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The Current Transcript for May 16, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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This bill is not about pro-life or the right to life. This bill is about control.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: This week Alabama became the 16th U.S. state to restrict abortion rights, passing a law its proponents call one of the toughest. No exceptions for rape or incest, only if the life of the mother is in danger and any doctor who performs an abortion can be imprisoned for 99 years. It may be unconstitutional but that's the point. The ruling Republican Party in Alabama and those in select other states want their new laws to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court in a calculated effort to overturn Roe v. Wade - the ruling 46 years ago that recognized a woman's constitutional right to end a pregnancy. We are looking at the implications in half an hour. And then:

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We all have the philosophy of our insomnia which means the things we really care about and the things we wake up at 3:00 a.m. and worry about, obviously our kids, obviously money but also in my case whether liberal civilization can survive.

AMT: Adam Gopnik is a writer and a thinker and lately his insomnia as he puts it has him musing about a world where the very open progressive Western democracies that have allowed people with all sorts of views to coexist have enabled those who want to stifle that freedom to come to power. Hear him in an hour. But we're starting with what we are all learning from B.C. as the province tallies creative and criminal efforts to launder money.

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Watercraft boats, a lot of luxury goods, construction supplies, pianos. Who would have thought?

I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Money laundering is Canada's problem — not just the West Coast's, expert warns

Guests: Maureen Maloney, Garry Clement

AMT: For years there were whispers that British Columbia had a dirty money problem, that criminals from around the world were funnelling their cash into the province scrubbing it clean at the casinos, that laundered dirty money was also the driving force behind Vancouver's sky high real estate prices - not to mention the opioid crisis. Now after a series of damning reports it turns out the whispers were right. The flow of dirty money into B.C. runs well into the billions. More than seven billion dollars in 2018, it's estimated. The impact has led to calls for a full blown investigation.

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Families can't afford to live in our major cities. Families are seeing loved ones die because of drug activity that has exploded over the past 10 to 15 years. And the proceeds of that crime is continuing to circulate through the economy. We want to stamp that out. We believe a public inquiry today will allow us to get an understanding of how we got to this point and we'll see the depth of the problem and the magnitude the challenge all of us face, as we try to eradicate this problem going forward.

AMT: B.C. Premier John Horgan yesterday announcing a new inquiry into money laundering with the power to compel testimony, something the authors of previous reports on the problem were not able to do. What it won't do is look at just how big the problem is outside of B.C.. And according to my guests today the problem of dirty money does not stop at the B.C. border. Maureen Maloney is a professor at the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University. She chaired the expert panel called combating money laundering in BC real estate which found other Canadian provinces may be even worse. Maureen Maloney is in our Vancouver studio. And Garry Clement is a former national director of the RCMP as proceeds of crime unit. He's worked on money laundering cases across Canada. He now heads Clement Advisory Group an independent consulting company and he joins us from Colborne, Ontario. Hello to you both. Welcome.

MAUREEN MALONEY: Good morning Anna Maria.

GARRY CLEMENT: Good morning Anna Maria and good morning Maureen.

MAUREEN MALONEY: Good morning Garry.

AMT: Maureen let's start with you. Your report was one of a series that revealed the scope of money laundering in British Columbia. What more can we learn from a public inquiry?

MAUREEN MALONEY: I think the public inquiry has been called because there is so much concern among the people of British Columbia with respect to money laundering particularly based on the recent reports. The one thing that the public inquiry will do other than be public of course which are inquiries were not, it will have subpoena power. It will be much broader a mandate. It will cover not just real estate, casinos, financial institutions, professions, it will be a very broad mandate and last for two years.

AMT: So in other words it was some of the people who were actually getting that money are going to have to talk.

MAUREEN MALONEY: Well it'll be interesting to see how many people they do get to talk and exactly who that will be. So I will be fascinated to watch it myself. The only concern I would have about the public inquiry is I hope that it will not stop the government putting into place measures during those two years. I don't think it will but I'm hoping that it will not.

AMT: Garry Clement what do you think of the B.C. government's decision to call this public inquiry?

GARRY CLEMENT: Well I think as we saw as a result of the Charbonneau commission what this inquiry will do is I think, because of the subpoena power, I think you're going to see a lot of matter of fact evidence and whether we call it evidentiary information that's going to come out of this. And I think it's going to give an accurate or as close to an accurate picture as we're able to gather on the situation in British Columbia. But I do agree with Maureen. This is not just a B.C. problem.

AMT: And you just referenced the Charbonneau commission that of course was the Quebec commission that looked into corruption and the relationship, the organized crime, the unions, construction companies and politicians, right?

GARRY CLEMENT: That's correct yes.

AMT: So we've got a flavour of this in a different setting. So let's let's look at B.C. for a minute here. Maureen Maloney, how are criminals actually getting dirty money into B.C.? Can you break down the process for us?

MAUREEN MALONEY: Well there are a number of different ways that they're doing. We concentrated primarily on real estate but certainly casinos were awash in dirty money. A year ago although that has been clamped down on quite considerably. They are buying luxury cars. They are buying expensive pianos as Dr. German said and particularly real estate is a very attractive tool for many laundrers to use.

AMT: So how do they use dirty money to buy real estate? Do they use cash? What do they do?

MAUREEN MALONEY: Well that's one of the interesting concepts. Many of the people that we met with - who gave presentations certainly in the realty business and even the financial institutions - they all said Oh well nobody's arrived on my door with bags of cash now. Apparently sometimes they do arrive with bags of cash but we're talking very large sophisticated organized crime. And normally they are putting it through different companies so there could be two or three companies and then the company will buy it and it will go through financial transactions from banks that may be in Panama or in Switzerland wherever it may be. And so it's very very hard to trace that money.

AMT: And they're not just buying one house.

MAUREEN MALONEY: No they're buying many houses and very expensive houses.

AMT: And that's how it climbs up because they don't care. They're not bargaining. They just need a place to park that money.

MAUREEN MALONEY: Exactly. And real estate is a very good place to park money if it's laundered, particularly in your safe jurisdiction that's got good rule of law. It's stable. Usually you might even get an increase in the value of assets certainly you would have done if you bought in B.C. in the last five years. So it's a very attractive proposition for people.

AMT: So you're telling me criminals seek out places with good rule of law.

MAUREEN MALONEY: They do interestingly enough because they want to make sure that their investment is protected. They seek out jurisdictions with a good rule of law but ones that don't really prosecute very much with respect to money laundering.

AMT: Hence the problem. Now Garry how do they use casinos to clean money?

GARRY CLEMENT: Well again it is very similar to what Maureen is talking about but the reality obviously underground banking world as we know it is sometimes there are called hawalas. I mean they're alive and well and it's something that's been going on for over a century and coming out of China and Asia. And this money basically what how it works is I will I want to have so many Canadian dollars or U.S. dollars and the company or the organized crime group in China wants to have [unintelligible]. And so there's an exchange done, essentially it's based on relationships. And so the individual comes over, they're lent money supposedly. They go to an MSB or an underground bank. They pick the cash up. They go and spend it and the payment is made in China. So this goes on all the time and has been going on for unfortunately for decades.

