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The Current Transcript for December 3, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Why does the idea of a carbon tax divide conservatives in Canada?

Guests: Christopher Ragan, Randall Denley

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ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: The United Nations has been holding climate change conferences for 24 years now. The latest or COP24 is under way in Poland today, with thousands of experts, bureaucrats, politicians and advocates working on how to push forward with the climate deal known as the Paris Agreement. There is a lot on the line. One scientific report after another has highlighted the urgent need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions before the planet reaches a point of no return. The UN's scientific panel says one of the keys to cutting carbon emissions is putting a price on them. And economist William Nordhaus, a key proponent of pricing carbon, won the Nobel Prize for economics this year for his work on that issue. Even so, the politics of carbon pricing are anything, but clear. Conservative leaders and thinkers from across Canada are opposed to carbon taxes. Randall Denley is one of them. He is a columnist with The National Post and also a former Progressive Conservative candidate in Ontario. He joins us from Ottawa. Not all right leaning thinkers agree that conservatism and carbon taxes are mutually exclusive. Christopher Ragan is chair of Canada's Ecofiscal commission. He's an economics professor at McGill University and he's in Montreal. Hello gentlemen. Welcome.

CHRISTOPHER RAGAN: Good morning.

RANDALL DENLEY: Good morning.

AMT: Just to establish off the top, do you each believe that human caused climate change is a grave threat to the planet, Christopher Ragan?

CR: Yes.

AMT: Randall Denley?

RD: Yes I do.

AMT: OK so let's start in here. Christopher Ragan, why do carbon taxes make sense as a conservative policy?

CR: I think we have to not lose sight of the problem, which is that fossil fuels have driven energy, which has driven our economies for 200 years. That's actually a wonderful thing. But we now know and we have known for a few decades, that the greenhouse gas emissions that come from fossil fuel use are a serious problem. And so the objective here is to engineer a transition over 40 or 50 or 60 years away from fossil fuels, while maintaining our economic prosperity. That is the challenge and it is a huge challenge. And so what you need is policies that will get us that transition away from fossil fuels, but do so in a very low cost way. And a carbon tax, if you ask any economist that I've ever met, and you ask them whether you use a carbon price to reduce emissions or other typically more intrusive regulatory methods, any economist I've ever met will tell you that the lowest cost way to do it and the best way for the economy is with a carbon price.

AMT: And why is that a conservative policy?

CR: Well conservatives tend to like and promote the functioning of markets. They recognize that market-based measures tend to be better than regulatory measures and a carbon price is one where the government actually puts a price on something and then lets the market do the rest.

AMT: Okay.

CR: Whereas a regulatory approach, typically requires the government to be quite intrusive, industry by industry and tell people, tell households, tell businesses what to do, how to do it and when to do it.

AMT: Randall Denley, why aren't carbon taxes a good conservative policy in your view?

RD: I don't think we're really creating a market here. What we're doing is applying a tax and the question is not should we do something, but who pays. I favour pragmatic solutions over dogmatic solutions, what's easy, relatively easier for business to find ways to deal with a carbon tax than it is for individuals, but when it comes to our home heating or the cars that we drive, what are our choices really? And I don't think, I think this is something that the Ontario conservatives are trying to prevent having a big impact on consumers, while focusing on businesses. And a core conservative principle is giving people choices and you know any of us can choose now to buy a more fuel efficient car if we'd like to, but regulations work too and one of the biggest successes we've seen in reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the regulations that govern vehicle emissions. So they're down 17 percent over a decade. That's a pretty impressive gain for drivers, but now we seem to think that if we make gas a little more expensive, something big is going to happen and I think that is a misperception when you consider how much the price of gasoline fluctuates, would Trudeau's four and a half cent tax even be noticed? In Ontario we were paying a dollar thirty for gas a couple of months ago, now we're paying a dollar. If it becomes a dollar five, what effect is that really going to have?

AMT: Christopher Ragan?

CR: So he mentions choice and this is actually one of the reasons why a carbon price, whether it's a tax or a cap and trade system, why a carbon price is actually quite good and it does give people choice. The whole logic of a carbon price is that the government's puts the, let's call it a tax, the government puts the tax on carbon emissions and then lets people and businesses figure out the best way for themselves how to adjust. Some people will adjust a lot very quickly, some people will adjust more slowly, some people will adjust differently. Some people will adjust their driving behaviour. Some people will adjust their home heating behaviour. Firms will over time adjust in different ways. It's that flexibility that gives a carbon price its low cost, lowest cost behaviour. On the vehicles, I mean one of the things that the Ontario government has just announced in their plan a couple of days ago is to increase the amount of ethanol that must be blended with gasoline. Now that actually isn't giving choice at all. It's forcing people to use more ethanol than they otherwise would. At the Ecofiscal commission we did a study on these ethanol mandates and found that they do indeed reduce emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, but they do it at the price of about $180 per tonne. Now that's in a world where a carbon price might reduce those emissions at 20 or 25 or 30 dollars per tonne. So back to the idea of low cost policies, ethanol mandates are very expensive.

AMT: Randall Denley?

RD: That's a federal policy, right?

CR: Provincial.

RD: No, it's federal clean fuel standards are what they're relying on.

CR: No I'm talking about the provincial blending mandate on ethanol that the Ontario government has just announced it will increase from 10 percent to 15 percent blending at a significant cost. Provincial policy.

RD: It's they're talking about a federal clean fuel standard.

AMT: No, Mr. Denley, it was just announced as part of Doug Ford's latest policy.

RD: Yeah, I'm quite familiar with the document.

AMT: Can you respond to it?

RD: You know the point is choice. When you come to consumers, the choices are expensive. If you're talking about your home heating, assuming that people already have up-to-date furnaces, some don't, but that's an expensive change and buying a new car that's more fuel-efficient is also an expensive capital change and it's one that people might well make when they're going to buy a new car anyway.

CR: Alright.

RD: But if taxes go up later this year, people are going to rush out and say oh sell the car I've got and spend $30,000 or more on a new car to offset the cost of that fuel tax because that doesn't make sense financially.

AMT: I want to ask.

