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The Current Transcript for October 14, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

KAMAIR ALAEI: Thousands of people get injured because they just wanted to go out and have a peaceful demonstration. Those armies, they are just shooting randomly. Some of them… they got tear gas inside elementary school.

MATT GALLOWAY: The street protests in Iran show no signs of ending despite a crackdown by authorities. And for those injured, seeking medical care in hospital can end not with treatment, but imprisonment. Coming up, how two doctors in the United States who themselves were jailed by Iranian authorities are offering care remotely for injured demonstrators from the other side of the world. Also this morning, Wes Hall is known for his style and confidence. He's a Canadian business titan and a snazzy dresser on CBC's Dragons’ Den. As a successful black entrepreneur he's also often the only person who looks like him in those corner offices, and he credits his Jamaican upbringing for getting him into those spaces.

WES HALL: To me, being black was never an obstacle to being successful. So I had that attitude even when I went to the law firm in the mail room that I am going to be like one of those guys on Bay Street.

MG: In an hour, Wes Hall on escaping an abusive household, moving from the mailroom to the boardroom, and the hard work of making sure big business commitments to diversity and inclusion aren't just performative. Plus, new details on the riots at the U.S. Capitol and why lawmakers want to hear from the former president. We begin, though, in our nation's capital and an inquiry into whether an occupation was indeed an emergency. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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Public inquiry into use of Emergencies Act to end Ottawa convoy protests

Guests: Vassy Kapelos, Paul Champ and Cara Zwibel

SOUNDCLIP

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: After discussing with Cabinet and caucus after consultation with premiers from all provinces and territories. After speaking with opposition leaders, the Federal Government has invoked the Emergencies Act to supplement provincial and territorial capacity to address the blockades and occupations.

MG: That's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in February announcing his government's decision to use the Emergencies Act to try to end convoy protests in Ottawa. Until that moment, the emergency measure had never been used. It gave the government new powers, from freezing the finances of those supporting the blockades to banning travel to protest zones. Now, eight months later, that decision will be dissected in an inquiry into the use of the Act. CBC's Power and Politics host, Vassy Kapelos is watching. Vassy, good morning.

VASSY KAPELOS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What did we learn from the opening statements yesterday?

VK: Some stuff we learnt... And let me apologize first for my voice. I kind of lost it during my show last night. I thought it might be fully back this morning. Unfortunately, it's not. Yesterday we heard from legal counsel for many of the witnesses. Up to 65 witnesses, in fact, that we'll hear from over the next 65 weeks sorry, six weeks, pardon me. Who essentially laid out the arguments that they're going to be putting forth. So some of the arguments that stood out for me were from the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, for example, where those provinces felt they had not been consulted enough prior to the invocation of the act that they were... Their sense was that the decision had already been made and they were more so being informed. We also heard from the residents of Ottawa and we'll hear from some of the actual residents. We heard from the counsel representing them yesterday about the degree to which they did feel this was an emergency and that other levels of government and other law enforcement bodies were not adequately dealing with it. And so the use of the act or the use of temporary, extraordinary powers was necessary. We heard some of the defence that Peter Sloly will put forward about why Ottawa police was not adequately prepared for what happened, despite there being intelligence to the effect that something like this could happen. So we kind of got a sense of where things will go over the next six weeks and what arguments will be put forth. And then finally, we got a sense of what Justice Rouleau thinks he's going to be kind of rendering a conclusion on, which is whether or not... and this to me is the most important thing. You know, he'll decide whether or not the use of the act was appropriate. And I think that's certainly the bottom line for Canadians who are paying attention to this.

MG: It's interesting, right out of the gate, the OPP, the Ontario Provincial Police, saying that they believe the Emergencies Act wasn't required, that they were able to... they would have been able to end this occupation without that act.

VK: It was interesting to hear that. And I believe... it actually stood out to me and I did a bit of research, and I think they had actually testified to that effect at some point during a committee, like one of the committees that's looking into this in the House of Commons. So that's their take, that sort of, you know, is part of the politics of all of this, to a certain degree, in that the federal government says that they were basing their decision on information from law enforcement that they, in fact, could not handle the situation, handle the emergency, clear the blockades without these extraordinary powers. And that is something we heard, for example, from interim police chief in Ottawa, Steve Bell, after everything was cleared, he said like this couldn't have happened without these extra powers. But you'll remember from a few months ago all the sort of back and forth between the Conservatives and the Liberals about whether or not explicitly any police force said to the federal government, hey, we need this. And then the federal government acted, or whether it was more a case of the federal government judging, it's not working. What's happening isn't working and we need to do something more. So that certainly is one of the political storylines underlying all this as well.

