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The Current Transcript for January 15, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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[Music]

[Gunshots]

[Sirens]

[Police radio chatter]

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and this is a special edition of The Current. Today, we continue our week long series, One Bullet, a CBC investigation into the impact of gun violence in our country, one bullet, one person at a time.

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VOICE 1: I'm a little more cautious now in when I'm walking and when I'm looking at em, where I'm going and it makes you realize how fast things can unfold.

VOICE 2: I was like in shock. I can't believe I just did that and I'm still walking and conscious.

VOICE 3: Where's my phone. Call 9-1-1. That's all I thought of.

VOICE 4: Making that call I was darn sure I didn't want that gun pointed at the young lady. I had to make that call. Is it easy to make that call? No.

AMT: Witnesses, survivors, family, police and in half an hour, we'll also hear from jurors who have been deeply affected by gun violence. The most recent statistics for Canada show that in 2017 there were about 7700 victims of crimes involving firearms, a number that's on the rise. Today, we're looking at another cold fact. Four out of five victims of solved homicides are known to their shooter and it's this sad fact that underlies our next story, a tale of a woman and the man she loved from Penticton, B.C.

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One Bullet: A heavy burden

Guests: Jessica Linzey, Donna Irwin, Brandy Cummings, Ian McKay

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DONNA IRWIN: I've got so many journals to go through right now. So I started writing, Sunday, May 26, 2013. The journey has begun to get justice for my sister Lynn. Margaret and I made the road trip up from Vancouver to Kelowna yesterday. As I was packing my suitcase for this journey, it didn't feel the same. This packing is different. I pulled my suitcase out of storage and the dread came over me that I have never experienced before. I felt cold and numb. How am I going to do this? I'm packing to attend my sister's murder trial in Kelowna. Does it matter what I pack? I fill my suitcase with three weeks of clothes. It doesn't seem right, but we have waited for this day.

JESSICA LINZEY: That Anna Maria is how Donna Irwin began her diary six years ago.

AMT: On the way to her sister's murder trial. What an entry. Jessica Linzey is a producer with The Current, the co-producer of our series, One Bullet. Jessica, who is Donna Irwin? Where does this all begin?

JL: Well I met Donna at her condo here in Vancouver.

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[Buzzer]

DONNA IRWIN: Hello.

JL: Hi Donna, it's Jessica here from CBC.

JL: She invited us in to talk about how her life has changed since the death of her sister.

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DONNA IRWIN: Welcome to my humble abode.

JL: Now when you meet Donna you are immediately struck with how put together she is. She's about 60. She's trim and walking into her place is a bit like taking a trip into a Vegas wedding planner studio. She is a huge Elvis fan. Memorabilia everywhere. There's even a big cat out of The King in the corner of her living room.

AMT: OK. Big fan.

JL: Yeah. She's divorced with grown kids and she was living a comfortable life until it was suddenly and radically altered the night her sister was killed by her common-law partner.

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DONNA IRWIN: You hear about these stories all the time on the news and I always say that poor family and then all of a sudden, we're that poor family. And it just starts from there and you get thrown into the justice system. You don't even know what to expect.

AMT: So she becomes that poor family. What happened to her sister?

JL: Well Lynn Kalmring was shot at close range by Keith Wiens late one August night in 2011. It happened in the home that they shared in a gated community in Penticton in B.C. Donna was at her office when she got the news from another sister.

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DONNA IRWIN: She asked me if I was sitting down and I said yeah and she goes Lynn's gone. I said what do you mean she's gone? Where'd she go? And she goes he shot her last night. He murdered her and my whole world just collapsed. I collapsed at my office and before I even knew what had happened, we had the TVs on in my office and there was the news. And everybody was going Donna it's on the news. So before we even got to Penticton, there was pictures of them taking Lynn's body out of the house. That's how we saw it.

AMT: I can't imagine how that image would stay with her.

JL: Yeah Anna Maria and so much of this case is about shocking moments like this. I met Donna, I learned the story was still evolving and that's seven years later, but I'll come back to that in a bit. Another striking thing about this case is the fact that Keith Wiens is a retired member of the RCMP.

AMT: That would have been big news.

JL: Yeah exactly and the officers who took the case on, they were investigating one of their own. I spoke with Sergeant Clayton Wiebe about what he remembered about going into their home that night.

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CLAYTON WIEBE: It was very well kept. It was immaculate actually. On your right it was a living area and then you proceed a little bit further. To your left there's a hallway, definitely a spare bedroom.

JL: He can recall every room in vivid detail because of how this case stood out to him. I also spoke with Cpl. Don Wrigglesworth, the watch commander that night.

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DON WRIGGLESWORTH: It hits home a little bit because here's a person that was someone who applied to become an RCMP officer, which I did. And graduated, which I did. And probably felt that same moment of pride to be Canadian and represent that iconic image of wearing the red serge, as I did it. But what was he exposed to over the years and how was it that he dealt with it or didn't deal with it that caused him to get to where he was or who he did become. It's a job that often robs you of your heart and soul and you know I do look at it and say where did things go wrong that it came to this? It's unsettling for sure.

AMT: So Jessica, clearly both Don Wrigglesworth and Clayton Wiebe was shaken by the fact that Wiens was a former cop.

JL: Yeah and the whole call was a tough one. When Cpl. Wrigglesworth arrived on the scene, he didn't have a code to get past the gates of the community where Keith and Lynn lived. So he actually had to boost his colleagues over the wall and he was immediately disoriented. It was totally deserted and every house there looked exactly the same, just street after street of these beige ranchers.

AMT: And when he finally got to the house, what did he find?

JL: Well Keith was out front. He was wearing only jeans, no shirt. He was handcuffed and sitting quietly in the back of the cruiser.

AMT: And inside the house?

JL: Well I asked Cpl. Wrigglesworth to describe that experience for me.

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DON WRIGGLESWORTH: OK I smell, what I smell in the air and as I come around the corner and observe death. It's something you shouldn't get used to and it's something I had not seen at that point for a domestic situation and it's something I dont want to get used to.

AMT: You can hear it in his voice and even how he describes it. It sounds like he's right back there in that house.

JL: Yeah and it was a terrible scene. Lynn was lying on the floor, at the foot of the bed. She was wearing a purple housecoat. She'd been shot in the face and there are a couple of details that just didn't sit right with him. For one, she was gripping a knife. And when I talked to Sergeant Wiebe about it, he also felt that that knife was out of place. He couldn't see how she'd still be holding on to it after being shot and in fact, that's what the court would find as well.

AMT: That Keith Wiens planted the knife?

JL: That's what the evidence showed, yeah.

AMT: What, to make it look like self defense?

JL: That's right.

AMT: What do we know about what actually happened that night?

JL: Well the court documents tell us that Lynn and Keith had just come home from a few days camping with friends. They had dinner together, some drinks and then they had an argument, the same one they'd been having for years about money and about whether to get married. And then shortly after midnight, Keith pulled a gun from his bedside table and he shot Lynn from less than two feet away.

AMT: And he shot her in the face. And then what happened?

JL: He called 9-1-1 and according to the transcript of the call, he told the operator that "something got out of hand here tonight" and that Lynn was dead.

AMT: I know Lynn's sister Donna got the news the next day, but Lynn also had family in Penticton, did she not?

