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 November 18, 2019

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I think that the church has an ethical or moral responsibility to reveal those names, to shed light on the legacy, because some of these men are still esteemed within the communities that they work in.

LAURA LYNCH: Leona Huggins was abused by a priest as a teenager. Now she wants the Catholic Church in Canada to come clean by making public the names of all priests who have been credibly accused. We're starting today with an investigation by the CBC as Fifth Estate. After that, one year on, pot is legal, but business isn't exactly booming. Then in about an hour.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We are the only country on earth that has laws that say that a citizen cannot look after their own bodies using their own resources if the government won't provides those resources.

LL: The physician's oath: first do no harm is back under scrutiny in a B.C. courtroom today. That's because Dr. Brian Day is claiming the provincial government is failing to protect patients from harm by making them wait too long for treatment when some could pay for private care. A ten year old legal challenge to medicare heads into its final phase. I'm Laura Lynch. This is The Current.

Catholic Church cannot be trusted to deal with priests accused of sexual abuse, says lawyer

Guests: Gillian Findlay, Robert Talach

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: There are stories that need to be told. This is a global crisis and what we've seen in other countries, we will see in Canada. I think the bishops of Canada are grateful up until now that they've gotten away with their organizational structure, which is negligent, where no one is accountable. Someone needs to hold them accountable.

LL: Now, as I said earlier, Leona Huggins was a teenager in New Westminster, B.C., when she was abused by her parish priest, something she kept secret for decades before finally reporting it to police. The priest, John McCann, spent 10 months in jail. He died just over a year ago, but that wasn't the end of Leona's story. In many ways, it was just the beginning. Last night, the CBC's Fifth Estate, revealed details of Leona's story, as well as new information about how many abusers like John McCann worked in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver, what the church knew and what it did about it. It's the first time we've seen numbers like this in Canada. And Gillian Findlay from the Fifth Estate is with me now. Hello.

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Good morning, Laura.

LL: What are these numbers that you've uncovered?

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Well, what we've learned is what has been in the Archdiocese of Vancouver's archive for decades. Their records show that since the 1950s, they've dealt with 36 cases of clergy sexual abuse. 26 of the victims, they were minors, children. In seven cases, they were adults. And in three cases, we've learned the dioceses records show that priests had actually fathered children. This is important because even though it's a snapshot of just one dioceses, it's the first time in Canada that we have seen this kind of information from within the church itself. Vancouver archdiocese has not released this information publicly yet itself. They have promised to it really something later this week. But we don't know yet what that will be. So if and when it does release the numbers, it'll be a big step towards a promise of transparency and accountability. And that's what people like Leona Huggins have been fighting for.

LL: Now, we heard Leona Huggins there say that there are stories that need to be told. What exactly does she want the Catholic Church in Canada to make public?

GILLIAN FINDLAY: She wants every diocese in the country and there are 60 of them, to do the same thing, so that we can finally start to piece together the big picture in Canada. What are we talking about here when it comes to Catholic clergy abuse? How many priests? How many victims? In other jurisdictions, especially in the US, they are starting to do that. For instance, we know in the U.S., more than 6800 priests have been identified publicly, credibly accused by their own church. We have no idea what that number is in this country.

LL: Okay. That is really interesting. Let's hear a bit more though about Leona's story.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: He had a guitar. He played the guitar and I just remember, wow, that's really cool. Right? You can be a priest and you can still be funny.

GILLIAN FINDLAY: What did they do to you?

VOICE: Like just this little things. Like he'd sit on the couch and he'd put his hand on my leg and then he'd you know, put his arm around me. And then he got me, my sister and I to work at the rectory and he would come in at the end of work and he would just start massaging me on my shoulders. And then everything just was gradually more and more.

GILLIAN FINDLAY: So that was Leona and she told me this started happening when she was 14-years-old and went on for years. For 20 years she didn't tell a soul about any of this. And then finally in the 1990s, she went to police. Police discovered she wasn't John McCann's only victim. McCann eventually pleaded guilty and spent, as you said, ten months in jail. But even more years later, in 2011, Leona decided to Google search his name and she was gobsmacked to find out that the priest that she assumed had been run out of the priesthood for all of this was, in fact, still working as a priest in Ottawa. And that's when she decided there was something very broken within the church in terms of how it dealt with abusers and she started her campaign for more transparency.

LL: And you say that that campaign is far more advanced in the United States. So what started it there?

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Well, abuse survivors started it. You know, as with many movements, it began in a haphazard kind of way trial here, a newspaper investigation there. You know, we all remember the spotlight investigation in Boston, but in 2018, something happened that was a real turning point. The attorney general in the state of Pennsylvania struck a grand jury and empowered the courts to go in with investigative tools they needed to pry open the church's archives. For years, the church had successfully kept its internal records secret, but not anymore. And the investigation into just six dioceses in Pennsylvania discovered again from the church's own records, evidence of 300 Catholic clergy. The church believed had abused and more than 1000 victims. You know what? It also showed us how the church had handled the allegations over the years, transferring offending priests between jurisdictions, paying off victims, saddling them with nondisclosure agreements. Pennsylvania, in many ways was a bombshell. And in many jurisdictions it caused a rethink, including in Vancouver. The archbishop there, Michael Miller, announced a review of his archives. He set up a committee to review cases of known abusers. And through a whole series of events, he came to invite Leona Huggins to sit on that.

LL: And it's that committee that came up with the numbers that you mentioned, 36 cases. What else did the review show?

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Well, we don't know for sure. And as I say, the archdiocese has yet to release any information about this publicly. But our reporting suggests that there were some troublesome similarities to some of the things we've seen elsewhere. Priests who moved jurisdictions went for treatment rather than being referred to police, victims who were paid money often to cover the costs of their treatment and then forced to sign confidentiality agreements again. This cloak of secrecy, the committee were told, made 31 recommendations to Vancouver's archbishop. The first recommendation is that he make that list of 36 known offenders, public name them, so that any other victims out there. And we know perpetrators rarely abuse once. It will encourage other victims who may be out there to come forward.

LL: Some members of the group of clergy abuse survivors that Leona Huggins is working with went to a plenary assembly at the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in Cornwall, Ontario, to lobby on this point. As your documentary showed, they didn't have a lot of luck, but you did manage to get one bishop to answer some questions. So let's listen to an answer you got from Winnipeg Archbishop Richard Gagnon at a news conference for the bishops.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Sometimes there's a misapprehension about what the Catholic Church actually is in Canada. Like we think of a church and we think of a head office someplace. That's not the reality. The reality is, is that dioceses are all relatively independent realities. Each one is a church.

GILLIAN FINDLAY: And yet we've not seen any dioceses in this country publicly release those names. You are the head of a diocese. You are the archbishop of Winnipeg. Have you compiled such a list and will you make it public?

VOICE: I have not in Winnipeg. No, I haven't.

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Why not?

VOICE: At this point it's a question of discerning what is the appropriate thing to do in light of privacy laws, which very from province to province and so on. And so that's something that the bishops of Manitoba have to discuss further.

LL: OK. What did you make of that answer?