RD: It's not a smart move so why would they react to such a small change? I mean we're speaking of the value and effect of carbon pricing broadly, but surely the details matter and if the details it's a four and a half cent change, why would that change consumer behavior?

AMT: Christopher Ragan, why would it?

CR: Well I think this is a good point and nobody should expect small changes in carbon prices to drive big changes in behaviour over short periods of time. So we're not talking here about a policy to make changes over a year or four years, we're really talking about a policy and putting these carbon prices in place that will also rise over time and drive a gradual change in behaviour over 30, 40 and 50 years. Nobody should be looking for this to have quick payoffs because we are a very energy-intensive economy and we are fossil fuel intensive in our energy use. And so getting us away from fossil fuels is not an easy thing and this is why it's so important to have policies that are low cost.

AMT: One of the big critiques of carbon taxes is that they kill jobs. We have a clip here of Premier Doug Ford blaming carbon taxes for GM's decision to shut down in Oshawa, Ontario.

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VOICE: You can't campaign for a job-killing carbon tax on Monday and sit around and wonder why manufacturing and automotive jobs are leaving on Tuesday because the fact is you can be for manufacturing jobs or you can be for the carbon tax, but you can't be for both.

AMT: Randall Denley, is Doug Ford right? Do carbon taxes make a country, a province less competitive?

RD: Well I think that's self-evident really. If we're paying a fee here in Ontario or in Canada that countries that we deal with aren't paying then our costs are higher. So that tends to reduce our competitiveness if we're going to do that, it has to be offset with something, but viewed strictly through that lens is a negative.

AMT: Christopher Ragan?

CR: Well first of all, carbon tax had nothing to do with GM's plant closure. So it would be nice to recognize that.

RD: I'm not saying that it did.

CR: And the second thing is that the number one tax, if you're worried about killing jobs, the number one tax to kill jobs is a corporate income tax and the number two tax would be a personal income tax. So rather than spending $350 million on the Ontario Carbon Trust slush fund, which will be financed by income taxes and do the damage, why not raise the revenue through a carbon price that is a better way to raise revenues and reduces emissions?

AMT: Randall Denley?

RD: Well however you raise it, you go back to the point, that we're paying a fee, a tax, a price in Ontario or in Canada that our competitor nations are not paying. Clearly, we are and particularly in regard to the U.S. with not paying carbon taxes, that's one more tax that businesses have to pay and sure you can look at the you know broad array, well yes there are other taxes that are better or worse, but we're adding a charge. That's really the issue. It's not about everything else, it's about will it hurt business by adding it. And that's why Ontario's cap and trade system went very lightly on businesses in the time that it was in play, businesses got a free pass by and large on this and they took a very minimal approach to doing this because every government is concerned about job protection, however they go after it, they're always going to go after business gingerly for that reason.

AMT: Christopher Ragan?

CR: Well the competitiveness issue is very important when you're designing a carbon price. The Ontario government, the previous Ontario government, with a cap and trade system, did actually think about this very carefully and as a result they didn't exempt industries for the most part, but they did deal with, they gave away actually some of the permits for free to some of the industries, the ones that were particularly emissions-intensive and trade exposed. And in fact, it's interesting that I would say the one good thing that was announced in the Ontario plan, which is kind of ironic, is that they introduced some industry performance standards, which actually look very much like what the federal government and what the Alberta government have designed in terms of an output based carbon pricing system. So the irony here should be clear that a government that has said it will never have a carbon price, has an important part of its plan that is based precisely on a carbon price, but they call it something different.

AMT: The other critique we often hear is that carbon taxes are hard on working families. I have a clip of federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer speaking to my colleague Michael Enright.

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VOICE: Because it punishes those that can least afford to pay it.

MICHAEL ENRIGHT: How does it do that?

VOICE: By raising the cost of essentials. Raising the cost of home heating, driving to work, transportation costs, bringing in goods from all over the world becomes more expensive.

AMT: Christopher Ragan, what do you make of that argument?

CR: That is true, but it's only half the story. So if you put a carbon price in place and a broad based carbon price, of course it is designed to raise the prices of things based on their carbon content. So it will raise prices that consumers face and in fact it will do it in a way that is regressive. So it will have a larger percentage impact on lower income households than higher income households. So that's half the story. If you then actually have rebates back to households and this is what the Alberta government has done and it's what the federal policy will do starting next year, then in fact you can have the combination of the carbon price and the rebate make a progressive combination, so that lower income households get back more than they spend on the carbon price and higher income households are the opposite. And that becomes actually a very good way to maintain the incentives to reduce emissions because you know gasoline and home heating fuel and anything carbon intensive has gone up in price, but we're not reducing your purchasing power. The whole goal of a carbon price isn't actually to make us poorer, it's to change prices in a way that change our behaviour. So that rebate restores the purchasing power to households and as I say, that's what Alberta has done and that's what the federal plan will do if it kicks in to a jurisdiction near you.

AMT: Randall Denley, what's wrong with that?

RD: And you see here how a nominally revenue neutral approach instead becomes another income redistribution program, which is a base we've test pretty effectively through income tax. I would suggest and the big problem with the Trudeau plan is that OK it's going to cost you more now, but don't worry, when you do your taxes the next year, you'll get a cheque back or you'll pay less in tax. That doesn't help people who are paying more right now and I think people who design these policies often fail to understand the reality for people who live on low incomes. There's not a lot of gap between what they bring in and what goes out. When things go up you're not really in a position to say well I'll pay more now, but don't worry, I'll get it back next year. I'm sure high income person is fine, so what, your budget will absorb it easily enough. If you're a lower income person, it won't and I think that's the problem with the so-called revenue neutrality of the Trudeau plan, it isn't, it pays too late and it's you know yet another way to transfer income to lower income people and I think we've got other effective ways to do that in place. We don't need a carbon tax to do that as well.

AMT: Well let me pick up on that. Christopher Ragan, we have seen a lot of popular anger about the idea of a carbon tax. It is part of what brought Doug Ford to power in Ontario. How do you convince angry voters that carbon taxes are the way to go?

