Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2019

The Current Transcript for September 12, 2019

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

DANIEL HOFFMAN: There are sources who are revealing classified information to CNN. I don't know how anyone could be doing that. Vladimir Putin deals very ruthlessly with those whom he calls traitors. So this guy if this story is true has a bull's eye on his head.

LAURA LYNCH: There is a real life spy thriller coming to light. And former CIA agent Daniel Hoffman says the revelations are endangering the life of a Russian mole who was apparently extracted from Moscow after four years. Donald Trump's carelessness with intelligence might put him at risk. All the drama and mystery in half an hour. Later on monopoly gets a makeover. Not everyone is happy.

SOUNDCLIP

Hasbro created a game that no other game maker has ever done before a game that features Ms. Monopoly whose goal is to make a difference by celebrating female inventors and inspiring young entrepreneurs everywhere.

LL: It was meant to be a forward thinking bit of marketing switching monopolies focus from grey haired male tycoons to a version where women rule the boardwalk. But there's one key thing missing, owner Hasbro refuses to acknowledge the woman who actually invented the game. First up though we head north to talk about how to secure Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic. I'm Laura Lynch and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Arctic policy and Canadian sovereignty

Guests: Madeleine Redfern, Rob Huebert

LL: The Arctic is full of landscapes both stunning and eerie. From glaciers icebergs snowcapped mountains and the captivating thrill of the Northern Lights. It's home to the Inuits and rich with resources that many countries would like to exploit. Questions of sovereignty over the bone chilling cold of the Canadian Arctic have long been a topic of hot debate.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: What does the Prime Minister prepare to do to demonstrate to the international community Canada's sovereignty over the...

VOICE 2: The Northwest Passage is a Canadian passage. Its internationally recognized. Our government is standing up to defend our interests. Our Minister of Foreign Affairs reasserted that today. Canadian sovereignty in the north is longstanding. We will continue to defend our sovereignty the peoples and the communities in the north and our national interests.

LL: Now that exchange took place in the House of Commons in May when members of parliament were debating whether Canada is doing enough to protect Arctic sovereignty. Now with the announcement of the Liberals long awaited policy on developing the Canadian Arctic, critics say it's still lacking in the new report the Department of Crown indigenous relations and Northern Affairs vows to tackle poverty, hunger and eliminate homelessness. In a minute we will talk to one of the critics of the policy. But first we'll hear why there's some optimism in the air. Madeleine Redfern is the mayor of Iqaluit, Nunavut and we've reached her today in Waterloo, Ontario. Hello.

MADELEINE REDRERN: Good morning.

LL: What's your reaction to the new Liberal Arctic and northern policy framework?

MADELEINE REDRERN: Well it's good that it's finally out. And I've read it. It's very comprehensive. It gives a good outline of the history and the current reality but it also charts a path forward about how important it is for all levels of government and indigenous peoples to work together on these issues so that we can finally start tackling them. So there's still a lot of hard work to do though.

LL: Yes. Because the framework was first promised after the last federal election and it's taken this long to develop. Why?

MADELEINE REDRERN: Well it was co-developed. You're talking about three territories, as well as parts of northern provinces, three levels of government various departments, inward organizations and the business sector. So it's not actually going to take quite a bit of time if you choose to write a report all by yourself it's a lot faster. But this is the path forward is that we need to work together. And therefore it was going to take time to develop the framework.

LL: When you look at the poll of policies of other Arctic nations, such as Denmark for example, how does Canada compare?

MADELEINE REDRERN: Well there's a lot of work that we have to do to catch up with our Arctic nation neighbours especially since they've deployed quite a lot of significant investment in key areas related to transportation, telecommunications and energy. So at least now we've got a framework in which to be able to move forward with and will need to start seeing a lot more of those investments to see the northern Canada beginning to enjoy a lot of the same level standards that Southern Canadians do.

LL: Okay let let's zoom in on a couple of those things. How does Canada compare with regard to telecommunications?

MADELEINE REDRERN: Well most of the other Arctic nations have fibre optic to most of their north. We see Greenland has fibre optic to Nuuk and they've been scaling it out very strategically, at the same time is deploying renewable energy projects. They've got five to six hydro plants. Iceland fully fibred up as well as the Scandinavian countries are. The Russians are also moving ahead with plans on their North East Fibre Optic project. So without good telecommunications it's very hard for us to even do things like running a government let alone businesses and communicating with our citizens or the rest of the world.

LL: How far behind is Canada and telecommunications in the North?

MADELEINE REDRERN: Well it varies. There's fibre optic and better telecommunications infrastructure in the Yukon and in Northwest Territories. But even, you know as I was talking to some of my territorial counterparts yesterday, that you get a little bit beyond Whitehorse or Yellowknife and then you start seeing in communities that are 100 percent satellite dependent and that's where things become challenging. The connectivity speed is not as fast as the South or on fibre. It's unstable. It's very expensive. Even i Iqaluit with the significant increase in satellite subsidy, people are complaining regularly not being able to connect to the internet not be able to use your cell phones and even sometimes landlines. Because we're so connected to the other regions that if there's a fibre optic link cut in British Columbia or Alberta or Yukon we lose telecommunications. One explanation recently was that we're having spotty connection because of the rain and you just have to shake your head.

LL: How frustrating. Then there are other real issues. Secure Housing food security and I know you say this is a great framework but there's no funding attached to it. There's no implementation plan. How can you feel so optimistic?

MADELEINE REDRERN: Well the framework was never going to be the strategy. That was clear from the beginning. The framework was effectively outlining how we need to do things differently. And often we've seen different levels of government working on the same issues not even aware that you know certain programs or initiatives are underway. Some policies conflict or contradict with each other. There's a lot of silos that happen and we need to break those down so that we're much more aligned with each other, aware what we're each other's doing and start deploying our limited resources in a manner that actually does make a difference on these issues. But we're also seeing that there are investments being made, even while the framework was being developed investments for housing, telecommunications, energy, funds committed to reduce and eliminate tuberculosis, mental health programs. So there is a wide array of investments that are being deployed. Now the issue is to make sure that we actually do so much more strategically.

LL: Now we're going to be talking to a critic next about one of the big issues around this which is security in the Arctic. What do you think the framework should look like with regard to addressing national security there?

MADELEINE REDRERN: Well interestingly enough the Gordon Foundation a few years ago did a poll both of northerners and southerners says what did they understand Arctic security to mean in Canada's north. And overwhelmingly the definition of security was much broader than just of military or defence. It included environmental security, social security, economic security. And so the framework is going to have to look at the broader inclusive definition of security, at the same time recognizing that we have to be very careful and strategic as to how we address security in the more traditional sense. There can be fibre optic cables that are being designed and then deployed and we shouldn't miss out the opportunity of adding sensors, so that the fibre optic is not just a telecommunications cable but also monitoring the temperature of the water, the currents, noise whether it's from whale migration or vessels that are going through our Arctic waters.