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Well, I think it's not dissimilar to the kinds of answers the church has been giving for years. You know, look, they no longer deny abuse happened in the church. They can't. But they certainly don't seem to want to be drawn into a situation where they're going to have to reveal the extent of the problem and what they knew. Because, look, if there's 36 known cases in Vancouver, how many are there elsewhere in total? And what would be the consequences to the church if internal secret archives were forced open in this country? What would it show about? There are couple of. Guilty over the years. We talked to one lawyer who has a long history of suing the Catholic Church on behalf of victims, and he calls this the Kryptonite. The names and numbers of abusers. It's going to be a fight, he says, to get that kind of transparency. Now, Jillian, you asked other dioceses if they had numbers. What did you hear? We did. You know, as part of our research. We reached out to all 60 of Canada's Catholic dioceses and we ask them two questions. Have they reviewed their own archives for names of credibly accused clergy? And do they have plans to make that information public? Only 14 of the dioceses got back to us. Five said they had or would be doing a review of the archives. But importantly and maybe predictably, none of them had plans to make the list of perpetrators they knew of public.

LL: So where does this leave Leona Huggins and the other survivors who have been pushing for this?

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Well, still pushing and still fighting. You know, if indeed the Vancouver archdiocese releases the details of what we're reporting on today, and by that I mean the names that they themselves have accumulated, that'll be a big step in this country and, you know, a clear victory for the cause of transparency. Michael Miller, the archbishop, deserves credit for doing even this much, but he hasn't released a list yet. We'll see what happens later this week. And then there are all those other dioceses who haven't even taken the first step. You know, I think we're at the very beginning of something potentially quite big here. And it's going to take a lot more time and a lot more pressure before we start to see the big picture.

LL: Gillian, thank you very much for this.

GILLIAN FINDLAY: Thanks Laura.

LL: Gillian Findlay is the host of CBC's The Fifth Estate. Her documentary, The List: Unravelling Church Secrets, is available online now. We did request an interview with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver. It provided a statement which said, and I quote, "We are concerned about issues relating to sexual abuse and have been working on a comprehensive response." That's the end of the quote. It says it will release findings from their committee and a plan to implement its recommendations on Friday. A representative from the archdiocese has promised to speak with us in the coming days. In a separate letter a lawyer for the archdiocese said it was unaware of claims that priests who committed offences were ever transferred or that appropriate authorities were not notified. Now, lawyer Robert Talach, who Gillian Findlay referred to earlier, has worked on hundreds of lawsuits involving abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Canada. Robert Talach is in London, Ontario. Hello.

ROBERT TALACH: Good morning. How are you?

LL: Fine, thank you. Now, as Gillian mentioned, thousands of names of credibly accused clergy have been made public in the U.S. and we haven't seen anything similar happened here in Canada yet. What makes this situation different in the two countries?

ROBERT TALACH: I think, first of all, a lot of those list out of the U.S. have been the product of legal pressure. You know, your lawsuits in the states are a lot bigger. So there's a larger financial hammer. And there's also more aggressive prosecution on the criminal side, the house. And we've seen that with the grand juries, the search warrants and all the activity by prosecutors and police. So we don't have either one of those two things going for us up here in Canada.

LL: So maybe you can explain what this phrase credibly accused means in this context? How could the Catholic Church publicly release names of clergy who haven't been convicted in court?

ROBERT TALACH: Well, it means that they have enough evidence themselves to conclude that the allegation of abuse is is likely true. A lot of the priest on those lists have been criminally convicted, charged, legally named in public lawsuits. But, you know, there's gonna be a smattering of others where the church itself is the only entity that holds the information that shows they are who they say they are.

LL: I think in those cases where there have been neither a criminal conviction or a civil lawsuit, what makes them credibly accused?

ROBERT TALACH: Likely multiple victims making complaints, admission or confession by the priest itself. So something that's very definitive. Look, I can assure you that the church's erring far on the side of caution on these lists. They're not taking any chances.

LL: Now you were involved in a recent lawsuit in Ontario where there was a large settlement. I wonder if you could tell me what impact that could have.

ROBERT TALACH: Well, the case of Rod MacLeod against a bazillion fathers of Toronto is a lawsuit that went to trial in April 2018 and resulted in almost a $2.6 million award. That's for one victim. But the real important piece of it is the Catholic entity involved was essentially fined half a million dollars for their own complicity. So, you know, the prior price tag for that type of cover up and in Canada really was about seventy five hundred dollars. So this is quite an increase in the civil fine or the real cost to the Catholic organization dioceses, be it that that covers up. So that may start to make a difference as well.

LL: In the sense of what you've mentioned before, which is the pressure on dioceses to to come clean about these kinds of things because of the size of these damage awards.

ROBERT TALACH: Right. I always say money motivates and the potential loss and millions of dollars really motivates. So we see an added incentive here for Catholic dioceses not to go down that road of cover up again because the price tag is substantial.

LL: I wonder what you think of Leona Huggins and other survivors push for accountability from the Catholic Church in Canada.

ROBERT TALACH: I mean, they're a heroic group and, you know, the only place I probably differ with them is, you know, why do we keep looking to the church to solve this problem? We've got a great secular society with lots of laws and pressures that we can apply against the church because, you know, I've been at this almost two decades and I know this is radio, but if I was holding my breath for the Catholic Church to change on this issue, I'd be a very rich hue of purple right now.

LL: So OK, well, then what would you do?

ROBERT TALACH: I think we need to start to look at some criminal code changes or at least different policies in the prosecutor's office that we don't just look at the perpetrator priest, that we go a little further and look at the criminal conspiracy that allowed them to carry on for decades. You know, the U.S. has been going after the leadership now for some years, and that's making a dent. I think at least motivating leadership not to cover up. We also need to look at, you know, whether we have to provide some other incentives. There's a possible argument that this tax free carte blanche never pay a dollar towards the public purse status of the Catholic Church. Do they really deserve it in this day and age, considering their track record on this most fundamental issue?

LL: Has there ever been that kind of criminal conspiracy charge against dioceses?

ROBERT TALACH: Well, the U.S. has used before the RICO statutes, which is really an organized crime statute, to get into some of these dioceses to get their records. There have been some you know, there's been charges laid. There was a monsignor convicted. We've seen some higher ranking officials from around the world called out. So, you know, they're they're further along than we are. And, you know, a lot more could be done. This is not an issue which is just isolated to, you know, Catholic children. It's a real Canadian issue. And I always say to leave this up to, you know, leadership in the Vatican or a handful of bishops around the country is really not responsible. This is an issue that affects all of us.

LL: Now, we did reach out to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and no one was available for an interview. They sent us a statement saying in part that that "clergy sexual abuse" and this is a quote "is and will continue to be addressed with utmost seriousness and respect by the Catholic bishops of Canada." And that's the end of the quote. They also said that their 2018 expanded guidelines for the protection of minors say police must be informed of any complaint the church receives about abuse of a minor and that it's up to the police whether to release the names of accused abusers. They also said it's up to individual bishops to decide whether to publicize the names of clergy who, while not charged or convicted, have been credibly accused. I'm wondering, is that good enough for you?

