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The Current Transcript for November 2, 2017

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

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We have been trying for decades to eliminate all gender discrimination in the act. We all hate the Indian Act. We don't think there should be gender discrimination in Indian registration.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: The voice of Pam Palmater, Indigenous lawyer and activist. The majority of Indigenous women speak in harmony when it comes to that law known as the Indian Act. After all, a few years back a court ruled that the BULK of discrimination in that act has been justified because its intent was to preserve the rights of Indigenous men, which brings us to two Canadian Senators, both women, both Indigenous pushing - once and for all - to force equality into that law. In half an hour, Sandra Lovelace-Nicholas and Lillian Dyck speak out on righting the wrongs over rights. And speaking of rights there aren't a lot of them for the LGBTQ community in Russia

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I came out as a open gay in the age of 13. And psychologists talking that I'm gay as a result of American propaganda.

AMT: Justin Romanov came out just as Vladimir Putin's Russian government concocted an intricate propaganda campaign. It demonized the LGBTQ community and banned the adoption of Russian children to any country that recognize same sex marriage. The consequences were far reaching, devastating Canadian couples already in the process of adopting and forcing others to flee for their safety. In an hour the story of those caught in the shadow of Putin's blacklist. And:

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Mr. Trump do your job. Lives are at stake. This is not about politics. This is not about your ego. This is about the people of Puerto Rico.

AMT: The mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico was speaking out like that weeks ago, right after Hurricane Maria ripped through the island. This week she was in Washington repeating herself because in six weeks little has changed, except for the curious case of the tiny U.S. company that got the giant contract to repair the electrical grid. We're starting with all of that. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Puerto Rico left in dark still struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria

Guests: Jorge Montalvo, Shannon Scribner, Andrew Scurria

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VOICE 1: When you talk about relief when you talk about search when you talk about all of the different levels.

VOICE 2: It hit right through the middle of the aisle, right through the middle of Puerto Rico. There's never been anything like that. I give ourselves a 10.

VOICE 3: But it is at 10 at a scale of 100 of course. It is still a failing grade. People are still, like you say without electricity. We know it's going to take a long time for that to happen. But the basic services are still not there yet.

AMT: An exchange over the airwaves last month between us President Donald Trump and the mayor of San Juan Puerto Rico Carmen Yulin Cruz. Six weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated the island, the U.N. has weighed in on the U.S. response so far, calling it ineffective and lagging far behind the need. Life in the dark has become the new normal for the majority of people. Power has only been restored for about 35% of the population. And there's an entire controversy around a tiny company in Montana, Whitefish, that got the contract that was supposed to restore the electrical grid. Jorge Montalvo was a resident in San Juan and we've reached him hello.

JORGE MONTALVO: Hello. Good morning.

AMT: Well it's been six weeks since Maria how much progress do you see in San Juan?

JORGE MONTALVO: Not much. I actually agree with the mayor's qualification of the response. I mean it is 10 perhaps five out of 100.

AMT: Do you have power?

JORGE MONTALVO: I'd still have no power. And this being been now forty three days, if I am not wrong, after the hurricane. And there's also you can see there that we got hit by hurricane Irma, two weeks before. And at least after I was a week and a half without any power.

AMT: And so how are you talking to me now?

JORGE MONTALVO: Right now I'm using my phone and in order to recharge this phone I have to drive to my mother's house, where she has a power generator and where she's [unintelligible] her fridge. And there is where I usually charge my phone every day.

AMT: And what do you have enough gas? Like how hard is it to get gas on the island?

JORGE MONTALVO: Gas is already more stable. It's easier to find that weeks after the hurricane. However power is affecting older areas of the economy. As you can see there's hundreds of businesses that are not operating because they lack of power. End even sleeping at night has gotten more complicated every day because the temperature here at night can reach 28, 30 degrees Celsius and it's uncomfortable. You know you wake up two or three times a night full of sweat because there's not even power to power a fan. Right. It's is getting more complicated. Yes if you go to the streets you will see no electricity in the lights - traffic lights. So you can imagine how hard is traffic as well. This makes everything a little more complicated.

AMT: And so the businesses can they even function? Like what are they doing?

JORGE MONTALVO: Some businesses that have space used power generators. It is way more expensive using- paying your electric bill, as you can imagine. I mean we're talking about 70 cents per kilowatt hour with a power generator. That would have been 20 cents. Right. So it's three, four times more spending power than what it's usually.

AMT: So if businesses can't all be open what about their workers?

JORGE MONTALVO: Most of them without work. I'm actually one of them. Right now I'm practically unemployed. I'm a tour guide in San Juan in the [unintelligible] the Old San Juan, one of the most... The flagship of our tourism is without power. So tourism is not getting here. Cruise ships are not visiting the island. Airport is mostly for bringing aid and relief. So tourism is pretty much dead and that means I'm unemployed right now.

AMT: And how are you getting by? What are you doing for money?

JORGE MONTALVO: I'm using my savings. I had plans to start my own business, so I was saving money and that's the money that is you know sustaining me right now. You know so this hurricane changed everything. And 40 days after that you're beginning to feel you're pretty much in the same position as I was a week after the Hurricane.

AMT: Jorge what are you doing from water?

JORGE MONTALVO: Water - there's running water but is the tap water is not recommended for drinking. So what we are doing is either using chlorination before we drink the water, or we just have to go to buy water, you know, plastic bottles every day or you know every few days in supermarkets. Some supermarkets are still rationizing in the amount of water you can take home. So if you go to a supermarket you can only buy four gallons of water in some cases per person. So that makes everything a little more complicated, makes your visit to the supermarket more frequent as well. And also for you know cold meats you've got to go and buy what you're going to cook same night. It is nothing that you can store.

AMT: You got no refrigeration obviously.

JORGE MONTALVO: Exactly. Ice is also complicated to find. Some people are you know using ice as an alternative for the refrigerators but that's also very hard to find at this point.

AMT: Puerto Rico canceled the controversial $300 million contract with Whitefish energy to restore power on the island. What are your thoughts on this whole controversy?

JORGE MONTALVO: That was the right way to go canceling that contract. Unfortunately it came too late. Almost 40 days after the hurricane. So now they have to find somebody else to do the job. But it is sad to know that there's still people trying to make business for catastrophe, where people need power and instead of you know trying to provide what is needed to the people, they rather do business in a very unfair way. Because those wages that Whitefish was going to pay was skyrocketing. I mean at over $400 per hour for those workers, when a worker in Puerto Rico makes $36 an hour. So they were paying their people 10 times more what they paid to Puerto Rican workers. So I think that was an unfair contract. And I think it was correct to cancel that contract.

AMT: Okay. So what are you hoping will happen now?

