Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2018

The Current Transcript for July 24, 2018

Host: Megan Williams

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We were sitting outside. We heard him shooting. I thought it was fireworks and we heard him shooting and we ran inside. And then he came in the restaurant and he shot the girl right in front of me. He was aiming for me, for her. If she didn't step in front of me, he would have shot me. I would have been dead right now.

MEGAN WILLIAMS: A witness to terror on a warm Toronto night. This has been the year of gunfire and death in Canada's biggest city. In our first half hour, we go to the Danforth and talk to residents still reeling from Sunday's rampage. We also see if other cities may have ideas on how Toronto can tackle its gun problem and then.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: So almost all the research, even that which is peer-reviewed, that appears in the leading academic journals is really brought to you by Big Pharma and Big Oil.

MW: Worry in the world of academia over corporate financing of research and data. The ethical issues of big business box in Canadian universities. And in our last half hour.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We said publicly that they are spies of the West. So it was very, very, very critical and the White Helmets told governments in Canada and Germany and Britain. They said, look, if you don't help us now, we gonna die here. Assad will kill us.

MW: Canada, Britain and Germany working in secret with Israel, did manage to save hundreds of White Helmet rescuers and family members from forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad. But what about those White Helmets left behind? We look at the fate and the future of the Syrian rescuers and bring you a conversation between Anna Maria Tremonti and the head of the White Helmets. But first, death on the Danforth. I'm Megan Williams and this is the summer edition of The Current.

Back To Top »

Toronto shooting: Why there are no simplistic explanations for acts of mass violence

Guest: Alison Masemann, Peter Sloly

SOUNDCLIP

Sounds from vigil on the Danforth.

Last night on Toronto's Danforth Avenue there was calm. Just the sound of a fountain burbling as people gathered in a square for a v\

igil. They were mourning the loss of two victims to Sunday's mass shooting. They were also mourning an attack on the peaceful, joyful atmosphere of the Danforth neighborhood it's usually known for.

SOUNDCLIP

Police sirens.

MW: That was the sound Sunday night, as police descended on the east end Toronto community, after a 29-year-old man with a gun went on a brutal shooting spree. An 18-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl are dead, as well as the shooter. And the community is reeling. Current producer, Alison Masemann, lives along the Danforth, also known as Greektown. Yesterday, she spent the day along the popular main strip there to learn more about exactly what happened and how the horrific act of violence is impacting people who live and work there. Alison joins me now. Hi.

ALISON MASEMANN: Hi Megan.

MW: Alison, I want to hear about what you saw and heard on the Danforth, but before I do, we found out last night the name of the shooter. What else do we know about him?

AM: Well what's coming out now is more from his family, who says Faisal Hussain was a troubled person. The family put out a statement yesterday saying they are devastated by the "incomprehensible news that our son was responsible for the senseless violence and loss of life that took place on the Danforth." They also talked about how their son had severe mental health challenges and that he struggled with psychosis and depression his whole life. And they gave their condolences to the victims.

MW: Beyond the statement from the family, what we heard from them, do we have any other details about who he is?

AM: Yes we do. One of our CBC colleagues was able to reach a man named Aamir Sukhera. He volunteered with Faisal Hussein and this is what he had to say about him.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: He told me he had psychosis and depression and he was seeking help for it. So he had professional help seeing a psychiatrist for it. That was about eight years ago, he told me about that and it seemed like he was doing well because he started working in a grocery store nearby. And I felt like he was doing fine, you know and yeah the last time would have been three weeks ago in the mall. And he had a million dollar smile and he was very upbeat and happy whenever I saw him. I mean I didn't identify any triggers, I couldn't see anything wrong with him. Humble, quiet, kept to himself. Didn't talk to a lot of people. I mean I felt special because he was open with me, right. I guess he trusted me, but beyond that I couldn't see. When I heard this is what happened, I don't, I can't put two and two together. I can't believe it's him. You know to do something like this. I wish he had talked to me about something like this, but do people talk to someone before they do something that. I don't know. Right.

MW: Now Alison, you've lived in the area where the shooting took place, the Danforth for a number of years now, right?

AM: Yeah I've lived there with my family for 15 years now and the shootings took place in an area where I've been with them many, many times over the years. Those stone steps across from the water fountain at Logan and Danforth, we've sat there eating ice cream cones. Yesterday that area was cordoned off with yellow police tape.

MW: Now you came into work here yesterday at CBC in shock and then you biked back to your own neighbourhood. I imagine that bike ride back must have looked and felt pretty different than it usually does.

AM: For sure, I didn't know what to expect, to be honest. I was a little uneasy about what I would come across. Here I am biking across the Bloor street viaduct, a trip I take every day. And this is the main bridge that connects downtown Toronto with the East. I could see ahead of me, the flashing lights of the police cruisers. They blocked off a huge strip of this major street in our city. So I wound my way through the back streets behind the Danforth, trying to get closer to the scene. And then I pulled up to a small parkette, a patch of grass that was surrounded by benches. There were helicopters flying overhead, likely from our TV colleagues, who were taking footage of the streets below. One of the first people I saw when I got there was our local City Councillor, Mary Fragedakis. She's lived in the neighbourhood her whole life. She says she went down to the Danforth as soon as she heard what happened Sunday night.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I was walking through and ran into a lot of neighbours, some of which had been on the Danforth, some of which had taken video footage, some from hiding places and others from apartments just above the storefronts that had like a vantage point overlooking the Danforth. It was absolutely horrifying some of the video footage that people had and just people couldn't process it. And I'm having some problems still trying to process what has taken place here. I don't know how to make sense of something that simply doesn't make sense.

MW: So Alison, how are other people reacting to the shooting?

AM: Well, lots of people seemed to really want to talk about it. As Mary Fragedakis says, just sort of try and make sense of what was going on, what had happened. There were groups of neighbours, sort of scattered throughout the neighbourhood talking, as I went through there. A couple of employees from the cafe right on the corner of Logan and Danforth were standing there peering over the police tape, trying to figure out when they might be able to get back into their store. I also met a woman named Kyle Raider who lives nearby.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: That's my neighbourhood. Excuse me. My daughter was down here last night at 8. It's you know, the city is a mess. Everyone's going to deal with it differently. I mean my daughter asked why my son was crying this morning. He felt it.

VOICE 2: How old is he?