ROBERT TALACH: Look, it's a very sophisticated dodge. Let's call it what it is. The Catholic Church in Canada is organized when it comes to issues of abortion, birth control, euthanasia. I mean, they can all get together and they can work in unison when it's something that meets their theology and their agenda. But on this one, you know, it's a fire drill. They're all running around in a circle saying we're not organized and we have to leave it up to individuals. The fact that they're issuing paper statements and not at least putting one voice and one face of their peers to speak to this transparently says volumes.

LL: I mean you've been working on lawsuits around abuse by clergy for for a long time, 16 years. I'm wondering what you've seen change over that time, if anything?

ROBERT TALACH: I think what I've seen. I mean, to give them some due and I do think that these changes were pressured is that, you know, that the gag order is less common now.

LL: The gag order is telling victims that they can't talk if they get a settlement.

ROBERT TALACH: Right. Now, they're pretty much limited to how much money they got. You know, we're able to get in some cases, but not all some advance limited funding for the victim during the litigation on the investigation. But, you know, on the other hand, I really just seen an increase in the sophistication of their PR program. You know, now they'll acknowledge it. Now they'll issue nice statements. You know, I always say that, you know, pushing two decades of this, I could tell horror stories that would turn any Catholics hair grey on the way they truly think and operate on this issue. I don't think they've moved that. They've moved that much further than they were decades ago. And and the other part is the prevention piece. I mean, they refuse to look at why this is so, such a problem in the Catholic Church. They just refuse to go there. So, you know, we've got a better reaction, but we don't have anything proactive.

LL: The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops told us that it does have a new committee for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults, which will start its work in 2020. What are you hoping comes from that?

ROBERT TALACH: Nothing. I mean, it's why do we still give them the initiative on this? I mean, look, it's another committee. They've been forming committees about this since the 1990s. It's almost like they're waiting us out. I just don't understand why they can't do something bold and definitive here and always find a reason, a rational, an excuse not to do the right thing.

LL: We will leave it there. Thank you.

ROBERT TALACH: No, thank you for covering the issue. I think this is a situation of sustained pressure over decades to get a few inches of ground.

LL: OK. Thank you. Bye bye.

ROBERT TALACH: Bye.

LL: Robert Talach is a lawyer who has worked on more than 400 sex abuse related cases against the Catholic Church. He was in London, Ontario. Well the CBC News is coming up next. Then.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The black market I guess is cheaper. It's a lot cheaper and quality is just pretty much same. So if I can, I go there.

LL: The promise of legal marijuana boosting spirits and the economy has been a bit of a bust. The business of pot in our next half hour. I'm Laura Lynch and you are listening to The Current.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Has cannabis legalization curbed the black market?

Guests: Sasha Soeterik, Jim Ramadan, Vanmala Subramaniam

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

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come, it's a case that's been before the courts for a decade and finally this week, closing arguments are scheduled. Dr Brian Day has been fighting for more private health care to be allowed in Canada. We'll find out what's at stake for the public system in just over half an hour. But first, the promise and disappointment of pot.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: One more indicator today showing just how strong and just how influential Canada's pot stocks are becoming. Cannabis companies have seen explosive growth over the past number of years.

LL: That was April of 2018, six months before cannabis was legalized in Canada. Compare that optimism to today's headlines.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We're nearing the end of the third quarter and cannabis stocks have been lagging. They're among the worst performers on the TSX over the last three months. Can these stocks bounce back?

LL: It's been a bumpy first year for legal pot and that has left cannabis companies and their investors reeling. The Ontario Cannabis Store, the province's online retailer, lost $42 million in the latest fiscal year. New Brunswick is looking to sell its government owned shops because they're losing money too. Canopy Growth and Aurora Cannabis, the country's two largest licenced producers, have both reported declining sales, sending stock prices plummeting. And more than a year after legalization, there are still only two dozen legal pot shops in Canada's most populous province in Ontario. Sasha Soeterik is the co-owner of Bellwoods Coffee and Gelato, which is not her business of choice. She's with me here in Toronto. Hi.

SASHA SOETERIK: Hi Laura.

LL: You wanted to open a legal pot shop in Toronto. You ended up opening a coffee shop. What happened?

SASHA SOETERIK: Oh, well, a lot of twisting and turning this time last year, we were all set to follow government's guidelines in selecting a location, getting our incorporation documents ready, checking out with the community, we went to local businesses to check they were happy with us opening there. We were on the verge three days ahead of applying when they were going to open up applications and Doug Ford changed the game. He said, no, we don't have enough supply. It's going to be a lottery. It was gut wrenching.

LL: And so what happened then?

SASHA SOETERIK: Well, we had signed a five year lease and we were worried about how we should go forward. We're very committed to our location. We're very committed to selling cannabis responsibly. We ended up pivoting and we're selling coffee now in an attempt to stay afloat. I wrote to Doug Ford at the time, asked him to reverse his decision. He called me up. He gave me the whole yarn about this is a supply issue. I'm going to get you in touch with the OCS. He got some rep from the OCS to talk to me. It's supply. That's the problem. It sounded to me like a government that didn't really know how to go forward, taking advice from the wrong people, you know? But yeah, we opened up a coffee shop. We're struggling. We're waiting to see what happens here. We've entered two lotteries and come nowhere. We're just a small business, so we didn't have enough money or connections to be part of that ballot stuffing in the second lottery. But yeah, we're waiting for the word. What's going on?

LL: You're still hoping to get that licence. What got you interested in getting into the cannabis retail business in the first place?

SASHA SOETERIK: Yes. So my background is actually in live sports television and I've had a long career in that. I moved back to Canada from London, England, three and a half years ago. I saw this abundance of dispensaries like there was a a new market in Canada. I also have a Dutch background. I grew up in Amsterdam and for me, legal pot or decriminalized pot was, it was normal. There's no pressure to it. And seeing a market open up here, I thought this is an opportunity. I've got a lot to give here and I want to make sure this goes right for Canada, for Ontario. So I established deep connections here in the last three and a half years and we had this plan. We were waiting for the government. I mean, initially we didn't think it was going to happen with Kathleen Wynne, but Doug Ford said something in the whole industry woke up.

LL: But you were running a pot chop before it was legal. How lucrative was that operation?

SASHA SOETERIK: Oh, well I wasn't running one, but I know plenty of people who were. That was an incredibly lucrative operation for those that were conducting that. I mean, that's definitely part of the game, is seeing how lucrative that can be. But yeah, I think it's much more about normalizing something. Certainly from my perspective, coming from Holland, like I said. I'd like to see this be, I'd like to see the stigma go away. I'd like to see people feel okay about something they've been doing prohibitively for 80, 90 years. You know?

LL: So I don't want to get too far into the weeds on this, but I'm wondering if you could give us a sense of what you were required to do to just be eligible for the retail licence.

SASHA SOETERIK: OK. So you have to have perfect credit, no criminal history, you know. You had to have a corporation that reflects that same thing. You'd have to have a location that's not within 150 metres of a school. We collected our life savings together, we ended up consulting with lawyers to get our application like 100 percent. Like I said, I went door to door to local businesses, I got them to sign letters of support. Yeah. Like a lot of money and planning went into it. We were following the government's rules towards getting towards, they had webinars. We were following them, making notes. You know, we're ready at each checkpoint to be considered for a retail licence.