MG: We heard the Prime Minister at the top of our conversation. He will be one of the people who will be testifying as well. What are you going to be watching for in that?

VK: So a couple of things I really don't expect... Both he and I think about seven of his ministers are expected to testify, including public safety minister Marco Mendocino, who's been one of the more politically controversial figures in all of this. And Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. I don't expect the arguments that they've put forth so far to change in any way. Their central argument is this was necessary and it worked, right. They used the outcome of what happened following the invocation of the act to justify its use. I expect that to continue. What I... What I'm most keen to see is the fact... And Justice Rouleau alluded to this yesterday, that there's a whole host of cabinet documents that contain the information with which they base their decision on. So what was the level of the security threat? What was the nature of it? What was, you know, were there people there who were determined to overthrow the government? How seriously did law enforcement think they had to be taken? All that information has been... what we've been told is cabinet has turned over that. These are essentially classified and secret documents that we would normally never have access to. Justice Rouleau indicated that he would like as much of it to be public as possible. So I'm really interested. That's something we never get to see, right? So I'm very interested to see. Okay, beyond the justification you've provided so far, show us and talk to us about the details and the information you had to base that decision on. And then I think Canadians are a little bit more... and obviously the commission as well... more able to to judge whether it was in fact, the right decision to make or an appropriate, as Justice Rouleau would call it, decision to make. And so that's what I'm really looking for. How much of that information becomes part of the questioning of the Prime Minister and his ministers? And how much of it is the public able to access?

MG: Just before I let you go, I mean, there is a new leader of the federal Conservative Party, leader of the opposition. This has been a political issue since it started, in many ways. Who wins and loses politically in rehashing this moment in time through this inquiry?

VK: I think there's a couple of qualifiers. First, I think much of Canada has made up their mind about how they felt about the Freedom Convoy and how they felt about the federal government's actions not to prejudge the outcome over the next six weeks. There may be information that certainly informs a change of mind for a number of Canadians. But lots of people kind of already know how they feel. So that might mute some of the political impact for any one of the political parties. I do, however, think there's a couple inherent risks for all of this being relitigated and being at the forefront of public consumption and the news right now. For the government. The risk is the accusation that this was about a power grab or overreach if they don't show Canadians what they based those decisions on and the nature of the threat and sort of why they thought this was a national emergency, they risk that accusation becoming a little bit more real. The opposition conservatives have a very real risk and vulnerability as well, especially with their new leader, Pierre Poilievre, who very much aligned himself at the outset of his leadership campaign and throughout it with people who were protesting, with people who were occupying downtown Ottawa. He later on kind of added some caveats around the illegal... not supporting illegal activities. But throughout his leadership campaign, he definitely did align with those protesters. Lots of that rhetoric has subsided since he became leader because he has to face a wider cross-section of Canadians, not the constituency that made up part of his base in the end, and that eventually catapulted him to leader. And so he's not talking as much about the Freedom Convoy for a specific political reason because he has to appeal to a broader cross-section of Canadians. This forces the opposite to happen, right? This forces it back into his sort of discourse and questions that have to be asked of him. And his position on all of this becomes, you know, back into the public consciousness. And that's a real risk for him and the Conservatives as well.

MG: I'm not a doctor, but tea with lemon.

VK: [laughter] I'm so sorry.

MG: No, no, no. It's great. It happens to us all. Vassy, thank you very much and good luck with your voice.

VK: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Vassy Kapelos is the host of Power and Politics on CBC News Network. Paul Champ is an Ottawa lawyer who is representing many residents and businesses impacted by the so-called Freedom Convoy. Paul, good morning to you.

PAUL CHAMP: Morning, Matt.

MG: What are the questions top of mind for the people that you represent in terms of what they are hoping to get out of this inquiry?