JL: She did. Her daughter, Brandy Cummings, showed me the house where Lynn was killed and then she talked about not being able to understand how this could happen to someone like her mum.

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BRANDY CUMMINGS: She was a healer. She was a nurse and when she walked in a room, the smile she had, everyone looked at her. Everybody looked at her because she had like a light. I think for someone to snuff out a light like her, it's like killing an angel. It's like really, it's evil.

AMT: What did Brandy tell you about how the investigation unfolded, after all we're talking about Penticton. It's a small place like I'm guessing a lot of people would have known Keith.

JL: Yeah, that's right. And she told me that one of the hardest things was that she was being asked to trust the RCMP.

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BRANDY CUMMINGS: All I could think was, you're a boys club, you're going to protect your own. I was mad and these poor RCMP officers that were dealing with us, I came at em both barrells and they took it so well, but I thought for sure that they were going to protect him.

AMT: She believed he'd get away with it.

JL: She did and it got worse. Keith Wiens was set free on bail within a couple of weeks. I'm told there was nothing unusual about this, but for Brandy it was proof of favoritism.

AMT: And did she worry, she'd run into him?

JL: Oh absolutely. Brandy had her first panic attack only days later and at one point, she actually went to the police and just have a listen to what she told them.

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BRANDY CUMMINGS: You need to watch me, I said because I'm going to drive through the house with my car. If I see him in the street I'm going to run him over. I live in this community. We were actually afraid to sleep at night. We were afraid to be out anywhere. And I thought what's wrong with this picture?

AMT: So she was afraid. She was also worried she'd kill him.

JL: She was, yeah.

AMT: Did they ever run into each other?

JL: No and there are a couple reasons for that. For one, Keith Wiens broke the conditions of his bail within a couple of months. And that panic attack that Brandy had, well they kept coming and it crippled her.

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BRANDY CUMMINGS: I couldn't leave my house for almost two years, like actually walk out of my like a phobic. I couldn't go in a store. I couldn't do, I couldn't drive. I was running red lights and like just completely gone.

AMT: And this was all before the case even went to trial?

JL: Yeah and in the meantime, Brandy almost lost her business. She and her husband run a tattoo shop in Penticton and she struggled to be a parent to her daughter who was only six-years-old when Lynn was killed.

AMT: So when the case finally does go to trial, what happens?

JL: Well the first thing is the defense argues successfully to have the trial moved from Penticton to Kelowna. But the thing that stood out most to me was the effect it all had on one of Keith Wiens' defence lawyers. A guy called Ian McKay. Now McKay already tried a number of homicide cases. He says 16 or 17, when he took this one on and he knew that every case has its own emotional toll, but this one he says was different.

AMT: In what way?

JL: Well he describes entering the courthouse every day as running the gauntlet of the family. He said loved ones of homicide victims, they tend to direct their anger and grief at defense counsel and he gets why. I mean he's representing the person who killed their loved one.

AMT: And as you said earlier, Keith Wiens' argument was self defense.

JL: It was. So it was emotional. Lynn's family, they packed the court room every day and there were a lot of tears.

AMT: And all of that got to Ian McKay?

JL: It did.

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IAN MCKAY: When I was young, my dad's a lawyer in Regina and he used to do a lot of criminal law, a lot of homicide cases. My mom once said to me, in her view lawyers only had a finite number of big cases in them and I didn't really get it. I thought that was a romantic notion, until you started doing this yourself. So you go through these hard ones and especially this one, when I'm away from my family so much and my kids are young and what not. It took a huge piece of me.

JL: And in fact Anna Maria, he told me that he didn't take another homicide case for years because of how draining this one was.

AMT: And this was a long trial as well, wasn't it six weeks?

JL: That's right.

AMT: How did the family deal with that?

JL: Well Donna was the only one to sit through the entirety of the trial, as she was never called to testify and she took detailed notes, which she'd type up at the end of every day and she says that helped her to cope. But even so, at one point during the trial, she ended up in emergency.

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DONNA IRWIN: My whole body was just shaking. My heart was racing. So I just called 9-1-1 and the ambulance came and took me to the hospital and I was laying in there and the doctor came to me and he says is there anything going on? What brought you in here? And I just started to cry and said my sister was murdered and I'm at her murder trial and I can't even handle it. So my body was just exhausted.

AMT: It was obviously mentally exhausting too.

JL: And in that court room there were pictures from the crime scene that Donna wasn't supposed to see, but she did. And the way she described it to me is that she saw her sister's beautiful long blond hair in a pool of blood and she'll never be able to shake that.

AMT: Did Brandy see those pictures too?

JL: Yeah she did, the day she was called to testify. It was her birthday and she told me it was one of the worst days of her life.

AMT: And those pictures were part of the evidence. The jurors would have had to see them too.

JL: Yeah and it's interesting, everyone we spoke with thought about that. They thought about the jury. So here's Brandy again.

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BRANDY CUMMINGS: How could they see that and go back to their daily lives? How could they go home that night for dinner after looking at these photos and I don't wish it on my worst enemy, I don't.

AMT: Jessica, how long did the jury deliberate?

JL: Less than six hours, Anna Maria. Brandy wasn't in court when the verdict was delivered. She was at home in Penticton. It was her daughter's birthday.

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BRANDY CUMMINGS: I was waiting by that phone, all day long, pacing up and down the sidewalk. Guilty, not guilty, guilty, not guilty. And so I got that phone call and I just remember yelling it out, guilty. I yelled it out.

AMT: So the jury finds Keith Wiens guilty of second degree murder. What was his sentence?

JL: Life with 13 years before he would be eligible to apply for parole.

AMT: You spoke at length with Ian McKay, Keith Wiens' lawyer, what did he tell you about that verdict?

JL: Well he told me it was tough, but that they got a fair trial and then he told me a story about what happened afterwards. He and his colleagues were just leaving the liquor store when a car pulls up.

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IAN MCKAY: And I hear this voice. Looks like it's going to be a good party and it was car with four people. It was the family of the deceased. The one saying that was one of the ones that had been more vocal during the trial towards me. I walked over to the car, stuck up my hand and I said I am really sorry for your loss and she started crying. As she takes my hand and she said, I'm sorry. I said why? For the way I treated you during this. And I said there's no need to apologize, I get it. I have no idea what you're going through, that sort of thing. She started crying even more. I had a, I actually had a tear going down my cheek as well because it was raw because they had lost. And no one deserves to lose somebody and so that is a moment that I will go to my grave remembering.

AMT: Wow. Were you ever able to speak with Keith Wiens?

JL: No he declined our request to speak with him and our attempts to reach his family went unanswered, but Ian McKay he says, think what you will of the man, but it had a profound effect on him as well.

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IAN MCKAY: He loved Lynn. He was devastated by it. It happened in an instant. It changed Keith Wiens forever for the obvious reasons that he's been convicted of this and he will be in jail or under the watchful eye of the parole authorities for the rest of his life.

JL: And here Anna Maria, I want to go back to Sergeant Clayton Wiebe, the lead inspector, because he wrestled with emotions of his own through this case too.

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CLAYTON WIEBE: I was very shocked by it. Part of the business in the serious crime world, you may get called out after midnight for a homicide or a stabbing or something like that, but when you get called and you're told it's a retired RCMP member. That, you don't, I don't think many people can say they've had that call and I'll probably never have another one like it, I hope. I really hope. I think about it. Yeah, I think about it.

