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The Current Transcript for July 14, 2020

Host: Nahlah Ayed

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: Normally when you're sick or you had an operation, you try to do a bit more each day, but I can do the stairs in our house three times in a day. And if I do it a fourth time, I can't get off the couch next day.

NAHLAH AYED: For some people who catch COVID-19, the symptoms come and go in a matter of weeks, others aren't so lucky. Months after being diagnosed, many people across the country continue to suffer. In a moment, we speak to some of them about the long-term effects of this virus that we still know so little about. Then.

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VOICE: Proof today that activism matters and never doesn't always mean never. The NFL's Washington Redskins are changing the team name and the team's Native American logo. A name and a logo many found offensive, racist.

NA: After years of resistance, Washington's pro football team is changing its name, but it's not the only sports team, professional or amateur, to use names and imagery long protested as racist. Coming up, what other team names are under scrutiny, including here in Canada? Plus, the Globe and Mail's health columnist Andre Picard is here again with the latest on COVID-19 as reopenings continues. And later in the show, we return to our presentation of the CBC Podcast, Uncover: Sharmini. We begin though, with the long haul back to health. Good morning. I'm Nahlah Ayed. This is The Current.

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Sick for over 100 days, COVID-19 patients want more help to cope with disease's 'long-haul' effects

Guests: Lorraine Graves, Heather Colton, Margaret Herridge

NA: As the pandemic wears on, we learn more every day about the impact of Kovik 19. And while the number of new cases is decreasing, there are still many people who continue to suffer months after first being infected. They call themselves "long haulers." Lorraine Graves is one of them. She's a science journalist based in Richmond, B.C. Good morning, Lorraine.

LORRAINE GRAVES: Good morning.

NA: How are you feeling today?

LORRAINE GRAVES: Today is not one of the better days. I had a doctor's appointment by phone yesterday for an hour and then someone who I know from the community called and needed to really be heard because her docs aren't believing her. And so it was a second hour on the phone and I was pretty well done for for the day and probably today and tomorrow I'll be a little too tired and a little more short of breath.

NA: Now, you first got sick back in March. Describe to me how the disease itself progressed to begin with.

LORRAINE GRAVES: Well, at first I didn't know I had it and that's the problem. The early symptoms are a little dry cough. Like people on blood pressure medicine have where they just clear their throat every 20 minutes or hour and at the very top, at the back, it's a little sore, but therapeutic ice cream took care of that. So I didn't know I was infectious. And then wham! And my lungs filled up with what was like egg white instead of air. And it was hard to breathe. I didn't really have a fever, I think two days. We couldn't find a thermometer around our house. We don't worry about this stuff much. And I had a fever part way in for two days. It was like 100 degrees Fahrenheit. So not really much. And but I was so sick and it got to the point where we rigged up my father in law's old oxygen concentrator because my oxygen saturation level fell below 90. And so being a pack rat and still having my late father in law's oxygen concentrator, I could stay home and it was easier for me to breathe. And I stayed out of hospital that way.

NA: So you just did that on your own at home? At what point did you realize that this wasn't going to end quickly?

LORRAINE GRAVES: Actually, the 11th of April, there had been breathing exercises posted online by J.K. Rowling's husband, who's a doc and some respiratory specialist. And up until then, I had been getting better every day. I had energy. I could go for a walk around Gary Point, which is, I don't know, about a kilometre or around the neighbourhood and I was getting better every day. And that morning I tried these exercises, a deep breath in slowly, a deep breath out and then on the third or fourth one you cough as you breathe out. And suddenly my lungs just shut down and I felt like I couldn't breathe and that's when we went to hospital. And this relapsing remitting, this roller coaster is what I'm hearing from so many people that you start to get better and crash or normally when you're sick or you've had an operation or you've had a baby, you try and do a bit more each day. But I can do the stairs in our house three times in a day and if I do it a fourth time, I can't get off the couch. Next day, my oxygen saturation is low and I just feel so unwell. And then the other thing is, is the pain. Old injuries come back to haunt you. Things long healed, will become so painful you can't sleep and it's happened to everybody in our house. My son, who's 24, hurt his shoulder seven years ago dancing, got all better and it got so bad he couldn't sleep. Nothing worked for pain for about a month and then one day it just went away.

NA: So it's physical pain, but also you say there's a change in the way you think even.

LORRAINE GRAVES: Oh, yeah. I'm a journalist. I'm a wordsmith, and my typing was atrocious, and I couldn't spell atrocious. I couldn't remember how to spell awkward. I couldn't remember words. I tried to think of the word for that yellow spring flower. And it was 20 minutes before I remembered they're called daffodils. I can't remember things from long ago. I can't remember the second part of a question. And this is not me. I'm usually articulate and spot on. It has gotten better. I can get the words in the right order when I speak now, but the brain fog is such a problem. It's like when you wake up in the morning and you're not quite there yet.

NA: Right. Yeah.

LORRAINE GRAVES: You have that all day. And so many women are talking about this to their doctors and almost to a person their doctors are saying, oh, it's just emotionally caused and it's not.

NA: So I want to bring in another voice now. Lorraine, just stay with us, while Heather Colton joins us. Heather is 25-years-old. She's a fast food worker and lives in Belleville, Ontario. Good morning, Heather. Thanks for doing this with us.

HEATHER COLTON: Thank you for having me.

NA: How long have you been dealing with covered 19 symptoms?

HEATHER COLTON: I got sick. March 26 and it's just been an ongoing recovery, I guess you would say, since then.

NA: You've been listening to Lorraine. Does any of that, does any of what she described sounds familiar to you?

HEATHER COLTON: Oh, yeah. I was shaking my head. Yes. And like, I can resonate with most of the things she said too.

NA: Like what? Tell me what it's been like for you.

HEATHER COLTON: Well, I started with a sore throat when I got off work the Thursday. Then a few hours later, I had developed horrible body aches, but I had no fever at that point. But then within an hour, I started getting a high rising fever that ended up reaching over 40 degrees. The highest it got was 40.7 Degrees Celsius. I kept taking Tylenol to try and keep it down, but I had horrible shaking chills and I also had lost my sense of taste and smell.

NA: And what's it like for you now?

HEATHER COLTON: Now I have shortness of breath and I can't sleep at night. Like last night I didn't go to bed until almost 4. I'm tired, exhausted, but I can't fall asleep. I don't know what it is.

NA: What about work? Have you been able to get back?

HEATHER COLTON: No. Since it's so hot where I work and just being in the normal heat, I have trouble breathing and I've been having issues with my heart rate shooting up to like 140, 150, 160, just walking to one room from another.

NA: It transformed your life, obviously.

HEATHER COLTON: Oh, yeah.

NA: What are you doing to sort of try to deal with these symptoms? What kind of treatment have you been getting?

HEATHER COLTON: Well, my doctor's been very helpful with me. I'm very thankful for him. He's been running a bunch of tests. I've had more blood work than I've had in my life. In June, we started Lyrica, which is a nerve medication, and it does seem to help take my body aches away, which I thought were muff wakes, but my doctor believes that it was nerve pain that developed.