PC: I think the key thing that people want to understand is why it took three weeks for law enforcement to bring an end to this protest. The city did very little over those three weeks, or at least as it appeared on the ground. And so we're looking to see behind the curtain about what was going on. You know, with the Ottawa police, with their interactions with the Ontario Provincial Police and the RCMP, as well as interactions between city officials, the mayor and so forth, and for the federal minister of public safety and the provincial solicitor general, in.

MG: Your opening statement, you said that the coalition that you represent is not going to take a position on the government invoking the Emergencies Act. Why? Why did you state that?

PC: Because the issue really is whether something could have been done earlier. You know, in our view, it's about how the three levels of government, the provincial government, the municipal government and the federal government were communicating to come up with a resolution. If the Emergencies Act should have been used earlier or whether the Emergencies Act was required at all. The point is that the people in downtown Ottawa shouldn't have been abandoned for three weeks where they were subject to, you know, daily street harassment, earsplitting horns all night and day, you know, road blockages, having all their stores and services shut down for over three weeks. It was completely intolerable and unacceptable. And, you know, all levels of government really let us down.

MG: One of your clients is actually, Zexi Li, an Ottawa resident who helped secure an injunction against the protesters in February. Why is it important that people like Ms. Li testify at this inquiry?

PC: If it was up to us, we would have had three or four weeks of Ottawa residents testifying, the parents of small children, elderly, people who are disabled. You know, the people who had medical appointments that they couldn't get to because they couldn't get out of downtown. We thought it was really important for the commissioner to hear the, you know, the real live stories of people, what it was like having to, you know, go into your bathroom and close the door because that was the quietest room in your apartment or your house or, you know, what it was like to have fireworks banging off your window in the middle of the night. You know what it was like to step out your door and have people walk up to you in your face and yell at you because you're wearing a mask. Just hearing those people live is the only way that people can really understand about how terrorising it was for people in Ottawa during that time.

MG: Terrorising, that's... You're using that word deliberately?

PC: Well, yeah. I mean, people were terrorised. You know, you'll have one witness who will say that, you know, she thought about putting on ear-cancelling headphones, but she was terrified that her building might catch on fire because right on the street below, there were pallets of jerry cans and propane tanks right close to open fires. And she was worried her building was going to burn down. A woman who's visually impaired going out on the street with her cane and people jumping up in front of her and yelling at her, it was unbelievable. And it just went on and on and on and no one knew when it was going to end. The protesters were saying that they were entrenched and they were prepared to stay for months if necessary. It really was traumatising for the people of downtown Ottawa.

MG: There's no small matter of politics wrapped up in the invocation of the Emergencies Act. Do your clients, the people you represent, do they worry that they're going to be dragged into a political shouting match here?

PC: We're absolutely trying to, in a sense, de-politicize it. You know, the question really, instead of... And from our perspective, instead of focussing on that binary thing about whether the Emergencies Act should or shouldn't have been invoked, it's more about what other measures could have been taken to, you know, mitigate those effects much earlier. That's the bigger question is why couldn't law enforcement at all three levels respond more effectively sooner to, you know, alleviate those conditions in downtown Ottawa? And, you know, there's going to be a lot of lessons to be learnt from this commission inquiry. You know, it's a big thing for the people in Ottawa that, you know, but the right to protest is not, you know, interfered with, you know, going forward. And the right to protest is one of the fundamental freedoms of Canadians. It's essential to democracy. It's just that this particular protest took on a shape and form that was so unprecedented that it really abused those rights. And, you know, we're hoping that, you know, some kind of really meaningful recommendations come out of this process that will help any government going forward at any level.

MG: Paul, we'll talk again as this continues to unfold. Thank you very much.

PC: Thanks a lot, Matt.

MG: Paul Champ is an Ottawa lawyer representing businesses and residents at the inquiry. Cara Zwibel is director of the Fundamental Freedoms program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. She is also in Ottawa. Cara, good morning to you.

CARA ZWIBEL: Good morning.

MG: You've argued that the use of the Emergencies Act was unjustified. How do you know that already, given the fact that this inquiry in some ways is meant to answer whether the use of the Emergencies Act was justified or not?