LL: All right. Well we will leave it there. Mayor Redfern thank you for your time.

MADELEINE REDRERN: Thank you.

LL: Madeleine Redford is the mayor of Iqaluit, Nunavut. She was in Waterloo, Ontario today. My next guest has been watching successive Canadian governments try their hand at Arctic policy to share his thoughts on how well he thinks Justin Trudeau's Liberals have done. I'm joined by Rob Huebert. He's an associate professor with the political science department at the University of Calgary. And we have reached him in Calgary. Hello.

ROB HUEBERT: Hi Laura how are you doing?

LL: Good. Do you share Madeline Redfern's optimism about this new Arctic policy framework?

ROB HUEBERT: I'm afraid I'm a somewhat more pessimistic on what was delivered to us. It's difficult to think of it in the context of a policy, framework -whatever term you want to call it - given the fact that after being promised since the very beginning of its term in office it delivers it one day before the election is called. I'm afraid you know if the cynic in me sees this much more as just setting up for an election platform rather than any meaningful policy, because how do you have policy when you're basically saying here's what we want to do. Just elect us again and then we'll deal with the details. And that's just difficult to see what the thinking was in that context.

LL: All right. Try to set the cynicism aside for just a moment and look at the framework for me. Is it a good framework?

ROB HUEBERT: On certain aspects. I think the mayor is absolutely right when she highlights some of the aspects on the domestic side. So if you look at some of the manners in which it's trying to attempt to at least isolate or identify some of the challenges in terms of housing infrastructure, some of the issues in terms of community relations I think that this framework has at the minimum has identified some key issues that have to continue to look at. If you start looking at the international side the document has very little except to sort of extend certain platitudes in terms of how the government wishes that it could see the international side of the Arctic continue, without really offering any real suggestions about how it is going to actually deal with some of the very important changes that we see internationally now.

LL: What would you like to have seen?

ROB HUEBERT: Well I would like to see in a much more extensive discussion in terms of how it is dealing with the fact that, A, the Arctic is not this exceptional piece a region of international peace and cooperation. There are clear signs that it is becoming a area of critical geopolitical importance to the Americans, the Russians, the Chinese. There's no mention of that. There's no mention in terms that the Americans have been making some very loud noises about directly challenging our sovereignty to the Northwest Passage. There's nothing in terms of talking about the type of security infrastructure that is going to be very expensive, politically sensitive, difficult to do, but inevitably is going to have to be undertaken because of the new weapon technologies that are being introduced into the Arctic. So there's absolutely nothing on that side.

LL: Now the Office of the Minister of National Defence sent us a written statement in support of its new framework for the Arctic that says in part: "Increasing activity in the north will result in increased security demands and we're investing in a range of new capabilities that will will better position the Canadian Armed Forces to meet these needs" unquote. Does that give you any comfort?

ROB HUEBERT: Well not really because it's only dealing with the inside of it. It's dealing with the side of the increased activity which is really focussed on the commercial activity. In other words the law and order and helping in that regard. That's important. And to give the Liberals credit their defence policy actually talks about this issue quite well but there was no real carryover in terms of the larger strategic issue that most observers are now saying has changed quite dramatically since the defence policy was actually made. You can talk about having the ability to patrol and see this activity but you now have to start talking about hypersonic weaponry. You have to start talking about new submarine forms, and you have to talk about even the eventual entry of the Chinese into this region in a military context and there's nothing here preparing for that.

LL: Okay. I want you to listen to some of what a colleague of yours had to say on the question of Russian Arctic sovereignty. David Bercuson is the director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.

SOUNDCLIP

There are people who will look at for example the vast expansion of Russian military assets in the north and will say these pose a challenge to Canada. I'm not one who believes that the way you really guarantee sovereignty of your North is by cementing greater bonds between southern Canada and northern Canada. Having communities in the far north which are tied to Canada not simply by government largesse but by feelings of solidarity with Canada because of these policies is the way that you secure sovereignty over the Arctic islands.

LL: All right let let's look into what David Bercuson had to say. Do you believe the Kremlin is a real threat to our security in the Arctic?

ROB HUEBERT: It's a threat in the context that it has to be. And what I mean by that is if you look at both there their geography if you look at their weapons systems they have to build up their strategic forces in the Arctic region. As they've done so they've discovered that they can use similar forces that then protected for power projection. And anytime we have an issue with the Russians, be it in Syria, be it in the Ukraine, inevitably those are the forces that come to play. And so just by virtue of geography there is a growing threat as Russia increasingly finds itself at odds with the interests of the West. And so it's not about fighting over the islands or any of the stuff that David was talking about but rather it's the location of where they have their key forces. And that's the problem that we're facing that I don't think everybody always fully appreciate, and it definitely doesn't show up in the documents.

LL: But what about David Bercuson's argument that sovereignty could best be achieved by strengthening ties between the South and the North?

ROB HUEBERT: Well the moment you start saying that you have to do that to improve sovereignty over the islands I don't think that has a full and comprehensive understanding of where the threats are coming from. The threat to sovereignty per say is over the waterways and that of course is how we handle the Americans because the Americans are the biggest threats to the waterways and particularly what they say they want to do. As soon as you start saying about joining of course you have to join it have the South and North interested. But the problem is that the security threat is much larger than any one part of the country. And so this is where you can talk about the need to sort of have on a softer human security side. Absolutely you need to have that connection. But dealing with the harder security threat that is now developing once again the major focus has to come from the state itself which is from Ottawa. And that's that's what you're looking at this document for guidance.

LL: Okay. I'm going to. We're going to come back to Russia in a moment but I just want to stay with what you mentioned that the United States. It might sound very strange to people to hear you talk about the United States and the security threat. Is that a real threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic?

ROB HUEBERT: Well and I have to be careful here it's not so much a security threat but a sovereignty threat. The secretary of the Navy, the secretary of state this year have all talked about the manner in which the Canadian position and the Northwest Passage is illegitimate. And that in fact they are talking increasingly about challenging us by sending either a naval vessel or a Coast Guard vessel through under what's known as a freedom of navigation operation. And so the the irony we have here is that we have the Americans increasingly talking about being a sovereignty threat, while at the same time if you look at what the Russians have been doing in the Arctic it is the Americans that have to probably work with us the closest to respond to the Russian security threat. And so this is the part that really gets complicated and then the part of the picture in this policy where hopefully the government was trying to think this one through.

LL: Sergey Sukhankin is a fellow with the Jamestown Foundation which is a U.S. think tank and I wanted to listen to what he had to say about the Russian threat.

SOUNDCLIP

Ottawa needs to work closely with the United States and other Arctic countries. This is what Russia wants to sort of undermine cohesion between other Arctic countries. Because if we keep brawling with the United States or other EU member states or Norway or Baltic Russia would be wherever happen moral we're China will be all right we're happy about it in terms of political will, in terms of domestic relations with indigenous groups. Canada should pursue sort of more transparent dialogue because this was the kind of group that Russia might want to use for disinformation propaganda.