AMT: Maureen can you tell if most of the money being laundered is actually coming from offshore or is it from organized crime within?

MAUREEN MALONEY: It's both of those factors. Certainly offshore is quite a considerable proportion but certainly we have a great deal of domestic money laundering as well.

AMT: And your report suggested that several other provinces are actually in worse shape than B.C. when it comes to money laundering in real estate. But how do you know that? What are you seeing?

MAUREEN MALONEY: Well we did estimates based on a gravity model by one of our panel members, Dr. Brigitte Unger who is an expert in Europe on testing money laundering, and we estimated for Canada generally that it was 47 billion. Now these are just estimates. Like we said we're estimating the immeasurable. So they are only estimates I hasten to add to B.C. We decided that was seven point four million, using this gravity model which is basically an economic and mathematical model. And then we determined well if B.C. is only being a shocking amount, seven point four billion being money laundered.

AMT: Where's the rest of the money going?

MAUREEN MALONEY: Yes. So because everybody else thinks that this is just a B.C. problem and so we applied the model. Now it's not as good a model with respect to the six regions that we applied it to. We didn't apply it to every province. We applied it to six regions which were B.C., Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, Atlantic Provinces and the Prairies which were just Manitoba and Saskatchewan. And we found that B.C. was actually fourth on that list in 2015 with respect to it. Now the model is a little bit skewed because as I said it's a country model. It's meant to work out how much money laundering is happening in a country. So when you start dividing it into smaller portions it gets more complicated and it means that two data points in particular, that is the rates of crime and GDP within that province, take on a bigger salience.

AMT: So we know that Doug's rates are Alberta's Minister of Justice and the solicitor general has disagreed that money laundering could be a bigger problem in Alberta than B.C. He says your findings are based on unreliable data. How do you respond to that?

MAUREEN MALONEY: I say that's fantastic. Let's see his reliable data. I think that we have the best estimates, as I said they are only estimates. I'm not saying the definitive by any means, but I think if any other province starts ignoring that they have a very big issue, may not be the biggest issue I'll grant him that, but if they do not believe that they have a big issue they can have a much bigger issue if B.C. starts dealing with it and people start moving money laundering out of B.C. into different provinces. It really is a Canada wide issue that has to be dealt with Canada wide.

AMT: So really the reason we know about B.C. is because B.C. has taken the time to look into this. The other provinces haven't?

MAUREEN MALONEY: I think so. Actually I really want to give credit. So we've had just some fantastic investigative reporting in B.C. with respect to money laundering for quite a few years now and so it's really put B.C. on the headlines, but the headlines for the rest of Canada. Everybody thinks it's a B.C. problem. Now it's very clear that B.C. has a very distinctive problem and I absolutely think we need to deal with that. There's no doubt about it. But I don't think the other provinces or the federal government can put their heads in the sand and say well it's not our problem it's species problem. Although the federal government to be fair is now stepping up anger.

AMT: Garry, you've worked on money laundering cases right across the country from the RCMP. Do you think the issue is particularly bad in B.C.?

GARRY CLEMENT: I don't think it's anywhere. B.C. Definitely as just happens to be a go to point for a lot of Asian money. But let's not fool ourselves. You know there was a report out in 2010 by the Anti-Mafia prosecutors in Italy that talked about the Negrete crime family and you know it came out of that trial that many of the crime families - a total of seven in Ontario - have been reinvesting their illegally obtain money in businesses including bars, restaurants, not only in downtown Toronto but also in Woodbridge which is the Italian quarter.

AMT: Not just on the edge of Toronto. Yes.

GARRY CLEMENT: That's just on the edge of Toronto. We can take and I'm sure Maureen would agree would take the outlaw motorcycle gangs in this country the massive amounts of money that they've acquired over the decades. All of that is being invested that's all laundered money. And everybody seems to be - I hate to say it. I agree with Maureen. It's so nice to see that B.C. did pull their head out of the sand. But I disagree with Alberta's comment that they don't have a problem. I think they do. And you don't have a problem if you don't look for it and it's time that Canada take this on is actually a national priority because we are becoming - I hate to say it - the Maytag of the north and we're looked at by transnational organized crime groups as a great place to park their money.

AMT: The Maytag of the north.

GARRY CLEMENT: Yes.

AMT: Help me out there. What does that mean?

GARRY CLEMENT: Well Maytag the washing machines. Money laundering.

AMT: Oh okay. All right. Sorry. So overall you don't see Canada doing enough to fight money laundering.

GARRY CLEMENT: We've dropped the ball - and I say 'we' I mean collectively. Government has for years has underfunded the RCMP, RCMP senior management has - because of the politicization - has not spoken out about the weaknesses that they have because of the lack of funding they have, in order to cover it up, they dropped a lot of their specialized units creating all-encompassing units. And it just made the matters continually worse to the point where we're at today. We need some action. We need it now and we need to take it very seriously.

AMT: And now Gary Clement one of the highest profile cases you worked on was in Montreal involving Leng Ky Lech and Sy Veng Chun. What was that about?

GARRY CLEMENT: Well it's going back a few years out of Montreal and this was an organized crime money laundering case, an individual that had laundered hundreds of millions of dollars by the name of Daniel Muir actually was executed on the streets of Montreal. And these two individuals they had a company called [unintelligible] Peng Heng. They were money laundering or they were money service businesses. And they literally were washing money for organized crime in Montreal. They even had their washing so much that they set a bank up in Cambodia as a way to move the money. But they set up a number of companies, mainly in the clothing business, and all of these were used as companies to hide the amounts of money that they were moving in, in order to appear legitimate. It was a good example of just how much money can be moved. We're talking probably 400-500 million. You know I worked I did an undercover with the U.S. in 96 on contraband smuggling which people still don't think it's too large a case. That was a case where we saw an individual by name Larry Miller move between 600 and 800 million dollars during 92 and 96 and contraband alcohol and tobacco all of that money was money laundered. So and these are just tip of the iceberg. These are small potatoes when you look at the organized crime groups in this country.

AMT: So Maureen B.C. is bringing in a public registry of so-called beneficial ownership to the criminals out of the shadows or to dissuade questionable person purchases in the first place. Is that something other governments and the Federal Government should consider? What would entail?

MAUREEN MALONEY: Oh absolutely I think this is probably the single best measure that could be taken at the moment to discourage money laundering from coming to our province or to our country. What this entails is that if you buy property in BC we have a number of companies that buy property and they could be offshore companies and we have no idea who owns them or why they're buying the property. This would require everybody who buys property even if it's a company or a trust or a partnership or even a nominee. You have to identify everybody who has a 10 percent beneficial who's a real owner of that property and that will make an immense different both to investigative powers but also in terms of having good data about who's buying the property and where is it going.

AMT: There's an unexplained wealth order law. Is that part of that?