JORGE MONTALVO: Well we need power as soon as possible. Otherwise this is going to be a time bomb. The more we wait the less people it's going to be in the island and the more the economy get affected. So I'm hoping the electricity can be restored as soon as possible in a matter of days I hope. But we still have to see what's going to happen.

AMT: Okay. Well Jorge thanks for speaking with me.

JORGE MONTALVO: Thank you very much and thank you for the opportunity.

AMT: Jorge Montalvo lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico. My next guest has been in Puerto Rico coordinating the humanitarian response and providing relief work. She just left the island on Monday to return to the U.S. Shannon Scribner is Oxfam America's acting director of humanitarian programs and policy. She's in our Washington studio. Hello.

SHANNON SCRIBNER: Hello.

AMT: As you traveled around Puerto Rico what did you see?

SHANNON SCRIBNER: So in San Juan itself you know there's still trees down. The road is actually cleared out so people can drive. And that wasn't the case right after Maria. But as Jorge said, some of the traffic lights aren't working. You have the highway or freeway signs that are also down. The electricity poles that are down or leaning on buildings and you hear a lot of generators for some of the restaurants that have been able to remain open, although most of them are closed. And you see long lines for something like the mall where everyone wants go to escape to have electricity to have air conditioning because it's very hot and just to have a break from it all. And then at night in San Juan it's very dark. You see some lights and mainly around the hospital and some of the houses around that hospital have power, but that does go off and on. Cell phone service is better in San Juan in particular. But then when you go out into the rural areas - I went to do Utuado which is in the mountain region in the center of the island. That is a whole other world in terms of what you see.

AMT: What did you see?

SHANNON SCRIBNER: So what you see there is the roads have been cleared but the debris is on the side. So they've cleared it in a lot of the communities have done this and said “we haven't seen FEMA. We haven't seen you know the military. We've done this” and they've cleared the roads. But it's just waiting to come back into that road. If there is rains and landslides can bring that back because it's a hilly area. So there's hills that can just push it right back into the road. Some of the bridges are really difficult to cross. I went up with a caravan and a couple of the vehicles got stuck. We did get them out working together working with the community. You see the power lines that are just draped either across the road, on the ground, or over where the car goes under the power line. And then you see it just draped on the side of the road as well which just you know - to me – I am thinking how are they ever going to get this restored, in areas that are rural.

AMT: And what are the houses look like?

SHANNON SCRIBNER: So the houses are the most of the roofs on the houses are torn off or damaged. There are a lot of people in the rural areas have cars. That is something you know we don't see so much in other countries where Oxfam works. But there are cars that have been crushed by the roof or by a garage like feature that they have on top of it, so a lot of crushed cars. And then everyone has put all of their belongings outside of their home because they're wet, and they have to get rid of things like mattresses or their furniture, and there's a lot of mold. So you see items from houses sitting outside. And you also see people standing in mud over their ankles with shovels trying to sell dig the mud out from the mud slides in these hilly and more rural hilly areas.

AMT: Shannon with Oxfam and its humanitarian responses, we hear that it's for countries such as - and I do believe you've worked in Liberia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan - what are you doing in Puerto Rico at all?

SHANNON SCRIBNER: It's very unusual for us to be in the United States, or you know territories in the United States such as Puerto Rico. The last time we did a response in the United States was during Katrina. And we usually don't go into a country anywhere in the world where local capacity exist and the government is able to respond and has the resources to respond. We haven't seen that in Puerto Rico for all of the reasons you outlined at the beginning of this segment. You know the response has been really slow. 3.5 million people have been affected. The whole island's been affected. And so we felt compelled to respond. There's not a lot of international NGOs. The water situation in particular is of concern. And Oxfam works on water and sanitation. So we went in because we did not see the local response, especially at the national level, and with FEMA up to the level it should be. And also because the local authorities have also been affected since it's been the whole island. It was also difficult for them to lead the efforts on the ground.

AMT: And so for people who did want to get help from FEMA, and just remind our listeners, FEMA the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the U.S. How difficult is it?

SHANNON SCRIBNER: When the people we've talked to said it's extremely difficult, the first thing that people always talk about are the blue tarps and these are the roofs for people. After Hugo in the 1980s you would fly into Puerto Rico and you would see just blue roofs everywhere and that was to prevent you know more rain coming in because of so many of the houses were destroyed. You don't see that at all in Puerto Rico. So the first question people ask are “where are the tarps?” And people are buying tarps themselves and they don't know how to put the tops on. So you see them you see them blowing up or off the roofs. And the other question is about FEMA assistance is that you have to fill out forms online and e-mail them. 70% of the island doesn't have electricity. So…

AMT: People aren't able to go online.

SHANNON SCRIBNER: Exactly.

AMT: Okay. Well I'm going to pick up on the electrical question with my next guest so we'll leave it there. But Shannon Scribner Thanks for speaking with us today.

SHANNON SCRIBNER: Thank you for having me.

AMT: Shannon Scribner Oxfam America's acting director of humanitarian programs and policy issues. She is in our Washington studio. Restoring power to Puerto Rico is a top priority on the island but hope for a fix turned to frustration just this last week when details of a controversial contract emerged. The Puerto Rican power agency which is called PREPA had entered into a $300 million deal with a tiny U.S. company called Whitefish. That contract has since been canceled. The FBI is investigating to explain where all of this is going. We're joined by Andrew Scurria. He is a Wall Street Journal reporter. He's in New York City. Hello Andrew.

ANDREW SCURRIA: Hello.

AMT: Why is the FBI investigating this contract between Whitefish and Puerto Rico's power agency?

ANDREW SCURRIA: I'd say because of the curious nature of the selection of the firm. This was really just two guys; a father and son. The father is an entrepreneur or more curious still it's based in Whitefish, Montana which happens to be the home of our interior secretary in the U.S. and PREPA chose Whitefish rather than calling on mutual aid agreements with other large established utilities with big track records. So rightly or wrongly, it came to feed into a narrative about a kind of disaster capitalism. And now you have multiple congressional committees and federal criminal investigators looking into it, just to try to determine if there is any kind of film on this scale in Whitefish's favor or any kind of outside influence on PREPA’s decision making.

AMT: And how did such a small firm get a 300 million dollar contract?

ANDREW SCURRIA: Right well I interviewed the two men with PREPA whose names are on the contracts themselves. And they told me up and down that it was because Whitefish was simply the one that could get there the quickest. That there were some financial considerations they didn't require an upfront payment and that they were satisfied that Whitefish could get the job done. And no one has told me on the island that Whitefish did anything other than a good job. However the optics of it are just so strange. I'm told that when the governor was in D.C. yesterday meeting with members of Congress, I spoke to somebody who was in the room with him for some of those meetings and Whitefish was all that anybody could talk about, which is unfortunate because Puerto Rico has a lot of very pressing needs that it needs the federal government's help for. But Whitefish is just dominating everything.