VOICE 1: 15. And I don't know what happened, but I feel that it might be something to do with mental health and I'm a big mental health advocate. And I think that our city really needs some help.

MW: There's a lot of emotion in these voices.

AM: Yeah, absolutely. I spoke to the owners of a very popular toy store along the Danforth, Treasure Island toys. And when I came across them standing out in front of their store, they looked shell shocked, to be honest. Katie MacKinnon is one of the owners, I asked her what it had been like yesterday at the store.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: There's been definitely families coming in with kids. I think we're trying to keep it as normal as possible, as best as we can. I think people are looking to distract their children as well, and themselves.

AM: Laurie Parker is the other owner of the store. She was really reeling from the news that had just come out that a 10-year-old girl was one of the victims.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Devastating, absolutely devastating. My youngest son is the same age. Our hearts go out to their families and her family. I just can't imagine.

MW: Now we know there were two people who died. There was the 18-year-old teenager and there was the young girl. Do we have any more information?

AM: In terms of the young girl who was 10, we don't know much more about her other than her age. She hasn't been named. The other young woman who also died was just 18-years-old. She's been identified as Reese Fallon. She just graduated from an east end high school here and she was apparently set to attend McMaster University in Hamilton in the fall. She was out with a group of friends when she was shot.

MW: Along with parents trying to help their kids through this ordeal, did you see any other expressions of people trying to cope with the tragedy?

AM: Absolutely. You could see it all over the neighbourhood. At the parkette I talked about earlier, I ran into two young men who were carrying a bunch of flowers and some signs. One of them was Musalwar Ahmad. He's from the Amdiya Muslim Youth Association and he told me he came to the Danforth to show his love and support for the victims and their families.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: So this is like a blackboard here and people writing their comments on with a chalk. So I'll just read one. Keep our heads high. God bless. We must stick together and make this city a safe place. This is like painful and grief moment for all Canadians I would say, not only just Toronto. We should all be together in this moment.

AM: I saw similar messages in other parts of the Danforth as well. Out in front of the toy store, people had started drawing hearts and chalk on the sidewalk. Near Withrow Park, the local park, people were writing messages all along the sidewalk there.

MW: Well there's obviously a lot of expression of sadness and also real concern over the fact that this man was able to get a handgun and shoot so many people.

AM: Absolutely. It's something that politicians here have been talking a great deal about, after a string of violent shootings this past spring and so far this summer. Mary Fragedakis, the city councillor I told you about earlier, she says that now people in the neighbourhood where she lives are angry. Angry that violence is now at their doorstep.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I believe we have, especially this year it's become incredibly evident, that we have a gun problem in this city. I mean as I've said before, I don't understand why people have handguns. Unfortunately it has now come into this neighbourhood and on a busy summer night on the Danforth, where people are actually gone out for dinner or just actually just stroll the Danforth, which is something that many people do here. That has you know changed them and it's changed all of us.

AM: So now like other neighbourhoods who have been through some of these violent incidents in our city, people on the Danforth are trying to figure out how much will change in the coming weeks and months as a result of this shooting. I know last night the street had reopened, people were in the restaurants, gathering in some of the exact places where the shootings took place. But at the beginning of August, there's a big street festival that happens every year on the Danforth, Taste of the Danforth. It's massive. It attracts over a million and a half visitors just over the course of a weekend. So Councillor Fragedakis said, community and business leaders will be talking now about what this festival will really look like. How it can create a safe atmosphere for the people who are coming and also how it can somehow remember those who lost their lives on Sunday.

MW: Right. Well it's a lot to deal with. Thank you Alison.

AM: You're welcome Megan.

MW: Alison Masemann is a producer at The Current. My next guest has spent a lot of time thinking about how the police and the public can work together to make cities safer. Peter Sloly is a partner with Deloitte Canada, leading the firm's national security and justice practice. He was Toronto's deputy police officer, police chief rather from 2009 to 2016 and was a member of the Toronto Police force for 27 years. And he joins me now in Toronto. Hello.

PETER SLOLY: Morning Megan.

MW: Good morning. We've just heard from people in Toronto's Greektown reacting to Sunday night's mass shooting. What went through your mind as a former police officer, as you listened?

PS: Well that part of the world is very close to me. I spent my first five years in policing actually in that area. I currently live very close to there. My daughter goes to a dance class close by and my family is up there quite a bit. So fear, anger, frustration, all those things that everybody in and around that area, across this city and this cross country, we're experiencing.

MW: OK and yesterday the family of the suspect, Faisal Hussain, released a letter. Here's what it says in part. "Our son had severe mental health challenges, struggling with psychosis and depression his entire life. The interventions of professionals were unsuccessful. Medications and therapy were unable to treat him." Now this isn't the first case of guns and mental health problems intersecting in a tragic way, what role does mental health play in gun violence, generally in Canada?

PS: I think there isn't a perfect profile that people can put together and say here's the cocktail that produces this type of violence. In fact, if you look across the country, we've had mass shooting events from Moncton through to Montreal, here in this city and out in the West in the prairie provinces, where we had our first mass shooting at a school. And every single case there were very different people from very different demographic backgrounds, socioeconomic backgrounds, educational backgrounds in a different health status. So it is a factor, it's an increasing factor I think in violence, certainly within crime. Mental health and addictions I think has now been established as the number one overall factor in crime impacts. So it must play a role and an increasing role in these type of incidents, but again too quick to just circle one particular aspect of human condition and say that's the one we need to focus on.

MW: Do you have a sense though that a certain percentage of these cases have a mental health component to them?

PS: The best of my knowledge and the experts that I've heard in this area are still reluctant to put together a simple profile that outlines someone who would engage in a radicalization that leads to mass violence.

MW: OK. Let's listen to how Toronto Mayor John Tory responded yesterday.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The city has a gun problem, in that guns are far too readily available to far too many people. As I've said repeatedly this is an international problem and this is a domestic problem. There are far too many people carrying around guns in our city and our region who should not have them.

MW: So how difficult is it for someone to get a gun in Toronto?