MAUREEN MALONEY: No. That's a completely different one it's something that we recommended although I clearly would be subject to legal challenge, but it was brought in in the United Kingdom last year in 2018. And what this does- we already have proceeds of crime laws and we also have civil forfeiture which is a sort of a civil way that you can get money from people who are using proceeds of crime to buy property or anything else. The unexplained money order though, however, it allows the government or whoever's given the authority to have the order on probable cause but to go to the person say I'll give you the case that's going through the courts in England at the moment. There's a woman from Azerbaijan whose husband is massively corrupt and has I think billions in corruption is still in jail I believe. She bought a house in London I think for 40 million pounds. The authorities turned up to her and said Well where did you get 40 million pounds, because you have no known income that we can see and we don't know where assets are coming from. And so it was a reverse onus clause where she has been required to sort of say, well, I'm not quite sure where I got the money from and so they've confiscated the property. Now that's going through the courts that's at the lower level, the government has won and so it's going to go through the courts. But why it will be particularly important for Canada and for B.C. to bring this in is that proceeds of crime and civil forfeiture work quite well for domestic criminals. But if we have people bringing in laundered money from outside then when people try and prosecute it, when the prosecutors- we spoke to prosecutors and they said, well, if we find out that it's from outside we're not going to try and get them for money laundering. Because if we don't have a mutual legal assistance agreement where people exchange information between countries about criminals, then it's going to be too costly. We will get the information so it's not worth pursuing it. Whereas this would allow them to do that.

AMT: So you estimate that money laundering has inflated house prices in B.C. by what, is it, about 5 percent?

MAUREEN MALONEY: About 5 percent. Yes.

AMT: What impact will it would have on property values to get that money out of the housing market?

MAUREEN MALONEY: Well it's very hard to say because there are so many different influences on the housing market. I mean clearly it will have an impact but whether it will be 5 percent will depend on you know we have a lot of international legitimate money flows into B.C. to buy property and so it really will depend on sort of the market itself. But it certainly will make a difference. But I wouldn't think it would make an immediate difference.

AMT: Garry Clement what are we risking if we don't address this problem of money laundering in Canada?

GARRY CLEMENT: Well you know the bottom line is we're going to see more and more transnational organized crime groups parking their money here. And what everybody has to understand is that the world of organized crime is becoming far more sophisticated. So with the amount of cybercrime that's going on it's time we got a handle on this, because the longer we leave it the more complex it's going to become and the more difficult it's going to be to get a handle on it.

AMT: And I guess we have to remember that money does come from crime.

MAUREEN MALONEY: I completely agree with Garry on that. I'd like to just say that in BC money laundering is seen as being really really bad because of the real estate prices and clearly that's an issue. But money laundering is so much more corrosive and invidious of our society. As Garry said the more we allow money laundering to take place the more inviting criminals to come there. So we're increasing crime. The drug problems will only escalate and we'll have more horrendous deaths from fentanyl or other drugs. We'll have more organized crime which can lead to more corruption. It also distorts the economy, because we found out it's distorted the real estate market and it also undermines the rule of law and trusted professions and institutions. And finally it distorts B.C. and Canada's international reputation and if we want legitimate good business to come here we have to make sure we have a clean society.

AMT: Well we have to leave it there but thank you both for connecting the dots for us.

MAUREEN MALONEY: Thank you.

GARRY CLEMENT: Thank you.

AMT: Thank you very much Maureen Maloney professor of public policy at Simon Fraser University and the author of the report Combating Money Laundering in B.C. Real Estate. She joined us from Vancouver. Garry Clement is a former RCMP financial crimes investigator. He's now president and CEO of Clement Advisory Group, an independent consulting company. He's in Colborne, Ontario. Let us know what you think tweet us at the current CBC. Find us on Facebook go to our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. What do you think about other provinces looking into this as well? Stay with us. This is The Current.

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Alabama anti-abortion legislation shows 'abysmal lack of knowledge' on trauma of sexual assault: survivor

Guests: Rick Renshaw, Dina Zirlott, Lauren Rankin

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

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AMT: Still to come, in his many books over the years Adam Gopnik has brought us poetic reflections on life in France, New York, on restaurants, on winter. His latest book finds him in a political frame of mind, proudly declaring himself a small L liberal and standing up for what that means. Why now?

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Because we'd never been so under assault on so many fronts.

AMT: Adam Gopnik joins me in half an hour. But first Alabama lines up against Roe versus Wade.

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You guys used to say we want the government out of our life. We want them out of our business. We want them out of our bedroom. Now you're in my womb. I want you out. You don't control this. You don't own this.

AMT: The Alabama state legislature has become ground zero in the U.S. war over abortion. Tuesday its Senate passed the strictest abortion law in the country over objections of Linda Coleman-Madison, the Democratic senator you just heard. Yesterday the state's Republican governor signed the bill into law. The legislation outlaws nearly all abortions unless the mother's life is in danger. There are no exceptions for incest or rape. Officials say women receiving abortions won't be prosecuted but doctors providing the procedure could face up to 99 years in prison. Alabama is the latest in a growing number of U.S. states to pass legislation restricting abortion rights and with groups including Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union pledging to fight the law in court it seems that the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which recognized a woman's constitutional right to choose abortion, effectively legalizing abortion nationwide in the U.S. could soon be reopened. My first guest says bring it on. Rick Renshaw is the political director for the Alliance for a pro-life Alabama. That is a coalition of groups opposed to abortion in the state. He joins us from Birmingham, Alabama. Hello.

RICK RENSHAW: Hello. How are you this morning?

AMT: Well I'm wondering how your feeling now that the governor has signed this bill into law.

RICK RENSHAW: A lot of hard work, a lot of people are elated. For many that have worked for years and years and years trying to protect the lives of innocent babies that this has finally come to fruition.

AMT: Why not include an exception in cases of rape or incest?

RICK RENSHAW: Well there's a lot of different reasons. But here in Alabama, the last general election in November we passed an amendment to our state constitution which basically says that Alabama recognizes the sanctity of unborn life. And so to be consistent with that this legislation protects the sanctity of unborn life.

AMT: The law seems to equate abortion with homicide. It carries the same potential penalty up to 99 years in jail. How do you justify sending a doctor to jail for 99 years for performing an abortion?

RICK RENSHAW: Well you just nailed it earlier. If you're equating it with taking a life. It's the same justification you would send a murderer to jail for 99 years. I mean we consider it a Class A felony here in the state of Alabama to go out and murder someone. And the laws the law.

AMT: Well as you know Democratic Senator Bobby Singleton has pointed out during the debate that a doctor who performs an abortion in the case of rape could be imprisoned for longer than the rapist.

RICK RENSHAW: Yes I mean it's one of those kind of sensational type statistics that they come up with. But here's the thing. There is an industry of abortion. You're going to have to put something up there so that doctors don't kind of open up a side shop and exploit women who are in desperate situations for profit.

AMT: Well you just made the point that women are in desperate situations. How do you deal with that?

RICK RENSHAW: It's an unfortunate situation when you find a woman of any age or any socioeconomic standing that has come to a decision that she thinks at that time that abortions is the only answer. And it's not. We've got support groups. There are lots of couples out there that are trying to adopt children and having to find themselves going internationally. You know years ago that teenager would have been sent off to a distant aunt's house. The stigma was so great to both her and her family. But we don't really have that anymore. Some of the old stories would have been justifications for an abortion. They don't ring true anymore. I have friends volunteering in women's rescue clinics as well as volunteering at hospitals being in crisis pregnancy lines to deal with somebody who's at wit's end. The resources are much greater than they used to be.