AMT: Right but the head of PREPA said that he like looked them up online. Like how much work did they do to figure out if these guys could do the work?

ANDREW SCURRIA: Right so they did reach and they did get proposals back from about a dozen other firms. And you know - according to what the gentleman with PREPA say - they they interacted a bit through social media in the immediate hours after the storm that they brought it onto their official channels. And again they said that tapping other large utilities from New York, Florida, would have been logistically challenging because they would have had to put those guys up in hotels, to feed them. And Whitefish was offering to take care of all of that themselves. This is according to the PREPA officials. Again that may well turn out to be the case, but at least in D.C. The sense is that no one is really buying it.

AMT: Right. And I mean like you say that some people say they're doing a good job but so much of the grid has not been restored?

ANDREW SCURRIA: That's correct. That's correct. Bear in mind they weren't the only ones that were tasked with rebuilding the grid. And now the Army Corps of Engineers is going to take over a larger and larger role. This in general, the narrative has shifted over time. You know the federal government's response was criticized a lot at the outset because Puerto Rico didn't seem to be getting the same attention that the disasters in Texas and Florida got. Over time the local administration in Puerto Rico has come under a bit more criticism again, fairly or unfairly. And that probably explains why it looks like the federal government is going to get more involved, not less, and become more of the decision maker not less.

AMT: And you mentioned there is some Ryan Zinke is from the same the same small town in Montana? For interior secretary?

ANDREW SCURRIA: That's correct. The interior secretary and the CEO of Whitefish, Andy Techmanski, just happened to be acquaintances. The interior secretary put out a statement last week saying he had nothing whatsoever to do with Whitefish’s procurement or the contract. And indeed it was PREPA that signed this contract, to be clear this was not a federal government contract. However just the odd optics around it has fed into the narrative. And for regular Puerto Ricans it's a bit humiliating and demoralizing because it's reinforced some of you know the worst harshest criticisms of the government, fairly or unfairly, at a time when the Puerto Rico desperately needs help from the feds.

AMT: Now we did contact Whitefish looking for comment and they sent us a statement in which they say they're disappointed by the decision to cancel their contract. They also say “The decision will only delay what the people of Puerto Rico want and deserve to have power restored quickly, in the same manner their fellow citizens on the mainland experienced after natural disaster.” Could this cancellation make the situation worse?

ANDREW SCURRIA: It certainly does represent a setback, just from a logistical perspective. Because now PREPA has to pick up that slack and it will take some time a non-zero amount of time, for these other crews from utilities in New York and Florida to arrive. However everyone agrees that canceling the contract was the right thing to do, pretty much except maybe in Whitefish. It was just too much of a political firestorm. And moreover, as we learned more about the contract it turned out that there were some very odd terms and odd clauses in there. For one thing it said that fear that FEMA, our Federal Emergency Management Agency, had already pre-approve the contract. That turned out to be just flatly false. Just completely not true. And I would question how that provision got in there. So you know everyone sort of agreed that they just had to walk sideways away from this deal.

AMT: Okay, well a lot of darkness in Puerto Rico at night but shining a little light onto what's going on with these companies. Thank you Andrew.

ANDREW SCURRIA: Thank you.

AMT: Andrew Scurria is a reporter with The Wall Street Journal. He joined us from New York City. Stay with us. The CBC News is next and then why inequality for Indigenous women has been part of the law for more than 140 years. And we're talking to the two indigenous senators, both women, who are working hard to change that. They'll join me in our next half hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is the current on CBC Radio 1, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca/thecurrent, on podcast and on your radio app.

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'This is our birthright': Indigenous senators call on PM to end discrimination against women in Indian Act

Guests: Lillian Dyck, Sandra Lovelace-Nicholas

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

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AMT: Still to come documentary filmmaker Boris Ivanov says there's a new cold war between Russia and the West. And he wants you to meet some vulnerable people caught in its crossfire, from members of the LGBT community, to orphans, to Canadian families who are ready to adopt those orphans. He joins me in half an hour together with a young man now living in Canada, who says he had to flee Russia because he's gay. But first a glaring inequality right here at home.

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AMT: The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has vowed to do away with the Indian Act. But the 19th century legislation is still on the books and so is the sex based discrimination that's been at its heart for more than 140 years. For generations the Indian Act has given privileged status to Indigenous men and their descendants over Indigenous women and their children. Efforts to change it have been happening for years. And just this week an international women's organization is circulating a letter addressed to the prime minister about it. It calls on the government to support changes to a bill known as S3. More on that in a moment, but first a little history.

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VOICE 1: Shortly after Confederation in 1876 the Indian Act was introduced.

VOICE 2: Under early versions of the act, Indian women who married a man not registered as an Indian lost their Indian Status, so did her children. The same did not apply to Indian men who married non-Indian wives.

VOICE 1: Many indigenous women have challenged this discrimination over the years.

VOICE 2: Two women lost their case in a 1974 Supreme Court decision, but in 1981 Sandra Lovelace, now Senators Sandra Lovelace-Nicholas, won her human rights claim against Canada at the United Nations. That led to an amendment of the Indian Act in 1985 but the court challenges continued.

VOICE 1: Sharon McIvor brought another charter challenge against Canada and won on appeal. As a result more amendments were made to the Act in 2010.

VOICE 2: But still Stéphane Descheneaux was unable to pass on his Indian Status to his three daughters, because he received it through his grandmother, who lost her status when she married and non-Indian.

VOICE 1: He took the government to court and in August of 2015 the Quebec Superior Court of Appeal ruled in his favor. In her decision, Justice Chantal Masse found that the federal government continued to discriminate against Indian women and their descendants.

VOICE 2: The court gave Ottawa till January of 2017 to remedy the situation. But that deadline came and went. The government missed a second deadline in July of this year. Now the government has until Christmas, a third and final deadline according to the court.

AMT: Bill S3 is supposed to finally get the Indian Act in line with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But the Senate says it doesn't go far enough. And senators unanimously passed an amendment to S3 that would eliminate all sex based discrimination from the act. The amendment was not accepted by the Liberal government in the house. Now two indigenous senators, both appointed by the previous Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, are speaking out. Senator Lillian Dyck and Senator Sandra Lovelace-Nicholas both signed that letter calling on Justin Trudeau and his government to adopt the Senate amendment for full equality. They joined me from our Ottawa studio. Hello.

LILLIAN DYCK: Good morning.

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Good morning.

AMT: Senator Lovelace-Nicholas let's start with you. I want to ask you about Bill S3. But first how has your own life been affected by the discrimination in the Indian Act?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: You mean the previous year?

AMT: Yes?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Oh yes. Well I didn't have a right to stay in my own community and I was ostracized from my own people, for wanting the same rights as they do, i.e. dental, medical, education, housing and that made me feel like an outsider.