LL: Now he reflects some of what you were saying about the need to actually cooperate with the United States when it comes to Russia. Do you think Russia wants to sow seeds of discontent between Arctic nations or is that giving Russia too much credit?

ROB HUEBERT: No I think if you start looking at the open source reporting from CSIS, from the CIA, from the British intelligence and start looking at the broader picture I think it's fairly clear. I mean even even the Liberal government has talked about the need to be on guard against Russian interference in the election. And so I think it's somewhat naive to think that when it comes to the Arctic the Russians change their behaviour. So if we can take all of these sources including the Government of Canada's pronouncement that we have to be on our guard for that. That means the Russians are trying to interfere. Why would they not be doing it in the Arctic? And so therefore we definitely have to be working much closer in regards with our allies and that includes the United States. But when we get back to the Arctic once again, you're inevitably going to have the political question how do we work closer with the Americans on the defence side which we know we have to do when it comes to the Arctic. But at the same time be able to push back if in fact the Americans do do something which I think would be very harmful for our relations and directly challenge our sovereignty as they've talked about doing.

LL: We have a very few seconds left. I just want to ask you because we're in an election campaign now, what's at stake for the people of the North if another government doesn't act on these issues?

ROB HUEBERT: Well what's going to happen is we'll do just what this report signifies we'll continue reinventing it each and every time a new government comes. I mean the issues are well known. These subjects are clear. And we'll just simply start it all over again when in fact we need to be acting.

LL: All right. Thank you very much.

ROB HUEBERT: Always my pleasure.

LL: Rob Huebert is an associate professor with the political science department at the University of Calgary. Well the CBC News is coming up next. Then the thing about being a spy is that everything about them including their names and where they live should be a secret. Their very lives depend on it. But one suspected U.S. spy who's been smuggled out of Russia may have been outed and his life could now be in real danger. Will wade into the world of espionage, secrecy and sabotage. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The current.

Back To Top »

Alleged extraction of U.S. spy was meant to calm nerves over Trump's handling of secrets: former agent

Guests: Amy Knight, Mel Goodman, Naveed Jamali

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come: it's election season and the CBC disinformation unit has been digging into MPs Web sites and the information they may be collecting about you. Reporter Andrea Bellemare will be here to share what she found after a month of digging into the data and she'll tell us what it means for your privacy ahead of casting your vote. But first the U.S. spy inside the Kremlin who came in from the cold.

SOUNDCLIP

What I can say is this was a former senior Russian official who had access to Vladimir Putin who was working for the Russian government and who as of yesterday was living in a house in the Washington D.C. suburbs. I went to that house, I knocked on the door. He wasn't home but five minutes later I was sort of accosted by a couple of people that appear to be agents of the U.S. government carefully monitoring that house. And of course we've now been asked by U.S. officials to withhold a lot of the details including the name of this person.

AMY KNIGHT: That's NBC correspondent Ken Dilanian describing an odd encounter last Wednesday. The scene unfolded when he showed up outside a house believed to be the home of America's most important spy in Russia. News broke this week that the agent was pulled out of Russia back in 2017. Why and how the exfiltration went down remains a mystery. But the story is raising questions about the state of U.S. intelligence and national security. Amy Knight has been following and writing about the saga of the Russian spy. She's a contributor to The Daily Beast and the author of Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder. And Amy Knight is in Summit, New Jersey. Hello.

AMY KNIGHT: Hi.

LL: What do we know about the spy who was exfiltrated from Moscow in 2017?

AMY KNIGHT: Well we think that his name is Oleg Smolenkov and once the news broke in the U.S. I think it was first by CNN about this spy being exfiltrated by the CIA, the Russian press and particularly the paper Kommersant provided a lot of details about a man named Oleg Smolenkov who had actually disappeared around the time that this spy was allegedly exfiltrated from Russia.

LL: Okay. So how sure are we that the person whose home Ken Dilanian visited in that clip is the same one who was pulled out of Russia?

AMY KNIGHT: Well you know we can't be certain because it hasn't been confirmed by authoritative American sources and of course the Russians they acknowledge that this man, Smolenkov, disappeared from Russia. In fact they had a he left with his family on a vacation to Montenegro in the early summer of 2017. And they supposedly initiated a murder investigation, but then they found out later that he was actually in the United States. So we know this man exists. We know that he served directly under Yuri Ushakov who was it significantly the ambassador Russian ambassador to the United States from 1998 to 2008. Ushakov was very important and Smalenkov was serving directly under him.

LL: Which suggests he was recruited when he was quite mid-level a long time ago.

AMY KNIGHT: Yeah I mean it would have been 20 years or less that Smalenkov - and I would think - I mean again this hasn't been confirmed but I would think that he was recruited by the Americans when he was serving as second secretary in the embassy the Russian embassy in the United States. And by the way the New York Times yesterday sort of downplayed this position but the second secretary is an important job. And also you know the line between diplomats and the foreign intelligence service is a very blurry one. A lot of diplomats are actually working undercover for the Foreign Intelligence Service. I'm not saying this was the case with Smalenkov but it certainly is not inconceivable that as second secretary he had a lot of access to important information.

AMY KNIGHT: Is there any evidence of what kind of intelligence he was supposed to have been providing to the United States?

AMY KNIGHT: Well the kind of intelligence he would have been providing, when he was actually serving in Washington, you know we haven't heard reports about that and. But the the the story is now, the suspicion is now that once he followed Ushakov back to Moscow and continue to serve as his key aide that Smalenkov had a lot of access to decision making about Russia's policy towards the United States. Ushakov became Putin's key adviser and he speaks fluent English, as I'm sure Smalenkov does. And I think that we have good reason to assume that the decisions that were made about interference of Russian interference in our elections in 2016 were made in a tight circle that surrounded Putin and they probably included Ushakov.

LL: Okay so what do we know then about why it was suddenly so urgent that U.S. intelligence got him out and get him to the United States?

AMY KNIGHT: Well they're two versions. One is that suddenly after Trump had meetings with Russians including the Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that you know he was blurting things out and and the intelligence American intelligence community was worried that - because Trump had knowledge that there was this spy they had told him you know not his name, but he had knowledge of this and there was concern that Trump would could not be trusted with this information and that the spy was in danger. That's one story. But there's another story which is that when information began to be leaked at the end of 2016 and early 2017 within the United States about Russian election interference, the media began speculating on the sources of the U.S. intelligence committees in you know their information. And so there were also some arrests of high level FSB people in Moscow. So one possible scenario.

LL: FSB being the Russian Spy Agency.

AMY KNIGHT: Yes, the Russian Spy Agency. So one possible scenario is that the Russian government, the Kremlin, became concerned about a possible leak from within their midst. Once it was learned that the U.S. had a lot of intelligence about their election interference campaign.

LL: So what do you make of the fact that he was apparently living under his own name and in the suburbs of Washington?