LL: How much money have you ploughed into this so far?

SASHA SOETERIK: Probably over $150,000. And I mean, I'm not from a wealthy background, Laura. I'm collecting money from friends, family, people who want to invest in this for me, with me, to see this happen, you know?

LL: Canada's retailers and consumers in other parts of the country have had a better experience with legalization. We spoke with some pot buyers in Edmonton on Friday.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Everyone I know smokes weed and from what I hear, it's making a lot of money. So it's definitely booming, I'd say.

VOICE 2: The selection is huge in there and you go in there and have all kinds of knickknacks and stuff. So really, anything you want is in there.

VOICE 3: I see a lot of people of different walks of life always coming in, whether it's young or old. They're needing it for health purposes or they're just looking to have a chill good time. It's nice to see everyone who works here be so nice to everyone as well.

VOICE 4: The black market I guess is cheaper. It's a lot cheaper and the quality is just pretty much the same. So if I can, I go there.

VOICE 5: I prefer knowing, like what's in it and what I'm getting and what kind of high I'm going to get.

VOICE 6: The more that this can be accepted and not stigmatized, like the better it is for people to not feel the embarrassment or maybe the fear to even come into a store.

LL: Now, Sasha, I want you to stay with us while we bring in another guest. Alberta has awarded 329 cannabis licences and that is more than the rest of the country combined. Jim Ramadan opened the doors on Bow Cannabis in Calgary in May. He is in our Calgary studio. Hi.

JIM RAMADAN: Good morning,.

LL: Jim, what attracted you to the legal pot business?

JIM RAMADAN: Well, it just seemed like an excellent opportunity, to be honest, I've always been an entrepreneur and, you know, I mimic the story of a lot of other folks who got into the industry just looking for something interesting and looking for an opportunity.

LL: Now you've been in business since May, how is business going?

JIM RAMADAN: It's been really good. It's been really good. It's been a very positive experience.

LL: How so? Do you have a steady stream of customers, peaks and valleys?

JIM RAMADAN: We have a steady stream of customers. We do quite well. I really can't complain. Yeah.

LL: So tell me about the process of getting a licence in Alberta. How does it work?

JIM RAMADAN: So essentially, there's two things you have to deal with the municipal government or the city and the province. So when you're dealing with the province, you have to get your provincial cannabis licence and they have a whole due diligence process you have to go to. And it's very rigorous. They ask you all sorts of questions. As mentioned, credit checks, criminal history, they audit you financially for three years if you have any companies or any related companies. They do all that stuff. So it's a jump through all those hoops and then. Yeah. Like it's really in-depth to even ask you, like, what are the values of the cards you own and things like that. It's very interesting. The values are the cars you own. Yeah, like vehicles. It's one of the questions. Yeah, I think they do an outstanding job. You know, and one of the big things I was told with the GLC, which is the body in charge of this, is that they want to make sure that none of the grey or black market elements actually get into the legal cannabis game.

LL: So how long did it take you then to go from your application to opening your doors?

JIM RAMADAN: Oh, it took a year. It took a solid year because I think it was in April that we could first. I might be wrong and that it's been a while, you know, send in the application. And then we got held up by the city for the longest time because having a location is very difficult. There's requirements you can't be within so many meters of school. The community can't have an issue with your location. Then the biggest thing was actually competition from other cannabis stores which really held us up because they can't be with the 300 meters of each other. So they filed an appeal against us because there is another store within 300 meters. They ultimately lost and so on, so forth and here we are.

LL: How much did it cost for you to get the licence then?

JIM RAMADAN: I think the application fee was about $7000. You can go look it up. Anybody can look it up online. You can go HLC and that's just to get your foot in the door and for them to investigate you and get the ball rolling.

LL: Now, comparing it to Sasha's experience though, she sees that she plugged in $150,000 to get up and running. How much do you think you had to spend to get up and running?

JIM RAMADAN: Up and running? Well, you see, one thing we have is we have an inventory cost as well. So we bought, we tried to get as much inventory as we could, so it was over about $500,000 by the time all was said and done. To get the location, to set on the location. I'm sure a lot of her costs, that lease is, that's one of the things that's hurting a lot of locations. They just sit and they're not opening. Even in Calgary, there's so many locations just sitting and they're not open and they're just paying lease.

LL: OK, Sasha is sitting here nodding her head. What do you think after hearing this?

SASHA SOETERIK: Landlords have had a field day. It's like a feeding frenzy for them. This time last year, we were in strict negotiations with our landlord and we're paying above market because we want a cannabis location. Now we're selling coffee there. That hurts, you know. At every stage rent has been a huge issue, but I can imagine yeah, onceyou're buying stock as well, like that's when the prices really go up.

LL: What's your reaction to hearing the rest of Jim's experience?

SASHA SOETERIK: Oh, wow. Jim, it sounds like you're living in the right province. It sounds like it's incredible to read that Alberta has actually hit their target. Well done. That sounds organized. Sounds like they thought about it. Sounds like they have responsible people making decisions over there.

LL: Yeah. Jim, what is the proliferation of the pot stores in Alberta done to people's attitudes toward cannabis?

JIM RAMADAN: Well one the key things that we really try to do with our store and I think every company is trying to do it is it's normalising it. And that's really important to, you know, the industry and everything that cannabis can really be and is a positive thing in our society. And in many ways, like a lot of our customers there. They're baby boomers. They're older. You know, like we had a joke because we were thinking of, you know, sales to try and do to, you know, add value to the store. And we were going to do a seniors discount. That's like 80 percent of our customers. So we always thought it was funny. Yeah. So we get all sorts of folks coming in and for various reasons. And a lot of it is they just don't want that. Some of them, you know, they don't want to try some medication or something like that and they just come into the store just to see what's up, you know?

LL: Do you have any sense Jim, of whether and how the black market is operating in Alberta?

JIM RAMADAN: Oh, yeah. They're very alive and well. Absolutely. Like, you know, you can go online and you can find so many customers come to us and they're surprised we don't carry vape cartridges or edibles because while they are legal, they're not going to be hitting the markets that way. Let's say early January and they're there, surprisingly. But I got it from this legitimate store and blah, blah, blah about it and B.C. and we're like, no, those are illegal products. And they're surprised to learn it because the black market, you know, you can go on Google and you can pull up a listing and call them in. It seems so legitimate. And, you know, no one's doing anything to enforce that right now and as a legal store owner, that's pretty frustrating.

LL: And Sasha, I'm wondering, what what can Ontario do to catch up to Alberta when it comes to legal pot?

SASHA SOETERIK: Oh, they could start licencing shops and opening them so that we could sell cannabis responsibly. Like that's what everyone's goal here is ultimately and make a little money for the province. We want to give back. Like this is such a humongous missed opportunity.

LL: But what about this idea that the supply wasn't there?

SASHA SOETERIK: Well, to me, I feel like that was only a small part of the problem. I feel like the Alcohol and Gaming Commission here in Ontario wasn't ready. I don't think they know how to licence for this. And I think they decided to take it slow. And that was what no one wanted to hear. So it was much easier to say supply is a problem.