NA: Lorraine, let me bring you back in here. What are you doing to manage your symptoms?

LORRAINE GRAVES: I'm resting more than I ever did in my life. I had had a concussion a while ago, so I'm in a rehab programme for that. So they're morphing that into starting from COVID-19 rehab. And so the latest suggestion is brain breaks, take time off and just let your body heal, so you can actually goof off with guilt. But the other is, is it's really frustrating, doctors are still struggling to understand the acute phases. And they finally learnt that the active viral phase isn't when the horrible things happen, that it's when the immune system put too it into a flamethrower mode that we get so sick and it's our immune system not calming down. But we're now still struggling to say, listen to us, just because we weren't hospitalized, we were very sick. And even people who weren't horribly sick are having trouble now. So I don't know what to do. I'd love to see a respiratory therapist to find out what exercises, what things can I do to safely help me heal. I'd love more information. The government needs to fund more. The health units need to pay attention because we're going to have long term problems that cost us a lot if we can't do therapy now. But there are good things. My hands have quit shaking. My sense of taste and smell have come back. So there is hope, but we don't know how long will we have this the rest of our lives, or is there a way that we can do something that cuts down on the long term consequences of COVID-19.

NA: So some advice, therefore, for health policymakers and governments. Heather, I wanted to ask you the same question. What kind of support do long haulers like you and Heather need from governments and health policymakers?

HEATHER COLTON: I believe that they need to do the research to find out why COVID is turning in to this long haul journey that we're all going on and give us the attention and medical support that we need to recover or a treatment or a cure, whatever it may be.

NA: Just the last word in last few seconds that we have from both of you. Heather, what do you think listeners should learn from your experience?

HEATHER COLTON: I believe that if someone feels like they're sick with COVID and someone doubts them saying it's just a normal flu, that they should ignore them and trust what they're going through because they're the only ones that know how they feel and seek out the medical treatment that is available.

NA: And Lorraine, last word to you. What do you think listeners should learn from your experience?

LORRAINE GRAVES: Stay safe. This is worth avoiding. It can affect your life in so many ways. And also the early symptoms, pay attention. They are so mild, people will think their allergies or a little tickle in their throat. We've all worked sicker than that. But stay home. Stay safe. Wear masks. This is, this can be devastating and there's no effective treatment for the long term consequences. So the only choice is to avoid it.

NA: Lorraine and Heather, I really hope you get better soon. Thank you so much for talking to us today.

LORRAINE GRAVES: Thank you.

NA: Thank you.

HEATHER COLTON: Stay safe.

NA: Lorraine Graves nd Heather Colton, they're both members of a COVID-19 Long Haulers support group on Facebook. Because COVID-19 is still so new, there are many mysteries about the virus and its lasting impact. Dr. Margaret Herridge is one of the people working to unravel all of this. She's a critical care physician with the University Health Network in Toronto and co-lead of a national study called CANCOV, which will look at outcomes for covered 19 patients after one year. Margaret, I'm just wondering what you're thinking as you're listening to Heather and Lorraine.

MARGARET HERRIDGE: Yeah, sure, and I thank you very much Nahlah for having these folks on your show and to really shining a light on on a lot of the symptoms and the challenges that people are having. And I also would want to say that I'm here on behalf of my other co-lead, Dr. Angela Chung, who is a general internist and also a professor and senior scientist at the UHN as I am. I was going to say the first thing I might say is that to Lorraine and Heather is that, you know, I'm really very sorry that they're having so many difficulties and that people are listening and validating what they're saying, because I was hearing that a bit in their discussion with you and I think it's very important that their symptoms and complaints are really validated and taken seriously.

NA: They both been sick since March and you could hear Lorraine is still coughing, they're out of breath.

MARGARET HERRIDGE: Yes.

NA: How common is it for symptoms to stick around that long?

MARGARET HERRIDGE: Well, I think one aspect of our CANCOV project that Dr. Chung and I are leading is really trying to understand in a lot of very granular detail what's happened to folks and their family caregivers after COVID across Canada. And that extends within our own study through a whole spectrum of illness. So we're studying patients in the community who are sick in the community and never hospitalized, as Lorraine and Heather indicated, but also those patients who are hospitalized and looked after, primarily on general internal medicine and then those most severe patients who become my patients in the intensive care unit who are critically ill and at the highest risk of death. So I think we really need to study across the spectrum. I would say that until we have really detailed international information on outcomes after COVID, it's still a little bit speculative. However, I think there are a lot of prior outbreaks that are inform a lot of the symptoms and the timelines for recovery that Lorraine and Heather were describing to you.

NA: Obviously, as you mentioned, you know, COVID-19 is new, but you personally have been involved in other studies of other coronaviruses like SARS.What kind of long term effects could we expect?

MARGARET HERRIDGE: SARS, as you said, it was another coronavirus, it had a slightly different constellation of effects. COVID seems to be emerging as a very multi-system virus. But some of the complaints that Lorraine and Heather were discussing with you were complaints that we saw in SARS patients months to up to a year later in our one year follow up study. Patients definitely were complaining of persistent fatigue, very important cough, shortness of breath, sometimes chest pain, joint discomforts, these sorts of things, having difficulties transitioning back to work, sometimes having cognitive changes, very frequently having new mood disorders. And that's not to say that people who have complaints, the complaints are a manifestation of mood disorders. I would never say that. There's nothing to suggest that really. COVID like SARS, you know, is a very traumatic event. People were isolated, which is its own stressor, and also were stigmatized. SARS patients felt so stigmatized. It was just terrible. And I think COVID folks feel similarly.

NA: So for those people who are listening, who are long haulers, who are still suffering from COVID-19 symptoms or who are living with loved ones who have been suffering with it, what's your your best advice in the meantime, before we find out more about the characteristics of this disease?

MARGARET HERRIDGE: Well, I think my best advice is to maybe maybe as follows, trust your symptoms. You live in your body and trust what your symptoms are and important to seek medical attention. There will be respirologists. I'm respirologist as well as in a critical care physician who will be willing to see you, general internists who will be willing to see you. I would say through our CANCOV program, we will be reaching out to all patients and community hospital or ICUs who would like to be followed by us and and studied as part of our national research program and welcome to get in contact. But to reach out for the medical care that they feel they need and to find people who will listen and validate the symptoms that they have and some of the thinking issues, they may also wish to seek evaluation for those. And we know from SARS that there were a lot of new mood disorders and mental health issues apart from the physical issues and not to feel ashamed or reticent about seeking mental health, because this is a piece of having been this sick.

NA: Right. One last very quick thing. What should governments, at this stage, can you tell governments and policy makers what they should be planning for in terms of support as the virus continues to spread?

