to the source of the problem.

AMT: That's right because even if that relationship ends those people will continue on. So the abused person has to find a way to move forward in trust.

ATTIYA KHAN: Exactly.

AMT: And the abuser has to find a way out of abusing.

ATTIYA KHAN: Absolutely.

AMT: I guess what I would like the most from this film is that when people leave that they continue the conversation. And when they're talking about intimate partner violence that they talk about supporting people who have experienced violence, listening to our stories, but also bring into that conversation the fact that we need to help people like Steve.

AMT: How is he doing now?

ATTIYA KHAN: He's OK. I saw him recently and he, in a way, he just wants this film to come out because it's scary for him. We don't know what the response will be like, at the same time he stands by this film and what he's done. And he realizes that by contributing to this film it shows how committed he is to ending violence against women.

AMT: And you have a partner and a child?

ATTIYA KHAN: I do.

AMT: And we see your partner and we see your child in the film, and it speaks to the testament that things get better.

ATTIYA KHAN: It does get better for me. Yes. I have a family that supports me.

AMT: There's a lot of raw emotion in this film but there's a lot of hope as well.

ATTIYA KHAN: Thank you.

AMT: Thank you for making this film. Thank you very much for being so honest.

ATTIYA KHAN: Thank you for creating a space to talk about this.

AMT: Attiya Khan, she's the subject of and the co-director of a new documentary called A Better Man. The documentary's co-producer is Lawrence Jackman. Her approach to dealing with her trauma is not something she recommends for all other abused women, and you should note that. She does hope that by telling her story however, others were benefit. The film gets its world premiere at the Hot Docs Film Festival on Sunday. Attiya Khan plans to travel with this documentary across the country to start a conversation about intimate partner violence. That's our program for today. Laura Lynch will be here tomorrow. I'll bring you The Current from Washington on Thursday, as we examine US government and US politics as Donald Trump marks 100 days in the Oval Office. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti, thank you for listening to The Current.

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April 25, 2017 full episode transcript

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