AMY KNIGHT: Well you know it's interesting. And we do have other examples of defectors and spies who have lived openly in the United States and in Britain for that matter. I mean look at Oleg Gordievsky, a very high level spy who's been in Britain and written a great deal about his service working for the KGB. So it's not unprecedented. And my take would be first of all that the U.S. authorities have for a long time assumed that Russia would never be so bold as to assassinate somebody, one of their own, who defected right in the United States. Now the Skripal poisoning in March of 2018. Skripal was a military intelligence officer living in Britain. He was a defector. That now very notorious poisoning attempt showed that the Kremlin actually might be a more bold in doing these kinds of things.

LL: Not to mention Litvinenko who was actually killed in the UK. Well yes I mean Lipman ankle was not quite in the same category as Skripal, but yes. So red flags should have been raised about this. But when you when you think about it it's very very difficult nowadays to keep somebody- particularly Smalenkov has a family. He has three children and a wife. And apparently the reportedly the children were on social media right before they disappeared. It would be pretty hard for this man to completely remain hidden. It seems to me that probably the calculation was the Russians are going to find out where he is anyway. And perhaps, if you look at it from another point of view, having him living openly might make it a little bit harder for the Russians to be so bold as to swoop down on him and you know try to harm him or kill him. I'm just I'm just speculating. I mean of course it is a matter of concern and I think that that Smalenkov is in danger if it is indeed true that he is the top level spy that the CIA recruited. But I think that you know there were a lot of considerations behind this and I don't think the fact that he was living openly suggests that he wasn't important.

LL: All right. Amy Knight thank you very much for your time.

AMY KNIGHT: Thank you.

LL: Amy Knight is a contributor to The Daily Beast and the author of Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder. She was in Summit New Jersey. This story is creating ripples throughout the world of intelligence and espionage, a world my next guests are very familiar with. Mel Goodman was division chief and senior analyst at the office of Soviet affairs at the CIA from 1976 to 1986. He's now a senior fellow at the Centre for International Policy and an adjunct professor of international relations at John Hopkins University. He's in Bethesda, Maryland. Also with me is Naveed Jamali. He spent three years working undercover for the FBI against Russian military intelligence. His book about that experience is called How to Catch a Russian Spy Naveed Jamali is in Seattle, Washington today. Hello to you both.

MEL GOODMAN: Good morning.

NAVEED JAMALI: Hi.

LL: Mel Goodman. Let's start with you. First of all as someone with so much firsthand experience at the CIA, what's your gut reaction to the details of this story so far?

MEL GOODMAN: Well I'm impressed with certain aspects, this one to have any Russian with access to the inner workings of the government, let alone be close to Putin is quite unusual. I was with the CIA from 1966 to 1990. We never had a source close to the Politburo. So I think we have to look at this man's credentials and given the fact that he was working for Ushakov who had been the ambassador in this country for 10 years that he did have access to sensitive information. Exfiltration itself is very difficult. To get anyone who is a spy or suspected to be a spy out of the country- Amy referred to the Gordievsky case that was a very sophisticated operation by the British to get Gordievsky out of Moscow. Because in a case such as Gordievsky, and probably also with Smolenkov, his family probably didn't know he was providing information to the United States, potentially to the Central Intelligence Agency. So getting the family out and getting the family settled and getting them calmed down particularly with three children who have created problems for other Soviet and Russian defectors in the past I think is difficult. But the fact that he was living in the open and in the Washington area allowing an NBC correspondent to knock on his door I find rather bizarre. So maybe he didn't have, Smolenkov, didn't have quite the access that we thought he had. What impresses me is that the exfiltration took place right after Trump's meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Russian Ambassador Kislyak because at that meeting that's when Trump was waving around a very sensitive intelligence report that we got from Israeli liaison. Israeli Mossad was furious about the exposure of this report and the sources. It suggested that the Central Intelligence Agency which leaked this story about the White House in the first place was clearly concerned about Trump's handling of sensitive matters. That would have been the key reason for getting him out of Moscow at that time.

LL: And I want to get into that more in a little bit but first, Naveed Jamali, how surprised were you to hear how long this source was apparently in place inside Russia?

NAVEED JAMALI: Well I mean not surprised at all. Look I dealt with the Russians. Espionage is a long game it's not a short one. Cultivation of assets take decades not years, not months, not weeks, not days. You know but I wanted to say a couple of quick points. First of all you know I'm very there's parts of this story that I think are meant to communicate. Back when I was in B.C. talking about this I was one of the media people speaking that on TV that I'm sure the CIA had sources inside of Moscow. I mean certainly as a mole report became more and more public. It's impossible to say that parts of that weren't collated and collected in large part from human assets. And that concerned me. You know as someone who lived operationally as a spy, I read the newspaper, I watched the news. I have to say that if I'm a spy right now today the United States I'm worried. And so when I heard this story and I heard that the CIA that [unintelligible] begged them to come I kind of don't believe that. I think that it's much more likely that this man was very concerned for his safety. He should have been. And I think that this story communicates back to other spies we have in place that you know we will take care of you, stay where you are. If it gets too hot the CIA will reach out and scoop you out and you don't have to worry until that time. And I think that's a very important message to put back because under the auspices of Donald Trump you know the intelligence through United States has not fared all that well. And again, spies or human. They have temperaments. They have personalities and they watch the news and I'm sure that many of them, not just in Russia, are very concerned. And the last point I'll make is that the crown jewel of any intelligence service are its spies. And if we don't have spies in place, if we don't have people that can collect intelligence and you ask what kind of intelligence this man had access to. It's one thing we'll take a picture for an e-mail to all things fail to provide context to say you know my boss of this e-mail. Here's what he was thinking. He was angry. Here's what he meant. That context to an analyst who was going back and you know and analyze this information is incredibly important, and to have that human element in place it's frankly irreplaceable.

LL: Just for our listeners you referenced some reports about this suggesting that the first time the CIA wanted to get him out, he resisted and he didn't want to come out eventually. They say that he did do that. Because of your experience I wonder if you can share from me how much fear this this man was living in do you think.

NAVEED JAMALI: It's a tremendous amount. Look spying is- they say it's the second oldest profession. That's absolutely right. And it requires you to do things in which someone normally would be terrified. You'd have to live in a constant state of repressed fear. You know the constant fear of getting caught. The constant fear of really being exposed. And if you can imagine in United States or Canada, we are a nation of laws. Russia is not. So surveillance there is very heavy handed. It's very different. One of the most dangerous components that a spy- dangerous times other spy has is when he or she meets with his handlers with the CIA or a CIA case officer. This must have been tremendously dangerous and especially even before Donald Trump took office. The tensions between Russian and U.S. intelligence services in Russia- there was a case in fact where a Russian intelligence officer actually beat up a CIA officer and broke his shoulder. They were really rising into 2016. So it must have been a very tense time and to start to hear the president of the United States was being haphazard in intelligence, I think the normal fear that is already there must have really expanded upon this guy right here.