JL: And all these years later, he still keeps a photo of Lynn on his desk.

AMT: It's obviously stayed with him. And what about Brandy, how's she doing?

JL: Well take a listen.

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BRANDY CUMMINGS: It seems a lot of my life was taken away. I don't have the same pleasure that I do. You know I have a hard time being happy and I have a daughter who depends on me and it's some days, I don't feel like I'm fully present cause I'm still stuck there. Fully.

AMT: And you mentioned at the start that this story was still evolving when you met Donna. What did you mean by that, Jessica?

JL: Well after Keith was convicted, Donna and the family sued for wrongful death. They wanted Lynn's share of the couple's estate, roughly half a million dollars. But the legal wranglings in this case dragged on and on and the family only settled late last year.

AMT: That's a long time.

JL: Yeah and a series of things happened. The family was dealing with Keith Wiens' lawyers until.

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DONNA IRWIN: He decided he was going to fire his lawyers and he was going to self represent himself from prison and that's what he did. And then the handwritten letters from him started arriving to my lawyer's office.

AMT: Handwritten letters?

JL: Yeah and Donna believes Keith Wiens did this to heap more pain on the family.

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DONNA IRWIN: The way he wrote about Lynn like she was nothing. She deserved nothing. She had nothing when I met her. Why should she get anything now? He offered our family $25,000 and told us basically to hit the road and the lawyer said, you get more if she was interested in a car accident than being murdered.

AMT: And they've settled now. Where does that leave Donna?

JL: Well have a listen to what she told me.

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DONNA IRWIN: It was almost like a relief to me that I've been fighting for her for seven years, but I never grieved for her because I didn't have time. And so now I'm just starting to grieve for her now. I'm like Lynn we did it, but now I have to, I don't have anything to fight for now.

AMT: It's her sister and it's still so raw.

jl: Yeah and in a way I think the saddest part in all of this is how everyone who knew Lynn spoke about how she loved to love. She had three ex-husbands, all of whom testified on her behalf and spoke very kindly of her. And you know how I mentioned that Donna was a huge Elvis fan. Well we asked her if there was a song of his that encapsulated Lynn for her.

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DONNA IRWIN: Love me tender, love me true. That's all Lynn was looking for. She just wanted to be loved. I'd say to her, she'd say and get married again? I'm not buying anymore wedding presents and she would have these big weddings. She would wear a white dress, we'd all go and off we'd go to this wedding and then again, I said Lynn and she goes, I just like being married. So Love Me Tender and Don't Be Cruel to a Heart That's True.

AMT: Such a heartbreak. Jessica, thank you.

JL: You're welcome, Anna Maria.

AMT: Jessica Linzey is a producer with The Current. She and our documentary editor, Joan Webber, are the co-producers of our series, One Bullet, a CBC investigation into the impact of gun violence in our country, one bullet, one person at a time. In the next half hour, I will speak to people we don't often hear from, the jurors who are tasked with weighing the disturbing evidence in cases such as the story we just heard. If you have a story to share or questions about gun violence in Canada, please contact us. You can leave a message for us at this number 1-888-416-8333 or you can email us by going to our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. We're on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC or you can find us on Facebook. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One and Sirius XM.

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Jurors in traumatic trials need counselling and support, not just 'a coffee and a handshake': advocate

Guests: Patrick Fleming, Micheala Swan

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. As we continue our week long series, One Bullet, a CBC investigation into the impact of gun violence in our country, one bullet, one person at a time.

[Music]

AMT: In our last half hour, we heard about some of the lives that were deeply affected by the murder of a Penticton woman, Lynn Kalmring. She was shot in the face by her common law partner in August of 2011. And as we heard, her family, the police, the defence lawyer, all wondered about what the jurors in this case must have gone through.

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IAN MCKAY: That jury had weigh for six weeks, had to decide the fate of a man and that is very, can be very trying.

DONNA IRWIN: I can't even imagine, somebody off the street and they had a binder that was over 350 at the autopsy and the crime scenes and I saw some of their faces. I couldn't even imagine.

AMT: And that's where we begin this half hour, with jurors from two different murder trials.

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PATRICK FLEMING: I don't think that bullet ever stopped.

[Music]

PATRICK FLEMING: It may stop traveling, but don't think it ever stops emotionally.

MICHEALA SWAN: Yeah I just say I don't think people have any idea what's behind that. Not only the impacts of loss and grief of anybody involved in a court case, the impact of the people that serve it, it is absolutely massive.

PATRICK FLEMING: You know how much pain has been cause and that pain lingers down to just not the victims, the victim's family. It just keeps going.

MICHEALA SWAN: You know I still see the family and the judge and people in our community. You make eye contact and you probably know you recognize each other and you just keep walking because you can't talk about it. I'll live with it the rest of my life, the things that I felt.

AMT: Micheala Swan and Patrick Fleming, two voices we rarely get to hear. Jurors are people you may not automatically think of when you consider who is touched by a single bullet. Michaela is in Kamloops. Patrick is in Toronto. Michaela, how were you feeling when you were picked for jury duty?

MICHEALA SWAN: You know what I'm excited. When I got that summons in the paper, I feel like it's my duty in Canada to serve as a juror and I'm really proud of the justice system that we have and that you get to actually be judged in front of a jury of your peers.

AMT: Patrick, what about you?

PATRICK FLEMING: Yeah, I was looking forward to it as well. I thought it was going to be interesting. I didn't think there'd be any harm in going and seeing how the justice committee worked. So I was sort of looking forward to it and I was sort of hoping to be picked.

AMT: When you realized it was a trial for murder, did you have any qualms?

PATRICK FLEMING: I didn't have any qualms. I was still interested in it. I still wanted to see how the system worked. So I was still good for it.

AMT: Okay so tell me a little bit about the cases, the trial for which you served as a jury in BC, Michaela.

MICHEALA SWAN: So the trial that I was picked for was a first degree murder out of Salmon Arm and it was actually under the Youth Criminal Justice Act because during the time of the crime, the accused in my case was only 16 years of age and at that point in time accused of killing a 21-year-old with a gun.

AMT: And what was the back story that you learned?

MICHEALA SWAN: The story that we learnt was actually it was called the Salmon Arm love triangle and it was two gentlemen that had been dating the same female.

AMT: And so she was also charged, but you weren't part of her trial?

MICHEALA SWAN: That's correct, yeah. She was charged and pled guilty to second degree murder as an adult, actually.

AMT: But the accused in your case was a minor then still, was 16-years-old.

MICHEALA SWAN: Was 16 at the time of the crime, which was 2008, but this was 2016 at the time of the court case.

AMT: And Patrick, what about the case that you were involved with in Ontario?

PATRICK FLEMING: The case I was involved in was a murder case and attempted murder case. A young woman she hired some thugs to come in and kill her parents in their own home. Pulled her father out of bed and her mum was home soaking her feet after dancing.

AMT: And the mother was killed and the father was severely injured.

PATRICK FLEMING: Yes they took them both down into the basement. They put towels and blankets over their head. They shot the husband first in the face and then shot his wife three times and the fatal shot was to the back of the head.

AMT: And when this first made the news, it was believed to be a home invasion.

PATRICK FLEMING: Correct. It was supposed to be, it's a botched home invasion crime.

