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The Current Transcript for March 12, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

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VOICE 1: It's going to be tough on anybody. I tend not to get too emotional about things. But it has definitely had an impact on not just my life, but the lives of all the officers involved.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: He's the detective in charge of investigating an alleged serial killer in Toronto, and you can hear in his voice the kind of toll such a case can take even on a veteran cop. Unlike crimes of passion, or vengeance, the serial killer defies our moral logic, and takes the investigator into a dark, twisted place. Today, we're hearing from other, fellow police officers who have tracked such killers themselves, to share their insights into the pressures involved. And then we'll turn our attention to the money that's burning a hole in your pocket...or not.

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VOICE 1: I never carry around cash with me. I think it's the most uncomfortable way of paying for things.

PC: Why carry cash, when virtually anything today can be paid for with a card or your phone? Sweden is a world leader on the path to a cash-free society and Canada's not far behind. But just what's at stake when you give up cash? The price might be heftier than you might imagine. More on that in about a half an hour from now. Plus we're headed to Russia where occasionally the president suits up for a game with players from the Russia's elite hockey league.

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[Sound: Russian language]

PC: What we can learn about president Putin's Russia, from the KHL and its controversies. Hi. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and this is The Current.

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'No body, no crime': Prevailing wisdom stops police catching killers, says former detective

Guests: Lorimer Shenher, Glenn Woods

AMT: The case of Bruce McArthur has transfixed the country and not just for the grisly details of his alleged crimes. Facing six counts of first-degree murder, he's accused of being a serial killer, preying on men from Toronto's gay community. But the details of how the city's police force handled the file have also been disturbing to many.

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VOICE 1: The critics in the communit… I understand their criticism. People need to have someone to blame. All I can do is point out to them we weren't doing nothing about it. We weren't ignoring what you're saying. But we work in a world where we need evidence to proclaim something and we didn't have that evidence so we're not going to say it.

AMT: That was Detective Sergeant Hank Idsinga from the Toronto Police, speaking to CBC last month about the investigation. Toronto Police have taken some heat for initially dismissing the suggestion that a serial killer may have been targeting gay men. And Police Chief Mark Saunders caused uproar when he seemed to insinuate that the gay community hadn't done enough to share information and tips with authorities. But on Friday, Chief Saunders backed the idea of an external review into the force's handling of missing persons cases — something Toronto Mayor John Tory is calling for as questions continue to mount about the McArthur case. In a written statement, the chief also announced the force was creating a dedicated missing persons unit, and developing a "robust community outreach plan" involving its LGBT liaison officer. Today, I'm joined by two former police detectives for an inside view of how serial murder investigations work, and what obstacles investigators face. Lorimer Shenher was the lead investigator of Vancouver's missing women case that eventually led to the arrest of Robert Pickton. He's also the author of That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away. He joins us this morning from Vancouver. And Glenn Woods is a former RCMP criminal profiler and investigator in the Clifford Olson case and in another high profile case known as the Abbotsford Killer. He now leads Behavioural Analysis Investigation and Training, a private firm that provides consulting on behavioural profiling. He's in Ottawa.

LORIMER SHENHER: Good morning.

GLENN WOODS: Good morning.

PC: Lorimer Shenher, I want to talk to you about the Pickton investigation, but first, what has it been like watching the McArthur case unfold in Toronto?

LORIMER SHENHER: Well, Piya it's interesting because it's been quite a few years since my case but looking at this it seems like yesterday in many respects. I guess overwhelmingly I feel a lot of frustration on behalf of those investigators. I've been critical of some of the response but really I think my criticism was with police leadership more than anything. And the frustration for me comes from seeing what appears to be a lot of repeat of the same types of mistakes that we made out here. And it seems unnecessary to me to be repeating those mistakes. I feel for the investigators because there's just no need for it.

PC: Ok, we'll talk about those mistakes as you saw them during your investigating time. Glenn Woods what is your opinion of how Toronto Police has handled its investigation into these murders?

GLENN WOODS: I don't really know exactly what they are doing so I find it difficult to criticize when you don't have any inside knowledge on what they've actually been up to. I think if you live in Toronto you have a tendency to be as your other guest says more critical. I think you also into consideration that the police have a daunting task ahead of them. And I have difficulty with all criticism towards an investigation when it just adds to the stress and the difficulty of the overall case.

PC: Well let’s get into how you both took on your particular cases. Lorimer Shenher, how did you become the lead investigator of Vancouver's missing women cases?

LORIMER SHENHER: Well the case was brought to the attention of the sergeant homicide — by a clerk — in the missing persons section in Vancouver who noticed a spike in the number of women that were missing from the Downtown Eastside and I was in a unit that was being disbanded and I volunteered essentially for the job because they created a second job in the missing persons unit to deal specifically with these new cases.

PC: Why did you volunteer?

LORIMER SHENHER: Well I was the junior person which in policing often means that you don't get a lot of choice and there was no one else interested in that job. And I find it looked like a real life mystery which it definitely turned into you and I was young and keen and thought that would be a great case to cut my teeth on which in the police world it was but it was also a very tragic case and a very frustrating one.

PC: As I understand it, the Vancouver Police Department civilian clerk first spotted anomaly in missing persons data, wouldn't let it go. And that's how you were brought into the investigation.

LORIMER SHENHER: Yeah that's correct. I think I was brought in more to rule out any sort of a problem than out of any deep suspicion that there was something wrong. But I enlisted someone like Glenn. I enlisted Detective Inspector Kim Rossmo who is a criminal profiler with the VPD at the time and he did an analysis of the numbers and found out very quickly that it was an anomaly.

PC: And so when you go to your bosses — the superiors in your police force — and you tell them I think a serial killer may be at work in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, how much support did you get for that?

LORIMER SHENHER: [Laughs] none, really. Well my immediate sergeant was supportive and she thought that the things that I was uncovering. I should say I had a tip about Mr. Pickton the second day that I started in the missing persons unit. So this wasn't something that came along as the investigation unfolded. But I had all sorts of responses ranging from I read too much and had to active of an imagination to we couldn't have a serial killer because I didn't have any bodies.

PC: You came across Robert Pickton early on — I mean well before his name jumped into the public consciousness. Tell us about that and how you investigated him.