AMT: Why do you want to dismantle Roe v. Wade?

RICK RENSHAW: It's terrible. It was terrible law when it was passed. It's terrible law now. It's it's an abomination. It's going back to 1973 each of the 50 states had the legal right to govern and define and prosecute whatever on abortion. In 1973 with Roe v. Wade decision it federalized it all and took it from the individual states being able to have the say to the federal government having it. This is in a sense writing something it's been wrong for a long long time.

AMT: You know detractors are sceptical of this tactic. I want you to hear from Mary Ziegler. She is the Stearns Weaver Miller professor at Florida State University College of Law. She's doubtful the Supreme Court will even agree to hear a case involving the new Alabama law.

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This law ask the court to do more than a lot of other abortion restrictions do in the sense that it seems to invite the court to recognize the personhood of the foetus. And I think that's kind of a Pandora's box that the court might want to avoid. Because foetal personhood of course wouldn't justify an abortion. It could apply in other legal contexts from you know social security dependents, benefits to tax law. My best guess would be that the court just wouldn't want to hear this case at all.

AMT: Well what do you say to her idea that this won't work?

RICK RENSHAW: That's her opinion. There are a lot of the people that disagree.

AMT: Is the intent to recognize the personhood of the foetus?

RICK RENSHAW: Well like I said we just passed a statewide amendment that the people voted on in a referendum here that basically says: We believe in the sanctity of life in recognizing that the rights of unborn children, including the right to life, is sacrosanct. So the people here in Alabama spoken to this is going to progress up to the U.S. Supreme Court. We'll find out what their opinion is. It is a very emotional subject. Friends and family members can and do fight over it. But at the end of the day I go back to it's about the culture of life. It's about there are options. Abortion is- it's more of an exploitation than anything else. When I hear people basically they come out with arguments about how are you going to support the child, and what about rape and incest. A lot of times [unintelligible] at the most extreme points they can to tug at people's heartstrings because they're trying to protect the industry of abortion.

AMT: Other states from Georgia to Mississippi are also passing restrictive abortion laws. Why are groups against abortion mobilizing now? What is it about this moment?

RICK RENSHAW: The first thing was an awareness about it. And that's what we've had for the last 40 or 50 years is a greater awareness about it.

AMT: Well then what does it also have to do with the makeup of the court right now? You've got Cavanaugh in there now. You've got more conservatives on the bench.

RICK RENSHAW: That would be a factor. You've got what would appear to be a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. You've got legislatures now that are more conservative than the liberal ones that occupied the state houses in the various states back in the 70s and 80s. We elect our judges here in Alabama when the people have been given an opportunity to vote for candidates who proclaim either pro-life or they're in support of abortion. The pro-life candidates are winning. That's where the people are in the mainstream.

AMT: Mr. Renshaw we have to leave it there. Thank you for your time.

RICK RENSHAW: Thank you very much.

AMT: Rick Renshaw is a political director for the Alliance for pro-life Alabama. He is in Birmingham, Alabama. Despite the bill's passage organizations that provide access to abortions say they will continue to do so for as long as possible. Dr. Yashica Robinson is the medical adviser for the Alabama Women's Centre. That's one of the few clinics providing abortions in the state. She spoke with CBC News after the bill was passed before it was signed into law.

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We have patients that are confused. I mean we even received phone calls today wondering whether we were still going to be open. And there were several patients who were coming in for care this morning. I had one patient telling me a story today about how she dreamed that she would show up here and we were saying we wouldn't be able to take care of her. It's heartbreaking as a physician.

AMT: Well my next guest knows what it feels like to be denied access to abortion. Dina Zirlott tried to have a late term abortion in Alabama several years ago. She was 17 years old. She had been raped. She was denied access to an abortion. The daughter to whom she gave birth had a severe and fatal birth defect. Ms. Zirlott has been speaking out against this law. She's in Mobile, Alabama. Hi.

DINA ZIRLOTT: Hi. How you doing?

AMT: Well I'm fine. I'm wondering what you're thinking as you were listening to Rick Renshaw there.

DINA ZIRLOTT: He was not there for those nights I spent watching Zoe slowly suffer and die for a year in front of me. He doesn't know what I live with. He doesn't know my grief and trauma, just like the politicians who have passed this law can't even begin to comprehend the circumstances that we're coming to seek care under. I believe it's short sighted. It's idealistic and their imagination of what we should experience does not reflect our reality.

AMT: Can you tell me a little bit about what happened? Tell me what happened with Zoe.

DINA ZIRLOTT: I was 17 like you said I was violently raped by a classmate. Afterward I was heavily dissociated. I almost felt like as I went on the next day and the day after that some part of me thought maybe I had actually died the night of my rape, and that whatever world I was walking around in now wasn't real. And every time that reality crashed back into me I was just filled with this desire to end it, end it all. And that silence, the shame, just grew just too cold inside of me and I was unable to reach out and ask for help. And then finally though after months of me getting sicker and sicker and losing weight and I stopped eating and my grades dropped. I quit the all the extracurricular activities I was involved in and my mother finally confronted me and it all came just spilling out. And within a couple of days we were at a OB/GYN office. And within an hour of that I was having an ultrasound. And within minutes of that they were telling me the baby was eight months along and that she was suffering from a condition called hydranencephaly. This is where the cerebrum failed to divide into two separate hemispheres, and that area filled instead with cerebrospinal fluid in the cerebellum in the brainstem remains intact and ensures rudimentary function of your body respiration, heartbeat. But none of the structures there with which you relate to your world with joy or with anger or with sadness, none of those, that did not exist for her. All that was there was the pain and she went on and suffered from various complications of this condition until she passed away. And initially whenever we first found out of course I was just absolutely devastated. I was angry. I was everything. There was no one emotion that I felt. There was emptiness also between all of it. And my mother asked if there were any other options because of the condition that we had. And of course my very obvious you know mental breakdown that was happening. And the doctors explained that in Alabama, short of my life being directly in danger physically, there was nothing that they could do and that if we attempted to go out of state to seek a late term abortion then we would have been inhibited by extreme cost red tape all of it.

AMT: Now Dina I should just point out the doctor had looked at the tests. The doctor had told you that the condition, Zoe's condition, was not compatible with life. It was clear.

DINA ZIRLOTT: Right. Right. It was a definitive diagnosis. I mean there was no denying the reality of that. This was hydranencephaly. It wasn't another condition that can sometimes mimic the imagery of that. It was a definitive diagnosis.

AMT: How long did she live, Dina?

DINA ZIRLOTT: She lived until she was a year old passed away whenever I was 18. I mean when I was 19. I'm so sorry.

AMT: And you loved her.