AMT: Okay and so eventually the daughter is charged along with three others at this trial?

PATRICK FLEMING: So there was four. There was the young lady, Jennifer, who hired her boyfriend, on and off boyfriend and two others.

AMT: And when this trial started, how difficult was it to hear like were you getting pictures of the crime scene? What was it like for you?

PATRICK FLEMING: We weren't expecting the court case to start right away. We thought we were still picking jurors. So we walked in to the courtroom and we all sat down and then all of a sudden the Crown played a 9-1-1 call and then we knew were in to a case. It was a bit, it was sort of disturbing listening to the 9-1-1 call and it was very unexpected to hear that that day.

AMT: And I guess as the days went on you got a lot of graphic evidence?

PATRICK FLEMING: At first it was listening to her father on the stand as a witness, which was a little bit heartbreaking because you're looking at his daughter and there he is on the stand testifying against her. The graphic photos didn't come in until later on when the coroners and the paramedic and the blood forensic people started getting involved in the case.

AMT: And Michaela, what was it like for you hearing and seeing evidence?

MICHEALA SWAN: You know it was okay in the beginning. We didn't start with anything graphic quite like that, but we got the backstory and then we didn't get into the graphics until the pathologist really went through each one of the bullets and of course then you have pictures of the autopsy and describing the damage. There was three bullets that ultimately killed the victim in our trial and of course each path of the bullet and every damage and the pictures associated with that was quite intense as well as even just then that's when we got the pictures of the body in the actual crime scene, which was in an elementary school field.

AMT: And if I remember the news reports correctly, the victim in the case in BC had been lured to the school yard and they were going to scare him, but instead the accused whose trial you were at, shot him and then got closer and shot him again.

MICHEALA SWAN: Yeah that's correct. So the girl met him up at the high school and they walked down from the high school to the elementary school grounds where the accused in my case was about 30 feet out in the bushes lining up in the sight with a gun and that she, it was planned that she would run into the bushes to go to the bathroom and that's when he was shot the first time and then they ran up and put two more bullets in his back as he lay on the ground.

AMT: Had you ever heard of that kind of thing? Was that your first experience with people talking about killing someone?

MICHEALA SWAN: Besides what's on television or in a movie that we've seen, certainly nothing that was real life experience with this. This was definitely my first exposure to that.

AMT: What's that like Michaela?

MICHEALA SWAN: I want to say there's a bit of a surreal element to it. That you're hearing this and you're watching the faces in the courtroom and you're hearing this evidence. I do have a career in the medical system, so I certainly understood that part. There's other parts of the case that was more impactful to me and it was ultimately the investigation with the RCMP involved and Mr. Big Operation that went on for a significant amount of time.

AMT: Remind us what a Mr. Big Operation is.

MICHEALA SWAN: So a Mr. Big operation is when they ultimately try to bring in one of the suspects into a gang-like organization and through that organization they take her out to do different jobs to prove that she is potentially a criminal and then ultimately she has to confess some of her criminal past to sort of the Mr. Big of this operation.

AMT: And you found it hard to wrap your head around the Mr. Big thing?

MICHEALA SWAN: I did. I did. Because as I took out of it like they did normal life things in areas of the communities that I certainly have goneto and were apart and I was like wow could that have been beside me, the undercover RCMP officer with an accused victim at a concert or at the casino or down in the park when my kids were playing on the playground and looking around I was like wow. It just made me question I'm like I wonder if that's an undercover operation. That was something that I had to work through after the trial was over that I didn't expect.

AMT: Patrick, what about you, were you ready for the kinds of things you were hearing at this trial?

PATRICK FLEMING: I don't think you can ever really prepare yourself for these things. You see it on TV. You listen to it, you hear about it, live in a small town. It's different when you hear about it sitting in a courtroom, watching and listening to the accused and what was done. It sort of wakes you up. It's a wake up call that this could happen anywhere, anytime and it does give you a different perspective on life in general.

AMT: And the trial that you were sitting through Patrick, was a long trial, it was 10 months long.

PATRICK FLEMING: That is correct.

AMT: Were you sequestered during that whole time? Did you go back and forth from home. How did it work?

PATRICK FLEMING: When you're sequestered, it was, we were only sequestered after we were charged by the judge and we were sequestered for four full days.

AMT: OK and so before that you're going back and forth, but you're not working ten months.

PATRICK FLEMING: No. Not working.

AMT: What was that like then to be there as the months ticked by? What kind of weight did that point on you and your family?

PATRICK FLEMING: It puts a lot of weight on you. Being away from work that long is hard by itself. And then are coming home was a little bit different every day. You end up isolating yourself a little bit because you can't share your stories and your day, you know. Uusually we have a balance in life, we come, we express how our day was. I found being a juror you come and you're avoiding topics and you're not just there emotionally or physically for your family. By the end of it, you're by yourself basically.

AMT: Michaela, do you want to talk a little bit about that too. What was that like to try to like live those two worlds?

MICHEALA SWAN: Yeah I definitely can understand what Patrick's referring to. My trial was actually only three weeks in terms of coming and going in the court room. But given the complexity, we actually deliberated for the same amount of time. We were sequestered for the four full days before we came to an agreement and the coming and going, you know court usually sat about 10 to 3, 10 to 4 for the hours during the day and it's true like your brain that night when you go home, you're still processing everything that you heard and trying to digest it. And you aren't allowed to talk about it with anybody or you know how you come up to your opinion, you really are on your own. But I found it more of a struggle really during the sequesterment. When you're sequestered that's when you actually have zero contact with the outside world and you know that takes away all of your normal elements of how you cope and deal with stress. At least for me personally when I'm going through things, I talk with my friends, I talk with my husband and like all of those normal comforts of choice to help manage stress are removed when your sequestered as a juror.

AMT: There's not anything either one of you would sort of anticipate right, can't really anticipate it until you experience it.

PATRICK FLEMING: I don't think you could anticipate it. You hear about it. You may read about it, but when you live it, it's different.

AMT: Michaela, you're a mom, am I right?

MICHEALA SWAN: Yeah that's correct, I have two girls.

AMT: And so the idea that you're judging you know you're part of a jury that is judging someone who was a teen at the time, did that have any effect on you as a parent? Did you have to kind of put it aside, did you think about it?

MICHEALA SWAN: Absolutely I would think that was one of the biggest struggles for me personally because you put your hat on, your mom, your parent hat and you're all of the people involved in this were young, 21, 17, 16 and you just wonder as you're going through all of that evidence, how did this happen? How could this have been avoided and what was missed as a parent as these youth were going through life to end up in this type of situation? You know you see and learn about these families. The victim's mom was there and testified and you see them, like these are real people. This wasn't a big what you would see maybe on TV that you know these criminal elements that's in our society and as you deliberate you really do think about the fact that this is a 16-year-old during the time. It's interesting how you have to balance your personal opinion to be a judge of the facts of the case.

AMT: Patrick, what about you, do you have kids?

PATRICK FLEMING: No children, but I can understand exactly where she's come from because emotionally it's hard to push your emotions to the side and you can't feel empathy or sympathy for anyone in the courtroom, but you know how much pain has been caused.

AMT: I guess you would see it with people who who take the stand and testify, but also did you see the families of the victims or the accused listening in the trial as well?