LORIMER SHENHER: Well essentially I received a Crime Stoppers tip and it named Pickton by name and indicated that he had the ability to dispose of bodies and that somebody close to him felt quite strongly that he could be responsible for Vancouver's missing women. So I initially did a few searches of him on various computers at my disposal and found that he had a stay of proceedings in Vancouver for attempted murder and forcible confinement of a sex worker from Vancouver. And so I started to speak to the RCMP detective in charge of that case who was a terrific very hard working detective named Mike Conway and as a result of that we started to try and work on him. And I started to try to get enough evidence for a search warrant to explore what was on the farm but we just couldn't make things happen. And that's when we got into a lot of jurisdictional wrangling and it's a long story but that's how it began.

PC: Try and be brief about it. But I want to understand when you said, "We couldn't get it going," because we're trying to understand how these types of killings and murders are investigated on various police forces.

LORIMER SHENHER: Well it's hard because in those days and maybe it's still the case I don't know but it was very much if you had no body you had no crime. That was the prevailing wisdom. I mean there was literally no trace of our women. And so it was very hard to get any interest from the higher ups in my department to pressure the RCMP of the jurisdiction — which was Coquitlam — to pressure them to take the investigation and run with it. We needed their assistance. We needed their taking over of that case in order to go further with it. And that wasn't happening.

PC: Glenn Woods, you were an investigator on the Clifford Olson case. Olson pleaded guilty to murdering 11 children in 1982. What were some of the most challenging parts of the investigation that you were involved in?

GLENN WOODS: Well if you go back to the '70s and '80s we didn't have the tools that were available to us today. So one of the biggest challenges was having these cases — several children were being murdered in the Lower Mainland particularly. And one jurisdiction and didn't know they were having those kinds of cases in other jurisdictions. It took manual work, investigators travelling from Burnaby to Surrey to Coquitlam — back and forth — to finally get a beat on the fact that there was more than one case and the likelihood was one offender was responsible for all of them. I just want to put in a quick plug for ViCLAS. ViCLAS was a system that actually links crimes in different jurisdictions and the Olson case was kind of the reason why that system was created because we had so many problems even putting these cases together and attributing them to one offender.

PC: So ViCLAS — basically police departments share information about missing persons case across our country.

GLENN WOODS: It's similar to that. It's a national system that was created by the RCMP and every single sexual assault and homicide that occurs in Canada back to the early '90s is entered on this system. So if you have similar types of crimes being committed in different jurisdictions the system will pick up on it and identify it earlier than it would have been otherwise.

PC: Glenn Woods, years later, you were a profiler in the Terry Driver case in the 1990s — he's better known as the Abbotsford Killer. He was convicted of murdering a teenage girl after he attacked her and a friend with a baseball bat. How did your experience investigating Olson play into how you examined Driver?

GLENN WOODS: Well I think you certainly come to the realization when you've investigated a number of these things or been involved in as a profiler is that every case is different. And as Lorimer says we do have a problem that sometimes similar mistakes are made even though we should have learned by them in years gone by.

PC: We're trying to understand that. These are obviously very serious crimes. How do police officers not learn from the mistakes of the past and apply them to the next time we have a missing person's case?

GLENN WOODS: Well because we have a turnover in police officers. If 15 years goes by then you have kind of a new generation of police officers. And I don't say for a minute that all the same mistakes were made. I think we're a lot better at this than we used to be. The other factor is that these cases are not alike. They're similar in some respects but dissimilar in others. But Lorimer raised a point earlier in that Pickton's name came up very early in the investigation. I've been involved as a profiler in hundreds of series of cases like this and almost all of them the main suspect, the guy who committed the offence, his name comes up in the file early on. The problem we had in some of these cases is there’s such a plethora of information that we not manage that well. So names like Pickton and Olson get lost in these big thick files. And I think the breakthrough in recent years are these management systems that allow us to find information and not just collect it. It right at our fingertips more now than it ever has been.

PC: Lorimer Shener, as you know in this case in Toronto, Bruce McArthur's name had come up years ago. And now he has been arrested as a suspect and there is a lot of controversy and questions being asked about how that time kind of passed. In the Robert Pickton case, he was eventually arrested and convicted in the murders of six women. And as you said he'd been on your radar before all of that. So once you have a suspect in custody like you did in the Pickton case, how does the investigation shift?

LORIMER SHENHER: Well in the Pickton case once the investigators got into the farm then it shifted. There was wiretap that was up to capture conversation that he was having and some of the people in his close circle were having. The search obviously began which turned out to be the largest crime scene search in Canadian history. So there was the whole forensic side of things that was happening at the same time. But basically at that point in our case — I say "we" I was more of an observer at that point — the RCMP was really trying to determine how they were going to proceed as far as charges whether it was going to be Pickton tried alone or whether they were going to pursue one of several people who could have quite easily been charged as accessories to the murder. So it really depends on your case. It's quite case specific. And a lot of these cases — the details often will change. But I think the overarching problems remain the same.

PC: Glenn Woods we know that there are murders that are reported to police remain unsolved. That they begin as missing persons case and they turn into something different. What happens as you understand it in those cases when we have a missing persons case? Are police keeping track of that? I know in Toronto they've talked about doing that now. But do we keep track of these things?

GLENN WOODS: I think we do. I left 11 years ago and I know that a system in Ontario was created specifically to be able to link those missing persons with systems like ViCLAS and to kind of merge it with other systems that would help us kind of solve this problem. But I don't think it's there yet. I'm not sure because I've been out of the picture for a while.

PC: I want to talk to both of you about the personal toll and this is surely not to take away from the victims, loved ones, and the communities that are deeply, deeply affected by these kinds of cases. But we know it takes a toll on you as well. So Lorimer Shenher help us understand what being part of the Pickton investigation — what kind of toll that took on you personally?

LORIMER SHENHER: Well what it really did was it ruined my zest for police work. And it exposed what I think was a very large flaw. It was the systemic feeling for me that I had the most difficulty with. It was almost saying that the emperor has no close in terms of I joined this job to help people and to put people in jail who had done bad things. And when I realized that's what I wanted to do with this person and there were no tools or resources provided to do that job that was incredibly demoralizing and I think that's why I ultimately ended up with post-traumatic stress disorder. And I believe it was more the result of that powerlessness as opposed to the horrible things that people do to each other. I expected that when I joined the job that was going to be what I'd be faced with. But I had no idea that I would ultimately be undone by a total lack of support to do my job.

PC: And how are you doing now?