DINA ZIRLOTT: I loved her very much. I can't explain the way that I loved her. It was a very complex, complex love one and part of the way that she came to me. And because at the same time I'm loving her I'm also fighting it because of the trauma that was done to me and the constant flashbacks and the constant grieving for the person that I was before all of this, but also clinging to her so fiercely afraid constantly that I would lose her, that she would just be ripped out from under me. And also watching her suffer immeasurably and wishing her peace and wishing that I could take that from her as well. And whenever I say I wished I could have had a different experience, it's out of that place of love. It's out of that place where I would have prevented that for her. I would have I would have done anything. I would have sacrificed myself if it meant she could have suffered one less day.

AMT: Because she suffered all the time.

DINA ZIRLOTT: Yes it was constant.

AMT: I'm so sorry that you went through all of that and you still do. I know you have other children now.

DINA ZIRLOTT: I do. I've got three daughters.

AMT: The abortion ban that Alabama is bringing in, it doesn't provide exemptions in cases of incest or rape. It doesn't provide for exemptions for a foetus that doctors say is not fully formed and that would exist only in pain. What are your thoughts about that?

DINA ZIRLOTT: I believe this is also interrelated to a bigger discussion as to how we as a society view death and we grant, even the smallest among us, dignity. But whenever Senator Chambliss was speaking about how this bill will encourage women and children who are victims of rape and incest to come forward earlier, it shows a abysmal lack of knowledge about the nature of trauma for so many victims of assaults. It effectively takes away your voice. It dispossess possesses view of your own narrative and the silence inserts itself into you and you can't always reach out and ask for help. Your mind is not always one within yourself. And it's just complete wilful ignorance on their behalf to imagine that this bill helps those victims at all.

AMT: Dina I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us and share your story with us today.

DINA ZIRLOTT: Thank you so much. I'm so glad you I reached out to me.

AMT: Again I'm very sorry that we had to meet like this, that you've gone through this.

DINA ZIRLOTT: Thank you.

AMT: Dina Zirlott. She is a sexual assault survivor. She's been speaking out against Alabama's new abortion legislation. Just shared her story here. She is in Mobile, Alabama. The new legislation in Alabama may go beyond shutting down abortions in that state. It could bring the abortion question back in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. According to Representative Terri Collins, the Republican woman who sponsored the legislation overturning Roe v. Wade or Roe vs. Wade is we would say is the ultimate goal. That is something Lauren Rankin has been thinking about she's a writer and an activist she is an abortion clinic escort in New York City. She joins us from our studio in New York. Hello Lauren.

LAUREN RANKIN: Hi. Thank you for having me.

AMT: How common are the stories like the one we just heard?

LAUREN RANKIN: Well Dina's story is really powerfully traumatic and awful but abortion is an extremely common experience for women in the United States. One in four women in America will have an abortion in her lifetime. And whether or not that's from rape or because you decide you do not want to carry that pregnancy to term, you have the constitutional right to do that. It's an extremely common thing and comments like Rick's are made in a vacuum of not really knowing someone and understanding that you love someone who has an abortion, which I'm sure he does. He might not know it though.

AMT: Why do you think the Republican Party and its supporters are so motivated on the issue of abortion? Why is it such a touchstone issue right now?

LAUREN RANKIN: I think the abortion question has always been framed in a really odd way. We've had one side that's saying I'm pro-choice, one side that argues I'm pro-life. But this moment right now we have the Supreme Court with Brett Kavanaugh's appointment in the fall, the balance of power really shifted and so now we have a 5/4 split in favour of conservative anti-abortion policies. All five of the conservative justices on the court support abortion restrictions. They have made that clear in previous rulings. And so Alabama's law which is a draconian total abortion ban, on a scale unlike other bands, is really designed directly to challenge that. But it isn't happening in a vacuum. We're seeing this across the southeast in the Midwest right now in the U.S.

AMT: Missouri just passed a bill as well right? It's banning abortions at eight weeks.

LAUREN RANKIN: Precisely. This morning the Missouri Senate passed a ban on abortions eight weeks. It goes back to the house. It needs a couple extra votes and it's believed that it will get it and it will be signed into law. Alabama's neighbouring state Georgia passed a six week ban last week. Louisiana is about to pass a six week ban. Ohio Kentucky and Mississippi have passed six week bans and those are all blatantly and intentionally and constitutional. They're designed to challenge Roe v. Wade and have the Supreme Court eventually overturn it.

AMT: So and is there any scenario where one of those things wouldn't get to the Supreme Court?

LAUREN RANKIN: Yes there is. There very likely is. It's all conjecture at this point. There's the possibility that the Supreme Court will take one or both of these cases and bundle them together, maybe take Alabama's in Georgia's. And some in the abortion rights community are a little fearful of that, that they will use Alabama's total law as sort of a straw man to say this is too severe, we won't support that but we would support a six week ban. But they might not take any of them instead. The point is though even if they don't actually overturn Roe vs. Wade, it is undeniable that this Supreme Court will allow seemingly more benign but more pernicious restrictions on abortion to go into effect that will render legal abortion meaningless for millions of people.

AMT: So the access just won't be there even if it's a little ambiguous.

LAUREN RANKIN: Precisely. Legal abortion means nothing if you can't get one. And that's the entire point.

AMT: So what's the strategy of of the parties and the pro-choice groups as these bills and the court challenges will pile up?

LAUREN RANKIN: It's interesting because everyone is sort of acknowledging that the fight is on right now and that's the only way to duke this out. The ACLU has just filed suit against Ohio's bill. They vowed to sue against Alabama's Bill the Centre for Reproductive Rights is also joining them to file suit. Basically these Republican state legislatures are passing these bills and saying we want you to sue us. We want you to sue us. We want these bills to get blocked in a lower level court. And we will continue to appeal. It's the whole point. So both sides are sort of in this weird moment of we're locked in this fight that we cannot escape and it's going to continue to build because this is - as anti-choice politicians see - their best moment to actually have a case appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, to overturn the landmark legislation that, let's remind Rick Renshaw, is incredibly popular. 73 percent of Americans want to see Roe vs. Wade upheld. This isn't actually a fringe issue. Most people support it. But we've had radical far right politicians driven by a lack of understanding of stories like Dina's that have driven us to this crisis point.

AMT: So they've essentially set a trap for you.

LAUREN RANKIN: Yes they have done that before. We had earlier in the decade there were what we called trap laws targeted regulation of abortion providers and they were laws that required abortion providers to meet ambulatory surgical centre requirements or have hospital admitting privileges, that on the surface seem benign but actually were designed to close clinics and they did with remarkable success. Until in 2016 the Supreme Court with Anthony Kennedy on the bench ruled that that was unconstitutional, that that infringed on a person's constitutional right to access an abortion. But this is a new sort of trap that once Trump won in November 2016 those of us in the community knew they had stolen a seat from President Obama and he appointed Neil Gore said he was anti-abortion. And then when Anthony Kennedy retired last year and Brett Kavanaugh's appointment it was clear that this is where we've been heading this whole time. And hopefully it's really- I mean it really comes down to Chief Justice John Roberts at this point.

AMT: Okay. Well we'll be watching. Lauren Rankin thank you for your time today.

LAUREN RANKIN: Thank you so much.