LL: How long are you gonna be able to?

SASHA SOETERIK: I don't know. I don't know. I'm waiting for word any day. It's tough. It's really tough what's going on at our place.

LL: Jim, you got any words of encouragement for Sasha?

JIM RAMADAN: Well, we dealt with the government too. I mean the AGLC, they're again the body that's responsible provincially, their mandate was always it was private. We have a, it's tough dealing with the government on these things and it's a lot out of your hand. And we definitely had to wait and wait for it. We were held up for over eight months. So I've been there. Luckily, I consider our our store very lucky that we opened relatively early, but it's a draw right now. Like nobody knows. I understand your position. It's very frustrating.

SASHA SOETERIK: Thanks for your understanding, Jim. Like I think it's probably going to be another year. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see how if we can make it.

LL: Alright. Well, good luck to you. To both of you, actually. Thank you.

JIM RAMADAN: Thanks.

SASHA SOETERIK: Thank you for having me.

LL: Sasha Soeterik is the co-owner of Bellwoods Coffee and Gelato. She was in our Toronto studio. Jim Ramadan owns Bow Cannabis. He was in our Calgary studio. Well, my next guest has been following the rise and fall of the cannabis industry in Canada. Vanmala Subramaniam is a business and cannabis reporter with the Financial Post. She's with me in our Toronto studio. Hi.

VANMALA SUBRAMANIAM: Hi Laura.

LL: What do you think of what our last two guests had to say?

VANMALA SUBRAMANIAM: Well, I mean, it's really interesting. So, I mean, if you look at the sheer numbers, the fact that Alberta has, you know, less than half the population off of Ontario and it has what 300 stores? They clearly got their system together pretty quickly and, you know, they're clearly kind of really trying to, I guess, in a sense, wipe out the black market. It was interesting to me that Jim said that the black market is still thriving. Which makes you think that there's enough demand just in that province to actually fulfil more stores. Right, because the ultimate goal is just moving people over from the black market to the legal market. I think, you know, Sasha's Sasha's point about, I guess the whole idea with the CEO kind of being slow in licencing stores, the government being slow in licencing stores in Ontario. The supply issue is interesting because in the early days, I would say there was definitely a supply shortage. So I understand that in December, the Ontario government being like, listen, we don't want retail stores to close down. We want these businesses to thrive. We cannot licence them until we know that they're going to be able to buy stock. So, however, now that seems to be a real pile up in inventory and in supply amongst licenced producers. They're sitting on quite a bit of weed. And what what we're seeing happening is that the supply chain getting out from the producers to the retailers is slightly more complicated and there's certain bottlenecks in it. So I don't think we have a supply problem anymore. I think there's enough pot to go around. The issue is that there are all these hiccups in getting them to the retailers and not enough stores open and really we haven't been able to figure out what kind of strains of weed people want, what they don't want. And licence producers haven't been able to figure that out. So I think there are multiple issues here beyond just, you know, a supply shortage.

LL: Let's talk about the producers a little bit more. What other mistakes do you think the pot industry itself has made that have hurt its bottom line, especially the leaders like Aurora and Canopy Growth?

VANMALA SUBRAMANIAM: Right. So one of the things, I mean you mentioned that in your intro Canopy and Aurora, the two biggest licenced producers, they were doing well, I would say in the early days of legalization because what happened is they kind of had a lot of their pot ready to go and they shipped it out. And it's a business term that you call channel stuffing, where they just push everything they have into the supply chain. So they manage to, you know, dominate in terms of market share. In the early days that were only a few brands of pot on the on store shelves and people were buying that and can appease a Tweed brand was their Aurora's brand was there as well. Now, what started happening as more producers came in and a range of weed products were more available to consumers is that consumers started to become more discerning of what they wanted. And so I'll give you an example. Canopy had these products they made for the recreational market, soft gel capsules. So what they did was they put diluted cannabis oil in it and they put into these capsules. And for someone who doesn't want to actually eyeball a joint and smoke, you can just pop this pill, it's high CBD. It has a bit of a soporific calming effect and they thought it would sell well. Now, the issue is that you don't have a lot of market data, right? Like you don't this is a nascent industry. You have market data from the U.S. If you went black market folks, you could probably be able to figure out what people want. I don't know how much of that was actually done by the licence producers, but they took a massive hit on that product because it just wasn't selling. So in the last quarter, they had to take a $32 million return from either pricing changes the having to decrease prices because the product was not selling well on those soft gel capsules or that you know, that was just inventory sitting in the Ontario Cannabis Store warehouse where you know, they couldn't sell it. And The OCS was like listen, no one wants these products. We're going to have to give it back to you. So to give you a sense of how big $32 million is for Canopy, in a quarter, their revenue is about, total revenue, including international sales is about $90 million. So that's like a third, you know. So I would say that was a significant hit for the company.

LL: That is a big hit. So what cannabis products are selling well?

VANMALA SUBRAMANIAM: So in terms of the limited market data we have and you know, talking to people who have kind of tracked this, people just the bottom line is they like good looking weed, good looking dried bud, smells good. For the most part, higher THC strain. Although, you know that's been debatable. Some people say that perhaps, you know, it's the fact of the matter is that I think licence produces, some of the larger ones, have struggle to really give consumers good weed, and they're finding that they can get better weed on the black market. So that combined with the fact that you don't have an array of products on unleashed on the legal market like vape pens are not legal, sorry, illegal yet, but they're not available. Edibles are legal, but not yet available. So, you know, what's the incentive really to go to a store in Ontario? First of all, there's so few stores. What's the incentive to really kind of buy legal weed? It's just not there yet.

LL: Okay. You've touched on this, the black market. The legalization was supposed to curb the black market. How successful has that been?

VANMALA SUBRAMANIAM: So that's interesting. I you know, one of the pieces of data I found was that broadly speaking, the legal market has managed to supplant the black market by about 14 percent. So, you know, you could look at it in two ways. You could say, OK, it's only been a year plus since legalization. And that's not bad, but we're seeing it. Plateau is the issue. You're not seeing that budge anymore. You're not seeing people kind of move out of the black market to the legal market just yet. And one of the issues is on terrorists, the biggest market in the country and the only 24 or 25 stores. So I think, you know, that's that massive accessibility problem combined with the fact that there's no, you know, variety of products that you get in the black market. What about the price and the price? Yes. So. OK. The if you if you look at the the price point that the consumers are paying, they're paying for excise tax, they're paying GST. And your per gram average price in the legal market is high as you have all this costs. If you order it online, you play, you pay shipping costs. So sometimes it can be up to double per gram of what you might get on the black market. So, you know, that's a clear disincentive. There are people, however, who are okay paying that amount because they're more comfortable buying on the legal market. But what's interesting about that group of people, according to surveys, is that that group of people isn't growing. So they kind of got into legal, they got comfortable with the legal market in the beginning, and again, that has plateaued. That group isn't expanding. So you're just not seeing a lot of that shift over from the black market.

LL: So will the black market ever completely go away?