LL: All right. Earlier this week on our program we spoke to author Malcolm Gladwell about his new book Talking to Strangers. And I just want you to listen to a little bit of that conversation.

SOUNDCLIP

MALCOLM GLADWELL: Countries should just stop spying. It turns out the Cold War from a spy standpoint is a wash. The Soviets knew all America's secrets and America knew all the Soviet secrets because both sides had spies deep in each other's intelligence apparatus who they couldn't find because we're really bad at finding them and who gave away the whole story. Like said what you just say you is just not worth it, you should just read the newspaper. I mean literally that you want to find out what's going on like you should just give up on his multi-billion dollar you know espionage operation.

LL: Mel Goodman what do you make of that idea that ultimately this kind of espionage is futile?

MEL GOODMAN: Well that's total nonsense. When you look at a spy such as Tolkachev who the CIA ran for about 10 or 15 years and provided all sorts of inside information with regard to sensitive military systems to save the Pentagon billions of dollars in investment because they knew the parameters of Soviet air defence for example. When you look at what [unintelligible] provided to both the British to my sex and to the CIA it shows the importance of having someone with access to the Kremlin who gave us information about a genuine war scare in Moscow, at a time when Ronald Reagan was talking about the evil empire. But you can't assume that we know everything as well. Countries such as the Soviet Union,, Russia the United States can keep very sensitive things secret for a very long period of time. But I agree with your other speaker that you have to have this inside agent, this inside spy who really has access to leading figures or important documentation. And it's part of the picture. You have a mosaic. You have stones of the mosaic. Some of these are intercepted message, some are satellite photographs but some is what we get from human agents, from human assets. And this is what gives you the full picture but you can never have the complete picture. And that's where analysis is extremely important. When it's done well you have intelligence success. When it's done poorly you get a 9/11 or an October war when there are enough clues but dots weren't connected. So it's a very much more complicated picture than Gladwell would suggest.

LL: And maybe Jamali as someone who has been on this on the spy side and providing information what do you think of what Gladwell says?

NAVEED JAMALI: It's idiotic. I mean the way he put it. Spying has been around since the dawn of civilization is not going to end anytime soon. And frankly look spying is not only just countries do to each other. It's something you do- you can call it competitive analysis right in the business world. This is what we're always looking for. One is always looking for an edge. It's just human nature. So of course it's important of course it's not going to stop. And look just to go back to the different types of intelligence analysis and [unintelligible] of intelligence the human part of it is always going to be important. And frankly it's important because we need it that's also the motivation for people to spy is always going to be there. And there's this acronym called them mice which stands for money ideology [unintelligible] ego. And those are always the pillars for why people spy. Money is always perhaps the biggest influence and you're always going to have people who want to do this for money. Just human nature. So not only is it something we need, human nature is such that it's never going to stop.

LL: All right let's come back to the Trump factor. There has been reporting that senior officials have told them that the President Trump is sceptical of foreign intelligence from covert sources. He thinks they're selling out their own country. He doesn't trust their information. Mel Goodman What do you make of that?

MEL GOODMAN: Well when you're looking at Donald Trump you're looking at someone who is anti-intellectual who's anti information who's anti truth who's anti fact finding. He's attacked not only the intelligence community particularly the CIA but anyone at any agency whether it's a domestic agency like the Environmental Protection Agency who collects data. This is a man who has no patience to read intelligence. He doesn't get the president's daily brief on a regular basis. He doesn't sit still for intelligence briefings and the CIA people I talked to are very nervous and careful about what they actually supply to the president of the United States because they know he is in a position to expose very sensitive materials because of his lack of understanding of the information he gets. So we've never had a situation like this in the United States where a president, even before he was inaugurated, attacked the intelligence community and attacked the directors of the intelligence community and has made it clear he wasn't going to sit still for intelligence briefings. He said that before he was inaugurated.

LL: What does all of that say then about the state of national security and intelligence in the United States right now?

MEL GOODMAN: It says we're in a very perilous state and I think that's what General James Mattis tried to tell the public and he certainly told his troops before he resigned from the Trump administration in December of 2018. This is a very difficult situation we had because we have a national security situation where there's no process. There there's no foreign policy consultation. There's no contribution from the various agencies that are part of the decision making community you're about to get your fourth national security adviser you have officials in place such as Gina Haspel at CIA who should never be a director of CIA because of her involvement with torture and abuse and her instructions to destroy the torture tapes. You have a secretary of state who I'm told will soon leave to run for the Senate from Kansas who is not really someone you would want as the chief diplomat of the United States because of his pompous and arrogant way of handling diplomatic problems. So there's a lot to be concerned about. America that has isolated itself in the international community.

LL: I want to leave Mr. Jamali a few seconds to talk about what this means for the eight spies themselves. How frustrating is it? We've got about 30 seconds.

MEL GOODMAN: So look after becoming a double agent looking at double agent I became intelligence organization I'll just say that that the goal of intelligence is not to make decisions. It's to provide decision makers with unbiased analyzed intelligence so they can make an informed decision. When you have a president who doesn't see that as an asset we're in trouble.

LL: All right gentlemen thanks to both of you for your time.

MEL GOODMAN: Thank you Laura.

NAVEED JAMALI: Thank you.

LL: Naveed Jamali spent three years working undercover for the FBI against Russian military intelligence his book about that experience is called How to Catch a Russian Spy. He was in Seattle, Washington. Mel Goodman is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Policy at Johns Hopkins University and he is the author of American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump. He was in Bethesda, Maryland. Coming up in our next half hour: move over monopoly. There's a new game in town. Move Monopoly. But the feminist reboot of the popular yet sometimes infuriating board game. Many are still waiting for the woman who invented monopoly to get credit for it. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

Back To Top »

Political websites and your data

Guest: Andrea Bellemare

LL: I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current the CBC disinformation unit is standing by to talk about your online privacy ahead of the election. But first I've got a moment to tell you about something coming up on tomorrow's program. It's a conversation that takes us to the very depths and heights of the human experience. Canadian cave diver Jill Heinerth is admired around the world for her expertise and one of the most dangerous pursuits on Earth. In her new book Into the Planet she recounts her journey from the crevices of an iceberg to some of the deepest underground waterways on earth. She's been there along the way she's suffered injury lost friends and had and had more than one brush with death including this one.

SOUNDCLIP

JILL HEINERTH: I was in a very small cave with a scientist and just trying to get some samples for her work. I was leading her in and the space in this cave was it would have been smaller than you know squeezing under the kitchen chairs in your home basically. And when we turned to exit she lost her orientation, disturbed the silt and then got entangled in the guideline. That's the string that we lay through the cave that becomes your, you know, your bread crumb trail back to the entrance but you can just hold it to get out. So she became entangled and then she became stuck wedged in the rocks and then she broke the guideline. So we're both now blind with a broken safety line. She's panicking but she's also the cork in the bottle containing my life because she's closer to the entrance than I am and I can't get past her so I have to solve the situation for both of us or neither of us is going to get home. My first thought was 'Oh my god! Two women cannot die in an underwater cave this will be world news. I've got to solve this. There's no option'. In the end I lost track of her at one point and I knew that I needed to backtrack even further into the cave to make sure that I was not leaving her behind and that delay in my exit me searching for her on the way out. I had to patch the guideline a couple of times I had a regulator that was malfunctioning that I was trying to deal with and I was doing the search. So by the time I reached the exit and found her fine she had called for help but that meant that for 73 minutes the world thought that I was dead. So I was dead to my friends for 73 minutes and that's kind of sobering to face afterwards when they all sent notes and things that they might have read at your eulogy.