AMT: That is Lauren Rankin writer and activist and an abortion clinic escort in New York City. Let us know what you think of what you're hearing today on this issue. Tweet us at @TheCurrent CBC. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. Coming up the always eloquent Adam Gopnik finds himself moved to stand up for being a small l liberal. He makes his case in our next half hour. This is The Current.

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Liberalism is constantly under siege but always comes out on top, says author

Guest: Adam Gopnik

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Every American community, you've varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the Liberals.

[Applause]

An outspoken group on many subjects. 10 degrees to the left of centre in good times. 10 degrees to the right of centre if it affects them personally. So here then is a lesson in safe logic. [Singing] I cried when they shot Medgar Evers. Tears ran down my spine. And I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy, as though I lost a father of mine. But Malcolm X got what was coming. He got what he asked for this time. So love me Love me Love me, I'm a liberal.

AMT: Well there is proof if you needed any that small L liberals have been a popular target since at least 1966. That's when the late folk singer Phil Ochs released his song Love Me I'm a liberal. It captured some of the anger and distrust the political left felt toward liberals who they viewed as squishy do gooders ready to change their beliefs as the political and social winds blew. Of course disliking liberals is something that unites left and right. For years American Republicans have worked hard to make liberal a dirty word, and it seems to have worked. Here's Hillary Clinton speaking to MSNBC host Chris Matthews in 2015.

SOUNDCLIP

HILLARY CLINTON: And I'm really grateful for that. So by the time I got to college I said you know I want to work out my own.

CHRIS MATTEWS: She became a real liberal.

HILLARY CLINTON: I like to say progressive.

CHRIS MATTEWS: Well that's good news. Why did people change the word if they liked the word. What was wrong with liberal?

HILLARY CLINTON: Nothing's wrong with it.

CHRIS MATTEWS: Progressive covers such a broader front. It gets all the way over to Democratic socialism all way over to moderate.

HILLARY CLINTON: No it doesn't go as far to socialism I'm sorry.

CHRIS MATTEWS: For you it doesn't.

HILLARY CLINTON: No.

CHRIS MATTEWS: You're not in control of that word.

HILLARY CLINTON: No I'm not. I'm not.

AMT: Well one person who is not ashamed to call himself a small L liberal is Adam Gopnik. The former Montrealer and current staff writer for The New Yorker magazine has a new book out that he's describing as a defence of quote "the moral adventure of liberalism". It's entitled A Thousand Small Sanities. Adam Gopnik is with us from New York. Hello. Thanks for coming in.

ADAM GOPNIK: Thank you very much Anna Maria.

AMT: Why do you think Hillary Clinton is distancing herself from being called a liberal?

ADAM GOPNIK: Well it didn't do very much for her, did it, when we look back on it. You know it's funny you know listening to that Phil Ochs song and has brings me back to my own early- my childhood really. And I remember it well. But you know the funny thing about that is it's so you know a wonderful song is that if you think about Phil Ochs tragic life afterwards, exactly what happened is is that that liberal consensus - which he could afford to mock - vanished by the end of the 1960s United States when Richard Nixon took over. And suddenly that squishy liberal centre looked a lot sunnier than it had before. That's one of the themes of this book, Anna Maria, is that we often overlook the accomplishments of liberalism the moral and the political accomplishments exactly because when the liberal imagination is in power it doesn't seem rhetorically particularly shining. We have to wait till illiberal moment to view it more accurately.

AMT: And so what do you think of those labels being liberal progressive, socialist, how different are they?

ADAM GOPNIK: Nothing depends on words. Nothing depends on what we call them. Canada of course is in the odd position of being one of the last countries in the liberal imperium that actually has a functioning indeed a governing Liberal Party. So we in Canada - and I think of myself that way - have a specific liberal tradition in addition to the general philosophical and temperamental tradition of liberalism. But I think that Hillary Clinton is anxious about the word because it became a swear word, largely from the right in the late 1960s and 1970s when it became associated with secularism and permissive-ism, in being soft on crime and all of those terrible things.

AMT: And to be clear we are talking about a set of values not a political party.

ADAM GOPNIK: Yes exactly. I'm not talking about- as I say it's coincidental that Canada has a Liberal Party but this is not a book about the Liberal Party at all. It's a book about a temperament that reaches back into the 16th century about liberal humanism, liberal democracy. Exactly.

AMT: What would you say are the core principles of liberalism?

ADAM GOPNIK: I think you can define it fairly simply. It's a belief in the possibility of reform through reasoned. Reform meaning the recognition that human societies are filled with unnecessary cruelty and liberalism going back to the time of Montaigne and the birth of humanism has always been a long campaign against cruelty. It's a belief that reform is possible, that we can use legislative means. We can use public and non-violent means to make reform but it's also a belief - and it's one of the things that Maria that I think distinguishes it from conservatism - it's a belief that reform is always necessary that there will always be some new kind of social cruelty that we can recognize that we see clearly for the first time or that's come about for the first time as society reorganizes itself. As hundreds of years went by when people including liberals didn't see adequately the cruelty for instance of the oppression, the persecution of Sexual Minorities something now we see very clearly, and so much of the attention of liberalism over the past 20 years has been devoted to alleviating the persecution of sexual and gender minorities and so on. So that's I think the great liberal project. It's to achieve constant reform but always through reason rather than through violence or through irrational measures.

AMT: Why are you standing up now in defence of being liberal?

ADAM GOPNIK: Because we've never been so under assault on so many fronts. In the United States of course as you know, we have an authoritarian right wing government in power. The duchess not only has contempt in that charming Phil Oaks manner for the name of liberalism in all of the foibles of liberalism, but it's really a constant daily 24 hour assault on the principles of liberal democracy. So living through that I thought it was more valuable. You know I write a lot Anna Maria for the New Yorker about contemporary political events. I didn't used to but I do all the time. I write about Trump and gun control and incarceration of the rest of it. But I wanted this book not to be a contemporary political polemic. I wanted it to be an embodiment of values. But there's no question it was provoked into existence by the reality that those liberal values are under specific assault from a right wing authoritarian government, every day.

AMT: Remind us some of the changes in society that have been won by liberals over the years. The small L liberal.

ADAM GOPNIK: Small L liberals. The book begins with John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor that great British philosophical couple who stole away had a clandestine romance in the 18 thirties at the London Zoo. They began thinking both about the ideas that would become Mill's on liberty the idea that we should all be free to speak even blasphemous thoughts. And that's an adventure that's gone on and on with the ever expanding areas of freedom for speech, of theatrical speech, speech on air, the right to air our views without fear of censorship. That's a liberal tripe. But hand with that goes the other great project that they engaged in and that was the book called On the Subjection of Women, an insistence that government had to be used to erase not just to alleviate but completely a race to the barriers that had been put on women's rights. That was another one of the great moral adventures. It's been unevenly imperfectly achieved but if you think about the idea which is now at the centre of our operating system, that women have exactly the same rights as men not less or secondary or subsidiary rights but should have exactly the same rights to political and economic action as men. That's another triumph of liberal reform that has really no precedent in world history.

AMT: Under your definition of liberal democracy would all of Canada's main political parties be liberal?