PS: Well, how difficult is it for someone to get a gun anywhere in Canada. We have unfortunately we live north of a country that produces the world's, the vast majority of the world's firearms. Canada also produces a large number of firearms. We have an undefended border. Guns or gun parts come into this country across the border in increasing numbers and as well they come in parts. So literally, you buy a piece from here, you get a piece through Canada Post. You pick up a piece or a bullet as you need it within the area that you're in. Increasingly though, the guns are coming from domestic sources. So legal gun owners who have their guns stolen and then converted into crime guns. Legal gun buyers who purchase those guns and then distribute them illegally. I remember back in the mid 2000s, when we had a spike in gun violence here in the city in 2003 through 2008, you could actually time down to three months when illegal gun owners' gun collection was stolen and those guns would show up at crime scenes across the city and across the GTA. So we can't lay all this on our neighbours to the south, a lot of that has to happen right here in the city. But again, you know the access to guns is one thing, it's access to weapons. So we've seen explosive devices, we've seen edge weapons, we've seen vans. It's too simple again to just point to one particular source of weapon and say if we banned that or we curtail that, that all these incidents of mass violence will go away. London, in the UK is facing a significant increase in knife attacks. And we saw the majority of their terror attacks using edge weapons and or vehicles. So again, it's a much more complicated issue than simply pointing at one particular weapon source.

MW: Right. So what kind of strategies do you think the city or even nationally the police should be putting into place to deal with the problem?

PS: Well I think going to the heart of radicalization is the first place. The choice of weapon is too many and too varied. So you've got the combination of mental health and addictions. Young people who are disenfranchised, disaffected. The significant impact of social media on everyone's lives, particularly impressionable young people. The processes of radicalization have become much more sophisticated than they were even 10 years ago. You've got people living in disenfranchised communities who are under a lot of stress and it's harder and harder for them to maintain supports for their families. I'm not going to speak about this particular case, but in many cases you see hardworking families who somehow lose track or lose the ability to manage their own family lives. And then access to weapons. We've talked about edge weapons and guns and other tools that can be converted and the willingness and ability that people use them on soft targets. So whether it's a crowded sidewalk on Yonge street or a crowded parkette in Danforth, these are very easy and accessible targets, easy and accessible guns to people who are very fragile and are pulled in many directions.

MW: So you have a multitude of sources of these weapons and then you have all of these different social factors contributing to people's propensity to carry out these sorts of acts. So like how do you, you know, how do you deal with that? I mean what kind of approach should Toronto and Canada be taking?

PS: Yeah and again, I'm sure everyone is sick and tired of hearing people like me saying you know there's no one silver bullet that's going to work.

MW: So to speak.

PS: If you look at the level of violence that Bogota, Colombia was experiencing you know in the height of the Medellin Cartel, back about 15 years ago, a mayor came in and pulled the entire city together. He was able to significantly decrease vehicular homicides and firearm related homicides within one year, cutting them by 50 per cent and maintaining that for several years. You look at what Glasgow was back in the mid 2000s, the highest murder capital in the world and one of the highest rates of homicides in the world, and within 10 years they've reduced their homicides by 65 per cent. You look at New York City, which three years ago was not the bastion of public safety or good policing and now has turned around their entire city and are seeing murder rates per capita lower than here in Toronto. So it can be done, but it requires a significant whole of society, whole of city and a wholesale change of the way that you do business. It's not easy, but it can be done.

MW: Right now, data for 2007 was released yesterday by Statistics Canada that shows a 7 per cent increase in fire arm related incidents. Are there any Canadian cities that are coming up with ways to deal with the problem?

PS: I think there's lots of great examples across this country and I put our brand of policing up against any in the world. I put our quality of Canadian citizens and residents of our urban and rural communities as people who are innovative. They're able to use technology. They're able to use physical systems and networks to be able to create wonderful opportunities. The problem is that there's no one city or one jurisdiction that's pulled it all together, not in the examples that I've given before. So there's great examples of policing using technology in Vancouver, in York Region. There are great examples of neighbourhood policing, right here in this city. In Edmonton there are great examples of community-based organizations, integrated service delivery models in Saskatchewan, Prince Albert and other places. But has any one jurisdiction and any one police service managed to pull it all together and consistently do it year over year? Haven't seen that happen here yet.

MW: OK. Now we have to go, but just quickly, what do you want, how would you like the discussion about gun violence to go in Canada? In a nutshell, if you can.

PS: Gun violence, more I'd say more broadly violence. I think we need to move away from some of the things that just have not proved sustainable into new and integrated forms of service delivery. Identification of problems, risk mitigation against those problems and working together to solve those problems.

MW: OK. Thanks so much for coming in.

PS: Thank you.

MW: I've been speaking with Peter Sloly, who is a partner with Deloitte Canada, leading the firm's national security and justice practice. He was Toronto's deputy police chief from 2009 to 2016 and was a member of the Toronto Police for 27 years. As we've mentioned, this tragedy took place in the heart of Toronto's Greek community. Yiannis Kapoulas is a Greek-Canadian musician, whose mesmerizing music can be heard on the Danforth. Before we break for news, here is some of his magical music.

[Music by Yiannis Kapoulas]

Back To Top »

Academic research should be funded by public tax dollars — not corporations, says ethicist

Guest: Raffy Boudjikanian, Arthur Schafer

MW: I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MW: Still to come. After a secret mission to rescue some of Syria's White Helmets, we're revisiting Anna Maria Tremonti's interview with the head of the volunteer rescue group, but first, funding facts.

[Music: Theme]

MW: Documents obtained by the CBC through the Access to Information Act are raising concerns among some academics about corporate money funding research at Canadian universities. The documents offer a rare glimpse at the behind the scenes relationship between industry and universities. They show coal power giant TransAlta paid money to the University of Alberta. A researcher at the University then produced a study, which found coal-fired power plants contribute a small amount of pollutants to the air. It was data the company then used to try to lobby the provincial government. This at a time when the new provincial NDP government was moving to phase out coal production and when health organizations such as the Lung and Asthma Association of Alberta and the Northwest Territories were warning of the ill health effects caused by coal. Raffy Boudjikanian is the CBC's national reporter in Edmonton. Hello Raffy.

RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN: Good morning Megan.

MW: Good morning. So Raffy, what can you tell us about these documents?

RB: Megan, one of them is a contract signed between TransAlta and the University of Alberta. It says the company would pay $54,000 to the university. An associate professor there at the School of Public Health would then conduct the study. This agreement was struck in July 2015. Keep in mind, that's a couple of months after the NDP came to power in Alberta, partly on a platform that talked about phasing out coal. The contract specifies Warren Kindzierski would do the work, gives the company leeway to veto any possible replacements if he's unable to do that work and also says TransAlta could simply pull the plug altogether in that case. Kindzierski did in fact conduct this study and produced a paper called, "Investigation of Fine Particulate Matter Characteristics and Sources in Edmonton, Alberta.