CR: Great question and I think it's super hard. I mean I think one of the benefits of a carbon tax is that it's transparent and one of the difficulties is that it's transparent and so we're used to not paying for the costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions. And a carbon tax is effectively making us all pay, whether we are a household, rich or poor, whether a business small or large, is that is we're moving to the pollute or pay principle. I think that's fair, but it doesn't feel good for anybody to know that you now have to pay a little bit more because of the costs associated with our very energy-intensive behaviour. So I think it's a very tough sell, but you've got to think about the alternative. If you take the climate change problem seriously and you take the need to reduce emissions seriously, then the alternative to a transparent carbon tax is going to be something that is non-transparent, but more costly. So we can put regulations in place, whether they're vehicle regulations or building standard regulations or the way we produce steel or cement or the way we have our trains and trucks designed, we can put those regulations in place and nobody will really see them or at least households won't see them, businesses will, but they will cost more to the economy and that will actually have a lower or a worse impact on wages and jobs. So this is a tough sell and to get people to understand why a carbon price works better, I mean you have to unfortunately, I think you may have to be a fairly geeky economist to think about these things, but it is a tough sell.

AMT: Randall Denley, BC has had a carbon tax for more than a decade and it seems like a non-issue there, even on the political right. Right leaning B.C. Liberals brought in the tax.

RD: Yeah it's a non-issue because it used to, but the question is how effective is it? It's interesting I'm looking at Statistics Canada data over a decade per capita gasoline consumption by people in B.C. exactly the same as it was in 2008. It's not a big enough carbon tax to make a difference, but you know I challenge this notion that pollution pricing as we call it now is something new. In Ontario for example, people are paying 20 cents a litre in federal and provincial taxes plus HST. So when you buy that dollar liter of gas now, you're paying you know typically about 70 cents in taxes. So there's already in effect.

AMT: But of course carbon price, but it's not just that, it's also on corporations. It's not just the gas pump.

RD: No it is, but the folks in Ontario and I think you know we're talking about how to get people to support it, so we're talking about consumers. This is one of the most visible things they see. They know they're already paying a big tax. So it's not oh we decided to put a tax on this for the first time, it's a real big thing, saying wait a minute we're already paying a huge tax. This is just yet another tax.

AMT: OK well we're almost out of time. Christopher Ragan, ten seconds to respond to that.

CR: Well I would say the visibility is what gives you the opportunity to actually have upfront tax cuts. In the federal plan they're up front, they're not delayed, they're tax cuts. And in the B.C. system, it's revenue neutral with tax cuts. So why not say let's actually offer tax cuts across the board and that revenue will come from a carbon price, sell it as an overall tax cut, don't sell it as a carbon price.

AMT: OK. There's the music. We've got to go. Thank you both for weighing in on this one. That is Randall Denley based in Ottawa.

RD: Thank you.

CR: Thank you.

AMT: National Post columnist, former Ontario Progressive Conservative candidate. Christopher Ragan, chair of Canada's Ecofiscal commission and an economics professor at McGill University. Let us know what you think. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent.

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Arrested youth should not be interrogated alone, says man wrongfully convicted of murder

Guests: Nate Hendley, Ron Moffatt, Debbie Moffatt, Mary Birdsell

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

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AMT: In the 1950s, it was a different era. Parents didn't worry about their children the way they do today. Kids roamed freely. The idea of child predators hadn't even occurred to most people. And then Peter Woodcock began his killing spree, a short bespectacled teenager terrorized Toronto for four months in 1956 and 1957. But the three children he killed weren't his only victims. Next a serial killer's forgotten casualty.

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VOICE: Investigations are still being made in Toronto to determine the cause of death of a 7-year-old boy, whose body was found in bushes at the Canadian National Exhibition grounds yesterday. The boy, Wayne Mallette, left the house on Saturday night and didn't return. An autopsy showed that the boy died from asphyxiation and the assistant coroner who carried out a preliminary examination of the body said he believes the lad was slain by a sex pervert. Police do not support this theory and say that they will await the results of further medical examination.

AMT: Well it was a horrifying crime that dominated the news in the fall of 1956. 7-year-old Wayne Mallette was lured away from his grandmother's home in Toronto to the secluded grounds of the nearby CNE, the Canadian National Exhibition, where he was sexually abused and murdered. A watchman reported having a strange conversation that night with a boy who was on a bicycle. The guard said the boy had asked him if he ever found bodies in the bushes and then he rode off. The boy on the bicycle became the main suspect in the police search. The Boy on the Bicycle is also the name of a new book by crime writer Nate Hendley. It tells the story of another child whose life was irrevocably changed the night Wayne Mallette was murdered because he was wrongfully convicted and jailed for that killing. Ron Moffatt was only 14-years-old at the time. He's 76-year-old now and telling his harrowing ordeal for the first time in Nate Hendley's book. Ron Moffatt joins us from his home in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Nate Hendley is with me in Toronto. Hello to you both.

NATE HENDLEY: Hello, Anna Maria.

RON MOFFATT: Good morning, Anna.

AMT: Ron, let's start with you. What was going on in your life in the fall of 1956 when Wayne Mallette was murdered?

RM: Well this is happened that year I was working at the CNE. I was in grade 7 at the time. I had an argument with my parents and I packed up some stuff and ran away from home. And I was working in a bowling alley at night called the Colzy Bowl. So when I ran away from home, my parents lived in a tenement house, they were up on the second floor and in the bottom floor hallway there was a big bedroom closet. So I was sleeping in there at night playing hooky from school and I was working at the Colzy Bowl to get money for food and whatever I needed, but my mother had phoned the police as I was missing from home. So I guess at the same time they were looking for a youth my age they thought that killed this little Wayne Mallette, the CNE ground.

AMT: Nate, tell us about Wayne's murder. How did he die?