ADAM GOPNIK: Absolutely. I mean I think there are fringe elements on both right and left that would be less so. But certainly the NDP certainly comes under the broad head of liberal social democracy. Certainly the Liberals are liberal. The Conservatives are too. Yes Canada in my mind is and it's perhaps one of the reasons why I'm so attached to liberal traditions because I grew up in Canada. Canada is in lots of ways - Canadians get very offended, I know, when I say this but it's true - is in many ways a model liberal nation. It's a nation that stretches over this an unimaginably vast terrain. You know I got to do the Massey lecture for the CBC in 2011 and I went from one end of the country, literally, from St. John's to Victoria and speaking and talking. And it was astonishing to me to see that this much geography could be conciliated, could be shared by a common set of values which were simply defined by people's willingness to listen to ideas and to debate ideas from one end of the country to another. They were much more argumentative in St. John's and much more quiet in Vancouver but everybody shared in that idea. So yes Canada's existence, the idea of a foundational compromise between two very different peoples. I use the example in the book - and it's going to be a total discovery for Americans who've never heard of it - of Lafontaine and Baldwin coming together for the beginnings of the idea of Canada to stare down an anti-Catholic crowd in Montreal and to say that these two peoples can live together sharing in exactly the idea that they use. Sharing liberal values can unite two people without trying to erase the differences between them. That idea of pluralism of something more than coexistence but something less than congeal meant of different kinds, that's a core liberal idea in Canada is an expression of it.

AMT: And you know some listening to you now would say come back and look a little closer at whether that gnashing of the peoples works as well as it should with Canada's indigenous people with people of colour, with new Canadians.

ADAM GOPNIK: It always works imperfectly. The founding premise of liberalism is that human beings are completely imperfect creatures and that all societies, all imaginable societies, will be fallible. All the national societies will be flawed often in profound ways. What liberalism tries to do is to implant what I call a corrective conscience in its institutions, exactly so that you and I can have our eyes opened and see the mystery of First Nations people are indigenous people, be aware of the uneasy welcomed afforded to new Canadians. It doesn't detract from the nobility of the mission to point out again and again that we have yet to succeed entirely. That's why I say liberals believe not just in the possibility of reform. Liberals believe in the necessity of reform, the perpetual necessity of reform including reforms of all the ills you just outlined.

AMT: So describe liberals in the minds of their enemies.

ADAM GOPNIK: So the right wing attack on liberalism says liberals are individualists and they not only underrate community they destroy communities. Obviously that happens through the free market but it also happens through the liberal obsession with meritocracy, personal advancement. The way we get spread out across whole continents and we lose our essential communal and clan identity. That's a classic right wing critique of liberalism. The left wing critique of liberalism of course is that liberalism does two things. It exports its atrocities outwards so that the Liberal record within the Western countries may be good but liberal record of colonialism and imperialism in what we now call it or did call the Third World is terrible, and that the liberal institutions that I am praising are really just ways for a small elite to impose its values on working people. I think those are the core critiques that come from either side.

AMT: Okay so let's stick with the right now. When you look at the rise of right wing populism and the embrace of nationalism worldwide, is that a failure of the philosophy of liberalism?

ADAM GOPNIK: It's an alternative to the philosophy of liberalism. Liberalism will always be an embattled creed because you'll always have someone to your right and someone to your left. I certainly think that the rise of right wing populism is a response both to real failures of liberalism and perceived failures. The truth is it's one of the key ideas I wanted to put forward in this book that historically liberalism, far from being an enemy of community and common enterprises, is rooted in them. One of the crucial lessons about the liberal tradition is that it begins with not with big status projects but with coffeehouses and clubhouses with small places in which people can make new values. A good immediate and hand example of that is the fight for gay marriage. Gay marriage didn't begin as a legislative program. It began as a common program on the part of a few imaginative people, gay people. Bit by bit it spread and became a social movement and then only at the end became a legislative necessity.

AMT: Government caught up with it.

ADAM GOPNIK: Governments catch up with changes already made on the ground. That's the liberal view and that depends on the idea of their being coherent community. So I would that's the first thing I'd say about that is the populist revolt response to liberal failures. Absolutely and one of the things I think that liberalism has to amend itself liberalism is an imperfect creed in an imperfect world. One of the things I say at the end of the book is that liberals need to be able to have a much better account, both philosophically but also rhetorically, of what patriotism is. What we mean by patriotism it's a deep deep appetite that human beings have for identity and we can't trace it. We have to understand it absolutely.

AMT: In 2014 right wing Hungarian leader Viktor Orban gave a speech in which he said a democracy is not necessarily liberal. Just because something is not liberal it can still be a democracy. Is he right? Do real democracies need to be liberal?

ADAM GOPNIK: Yes I think they do. He's certainly right that you can have democratic institutions without having liberal institutions. Russia, Hungary, Iran in another way, all have elections but they have no liberal institutions to protect dissent, to protect minorities. So what we mean by liberal democracy isn't just majority vote. It means the possibility of the isolation of governments. It means the possibility of the next vote. It means the possibility that the dissenters can be protected, heard and eventually if they can persuade enough people can come to govern themselves. So, no, I don't think we can have genuinely democratic institutions unless we have those liberal institutions, free speech, a belief in the isolation of parties in power. Liberal universities. It's very significant I think that Orban has launched such an attack which Canada's own Michael Ignatieff was at the heart of defending on liberal university. Populist dictators and autocrats can't stand the idea that there would be places where people would think and speak and read and teach freely. So, no, I believe in liberal institutions and I think they're essential to what we mean by democracy.

AMT: So how confident are you that pillars of a liberal democracy like the Free Press, like free elections, and a political justice system, the universities, the academic freedom that you just mentioned, can withstand the shares of the rise of more polarized radical politics the kind that we see today in so many places?

ADAM GOPNIK: I have zero confidence. I say some place in the book that we all have the philosophy of our insomnia which means the things we really care about of the things we wake up at 3:00 a.m. and worry about, obviously our kids, obviously money but also in my case whether liberal civilization can survive at all. I see it under daily attack here in the United States, as you just pointed out, throughout Europe. In Canada it seems less so now. But you know the whole episode of Rob Ford in Toronto was a kind of prelude to Trump-ism in lots of ways. Here's what I do think, Anna Maria, at 3:30 a.m. when I'm trying to get back to sleep, this is what I tell myself: Historically, at any moment of crisis or high pressure, liberalism and liberal institutions have always looked incredibly weak. In the 1930s when fascism and Stalin ism were both on the rise almost every intellectual in Britain and in and in France, even to some degree in Canada, said look liberal institutions are too weak to meet these challenges and they became fascist sympathizers or communists or they took up some form or another of authoritarianism instead. At the end of the day those liberal institutions, those weak, compromised, uncertain, wishy washy, love me love me institutions turned out to be remarkably strong and they defeated the totalitarian alternatives and built a better world. At any moment liberalism will look weak and ultimately historically it's proven to be strong.

AMT: Well let's look at the U.S. How much long term damage do you think is being done to liberal democracy today by the rise of far right support in the U.S., and I should say other Western countries not just the U.S.?