MW: And so why did TransAlta want this particular researcher?

RB: The agreement doesn't specify and the company did not want to do an interview with us, but in a statement TransAlta said Warren Kindzierski is a recognized expert in air quality. I should also point out Megan that TransAlta had a lot at stake at that time, with the new government promising to phase out coal. TransAlta was one of the biggest coal-fired electricity companies in Alberta, a province that gets about half its electricity from coal.

MW: So the company enters into a contract with the University of Alberta and this contract specifies that it's Professor Kindzierski that the company wants to carry out his research on the health impact of coal pollution on Albertans. Is that correct?

RB: That's right. And on top of the contract, we also got a lot of e-mails, exchanges between Professor Kindzierski and higher ups at TransAlta, including director and vice president. This correspondence is largely from Fall 2015. In some of it Kindzierski comments about a news headlines centred on an Alberta government report on air quality. That story noted the government's conclusion that it had to take action on pollution caused by coal-fired power plants. Kindzierski says understanding of the issue is far fetched. The company invites him to two meetings with provincial government bureaucrats in September 2015 and makes suggestions on moving some technical slides in his main presentation to an appendix. TransAlta also coaches him on breaking down his language for a layperson, before adding the research is his work and independent. In other correspondence, Kindzierski tells TransAlta he can help some of their public relations staff figure out their messaging, based on his study.

MW: So what kind of advice does he give?

RB: Sure, I'll read you one talking point he provides. This study found that coal combustion emissions contribute to secondary sulphate and nitrate in Edmonton. However, their contribution is small.

MW: So Raffy, do you have an idea of how common this kind of practice is?

RB: Megan, we spoke to a few different scientists for this story and they said private companies paying for public institution research does happen, but that doesn't make it OK. David Spink is an environmental consultant and the former director at Alberta Environment. He knows Kindzierski. Spink says Kindzierski approached him and asked him for feedback as he was preparing the TransAlta study.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I thought it was an industry-friendly report, but TransAlta asked for the report and they went to Warren to do the work.

MW: Now the study was done for a company, but is there any reason to question the science in it?

RB: Spink makes the point that unlike with peer reviewed studies meant for scientific journals, the reports a scientist writes for private corporations don't go through the checks and balances of other specialists looking at your work, before it's brought to the public.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: You don't have to be as rigorous and you can express more of your own personal views, perspectives, perceptions, whatever it is, right. And so you certainly have a lot more flexibility when you write a report. And of course, often times when you're writing a report, you've got a client who wants to emphasize this and doesn't want you to emphasize that.

MW: So this report was done on behalf of a client, but Raffy do we know if it was even peer-reviewed?

RB: That's where things get a little murky. TransAlta told us Kindzierski's work is peer-reviewed, without specifying if they were referring to this particular study. They told us to ask him and he would not speak to us. So we went to the University of Alberta. They pointed us towards three studies. All of those were published in peer-reviewed journals. Only one of them acknowledged funding from TransAlta. And if you look at it and compare it to the report on TransAlta's website, they're clearly not the same document. The report on the website is 74 pages and the peer-reviewed study is 11 pages.

MW: Well, that's a big difference.

RB: Yeah and the report on TransAlta's website also has the university's name, logo and Kindzierski's name, but no mentions there that TransAlta paid for the work.

MW: Did TransAlta say anything about the funds it paid to the university?

RB: They did. In their statement to us, the company maintained the money it paid went to the university's general research funds, not specifically toward Kindzierksi's work. But this contradicts the copy of the contract we got. The contract says that amount, $54,000 was calculated based on Kindzierski's budget proposal. It also says the money would go toward paying for the study. We went back to the TransAlta on this. It said, "notwithstanding the initial terms of the agreement, the funding did in fact go to the university's general research account.".

MW: So what did the university have to say about all of this?

RB: I spoke to Lorraine Deydey. She's the director of the university's Research Services office. It oversees the signatures of these contracts. Deydey says money in these types of agreements is supposed to go towards specific research.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: When the research funding comes in we set up a trust account and that trust account is to be used in relation to, by the researcher, in relation to the work that was done. And normally I think in his case, it was basically funding personnel and from my perspective, I haven't looked at what was there, but from my perspective, the budget had salary charges put to it.

RB: Now Megan, some of the documents we received in this access to info request were blacked out and that included the budget charges. We also didn't see Kindzierski's actual proposal. The documents we got only had the cover page. Deydey could not account for why that was left out and we followed up with the university's privacy office on it. But Deydey's office did double check its records for us and it found the money was spent during the term of the contract. We were even told the university returned an unspent balance of $522 dollars to TransAlta.

MW: Did Lorraine Deydey have any concerns about this contract?

RB: No. In fact, the big takeaway from our chat with her was that this was standard paperwork. The university signs research agreements with private companies and the companies will seek out specific principal investigators who are experts in their fields, such as Kindzierski. Deydey says the contracts are also approved by the heads of faculties before her office seals the deal with the company. She says in no way would this compromise the independence of the research. In fact, the U of A got around $3.3 million in industry money in the last academic year. That's about six per cent of its externally funded research budget and she told me that often federal and provincial granting councils ask universities to seek matching money from industry. So it's a part of how they work.

MW: Right. Raffy, did she have anything else to say about this case?

RB: You know Megan, it's unusual for us to get this much information about behind the scenes workings between scientists doing university research on corporate funds and the relationship between the scientist and the company. So I asked Deydey how routine it is for researchers to be invited by companies to present their work to government.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I don't know how routine that is because I don't deal with that. That was not part of the contract, that was obviously something that Dr. Kindzierski and the company agreed to. But I would say because he is an expert in his discipline, it probably isn't totally unusual, but I can't say how routine it is.

RB: And how does that not turn him into a lobbyist for TransAlta?

VOICE: If he had done that research for the provincial government, for the panel, he would have still been the same, he would have given the same information. The issue I'm saying is, just because he did research under a contract, just because he presented his research funding, it doesn't make him a lobbyist. What it does do is it, he obviously his findings obviously supported the position TransAlta wanted and it was scientific and it was independent and they felt that that would strengthen their case. But that doesn't necessarily make him a lobbyist.