CZ: Well, I think we're basing it in part on what the government said at the time and the justification that it put forward to Parliament, because, you know, at the time that the Act was invoked, of course the Government had to explain to Parliament and Parliament had to assess the reasons behind in invoking the Act. And the act has a very high threshold for, you know, for putting emergency powers in place. It's a deliberately high threshold because it's a, you know, a very significant departure from our normal parliamentary process of passing laws to put all of the power in the hands of the executive branch and say they can effectively, you know, legislate by fiat. So, you know, the explanations that we've heard so far from the federal government, in our view, did not demonstrate that the legal threshold was met. And nothing we've seen so far or heard so far from the government has changed that assessment.

MG: We just heard from Paul Champ, lawyer representing citizens of Ottawa. He says that they were terrorised. There were also disruptions at border crossings, at major bridges as well. I guess the question people might ask is if this was an emergency, what is?

CZ: So there's... I guess there's the difference between... and I appreciate that this is probably, you know, hard to understand and that it's not at all intended to take away from the very real impacts that were experienced by people, you know, here in Ottawa on the ground by... you know, and the other impacts, the economic impacts, they were all serious. They may all have been emergencies in the more colloquial sense of the term. But the question is, were they emergencies in the sense that the Emergencies Act uses it, which does in this case for a public order emergency, require, you know, a threat to national security. What does that really mean to us? Because, you know, in our view, certainly there were things that needed to be addressed. This was a law enforcement issue. There were, you know, political issues that needed to be addressed. But were we really lacking the tools or was there a failure to use the tools that... And perhaps even a failure to, you know, effectively coordinate amongst the different levels of government that are involved in something like this. Because there... You know, it does get complicated when you consider sort of the jurisdiction that our municipalities have, the jurisdiction that the provinces have, and then the federal government's jurisdiction over these matters.

MG: Having taken that position, does the CCLA then have a position on what police and government should have done differently to address and dismantle the protests? You've said that the emergency powers should be used as... truly as a last resort. So what else could have been done?

CZ: So I think there are questions and I hope to hear more about this as the inquiry moves forward. You know, questions about the extent to which that the resources that the Ottawa police said they needed were being effectively given to them. You know, at the time that they said they required them, I think those resources did eventually come through and that sort of coincided with the invocation of the act. But but I'm not sure it was actually... I don't think the use of the act facilitated necessarily the use of those resources. It seemed to be more of a timing issue. I think there's also questions about, you know, whether the government could have introduced legislation to deal with some of these issues. And legislation has the benefit, even if it's passed on an expedited basis of being a subject of debate by parliament, debate and discussion by all of the elected officials and not, you know, the small group of Cabinet members that make up the government. So there are questions about what alternatives were explored. I think there are also questions about, again, the level of coordination and cooperation that the levels of government... You know, how much coordination happened and did bureaucracy sort of get in the way?

MG: We just have a few seconds left. At its heart, what do you hope comes out of this inquiry?

CZ: I mean, ultimately, you know, it is important, I think, to get to this answer of whether the act was justified and whether the orders that were put in place violated rights. But more significantly, it's about, you know, forward looking recommendations. Do we need changes to the act? Do any changes to the way our police services are run? Do we need to make any changes to it to deal with the inter jurisdictional cooperation? It's about looking forward to make sure that we don't have to resort to something like this in the future.

MG: We'll be watching this and I have a feeling we'll talk again as it unfolds. In the meantime, Cara, thank you very much for this morning.

CZ: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Cara Zwibel is director of the Fundamental Freedoms program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Your CBC News is up next and then:

KAMAIR ALAEI: It should be apolitical. This is medical care. Even when you are in a war, you know, you should make sure those medical services are not only available, but accessible. But unfortunately, this is not the case in Iran.

MG: Injured protesters in Iran are not going to the hospital to be treated. They are too afraid of being arrested. We'll speak with a doctor who's trying to help them in their homes from the other side of the world. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current and we're back in 6 minutes. Stay with us.

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Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Trump and doctors helping injured Iran protesters remotely

Guests: Aaron Blake and Dr. Kamair Alaei

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, how an Iranian doctor is helping injured protesters from thousands of kilometres away. But first, a dramatic turn in the U.S. Capitol attack hearings.

[Music: Theme]

MG: The January 6 committee in Washington, D.C., held its final hearings before the U.S. Midterm elections, and the hearings ended with this surprising move.