LORIMER SHENHER: I'm doing quite well. You know honestly I have lots of great things going on and I'd love to not talk about things like this quite honestly and I would love to not see any other investigators go through the things that I've gone through and other investigators have.

PC: Glenn Woods, what about you… the toll this took on you investigating Clifford Olson and the Abbotsford killer?

GLENN WOODS: Well I think I come at it from a different perspective because in my job I was the director of behavioural sciences when I left. I went from a kind of archaic times investigating Clifford Olson where we didn't have technologies to being a part of a unit within the RCMP that was on the leading edge of new technologies like graphic profiling, like criminal profiling, and ViCLAS. We brought in the national sex offender registry which is another system that helps us identify these predators hopefully before they re-offend. So I think we all suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder to some extent, some less than others. But to be honest with you I saw this as opportunities over the years especially the last years of my service as creating systems that was going to help the problem, not hinder it.

PC: Lorimer Shenher, there is some officer who is new to his career probably involved in the Bruce McArthur case and there unfortunately will be other serial killers amongst us and other officers will have to be part of that. What are the lessons that you learned from past serial killer murder investigations that you want to say to that person?

LORIMER SHENHER: Well I think there are a lot of tools in place to do your job. And I think that you have to use those tools but you also have to use some of your own resources to protect and maintain your mental health. And you can't look inside the police department for that because generally I don't think those systems are very progressive. I think you have to care of yourself.

PC: What if they're yelling from the rafters but no one's listening because that's some of the guilt that you have. The investigation was flawed because no one would pay attention to you.

LORIMER SHENHER: Yeah. That's challenging. You know I really applaud Detective Sergeant Hank Idsinga because it sounds as though he's brought some difficulties with his investigation to light or early on. You know I'm thrilled for him. It sounds like people listened. You know that was the difference with our cases. And I think that this generation of young police officers are I think less likely to just sit back and not say anything if they see problems in their investigations. I think that's terrific. And I think you've got to speak out in policing. Unfortunately it's not a great culture when you're in it to speak out but if they can do that I think that that will help a lot.

PC: We will have to leave it there. Thank you to both of you. Lorimer Shenher was the lead investigator of Vancouver's missing women case that eventually led to the arrest of Robert Pickton. And Glenn Woods is a former RCMP criminal profiler and investigator. My names Piya Chattopadhyay, and you're listening to The Current.

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As Sweden gives up cash, churches let worshippers make an online offering during Sunday service

Guests: David Crouch, Stephanie Howarth, Malte Krueger

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PC: Still to come, it's Hockey Night in the Russian Federation. In about half an hour from now I'll speak with some Russia watchers who say recent controversies in the KHL — Russia's professional hockey league — have resonance off the ice. What watching Russian pro hockey reveals about life in Vladimir Putin's Russia... that's coming up. But first, no Cash? No problem.

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VOICE 1: I do not use cash anymore. I hardly have them. I just have a few hundred [unintelligible] I mostly use credit cards or Swish.

PC: On the streets of Stockholm, shoppers have embraced a major shift in the way they pay. Sweden is an increasingly cashless society where it's not uncommon to see "no cash accepted" signs in shops and restaurants. Instead of bills and coins, Swedes pull out credit cards and a mobile app, called Swish.

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VOICE 1: It's a very easy way to transfer money. You do it just through an app with your telephone. You just enter the cell phone number of the person you want Swish or just transfer money to.

VOICE 2: I pay with credit card. I use Swish. But I like the control I have with paying with cash.

VOICE 3: From one perspective it's nice because you don't need to have cash. On the other side I come to a bank and I want to pay cash and they refuse to take my cash. I told them that they are a bank and you should accept my cash. They said "We don't want to do it. We don't know where it comes from." I said “Yes it comes from me.” “But we don't know where you get your money from." And I said “That's your problem.”

VOICE 4: I don't really see any reason of using cash because it's all about trust and everyone trusts this and everyone accepts it then why not use it. But if that trust would be broken down that would be a scary situation.

VOICE 5: My name is Linda. I am 25-years-old now and I live in Stockholm. I just came out from public toilets in Stockholm's central station. I think you can pay only with the card because that's what I did. I paid with a card. I don't know. I never carry around cash with me. I think it's the most uncomfortable way of paying for things.

PC: Based on that sampling, Swedes appear to have "bought in" to the idea of a post-cash society. But the head of the country's Central Bank has recently sounded the alarm about the pace of change. David Crouch is a freelance journalist who's been reporting on this issue for the Guardian. We reached him in Gothenburg, Sweden. Hello.

DAVID CROUCH: Hello.

PC: So let's start here. Why did the head of the Swedish Central Bank — what did they have to say about the transition away from cash?

DAVID CROUCH: His main concern was that the transition is being managed by the private sector banks. It's got nothing to do with the central bank. And so this is taking control away from the public sector and putting it into private sector hands and ultimately whether to be a crisis in the banks like we saw the crash and the closure of many banks just 10 years ago that could cause enormous problems for Sweden in the future.

PC: Is there a timing component to all of this? Why is he saying this now?

DAVID CROUCH: I think it's simply on the agenda now. The pace of change has become so fast. For example there's a payment system called Swish which was mentioned in one of the interviews on the streets in Stockholm where I can pay somebody over my mobile phone. I just type in their telephone number and the money appears on their bank account instantly. And now you have over six million Swedes which is the huge majority of the adult population using Swish on a regular basis

PC: And of those six million people — we just heard a couple there in a random street test in Stockholm — most of them seem pretty relaxed about the decline of cash. Where do you think public opinion among Swedes lies on this issue?

DAVID CROUCH: Well I think the question of trust is really important. Sweden is a trusting nation. Levels of trust towards institutions — public and private — are quite high. And so my sense is this not a major talking point. But there are some parts of the economy which have yet to catch up. So the woman who had just come out of a public toilet for example you can still find yourself in need of a toilet but needing five kronor coin and now thr toilets are trying to catch up by introducing electronic locks again which you can only open with a mobile phone.

PC: So if you don't have a mobile phone, you're not going to the public bathroom.

DAVID CROUCH: That's exactly right.

PC: [Laughs] Which is problematic.

DAVID CROUCH: Certainly for older people in particular I think. Swish claims that it has very high coverage right up into the into the aged 60s bracket. But once you get into the 80s then people are not so comfortable with the new technology.