ADAM GOPNIK: I think enormous damage is being done here in the United States every day and one of the things that that frightens me, terrifies me frankly, is that we normalize it each day. You know every day there's a new assault on some fundamental premise of liberal democracy on the rule of law or on the independence of the judiciary or just on the simple notion that you shouldn't criminalize your opponents. You know it's not a joke when Trump calls Hillary Clinton Crooked Hillary. It means that my opponent is a criminal not an honourable dissident from my view. Those are terrible things, terrifying things. I console myself with the broader thought that the majority and any time you have a chance to counter it is still clearly against those views a numerical majority. And more broadly that those institutions so far, so far, italicized underline 'so far', have proven to be more resilient those liberal institutions than we might have feared.

AMT: I want to talk about a moment in Canadian history. It's a clip of Liberal prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau October 1970 in the wake of the kidnapping of British trade commissioner James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre LaPorte by the Quebec militant separatists, fhe FLQ. Listen to him.

SOUNDCLIP

PIERRE TRUDEAU: There's a lot of bleeding hearts around because we don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is go on and lead but that's more important to keep law and order in this society than to be worried about weak kneed people who don't like the looks of--.

INTERVIEWER: At any cost? How far would you go with that? How far would you extend that on?

PIERRE TRUDEAU: Just watch me.

AMT: The famous quote.

ADAM GOPNIK: The famous quote. I remember that quote I remember seeing it live but I remember the October Crisis really as though it were yesterday. You know I was just kind of coming of age mentally at that time and I remember the helicopters in the trees above our house and I remember each day of that time. I think it would be fair to say that even those of us who greatly admire many parts of pure Trudeau's legacy are inclined to think in retrospect that that was an illiberal overreaction, the war measures Act and the his response to the October Crisis.

AMT: And for our listeners who too don't remember it. It was the War Measures Act suspended civil liberties and Quebec had led to nearly 500 people being detained the vast majority of them never charged with anything.

ADAM GOPNIK: Right and all released eventually. It's important to distinguish between illiberal measures undertaken by a liberal society and genuinely oppressive measures undertaken by a non-liberal society in illiberal societies, authoritarian societies. 500 people are arrested and released. They are arrested and imprisoned and they disappear for the most part. Always. So I think that those are different cases but certainly it's true that every liberal society is tested in some way. If you look at what happened in Quebec and I was lucky enough - and I use that word very strongly, lucky enough, to go out in Quebec throughout the 1970s and 80s - what happened was that you saw the working out of that crisis through Liberal parliamentary political means. The rise of the party Québécois, the first referendum, second referendum and the need of Quebec nationalism to express itself, the desire to make sure that Quebec nationalism didn't simply suppress its own minorities, all of those things have been worked out imperfectly in ways that are not tyre entirely satisfying to anyone. So that's a good example of a political crisis, a national crisis, that was successfully adjudicated by Democratic and liberal means.

AMT: How does a liberal confront ISIS?

ADAM GOPNIK: Well liberalism is not pacifism. Liberalism is not pacifism. It was liberals who fought Hitler. One of the things that happened was is you had an alliance of patriotic conservatives, like Churchill and de Gaulle, and liberals like our own like Mackenzie King and FDR to fight Hitler. Liberalism accepts the necessity of war making at times. But I would point the broader moral that you know we talked a moment ago about the October Crisis and what happened after. I suppose I have magnetism to crisis or simply that if you live long enough you lived through a lot of crises. I was similarly had a front row seat to 9/11. I wrote about it. I was on my feet for the New Yorker through that day and everything that happened after. And as you may recall, speaking of ISIS, what everyone said again at that time or what many people said, people who were pushing for the war in Iraq particularly is that liberalism is too weak and too wishy washy to confront this new challenge. The Islamic militants are charged with ideological fervour and ideological certainty and we're all wandering around and you're just in- I got attacked a lot for that, for saying I'm not sure that a military response is the right one. And yet now oh almost 20 years later, approaching 20 years later, it certainly doesn't seem that way. It certainly doesn't seem as though Islamic militants is the rising wave in the world. Our terror of terrorism, that kind of auto immune disease of an overreaction to terrorism that got provoked in that time looks foolish and misplaced now. We do not live here in New York under daily threat or fear of terrorism. We've learned to live with our hopes and our lives rather than with our fears. So there's another example it seems to me of how seemingly weak liberal institutions turned out to be much stronger more resilient and more responsive than people said they would be.

AMT: So as liberals struggle with the assault on them from the left and the right what can they do to fight back?

ADAM GOPNIK: What I hope they'll do is read my book and realize that they have a remarkable history of heroes and heroines of his extraordinary struggles not of meek and mild and frightened centrism, but of radical change pursued by humane measures. That's what liberalism is. It's the pursuit of radical reform by humane measures. That's an extraordinary story and it's a story that takes in everything from the fight for the emancipation of African-Americans to the full liberation of women sexual minorities, indigenous peoples, people of colour. That's the great moral adventure of liberalism and it has countless heroes and heroines who I try to enumerate some, tried to enumerate some of them in this book, and we can take heart from that.

AMT: And you're not a political pundit because many pundits you would be doing what they're doing they proclaim the death of liberal democracy. Why do you think of those kinds of predictions?

ADAM GOPNIK: Nobody is a prophet. Nobody can see into the future and whenever we try and revisit the predictions of the future from the past they always end up looking quite foolish. None looks more foolish as I said before then the constant recurrent prediction that liberal values, liberal democracy, liberal humanism will be expunged and will vanish from the world. Every authoritarian ideology has announced that for the past 200 years. Many people, intellectuals particularly, have nodded in agreement at that idea. And yet here we are today endangered beleaguered and yet still able to articulate liberal values and protect liberal institutions that really have no precedent in human history. I think that's a positive and in its own way optimistic truth.

AMT: Adam Gopnik thanks for sharing your ideas with us.

ADAM GOPNIK: Pleasure always talking in Canada.

AMT: Adam Gopnik staff writer for The New Yorker his new book is A Thousand Small Sanities, the Moral Adventure of Liberalism. He's in New York City. That's our program for today stay with Radio One for Q Dan Aykroyd Jones Tom today. Now we're going to leave you with some more sound from the floor of the Alabama legislature when they were debating the new law restricting abortion. Democratic Senator Vivian Davis figures attempted to add an amendment to the bill. It sure got the attention of the male lawmakers. It not pass. Here it is. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VIVIAN DAVIS: But why you all want to control our bodies? I will never ever know. You know you are always trying to put the laws on us. I want you all to vote for this one so we can have some equality about this thing. Okay, Mr. President I offer this [Cross talking] vote. I saved the best for last.

VOICE 1: Oh I'm in it to House Bill 314 [unintelligible] centre figures. On page eight after line 15 insert the following new subsections C and D. C a man who has a vasectomy shall be guilty of a Class A felony. D a man who attempts to have a vasectomy shall be guilty of a Class C felony.

VOICE 2: Urge you to vote now members.

VIVIAN DAVIS: Using the long [cross talking] you're talking about life.

VOICE 1: All right Secretary call the roll.

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Thursday May 16, 2019 Full Transcript

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