VANMALA SUBRAMANIAM: I think it's going to take a very, very long time for it to go away. I think that there as long as you don't have in the biggest province accessibility to legal weed very easily in even in terms of being able to order it online, pick it up at private retailers and stores all over the place. Like just to give you a sense of how many LCP shows there are. You know, I would provincially run liquor stores in Ontario there about there. If I'm not mistaken, over 600 across the province and even then, people feel, OK, but not enough LCBOs, you know. And so there are 25 cannabis stores, so just to give you a sense of how big the accessibility issue is. Now, the other issue is I think licenced producers have not figured out what consumers want. They can't seem, so in the case of Canopy, for instance, make a whole bunch of products pumping money into products that maybe aren't going to sell. So, you know, it's going to take a lot of time for all these supply chain kinks to kind of even out.

LL: Well, OK. It's going to be interesting to see what happens over the next months, the next year. We should probably have you back in to do a check on this in the future.

VANMALA SUBRAMANIAM: Certainly.

LL: Thank you.

VANMALA SUBRAMANIAM: Thank you Laura.

LL: Vanmala Subramanian is a business and cannabis reporter for the Financial Post. She was with me in our Toronto studio on.

[Music]

LL: Coming up in our next half hour, to bean or not to bean? Yeah, OK, I apologize. That is a terrible pun, but that is seriously the question they're debating in Switzerland. For years, coffee beans have been part of the mountain of emergency supplies stockpiled by the government. A suggestion that coffee wasn't actually unnecessary part of life and should be taken out of storage has controversy brewing. Apologies again. More in about 90 seconds. I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

[Music]

Back To Top »

Why Swiss people don't want anyone touching their emergency coffee stockpiles

Guests: Imogen Foulkes

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

SOUNDCLIP

[Swiss safety commercial]

The Swiss are known for being prepared. Take this safety video, for example.

SOUNDCLIP

[Swiss safety commerical contiued]

It prepares residents for all kinds of emergencies and features to Swiss families.

SOUNDCLIP

[Swiss safety commerical continued]

LL: So Tom is prepared. Tim not so much. The Swiss government takes pride in its own preparation with huge stockpiles of supplies sugar, flour, rice, water and coffee. But that last item has proved controversial lately. And here to tell us more is the BBC's Geneva correspondent, Imogen Foulkes. Hi.

IMOGEN FOULKES: Hello Laura.

LL: First off, how much coffee does Switzerland stockpile?

IMOGEN FOULKES: Wait for it. 15,000 tonnes. That is supposed to keep a population going for three months, should there be a coffee emergency in Switzerland.

LL: That suggests that the Swiss drink a of coffee.

IMOGEN FOULKES: They do. They love it. I mean, they are up there in the top 10. Depends which set of statistics you look at. Five or six or seven on the list of the world's biggest coffee consumers. They consume about eight and a half kilos, that's 17 or 18 pounds of coffee a year per head of the population.

LL: So then what was the response when the government announced that it was considering dropping coffee from stockpiles?

IMOGEN FOULKES: Quite a lot of concern, actually. I mean the government says, well, you know, if we're planning for emergencies, we keep stuff that's really going to keep people alive. You know, stuff with calories in it and coffee is not one of those. But the Swiss, your average Swiss person clearly, judging by the mood on the street, 'Well, sorry, coffee is essential to life. I need it.' I mean, people are saying, I need it when I get up in the morning, just same way I need my shower. I need a coffee after lunch. I need one in the afternoon to keep me going at work and then maybe a little espresso after dinner at night. They just really don't like the idea of living without it.

LL: So what has the government decided to do now?

IMOGEN FOULKES: Well, there's such a debate. And I think, to be honest, the interest of media organizations outside Switzerland has also kicked the whole thing up the political agenda a bit. And the government has said, 'oh, you know what, we'll reconsider that coffee decision. Maybe we'll decide to keep it on the list.' I think there's also been some pressure from the coffee importers and producers. Don't foget we're the home of Nestlé and Nespresso here in Switzerland. And the way these stockpiles work is not that the government has great big government warehouses. The producers and importers undertake to store thousands of tonnes themselves. And guess who pays them to do that? The government. So it's quite a good number for the coffee producers.

LL: So was there a strong corporate response then to this idea?

IMOGEN FOULKES: The coffee producers said, 'oh, you know, we think it would be good to keep on storing it, and you never know what could happen. Sometimes we have environmental disasters in coffee producing countries, or we have import difficulties, and there could be a shortage any time. So it's always good to have some on hand, especially in a country like Switzerland.

LL: Imogen, what else does Switzerland stockpile?

IMOGEN FOULKES: Well, they in the national stockpiles, we have things like flour, cooking oil, sugar, fuel. We have medicines, antibiotics. We have grain. We have fertilizers. All things - let's not forget, this is a neutral country that was surrounded in two world wars by countries that were fighting and Switzerland couldn't feed itself. So it's based on that. But nowadays, the government says, 'but you know what? Maybe there are still some reasons to have these stockpiles. Maybe there is a big environmental disaster somewhere. Maybe there's a cyberattack that knocks out our power and we need this stuff.' And what's really interesting is that last year, probably, people say, because of climate change, the level of the Rhine fell so low — the River Rhine, that's Switzerland landlocked Switzerland's port to the rest of the world — that they couldn't import some of the fertilizers and mineral oil that they needed. And they actually had to use those emergency supplies just within the last year.

LL: Now, that was my next question. How often do they tap into those stockpiles? So last year, have they done it much before that?

IMOGEN FOULKES: Last year, and then two years ago, there was a shortage of antibiotics, a global shortage of antibiotics. And some countries actually ran short, but not well-prepared Switzerland, because they had their stockpile. So they used them to tide them over, until this global shortage eased.

LL: No, we heard a clip from the government video at the top of the interview. Do the Swiss do their own personal stockpiling?

IMOGEN FOULKES: Well, you know, we're supposed to, all of us who live here. We've all got theoretically a space in a nuclear bunker, not necessarily in our own house, but there are communal ones. And we are all supposed to have an emergency stockpile of food and fresh water to keep us going for a week. Honestly, although I did a very unscientific straw poll about this, I don't know anyone who does it. People just laugh and say if you've got that, 'oh, no no no, what's in my cellar is my skis or my wine' or people will say, 'oh, I remember my grandfather or my grandmother making sure we had stockpiles of, you know, tinned tomatoes, pasta, fresh water. But I don't know people who do it anymore.' But were there to be a global crisis, I imagine people would be getting out their government lists and thinking, 'hmm, what should I stockpile? And I do remember a neighbour of mine, I think it's, what, 10 years ago when [there was] the swine flu epidemic — which proved not to be serious, but people thought it was at first — she did go out and fill up her stock cupboard.

LL: Alright, Imogen, I hope you're having a coffee while you're talking to us this morning. Thank you.

IMOGEN FOULKES: Oh I am. I am. My seventh of the day.

LL: Thanks Imogen. Imogen Foulkes, is the BBC's Geneva correspondent. She is in Geneva, Switzerland.