PATRICK FLEMING: Absolutely. Defendants' family would always show up, whether it was with warm food for them. We'd end up walking in with them, behind you or in front of you, going through security.

AMT: What's that like?

That an emotional part of it too. You see them from the outside of the courtroom too, parking their cars and we're parking our cars beside them.

AMT: Michaela, same thing with you?

MICHEALA SWAN: Yeah we had the exact same thing and I was the foreman of the jury and I'll never forget having to come in to the court room and actually deliver the verdict that we had come up with and the thoughts in my mind going out there at the time and knowing you know who's going to be disappointed, who's going to be happy and all of that. And you can't like Patrick said, you can't necessarily have empathy for them. You're there just to judge the facts of the case, but it is it's heart wrenching in terms of that process. After we delivered the guilty verdict there we are walking out to our cars and I can see the family of the accused at their car and you can't talk to them, you can't say anything and you just get in your car and drive home and this was you know for it was about 10:30 on a Saturday night.

AMT: Patrick, you were the foreman as well for the trial, were you not?

PATRICK FLEMING: That is correct, I had to deliver the verdict as well.

AMT: What was that like for you?

PATRICK FLEMING: It was nerve wracking that's for sure. You walk in and the whole courtroom was full and it was silent and they were just waiting for one thing and it was waiting for the piece of paper that you had in your hand to be read out loud. When it was read out loud, some of the defendants family members went screaming in the court room. It was hard, it was very hard. They did the crime, but it's still very emotional, definitely.

AMT: What was it like to go home that night then, Michaela, for you? First of all, it was late.

MICHEALA SWAN: Yeah it was late and really I had no contact and I remember the sheriffs bring out the containers that had all our cell phones in them and we're all turning them on and they're beeping because they're getting four days worth of messages. I just wanted to get home, I was exhausted. I wanted my own bed. I hadn't slept very much for days. Just being the foreman, I just remember lying in my hotel room at night trying to think of ways to bring 12 strangers to a unanimous decision and I just wanted to be with my husband and be with my kids. But you know you miss out on four days and one of my daughters had a pretty significant head injury while I was off and coming home to that like you just have to jump right back into real life and so there isn't a dedicated time to process or debrief and we had about a 10 minute session with the judge following the verdict, just pretty much saying thank you for our service. And I did ask at that time if there was any counselling available, just even as a group, as a group of jurors or anything and at the time the judge wasn't aware of anything offered and away we went home and I was back to work on Monday morning and my brain was just it was a mess, It was constantly thinking about what was going on and how I came to my decision and did I make the right decision. Yeah and just the whole process and things that I had seen about how other people on our jury processed and panelled. My heart was empathetic to all of our experiences in what was going on.

AMT: Patrick, as he's listening to you, I see him almost like nodding in agreement. Patrick she's speaking your language there.

PATRICK FLEMING: Absolutely. At the backdoor, home, tried to pick up the pieces and then the alarm went off and off to work I went, overwhelmed with many different emotions. You feel guilty a little bit.

AMT: Why?

PATRICK FLEMING: The guilt? I don't know, you just feel guilty for some reason. You want to make sure you made the right decision with everybody. It's very odd, the feelings. Maybe guilt's not the right wording for it.

AMT: But it's some kind of weight you feel.

PATRICK FLEMING: There is weight there definitely. You know I thought once I got home, I could just wash it off me, go have a shower and it would be all off me. It stuck on me. Really you know I was very sensitive. I was very irritable. So yeah a lot of emotions come out of you.

AMT: You both ended up speaking to a House of Commons committee, which looked at ways of better supporting jurors in Canada. What did you tell them, Michaela?

MICHEALA SWAN: Some of the recommendations that I shared was really about the need to improve the information provided to jurors, even before being picked because I really think depending on where you're at in your life, your capacity to take on an additional stressful situation just may not be there. And then of course, I really felt that there should be support for jurors after the verdict and this really does vary across the provinces in Canada because it is a provincial jurisdiction and in British Columbia at the time, they would do a debrief. There had to be a minimum of six jurors interested in a group debrief and since this report came out they actually have changed it to offer four one to one counselling sessions. As well I was really into talking about what is the implications of the secrecy rule following jury duty because like Patrick said, there's things that we just can't talk about or share. We're not supposed to talk about that stuff. And are we even allowed to talk about it in a counselling session? I did go through a few counselling sessions myself following my jury duty, just to process things and I sat there saying I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you this because of that. So is there a way that in the rules we could separate it, so we were able to talk to a clinician to help you process some of that just if it's related to health.

AMT: Patrick, what about you, what did you tell them?

PATRICK FLEMING: Our recommendations, there's lots of changes that neesd to be made, all the way from wages. There has to be proper orientation when you first are picked and selected, I think that would be a good comfort.

AMT: So you know what you're going to go through.

PATRICK FLEMING: Exactly and know that there's help if need be. There is appropriate conduct for jurors, should be made as well. This way there's no mistrials and all that hard work that people have put forward isn't put back.

AMT: They don't tell you any of that, you just kind of fly, go by, fly with it.

PATRICK FLEMING: Absolutely, by the seat of your pants. Absolutely.

AMT: Would either of you be willing to sit on a jury again?

PATRICK FLEMING: Yes I would. I feel that it's part of our Canadian duty and I still endorse it.

AMT: What about you, Michaela?

MICHEALA SWAN: Yeah absolutely. I still am very proud of the justice system we have in Canada, but I think we can still work to improve it and ensure that everybody has the care that they're needed to keep this system going.

PATRICK FLEMING: You know a lot of people don't know either that we just say guilty or not guilty. We have nothing to do with the sentencing.

MICHEALA SWAN: I was jealous that you got to hand a paper in. I had to actually say the verdict out loud?

PATRICK FLEMING: Did you?

MICHEALA SWAN: Yeah.

PATRICK FLEMING: I had to say, guilty, guilty, guilty, but you know it was hard to look at them in the eye. But I made sure I looked at each each defendant in the eye and read that verdict to them because it was important. I wanted them to know that you know a lot of people don't think that we do our homework, we really put that as a juror, as a major job. We push everything to the side and we want to make it right because we also have to live also with the verdict. And people have to understand that as well. One thing that was heartbreaking really was one of the defendants, their lawyers on the closing documents was saying you know your life is on your phone. And he picked up the defendant's phone and he was going through it and all it was was pictures of his little boy, you know just a little boy in the backseat of a car, at the park. You know so you feel that feeling, you've just taken the little boy's dad away from that individual like forever. You know and that's the guilt right.

PATRICK FLEMING: But you didn't do that. I didn't choose it, but you know.

AMT: But now you're part of the sytem now.

PATRICK FLEMING: I'm part of it now. I was sitting at home when all this happened. I had no part of this, but now I'm part of that crime for the rest of my life as well.

MICHEALA SWAN: Yeah that's a good way to put it because that was part of, I felt like it was the mom club a little bit, in terms of if they wanted to be in charge of the sentence and we didn't have that. That's not our job as jurors. And so it was interesting and I think that's why the draged out sentencing of our case really had an impact on many people and of course I'm in touch with some of the other jurors and stuff like that, but it was interesting, that really dragged out the sentence.

AMT: Thank you both.

PATRICK FLEMING: Thank you so much.

MICHEALA SWAN: Thank you very much, Anna Maria.