MARGARET HERRIDGE: I think anything that I would say right now is is very, very speculative. And it's important to base policy on rigorous scientific data. And it does take a bit of time to accrue, however, we have a lot of people who've been very sick who will have long term repercussions from this. I think we can know that based on SARS and other illnesses historically. The other issue is that there may be important barriers to return to work. People will need support and returning to the workplace. We'll need physical care, we'll need mental health and cognitive support and also and I may wish to emphasize this: so will their family caregivers. So will their children. That this disrupted the entire family unit. There are many intergenerational homes where multiple patients or multiple family members were in the hospital or in critical care units simultaneously. And these are devastating life events. And the caregivers, like the patients and I fear the children may have developed very severe mood disorders, which would be normal. These are traumatic life events and to really reach out for mental health support in addition to the physical health support.

NA: Thank you, Dr. Herridge, for your time. I appreciate it.

MARGARET HERRIDGE: Thank you very much.

NA: Dr. Margaret Herridge is a critical care physician with the University Health Network in Toronto and co-lead of CANCOV, which is a study that will look at the outcomes for COVID-19 patients. Now, if you or anyone in your family has experienced the long term effects of COVID-19, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this story. You can reach us an e-mail at thecurrent@cbc.ca. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or head to our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent and click the contact link. The CBC News is next. Then, with Washington's football team changing their name and logo, is it time for teams in Cleveland, Kansas City and Edmonton to follow suit? Coming up, we look at what is in a name. I'm Nahlah Ayed and you're listening to The Current.

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Andre Picard discusses Stage 3 of government’s plan

Guests: Andre Picard

NA: Good morning. I'm Nahlah Ayed and you're listening to The Current.

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NA: Still to come, economic and political pressure changed a football team's name, a name long protested as racist. Now, will other teams, including some here in Canada, follow suit? But first, a new stage of the pandemic reopening in Ontario.

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NA: One of Canada's worst hit provinces got some good news yesterday from Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

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VOICE: We're continuing to see a decline in case numbers and in hospitalization. So today we're ready to take the next step. My friends, this is great news. We're moving forward as a province, but we can't stop. We won't stop until we get every worker in Ontario back to work and back on their feet. But today's news is an important step forward.

NA: Most of the province will soon see indoor bars and restaurants, movie theatres and playgrounds reopen. But cities, including Toronto and Hamilton, will have to wait a little longer. Globe and Mail health columnist Andre Picard is here once again to discuss that and a lot more. Good morning, Andre.

ANDRE PICARD: Good morning.

NA: Before we get to the gradual reopening efforts by provinces, earlier in the show, we heard from people who have recovered from COVID-19 but are still suffering some symptoms. How prepared do you think policymakers are for the fact that some people remain sick for extended periods of time?

ANDRE PICARD: Well I think we focus so much on the deaths that we've forgotten that especially younger people who get sick stay sick for a long, long time. So I don't think we're prepared for this chronic phase of COVID at all and I think we have to start thinking about that a lot more, especially that we're seeing so many more young people get infected.

NA: So if we're looking now at the reopening, you know, Ontario, Stage 3, what do you make of Premier Ford's decision to allow bars to reopen, even those indoors?

ANDRE PICARD: Well I understand there's lots of pressure in the service industry to to open up and we want to get back to so-called normal again, but I think we have to be really careful, especially about indoor spaces, to limit our contact there as long as possible because of what we're seeing elsewhere in the world. Other places that have done this, you know, restaurants, outdoor spaces, that's all worked out well, but there's a real problem when you put people into close contact, indoor spaces, poor ventilation. Bars are madefor people to be close together. They're the antithesis of what we need for COVID-19. So I think we should really have alarm bells going off for that bar aspect of the reopening.

NA: So you listed some of the reasons we should be concerned, the closed space and the close quarters, but there's the alcohol factor itself.

ANDRE PICARD: Well, it's you know, alcohol creates this inhibition, so people don't respect the physical distancing. So, you know, bars I know are making tremendous efforts. In Montreal, our bar has been open for a couple of weeks and the owners are really going, you know, bending over backwards to try and make these places safe. But once you get a few drinks into people, two metres becomes a few centimetres. People talk more loudly. They mingle more. That's how the spaces are designed and I don't see how we overcome this by hoping people are going to behave well when people don't behave well when they drink a lot.

NA: In your column today in The Globe Mail, it's all about this topic. You suggest that maybe provinces should hold off at reopening bars. What are the chances that they'll listen?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think the alternative is going to be what we're seeing elsewhere in the world. If they open up, we get big outbreaks and they close down again. So I think if we don't slow it down, we're going to have to backtrack. And I think we've learned in the last couple of weeks that backtracking, trying to close things down again is is even more painful than not opening them up in the first place.

NA: And yet, as you point out in your column, at the same time, provinces like Ontario and British Columbia have not detailed what school will look like in the fall, just weeks away now. Why do you think that is?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think that's the other aspect. We really have to get our priorities straight. I think there's no question kids have to go back to school and we have to figure out how to do it as safely as possible. There's no question we have to open up nursing homes and long term care homes to caregivers. That's been going on forever. So we have to get our priorities straight and I think in the many challenges we have, it seems to me that people going in to a nightclub to dance, I think that should probably be the last of our priorities.

NA: Yeah, I think a lot of people would agree with you. Let's talk about also our neighbour to the south. We're seeing a surge in cases there, an extraordinary surge. At a time when the number of people entering Canada through the U.S. border has increased because of changes that allow movement of immediate family members, although, as we've heard, the border will remain closed. How concerned should we be about that?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, you know, I was just reading a piece this morning describing the US as a dumpster fire. And I think it's a really appropriate terminology, 3.5 million cases, 140,000 deaths. It's really a cautionary tale. It's what's going on there is a warning. This is what happens when you open too quickly and in a cavalier fashion. You know, bars opened in Florida, in Arizona, in California massively and again, those are an epicentre of what's going on. So I think we, if nothing else, we can learn from what's going on there. The border question, I think, is a big one. We've once again delayed the border reopening till the end of August, and that, I think, will probably be extended again because of just how bad things have gotten there.

NA: Yeah. On a more personal note, Andre. Like so many of our listeners, this pandemic has also hit home for you and your own family. Your father in law passed away on Friday. I'm really sorry for your loss. Can you tell us a little bit about him?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, very common story. Not a very different story from tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Canadians living in a nursing home. He was actually 88, a very healthy, active man before the pandemic. But he's been locked down for four months, couldn't go for his walk, couldn't play tennis, couldn't go to bridge, couldn't go to church. Essentially, people are in these homes are dying not only of COVID, about 7000 deaths. Those are significant, but people are now dying of isolation. They're dying of loneliness, of deconditioning. You know, if you put someone essentially in a cage in a room for four months, they're not going to be healthy, no matter how healthy they were before. And it's really taking a dramatic toll on people and, of course, on their families too who are watching this really helplessly from the outside.

NA: You were watching from the outside. You know, the kind of toll that this lockdown was taking on his mental and physical health, can you talk about that a little bit, just what it did for him mentally?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I hear from people, literally hundreds of people every day who are experiencing this, who are watching our loved ones just go downhill. They know they're dying and there's nothing they can do about it. I know it was well-intentioned. You know, we had to shut down homes to to prevent the virus from spreading, but at a certain point, you know, you have to let people in to care for people to have this human contact. That's an essential part of our living.And if you take my father in law, it's just an example of how someone really healthy and vibrant can be destroyed by isolation.