NH: Well the Mallette family lived in Sealy's Bay, which is a small community near Kingston, Ontario. They came into Toronto in mid-September 1956 to visit a relative who lived in south Parkdale. Two of the older boys in the family went out to see the movies and their little 7-year-old brother Wayne wanted to go with them, they didn't want their little brother tagging along, so he was sort of left to his own devices. Wayne kind of wandered off, the nearby CNE was closed for the season, but he thought that was an interesting place to check out. He was fascinated by trains so he might have wanted to see the train line that ran through the National Exhibition grounds. He wandered into the CNE and there encountered a teenage boy on a bicycle. A struggle ensued. Wayne was killed. He was suffocated, basically face down in the dirt. His body was savagely bitten. The boy on the bicycle then took off and encountered a night watchman and they had this bizarre conversation about do you find bodies in the bushes and the boy in the bicycle said oh I just saw this other kid who looks just like me, you know taking off from the area. Isn't that weird? Then the boy disappeared. Police were called after Wayne didn't return home. They began scouring the grounds of the National Exhibition and little Wayne's body was found.

AMT: Toronto was a fraction of its current size in 1956, child murders were exceedingly rare. How was this killing viewed in Toronto at the time?

NH: Absolute shock. One of the things I discovered, in 1956, there were nine recorded murders in all of Toronto. The city had a population at the time of about 670,000 people. It was the second largest city in Canada after Montreal. Police did not have much experience with murder period, much less this horrific child murder and the second part of it was beyond murder, even the concept of predators preying sexually on children was off the radar for a lot of people. One newspaper said boy was victim of pervert and on the very same day the other newspaper said, boy not victim of perverts, say doctors.

AMT: It's interesting. We even heard that in the clip though, the language around that time from the 50s right. So the boy on the bicycle, why were police so interested in speaking to him because of what the security guard reported?

NH: Yeah he was the only sort of suspect in the case. When Wayne's body was examined, there were bite marks on it and they determined that the bite marks weren't large enough to come from a full adult male. So almost certainly he was bitten by like an adolescent boy. So that kind of confirmed that what they're looking for is a teenager.

AMT: So they're looking for a teenager, but where does Ron come into this? Why does he become a suspect?

NH: Well Ron had worked at the CNE, as he had mentioned. So he's familiar with the fair grounds. Ron is roughly the same age as the suspect they're looking for and as Ron said, he had an argument with his parents and went into hiding shortly after the killing. Police are looking for runaway teenage boys because they figured that the killer will probably have gone into hiding. So Ron's mother reports him missing, police come to talk to her, they scout around, they find Ron and they take him to the station. So in their eyes he kind of fit a number of the things they're looking for.

AMT: So Ron, what were you thinking when police found you hiding out in the apartment building?

RM: When they found me I thought oh I'm in trouble truant officers. And I didn't realize they were police until they shot me in the car was a unmarked police car, wasn't a cruiser and then they conveyed me down to College Street police station and then I realized these are detectives.

AMT: They didn't tell their parents that they found you?

RM: My parents were never contacted for five or six hours afterwards.

AMT: So what happened at the police station Ron?

RM: They took me into a small, I say as I remembered about an 8 by 8 might be smaller interrogation room, stuck me up against the wall and they played good cop, bad cop. They started asking me questions about this murder and then I realized well they're not truant officers, they're after me for this murder. And I knew about the murder because it's all over the newspapers. I knew about the little boy being killed and they went on and on and on and in them days it was quite normal for police to use physical violence against suspects. He threatened it, it never happened, but he threatened it and I'm a 14-year-old boy terrified and they kept questioning me and badgering and this went on for four or five hours.

AMT: So Ron, did you confess?

RM: Yes, I ended up confessing.

AMT: What were you actually doing on the night that Wayne Mallette was murdered, Ron?

RM: I when that happened I was at a Metro theater miles away from the CNE grounds, watching a double feature. My best friend was working at night as an usher at the theater and I was sitting beside his girlfriend. Plus the owner of that theater knew me because I used to go there lots of times and get in and watch free movies and I used to help with the marquee chains, the marquee. And four other people that knew me were in that theatre.

AMT: So you confessed because basically this guy intimidated you? He scared you.

RM: Yeah. It's hard for people to understand why anybody would confess to a crime they did not commit. They keep asking you and ask you the same questions over and over and over again and if you're in that room for four or five hours and you're without drink or food, you sooner or later start breaking down and go along with them. You'll say anything to get out of that room and stop them from questioning you.

AMT: So you're 14-years-old and you've been hiding for three days, how did you even know what kind of crime to confess to? How did you know about the crime?

RM: Because they would give me leading questions. I knew about the crime because it was all over the newspapers, that was everybody knew about that little boy being murdered.

NH: I have a copy of the alleged confession. And it's really quite the document because police will ask things like you know, so Ron then you took, you know you had a bowel movement next to the victim, right? They're asking some very leading questions. They also took Ron to the Exhibition grounds and sort of in their words, Ron "walked them through the crime scene." As Ron put it to me, it was more like they would point to somewhere and say so, that's where you encountered Wayne, right? I should also mention that Ron was interrogated without a lawyer or his parents present.

AMT: And there were several people who told police they'd seen him at the movie theatre.

NH: Correct.

AMT: How did the detective's account for that?

NH: Didn't matter because according to the Crown Prosecution, their theory was well Ron did go to the theatre, but he slipped out at some point and stole the bicycle, even though he couldn't actually ride a bicycle, due to balance problems. Biked to the CNE, bumped into this little boy, an altercation occurred. He killed the boy, biked off, encountered the night watchman and had this weird conversation, then ditched the bike, went to a restaurant to have a bite to eat then went back to the theatre. And no one noticed anything amiss that he was shaking or nervous or sweaty or anything you would expect from a normal 14-year-old who just murdered a kid.

AMT: So basically what the scenario the police described was almost physically impossible, timeline.

NH: Yeah if you time it out, it would take approximately 30 minutes to walk, I think 15 minutes by bus. So the time is a bit screwy and it also suggests nerves of steel or something because no one reported anything strange about him in the theatre that you would expect from someone who supposedly killed a child with their bare hands.

AMT: Ron, you didn't know how to ride a bicycle?

RM: No I used to box when I was young and I got hit a few times and I think it affected my middle ear and my balance, I used, I still do it. I'm worse now that I'm older. I'll be walking almost where I'd been drinking, I'll lose my balance and I'll go stagger off this, you know to the left or to the right. And to ride a bicycle, I couldn't even ice skate because of my balance.