PC: I mean is there a pro-cash movement and how organized is it?

DAVID CROUCH: There is a small pro-cash movement actually led by quite a high profile figure, he's a former chief of police. And they've been rather dismissed in the media as just being representing elderly people. But in fact their concerns are much broader. They call themselves the “cash rebellion” and of course they speak for people in rural areas who really do rely on cash and would be in a lot of trouble if Sweden were to become completely cashless. But at the same time the “cash rebellion” is raising serious and well-argued points about the potentially undemocratic nature of what's happening.

PC: And so David Crouch if I asked you to empty your wallet right now or your pockets — I mean do you have cash on you? Do you carry cash?

DAVID CROUCH: Not a penny. I haven't carried cash here for several years. I've forgotten what cash is really. Very, very rarely do I encounter a situation in which I need to use cash.

PC: So we heard one man in that tape earlier talking about how some banks won't even handle cash. So is that actually true? Banks don't take cash sometimes.

DAVID CROUCH: Less than half of the bank branches in Sweden now handle cash, accept, or give out cash. The banks themselves are really reluctant to use cash because it's expensive to handle it. Obviously there are ATMs — dispensing cash machines — on the street. But again the numbers are way down and the trend is for fewer and fewer ATM cash machines around the country.

PC: You have also written about how churches are handling the issue of people not carrying cash. We pass around the plate of various religious buildings when we go to those places. So what are the religious institutions doing now?

DAVID CROUCH: Well if you walk into a church you will see a little sign by the door with the Swish number for the church. And so when it comes to that point in the Sunday service where the worshippers would usually put money into a collection bag, people are asked to type in that number into their phones and donate electronically and then they'll hold their phone up to show everybody that they're good...

PC: [Laughs] you know we Canadians often look to Sweden and the various Scandinavian countries as sort of models. We hold your countries in high regard on many facets and I am curious about the cultural context of all of this. Is there one that accounts for the willingness of Swedes to pay for almost everything digitally?

DAVID CROUCH: I think it does boil down to the question of trust particularly in the state because historically the welfare states are very strong in Scandinavia, but in Sweden in particular. And so people trust the state to do the right thing. And this transfers to other institutions. There isn't the same hatred of bankers as there is in many Western European countries following the financial crash 10 years ago. Sweden sailed through that partly because they had a horrible financial crash 30 years ago and they fixed their banks. And that is a cultural phenomenon that there's high levels of trust here.

PC: David Crouch, good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

DAVID CROUCH: It's a pleasure.

PC: David Crouch is a freelance journalist in Gothenburg, Sweden. Sweden isn't the only country on a "cashless" trajectory. A survey released last year put Canada neck and neck with the Scandinavian nation in terms of cashless transactions using credit and debit cards. Still, according to the Bank of Canada, about half of all transactions are still done with cash. And about a third of "smaller vendors" still don't take debit or credit. There are some regional variations: Atlantic Canadians are least likely to pull out the plastic, while British Columbians are least likely to reach for cash. But we've all come a long way since the early 1990s, when the Interac debit payment system was first rolled out . Here's part of a CBC Radio report on the launch of Interac in grocery stores in 1994:

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VOICE 1: Do you use that system?

VOICE 2: Nope.

VOICE 1: Why is that?

VOICE 2: Because I'm satisfied to pay cash up front for what I get. I'm not a person who does things that. I don't like people going into my account. I want to be the only that can go into my account

VOICE 3: Didn't mean to interfere in your conversation.

VOICE 2: You're not, by any means.

VOICE 3: But I feel exactly the same way as you. I go to the bank and find out what's going on. It's my money. I deposit it and I'd like to know what's going on in my account and that's my personal business.

VOICE 2: 100 percent — couldn't agree with you any more.

VOICE 1: You don't trust the machines?

VOICED 2: I don't trust anybody that goes into my bank account. It's my bank account. The government can find enough ways to take money off as it is. There is no way anybody is going to touch my bank account.

PC: That was then — flash forward to today. When Mad Radish opened two new Ottawa salad restaurants, it told its customers their cash is no good here. Stephanie Howarth is one of the co-founders of Mad Radish is with us from Montreal to talk about their decision to make Mad Radish completely cashless. Hello.

STEPHANIE HOWARTH: Hi Piya, how are you?

PC: I’m Good. So you have Canadian cashless, have you?

STEPHANIE HOWARTH: Yes we have.

PC: Why?

STEPHANIE HOWARTH: Well we're a really tech forward company and we were looking at ways to improve efficiencies and improve customer experience. All of us at Mad Radish are really, really obsessed with creating the best customer experience. We just felt that getting rid of that bottle neck at the point of sale where people were fumbling for cash and the exchange of money. Since the advent of tap pay in particular it's just so much faster without it.

PC: So you talked about people and it annoys us all when the person in front of you is fumbling through their purse — I'm guilty of that myself to find some coins or some cash. But from a business point of view what was attractive for you about not taking cash?

STEPHANIE HOWARTH: Yeah. So it's a win for the customer but it's also a win for our staff. You know you have a lot of young people who are charged with taking deposits to the bank often on foot sometimes after hours. For me it's a bit of a safety concern. They also have to handle money which is you know the most hygienic of things and then for the company we don't need bookkeepers who are charged with reconciling cash and looking out for a shrink. We don’t need to install safes in our stores. It's really a win all around.

PC: So no downsides as far as you see it

STEPHANIE HOWARTH: So far no. You know any time you introduce change it’s a little scary and it can be met with resistance. But we were really cautious to sign on our doors and right when you walk into a restaurant that we don't accept cash. We want to make sure that there is no friction with our customers and so far honestly we really haven't had an issue. In fact we do get praised here and there on Twitter and Facebook for the move.

PC: From your side though, don't you have transaction costs associated with every digital purchase as a business?

STEPHANIE HOWARTH: Absolutely. And we did the math on that. That was a great question because you are paying particularly with credit cards fairly steep fees. But when you weigh that against the head office employees to reconcile the cost of saves; the shrink as well we do have to think about that, it really nets out to be quite neutral.

PC: We heard the stats a little bit earlier about some surveys done. But how much research did you do and do you know about how Canadian consumers feel about using cash?