MW: Raffy were you able at all to speak with Warren Kindzierski about this?

RB: No. The professor turned down multiple interview requests and we tried to reach him over two weeks. He's spoken about this research in 2016 to the Narwhal. That's an online news organization that focuses on environmental issues. It quoted him saying the money from TransAlta was used after the study was completed to support a post-doctoral research assistant and not the work itself. That's not consistent with what we were told last week by the university. The Narwhal also quoted him refusing to disclose where his work had been peer-reviewed, telling the news organization to go do its own research. And though he refused to talk to us this time, he did speak to CBC Edmonton's local morning show, Edmonton AM, this past January. He shot down World Health Organization concerns about air pollution, posing the major risk of lung cancer, heart attacks, strokes and asthma. Have a listen to part of Professor Kindzierski's exchange with host Mark Connolly.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Five years ago, environmental groups, the Lung and Asthma Association and a group of doctors said coal-fired power plants in Alberta led to 100 premature deaths a year and 700 visits to the emergency room. Do you think reports like that are bunk?

VOICE 2: They are statistical outcomes. They're not real. So yes, I would not believe them.

VOICE 1: Statistical outcomes, what do you mean by that?

VOICE 2: Statistical outcomes, those numbers are generated from doing a calculation. They are not based on actual evidence.

VOICE 1: In other words, you can't point to 100 specific people that have been.

VOICE 2: Where are the bodies?

MW: So that was Professor Kindzierski speaking to CBC in January. Did he say anything else apart from that?

RB: Oh yeah, he did not stop there, Megan. He goes on to warn about implications for public health policy. Here I'll let you listen to one more exchange.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Public health, they're a large draw on taxpayer dollars. And if more dollars and dollars are being spent to address with issues that in reality lead to no benefit than health, does that make sense?

VOICE 2: So you think diverting these dollars from that or to that is hurting other areas of public health.

VOICE 1: Well you know, I am not a policy maker and those are issues that they would have to look at, but that's very possible, yes.

VOICE 2: I mean pollution itself though, I mean doesn't it make sense that pollution is bad for us?

VOICE 1: Sure, bad pollution is bad for you.

MW: Bad Pollution. That's an interesting turn of phrase. I've never heard of good pollution, but Raffy let's come back to the research for TransAlta and the question of what exactly happened with the meetings TransAlta was setting up with the government.

RB: Sure Megan. You know, I should point out the e-mails we got never confirmed the meetings took place. The messages indicated the meetings were to happen on Wednesday, September 16th and Thursday, September 17th. The last one the university released to us prior to the scheduled meetings was on that Wednesday. Kindzierski emailing a high quality PDF of his presentation to TransAlta and his co-author, the e-mails then jump ahead by about a month with no post-mortem recapping the meetings.

MW: But we do know that since then the NDP government has forged ahead with its goal of phasing out coal-fired electricity. Where does that leave TransAlta?

RB: As far back as October 2015, so that's just one month after those scheduled meetings. The company made a submission to Alberta's climate advisory panel. There they mention dialling down coal and since then the province has offered compensation to several companies to transition away from coal and toward cleaner energy. TransAlta still has five coal-fired plants in Alberta, but plans to shut the last of them by 2030 and will produce wind, hydro and gas power Megan.

MW: OK. Thanks very much Raffy.

RB: You're welcome.

MW: Raffy Boudjikanian is CBC's national reporter in Edmonton. As Raffy mentioned the University of Alberta got about six per cent of its external research budget from industry in the last academic year. That's a similar percentage to several other Canadian universities. The issue of corporate money going toward research is increasingly raising ethical dilemmas about academic independence. Arthur Schafer is a specialist on research ethics and a professor of philosophy at the University of Manitoba. He's the founding director of the university's Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics and he's with us from Winnipeg. Hello.

ARTHUR SCHAFER: Good morning.

MW: Good morning. So how common is corporate funding of academic research?

AS: Unfortunately Megan, it's ubiquitous. Since about 1980, universities have been retreating and cutting back budgets for research and large corporations, Big Pharma, Big Oil, the food industry, the tobacco industry, big oil have been moving in to fill the vacuum. So at present, most research in pharmaceuticals for example is corporate funded. And even when it's government funded, the government funding agencies often require researchers to have a corporate partner. So almost all the research, even that which is peer-reviewed that appears in the leading academic journals, is really brought to you by Big Pharma and Big Oil.

MW: And how worried should we be about that?

AS: There's been a fair amount of research about the quality of the conclusions and the analysis reached when corporations fund research. And this is really important because a lot of vitally important social policy claims to be or attempts to be evidence-based. So we look at the evidence and university researchers are producing most of that evidence. Well the importance is that a number of studies have shown that when corporations, when industry funds the research, the conclusions of the research are dramatically favourable to industry's products. Maybe this isn't such a surprise. Probably everyone has heard a grandparent say who buys you bread, his song you sing. We know that when researchers careers depend on pleasing an industry sponsors that their analysis, their conclusions, the design of their experiments tend somehow. Not that they're deliberately skewing the research, but perhaps unconsciously, unintentionally their self-interest, their career self-interest, in getting this funding and keeping it seems to have a pretty dramatic impact on the results of the research.

MW: I want you to hear another perspective. This is Colleen Collins and she's a vice president at the Canada West Foundation. She's also a former academic and university administrator.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: You know a lot of research wouldn't happen without corporate funding. If it's a choice between no research or research funded by companies, then I think we should have research funded by companies. We free up money to go back to our basic researchers to do more research.

AS: Arthur Schafer, what do you say to Colleen Collins point of view, that corporate funding is necessary?

AS: Well, she's absolutely right that governments have retreated from funding research and the result is that a lot of the research is corporate funded. Now, should we welcome that? I think if we want public science in the public interest, it's going to have to be funded by public tax dollars. The government can claw the money back from the pharmaceutical companies, the oil companies, the food and nutrition companies, but ultimately if the companies get to dictate who does the research, they get to handpick and remember in this case TransAlta said this money is going to the University of Alberta, but the research has to be done by Warren Kindzierski and if he can't do it, we have a veto on who does do it. I mean, crikey. You don't need to be very sophisticated in order to realize that they're handpicking the referee. So what kind of safeguards should be put in place to make sure that the private funding does not influence the result of academic research. I think, I defend Megan, what's called the sequestration thesis. We know that research is biased when it's funded by corporations, so the result is let the corporations fund it, but they should not get to choose who does the research. They should not be able to cancel the research if it doesn't come out the way they want. They should not own the data so that they can bury it if they don't like the results or publicize the results that are favourable to their products and and file away in the bottom drawer for no one's eyes to see the research that exposes their products as damaging to public health.