AMT: So Ron's arrested Nate, not long after that, there's another child murder in Toronto. Tell us about the killing of 9-year-old, Gary Morris.

NH: In October 1956, Gary Morris is downtown with a friend. He's approached, the two boys are approached by a teenager riding a bicycle. Dark hair, glasses and they described his bike in great detail. The teenager on the bike invites Gary to come with him to Cherry Beach to shoot pigeons as he put it with rubber bands and staples or something. Gary agrees. They go to Cherry Beach where the little boy is promptly attacked, murdered and then continued to be brutalized after his death. He was also savagely bitten and the police reaction was kind of like well we think that there's two different teenage boys riding bicycles attacking children in the city.

AMT: They didn't say, wait a minute.

NH: Oh no, not at all. It was two different sociopathic teenagers, riding bikes, attacking kids.

AMT: So Ron, you go to trial for Wayne Mallette's murder in December of 1956. What was it like to be on trial for murder? You're just a young teenager.

RM: The courtroom was in the Old City Hall. And when I walked into the court room, it reminded me of the films, the judges sitting way up high and you're down low. It was scary just walking into that courtroom and my lawyer he wasn't what I'd call top notch lawyer. Even though I was young, I thought he did emphasize enough about how could I possibly physically get from that theatre to the CNE grounds and back, didn't matter about all those witnesses that went in there and testified on my behalf. The judge bought it just because I confessed, doesn't my alibi mattered.

AMT: So Ron, you're convicted. What did you think was going to happen to you when they convicted you?

RM: I figured even though I was a juvenile, I thought OK this is it. I'm going to jail for the rest of my life and I used to ask the guard, I said what's going to happen to me when I turn 18? And they said well they'll probably send you back to Toronto and hang ya.

AMT: Really, that's what was going through your head while you're in custody. Nate, what was his real sentence?

NH: Well Ron was tried as a juvenile. So that meant he couldn't have actually been hanged.

AMT: He didn't know that, keep going.

NH: It's cold comfort, if you're a terrified 14-year-old and your guards are telling you know we're going to hang you. Technically he could have been released at 18. They sent him to a training school.

AMT: Like a reform school?

NH: It was basically like a reform school and he was sent to the Ontario training school for boys in Bowmanville.

AMT: So he doesn't go to a prison, he goes to the training school, but then he tries to run away. Ron?

RM: In Bowmanville, you're in a cottage and there was I think 30 kids in the cottage and I was talking to this other kid and he wanted to get out of there too. So we had this plan. On Sunday you were forced to go to church whether you wanted to or not. The person that took us to church was quite elderly man, so we figured out we could run away from this guy. He couldn't catch us. Well, little did we know, he doesn't run after us, trustee kids run after us. So they caught us and the rules that Bowmanville in every cottage, if one kid breaks a rule, all the rest of the kids lose their privileges. So now they take you in front of these kids, stripped and naked. They're allowed to do anything they want to do it. They can beat you up, do anything. And then you're sent over to detention and detention consists of a small room, say eight by eight again, terrazzo floor and the terrazzo floor went halfway up the wall. You got to stand up, all you're allowed to wear were shorts like jockey shorts, no socks, no shoes standing on this cold terazzo. You were not allowed to sit, lean against the wall all day and the only break you got, they'd come in the day and they'd bring in a big bucket of water, I know this sounds like something out of the movies. They actually gave you a little scrub brush and you got down on your hands and knees and scrubbed these terrazzo floors. This went on every day and at night, they'd give you an old army blanket to lay on that same terrazzo floor. And this one read head guard would slap me in the head every time he'd see me and at night, if he was on the night shift, he'd come in and he'd kick me. Sometimes in the ribs, sometimes in the stomach. I gotta get out here. So I come up with a plan, I'm going to play crazy. So they sent me to see the psychologist, so he recommended that I be sent to a psychiatric unit for more evaluation. They sent me to Guelph Reformatory.

AMT: Which was at the time what, Nate?

NH: It was a prison. Guelph Reformatory at the time had both adult prisoners and teenagers and had a reputation for being relatively tough and Ron was in the psychiatric unit there.

AMT: So now he's in a real prison after this because of everything.

NH: Yes.

AMT: Okay so he's in custody. Toronto is rocked with another child murder in January of 1957. How did four-year-old, Carole Voyce, die?

NH: Well Carole Voyce is taken by her mother to a friend's house. Her mother and the friend go inside for coffee. Carole who's 4 was playing in the yard with her friend, Johnny. A boy on a bicycle approaches, talks to the kids, they're impressed by his bike, wow what a nifty shiny bike. He initially offers to take the little boy on his handlebars for a ride, changes his mind at the last minute, takes Carole. Puts her on the handlebars, takes her into the Don Valley and brutalizes her. He attacked her under the Prince Edward viaduct, spent about an hour attacking little Carole. Police were notified very shortly after because Johnny went into the house and said oh Carole's gone off with a teenage boy on a bike. So her mother naturally was panicked about this, huge number of police went into the Don Valley and they were tipped off by a yard man who said he'd seen a dark haired boy pushing a bike through the snow out of the valley. So it's again, oh boy with a bicycle.

AMT: So what impact did that have on Ron's case?

NH: Well finally police start to put the pieces together. They realize that there is a serial killer loose who is killing children. Police track Peter Woodcock down. The real killer in all three cases was a maladjusted teenage boy named, Peter Woodcock, who had been bounced around foster homes all his life, had a number of mental problems, had been in various institutions, was bullied by his classmates, no friends. Very odd character. He would bike around the city, targeting children, sexually molest them. He started murdering children with little Wayne Mallette, in the fall of 1956.

AMT: How did he become a suspect though in her murder?