AMT: So you got divorced at one point and tried to go back to your home with your son and they wouldn't accept you. Am I right?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Yes you're right.

AMT: Because you had married a non-status Indian. So you lost your status.

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Yes. I did lose my status and I'd like to say that, at the time, the government never really told the women that if you marry out that you're going to lose your status.

AMT: And so when you tried to live there how did you end up living?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: I lived in a tent for a while with my son and after a while my sister - they were going to move and she let me stay at her house.

AMT: But how long did you have to live like that?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Couch-surfing, well, quite a few years.

AMT: With your son.

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Yes.

AMT: And how was the community treating you at the time?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Well at the time there was a lot of people skeptical because they thought I was taking away their part of funding, which I wasn't. But they just didn't - They told me to go back to where I came from.

AMT: But you were where you came from.

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Exactly. I was born there.

AMT: Yes. Senator Lillian Dyck, tell us your family's history when it comes to Indian Status.

LILLIAN DYCK: Well it was my mother Eva Muriel McNab who lost her status because she married my father Yok Leen Quan, clearly not a status Indian. So she lost her status in 1943. I was born in 1945. So she could not live on the reserves just like Sandra was explaining and clearly her children. We didn't have status either. So what that did to us was it really broke our connection to the community. She was from the Gordon first nation in Saskatchewan. So consequently we lost all the culture that belonged to the Cree side of the family. So I grew up not knowing my language, not knowing anything about the culture, really not knowing that much about my relatives. And we didn't fit anywhere because we were neither what could be called native or Indian. Nor were we Chinese. And my mom really denied her Indian side and wanted us to blend it within the mainstream community which you could be called white. And we didn't really fit there either. So not being able to have contact with our family on a daily basis really left us isolated and we really didn't know who we were.

AMT: Hmm. Your mom was a residential school survivors, huh?

LILLIAN DYCK: Yes she was and so doing residential school, she never talked about it. And she passed away just before I turned 11 so we never talked about it. But one of the things she made very clear to us was that we were never to tell anybody that we were also Indian, and that we should keep that a secret. Otherwise people would pick on us and life would be very very difficult.

AMT: So Sandra Lovelace-Nicholas, we heard in that little clip before that in 1981 you won your human rights case against Canada at the United Nations. Tell us what you did to get your status back?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Well we had to do a lot of protesting and we took over band offices and we took over Indian affairs offices and none of that worked of course because they shut the power off. It was wintertime. So we apparently we couldn't stay there. And so we counted on relatives to take us on and have us stay there. But in the meantime we launched a complaint to the United Nations with a person from Tobique first nation and then Innes at the time was working for human rights and his suggested why don't we lodge a complaint.

AMT: And when the United Nations - that challenge did lead to an amendment of the Indian Act in 1985 but did it go far enough? What did it do?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: It didn't go far enough. It reinstated the women then and their children. But at that time we fought to get other women reinstated. But they said “No. It's not possible. It's going to cost too much money and too many women will be registering” and to me, it was a take it or leave legislation.

AMT: So they had a cut-off date, in other words.

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Yes they did.

AMT: And so Lillian Dyck, how did that amendment in 1985 affect you?

LILLIAN DYCK: Well that's what allowed me to apply for my status. And so that was 1985 and my mother if she had been still alive would have been reinstated. She was reinstated in one category. It was called a 6-1. And I was reinstated as a 6-2 which meant I couldn't pass my status on to any of my children.

AMT: Okay so that still remains different than the men, obviously. You can't pass your status on but they can.

LILLIAN DYCK: Well it's what it's set up as an inequality between the men because what had happened with the men was that if they married a non-status woman, the woman became status and so the men were allowed to pass their status on one more generation, to future generations longer.

AMT: Talk to us a little bit about why status matters so much, Sandra Lovelace-Nicholas?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Well it bothers me because I was born and raised in this community and I have family and I never lost touch with them. We always had contact and I couldn't practice my culture if I lived off the reserve. They didn't know anything about my culture and my children as well. And we were just like Lillian said we were just cut off from our communities.

AMT: And your community was the Tobique first nation?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Yes.

AMT: So what did it mean for you and your family after you got your status back?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Well it was a happy time, a lot of crying and a lot of women were celebrated of course and we're just happy. We couldn't believe that we did it because the men at the time did not support us, actually went against us. And at one point when we went on our walk - from Oka to Ottawa - a lot of men said “Oh the government's not going to listen to you”. So we proved them wrong.

LILLIAN DYCK: [Laughing]

AMT: Lillian Dyck, talk to me a little about that. So you're getting a pushback from both the government and from a lot of Indigenous men.

LILLIAN DYCK: Yes. I think the situation of course is a little bit different now because the dynamics have changed. But basically it is a women's issue and I think joining up with fathiya was a good move because most Canadians don't understand that this still is a women's issue, and that they can't believe that in 2017 that Indian women still don't have the same rights to pass on their status onto their children as do the Indian men.

AMT: So let's talk about this Senator Dyck, another amendment to the Indian that came in in 2010. What were the consequences of that?

LILLIAN DYCK: Basically what it did was allow us to transmit our status one more generation. So with my mother then, in my situation then I could pass my status on to my son. But he couldn't pass it on any further than that. So it added one more generation to the women who lost their status. But the men still, in some situations, could still pass their status on to their grandchildren.

AMT: Okay, and that hasn't changed that. That's the crux of it right there to them.

LILLIAN DYCK: That's part of it. Yes.

AMT: Now I was reading more about the actual court ruling that led to that change in 2010, and the Appeal Court in B.C. ruled that the Indian Act was discriminatory under the charter. Though it was, the bulk of the discrimination was justified because the purpose was to preserve the existing rights of indigenous men and their descendants. They actually spelled it out. They said they were justified in doing that.

LILLIAN DYCK: Well it was a shocking decision too, because they think that the justification that is still used today is based upon that particular court ruling. The government currently was arguing that they could continue the discrimination because the cost as Sandra said. And back in her day - how many years is that? More than 30 years ago.

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: 41 years ago.

LILLIAN DYCK: 41 years ago, they were still saying well it'll cost us too much money. Well there are other court cases out there, and I'm not a lawyer, but there are other court cases that say that's not valid. You can't take away basic human rights for Indian women because we have the Charter of Rights that says we are equal. And that under the Constitution we also express quite specifically says Indian women and Indian men have equal rights. So cost can be a factor.

AMT: So the amendment that you two brought forward that the government looked down and then said “well we'll pass this bill but we're not going to use your amendment.” It's to fix that specific thing, right?