STEPHANIE HOWARTH: Well you know we looked around at what was happening in North America. Certainly we were aware of what was going on in Sweden. But honestly it was a bit more of a gut move for us; knowing ourselves as consumers and being so consumer focused how much we disliked those interactions. And also you asked earlier what’s in your wallet? None of us at Mad Radish carry cash. Our customers are primarily time starved professionals, busy parents, busy students, and we didn't see a need to accept cash on their behalf.

PC: So no pushback. No one said, “I don't like this.” You know the only complaints I've had have been philosophical in nature. So coming in via email — not from Mad Radish customers. People who heard about it actually via the media and they have concerns about privacy and I understand that. But our customer really hasn't had an issue with it. Although I will say my 70-year-old father was a big complainer. He's also upset that we don't serve steak. So what are you going to do?

PC: [Laughs] well it is interesting to bring up your dad in this context. There is a generational divide about — I'm not saying everyone — the privacy issues. Just a general feeling like 'I don't like giving up all that information. I have always used cash. I like having some in my pocket’. There is that stuff. I'm curious because you come from a marketing background, so were you nervous about potentially eliminating a segment of customers who wanted to use cash? Your dad for example.

STEPHANIE HOWARTH: Exactly. Well coming from David's Tea where we had a very similar demographic we knew that this wasn't a popular means of payment. And my dad wasn't the biggest David's Tea customer and he's not the biggest Mad Radish customer, you know. We're serving up delicious, accessible, healthy food on the go which is really appealing currently to that group that I was talking about. So my dad is less likely to be running out the door for lunch or dinner, picking up a salad and looking to pay with his $20 bill. So yeah it hasn't been an issue.

PC: And so from a business perspective Stephanie, any turning back? I mean you say it’s all good. But any chance you're going to decide to accept cash at some point?

STEPHANIE HOWARTH: Well listen this is not an irreversible decision. It’s very easy to go back and install a cash drawer. And right from the beginning when we made this decision we held hands and we all agreed that if customers were unhappy with this move, if we had push back, it’s always customers first. It's always going to be about what’s in their best interests and what makes them happy. So we could absolutely reverse it should there be a need. So far, so good.

PC: Stephanie Howarth, thank you.

STEPHANIE HOWARTH: Thank you, Piya.

PC: Stephanie Howarth is the co-founder of a Mad Radish, which runs two salad restaurants in Ottawa. Mad Radish may be bullish about leaving cash behind. But not everyone is as keen. In Germany in particular, the move away from cash has been significantly slower than countries such as Sweden and Canada. A report by the European Central Bank last year said that 80 per cent of all consumer retail transactions in Germany still involve cash. Malte Krueger is an economist at the University of Aschaffenburg, in Germany. And he's worked with the German central bank on a project about the pros and cons of cashless payments. Hello.

MALTE KRUEGER: Hello Piya.

PC: So 80 percent of all consumer retail transactions in your country involve cash. How widespread is the use of cash beyond that in Germany?

MALTE KRUEGER: The retail figures show that's the main sector where cash is used. And there it's still used very widely and unlike Canadians and Swedes, many Germans perceive cash as being rather fast at the point of sale and they are kind of hesitant to use their card because they think it's a bit slow when you have to enter your pin or if you have to find it. Especially when they're in a hurry, they prefer cash.

PC: You got cash in your pockets or in your wallet all the time?

MALTE KRUEGER: Yes of course.

PC: In Sweden we talked about the cultural dynamic and I'm wondering what do you think accounts for peoples reluctance in Germany to use credit and debit as compared to say with Sweden?

MALTE KRUEGER: Well for one thing I think they still perceive as being a really convenient means of payment also rather fast. They like the control it offers in particular people with low income like to have control like to see directly how much is left of their money. And there is also the topic public trust and privacy that's important for many people that at least they always have the option to pay in a way that leaves no traces.

PC: Is there, in your view, a historical component to how Germans feel about the privacy and surveillance issues about this

MALTE KRUEGER: Yes that could be. But I think one has to see that Germany is not unique and in Europe we have more or less South-North divide where the southern countries are more cash-prone and some southern countries, some Mediterranean countries cash is used much more heavily than Germany. But for instance a country with a very different history from Germany like Switzerland, cash is used very widely and there is very, very strong resistance of the people against any restrictions on the use of cash.

PC: So as I understand there was a proposal a couple of years back to limit cash payments in Germany to no more than 5,000 Euros. How did that go over?

MALTE KRUEGER: Well these ideas have been floated time again. But politically that's a bump. And I think many politicians coming back from their constituencies thought that this is a non-starter because I think if you want a sure way to lose an election than you come up with the topic of restricting cash.

PC: There have also been efforts to get rid of big bills — large denomination bills — in an effort to curb crimes: money laundering and tax evasion. Would phasing out cash help do you think in reducing those kinds of crimes?

MALTE KRUEGER: Yes it might have an effect. But I think the effect would only be marginal. At the high level of organized crime you have use of non-cash payments. Criminals especially when they're well organized they will try to launder the money fairly quickly at its first stages where often it comes in small denominations. So I think the significant or the high denominations is exaggerated.

PC: I want to raise a couple of other issues we heard of concern from our last couple guests. The first one is this argument that's being raised in Sweden; that if you move too quickly away from cash you end up with a system that is too closely controlled by private interests and banks. Does that concern you?

MALTE KRUEGER: Well I don't have anyone in principle against private companies having an important role in the infrastructure. But of course there's only very few of them. You might wonder whether what you see is the outcome of the decisions of the consumers, of the cash users and card users, or whether it's more the outcome of three or four banks deciding jointly that they want to get rid of cash. And that way it looks more like a cartel trying to do something in their own interest and not so much in the public interest. And so in that respect yes I do see a problem there.

PC: As you know no matter if you live in Germany or Sweden or Canada the use of digital payment is increasing in all of our countries. How inevitable do you think is this transition to a cashless world?

MALTE KRUEGER: Well we see at the moment clearly a trend everywhere in Germany also that cash payments have a smaller and smaller share of overall payments. The question is whether that will lead to a cashless or alternatively a less cash society? I think that in the end we might end up with a less cash society that is where cash is still being used because at the moment we are still in the early phase of some countries being really heavily non-cash users. And it will be interesting to see in the future how this system will work in particular if there is a breakdown of the infrastructure or something like a power shortage or problems with the internet or something like that, how the system will then function?

PC: Yeah.