LL: Catch my conversation with cave diver Jill Heinerth tomorrow on The Current. But now a deep dive into unpacking Big Data. If you were listening to the show last Thursday you may have heard my conversation with Andrea Bellemare who is a reporter covering disinformation online for CBC News. We'll be checking in with her and her colleagues from the disinformation unit regularly during the federal election campaign. And Andrea is back with me in our Toronto studio to talk about the latest story they uncovered. It's looking at big data and MPs Web Sites and what it could all mean for voters. Welcome back.

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Thank you.

LL: Before we talk about MPs' Web sites I wonder if I can get your thoughts on something we heard earlier in the program about concerns over potential Russian interference in the federal election campaign driven by their designs on the Arctic. How does that square with the kind of misinformation that's come to light so far in provincial elections in Canada?

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Well we actually had a really good snapshot of how that's played out because on Friday afternoon the Government released a report on disinformation and the Alberta election. So this is from the rapid response mechanism team their host at Global Affairs and the whole point is to look in to see what is happening. And what they found was that disinformation was actually a domestic problem more than a foreign interference problem. And so what that means is primarily they saw indications of what we call coordinated inauthentic behaviour between accounts from domestic players, and they actually pointed out that they saw this primarily from supporters of the UCP. So to be clear this wasn't the party but supporters of the party were spreading disinformation and they also saw that disinformation coming from supporters of the People's Party of Canada which is a federal party not involved with provincial election. But they were very cautious to say that they saw domestic examples. And the last thing I'd like to mention is they also saw examples of far right groups and hate groups using the same techniques that foreign players might use to spread disinformation and that makes it harder to figure out what's actually going on and who's actually spreading the message.

LL: But you're going to be keeping an eye on it.

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Absolutely.

LL: Okay. Let's talk about your work with Elizabeth Thompson one of the journalists examining trackers on MPs' Web sites. You're part of the unit but that doesn't sound like an outright example of disinformation. Why look into this?

ANDREA BELLEMARE: We looked into this partly because of course everyone is concerned about how election advertising is being targeted at voters in the wake of Cambridge Analytica, what we saw in the U.S., what we saw with Brexit. That was on our minds and then we wanted to know well is this a widespread practice in Canada. And if it's a widespread practice what does it mean for our privacy. So what we found was at least a third of employees have some sort of advertising tracker on their Web site.

LL: What is a tracker?

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Good question. So a tracker is generally a small piece of code you put on your Web site. Sometimes it places a cookie which means a small file goes on a computer and it will send information back to a third party about your activities. Advertisers will say well this is because we want to know if you've come to our Web site before and if you like these shoes we want to show these shoes again. But it also sends all sorts of other information about what you're doing online.

LL: Like what?

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Where you go so might follow you for I think Facebook, one of Facebook trackers will stay on your computer for two years. So to follow you around it all. Hoover up all your information and then it will use this to build a profile about you and advertise to you.

LL: OK. So what kind of information can trackers gather about a person who's visiting an MP's Web site?

ANDREA BELLEMARE: It depends on the tracker. But for example we found examples of employees who were using the Facebook pixel and the pixel can find out information about what you're doing on the site where you're clicking. If you signed up for a newsletter and then it sends us information to Facebook now here's where it gets confusing because the employees don't see this information directly. They send it to Facebook. Later on they'll say I want to make an ad campaign and I'm interested in targeting people who've already visited my Web site. And so Facebook will serve up an audience. But the question is you don't know how they're getting that information because it's obscure to us. We don't know we don't have access to that information.

LL: But what you're suggesting though that employees are deliberately putting this on there in order to track the information and people coming to that way.

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Well this is also a question some have put it on deliberately and some and so we contacted we're not sure or were unaware. So it's very murky when it comes to who knows what about what's being tracked where.

LL: And just remind us how many employees have trackers or things like that.

ANDREA BELLEMARE: We found at least 99 had advertising trackers but we've found a far greater number have trackers overall. And one of the things that's interesting is that trackers will say, or companies will say, we're using this for analytics we just want to gather information about how people are using our Web site. But that information sometimes in some cases can still be used for advertising and it can still reveal a lot about you. And there's privacy concerns with that.

LL: You said not everyone's aware but can you bring it down? Do members of some parties--

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Yeah we found that the NDP had the highest number of trackers on average. They had about 10 on their pages. Conservatives generally had about four liberals had about two.

LL: Two trackers on their Web site.

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Yes.

LL: And did you break it down by party for how many employees in each party or-?

ANDREA BELLEMARE: That would be difficult to answer at this point. I would have to look at my spreadsheet.

LL: All right. You interviewed a man named Johnny Ryan who is the chief policy officer for brave software a button, a company which makes a web browser that actually blocks trackers and ads and here a really stark way of describing the trackers.

SOUNDCLIP

It's a privacy Trojan horse. That's what it is. You install a Facebook tool on your web page hoping it'll make your web page better in some way. What that tool is actually doing is leaking out the private behaviour of everyone who comes to that web page to Facebook. And that's what they're for.

LL: So he sees them as a Trojan horse. How much do we really know about where that information ends up again?

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Well that's a good question. And we don't know a lot. We know that the information is being sent to parties. Sorry excuse me to tech companies but one of the things that also came up in my research was that tech companies may have partnerships with credit card companies. They may have partnerships with data brokers who also act as credit score companies. So this information can potentially be much more widely shared than we know and it's a bit murky about how that information gets shared.

LL: But is there any evidence that it's actually being used to target campaign ads to voters?

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Oh very good question. So if you remember Bill C 76 that passed at the end of last year. This set up rules for tech companies or anyone who's accepting political advertising to keep ad registries. So these ad registries will tell you a little bit about information where ads have run, who's seen them. We don't know for sure who is being targeted. We can only know who's seen ads, but for example if you go to Facebook ad library you can look up your MP. You can see if they're running advertisements. You can see an approximate amount of money they've spent. And you can see who's seen the ads. You might be able to see a little bit of information about who is being targeted. The ultimate answer is though the people who are making the ads are the people who know who's being targeted.

LL: You also spoke with several privacy experts about this and one of them was Brenda McPhail the director of the privacy surveillance and technology project at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Here's what she told you.