[Music]

Back To Top »

BC Court hears Dr. Brian Day’s prescription for wait times

Guests: Dr. Rupinder Brar, Brian Day

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

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I just trusted the system. I just when they told me, you know, he's on the waitlist, but when he really needs it, he'll get the surgery. So right. There's something in my head switched, oh, well, he doesn't really need it right now. But instinctively I knew that was wrong. I mean, all research tells you that you leave a child waiting like tha, the surgery becomes so much more complex. What I know now is that he will never experience the correction that he could have experienced had the surgery been done in a timely fashion. He will have more of a deformity for the rest of his life and that is unacceptable in Canada in 2011. I mean, it's all about kids. At least kids should get what they need.

LL: Debbie Waitkus has had to take her son Walid to a private clinic in the United States for surgery to fix a severe curve in his spine. He'd been waiting 27 months for a surgery date in Canada. Walid suffered a stroke during the procedure and is now paralyzed from the waist down. Debbie Waitkus is one of the plaintiffs in a landmark lawsuit that goes into closing arguments in B.C. today. The case is being led by Dr. Brian Day. He's the founder of the Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver. He has long been fighting against laws that bar patients for paying for care at private clinics. Dr. Rupinder Brar is on the board of Canadian Doctors for Medicare, an intervener in the Case. She's also a physician with the Portland Hotel Society and the St. Paul's Addiction Medical Consult Team and an assistant clinical professor at UBC. They're both in Vancouver. Hello to you both.

RUPINDER BRAR: Hi Laura.

BRIAN DAY: Good morning.

LL: Dr. Day when you hear Debbie's story, what goes through your mind?

BRIAN DAY: Well, I should just point out that it was a private hospital in the United States and it was a shriner. So there was no cost to her. She did not have to pay for that. But what I feel is this 15 year old boy who had been playing football and riding his bicycle and waited 27 months for a procedure that would not have happened in any other developed country on Earth. And he's paralyzed for life. So here's Debbie and his mother is one of the plaintiffs in the case. So are another six. There were six patient plaintiffs. Two of them habe sadly died during the long wait for trial. But this is a health system that needs a lot of attention and we perform very poorly alongside our peers in the other developed countries that have universal health care.

LL: Dr. Brar, let me get your reaction to what we heard there from the interview with Debbie Waitkus.

RUPINDER BRAR: Yes, I think that it's not right. It's not right that he had to wait 27 months and nor is it right that he had to leave our country to get access to care. I think my reaction to, that's my reaction, but also that we need to improve our system. And we do our system does need attention. But we actually have to look at what will improve the system. So in the future, we don't have other cases like this. And currently the court case. And the crux of the matter here doesn't actually address wait times, despite being told time and time again in the media that that's actually what this case is about, is to improve access for patients. That's not what this case is about. What is this case about? So this case is actually about three things, primarily being private health insurance for people who can afford it. Physicians being able to extra bill above and beyond what the medical services plan builds, pretty much what the market can bear. And secondly, that physicians can work in dual practice and for patients who have any pre-existing condition. Laura, private health insurance is almost out of the question because they usually insure patients who are well to do, who are healthy and whose premiums will outweigh what their costs would be. So if if you actually look at these European countries that are today, as mentioned in previous interviews and he's brought up today in terms of other places with universal care, on average, people that actually afford private health insurance in those countries are between the ages of 40 to 50, have white collar jobs, are men and whose income is on average about 37 percent higher than those that don't have private health insurance. So, yes, we need to improve the system. We've got to make sure people don't wait that long. Let's actually use solutions that will do that in an equitable way where we all can benefit.

LL: Dr. Day, what do you say this case is about?

BRIAN DAY: Well, you just said a lot of misinformation. First of all, and you just had a speaker from Switzerland and you might have asked her about the Swiss health system, which is based on private insurance and private hospitals and private care. And the fact is, there are systems around the world. What happens in that country is that if you're in the low income groups, the government simply pays the health premiums. So there's universal care. Nobody waits in Switzerland. No, we have.

LL: But tell me what this case is about then, in your mind.

BRIAN DAY: It's about the government cannot promise health care in a timely manner and then fail to deliver it and then make it unlawful for you to access that care outside of the system and particularly to obtain private insurance. And on the question of dual practice, you cannot, the biggest weakness in the country, are in my specialty of orthopedic surgery. There are 200 orthopedic surgeons that cannot get work. In our trial we have shown, the evidence has shown, that tens of thousands of Canadians, of British Columbians, tens of thousands of British Columbians are waiting beyond the maximum time that the government says is the maximum they should wait for healthcare. So if they were to guarantee, which they do in other countries, if they were to guarantee a specific time, then that could help the problem. But they won't do that. They will not guarantee healthcare in this particular timeline.

LL: Let's talk about wait times a little bit more. Wait time data can be confusing. So we asked the Canadian Institute for Health Information for some details about how long Canadians are actually waiting in Canada. Here are some of what Tracy Johnson, their Director of Health Systems Analysis and Emerging Issues told us.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Of the waits we measure right now, about 70 percent of people in Canada get their elective surgeries within their wait times, within the stipulated benchmark or wait time. Flipping from private to public or from public to a private option is not necessarily going to cure all the challenges we have, because when we look at wait times, we measure the fiftieth percentile and the ninetieth percentile. We don't measure the average wait. And some of the longest waits we have at the ninetieth percentile in Canada for hips and knees are out east and I think they're almost a year.

LL: Okay Dr. Rupinder Brar, 70 percent of people getting their elective surgery within stipulated appropriate wait times, 30 percent aren't.

RUPINDER BRAR: That's right.

LL: Is that good enough?

RUPINDER BRAR: No. And the key messaging there is a, the sky is not falling and we can do better. And so ultimately, it's not good enough and let's improve that. But one really key important fact here, Laura, is that this court case will not improve that. So if we're going to speak about wait times, let's then speak about solutions to wait times. Let's not insinuate that this court case actually would reduce it. So all these European countries, in fact, that Dr. Day has mentioned, they spend more on their public health care system than we do in Canada. They spend a lot more on social spending.

BRIAN DAY: That's absolutely not true.

RUPINDER BRAR: It is true. There's an article in JAMA, a very reputable journal, that in 2018 where they published all this. So I would assure.

BRIAN DAY: You speak to the Canadian health information commisioner who will tell you that's not true.

RUPINDER BRAR: Sure. OK. So I'll just keep going then.

LL: You finish your point Dr. Brar, then Dr. Day, we'll come to you.

RUPINDER BRAR: Thank you. So ultimately, so they're spending more on the public health care system and that social spending were on education, on income redistribution and housing, all of these things people end up doing better. So it's true what you mentioned at the wait times data is really hard to interpret. And when we get ranked against these European countries, it's not actually about private health insurance. There are many other factors that come into play which put us at a different place in terms of our health care ranking and so let's actually improve the wait times.

LL: Dr. Day let give you the floor here.