MW: So what you're saying, it's not just a question of safeguarding results from being influenced by who's funding it, but also making sure that all of those research papers that go ahead, that don't find results that that the sponsor wants should still be available to the public.

AS: That's really important. In fact, we had an interesting court case just a few weeks ago where Health Canada refused the request of a number of independent research to get the raw data that various drug companies had filed with Health Canada. The researchers wanted to see whether the drugs they were investigating were genuinely effective and whether the side effects were as minimal as the companies claimed. And Health Canada whose fundamental mandate is to protect public health, refused even though Vanessa's Law passed by Parliament says that they've got to make this data public. The researchers went to court and won a famous victory. As I say this just happened within the last month. So isn't that astonishing. I mean what must the listeners be thinking. Health Canada wants to treat this vital data as if it relates to commercial confidentiality, rather than make sure that independent researchers can have access to it to see whether the products really are safe and effective.

MW: Now I have to leave now, but just very quickly, what would you recommend in a nutshell be done to stop this possible influencing results in academic research?

AS: Society really needs universities to be a source of independent research with genuine integrity. And the only way that's going to happen is if universities cease being corporate handmaidens. If the existence and flourishing of universities hinges on pleasing corporate sponsors will continue to get corporate science and the public will continue to pay the price. Ultimately I think universities are going to lose their most precious resource, which is public trust in the integrity of the work we do.

MW: OK. Thank you very much.

AS: Nice talking with you, Megan.

MW: Arthur Schafer is an ethicist and the founding director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba. He's in Winnipeg.

[Music]

MW: Coming up in our next half hour, mission not yet accomplished. The race to rescue the remaining White Helmets in Syria. Stay tuned to hear the latest and Anna Maria Tremonti's interview with the head of the White Helmets. I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

They are prime targets': White Helmets evacuation prompts concern for rescuers left behind

Guests: Bessma Momani, Raed Al Saleh

MW: I'm Megan Williams and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current. At the height of his renown, as Egypt's most popular satirist Bassem Youssef's television show had a weekly audience of more than 30 million viewers. That's 15 times more than watched the Daily Show and Bassem Youssef was often called the Jon Stewart of Egypt. But satire and dictatorship don't mix so well. And as the Arab Spring became chillier for free speech Bassem Youssef found himself the target of death threats and then arrest. Eventually the satirist fled to the U.S. and began working the American comedy circuit. He's coming to perform in Toronto this weekend and he'll be my guest. But first here he is getting the Samantha Bee treatment on Comedy Central's Full Frontal.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Bassem Youssef aka the Egyptian Samantha Bee, is a surgeon turned comedian who created the most popular TV show in Egypt's history by saying things that no one had ever dared say on Egyptian television before.

VOICE 2: Arabic speech followed by laughter.

VOICE 1: Bassem's political satire show sparked a lively public dialogue.

VOICE 3: More Arabic speech.

VOICE 1: And pissed off not one, but two Egyptian dictators who bestowed on him the country's highest Entertainment Award, being forced into exile. You left a repressive regime in Egypt and you came here just in time for an explosion of Islamophobia.

VOICE 4: Yes.

VOICE 1: Welcome.

VOICE 4: Ain't I lucky.

VOICE 1: When you look at someone like Trump, do you feel like you're better positioned to endure his presidency because you've seen so much worse?

VOICE 4: Well let me tell you this. If Trump was running for presidency in the Middle East, he would be classified as a tree-hugging Liberal. Yes.

VOICE 1: OK.

VOICE 4: I mean seriously, our dictators in the Middle East would look at Trump and say like, oh yeah that's so cute.

VOICE 1: I feel like that will hurt his feelings.

VOICE 4: Yes.

MW: You can hear my conversation with Bassem Youssef tomorrow on The Current.

[Music]

MW: What happens when the rescuers have to be rescued? Over the weekend 100 of Syria's White Helmet volunteers and about 300 family members were evacuated from southwest Syria. It was a daring mission led by the Israeli Defense Forces and sparked by Canada, who has committed to resettling 250 of the evacuees. The White Helmets are humanitarian workers who have saved tens of thousands of lives throughout the Syrian civil war. But recently they've been in grave danger and under siege, as government forces edged closer to the city of Daraa, which was once a rebel stronghold. Well many were rescued this weekend. Hundreds of White Helmet volunteers and their families remain in Syria. Yesterday, As It Happened spoke with Ammar al Salmo, a White Helmet volunteer in northern Syria.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We wish to find safety in Syria. We love our country. We love our homes. We have here memories. We don't want to go to any country. The guys here face danger everyday and they didn't want to leave Syria. But you know the stretcher and I was so difficult and they were seized and there was no way for them.

MW: For more on the evacuation and what it reveals about the state of the long running war in Syria, I'm joined by Bessma Momani. She's a Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She's in Waterloo. Hello.

BESSMA MOMANI: Hello.

MW: Good morning. Remind us briefly about the work that the White Helmets have done during the war in Syria. Like who they are and just what they've accomplished.

BM: Yeah the White Helmets is a volunteer organization. It started off quite grassroots like in the sense that there was a real need. In the sense that there were no ambulances and firefighters who would go into these troubled areas where you had bodies dropping from the sky relentlessly in the case of the regime and the Russian backers who really pummelled much of the urban landscape in Syria and they went in and they rescued many people at their own peril and in precarious situations of course. And ultimately they were recognized and seen by the West, particularly I think countries like Canada, the United States, the U.K. and others as perhaps a way of supporting the humanitarian effort inside Syria, without getting really entangled in the war. And so we started to train them, mostly online and showing them how to do first aid, showing them how to go into precarious building situations and assess sort of the engineering of a building and whether or not it was safe to go in. And again it turned farmers, sales people, nurses, teachers into frontline rescue workers.

MW: Now as you say, they've received a lot of support from Western governments, but the Syrian government didn't see them as the heroes that the Western countries have. Correct?