AMT: Michaela Swan is in Kamloops. Patrick Fleming is in Toronto. Both were jury foreman in separate murder trials. Jessica Linzey is a producer with The Current. She and our documentary editor, Joan Webber, are the producers of our One Bullet series. If you have a story or a question about gun violence in Canada, leave a message for us at 1-888-416-8333 or e-mail us by going to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. You can also tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or find us on Facebook. Coming up in our next half hour, we turn our attention to Ottawa and the road to this fall's election. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to The Current.

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Cabinet shuffle suggests government 'reacts to change' instead of changing itself, says columnist

Guests: Katie Simpson, Susan Delacourt, Tanya Talaga

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

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: This really is an illustration of the depth of bench strength that Canadians sent to to this government in 2015 and we're very excited about being able to show how we step up as a team.

AMT: And there you have it, a confident sounding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking with reporters after a cabinet shuffle yesterday. That newly shuffled cabinet will meet later this week in Quebec and it's fair to say that the fall election will be looming large for that cabinet. Between now and then, Canadians will have a chance to judge the Liberals bench strength for themselves. From pipelines to prisoners and beyond, there's been no shortage of issues lately with which to take their measure. Im joined by three people who have been following it all closely and are taking their measure. Our own, Katie Simpson, senior reporter for CBC News, covering mostly federal politics is in our Ottawa studio. Also in Ottawa is Susan Delacourt, national columnist and Ottawa bureau chief with The Toronto Star. And Tanya Talaga is with me in our Toronto studio, the author of Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City. She is a columnist with The Toronto Star as well. Hi everyone, welcome.

KATIE SIMPSON: Good morning.

SUSAN DELACOURT: Hello.

TANYA TALAGA: Good Morning.

AMT: Katie Simpson, let's start with you. What did yesterday's cabinet shuffle tell us about where this government sees its strengths and weaknesses in this election year?

KS: One thing to point out in terms of weakness would definitely be concerns around rural Canadians in rural communities in possibly trying to secure more votes in what traditionally would be conservative areas. By putting in Bernardette Jordan as a new minister to deal with a rural issues, rural economic development that is an indication that there is something there that they feel they could do better on and the focus for her in the early on we know her goal is to get more Internet, more broadband Internet to rural communities and improve infrastructure in rural communities. So those will be election goodies if they can actually deliver on something to get there. But I think sort of the big question and the real unusual part of this cabinet shuffle is that this was meant to be a cabinet shuffle where they fill a gap. With Scott Brison leaving they needed to put someone into that very senior role as Treasury Board President, but the government clearly used this as an opportunity to do something more than that. Something was concerning them about the performance of Jodie Wilson-Raybould as the Minister of Justice because that was the big surprise when she was moved over. In the fall or in August, there was a cabinet shuffle by the Trudeau government and they were expected to take that front bench into the election, their strongest performers out front and center and in the time from that cabinet shuffle last summer to now, something happened that not quite sure what it was, but something has happened to cause enough alarm that they felt they need needed to move Jody Wilson-Raybould out of that spot and into another position.

AMT: Susan Delacourt, what do you know about that?

SD: I'm not sure that something happened. I think it was just time to move Jody Wilson-Raybould out. I think she was probably a little too low profile for them. I think her profile was deliberately low profile. She's not a big media hound, but it's going to be a big year for justice and the justice minister and I think they wanted someone a little more high profile in there. I think that that's my understanding that Brison's departure I guess started the dominoes falling and it gave them as Katie says a chance to move Jody Wilson-Raybould, but I'm not sure anything specific happened more like her time was up.

AMT: Tanya Talaga, what stands out for you about that specific shuffle, first of all?

TT: That specific shuffle really upset me as I felt really bad for Jody too like why is she being moved out of it? Sadly it clearly is a demotion for her. She's the first First Nations woman that we've had in the role as Justice Minister. That's a huge portfolio, but I also too wondered about what it's been like for her in that position. I mean like she is part of a government that took and has been taking residential school survivors to court in like an ongoing battle over the residential school settlement. You know and it's also she's part of the government and she's from British Columbia that has we've seen in the last week and a half, we saw 14 people arrested you know the territory. So it's probably not been an easy role for her. I mean I know in the Indigenous community a lot of people are saying, you know Jody what's going on. How can you be part of all of these things that are happening and then I look at the rest of the shuffle and I'm like oh my goodness, I mean to me it looks like the Trudeau government has really no idea what they're doing with Indigenous relations rate now going forward. I mean I have to say Seamus O'Regan I'm sure that he performed well in Veteran Affairs, but no one really knows him as a known quantity in the Indigenous community.

AMT: Well let's listen to Jody Wilson-Raybould when she was questioned whether what happened with her is a demotion.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I can think of no world in which I would consider working for our veterans in Canada as a demotion. In terms of the three plus years that I spent as the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General of Canada, I am incredibly proud.

AMT: Kate Simpson, she had a lot more to say in writing yesterday.

KS: She did and it was quite unusual to see such a lengthy statement. It was five pages when you printed it out, saying that she didn't want to speak anymore about the questions around whether this was some sort of demotion or whether her performance wasn't up to par as the Minister of Justice and it went on to list out all of the compliments she had achieved while she was Minister of Justice. And there was also a couple of lines in there that were quite pointed toward the government saying, while there has been some significant work done, the shifts that need to happen in terms of how the government relates with or how the government works with Indigenous communities and Indigenous leaders, that shift hasn't taken place yet. And She promised to keep her voice at the table and make sure that she is still there to advocate for communities and Indigenous people. So it was quite unusual that she put out a statement like that, but it certainly put credit toward that you know while she said you know this in no way can I see this as being a demotion, she's certainly very defensive about this move. And it was clear, she loved being the Minister of Justice and we're all human beings, watching someone stand up in front of a microphone and clearly with their heart broken, clearly moving from a job that they absolutely loved to it's something else, no one wants to see that. It's uncomfortable for everyone and no one wants to ask about it, but we have to and so clearly this is not a move that she envisioned and it's not something that she wanted to do.

AMT: Susan Delacourt, what did you make of that, have you ever seen a minister being shuffled release a statement like that?

SD: No. No, that was unusual and I wasn't as alarmed as I think, there were emails circulating yesterday that she had you know fired a broadside at the government. From what I understand again from talking to them, they didn't take it as such. I think they were prepared for the idea that she would be unhappy about it, but it's obviously something they felt they had to do.

AMT: Tanya, we learned yesterday that David Cochrane at CBC News was reporting last night that she actually turned down the Indigenous Services Minister of job. What do you think?

TT: In a way I'm not really surprised by that because it would be such a contentious job for her. I mean personally it would be a very difficult job I think, especially after her being in justice and like what I was saying before too, I mean she did take some heat in the community for the ongoing court case with the residential school community. I think it must have been, it's been really hard for her just as an Indigenous woman as well to be watching what's been going on across the country and also too, the Trudeau government has made so many promises, you know. Well from the first time when he was elected, he said you know the most important relationship to me is with Indigenous people in this country and I believe in nation to nation and you know all of the rest of it. And as time has been going on more Indigenous people have been sort of giving the side eye to all that going really, we really haven't seen too many deliveries here. Other than the clean water and then boil water advisories, some communities have it lifted, but still so many more are missing basic human rights. And this is a question for Indigenous people right now. And so I think that for her to step into that role, it would have been you know going from one fire into the other fire.