MALTE KRUEGER: If you have cash at least, if you have some stocks of cash at home or in your wallet you are at least able to pay for a few days for important things. But if you have to pay cashless the question is are there fallback solutions? So I think there will be in the coming time reality will have to test the system. So I will have to challenge them and we will see how they perform.

PC: Malte Krueger, thank you.

MALTE KRUEGER: You're welcome. Bye bye.

PC: Malte Krueger is a professor of economics at the University of Aschaffenburg, in Germany. And now we'd like to hear from you. Have you gone cash free? Are you a die-hard lover of cold hard cash? Let us know your thoughts. Email us from our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. And you can always find us on Facebook, or Twitter @TheCurrentCBC. Coming up in our next half hour, forget the KGB. We're taking a deep dive into the world of the KHL — Russia's professional ice hockey league. And what it says about life in Russia today. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and you're listening to The Current sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti.

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Russia's corrupt hockey playoffs mirror Putin's ideology, says sports writer

Guests: Slava Malamud, Michael Idov,

PC: I'm Piya Chattopadhyay sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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[Sound: Russia hockey game]

PC: The final moments of a recent playoff hockey game in Russia. SKA St. Petersburg was taking on the Severstal Cherepovets. It was the quarterfinals, and they were battling it out for the Gagarin Cup. It's the ultimate prize in Russia's elite, professional hockey league, the KHL. And this game was something of a David and Goliath matchup: the defending champs facing a feisty underdog. It was a game that ended in controversy, a very telling controversy, according to my next guest, who says that playoff game can tell us a lot about the state of Vladimir Putin's Russia today. Slava Malamud was born and raised in the Soviet Union. For 15 years, he was a foreign correspondent for Russia's largest sports magazine. He now writes about the KHL for Journal de Montreal and we've reached him in today in Baltimore.

SLAVA MALAMUD: Hello.

PC: Well first of all tell me a little bit about the teams involved in this series.

SLAVA MALAMUD: Well SKA St. Petersburg is a team with a long history, but its team with a long history of failure. They used to be basically the Soviet Army's scrapheap. They would receive players who were not good enough to play for CSKA — the major Soviet team from Moscow. But a few years from now — about 10 years from now — they began accumulating a lot of money and a lot of sponsors, specifically Gazprom, Russia's number one, well actually the world's number one, [unintelligible] which is owned by the state and it's owned by Putin's parents and also happen to be the major shakers in the KHL. It's become basically the flagship team of Russia. It's very difficult to tell the leadership of SKA from the leadership of the KHL from the leadership of Russia as a whole because it's all around by people very very, close to Vladimir Putin. It's also provided most of the players to the national team that won gold in PyeongChang

PC: So this is the pride and joy of Russian hockey so to speak.

SLAVA MALAMUD: Yeah, they've basically become what Red Army Moscow used to be in Soviet Union.

PC: And what about its opponents? The Cherepovets as the team is known.

SLAVA MALAMUD: Cherepovets is the city in northern Russia. Not a big city at all. It's basically centred around a major steel mill. Severstal is the name of the company that owns. It means northern steel. Major achievement back in the pre-KHL they were making the finals once and even then it was a huge upset. The team has been struggling with finances. Northern Steel is a big steel mill… and don't have any political backing. This team was basically considered by the KHL for contractions as the KHL wants to eliminate two or three teams this summer precisely because of the bad press that's associated with struggling teams that don't pay their players on time. But Cherepovets responded by having a great season. I mean they made the playoffs which was completely unexpected. Their fans are completely behind the team. They sell out most all their games. It's a small arena, but still. And all of a sudden nothing to lose and possibly staring at this contraction they've given SKA this incredible battle in the first round of the playoffs. They got swept. But every single game was close. Two of them ended in overtime and a couple of them were very, very controversial.

PC: I mean this sounds like epic great hockey, right? For those of us who follow North American hockey this is like the underdog takes on the big team and most people are rooting for that underdog. It is a David and Goliath battle when it comes to this match up in the KHL. And you are especially interesting in the way Game 2 of this series went down. So tell us about that game. What happened?

SLAVA MALAMUD: Well Game 1 was a game in which SKA played a day after… participated in the president Putin's pre-election rally. They were a bit hung over and they didn't play very well. Cherepovets came out of the gate roaring. They were they were up 2-1 in the third and then the refs just started putting them away with those penalties and they ended up with 24 penalty minutes... on a really iffy collision near boards that resulted in SKA coming back. It looked like they scored the game winning goal on that penalty. With a minute left Cherepovets pulls the goalie and ties it up. The refs respond by giving them two penalties in overtime and SKA win. The second game was close but SKA eventually prevailed thanks to superior offense. But the third game was a real [unintelligible] because SKA's game winning goal in overtime was scored after the referees not only missed an obvious case of offside, they also ignored they when they watched the replay because the play was challenged by the Cherepovets coach. Everybody saw that it was offside.

PC: When you say it was obvious; this would be obvious to any human that knew anything about hockey that it was offside.

SLAVA MALAMUD: Well I mean especially if you watch the replay. It was a fast sequence. But once you watch the replay the puck was about a foot offside. Definitely came out of the zone. Pretty impossible to miss. The KHL explanation that they didn't have that camera angle is kind of ridiculous. What are they going to say? The NHL isn't fond of admitting its mistakes and the KHL obviously isn't going to be fond of doing that either.

PC: So that's Game 3. I want to read you a quote from the official KHL's description of a game which SKA won in overtime. Here's what it said. "Not for the first time SKA finds itself on the brink of a series sweep not so much by virtue of dominant hockey but thanks to its ability to conjure a way to win in difficult circumstances." I want to pick up on that word "conjure a way to win." Is this something that I am supposed to get there? Is this lost in translation or is this the writer dropping some hints?

SLAVA MALAMUD: It's hard to say. But I know that Severstal has really been sarcastic about the whole thing. They posted a picture of two referees watching the replay with a caption: “I can see the Gagarin Cup in there..." And they posted a video of the goal with the "worst winning goal" in quotation marks. And as for SKA I think you're right — being a little bit flowery and trying to show that the team has a flair for dramatics.

PC: Ok. Alright. That's fair. That’s what good writers do, right? We spoke to a Canadian hockey player Ryan Garbutt. He's played for Sochi and more recently in the KHL which is based in Slovakia and we asked him about officiating in the KHL. Listen to this.