SOUNDCLIP

This deep dive into the intricacies of how political parties track members and people who visit their site is an excellent illustration of how very little. The average person understands the multiple ways in which they're being examined and watched online. All of these practices are relatively commonplace and we haven't had the public conversation about whether or not these things are appropriate. We have sleepwalked our way into allowing this to happen because it's virtually invisible to us.

LL: So a lot of concerns being raised by privacy experts what is what is the government set about this issue?

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Well actually we've heard from Heather Bradley so she's the spokesperson for the House of Commons and she said that they're actually going to be looking into MP websites as a result of our story and they're going to be looking into the use of trackers. One thing that happened while we were doing this story is MPS have an official link from the House of Commons to their Web site. And we found that these linked to most of the time to an MP Web site. They have now been changing over to candidate websites. So this means running for re-election and that's not allowed. And my colleague Liz Thompson actually did a quick survey yesterday and found that, I believe she said it was just, check here, eighty seven percent of the websites for NDP MPs now automatically will direct to the NDP party campaign site or to MP re-election sites.

LL: And that's not allowed. So there's more to come on this.

ANDREA BELLEMARE: There's more to come.

LL: And we're in the middle of a federal election campaign. So just sort of sum it up for me Why does this matter right now?

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Basically if you go to an MP website you might have an expectation of privacy. But you know MP is the websites are not covered under any sort of privacy policy so you don't know how your data is being used and you can't request what information they have on you. And it is a common refrain. People will say well why should I care. I don't have anything to hide. But the thing is there's all sorts of things that you might not want a lot of people to know about you that you might want to keep private. They aren't necessarily bad. But there are things that you want to keep private and you know you want to ask questions if whether or not your elected officials are doing enough to protect your privacy.

LL: All right Andrea thank you so much we'll talk to you again.

ANDREA BELLEMARE: Thank you.

LL: Andrea Bellemare is a reporter covering disinformation online for CBC News. We will be checking in regularly with the disinformation unit throughout the campaign to help you figure out what to believe in your social media feed among other things. We at the current and CBC News have a full slate of election coverage on the go where your destination for news analysis and voter tools you need to make an informed decision on October the 21st. And if you have a question for the federal leaders about the election well you may just get to ask it. On October 7th, two weeks out from Election Day, five federal party leaders will face off as part of the English language debate. The debate will take place at the Canadian Museum of History and Gatineau Quebec overlooking Parliament Hill. The five leaders will also take part in a French language debate on October the 10th and both debates will include questions from the public. So here's your chance to get your question in what would you like to ask the federal leaders. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent for information on how to watch the federal leaders’ debates and just maybe have your question asked.

Back To Top »

The feminist origins of Monopoly

Guest: Mary Pilon

SOUNDCLIP

Back in the old days women were in the kitchen, women looked pretty on the stage but now women and girls are building things. So I thought why not I'd be the change that I want to see in the world. Hasbro created a game that no other game maker has ever done before, a game that features Ms. Monopoly whose goal is to make a difference by celebrating female inventors and inspiring young entrepreneurs everywhere.

LL: This isn't your parents’ monopoly. This week toy maker Hasbro launched a woman inspired reboot of the popular board game and it's called Miss monopoly. While the original features Mr. Monopoly a real estate mogul Ms. Monopoly's mission is to invest in female entrepreneurs. Instead of buying electrical companies and hotels players can now invest in start-ups and build businesses. The game is being sold as a trailblazer but some critics say Hasbro is keeping a secret in its community chest and that the new game is not as feminist as it should be. Joining me to discuss the messy origins of boardwalks and buyouts is Mary Pilon journalist and author of the Monopolists: Obsession, Fury and the Scandal behind the World's Favourite Board Game. Mary Pilon is in New York City. Hello.

MARY PILON: Hi. Thanks much for having me.

LL: What did you think when you first found out there was a Ms. Monopoly game?

MARY PILON: Well my inbox blew up anytime there's Monopoly news. I tend to hear about it from a lot of sources. I was really shocked. You know what I started looking at the game's origins a decade ago nobody really knew who Lizzie Magie was. It was pretty neat. My book came out in 2015 and then people started talking about it. And what I found heartening was that in 2019 a ton of people we're talking about her with the launch of this game and what was fascinating about the Ms. Monopoly launch is that it had people on the far right and the far left angry for a very different reason.

LL: Okay Lizzie Magie you named her she's the original inventor of the game. Tell us about her.

MARY PILON: So Lizzie Magie is a fascinating woman. She takes out a patent for this game called The Landlord's Game which is the forerunner to monopoly in 1983 at a time when women couldn't vote and she was a very outspoken suffragette and an impassioned follower of Henry George. And she creates this game as a left wing teaching tool and had been very vocal about women's equality.

LL: And what inspired her to make it?

MARY PILON: So she really thought that games could be a way to teach people. And I think we forgot looking at this in 2019 that you know this is obviously a time before television, mass media, as we know it. So that wasn't a crazy idea at the time. So she creates this game and it kind of spreads throughout the Northeast particularly in America among left wing intellectuals. And it's a version of that game that in the mid 1930s Charles Zero plays and sells to Parker Brothers but it had been around for 30 some odd years before.

LL: And how similar was it to the game that we know today?

NARRATOR: So Lizzie Magie creates two real sets a monopolist role set an anti-monopolist rule set. So the irony is that the monopolist rule set is the one that really takes off and becomes akin to the game we know today. And the game you know it's a folk game. So it's played and product tested and people tinker with it and she renews her patent in 1984. And then spoke out in the mid 1930s and these two newspaper interviews one with the Washington Post one with the Washington Evening Star laying her claim to this game again. So it's very very similar to the graphics and things were added but also not by Parker Brothers those were added by other players.

LL: But that is amazing that she had a patent on it and yet she didn't benefit from it did she?

MARY PILON: Correct. So this is detailed a lot more in my book. But the best we can tell she made five hundred dollars off of creating the game, and one of the last traces we have of her she died in 1948 working in obscurity. She didn't have any children to kind of you know carry on the legacy or anything like that. So she'd outlived her husband. We have the 1940 U.S. Census and she had listed her occupation as maker of games and her income is zero. So she did receive any royalties. We have no indication that she did. They certainly didn't last long.

LL: How did that happen? I mean there was.

MARY PILON: Well you know it's funny the book goes into more detail about that and I get so many responses from people you know who say, gosh, she should have had a lawyer in the room. But also she was up against a lot of headwind. I mean women are still really underrepresented in the game design industry even more so obviously then. And she signed this deal I think. I think it's just important remember that nobody knew this was Monopoly and by the time Parker Brothers had told the Darrow story it had kind of taken off like wildfire and they were looking to kind of you know cover cover all this up. So the trainer kind of left the station. But I do think there's a tragic undertone to it and it's fascinating that now essentially a century later she's finally getting credit for her invention but unfortunately it's not from the company that still sells it.

LL: All right you talked about Parker Brothers and you mentioned Charles Darrow what is the origin story of the game that most people know?