NA: Yeah. Now several provinces are taking heed of that advice and are letting visitors back into nursing homes and long term care facilities. Should this have come sooner, Andre?

ANDRE PICARD: I think it definitely could have come sooner. I don't know how much sooner. Definitely, as I said, it was well-intentioned. We had to lock down these facilities because the virus was taking such a toll, but I think, you know, it's gone on far too long. I don't know what the exact time should have been, but it's four months has just become cruel and inhumane. It's torture literally fought for hundreds of thousands of people in these homes.

NA: Andre, thanks so much for being with us today.

ANDRE PICARD: Thank you.

NA: Andre Picard is the health columnist for the Globe and Mail and is a regular in our ongoing COVID coverage.

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Washington NFL team name change shows you can combat racism by making it 'unprofitable': Jesse Wente

Guests: Carla Fredericks, Jesse Wente

NA: I'm Nahlah Ayed and you're listening to The Current.

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VOICE 1: It would not bother me, it's about time.

VOICE 2: You think that it's time to change it?

VOICE 1: Yeah.

VOICE 2: Why?

VOICE 1: The Native Americans they have a problem with it. I respect that.

VOICE 2: What do you think the names should be?

VOICE 1: That's a good question. I have no idea.

VOICE 2: What do you do with your Redskins gear?

VOICE 1: I'll bury it.

NA: A fan there reacting to the news that Washington's football team is changing its name and logo. For a longtime Indigenous activists have criticised the team's name, the Redskins, for being a racial slur. After years of inaction from owners, recent economic pressure from companies like Nike and FedEx have tipped the scales. But not everyone is happy as this man told his local ABC News station.

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VOICE: To retire the name that's just like a slap in the face of all the players that have played for that name before. You know, I think, you know, politics, you stay out of it. And it's not about a race. It's about a team. It's about an environment, it's about our culture. American Indians are the true people here. So why can't we celebrate them?

NA: To discuss all of this, I'm joined by Carla Fredericks. She's the Director of the American Indian Law Clinic at the University of Colorado Law School and the Director of First Peoples Worldwide, an organization that's been instrumental in putting pressure on corporations to denounce racist team names and mascots. And we're also joined by Jesse Wente, an Ojibwe broadcaster and Executive Director of the Indigenous Screen Office. Good morning to both of you.

CARLA FREDERICKS: Good morning.

JESSE WENTE: Good morning.

NA: Morning. Nice to have you both here with us. Carla, if I could begin with you. Can you explain how this moment actually came about? What prompted the latest campaign of pressure on corporations?

CARLA FREDERICKS: Sure. Well, I think that one of the things that I've really been reflecting on in the last couple of days is that our campaign really represented a tipping point of over a half century of work by Native American leaders and activists. We simply sort of struck while the iron was hot and we reached out to companies that we've long been engaging with about the team name and help them understand that their recent statements on racial justice after the tragic death of George Floyd and that and really the groundswork movement from Black Lives Matter also applied to their relationship with the Washington football team..

NA: But you, as you say, applied pressure for quite some time. Why did the investors decide to send letters to some of these sponsors now?

CARLA FREDERICKS: Really to help create some accountability around the racial justice statements that the companies themselves made in the wake of George Floyd's murder. FedEx, Nike, PepsiCo, all issued very strong statements on racial justice in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in late June. And it seemed egregious to us that we'd been engaging with them for years on the Washington football team name with really little success and wanted to make sure that those companies understand that their racial justice policy was being viewed holistically by investors as to all people of colour.

NA: Jesse, you also, along with Carla, have cautioned that while this is a significant victory, there is a danger of overstating its importance and is just one step along the road to bigger things. And yet this name change took decades of activism, it came about in the midst of a pandemic and in the midst of a major reckoning on race, as Carla says. What does that tell us?

JESSE WENTE: Well, it tells us how much, how hard we'll have to fight to actually get really substantial, substantive change, life and death change because, you know, the changing of the mascots and logos, it is of a very long fought battle, but it is very much the low hanging fruit. I mean, these are, this is easy stuff. And the Washington team name in particular, I mean, that it would just be on the surface, one could see how the why that should have been changed years and years and years ago. And yet, of course, because of capitalism and all sorts of ideologies, it wasn't. So I think the resistance to those symbols come changing is a sign that the larger changes that need to to happen will require even more effort. But I think the fact that we saw change here just means that it's all it's all possible. And if we continue to keep our efforts and take advantage of shifting consciousness and solidarity with our our black brothers and sisters in this struggle, then change can absolutely happen and will happen. As I said on CBC Radio years ago, these names are all going to change. It's just a matter of when.

NA: It's just a matter of when. Let's get a sense of how long this struggle has been going on. I want to play some audio from 1992. Back in 1992, from the Super Bowl that year, when Washington and Buffalo played in Minneapolis, Native American groups organized protests outside the stadium. Here's American Indian movement leader Vernon Bellecourt.

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VOICE: We understand it's going to take a little time before you understand that the headdress is reserved for our most respected and revered chiefs and spiritual leaders. The chicken feathers have to go. The war paint is for our great ceremonies, our very sacred and revered ceremonies. When you put the paint on your face, you dishonour us and you dishonour yourself.

NA: Carla, that was, as I said, 1992. I wonder what you're thinking when you realize how long ago that was and you know why it took so long to get to where we are today.

CARLA FREDERICKS: I mean, that seems practically recent for how long this has been going on. Native American leaders have been working on this issue with the 1960s actually. And, you know, I think the last week for news Americans United States has really represented years and years that struggle coming to fruition. Whether that's the case where we had a successful victory before the Supreme Court, the Dakota access pipeline case with the judge, ordered the pipeline to be decommissioned and shut down within 30 days after six years of struggle and advocacy by tribes and others or this. I mean, we're used to these long battles and I think a reflection on that is is really about how little understanding there is about native people, Indigenous people throughout the world and how much work we have to do to really build that understanding over time.

NA: And speaking of understanding, Jesse, back to you. What do you make of the fact that this announcement was possible only after backlash from sponsors?

JESSE WENTE: Well, I mean, I think that, you know, attacking or going using finances as leverage for this sort of change is really the recourse that were left under capitalism, because, of course, you know, racism has been profitable for far too long in both settler states and Canada and the U.S. And it's in these moments that it actually becomes unprofitable or too costly to maintain that racism. And that's why we're not seeing justice with the Washington football team name. But we're seeing syrup companies and rice companies and other companies stop these these brands. And they've been brands for decades, generations. So it's thought and they've been offensive, by the way, for that entire time. It's only now that the consequences for being that offensive and the perception that these are offensive by a broader based people, that we're seeing this this change. But it's it's that's that's capitalism. I mean I mean, racism is very much at the heart of capitalism in this place. And one of the ways to challenge racism is to make it too costly, make it unprofitable. And while it's sad that we can't have these arguments on human terms because these logos are all about dehumanisation and degradation, it's sad that we can't actually appeal to better conscience doing to have this change made. But if it requires the efforts that we've seen in the U.S., which are very much the efforts that have gone on in Canada around this issue, especially around the issue in minor amateur league sports where it is rampant in Canada, then that's what we will that's what we will do and we will do. We have the patients, as Carlos said, to do this for years if we have to. But I think it's a reflection that in these cultures, we've allowed money to guide so many of our decisions as we are seeing right now in the midst of a pandemic, which shouldn't be political. It's made political largely because of the economy.