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VOICE 1: I think that in general that Russian refs — don't really want to say too much depending on if I going back to the league or not. I think that I've heard stories from other players that talk about the bias of the refs — I've seen it a little bit myself. But I think that when you're one of the European teams playing against the Russian team you know it's going to be an uphill battle that night. I think that emulates through the rest of the league.

PC: What do you hear in that comment from Brian Garner?

SLAVA MALAMUD: I think Ryan said a mouthful without saying too much. I hope it doesn't jeopardize his future signings. But it's really not anything secret. It's basically common knowledge. I don't know any instances myself and I don't really think that the referees get an order sent to them by email from the league office saying you have to call certain plays certain ways. Referees are human being and when you are refereeing a game, you know that one of team's is supported by every single person who signs your paycheck, you know that very important people are watching from the stands, you know that the team is full of anyone who is anyone in the KHL as far as star power goes. Especially in Olympic year getting one of these people hurt before the Olympics is going to have major political repercussions, how are you going to call that game?

PC: Slava Malamud you make the case that in the end SKA swept the series and you have suggested the way that it turned out is a metaphor for life beyond hockey in Russia under Vladimir Putin. So explain that to me.

SLAVA MALAMUD: Putin has eliminated very methodically throughout his reign all the vestiges of our free democratic societies from Russia. He began taking over most major media outlets. He moved onto to major company where they were basically confiscated from the oligarchs — no doubt corrupt ones but still not connected to Putin. And in past very corrupted oligarchs who are connected to Putin. He then went after the elections. He eliminated first the recollections of governors. Basically he eliminated all of the political opposition very methodically very slowly over the course of 18 years he set himself up as basically the Tsar of Russia. His cronies own the league and the fact that it’s his election year and he's actively using... I mean you don't have to be a genius to connect the dots, right?

SLAVA MALAMUD: Slava Malamud thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

PC: Slava Malamud writes about the KHL for the Journal de Montreal. He was in Baltimore. We also reached out to the KHL and to the Russian Embassy for comment on this story, but we've had no reply. My next guest says that Slava Malamud's account of hockey treachery points to a dark current of cynicism in Russian culture. Michael Idov learned about that first hand as editor in chief of GQ Russia. He was a tabloid celebrity, hanging out with members of Pussy Riot, acting alongside rapper Snoop Dogg and writing Russia's top-grossing domestic movie of 2015. He is also the author of the newly released memoir Dressed Up for a Riot. Michael Idov is in Berlin. Hello.

MICHAEL IDOV: Hi Piya. Thanks for having me.

PC: Well thank you for being here. First tell me how does Slava Malamud's criticism of the KHL resonate with your understanding of Russia?

MICHAEL IDOV: Well it's interesting. Slava said this really offhand thing: Well everything in Russian is rigged. And while I don't disagree with that, the thing that makes the Russian kind of oppression and authoritarianism trickier than the notion that we have in our heads of just full on oppression is that the reason everything is rigged is everyone thinks it's rigged. It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I've seen a lot of that when I was living in Russia and my book is partly about that.

PC: So help me understand that a little bit more because if the fix is in in everything Michael Idov — whether its sports which doesn't seem like it's very fun to watch when you know the fix is in. And that Russians know what's going on in hockey and beyond that the fix is in. Why do they accept it?

MICHAEL IDOV: Well you know an election is also not a lot of fun to participate when the fix is in.

PC: Fair.

MICHAEL IDOV: As we're going to see very soon I think in what is exactly seven days from now; Putin of course is going to win at the upcoming Russian elections. The only question is are people going to show up? And that's the Russians are actually really worried about — Putin government is really worried about — is getting people out to the polls because of this over bearing kind of apathy that the Russians have been feeling about the political process. Now why are they ok with that? Well it's simple. I mean we have to admit that at the same time as the Russians have been completely politically disenfranchised they are also living even in present conditions even with the ruble down and the sanctions against them they're still living better than they had in the ‘90s and in the last couple of decades of the Soviet Union which a lot of Putin's base still remember quite vividly. Putin's propaganda has always been not about talking about how great Putin is. Although that in time became a part of it. But also about how Putin is basically the only thing that stands between stability and either just complete criminal chaos of the 90s or fascism which is how they're re-positioning what's happened in Ukraine and in other places. So yeah that's basically the daily compromise that a lot of Russians make with themselves is placing stability over what they are being increasingly often told is complete chaos that's going to follow Putin no matter who else will replace him.

PC: Ok. If it's Putin at any cost. In other words if they know that the fix is in from politics down to hockey. I want to talk about a couple other cultural things but I first want to ask you about this. I read your tweets in response to Slava Malamud. So I want you to talk to me about the role of apathy and fatalism in Russian culture.

MICHAEL IDOV: That's actually exactly what Slava's tweet storm made me think about that there is no underdog narrative in the Russian culture at all. Kids grow up without stories of a scrappy little guy taking on the machine and winning. And what's fascinating is that over the last five years or so there has been a huge rise in Russian sports movies. Basically in 2012 somebody realized that they could take the movie Miracle about the U.S. team winning over the Russians in Lake Placid and they could just kind of flip it on its head and create a movie about the glory of the Russian team winning over the Americans or in that case actually the Canadians. It was a huge hit and then this year the biggest ever hit in Russian movies is this new movie that came out about a month ago called I believe Going Vertical I think is the official translation. And these are in fact kind of underdog narratives except the underdog is Russia itself. Russia always sees itself as a collective underdog when faced with the West that the Russians are taught to think is against them and also just kind of have the entire world has conspired against Russia. So they love an underdog narrative when it covers a collective standing in for Russia itself. But there is really no culture of an underdog narrative or individualist narrative when it comes to one person standing up against the system. There's a bunch of movies like that and great movies like Leviathan that was nominated for the Oscar a couple of years ago but they always end in the individual failing.

PC: Ok. I want to get you to help us understand a little more about the sort of culture that's pop culture and beyond that about Russian culture. And so forgive my Russian — I'm going to explain the meaning of a couple words. There's a word that I think is… which I think it means “unshameful.” Why is that key to Putin's popularity?

MICHAEL IDOV: That's a funny word because… you by the way did a pretty good job of pronouncing

PC: Thank you. Spasiba…Yeah.