NH: Prior to killing Wayne, Peter had taken a 10-year-old girl into the Don Valley and he told a crime reporter years later, he fully intended to kill the girl, but he panicked because he didn't want to get lost in the Don Valley at night. Peter Woodcock, ten-year-old girl wandered the dawn for hours, they eventually get out, she phones her parents from a phone booth. Police come and give Peter a talking to and take down his name. After Carole Voyce is killed, January 1957, a group of policemen in North York say hey, boy on a bicycle, creepy kid takes a little girl to the Don Valley, I wonder if this is the same guy we busted you know a year ago for doing a very similar thing. They go through their occurrence reports, they find Peter's name. They find his contact information. He's picked up at school and confesses very, very quickly and without much you know without any coercion or anything like that.

AMT: He confesses to what?

NH: He confesses to the police to killing all three kids, Wayne, Gary, Carole. He also said that he sexually molested about a dozen other children because there had been some cases around the city of children found naked, unconscious, little children being sort of approached by some creepy teenage boy, but they had never advanced to sort of an investigation stage in which arrests were made. So Woodcock freely admits to all of this and that is when you start to see headlines in like the Toronto Star that says. CNE case may be reopened, confession may be false.

AMT: Ron you're granted a new trial. Your lawyer calls Peter Woodcock, as a witness. Take me back to the day he testifies.

RM: Yes that was, one thing I noticed about Peter Woodcock, his eyes. There was nothing there. It was dead, he was like Karla Homolka. And he was quite happy to testify, he was quite seemed quite proud of the things he'd done and he was quite upset at me for taking credit for killing Wayne Mallette. How sick is that?

AMT: Wow, so his testimony is not the only new evidence. Let's get back to the bite marks, they're interpreted differently. What happens?

NH: Well at the first trial, you had dental experts say these bite marks match Ron Moffatt's mouth. Second trial, they basically say well that was wrong and they don't really give any explanation for it. And my theory is just simply, shaky forensics. Bite mark evidence can tell you if it was like a little kid or a grownup who did the biting, but beyond that, it's very difficult to match, unless there's some very obvious imperfection.

AMT: Well it's interesting because we have seen cases in the states where they've been mistaken about bites and so it's interesting that Ron is caught up in the same bad evidence and bad belief.

NH: That's correct.

AMT: So Ron, you are acquitted at your retrial, what does the judge say?

RM: He chastised me. He said it was all my fault because I confessed, I lied. I found that incredible that he didn't understand, but he still at the same time said he recommended that no juvenile ever be interrogated again without a guardian or a legal representation in that interrogation room with you. But he still chastised me and there was no apology, no nothing.

AMT: So this happens, he does that, he chastises you. What was all of this like for your parents?

RM: Oh my parents they probably went through a more terrible ordeal than I did because neighbours that they thought were friends in the neighborhood were cold to them. They were getting terrible phone calls. They were financially strapped from trying to pay legal bills, they were selling furniture. My youngest brother had just been born. They went through hell.

AMT: Did your parents ever talk to you about what happened?

RM: My mother would not talk about this after the case was over. She didn't want to talk about it anymore. The first night I was out, all the reporters were at our house, our apartment and you know questioning me. They still couldn't use my name and after that session with the reporters, my mother said that's it, we will not talk about this. It was a terrible in our life, we just got to get rid of this and I felt the same way.

AMT: So you never talked to them again about it?

RM: I never talked to any of my family till what was it, 2012 I believe that I got a hold of Nate.

AMT: How many years after you being acquitted did you have that conversation with him?

RM: Oh 60 years.

AMT: 60 years. And in those 60 years you never said anything to anyone?

RM: I kept it all to myself. I was married before, I have three grown children, who have grandchildren now. They didn't know about it. My second wife who I was married to 38 years never knew about it.

AMT: And in all of those years, Ron, how did your life go, like what were you doing?

RM: I couldn't function. When I was acquitted, after I was acquitted, I never went back to school. I had no desire to do anything. I was just an emotional mess and I was traumatized. I see a police officer on the street, I would turn around and walk the other way or I'd walk across the street. Anything to avoid the. I resented authority. I couldn't hold a job. I ended up back in Toronto psychiatric hospital for about three months because I was just traumatized. They had their nerve pills, trying to talk to me, console me. I could never function right. I was just kept all this thing inside me, it was affecting me and I didn't realize I got to purge myself of this.

AMT: And eventually you become an editorial cartoonist?

RM: Yes I did. I did this. I've been doing it in the local media here for about 20 years.

AMT: So again, all these years, you tell no one. When did you finally tell your wife and kids?

RM: When I talked to her, she was shocked, said wow, you know you tell her you've been in for murder and all this and I said, what do you think, should I go public? And she agreed that I should, maybe it'll help me.

AMT: So you've been married to Debbie for 38 years now. Debbie's with you. I've got to hear more about this conversation. So Debbie, hello.

DEBBIE MOFFATT: Hi.

AMT: Hi. So you have this conversation, what does he tell you and how do you react?

DM: Well the conversation it went on for a few days. I can say I'm shocked, angered. I felt bad for him, I just a lot of confusion. So we had to talk it out and what should we do about it. Ronnie said that he didn't want to die and not let his family know the truth or have his story told.

AMT: The shock and the anger and you say you felt bad for him too. Talk to me a little bit more about hearing the story of this man you know so well and you love so much and you learn what he went through and that he couldn't tell you.

DM: Well I always knew like Ronnie would never go back to Toronto after I met him, like when he came to the Sault, he never wanted to go back to Toronto. And his family was like he had a bad childhood, so I always thought like he didn't want to go back to Toronto and talk about his life and then I kind of thought well that's because he was so traumatized by his family life. And then when I heard this story, then I understand that it was because of the murder and his childhood combined, so it was a lot to process. So you know we just talked it out and agreed that it would be the best thing for him to tell his story. You know that it would help him, but then at that time I'm thinking like now I have to tell my family. And I've got a daughter, like she's a schoolteacher and I got my little granddaughter. So I had to go and knock on the door and tell them like I have to tell you something and what do you think about this? And we all supported Ron, like right from the beginning we supported him and we knew he was innocent. It was just the shock of finding it out after so many years that was the kicker I guess, as you call it.

AMT: Yeah. Yeah I guess you would have had some hugs and cries.