BRIAN DAY: Well, I can tell you that there are about 196 countries on this earth. There is one in which private health insurance is unlawful and that is Canada, where there it's actually against the law. And we have literally a situation here. In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that patients are suffering and dying on waitlists and they ruled that it was unconstitutional for a government, someone from Quebec to be on a waitlist, forced on the waitlist by the government and have no legal right to purchase insurance and avoid that. And to say that, by the way, the wait times you were talking about are not medically appropriate. They are the absolute medically acceptable maximum, which is a big difference from what's medically appropriate. And in British Columbia we have thousands of patients who are not meeting those benchmarks. And if 30 percent of patients in this health system are being treated in a medically unacceptable time, that is not a health system for which, we cannot be proud of that

LL: I want to go now to another aspect of this. I want to look at the example in Saskatchewan. The province had the worst wait times in the country before it brought in the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative. This is Janice MacKinnon. She is the province's former finance minister. She's now a professor of public policy at the University of Saskatchewan.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: In Saskatchewan, what they did was they changed the structure, the way wait times were organized. They centralized the listing, taking it out of the hands of doctors and hospitals and they used private for profit clinics. Took 34 procedures out of the public system, move them over to the private system. They paid for the procedures, but they found that it was 26 percent cheaper to do the procedures in the private clinic and it helped with the wait time because you knew how many procedures you were going to get within a certain time frame at a certain cost.

LL: Dr. Brar, what do you make of the utilizing private options to help reduce some of the burden on the public system?

RUPINDER BRAR: So, Laura, I think that that's an option, but that's not what this court case again is about. We actually have private clinics all around and physicians are able to opt out of our public system and actually work in these private clinics and provide care. And the Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative is really interesting because it wasn't just about the private clinics. In fact, it was about more MRIs, utilizing rooms that weren't being utilized, centralizing that waitlist, which has really good evidence. And then, yes, outsourcing some of these surgeries to private clinics. But since the government in Saskatchewan took that money out, there was a lot of money infused into this wait times issue and the wait times improvement. When that money was taken out, those private clinics still exist, but then the wait times increased. So actually, the solution to the wait times in Saskatchewan wasn't just the private clinics being there, it was actually the fact that there were other things that were being done to improve it in a public manner. And this is still public money that's being used. Instead, what's being asked for in this court case is very different. It's about being able to charge what you want versus in Saskatchewan, they still billed the government what the cost was. And here the plaintiffs are asking to be able to charge above and beyond what Amnesty would cover. And so these types of things create a certain kind of competition that now in the public system, they're going have to try and keep up with that to keep, retain physicians, retain other allied health care providers. So it's very different from Saskatchewan Surgical Initiative. And we're not talking about delivery here, which is what happened there. We're talking about payment and how health care is being financed in this court case.

LL: Dr. Day what do you think of Saskatchewan's Surgical Initiative. Does it address the concerns you have?

BRIAN DAY: Well, yes, the health guarantee would. What happens in some countries where they have a health care guarantee and they've actually introduced this in Quebec recently, is that if you go beyond a certain maximum acceptable time, then the government has to fund you to get that treatment wherever it happens, whether it's in another private centre or even in another jurisdiction. But we on, it's a false statement to say that we're looking at extra billing. The evidence in the trial and this is on record is that there is no, we do not want extra billing. There is no extra billing.

LL: But what about this Saskatchewan initiative? I want you to address that for me.

BRIAN DAY: Well, I think the Saskatchewan Initiative would work, but the trouble is the cost has has gone beyond where governments are prepared to fund it. And yes, there is a big now pent up demand for health care. And the government is just letting things get worse and worse. And what this case is about is the charter rights of a Canadian that you are on a wait listaAnd if you personalize this, everyone, I mean the poll, 80 percent of the public in British Columbia support our case. 80 percent. If you have a patient, a nearest and dearest who is suffering on a wait list and the government has said we can't do give you your necessary treatment within the time that's maximum maximally acceptable, you cannot then have a government that denies you your right to get heatlhcare. And I can tell you that when it affects you or your loved ones and this applies to prominent members of the Canadian Doctors for Medicare, when it affects them, they go to the clinic.

LL: Dr. Brar, I hear you wanting to jump in there.

RUPINDER BRAR: I do. So I very much Laura, I care about my loved ones and that is why I'm here. So in fact, a very small proportion of Canadians are going to benefit from this. It is the affluent Canadians. And so what we're doing is creating differential access. In Canada, time and time again, polls state that we're proud of our national health care system. I'm so proud that if I get sick or if my loved ones get sick, they get care based on need and not ability to pay. My patients get care based on that. And so what's going to happen here is those, it's called queue jumping insurance, Laura. If you can afford this private health insurance and the premiums don't outweigh what the private clinics are going to charge, then yes, you can jump the line and get faster care. In these European countries, the only people that are getting care whose wait times have been reduced are those with private health insurance.

BRIAN DAY: That's false. That's just a false statement.

LL: Dr. Day, please let Dr. Brar finish.

RUPINDER BRAR: Thank you. And so ultimately, that's what's going to happen here. So we really need to focus on the fact that, A, we need to improve our wait times. B, it's not true that the government has done nothing. They been taking issues, but we need to do more. And we have really great evidence based ways we can do this. Decrease waits for all of us, not just a select few privileged individuals and then be able to all enjoy better health care.

LL: Dr. Day is this really just about two tier medicine where people can afford to pay to get better care than those can't?

BRIAN DAY: No it's about elimination of a monopoly that isn't serving the consumer. So the Canadians Health Information has got data showing that, for example, countries like in patients waiting more than four months, we have four and a half times as many as the Dutch. Nine times as many as the French and 18 times as many as Germany, all of which have a very small component of private insurance. The private insurance is there to keep as a yardstick to keep the public system honest. And this is not about equal. So my sister was visiting recently from England and was angry that she had to wait seven weeks for a hip replacement from the time her family doctor referred her. She thought that was too long because in those 10 percent of the public in England that have private health insurance would only wait three weeks. So that is the result of the government's being forced into accountability because the public see what's happened in the 10 percent. So the reason only 10 percent of the population in say England have private insurance is that a lot of people, you know six seven weeks for a hip replacement is not that bad. And we have unacceptable wait times. We have a Supreme Court of Canada, the same court today that legalized that ruled on same-sex marriage. That someone has said that patients are suffering and dying while they wait.

LL: I understand that you and Dr. Brar have passionate opinions about this. It will be back in court today. But I thank you both for coming on this morning.

RUPINDER BRAR: Thank you for your time, Laura.

BRIAN DAY: You're welcome.

LL: Dr. Brian Day is the founder of the Cambie Surgery Centre in Vancouver. His lawsuit against the B.C. attorney general goes into closing arguments today. Dr. Rupinder Brar is with Doctors for Medicare, one of the interveners in the case. They are both in Vancouver. That is our program for today. Stay tuned though to Radio One for Q. It's Margaret Atwood's 80th birthday and she's spending her morning with Tom Power, in a wide ranging conversation covering her unusual childhood, her colourful ancestors and the recent loss of her longtime companion, Graeme Gibson. Well a morning program can easily let go of a story about coffee. Yeah, I can't. And the debate that has been grinding on over the Swiss over whether the country should be stockpiling beans in case of the apocalypse. Canadians are no stranger to coffee and one particular beloved chain, which makes it an easy target for satire. Our friends at CBC TV's 22 Minutes get the last word today. I'm Laura Lynch. I'm going for another coffee. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Tim Hortons sketch from This Hour Has 22 Minutes]

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

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

Nov. 18, 2019 episode transcript

More Stories Like This