BM: Absolutely and they've been called terrorists from day one. And in fact, that's sort of the government's line throughout this seven year first revolution and now civil war, which was to really name anybody who was opposed to the regime to be a terrorist. And they were seen as Western agents, they were seen as even dare I say, aligning with al-Qaeda and ISIS to undermine the Syrian regime. I mean you know there's a great deal of propaganda about them and they've even been accused of fabricating chemical attacks to sort of garner Western attention. I mean it's absolutely ludicrous, but this is sort of the propaganda war that the government has been at as well.

MW: So a lot of the White Helmets remain in Syria and given the Syrian propaganda campaign against them, what kind of danger are those who remain now in?

BM: They're in great danger. They're very much key targets and in fact other areas where they have been taken you know, they've been subject to torture in prisons, arrest and disappearance. So they are prime targets. In fact, much of the government you know resorted to things called Double Tap policy, which was to not just hit a building once, but to hit it twice you know 10 to 15 minutes later once the White Helmets would come to respond, in an effort to actually get those rescue workers. So they are seen as very much you know an important, you know an important enemy of the regime and I would say also, remember here they are also witnesses to the crimes. They are the witnesses to the crimes against humanity that the regime has perpetrated. They've taken a lot of video footage as an attempt to create evidence for one day prosecuting the regime itself. So they are also bearers or witness of the great crimes that the regime has inflicted upon the Syrian people.

MW: And do you see that as the main reason for the propaganda campaign against them?

BM: Absolutely. You know they really do have a great deal of information about you know on the ground, what happened. They would be the kinds of witnesses that an international criminal court would be seeking to basically expose this regime and I think for many Syrian activists, both inside and outside the country, that's their only hope at this moment. They know that there's not going to be a sort of regime change in terms of Syria, but the hope is that one day Assad will have to face an International Criminal Court for his crimes.

MW: I want to hear about the evacuation, which of course was secret. It got 400 people out into safety. What role did Canada play in initiating it?

BM: Well I think we played a very important role. Clearly, the entire evacuation would not have happened without pre-approval of Western governments to actually take in the Syrian White Helmets. By that I mean, both the Israelis and the Jordanians would not allow those Syrian White Helmets to come through their territory, if they weren't going to be eventually expedited outside the country. And that's because both have a policy not to take in any more Syrian refugees. So we really had to be upfront with our commitment and I think this seems to have taken place on the sidelines of the NATO meeting in Brussels. So really quite some time before the actual rescue operation took place.

MW: That was the meeting where Chrystia Freeland pushed for some sort of initiative to rescue the White Helmets.

BM: Absolutely.

MW: OK. And Israel as you say, at first well didn't want to take in any more Syrian refugees, but they did play a role in the rescue. What was their role?

BM: Yeah. I mean they haven't taken in Syrian refugees. Full stop. But more importantly, the Israelis of course, now keep in mind here, when the White Helmets were crossing through they went toward the occupied Golan Heights, which of course Israel controls and the reason for that particularly was because they were surrounded. They were surrounded by ISIS and regime forces and roadblocks continue all the way to down to the Jordanian border. So it was really the only sort of safe zone that they could get through and across the border into the Golan Heights, there is a U.N. post there. So of course the Israelis have to permit it, but I would also point out that the Israelis, particularly Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli army, have tried to overplay frankly their involvement making this very much about a rescue that they committed. And I would point out that that actually really harms the remaining White Helmets inside the country. So it's really quite disturbing to see the Israelis take this line because it really just endangers them.

MW: How does it endanger them?

BM: Well quite frankly, you know it sort of feeds into the narrative of both the Syrians and the Russian propaganda that somehow the White Helmets are western agents. And so the remaining ones, we know that not all 800 that were sort of initially promised to come through were able to make the journey, some of them got held back by roadblocks and fighting. Now they're in great you know great peril and I think that's really the unintended consequence of Netanyahu trying to get bragging rights out of this.

MW: Now 250 of the White Helmets and their family members are going to arrive in Canada and of course they'll be vetted before they come here. Do you think they pose any security risk to the country?

BM: No. Absolutely not. I mean these are frankly, model citizens. Let's be frank here. These are people who are risk takers, who put their own lives before all others and I think we have some moral responsibility again because of the reality that yes, we did eventually train them. We did show them first aid, we did show them that and they and we encouraged them to take continued video so that we could build a case against the Assad regime in an international criminal court. And so I think that's the least that we could do, I think. 250 is not a big number in our great big country and I think they will be great model citizens.

MW: OK. Just one last question quickly. What does the evacuation of the White Helmets reveal about the state of the war? I mean is this the beginning of the end of the war?

BM: Well look, if you think of it as you know did the regime win. If you consider that consolidating territory, particularly the centre, then yes. But the reality is the regime has been unable to reclaim authority and so I would say no. The north is still rebel held and the parts that are you know regime control have warlords, have insurgency and most importantly they have no legitimacy. The regime till this day still has the blood of nearly 400,000 people, many of which were civilians on its hands and people are not going to forget that.

MW: All right. Thanks very much for joining us today.

BM: Thank you.

MW: I've been speaking with the Bessma Momani, who's a Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She's in Waterloo. Back in September of 2016, Anna Maria Tremonti spoke with the head of the White Helmets. Raed Al Saleh was in New York at the United Nations, shortly after the group was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. They spoke through translation.

AMT: Mr. Saleh, when a bomb falls and the White Helmets hear it, what do they do?

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] The White Helmets teams are always ready in their stations working on three shifts. And when rockets or barrel bombs attack civilian neighbourhoods, they move immediately to respond to the attacks and to help the civilians rescue those who are under rubble and evacuate them and take the wounded persons to the hospital.

AMT: And I'm wondering when you hear an attack and you know you have to run to it, what are the kinds of things that run through your mind the moment you understand that you have to get out and start rescuing people?

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] It is a mixed feeling of fear and hope. We feel afraid of double take or another attack that may target the rescue teams when they are gathered to rescue people. And this happens and we lost many of our colleagues who were killed or wounded when the airstrikes come back and hit the same place again. And it's also a feel of hope of getting people alive and saving lives from the rubble.

AMT: How many White Helmets now work in Syria?