LILLIAN DYCK: Yes. It's a 6-1A. It's been dubbed the 6-1A All The Way Amendment. It was actually drafted by Sharon McIvor and her team. And as you said before Sharon McIvor was the litigant to the 2010 case. So they drafted that to fix what was wrong. So that was put in by the Senate. The Senate adopted it unanimously but it went to the House of Commons and the House of Commons took it out, narrowed it down, and they have sent it back to us in the Senate, and that's where we're sitting right now.

AMT: Okay. Because, and again, if I'm understanding this correctly, is because that they can change it to be non-discriminatory under the charter. But in fact they can keep it discriminatory because the original intent of the law was to be discriminatory, essentially. Like it was to protect the existing rights of indigenous men so they can use that not to go any further. That is their argument.

LILLIAN DYCK: No I don't think that… I'm not sure that's accurate. I don't think so. I think mostly right now they're saying it has to do with the impact on the communities. If we were suddenly let in another hundred thousand new registrants, how much is that going to cost? And either of those arguments really is compatible with having equality. But certainly what they did in 2010 was that they granted extra benefits to the males, because they didn't want the men who were the comparable situation of having two - a grandmother and a mother who lost their status - they should have lost their status but they were allowed to keep it.

AMT: Well you know we did request an interview with Crown Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett. That request was declined. In June, she urged other MPs to pass the bill without your amendment. And she said your amendment goes too far and this speaks to what you talk about with money. Between 80,000 and two million new status Indians could be created if that were passed.

LILLIAN DYCK: Yes.

AMT: Sandra Lovelace-Nicholas what are you thinking?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Well I'm thinking that I think it's about time they undo the injustice that they created themselves. And it's not fair for the women now, that are waiting for status, and their children and this is our birthright.

AMT: They want to do some consulting. Who do they want to talk to?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Good question. Well I had received something saying that Ms. Bennett wrote to the Chiefs saying that “oh we want you to comment on this” but that's not consultation that's - what you call it - scare tactics, is what I think it is. Because she's not going into the communities talking to grassroots people on how they feel. And myself I don't think we're being backed by the Men’s organization – aboriginal men's organizations.

AMT: Lillian Dyck what do you think?

LILLIAN DYCK: Well I think most of the leadership in the Aboriginal organizations is male and I don't think they really understand the situation because they haven't had to suffer for the most part. It's the women who have suffered from this not the men. So it's very hard for them to relate. Currently I think some are becoming more sympathetic because, in some cases, there are a few first nations where the numbers are actually dwindling, because of other provisions and status. And some are saying we do want those women and their descendants back. And we also want the land and the funding to go with it. So it's kind of a mixed situation.

AMT: It sounds like everybody's concerned about this for reasons that have nothing to do with your concerns about equality though.

LILLIAN DYCK: Yes but I think Sandra made the best comment. You know this is an injustice that was imposed upon first nation communities more than 100 years ago. It's time to set it right.

AMT: And so essentially the government is arguing that there are so many of you who have been wronged, that you would overwhelm these first nations communities with your rights.

LILLIAN DYCK: Yes in fact they have actually used that word. It will overwhelm some communities. Well you know it's not our fault that we were not allowed to be status and to live in that community. So how can you then use that against us that there are too many, because it was deliberate, deliberate government policy, deliberate legislation that kept us aside. And the other comment I would like to say is that as a consequence of that, our women and their families then had to live in small towns and cities wherever across the country and we all know that mostly we live in poverty. And for women what has happened is that not having connections to your community, not having your status, is one of the root causes of our women being made vulnerable to violence. And that's why there are so many of us that have gone missing or been murdered. It's been identified as a root cause.

AMT: So you can connect the dots from all of that.

LILLIAN DYCK: We can connect the dots. And yet it just seems to fall on deaf ears.

AMT: We have a prime minister who calls himself a feminist. You were appointed by the liberals, both of you. How is it then, in 2017, we're having this conversation then?

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Well I think he just means to me for non-indigenous women. It is what I'm thinking because if he's a feminist he's going to want justice for four indigenous women, right?

LILLIAN DYCK: Kind of smacks of what he said when he appointed I think about half of his cabinet ministers are women and saying the reason why, because it's 2017. Well it's 2017 and we demand to have equal rights to Indian men.

AMT: So where does this go now? How much power do you have in the Senate to push this forward?

LILLIAN DYCK: Well I think the Senate is an excellent place to debate. The Senate was behind the 6-1A All The Way Amendment. The Senate is composed of individuals who have looked at this bill intently, and the aboriginal peoples committee studied it in depth. So I think the Senate will insist that a 6-1A All The Way Amendment be put back in, or some kind of amendment that grants the kind of equality that we're looking for.

AMT: And we know that Prime Minister Trudeau has arranged it so there are no more liberal senators. You have your independence. Do you think the pushback in the Senate is a sign of that independence? Do you think you would have had to fall in, at another time?

LILLIAN DYCK: Well as independent liberals we've never been told how to vote. And the independents, I'm not sure whether you were suggesting that somehow they would not support?

AMT: I'm suggesting that because you are recognized as independent, because the prime minister made that change, that you actually have even more ability to push back at the party in power.

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Well we've always had the power. We voted the way we wanted to vote. We were told to go for this way as some people that are involved with the party but I've never had to vote the way the government wanted us to vote.

LILLIAN DYCK: So I could say I think we're we have the power, is through my colleague Senator Sander Lovelace-Nicholas. She's the one that took Canada to the U.N. and won that first case. We have the power because of our identity as indigenous women.

AMT: And we are now in November. The deadline for this is December. Will they make it?

LILLIAN DYCK: Well I hope so. They have no choice.

AMT: Okay, it's important to talk to both of you. Thank you so much for speaking with me today.

LILLIAN DYCK: Thank you so much.

SANDRA LOVELACE-NICHOLAS: Thank you for having us.

AMT: That is Lillian Dyck. She is a senator from Saskatchewan and Sandra Lovelace-Nicolas, a senator from New Brunswick. They joined us from our Ottawa studio. Let us know what you think of what they're saying about the discrimination that continues to exist in the act, and the government's response on the number of people that it will affect and the use of the word ‘overwhelm’. You can tweet us we are @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook go to our website cbc.cs/thecurrent and stay with us. Coming up in our next half hour, we'll hear from Justin Romanov. He says if he'd stayed in Russia he would have been killed for his sexuality. He joins me along with filmmaker Boris Ivanoff. For a look at life inside Putin's Russia and on Putin's blacklist. I'm Anna MariaTremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio 1, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca and on your radio app.