NA: Yeah. Jesse, you mentioned the fight. You know, the smaller fights over high school and college mascots, for example. Can you talk a little bit about how that helped pave the way for the day that we're seeing now?

JESSE WENTE: I think it's the same. It's just conversations and very similar conversations. You know, we took a lot of guidance from the strategies that were used in the US. And so I had several years ago and ongoing have conversations with very large corporations that sponsor minor sports leagues and amateur teams here in Canada to discuss why they should not sponsor these sorts of team names and just simply change the team name where, you know, no one's saying don't have the team. We're saying just have a different team name. And of course, that's a real barrier for indigenous kids for participation. If the team has a Chiefs logo or a headdress or and we've seen in Canada, we have many instances just in the last couple years where we've seen racism on the field of play directed at indigenous kids. And if you are going to play in leagues that have those logos. That is what is going to happen. And so if you want to get rid of the taunts, the war, woops, all the name calling that occurs on the field to play. You can't have teams with racist team names. And so I think it's really about the changing the conversations we're having and changing some of the consciousness and the solidarity movement we've seen with Black Lives Matter in the last few months.

NA: Yeah. You talk about changing consciousness and thinking about this, you heard off the top. Carla, the the fan who was not happy with the name change. I wonder how you would explain to that person or any non-Indigenous person, what it's like to see these kinds of names and imagery being used by sports teams. What's the psychological impact?

CARLA FREDERICKS: Sure. I mean, there's been a lot of research in the last couple of decades about the psychological harm that Jesse mentioned playing out, especially with our Indigenous youth. These symbols are caricatures. They're not real depictions of us and in a societal context, where there is very little representation of us, that can be very confusing and traumatizing for our children. And I guess I would say, you know, sports teams change their mascots and logos all the time. It's actually considered a prophet move by these entities and so one thing that I've been reflecting on in the last couple of weeks is why this particular move is so egregious to certain people. And the only conclusion that I can draw is it's really not about the logo and the mascot and whatever it is at all. It's really about people wanting to feel secure in their own racism and not wanting to have that question. And I do think that that is really a small faction of people at this point, which is why the corporate pressure has been so successful. The corporate pressure is really just responding to the societal pressure and so although these are institutions that are part of this capitalist structure, it's also bizarrely democratic in a way that some of our political and legal institutions are not.

NA: Right. Jesse, for a longtime Washington owner Dan Snyder, defended the name, citing poll numbers that he said showed that Native Americans don't find it offensive. But meanwhile, the Edmonton CFL team, the Eskimos, has argued that there's no consensus within Inuit communities here in Canada about that name. What do you make of those arguments?

JESSE WENTE: Well, I mean, I think the a lot of the poles around the Washington team name were pretty flawed in their methodology in terms of how they determine who is actually answering the poll. The Edmonton team circulated their own poll just yesterday. Which is odd in the way it sort of wants to gather information. And I think the reality now is like what, where else do we seek consensus on issues? Like literally we live in democracies where we acknowledge there is no consensus and that's why we have multiple party systems. If the Edmonton team was to say, ask their fans what beer they should serve at the stadium, do you think they would reach any sort of consensus on that? So I think it's part of upholding racism and white supremacy is demanding that marginalized communities have universal consensus when the dominant community acknowledges it will never have universal consensus. It doesn't have to settle on one thing at all. You can't ask Canadians what their favourite beer brand is and expect 100 percent support, for one thing. So it's actually a distraction tactic. It's pointless.

NA: What would you have them do, Jesse?

JESSE WENTE: Change the name. I mean, I think it's like in the end, you shouldn't have mascots named after groups of people. Like Indigenous or otherwise, just don't do it. Like there's a whole natural world. There's a whole fantasy world. Name them Space Rangers, who cares? Like, just stop naming them after people who actually exist and who have told you for years that these are offensive, that the term, the team name in Edmonton is not even an Inuit word. It's a Cree word and they would tell you that it was an offensive word. And so I just don't even know why we're have to even have that discussion and those sorts of surveys are just meant to obfuscate and give excuses. And the idea of a consensus is absurd. There just isn't and we're not a monolith. You'll always find someone as Washington did repeatedly to say they're not offended by it. But as human beings, I think we can just decide you shouldn't name these teams after other humans and leave it at that.

NA: We'll leave it at that. Thank you very much, Jesse and Carla, for your views. Really appreciate it.

CARLA FREDERICKS: Thanks for having me.

JESSE WENTE: Thank you.

NA: Carla Fredericks is the Director of the American Indian Law Clinic at the University of Colorado Law School and the Director of First Peoples Worldwide. And Jesse Wente is an Ojibwe broadcaster and Executive Director of the Indigenous Screen Office. Coming up after your regional update, we continue our special summer presentation of the CBC Podcast, Uncover: Sharmini with Episode 2. I'm Nahlah Ayed. The Current is back in 90 seconds.

[Music]

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Uncover: Sharmini - Episode 2

NA: I'm Nahlah Ayed and you're listening to The Current. This summer, we're bringing you some of the best of CBC Podcasts. Today, we continue our presentation of Uncover: Sharmini. On June 12th, 1999, 15-year-old Sharmini Anandavel left her family's Toronto apartment around 9:00 a.m. She never returned. In today's episode, host Michelle Shephard takes us to Woodbine Junior High to learn about Sharmin's life as a Grade 9 student. Her friends, teachers and community recall the days after she disappeared and the false stories born out of prejudice. Here's Episode 2 of Uncover: Sharmini - "Saturday Morning."

[Crickets chirping and footsteps]

VOICE 1: On March 20th…

VOICE 2: Run!

[Heavy breathing and running]

VOICE 1: ..only one movie experience this year will make you afraid to breathe.

VOICE 3: You won’t survive.

VOICE 2: We have to try.

VOICE 1: A Quiet Place: Part II. In theatres March 20th. Tickets on sale now.

[Music]

ANNOUNCER: This is a CBC original podcast.

[Music]

[Footsteps]

JODY WHITE: The walls are different. We were watching the kids come out and it was-- I love their noise, right? Their shouting and laughter and… It’s just…

SCHOOL PA: if you’re in the building, come to the office, please. Come to the office, please.

JODY: That's it.

MICHELLE SHEPHARD: Oh. Okay. Straight ahead?

JODY: Yep.

MICHELLE: You recognize it right away?

JODY: Yep.

MICHELLE: Are you okay?