MARY PILON: So the story that most people know and that I you know grew up with that was tucked into game boxes forever was that Charles Darrow this man who's unemployed you know down on his luck he goes too into his basement during the Great Depression and events this game with this dreamy Atlantic city, backdrop he sells it to Parker Brothers which is also struggling during the Great Depression and the game becomes a huge bestseller. You know it makes him in the company rich and off they go into the sunset.

LL: So how did you come to know of Lizzie Magie in all of this?

MARY PILON: I came about this completely by accident. I've always loved games and puzzles and in 2009 I was covering business at the Wall Street Journal and I was going to mention in passing - you know in 2009 obviously a really tough economic time you know in the United States and around the world - And I was going to mention a passing o monopoly was a mentor during the Great Depression and I you know was looking around and I couldn't find like none of it was checking out and I found these early patents. And I reached out to Ralph on Spock who's a gentleman who had a 10 year long legal battle the 70s over all this and I said, hey, do you know anything about the origins of Monopoly. He was like, oh yeah I know all about it. And that ended up kind of you know kicking off what became the book reporting.

LL: And were you surprised to find out the game was invented by a woman?

MARY PILON: I was really surprised and I realized you know at first I was trying to wrap my arms around the story and then the first part of my book became a biography of Lizzie Magie because I and I she was so astonishing for a time period. And I think so often when you're doing historical research you have to remember these were real people and just because they're deceased doesn't mean they don't have a story to tell obviously. So I was shocked about her entire life that she was so outspoken, that she was so involved in the politics of the time, that she was really ahead of her time or the times are behind her depending on how you want to look at it. So I didn't know any of this and I was also just amazed at how the story was spun and continues, I suppose, to be told in such a different way than what the facts in the documents tell us about who she really was.

LL: Can you remind listeners sort of the game that we know at Monopoly? What is it about it that makes it seem so male oriented?

MARY PILON: Oh that's a fabulous question. You know I think for better for worse Monopoly has become a symbol of particularly American capitalism and greed. And we kind of associate the game and how we play it with kind of a brutal tough you know deal making attitude and the Mr. Monopoly character. You know the little man with the top hat and monocle has been linked with the game for a long time. So the idea that a woman invented this thing that is so brazenly political and so brazenly about economics I think surprises a lot of people. And it's been fun to see you know especially lately how the iconography of the game has been kind of re appropriated. And you know when I was reporting this Occupy Wall Street is a big story we were covering the journal and I thought How funny. You know Mr. Monopoly is being used in this like very critical way. You know maybe that would make Lizzie Magie happy that in some way it's kind of going back to its populist origin.

LL: Well I was going to ask you how people responded when they find out who the actual inventor of the game was.

MARY PILON: If you spent five years writing a book about a board game people think you're crazy. And so I felt like for five years I was like the crazy person like no guys this isn't a conspiracy theory like a woman invented it. There was a lawsuit about it and I have all these documents and then now that it's out I think you know the response has been really heartening. I've heard from a lot of women and you know who are software engineers, who are entrepreneurs, who are in various industries who really love her story. And I think that the world has a lot of Lizzie Magies a lot of women whose contributions have been written out of history and I think in her case what's staggering to me is that we actually do have the paper trail to tell the story. So the response has been really really great. And I think her story really matters.

LL: Hasbro owns the game, what has been Hasbro's response?

MARY PILON: So Hasbro has put out a statement they provided to me for a New Yorker piece I did about this yesterday and other news outlets that still credits Darrow as the inventor. They do acknowledge that Lizzie Magie appears like you don't exist as a person but they will not say you know Lizzie Magie invented Monopoly. That's language that was not the statement that I think a lot of people found really disappointing especially because there's now so much information it's a Google search away to find out where the role she played in creating this as opposed to you know a decade ago where that wasn't true. That wasn't the case.

LL: Why do you think that they're doing that?

MARY PILON: You'd have to ask Hasbro. You know I don't know and I think what's you know what's so fascinating to me about the Ms. Monopoly particular like effort is that there is an amazing women entrepreneurship story about monopoly like it's very you know it's right there. And so I think it's also an opportunity. I mean if obviously this campaign is targeted towards girls and engaging them in the game and that's fabulous. But it just seems like they've kind of got a freebie on this. You know it is a fascinating story of female entrepreneurship. Unfortunately it's not the one they seem interested in telling.

LL: The slogan on the box of Ms. Monopoly is the first game where women make more than men. I wonder how that strikes you.

MARY PILON: Well you know it's funny because that's something a lot of people picked up on that you know technically it's about equal pay not more than pay. And so I thought it was funny that you know this whole other dimension of what they're trying to. Do a guy you know lost and a lot of people on Twitter in particular were saying well wait a minute. That's not actually what you know feminism is about equal pay it's not about we're making more and. Yes. So I think people were upset about that as well. Yes it's messy I think to say the least.

LL: And what do you think Ms. Magie would be making of all of this?

MARY PILON: Oh, gosh you know I think when you think about what her goal was like obviously I think she was disappointed and not making more of a financial profit off of it. But I also think she wanted the message of the game to be out there and to get credit for something she obviously was very passionate about. So it's hard to imagine. You know we don't know what she would have thought. But I think she would've been disappointed that her story was once a guy not being told.

LL: You're going to play Ms. Monopoly?

MARY PILON: I think you know what. There's so many wonderful games out there now and I do love monopoly. I think I'm going to pass for now but I'm cautiously optimistic about what could be the future. Now you can actually buy the Landlord's Game. You can buy the original. So there's a lot of options out there. We're living in a great golden age of game design.

LL: Well thanks for telling us about it all.

MARY PILON: Great. Thanks for having me.

LL: Mary Pilon is a journalist and author of the book The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury and the Scandal behind the World's Favourite Board Game. She was in New York City. That's our program for today. Stay tuned though to Radio 1 for Q. You may have seen Micuil Huisman in the Game of Thrones or Nashville. He usually plays a likable hero but in his new film, The Other Lamb, he took what he calls a risk and sank into the role of a creepy cult leader alone in the woods with his all-female followers. Micuil Huisman is man is Tom Powers guest after the news. Well how many friends have you lost over a game of Monopoly reboot or not. The truth is many of us me hate playing it. It takes hours it can turn even the closest friends against each other and lead to days long wars of silence. Victoria Monet has been public about why she'll pass on passing go and collecting 200 dollars. She and singer Ariana Grande even collaborated on a song named after the game that so many love to hate. And we will give them the last word today. I'm Laura Lynch. Thank you for listening to The Current funny story.

SOUNDCLIP

I actually personally hate Monopoly. I'm so sorry. This puts me in a bad place with that brand to take five hours of my time to end up losing is trash. So I'm just going to stick with the collecting part, as you do always collect properties but you may not win. Me and Ary thought it was really funny to have a song called Monopoly because she knows if anytime she asked me to play I'm going to say thank you. Thank you. Next.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

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

Thursday September 12, 2019 Full Episode Transcript

More Stories Like This