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How Russian law affects Canadians trying to adopt orphans

Guests: Boris Ivanov, Justin Romanov

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

SOUNDCLIP

She was so tiny and really sweet. She wanted to be held and we played games with her and I think that was within less than half an hour. And Eric said to our translator, at that time, if we're going to find the papers early September we need to call their coordinator to find out what was happening. And she basically said “I just returned back from Russia and there's been changes there.” The one major issue that they had was in regards to same sex marriages in Canada and that a child might potentially be placed into a family that, in Russia's opinion, was not a natural family. If we show that we're not have same sex marriage. I definitely want it to be her mom but I needed her to have parents [sobbing]. And the only way that I knew that that could happen is that… we released her.

AMT: Sherry and her husband live in Oakville, Ontario. They had hope that an adopted baby would be part of their family. They'd already traveled to Russia. They'd met a baby girl with whom they'd fallen in love and they were in the process of making her their adopted daughter. And then a new direction in Russian law changed everything. Suddenly Russian babies could no longer be adopted in the United States or Canada or any country that allowed same sex marriage. It meant Sherry and her husband were no longer qualified to adopt in Russia and it meant the little girl they'd fallen in love with could remain an orphan. Their story is told in a new documentary On Putin's Blacklist. It premiered at Vancouver's International Film Festival last month. Director Boris Ivanov reveals the growing crackdown in Russia on political dissent and the wide swath of people affected by that. Boris Ivanov is with me in studio together with Justin Romanov. He left Russia to live in Canada. He now counsels people in the LGBTQ communities of his home country. Hello to you both.

BORIS IVANOV: Thanks for having us.

JUSTIN ROMANOV: Thank you.

AMT: Boris Ivanov. Let's start with you. You highlight some of the stories of these families who are in the process of adopting Russian children when this law came into effect. How devastated were these people?

BORIS IVANOV: Well it was hard to film. You know it was very emotional because these individuals actually met the children. They promised the children that they're going to be back to take them home and then they couldn't go back to take them. They just disappeared, in other words, the kids don't know.

BORIS IVANOV: The kids don't know what happened and it's so hard on the families. You know when the film was screening the families have not seen the film and they are not sure if they want to watch it again to experience what they had to experience.

AMT: How many Canadians were affected by those changes in Russian law?

BORIS IVANOV: Well I think it's hundreds. I mean there have been hundreds of adoptions every year from Russia across the coast.

AMT: So take us back to 2012 what was happening in Russia at that time?

BORIS IVANOV: Well you know Putin was coming back into power. He got re-elected and there were a lot of protests because people didn't believe it was fair elections. And a lot of those protests, Putin attributed to Western influence. He believed CIA bought all of these NGOs that were telling people to protest. And he did not believe it was him. He believed there was outside influence and it affected and created this new laws which he had to fight the West, as he believed.

AMT: And how was this adoption law used politically?

BORIS IVANOV: At that time in the United States the Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, and that act basically disallowed human rights violators from Russia to invest money in the West in the United States. So when the Congress passed this act, Putin got very upset. And what you did in retaliation is banned adoption of Russian orphans to U.S. families. He felt that this was going to punish the U.S. families when in reality it punished all the Russian orphans that get stuck being in orphanages for the rest of their lives.

AMT: And how did he link that law to the LGBTQ community?

BORIS IVANOV: He has a nickname called Gayrope. He believes West is corrupted, that the West is different, that it no longer believes in this conservative values. It doesn't believe in this Christian values and his nickname for this different Europe is Gayrope. So his thoughts are he's fighting this Gayrope, different Europe. And it's easy to get people behind you to be against somebody who is different from you. So he is trying to get all the Russians behind this one concept and this attacks on LGBT community.

AMT: So just to be clear so he's using this adoption law. We see you compile all this footage suddenly people are saying things like “Why can't Russian children stay in our own country? Why are we letting our children, our resources, these are our children?” So they build up this idea that that “foreigners are taking our children” then they argue “foreigners are taking our children and some of them are same sex parents and they're hurting our children.” Right? That was all part of a campaign.

BORIS IVANOV: Yes it was a big campaign about foreigners you know torturing our children, selling them for body organs, that all of these children are going to be later conscripted into military to fight the Russians. I mean it was a huge propaganda campaign what Putin government is really good at is propaganda. They're masters at it. So they're able to sway the opinion of people who are living in Russia pretty easily.

AMT: And in the midst of all of this, Justin Romanov, you're growing up in Russia. What was life like for you growing up?

JUSITN ROMANOV: It was a very difficult experience for me because I came out as a open gay in a age of 13 in my own hometown, where I was born which is 700 kilometers south from Moscow. And when I came out my parents tried to - and my relatives - tried to wented me to psychologist, and psychologist told me that I'm gay as a result of American propaganda. Psychologist told me that America wanted to destroy the population in Russia and that's why they support gay people. And in school they was kick me out from classes and my classmates throw coins to me. I was naive at that age. I wrote letter to Vladimir Putin, back in the days he was a prime minister. And I asked him to help for me because of I believe that he can protect me from homophobia in my home town. But instead after I send this mail to him, three months after police come to our apartment - where me and my parents living - and they told me that it's wrong to be gay. I shouldn't be gay. And they told to my parents that I shouldn't wrote any mails anymore. I should just be quiet. They, instead of helping me, they make everything worse.

AMT: What did you do?

JUSITN ROMANOV: After that, after they did this, the homophobia didn't change in my hometown. I just talk on the street and cars might stop - just random cars - and people may call me faggot on the street. And in age of 16 I moved to Moscow because I thought Moscow is more liberal city. But after police came to my home I start to realize that Russia is- something wrong with Russia, something wrong with Vladimir Putin. I said I realize that Vladimir Putin is not as good as media tried to say. He didn't support me. He make everything worse and I became to be human rights activist. I went outside, with rainbow flag, protest for human rights, for gay rights. And as a result of this, in the age of 16 and 17, I was beaten and I was arrested by police, when I protesting in front of Russian parliament - State Duma, when they passing anti-gay law. And I was beaten couple of times on the street by homophobes. They just randomly attack me, and I went and tried to find a support from government - from police, they said I'm they wouldn't help me because I'm gay. So the violence just happened to me but nobody protect me. Moreover, police arrested me because of I did protest.

AMT: Did you come to Canada, then? Did you seek refugee status in Canada?

JUSITN ROMANOV: Yes.

AMT: And do you have it now?

JUSITN ROMANOV: Yes.

AMT: Like where you in the process? Are you done? Are you accepted?

JUSITN ROMANOV: I'm a refugee and I'm a permanent resident.

AMT: You've been here how many years now?

JUSITN ROMANOV: Four years.

AMT: Do you think if you had stayed in Moscow you would still be alive?

JUSITN ROMANOV: If I think if I would stay in Moscow I would be killed because of my friend Alexei Davydov, a human rights activist he was killed by Russian police. He died in my apartment after he release from jail. So basically if I stayed in Russia I would be killed because I already had experience when I was beaten.

AMT: Boris Ivan this is what you're talking about, about the people on what you call Putin's blacklist.