SD: Can I leap in here. Susan here. I think when she was made Justice Minister, there was a lot of fuss made that the Trudeau government had not done the obvious or kind of patronizing thing and put someone Indigenous at Indigenous Affairs. She was a full senior minister of the government. I think to have gone backwards then to put her as Indigenous Affairs is to say that that job could only go to an Indigenous person and that's not what they wanted to. We shouldn't forget the original minister of Indigenous Affairs is still in the job, Carolyn Bennett. So there are actually two ministers in charge of this so it's.

AMT: That's right it was split to put two in charge. In fact, let's go to Jane Philpott because she's now moved from Indigenous Services to Treasury Board, replacing Scott Brison, who says he's not running in the next election and then Seamus O'Regan replaces Philpott. Let's listen to Perry Bellgarde, National Chief of the Assembly First Nations reacting to that change.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: With Minister Jane Philpott going to Treasury Board and Seamus O'Regan coming in as a new minister, he's got big shoes to fill no question. Minister Jane has earned the trust and respect and a lot of times admiration from First Nations leaders across Canada. She worked on the child welfare file. She brought that to national attention. You know she worked on overhauling the system so that we have our rights respected. And so she's got our challenges, our issues are going to remain the same no matter who is there, but we're going to miss her in that role.

AMT: Okay so you can hear some skepticism in his voice there. Tanya Talaga, today you actually have a list of people that should have been considered who are Indigenous. Why should an Indigenous person have taken that ministry in your view?

TT: I think that an Indigenous person should be in that role because you know you just brought up the fact that the ministry was split. The ministry was split, Jane was brought in, Jane Philpott was brought in specifically as well to sort of dismantle this colonial system that we have you know and those two ministries and how many times did we also hear, I think it was in 2017 that the government said this is what we're going to be doing. We're going to you know dismantle this system, the way it's in place now, we're going to get rid of Aynak and okay let's do that, but let's do that through an Indigenous lands. Why do you not have somebody who is Indigenous sitting at that helm? If you don't have an Indigenous minister, how come you don't have Indigenous people sitting with those ministers, right beside them, dismantling those ministries and changing things for the future. You know what it's time to involve us in the process at this point in time and I don't think it's patronising to put an Indigenous person into that role.

AMT: Katie Simpson, what will Seamus O'Regan need to do to perform well in this role?

KS: Well he'll certainly need to sort of pick up some momentum from Jane Philpott and I know a lot of things are sort of in the works that she had been planning to roll out over the next couple of months. Through the senior sources I've been talking with around Jane Philpott, she was actually quite excited to roll out what was going to come over the next few months or so and of course in the next few weeks, Jane Philpott says that the legislation around child welfare will be ready to roll out and there are a whole bunch of things that she had lined up that Seamus O'Regan is now going to have to get out the door. So a lot of the ground work had been done there. But Seamus did not have an easy ride at Veterans Affairs. Veterans Affairs is a very difficult file. The previous Conservative government had trouble with it. This government has trouble with it and it's one of those files that if something goes wrong, it can go really wrong. Because obviously the Canadian public has a lot of support for veterans and if veterans are complaining about unfair treatment from the government, it is an awful situation for the government to try and navigate around. But Seamus did not have a flawless record there at Veterans Affairs so he as Perry Bellgarde said he's going to have really big shoes to fill because Jane Philpott is known in the government as one of the most effective ministers who can actually get things done. She was seen as a high performer at Health and she was quite excited to tackle the issue of Indigenous Services and I was actually quite surprised to learn that when she was moving into Treasury Board and we had our own Power and Politics yesterday and I sort of asked her you know, are you excited about your new job? Are you kind of disappointed you're leaving and do you have unfinished business to do at Indigenous Services? And she gave very polite answers and you know she says it's a privilege to serve in any capacity that she can, but I know she was very proud to work at Indigenous Services and really wanted to sort of get stuff done. That was her focus.

AMT: I want to move on to Justice. Who is David Lametti, Susan Delacourt?

SD: He is a former McGill law prof, very accomplished, interesting man. Who is, this is a government that is very cabinet focused, so we dont get a lot of attention on backbenchers except as panels on Power and Politics or Powerplay over at CTV. That's the only glimpses we see of backbenchers in this government. But Lametti has been, David Lametti has been functioning below the radar and I think it was a promotion long overdue. I think it was intended also to give a sign to other backbenchers in this government who are going to be expected to be out there hitting the pavement and shaking hands and knocking on doors soon that there is hope for promotion in this government.

AMT: What about the fact that he's from Quebec, Susan, is there a message there?

SD: Yes. The fact that I was told that the fact that we did not have a French speaking Justice Minister was an issue and especially with the government talking about bringing constitutional cases or constitutional issue such as religious symbols, we are getting ready for fed-prov fights on carbon tax and bilingual Quebec Justice Minister, that used to be more the norm in Canada actually. My memory is that long.

AMT: As is mine Susan. Go for it.

SD: Yeah well you'll remember that the justice ministry, there'd a long line of Quebec Justice Ministers including former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau started there.

AMT: That's right.

SD: So the idea of a bilingual Quebec Justice Minister was seen as an advantage in what could be a very litigious year.

AMT: Susan, what did we learn from what stayed the same?

SD: A lot. This is a government that the past two shuffles -- Katie refered to this too. There were two big shuffles in this government. I wouldn't call this one of the big ones. The first big one was when Donald Trump got elected and they shuffled everything to make Chrystia Freeland the Foreign Affairs Minister to deal with Trump. The second one was last summer to deal with Doug Ford's government. So this government reacts to change, rather than changes itself. And I think that's an interesting take on it. It's a very confident take, as Katie I think also said, in the opening.

AMT: Are they doubling down on environment? They're leaving McKenna right where she is.

SD: Yes they definitely are and minister Sohi in natural resources he was very unpopular in his home province of Alberta. So it, I, I'm intrigued by the fact that they have not had a throne speech. I know that is a such a wonky stupid thing to be focused on, but we have not seen a government with a majority have only one Throne Speech. Throne speeches, you have new ones mid-mandate to show what you've learned in government. And when I asked Trudeau about this in my year-end interview with him in December he said we had enough to go on when we got elected to last us four years. So it shows the government that came in in 2015 believes it's still the same government and that the world has changed and it has not.

AMT: Well I just want to ask about that because they're doubling down obviously by keeping McKenna on where she is that supports the track they're taking on carbon tax and they've got a big fight. Are they basically saying we're going ahead, you're wrong, we're right or do they have a blind spot or do they know something that the opposition doesn't know?

SD: I guess we're going to find that out. I think we've heard this from the prime minister said this in his town halls last week. He seems keen to fight an election on the carbon tax. So do the Conservatives. So that's going to be a very interesting time.

AMT: Well let's talk China now. We've got so much to talk about. The prime minister weighed in yesterday on of course Canadian Robert Schellenberg being sentenced to death on drug trafficking charges in China. Let's listen to that.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We are extremely concerned as should be all countries around the world that China is choosing to act arbitrarily, whether it is an application of its own justice system to its own citizens and people around the world or whether it's in its choice to not respect longstanding practices and principles in regards to diplomatic immunity. This is something that everyone should be alert to and certainly something we as a government take very seriously and will continue to engage strongly with China on.