DM: Many, many and as the book was coming out and Nate was finding out things that Ronnie had even forgot and it's still like it's hard, like I've read the book I don't know, three four times, but I'm angered at the thought that those two other little kids were killed after. It's painful when that little girl was killed and I get to that part in the book. It didn't have to happen if they would just looked a little bit more and found the right person. That would have helped Ron. His life wouldn't have been so emotionally shattered.

AMT: Nate, as you look into all of this, whatever happened to Peter Woodcock?

NH: Peter Woodcock was put on trial in April 1957, specifically for the murder of Carole Voyce. On the stand he also, his confession in which he talked about molesting about a dozen other children was read out. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity, which in the context of the 1950s meant he would be institutionalized until they decided he was better. He was shipped off to Penetanguishene, in the 1960s, he went through all these bizarre, they did these weird experiments with the patients there, where they would give them LSD and other drugs and ship them in a room together and have them talk about their feelings. None of that really worked very well with Peter. He had a very good manipulative streak however and convinced everyone he was getting much better. So he was transferred to a medium security facility, given day passes, he went to see the movie Silence of the Lambs, featuring as you know, a psychopathic mastermind killer, Hannibal Lecter. And in 1991, he was let out with another inmate, another former inmate, and they promptly killed a patient, Dennis Kerr. That Woodcock then proceeded to go to the police station and calmly tell them everything he did, while he was covered in blood. And while he was in lockup, he proceeded to masturbate several times in front of the police. And needless to say, he was never released after that. He was put in the Penetanguishene Psychiatric facility and he did a number of interviews. This is the really freaky thing about Mr. Woodcock is that he voluntarily did all these interviews with media people and he very casually talked about these murders he committed. And at the time he kind of was short, dumpy, bald and had big thick glasses and he looked like an accountant with bad clothing tastes and would in this flat sort of almost witty tone, talk about how he murdered all these people. And he also in conversation with crime writer Mark Borri talked about what Ron had mentioned that he was miffed at Ron for being prosecuted for killing Wayne Malette, for take credit for something he had done and he killed this fourth person because he hadn't killed anyone for a while and you know he wanted to get the old feeling back.

AMT: He's not alive anymore?

NH: No he died in Penetanguishene.

AMT: And so you meet Ron?

NH: Yes.

AMT: And you tell Ron's story in this book. Ron this happened decades ago, but there is some relevance today with how you were dealt with.

RM: It's still going on. People are still being convicted wrongly. The judge at my second trial recommended that no teenager or juvenile be interrogated without a guardian in the room or a legal representation. That still is not happening. So you know, nothing's changed really.

AMT: You can waive or give up your right to talk to a lawyer and or parents before making a statement. Apparently police are supposed to tell you about that, but as you point out, I think as many lawyers will point out, that doesn't always, that's always not clear cut.

NH: Well the issue is under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which is the current federal legislation, young offenders can ask for a lawyer or a guardian. They have the same right as an adult, but it's not mandatory. The interrogation can proceed without a lawyer or a parent.

AMT: The law does say the police must tell you about the right.

NH: Yes you have, the police have to tell you, you have the right to that, but a lot of times, if you're a teenager, you don't process this properly or your first reaction is I don't want to call my mom here, I'm 15, I'm being accused of these offenses. I don't want to have my parents sitting here. When we talk about false confessions, the rate of false confessions skyrockets when you're dealing with young offenders. They're impulsive, they're more gullible, they're more trusting of authority figures and they quite often don't quite understand the fix they're in and they don't know many lawyers. So their natural inclination is not, even if they're informed of their rights, they're not naturally inclined to say oh I want a lawyer or I want my parents here. So there is some feeling and certainly something I would support is having a provision where any official interrogation of a young offender that it should only be conducted with a lawyer or a guardian present, period, even if the kid doesn't ask for it.

AMT: Ron, that's what you're asking for as well, right?

RM: I agree with Nate one hundred percent on this. Yes that's why you should have a, that should be automatic, a guardian or some kind of legal representation should be automatically in the room, when a juvenile for a serious crime is being interrogated.

AMT: Nate, Ron's case has parallels to the Steven Truscott case, another Canadian wrongfully convicted of murder in the 1950s of a young girl when he was a teenager. Steven Truscott of course was convicted as an adult. He was tried as an adult. He says he could see the gallows being made and Ron was tried as a juvenile, as a minor. What impact did that have on Ron's case, the fact that he was a was a minor and charged as one?

NH: It had an enormous impact. As a juvenile, Ron was not named in the media. At the time, that was a blessing, but what it meant was that over the years, people forgot his case, they forgot his name. When Ron contacted me via e-mail in 2012, I had no idea who he was.

AMT: You didn't know this existed?

NH: No I was familiar with the Peter Woodcock serial killer case, I'd never heard of Ron Moffatt. His name faded into obscurity, as he said you know, obviously some of his neighbours and parents friends kind of knew what was going on, but the general public did not. It also meant that he wouldn't be hanged, but his case kind of fell into obscurity where Steven Truscott, tried as an adult, did face the death penalty. He was actually initially sentenced to hang, but it was commuted to life sentence, however his name was used all over the media. So people were familiar with his case, there was a groundswell of support for Steven. His name was constantly in the media and if you say Steven Truscott, people know who that is. So that was an interesting factor that differentiated the cases. Also Steven went through a process where he received an official apology.

AMT: But this case was lost to history and so the lesson of this case of a young kid pushed up against the wall by a star detective was also lost.

NH: Yes it's unfortunate, but Ron's case became kind of a footnote in the bigger Peter Woodcock story.

AMT: And Ron of course is a victim of these crimes as well. He paid a big price.

NH: Absolutely.

AMT: Of being wrongfully convicted. Ron, did you ever get an apology? Did you ever get compensation? Is that something you've wanted?

RM: No. Nothing like that. No apology from a judge, from the crown. Nothing. And there was mention of going after compensation, but the lawyers, my lawyer said at the time that they doubted I would have got it because somebody said that police procedure was right. They followed the proper procedures and they did nothing wrong, which I don't understand. The one thing, can I interject one thing here.

AMT: Sure.

RM: The CNE guard that seen the boy on the bicycle talk to him, why was he never brought to the trial to testify? That always drove me crazy.