JODY: Yep. Sorry, I'm going to cry.

MICHELLE: That’s okay.

[Footsteps]

[Door opening]

[Jody sighs]

JODY: I guess everybody puts their desk in the same spot.

MICHELLE: So it's kind of emotional coming back here, eh?

JODY: Yeah. 20 years is a long time.

MICHELLE: It’s a long time.

[Music]

VOICE 1: Please. Please, release her. We will give you whatever, we'll give you. Please, release my daughter. Please, I beg you.

MATT CRONE: Sharmini left home that morning to go to a brand-new job. We have not been able to find that job.

NEWS REPORTER: On the weekend, police found skeletal remains in a North York park. They matched Sharmini.

MATT: The narrative that was developing was that she left home in the morning to go to a job at North York Rec. But her friends were saying, no, no, she was going to work as an undercover drug operative for Stanley Tippett.

[Music]

MICHELLE: I'm Michelle Shephard, and this is Uncover: Sharmini.

Chapter 2, Saturday Morning.

[Music]

[Footsteps]

MICHELLE: Hi.

COLIN BRADDOCK: Hi.

MICHELLE: How are you?

COLIN: Good. How are you, Michelle?

MICHELLE: Good. It's so nice to meet you.

COLIN: Good to see you.

MICHELLE: Thank you for coming here.

Colin Braddock sat beside Sharmini in their grade nine homeroom class at Woodbine Junior High.

COLIN: Like, I'll just put it out there. She was my-- she was my first crush. Another reason why, like…

MICHELLE: You can really still see 15-year-old Colin in his 35-year-old face today. The smile, the huge smile that takes over the lower half of his face, is exactly the same.

COLIN: Oh, man. I remember the-- I literally remember the first time she came in, like, she sat beside me. I just totally, like, wiped my nose with my sleeve and she's just like, “Oh, Colin!” So, that’s, like, a classic…

MICHELLE: Their homeroom teacher had placed Colin beside Sharmini. She knew Sharmini would be a good influence on him.

COLIN: Yeah, she was just-- she was so kind, she just had this smile that could light up the room. She really did. And, um…also her personality, she was never, you know, mean to anyone or anything like that.

MICHELLE: The whole grade-nine class was excited about their upcoming graduation. And Colin remembers Sharmini being anxious to find work. She had told other friends that she needed money to buy shoes to match her mauve dress. That's the dress her mother had been holding during my first visit to their apartment.

COLIN: I remember on Friday, she said to me, “I've got a job,” you know, and I was like, “Wow,” you know, like, we were so young, you know what I mean, nobody really had any jobs back then, you know, so we were surprised.

MICHELLE: Woodbine Junior High is in Don Mills, a neighbourhood just north of downtown Toronto. When Colin and Sharmini lived there in the late 1990s, the area was a mix of cultures and incomes.

COLIN: Well, back then it was just-- it was almost like.-- you know that movie Coming to America? You know what I mean? There was just every single different type of person from every different walk of life that you could imagine. I mean, Sharmini was from Sri Lanka, you know what I mean? I was born in Toronto…

[Music]

MICHELLE: Developed after World War Two, Don Mills was originally white and middle class. Clusters of post-war bungalows. Manicured lawns. Sensible cars. Over time, it became one of Toronto's most diverse neighbourhoods, striking in a city famous for its diversity. The neighbourhood is bordered by ravines that meander through Toronto. At the centre of the neighbourhood is the Peanut Plaza, and, yes, it's called that because it sits on a parcel of land that looks like a peanut.

I really don't come up here very often, so… And then we just passed Fairview.

Fairview is a huge shopping mall. And these malls were big touchstones for teenagers in the area. Sharmini and her friends often grabbed lunch at the Peanut Plaza. Fairview was where she got her grad dress. I think I remember someone telling me it was from Le Château.

I think that's it, the white one up there. I think that was her building, yeah.

On the west side of Don Mills Road, standing sentry over the Peanut Plaza, there are high rises, with affordable units. It was here that Sharmini's family settled. Woodbine Junior High was right across the street. It actually hasn't changed that much.

MICHELLE: Okay.

[Music]

[Car door shuts]

MICHELLE: Does it look the same?

JODY: Yeah.

MICHELLE: Well, why don't we…make ourselves comfortable?

JODY: Yeah.

MICHELLE: Jody White, Ms White to her students, was Sharmini and Colin's grade nine homeroom teacher. Today, I'm meeting her in the same room where she greeted her class every morning.

JODY: Yeah, you know, grade nine-- it's an important time in your life, and there are big changes, and it’s-- they're teenagers. It's a very hormonal time.

[Laughter]

MICHELLE: Ms White is one of those teachers you always remember. She's the kind of teacher who talks to students, not down to them. And she thinks about their lives outside the walls of the classroom, especially at Woodbine, where a lot of the kids struggled with poverty or their identity or relationships with their parents, not to mention everything else that plagues teenagers. She's fit, big blue eyes, curly hair that she wears cut short. She's wearing sensible running shoes and a fuchsia fleece. And you get the sense this is how she's always dressed. It's easy to imagine her being strict, but fair. A little quirky maybe. Not a big fan of authority.

JODY: Sharmini stuck out because she was such a vivacious, intelligent, loving person. She wasn't perfect, right? She's a teenager, and she could be very sassy, uh, but in a good way. She wasn't someone that would let people run her over. She had opinions, and she wanted to be heard. And she cared for everyone in the classroom. She was the one you often get in a room of, you know, 30 kids that there are a couple who caretake, who notice, you know, if someone's not well or something's not right. And she was the one who would notice and move in and help them.

MICHELLE: And a good student, too, it sounded like?

JODY: She was a good student. Yes. She's smart. She was smart. I find that hard to say. "She was.”

[Music]

[Knocking at door]

MICHELLE: Hello.

ATUSA BULBULIAN: Hi.

MICHELLE: How are you?

ATUSA: Good. I’m Atusa.

MICHELLE: Atusa, nice to meet you. I’m Michelle.

ATUSA: Nice to meet you.

MICHELLE: Oh, it smells nice in here.

ATUSA: Yeah, it’s a candle.

MICHELLE: Dina Malek and Atusa Bulbulian went to school with Sharmini. They all became good friends. Dina and Atusa are in their mid-thirties now. Atusa has two young kids. Dina just got married. They've actually stayed really close. They were each others' bridesmaids.

ATUSA: When I met Sharmini, she was just, like, the sweetest girl…

MICHELLE: This is Atusa.

ATUSA: We had gym together. And that's where we bonded, and then there was cross country. If you look through the yearbook, Dina’s on every single team.

MICHELLE: It's been 20 years, but their memories of Woodbine Junior High, Sharmini, and their last year together are still fresh.

DINA MALEK: Yeah.

MICHELLE: You put some stickies in here.

DINA: Yeah.

MICHELLE: Is this the yearbook?

DINA: Yes. This is the Woodbine yearbook. There she is. Sharmini thinks she'll either be a lawyer or need a lawyer. Her nickname was Scaremini. Scaremini's brothers are her pet peeves.