BORIS IVANOV: Yes.

AMT: And there's a wide range of people if they speak up.

BORIS IVANOV: I find a lot of them are very defenseless. I understand when he's fighting for power if he is going after politicians, he is going people with money, but he finds this defenseless people like LGBT community, like orphans from Russian orphanages and still attacks them.

AMT: You interview the author and journalist and the LGBTQ activist Masha Gessen, who now lives in the United States. Let's listen to her.

SOUNDCLIP

He use the word law and immediately we started thinking about laws in the way that you think about, in a law-based society, which Russia isn't. In a country like Russia, laws are messages, they are signals. The signal that these particular laws send to the larger society is that these people are outside the law, and they are outside the protection of the law. And so you can attack them with impunity. In fact, you will be sort of encouraged to attack them. We came to the states because they passed a law outlawing adoption by same sex couples which could be used retroactively and which they made it very clear would be used against my family.

AMT: So that Masha Gessen is an author who was writing in Russia, in a same sex relationship, had a couple of kids. How much of a threat was somebody like Masha Gessen to somebody as powerful as President Putin?

BORIS IVANOV: Interesting thing about Putin and the government is they don't want a single voice against, even one voice is too much. So Masha was one voice too much and she was very vocal and she was not afraid. So they had to figure out a way to get rid of her.

AMT: It was interesting too but we could because she did have notoriety but she was afraid she could disappear.

BORIS IVANOV: Well there is different bureaucratic way of getting people out of Russia. They don't care really as much what you say outside of Russia. They just don't want you to be influencing people in Russia. So they have to figure out a way how to get Masha out and having known she adopted before from an orphanage, so having ability to threaten her that they're going to take away her child was a way for her to force her to move with her family.

AMT: Now Canada has its own Magnitsky law. And again as this comes into play, you have explained the Magnitsky law. It was all about a man named Sergei Magnitsky who died after being imprisoned because he found corruption very high up in Russia. President Putin accused Canada of playing unconstructive political games in supporting this law. Is this last thorn in his side? How much of a problem is it for Putin?

BORIS IVANOV: Well activist Bill Browder is a big part of [unintelligible] different countries are to be part of this law. He's thinking that by having a law where people very close to Putin are no longer able to invest in foreign countries, and not able to deal with the money what they want to do, kind of shows to people around him that maybe Putin as a great manager, or maybe you know there is repercussions for us being part of his regime. So I think that is just a thorn in your side.

AMT: Talk to us a little bit about the narrative presented by Mr. Putin - it's in your documentary - about the liberal influences from the U.S. and the West? How much of a concern is that that Western influence? Is that just a tool or is that real concern?

BORIS IVANOV: In the 90s there was a lot of Western influence and of course Russia was changing from Soviet Union. There were a lot of drastic management measures and a lot of money that came into Russia but it didn't really trickle down to regular people. So a lot of people starved and it was a very difficult time. So now Putin is able to say “Well you know remember when the West was trying to help you instead they really hurt you? Well you don't want that again. So you want me to protect you from the west and which means that you don't want those NGOs telling you what to do, because they are out there to destroy you. You don't want freedom because that's the western concept. We in Russia don't need freedom. We are fine as we are.” So for him fighting this sort of Western mentality is a very important way of uniting Russians against the West and uniting support for himself.

AMT: And we know, I mean there's so much that it's in flux right now, investigation about how Putin tried to influence the U.S. election. Is there an advantage for him to present Russia as vulnerable to corrupting outside influences?

BORIS IVANOV: Well I think Putin believes that his election 2011 was influenced by the West as well, that he was financing NGOs. There was foreign money coming in to try to define his power. So in a way I feel like just paying back. His thinking about, you know, I have the power to control and I have the influence if I want to. So I think he still believes Russia is very strong but there is this evil foreign influences and he has to get rid of him.

AMT: Justin Romanov How does your generation views the narrative put forward by the Kremlin that the West is trying to corrupt Russia?

JUSTIN ROMANOV: I think in my generation. They right now have access to Internet, to YouTube, to the new trends. Many of them don't believe in official propaganda. Many of them, many of people the same age as me, don't believe that America or Europe or Western countries try to attack Russia, as media tried to claim. And I think that, the thing which I hope that when Vladimir Putin and his generation will be gone the new people who will come and power will try to make a friendship or relationship and will try to push Russia on a way to democracy.

AMT: Boris are you as helpful as he is?

BORIS IVANOV: I'm actually very hopeful for the young people in Russia. You know they are demonstrating. They're not afraid. They're able to grow up in this environment of propaganda and still want freedom and not being afraid to stand up and a lot of demonstrating now is done by young people. So I think the younger generation of Russian is the future.

AMT: In your film you keep coming back to a Russian politician by the name of Ilya Ponomarev. Who is he?

BORIS IVANOV: Well he was a member of parliament in Russia which is called Duma. And he was the only MP who voted against the annexation of Crimea. He voted against the ban of adoption of orphans to Americans and he abstained, the only abstainee, in the vote against [unintelligible] past the LGBT propaganda law. So he was really one voice. There weren't that many in the Russian parliament that stood up for a different way.

AMT: Let's listen to a little bit of him.

SOUNDCLIP

I was the only one who talked against the annexation of Crimea. Putin wanted it to be anonymous, because he wanted to showcase that elite is united for his decision and it was not united. There is a democracy in the sense that I can vote as I voted. There is no democracy because there are consequences.

AMT: And what were the consequences for him?

BORIS IVANOV: Well they figure out a bureaucratic way to prevent him from ever going back into Russia. So when he was away on doing lectures and US, they kind of took away his passport and forced him to never be able to come back to Russia. So essentially he's now has to live outside Russia.

AMT: And how does he function like that? Like what has he been able to do?

BORIS IVANV: What they do in Russia quite often is create trumped up charges against you. Usually it's embezzlement. And so they did that and then they took away all his money and so he had nothing. And I believe now he is actually working in Ukraine. He, in the past, has experience working in the oil industry. So he's trying to help Ukraine figure out their oil.

AMT: So that would that would just give them more ammunition to call him an enemy and the people wouldn't it?

BORIS IVANOV: Oh absolutely. I believe recently he was going to have a lunch with one another member of parliament from Russia who escaped and left Russia and went to Ukraine and the gentleman was shot outside the hotel.

AMT: So how does the average person express opposition to Mr. Putin?

BORIS IVANOV: I think, for me, the most moving part was at some point - it wasn't a demonstration. Everyone in Moscow went for a walk in the center of Moscow at the same time. So there were tens of thousands people who went for a walk. And I think for a regular person - I mean that's not men carrying signs, but it shows that there is so much, so many people understand what's happening and they are not happy. And I thought that was really important.

AMT: How did the government react?