MICHAEL IDOV: Russian accent day at your show today. Well it literally does mean “unshameful” and in certain Russian circles it has become that term of highest praise. You can bestow upon domestic cultural product be it a movie, a song, a book. And I've always been fascinated by that because it implies that the baseline condition of Russian life is this feeling of acute shame of your own culture. And of course unlike Russia's so-called high culture: ballet, classical literature, etc, the Russian pop culture has always suffered from this inferiority complex when put next to Western pop culture. So it's precisely the Westernized — the educated Russians — that feel the most ashamed. And by the way you know I don't think they should. I think the Russian pop culture is fine. But they feel really, really kind of embarrassed of their own culture. So when something comes along that earns their praise they tend to call it… “unshameful.” something that finally can alleviate this kind of baseline condition of shame for a brief moment before we return to our regularly scheduled feeling of embarrassment.

PC: Ok. Here's another Russian word that I want you to put in context for us as we try to understand Russian culture but also the KHL are playing into this. This is the word… which I understand translate as “things that are understood” or “unwritten rules.” So what does it mean to live by…?

MICHAEL IDOV: Right. It's...

PC: Very good.

MICHAEL IDOV: And this is a really fascinating term because it comes from the prison culture and one of the keys to understanding the Russian mind is actually to realize how much Stalin era purges which put a sizable chunk of the country's most educated population through the prison system. How much that still affects the Russian consciousness? How much the prison culture and sort of prison rules still affect the society? And in fact… is not only part of the prison rules it in fact sort of means prison rules. It's the unsad things that you live by as opposed to the real laws are written on paper that you actually are free to disregard. And I think going back to what Slava has been talking about a lot of the sort of dishonest refereeing that's going on this is precisely... No one has come to these people and said 'ok you have to deliver so and so many points you know to Putin's favourite team. We expect you to do this and that'. You know that doesn't happen just like the censorship in the Russian arts and letters doesn't really happen in a way that people would get documents sort of handed to them from somewhere above saying, 'ok you can't do this, this, and this'. What happens is that people try to divine the will of the authorities like trying to catch these sort of waves in the air of like, 'ok what's allowed? What is expected of us?'

PC: Slava Malamud also suggested that a lot of Vladimir Putin's interest in hockey is connected to his appeals to nostalgia for the Soviet past when Russia had great power, stature, and respect. How strong is that idea in Russian culture?

MICHAEL IDOV: It's prevailing actually and it's very sad because the Russians have been taught to think of the '90s — the first decade of relative freedom in their lives as the time of great humiliation — their humiliation at the hands of the West because they felt that they weren't consulted enough. They weren't treated as the world's superpower. And Putin has been able to build his entire career and his entire reign on the exploitation of this particular complex. And in reality I would argue that you know he doesn't really care about Russia's greatness one way or the other I mean it's just become a very convenient hedge for him and his system to basically make sure that they keep their hold on power by exploiting that more and more and more. And this kind of Russia as a besieged fortress narrative. The problem with that is it needs more and more proof. So obviously you know this kind of like the world is against us the world is against us drumbeat has been getting steadily louder over the last few years.

PC: It goes into the cultural and sports realm now. And so what kinds of consequences does this cultural cynicism and this apathy have for the future of Russia?

MICHAEL IDOV: Well that's the million dollar question isn't. Lately there have been some positive developments when we look at Russia's youngest generation. When we look at the you know the high schooler’s who have basically you know nothing but Putin and their entire lives and who have been born you know with Putin already as president. Somebody who was turning 18 this year would have no nothing but Putin. And you can explain to them as much as you want that Putin is the only thing standing between Russia and chaos. But the problem is that since they haven't really encountered the sort of the poverty and the chaos and the criminality of the ‘90s first hand, there's only so long that they're going to take your word for it and it's very hard to explain to modern global youth that every other country you want to emulate has changing rulers and only ours just has this one in the future. So there is a bit of hope there but the problem is that of course that apathy might win out in the end because as long as there as long as there is relative economic stability there's actually very little invested in changing status quo.

PC: Michael Idov, thank you as well today. Appreciate your time.

MICHAEL IDOV: Thank you. Bye bye.

PC: Michael Idov is the author of Dressed Up For a Riot. It's a memoir of his years in Russia. He spoke to us from Berlin. I have a moment now to let you know about an interview coming up on tomorrow's show when Anna Maria Tremonti is back. After the 9-11 terrorist attacks, American intelligence services were sure that Osama Bin Ladin and other high ranking members of al Qaeda were hiding in Afghanistan with the support of the Taliban. That led to the war in Afghanistan which claimed the lives of 157 Canadians, nearly 2,500 members of the US military, and as many as 140,000 Afghans. Pulitzer-prize winning author Steve Coll brings us a new account of the war. His new book is called, Directorate S: The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And Anna Maria Tremonti spoke to him about Canada's role in the war.

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VOICE 1: The Taliban were now at the beginning stages of what would become an all-out insurgency. They were embedded in very difficult terrain around Kandahar were Canada's true destroyer. And these green zones to the west of the city irrigated by the… I mean the worst infantry fighting terrain that you could imagine worse than Normandy. They even brought in leopard tanks at one point to control over these IED infested agricultural areas. Crazy to see World War 2 battle tanks out there. It was kind of fighting on the moon.

PC: Tune in tomorrow to hear Anna Maria's conversation with author Steve Coll. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Today, Tom Power welcomes singer-songwriter Terra Lightfoot to perform from her latest album New Mistakes. Let's end things off with a bit more of that report from the early days of Interac, in 1994 as Canadians navigated the newfangled, cashless way to pay. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay. Anna Maria Tremonti will be back with you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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VOICE 1: So now what do you do? You give her your card.

VOICE 2: He has to press that

VOICE 1: He has to put his number in — his pin number. He doesn't want me to see that, does he

VOICE 3: No, no.

VOICE 1: That's his personal access.

VOICE 4: Ok. I put my pin number in.

VOICE 2: Press ok.

VOICE 4: There it is.

VOICE 2: There it is, all done

VOICE 4: Painless, right?

VOICE 3: First time you did it

VOICE 4: Yes. Her first term too

VOICE 3: The cashier?

VOICE 4: Yes.

VOICE 1: So now what happens?

VOICE 2: He gets a slip as soon as it comes up. It's out of his account automatically and it goes to Oshawa Foods account. There you go. Ok

VOICE 1: Is it quicker than paying cash?

VOICE 2: No it's not quicker paying cash. But it's quicker than writing a cheque. Cash is much faster.

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March 12, 2018 Episode Transcript

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