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] Now there are almost 3,000 volunteers. They are based in the 120 centres from the north to the south. And we've been able to save lives of more than 62,000 people during the past three years. But we lost 134 of our colleagues who were killed while they were on duty.

AMT: And who joins? Who comes to you to do this job?

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] Volunteers, men and women who join the White Helmets are from all different backgrounds—doctors, traders, carpenters, teachers, taxi drivers—and who are ready to dedicate themselves to rescue others and comply with the principles of the White Helmets and the values of peace and humanity.

AMT: And what are the principles of the White Helmets?

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] The White Helmets comply with the international humanitarian law and work as a humanitarian neutral and impartial organization offering assistance for all people without any differentiation based on religion or ethnic background.

AMT: So in other words, no matter who is hurt, you will help us.

RAED AL SALEH: Yes.

AMT: Can you work in areas controlled by the government?

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] Till now, we are not able to walk in areas of the regime despite we expressed readiness on several occasions before when there is a need. We are ready to go anywhere as long as we are allowed to operate.

AMT: And of course, the only entity with air power right now is the Assad regime and its backer Russia. Am I correct? The only ones dropping bombs are government support.

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] For three years, the Assad regime was the only power that has the Air Force to drop bombs from the air. Then later on, Russia joined and the international coalition also joined.

AMT: Can you describe what it’s like then, when you're on the ground and something flies over? What you start to look for, what you hear, what goes through your mind.

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] It is very difficult to describe that feeling, especially when the aircraft drop barrel bombs. Barrel bombs that are used by the Assad regime are entirely indiscriminate weapons. Imagine yourself on the ground seeing the barrel dropping from the sky and you don't know exactly if it will hit you or not. People feel scared, feel anxious and they don't know where to go because nobody can define the exact hitting area of that bomb.

AMT: And what is it like when you get there after a barrel bomb has hit? Help us understand.

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] When the barrel bomb drops and explodes on the ground, it's like an earthquake. And if it hits a marketplace for example, or a bazaar, sometimes maybe 100 people who would be killed and more than this number will be wounded. We may face fires, the smell of burnt bodies, people and children crying. It's very difficult to look at and I can't explain that feeling. It requires a very strong tolerance and patience in order to face that situation and work under that pressure to rescue those who are still alive.

AMT: And how do you stay focused then, as you try to do that? Because I would imagine you do have people who are panicked and in great trauma and pain all around you.

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] Sometimes some of our [unintelligible] may fall down because of the shock, the psychological pressure. But the hope of saving lives and children from under rubble is the main power that keeps us focused and committed to continue our work regardless of all the pressure that we face and the frustration that we have because of the ignorance of the international community.

AMT: Tell me more about why you say the ignorance of the international community.

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] For example, over the past seven months, we've heard of two agreements for ceasefire or cessation of hostilities. But actually on the ground, we didn't see significant change. Those agreements give peace for one day maybe. And after that, the relations begin and bombs continue.

AMT: Is there one thing or are there many things that you cannot forget from going to the scene of a bombing and attempting to help people and rescue them? Is there something that stays in your mind that you can share with us?

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] I have two stories in my mind that I don't ever forget. These two stories give me a message of hope. I remember in 2013, in Darkoush down in Aleppo [unintelligible], the day just before the Eid-ul-Adha, the bazaar of Darkoush was so much crowded by the people who were buying food and gifts for their Eid. And that time, an explosion took place at that bazaar. At that time, we were just at the beginning of the establishment of the White Helmets, just five or six months after the starting. And we had very light equipment and we did not have enough experience and enough training. So it was a very, very difficult situation for us. And at that time, 112 civilians were killed and many others were burned or wounded. And we could rescue only two or three persons and we couldn't handle that big catastrophe. And for us, it was a shock. After that incident, we felt so depressed for a while but after that, we made a pledge that we will work hard to develop our work and our skills to be able to be more efficient in the future. And two years later, in 2015, the same day, the day before Eid-ul-Adha, nine air strikes targeted the same bazaar, the same place again. And there was a big catastrophe there in the beginning but we were more equipped, more trained with more skills. We responded using six White Helmets teams who moved immediately from several neighbouring areas and worked collectively to rescue the people there. We were able to rescue almost a 120 civilians and we evacuated them to hospitals. Then we cleared the rubble, cleaned the streets and within 24 hours, the bazaar returned as it was before the incident. While in the previous incident two years before, it took 40 days until the bazaar worked again.

AMT: What does it feel like when you know you have saved a life?

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] Honestly, for us, these are the only moments of happiness and joy that will live in Syria now. It is the price that we feel we are awarded after the hard work.

AMT: You know I looked at the documentary The White Helmets and I've seen pictures of the devastation in Aleppo and in other Syrian cities. It's unimaginable how much has been destroyed. And that's just the buildings. There were people in those buildings. Help us understand the price that regular people have paid in this war.

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] The ordinary Syrian people are the biggest losers in this war. Their homes were destroyed. Many people were killed. Their lives were dramatically changed and we lost a whole generation of children without education, which is the biggest prize for us as a nation, for the future.

AMT: I'm speaking to you. You're in New York at the United Nations. Why have you gone to the United Nations?

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] I'm here carrying the message and living the voice of the ordinary Syrian citizens and casualties who suffer from that big crisis in Syria and from the killing and the bombs, a way of those who negotiate power sharing or making agreements to protect their interests. I'm speaking for ordinary people who want to live in peace and dignity.

AMT: You are speaking for many people and you were speaking to big officials but your whole organization is based on helping individuals. You feel very strongly about saving one life.

RAED AL SALEH: [Through translator] Our motto since the beginning is, “Saving one life is saving all humanity.”

AMT: It is important to hear that. Mr. Saleh, thank you for speaking with me today.

RAED AL SALEH: Thank you very much.

MW: Raed Al Saleh is head of the White Helmets. He spoke with Anna Maria Tremonti from New York in 2016. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. It's been a tough couple of days in Toronto. Gunfire and death on the Danforth follow a number of other deadly shootings this year. Guns and funeral are not new to the city. In 2013, Toronto rap artist, Drake, joined Snoop Lion and Cori B. to record, "No Guns Allowed." And Drake had a message to his hometown. Here it is. No Guns Allowed. I'm Megan Williams. Thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Song: "No Guns Allowed" by Snoop Lion ft. Drake, Cori B]

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

July 24, 2018 episode transcript

More Stories Like This