[Dina laughs]

ATUSA: And then this one is her class picture. I think it was this one, yeah. Oh, my God. Everyone looks--

MICHELLE: Oh, yeah, there's Ms White. She actually looks exactly the same.

ATUSA: Yeah.

[Laughter]

ATUSA: Sharmini was right there.

MICHELLE: Wow. You guys look like babies.

ATUSA: Yeah. We were babies.

MICHELLE: You forget how young grade nine is, you know?

DINA: Yeah, I didn't think I was that young.

MICHELLE: What was she like? You know, are there any stories about her that you like to remember?

DINA: There was only one, like, vivid memory I have of her. We all just got together, me, her, a whole bunch of us, like, the class was just together in the morning before we got started. And the Backstreet Boys had just come out with I Want It That Way. Every time I hear that song, it kind of like triggers that memory. But it was a happy memory and it was good, and she was just-- I remember us singing along to it and, like, dancing to it. We were just in class, goofing around, like, in the morning and just listening to the Backstreet Boys.

[“I Want It That Way” by Backstreet Boys plays]

♪ Tell me why ♪♪

♪ Ain’t nothing but a heartache ♪♪

[Laughter]

♪ Tell me why ♪♪

♪ Ain’t nothing but a mistake ♪♪

♪ Tell me why ♪♪

♪ I never wanna hear you say… ♪♪

MICHELLE: What was Woodbine like?

ATUSA: Woodbine was amazing, honestly. It was the best three years of my life, grade seven, eight and nine there. I met her in grade seven. Like, right away, like, first day of school. It was just one of those things where you wake up and you're so excited to go to school. Like, every day was so fun. It was a very multicultural school.

MICHELLE: Where are your parents from?

ATUSA: Iraq.

MICHELLE: And your parents?

DINA: Iran.

MICHELLE: Iran.

DINA: Yeah.

MICHELLE: And did you-- were you guys both born in Canada?

DINA: No. Neither one of us.

ATUSA: Almost everybody I know at Woodbine were immigrants.

DINA: Yeah.

ATUSA: Yeah.

MICHELLE: Like Atusa and Dina, many of Don Mills' residents escaped war and conflict to come to Canada. It was no different for Sharmini's family, who came from Sri Lanka, leaving behind a relentless civil war.

ATUSA: [Sobbing] It's, like, a parent's nightmare.

Sorry.

MICHELLE: Don’t be sorry.

ATUSA: Because, as immigrants, all our parents ever told us is, like, we left everything behind for you to have a good education here. And for someone to leave their country to come here to have a better life and for that to happen, like… [sniffles] it's probably, like, a parent's nightmare. It's just horrible.

[She sighs]

Me and Sharmini walked home that Friday night when she went missing and we're talking about prom, we were so excited. I walked her home, said have a good weekend, and I took the bus home.

MICHELLE: Two days later, Atusa got a call from a friend.

ATUSA: She told me Sharmini's missing. And right away I'm, like, “Okay, who's on the phone with you? You're doing a prank.” Like, I didn't believe her at all. And she's like, “I'm not making it up, she's missing.” The police came and interviewed her. Like, “She was going for a job interview, she never showed up.” And, again, I never believed. I'm like, “Okay, whatever.” I'm like, “See you tomorrow, like, I gotta go, like, we're going in the car now.” And I hung up.

MICHELLE: This was years before Instagram and Facebook. News spread by phone. Parents called other parents. One friend called the next. And the next.

MICHELLE: What was it like when you guys got to school on the Monday, you realizing that your friend wasn't lying, that this actually happened? Like, what was the mood like there?

ATUSA: Everyone was just scared, and we all thought, okay, she'll be back. But I don’t think…

[Music]

JODY: We had a staff meeting in the morning, and we were told. And, uh, that the police would be there.

MICHELLE: On Monday morning, June 14th, 1999, Sharmini's seat in Ms White's homeroom class was empty.

JODY: And they interviewed the kids and the teachers. I think, for us, we were in disbelief because we all knew that Sharmini wouldn't run away. She had plans, she was-- she was going places, so it was, to all of us, it was that disbelief that anyone could ever harm her. And would she come back to us?

[Music]

[Crickets chirping and footsteps]

VOICE 1: On March 20th…

VOICE 2: Run!

[Heavy breathing and running]

VOICE 1: ..only one movie experience this year will make you afraid to breathe.

VOICE 3: You won’t survive.

VOICE 2: We have to try.

VOICE 1: A Quiet Place: Part II. In theatres March 20th. Tickets on sale now.

MICHELLE: Ms White had to go back to her students and help them cope with the news.

JODY: You can imagine how everyone was reacting, And the kids and the staff. it was very hard to keep teaching math or--

MICHELLE: Sure.

JODY: It seemed absolutely irrelevant. It was hard to—too keep going. And there were all sorts of rumours floating around, and it was very hard to stay clear of that and just hope.

MICHELLE: How do you deal with that, the first time that homeroom gets together and there's an empty desk?

JODY: There was a lot of hugging and talking. And we listened to music. We talked. We, of course, could speculate, and we didn't really get any work done. It was-- I mean, I was the teacher, but we were friends. I think Sharmini's disappearance changed the nature of our relationship. It broke down that last barrier between teacher and student. It was personal.

[Music]

MICHELLE: When do you think of her today?

JODY: I remember Sharmini every June. And in the fall. I'm sure that everyone in our class and everyone who knew Sharmini is changed. But I think it goes for any of us who have lost someone, you carry them in you, and you are “I am a different person because of Sharmini”.

[Music]

[Telephone rings]

[Music]

VOICE 1: Good afternoon. Abi Singam Law Professional Corporation. How can I help?

MICHELLE: When I met Abi Singam, in the mid-1990s, we were both in our early twenties.

He was active with the Tamil youth community, and he was an outreach worker with the Toronto School Board. Today, he's a lawyer and father of three.

ABI SINGAM: I have a staff of about ten people. It’s, uh-- It’s, uh-

MICHELLE: That’s great.

ABI: You know, things have been really good. I've been definitely blessed.

MICHELLE: When Sharmini was reported missing, the school board called Abi to help.

ABI: I don't remember the emotions that I went through. It was just getting things done, right? So, I was mostly, like, just getting out there, putting up posters and connecting with as many people, going on the media, just talking about, you know, the fact that she’s missing and, you know, trying to find a way to get her back.

MICHELLE: Abi had an instant bond with Sharmini's family. They both had fled Sri Lanka's civil war. And Abi knew almost everyone in Toronto's tight knit Tamil community, especially the kids.

ABI: There was considerable youth violence involved in the community at that time.

MICHELLE: Well, I remember at that-- because I remember-- I can't remember if it was that year or maybe the next year, but it was the VVT and the AK Kannan.

ABI: Yeah, I know that you did extensive news reporting on that, like, so the violence was started ’97…

MICHELLE: In those days, the VVT and AK Kannan were some of Toronto's most active street gangs. Their membership was young and mainly Tamil. One group was based in the east, the other in the west. Sometimes their rivalry erupted in shootouts on busy city streets.