BORIS IVANOV: Well everybody went for walks. No it wasn't real demonstrations so I was actually you know pretty okay.

AMT: Didn’t have a sign, nothing?

BORIS IVANOV: No just for a walk but I think it shows everybody in Russia that they're not alone.

AMT: Justin Romanov's. What do you say to your friends who continue to live in Russia? What do you tell them?

BORIS IVANOV: Most of my friends, most of LGBTQ activists left Russia. They move to another countries. People who are right now living in Russia, they have a very difficult time because of everything is getting worse. Honestly I just like - when I talk with them in Skype, I say to them try to survive, try to live and wait and the government will change.

AMT: There was a story this month of Rainbow Railroad in Canada, helping to get a 31 Chechen people who be LGBTQ out.

BORIS IVANOV: I'm very proud of Canada in this thing because of Canada is the biggest country who accepted refugees from Chechnya. The largest amount of people who came they came to Canada. It's because of Rainbow Railroad and because of Canadian government, especially Chrystia Freeland. They done a really great job to help people. The Chechens government purposely try to find gay people and arrest them. For example, they could hide in camera in the hotel rooms. They loop searching in social network, social media, to find the gay people. And after, they come to our houses and arrest them, beat them. And Russian federal government don't do anything to protect these people.

AMT: Boris Ivanov. Russia is preparing to host FIFA World Cup soccer. What do you think the world should be looking at?

BORIS IVANOV: You know the Olympics was such a great success for Putin. And you know some countries may think that if they send an LGBT representative to represent the country, they can make a statement. But do they make a statement. So Putin was so successful after the Olympics. You know his rating is 90% support. The same thing with the World Cup. I mean is it something that maybe the West needs to say “well you know this is not acceptable behavior and we can't accept it, and you have to grow up before you can actually host such a big event that the whole world comes to.”

AMT: What do you say to those skeptics who say Vladimir Putin does have support in Russia? There are elections next March that he is being demonized by the West?

BORIS IVANOV: Well I'd say you know then, just accept that some pop musician who happens to be gay will be murdered. So if you're ok to accept that's worth stability of Russia, then that's what you believe in. You know I feel like there is a middle ground where we can still have stability in Russia and people don't get murdered because of who they are.

AMT: But you're drawing the link to the actual legislation, and you're drawing the link right to Putin because terrible things happen to people in the United States and Canada at times as well. We've seen we've seen racist attacks. We’ve seen murders. But what you're saying is that this is state sanction, that this has got a state link.

BORIS IVANOV: Yes, it's perpetrated by the government. It's began by they are allowing to have such thing as a gay propaganda ban. It's allowed by not using the court systems to prevented it by basically abusing people who are trying to report in crimes against them, like Justin did. You know the whole judicial system in Russia is just used to oppress. If you're accepting that this is the way Russia is, then you have to accept that there is going to be people dying because that's the way Russia is.

AMT: You wind through your story with the story of the adoptions, sort of trying to link that to the LGBT community, and seeing like the banning of adoptions and the demonizing of the LGBT community in relation to adoptions. You end your film with a headline that Jared Kushner was talking to the Russians about adoption and you in the film with a clip of Jared Kushner. Why do you go there?

AMT: Because I find what's happening in United States right now, the propaganda is reminiscent of what happened in Russia. They're borrowing the same tools that Putin is using by confusing the population about what's really happening by saying things are not true, then twisting and turning that just so that they can confusing control their own population. So that is why I ended on that because I am feeling that our current situation of the States and its government is somewhat similar in propaganda and sometimes paranoia as Putin.

AMT: Justin, are there things about Russia you miss?

JUSTIN ROMANOV: Well I miss the home town when I was born. I miss my parents and my grandparents but I wouldn't go there until Vladimir Putin is gone. It's too dangerous for me. I'm really happy that I'm in Canada and I'm safe. And I just have a basic rights to be myself. In Russia I do not have this right.

AMT: Thank you both.

BORIS IVANOV: Thank you.

JUSTIN ROMANOV: Thank you.

AMT: Boris Ivanov director of On Putin's Blacklist: Personal Stories from the New Cold War, and Justin Romanov an LGBTQ activist. They're both with me in our Toronto studio. Let us know what you're thinking as you listen to them. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC, find us on Facebook. Go to the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. And now a word about the team that made the program this week.

[Music]

JOHN CHIPMAN: Hi I'm John Chipman, one of the producers here at The Current. This week the show was produced by: Idella Sturino, Yamri Taddese, Howard Goldenthal, Amra Pashitch, Ines Colabrese, Willow Smith, Kristin Nelson, Karin Marley, Samira Mohyeddin, Mary-Catherine Mcintosh, and Pacinthe Mattar. And thanks to our network producers: Katy Parsons in Halifax, Susan McKenzie in Montreal, Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg, Michael O'Halloran in Calgary and Anne Penman in Vancouver.The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Ruby Buiza is our interactive producer.Transcriptions are provided by Rasha Shehata. Our technical producer is Gary Francis. Our presentation producer is Lara O'Brien. And our documentary editor is Liz Hoath. Our senior producers are Richard Goddard in Toronto and Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Kathleen Goldhar.

AMT: That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan talks about her new novel, Manhattan Beach. A reminder - you can always take The Current with you to go on your CBC Radio app. It's free from the App Store or Google Play. We began today checking in on the recovery efforts, or lack of, in Puerto Rico. Playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda has been doing his part to help. The proud Puerto Rican behind the hit Broadway show "Hamilton" brought together an all-star cast of Latin musicians to record a benefit song. Almost Like Praying, features Jennifer Lopez, Gloria Estefan, Marc Anthony, and many others. Proceeds are going to disaster relief. Here's a bit of that. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Piya Chattapadhyay will be here tomorrow. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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[Song: Almost Like Praying]

Say it loud and there's music playing

Say it soft and it's almost like praying

It's almost like praying

It's almost like praying

It's almost like praying

It's almost like

Cabo Rojo, Corozal

Naguabo, Guaynabo

San Lorenzo y San Germán

San Sebastián, mi viejo San Juan

Isabela, Maricao

Fajardo, Dorado

Hormigueros, Humacao

Luquillo, Hatillo

Vega Alta, Vega Baja

Toa Alta, Toa Baja, Mayagüez

Yes, otra vez, yes

Aguadilla, Quebradillas

Guayanilla, Juana Díaz

Y Cayey, hey

It's almost like praying (Puerto Rico)

It's almost like praying (Puerto Rico)

It's almost like

Arecibo, Guánica

Culebra, Las Piedras

Orocovis, Guayama

Gurabo, Maunabo

Aguas Buenas, Salinas

Río Grande, Sábana Grande

Yabucoa, Florida

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Thursday November 2, 2017 Full Episode Transcript

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