AMT: Because he would have recognized that you weren't the kid that talked to him that night. Right?

RM: Yes. He could have solved the whole thing.

AMT: You know, it's all these years later the other questions, but it's important to hear your story. Nate Hendley, it was important that you told Ron's story with him. Thank you both for sharing this with us.

RM: You're welcome.

NH: Thank You for having us.

RM: Yes, thank you.

AMT: Ron Moffatt, wrongfully convicted and jailed as a 14-year-old in 1956, 1957. He and his wife Debbie Moffatt spoke to me from their home in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Nate Hendley is the author of, The Boy on the Bicycle and he joined us in Toronto. Well, when Ron Moffatt was released in 1957, Judge Harold Fuller recommended police should no longer interrogate minors without a guardian or a lawyer present. Six decades later, they still do. Police must inform minors of their right to have a guardian or legal counsel present, but if a juvenile waives that right, he or she will be questioned alone. Mary Birdsell is a lawyer and the executive director of Justice for Children and Youth, a legal aid clinic dedicated to protecting and advancing the legal rights and dignity of children and youth across the country. And she joins me in our Toronto studio. Hi.

MARY BIRDSELL: Hi, good morning.

AMT: You learned about this case in law school?

MB: Well I think they mentioned in the previous part that it's very similar to the Steven Truscott case, but I think you know it is one of the stories of wrongful conviction, especially that relates to minors that out there.

AMT: As you listen to this one, what stays with you?

MB: Well there are so many tragedies all the way around, including sounds like Ron Moffatt's relationships well into his adult life, including now his own parents and of course as Ron Moffatt's wife identified the children who died at the hands of the real killer.

AMT: When a minor is being questioned by police, should they always have a parent or guardian there with them?

MB: It's an interesting question. The law is very clear that young people are entitled upon arrest and detention to speak to a lawyer and to a parent or an adult they trust. And the police actually have an obligation to help the person find both the lawyer and the adult they trust and the law is also very clear that if they have consulted with them then that person must be present during any questioning, unless the young person waives their right. So you know it is complicated and I think that it came up in the previous discussion that you know sometimes young people might not want that adult present. One of the concerns that we sometimes have is that that the adult person is really meant to be there for moral support and we're still concerned that teenagers, adolescence should have access to meaningful legal advice because sometimes the sort of moral support that a young person might get might not be what would be perfect legal advice.

AMT: Could a parent or guardian make things worse?

MB: Potentially you know probably with good intentions they might suggest things like you should tell the police everything you know. You know you should do all these kinds of things that may or may not be good legal advice in the circumstances.

AMT: OK. Now we asked the Ministry of Justice whether it is considering a change to make it mandatory for an adult to be present when a minor is being questioned. We got a statement that didn't directly answer that, it said the current law says that a minor has the right to have a parent guardian or lawyer present, if they choose. Are you aware of any decision about making the presence of an adult mandatory? Are they looking at this?

MB: I'm not aware of any decisions. It doesn't of course mean there aren't any. But I mean the Supreme Court of Canada has been quite clear about the police obligations and the importance of additional procedural safeguards for teenagers because they you know don't have as much life experience, they are at a developing stage of maturity and brain function. And the significance of their vulnerability to being coerced, to being pressured, to feeling you know anxious and vulnerable in the context of their interaction with police to greater subject to influence and suggestion. You know the law, it's just one of those fine points that's not always interesting to people, but it is actually the case that the adult must be present, unless the young person sort of in a way that they comprehend what they are giving up waives that right.

AMT: And that's key right because there was a case that went to the Supreme Court, the case of a boy known as LTH. What happened there?

MB: Well the question was in the case the way the Supreme Court of Canada dealt with it was a question about whether he actually understood what the police were saying to him.

AMT: Because he had cognitive difficulties.

MB: Exactly he had cognitive difficulties and some learning disability issues and part of the question was about whether the police knew this or ought to have known this. And so what the Supreme Court of Canada has said is that the police have to to investigate this question, they have to look into the question about does the young person really understand, you know a nod and a waive is insufficient and or and even just a little signature saying, oh yeah I get it. What you said to me is insufficient. The police have to actually look at the young person, what do they know about them and you know they may even, there may even be a question in certain circumstances about whether they should be inquiring further, should they phone a parent or an adult and find out. What is this young person's capacity like in terms of understanding things?

AMT: So even the most clever of 14-year-olds, has only 14 years of life experience. So is there a problem with giving them that ability to make that decision to waive a right to have someone?

MB: Well I think this is the balance that the court is looking at and that lawyers I think in everyday practice are looking at and the police should be looking at as well, is that you know young people are the ones who are being affected. They are standing alone, facing the criminal justice system to a certain extent. And so we want to ensure that they have these additional procedural protections. They want to ensure that they have access to support and guidance and assistance in making decisions, but we also want to give them an opportunity and one of the things that came up in the earlier session was that you know a young person might say, well I don't want my parents there while I'm making this you know statement and we have to give that a certain amount of respect or a lot of respect, that it may be the case that while they're actually making a statement, the young person is embarrassed or ashamed or.

AMT: Or may have a very difficult relationship with parents.

MB: Exactly I was going to say is that the parent relationship might not actually be the support of one that we hope it's going to be, which is part of why I think the adult position of trust is really important, but so is the legal advice. That piece is really crucial.

AMT: What happens if a statement made by a minor to police has proven to be involuntary?

MB: So that the voluntariness you've identified the key issue, is the question and if it were found to be involuntary, then it would not be admissible in court. And some of the problems with these things and pardon me if I'm jumping ahead, but it's all about how the rubber hits the road, if you will. So you know we have laws, they're in place, they say certain things, the Supreme Court of Canada says really important things that are meant to guide everybody's practice, but is that actually how it works day to day, is one of the difficult questions and how that life on the ground works for young people, especially young people who are vulnerable or more vulnerable in the criminal justice system is a difficult question.

AMT: Mary Birdsell, thanks for coming in.

MB: Thank you very much.

AMT: Mary Birdsell is the executive director of Justice for Children and Youth. She joined me in our Toronto studio.

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Dec. 3, 2018 episode transcript

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