ABI: At the end of 1998 was when, you know, we were trying to sort of get the communities together, to not, you know, continue the violence. So, that all happened around that time, right? So, there was a lot of--

MICHELLE: The cops, I can't remember if it was that year, but they had--

ABI: The Tamil task force. Yes.

MICHELLE: The Tamil task force, a controversial police unit set up to track the Tamil gangs. At first, the community was thankful for the help.

ABI: In the community, there was need for the policing…

MICHELLE: But it didn't take long for the relationship to sour. Many felt police targeted the entire Tamil community, not just the gang members. Resentment built.

ABI: But there was some confusion within the community whether the police were actually trying to help or hurt, right?

MICHELLE: Since Sharmini was Tamil, the task force was immediately called in when she went missing. In some media and police circles, the assumption was her case had to be related to the gangs. If not that then it must be cultural.

NEWSREADER: The parents of missing teenager Sharmini Anandavel say reports their daughter was in Montreal for an arranged Tamil wedding were a hoax. The 15-year-old…

MICHELLE: The rumours were rampant.

NEWSREADER: Detectives working on the case say that is just one of a number of tips they've received.

MICHELLE: She had been sent away for an arranged marriage. She had been killed by a relative.

NEWSREADER: This is the second time in a week the family has had to endure false reports.

MICHELLE: Each false story brought new pain for the family.

[Music]

ABI: I remember the person that was responsible for the Tamil task force, the commanding officer, attending to the home and having a conversation with the family. And I was sitting in the living room and then I was listening to the conversation that was happening in the kitchen. And he specifically mentioned that she has been spotted in Montreal. He was implying that she had somehow ran away. And I think it was very hurtful to the family. The family was very clear from the get-go, you know, that she did not have any relationship. There was no, um, sort of, guy’s involvement. I think in one way, this kind of stuff distracted the whole investigation. I believe that, you know…

MICHELLE: I spent some time chasing those other stories, too. So did Sharmini's family. Her father even went to a Toronto jail to talk with an imprisoned gang leader in the hopes of hearing something, anything that could help. It all went nowhere. Matt Crone, one of the lead homicide detectives, remembers all those rumours. Police had to track them, too. In the end, those investigations turned up nothing.

MATT: Yeah, it was because she was Sri Lankan and she was locked into a Sri Lankan gang, or her boyfriend was a Sri Lankan gang member. And the other one was she was escaping an arranged marriage. I went and asked the parents directly, and it was just nothing like that, ever. And the more you learned about this young gal, some of it's just ridiculous on its face. This is just a nice, nice kid, you know?

MICHELLE: So, where was Sharmini going that Saturday morning? So far, the only solid lead is the phoney job offer.

What did she tell you about the job?

COLIN: Very little, because-- I was surprised because, I mean, like, the closest thing I had to a job was a paper route. I was happy for her.

MICHELLE: Colin, the boy who sat beside Sharmini in their homeroom class, last saw her the day before she disappeared.

COLIN: I remember that Friday like yesterday, telling you, and she—yeah, she was really excited about it.

MICHELLE: Describe it to us, the Friday.

COLIN: It was a normal Friday. And we were-- This was after school. After class, class was just about to get out, and, yeah, I was just, like, you know, because we sat beside each other, I was, like, you know, “What are you doing this weekend?” And then she told me, “Yeah, I'm getting a-- I got a job, part-time job,” and I was like, “Wow that's-- that's great. That's awesome. You’re gonna be getting money, girl,” you know? And then, yeah…Saturday happened.

[Music]

MICHELLE: There were conflicting stories about where Sharmini was going to work. Her parents had told me she would be answering phones, and it was their neighbour, Stanley Tippett, who had arranged it.

Tippett denied that. Now, the police, their theory was that Sharmini thought she was going to work undercover, for a police operation. And this is why.

NEWS REPORTER: They did find a phony job application form in her bedroom.

MATT: It’s an application for working with the Metro Search Unit. As far as we're concerned, this is a fictional outfit. We haven't been able to find anything even close to a quote-unquote "Metro Search Unit”.

MICHELLE: Metro Search Unit. It was obvious the application wasn't real. It had a typo and was strangely worded. Police had held back on publicizing this piece of evidence. The press conference to announce it was six months after Sharmini's remains were found. Police told us the application was undergoing forensic testing., although the tools they had back then weren't as advanced as they are today.

NEWS REPORTER: Police want anyone who's heard of the Metro Search Unit to call them. They believe a ruse may have been used to lure Sharmini to the East Donland Park. They feel she may have been told she would learn how the fictional search unit operated. But who lured her?

[Music]

MICHELLE: This is why police were so suspicious of Tippett. They knew he had impersonated cops, and that he had a relationship with kids in the building.

MATT: We got all the different stories that he had told people in the building about, uh, who he was and what he was and what his background was, and he used to actually have-- he had a jacket with “Police” written on it. He had a nightstick he used to carry around as well, and he would patrol the building he was in from time to time.

MICHELLE: This is former homicide detective Matt Crone again.

MATT: The building itself had a lot of, uh, people in it that were new to the country. When he told parents that he was a police officer, an ex-police officer, they accepted it. They obviously felt safe enough to allow their children to go swimming with Stan and teach them some karate, which I think he tried to turn into a regular thing, but I don't know how often that happened.

MICHELLE: Through some digging in court records, I learn there's a history of Tippett pretending to be a cop. In 1998, Tippett told a group of young boys he was a police officer, and took one of their bikes as part of a supposed investigation. This happened when he was still living in Sharmini's apartment building. Just a little over a month later, Tippett was in trouble again. This time it was the building's superintendent who called police after Tippett made a fake arrest. And his run-ins with police go back further. In 1992, when Tippett was 16, he followed a teenage girl off a city bus and attacked her. The court record says he approached her from behind, put his arm around her waist and a pellet gun to her head. He then pulled her into a laneway and told her to lie down. Luckily, she got away before he could do any more harm. 20 years ago, when I was writing about Sharmini's murder, I didn't know all of this. But the Toronto Police, they did.

COLIN: It's brutal, right? And like I said, it wasn't ‘til I was a little older, and I was, like, I want to know what really happened, what really, really happened. You know, it's, like, I didn't get a lot of answers when we were young. It was just, like… But I wanted to know. I needed to know. And that's when I found out about everything, all the crimes from that man and all the lives ruined. I don't even know how he was able to run around the city causing that havoc.

[Music]

NA: That's the second episode of Uncover: Sharmini, hosted by Michelle Shephard. Tune in tomorrow for the continuation of the story. And that's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Tom Power sits down with Nick Offerman, who you may know as Ron Swanson, the moustachioed steak and scotch loving woodworker with a heart of gold on Parks and Recreation. He tells Tom why embracing our inner Ron Swanson may be just what the world needs right now. That's coming up after the CBC News. I'm Nahlah Ayed. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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July 14, 2020 episode transcript

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