AMT: OK Katie, China is calling Justin Trudeau irresponsible today for the broad expanse of what he said yesterday. We've got a doubling down on travel advisories now. A little bit of a duel. Canada and China issuing like almost mirror image travel advisories. Where is this going?

KS: Well if we thought relations were already at an all time low, they just keep on sinking deeper and deeper. The change in sentence to Robert Schellenberg has really alarmed the government. I believe they weren't expecting China to take this attention and make it even worse. And now the urgent push is on to try and figure out okay how do we prevent this from happening? The government does, as Justin Trudeau said yesterday, intercede in every opportunity it can if a Canadian is sentenced to death anywhere in the world. So that's not unusual. But the relationship is a very, very bad point and it's unclear what path they're going to have to take to get out of this. As you mentioned, David Lametti, he's the new Justice Minister and Attorney General. And it's the Attorney General that has to make the decision about whether Canada is going to extradite Meng Wanzhou the CFO of Huawei to the United States. And so leading up to that decision, the Americans still need to present all their evidence as to whether the extradition is justified, but until we know for certain, one way or the other, it seems like this is a fast race to the bottom.

AMT: And in the midst of all this, we see this weekend's arrival of a Saudi teen, Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun and now Rahaf Mohammed. Foreign Affairs Minister Christiya Freeland meets her when she arrives at the airport. Canada agrees to grant her asylum, much more quickly than Australia, which was kind of looking at it. Some people have criticized the fact that Minister Freeland showed up as a cynical photo-op. Tanya Talaga, you're one of them.

TT: I am. I actually couldn't believe those images. I'm like OK why is she showing up there and just you know greeting the 18-year-old, which I completely agree with having her come to this country. I think it's incredible that we do stand up for women, that we stand up for young women and bring them here. But it did seem a little bit like a photo-op to me, a total photo-op and it was just like you know here and we're sort of poking the Saudi government as well too by showing up and saying hey we've got her. You know we're going to make everything okay. And also too I was thinking to myself you know it's I do stand up for what Canada does on the international human rights front, but then again I turn the lens back to this country and I see all of the human rights disefficiencies, especially against Indigenous people and I think well again, we're talking out of two sides of our mouth here.

AMT: Susan Delacourt, what do you make of that and how does that play with Canada's already tense relationship with Saudi Arabia?

SD: It does, to go to a previous question, it does indicate a certain doubling down. As you say, a poke in the eye, as well. This is not an uncontroversial issue in Canada right now. This whole business of who gets to be a refugee and who does not. And I think apart from poking the Saudi government in the eye, which a lot of people would be in favour right now after last year, I do think there is a constituency in Canada that believes that we are taking in too many refugees. We are duped, we are being duped and this symbolism, I would imagine when the House resumes, we're going to be hearing a lot of this from the Conservative benches about this very incident.

AMT: Katie Simpson, let's talk about the Conservatives for a minute, we barely touched on Western Canada. The economic troubles, the pipelines in Alberta, what do you see the Conservatives working on in this election year?

KS: Well certainly the dissatisfaction in Alberta is going to be a huge focus for them and if Jason Kenney is elected as the premier of Alberta with that election happening in the spring this year, that will help shore up support. That will help broaden the Conservative voice and really help Andrew Scheer get that message out there of dissatisfaction in how the Liberal government is leading and the problems with the oil patch and the lack of jobs and the lack of pipeline and the mess that is really going on in that province. So the Conservatives already did start really focusing on that, but when it comes to the criticism on the foreign affairs front, expect them, we heard from Pierre Poilievre, who was the finance critic yesterday, he was hammering away at Justin Trudeau, accusing him of being a joke on the world stage and saying that China does not respect him. So get ready for more of that along with Donald Trump kind of pushing Justin Trudeau around during NAFTA talks, that kind of thing. We've already sort of seen the hints of that, but the Conservatives I think the big focus will be, heading into the election, the big focus will be on the carbon tax. They don't want it. If Jason Kenney is elected premier of Alberta, he'll be up there just as loud, standing alongside Doug Ford, and there'll be this very loud Conservative coalition that will only get louder the closer we get to Election Day.

AMT: Is it significant that Pierre Poilievre was the critic yesterday and not Andrew Scheer?

KS: They've had, he's done that couple of times, which is funny I believe following the fall economic statement, he did it as well and Andrew Scheer was not in the House of Commons to respond to that. Susan can probably correct me if I've mixed. It was one significant event.

SD: It was that. It was yeah, it was that.

KS: Yeah and so we ask questions at that time, but the sort of sense is that Poilievre is a strong performer for them and Poilievre also really gets under the skin of the Liberals.

SD: And there's a little bit it looks to me like good cop, bad cop going on, that the Conservatives have two faces at the moment and that's not a duplicitous two faces, just.

AMT: Like one's negative and one's more positive.

SD: Yes and I think Scheer wants to be the positive face.

AMT: Okay. We are almost at a time. In a nutshell, what are you watching for, like one phrase, each of you. Let's start with you, Susan.

SD: Morale. I'm waiting to see if the Liberals have got the morale to leap into an election.

AMT: Tanya?

TT: Indigenous relations, what are they going to do, looks to me like they don't know what they're doing at all.

AMT: Katie?

KS: Carbon Tax because the world is watching if Justin Trudeau can win an election campaigning on a carbon tax. Will that set an example for the rest of the world?

AMT: We're going to leave it there. Thank you all of you for weighing in. That's wonderful, thank you.

KS: Thanks.

SD: Thanks.

TT: Thanks.

AMT: Katie Simpson, senior reporter for CBC News in Ottawa. Susan Delacourt, national columnist and Ottawa bureau chief with The Toronto Star and Tanya Talaga, columnist with The Toronto Star and author of Seven Fallen Feathers Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Filmmaker Karyn Kusama is on the program to talk about her new crime drama, Destroyer, starring Nicole Kidman. Now join us again tomorrow, we're continuing our special series, One Bullet, a CBC investigation into the impact of gun violence on our country, one bullet, one person at a time. And we're going to bring you tomorrow the dramatic story of a hostage taking. A negotiator and the shot that shocked thousands of onlookers. It happened in downtown Toronto more than 18 years ago. It will forever be remembered by those who were there. So we're going to leave you with the voices of a few of them. CBC producer Angela Naus and a witness Heidi Laverick who walked into the mayhem. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Newscast]

VOICE 1: Angela, bring us up to date if you can, what is happening there?

VOICE 2: Hi. Harry what I can tell you is I'm on the.

VOICE 2: I ended up being put on air right and I was a young producer, I mean I'd never been on air before. And just before they latched me in, the producer in the control room said just tell us what you see.

[Newscast]

VOICE 2: A man who has a woman we are assuming is a hostage. He's bearing a gun in his right hand and has his arm around her neck.

VOICE 2: And I remember the woman like not making much sound aside from crying.

VOICE 3: She just seemed very calm. It looked surreal because I thought to myself if I were being held hostage, I think I would be in a different frame of like panicking or something, I don't know, just I wouldn't, I don't know how calm I'd be. The man that was holding her didn't look so calm, but you know he seemed to be looking around. He seemed like off kilter, I guess. Just, I don't know, not in control really.

[Music: Theme]

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Jan. 15, 2019 episode transcript

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