SOUNDCLIP

FEMALE SPEAKER: I am offering this resolution, that the committee direct the chairman to issue a subpoena for relevant documents and testimony under oath from Donald John Trump in connection with the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. Mr. Chairman, I request a recorded vote.

CHAIRMAN: A recorded vote is requested. The clerk will call the roll.

CLERK: Ms. Cheney. I. Miss Lofgren. I.

MG: And in the end, the I's had it unanimously. With that, the congressional panel on the January 6 attacks voted to subpoena former President Donald Trump to testify. Aaron Blake is a senior political reporter for the Washington Post. Aaron, good morning.

AARON BLAKE: Good morning.

MG: How significant is it that the committee would vote to subpoena the former president?

AB: Well, I think it's an interesting decision. I'm not sure it ultimately is going to lead to the former president testifying. His camp is putting out word that he may be willing to do that if it's airing live and the committee cannot edit anything. But that would be a very difficult situation for him. It would open him up to his answers, not only being scrutinised, but also, you know, potential false statements made under oath. It's not the kind of situation I expect them to walk into. So I think more than anything, it's probably a chance for them to say, look, we gave him the chance to come in here and defend himself. And if he decides not to do that, they can make an argument accordingly that he decided not to take that opportunity.

MG: Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee, said that Donald Trump was the central cause of the January 6th attack. What was presented yesterday that would warrant her pinning him to the middle of this.

AB: Yeah. So I think the, the hearing was very much focussed on Donald Trump's state of mind both shortly before January 6th and then once the Capitol riot began, the committee played and showed evidence that people around Trump planned for him to falsely declare victory on election night based upon incomplete results. So the idea there was that this was premeditated, that they essentially intentionally misled people to believe that he had won, at least on his side. And then later on, they made a point to emphasise that the people around Donald Trump recalled that he had admitted that he lost, that he knew he lost. Despite his many claims about a stolen election. There was a witness who's been featured before in these hearings named Cassidy Hutchinson, who recalled two separate instances in which the former president talked about this in terms of him having lost the election. And so that gets at the idea that this was basically a ruse that he was pushing for overturning an election despite knowing that he lost. And I think that really gets to the core of the idea that his push was fraudulent and that he was intentionally misleading people and ultimately caused something that happened on January 6th.

MG: There are a couple of remarkable things that quickly I want to mention that came out of yesterday. One is, what did we learn about the Secret Service and what the Secret Service knew about what happened ultimately on the 6th of January? The Secret Service seemed to know in advance that something might be happening.

AB: Yeah. This was the big trove of information that the committee got between its hearings this summer and this one. Now, remember, there was almost three months between this hearing and the last one. So that was a lot of time to collect information. Yeah, you're right. The big takeaway is that there was evidence that the Secret Service understood that there were threats in advance of January 6th, even more than a week beforehand. The committee has said that this conflicts with certain members of the Secret Service and their testimony, but they didn't say which members of the Secret Service and they didn't detail the conflict. Instead, they said toward the end of the hearing that this was something they were going to continue to look into and that this will be featured more extensively in the final report that they put out later this year.

MG: The other matter is just this video of Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers hiding away somewhere in some secure location, trying to figure out how to secure the Capitol and watching this unfold in real time. What did you make of that?

AB: Yeah. So as far as showing Donald Trump's culpability for what transpired that day, you know, showing video of Democratic leaders responding to this in real time, you know, it may not directly, you know, tell people something about Donald Trump. But I think the point that was being made was, you know, look, here are the people who were inside the Capitol when this was happening. Here's all the things they were doing to try and get, you know, military support. And meanwhile, Donald Trump was resisting putting out statements or telling his people to go home until significantly later than the scenes that were played out of the Capitol. So on the one hand, it's reflecting the gravity of the situation. On the other, it's kind of providing a contrast to what was taking place in the White House, which there's no question was a delayed response from the former president in real time.

MG: Just briefly, before I let you go, the sense from some people is that opinions on what happened on January 6th were baked in long ago. There are midterm elections that are happening next month in the United States. What impact could the hearings have on those elections?

AB: Yeah, it's hard to say. I think that the January 6th hearings haven't been a huge feature of campaign advertisements for Democrats or necessarily their campaign rhetoric on the trail. I think more than anything, these hearings are aimed at kind of setting the stage for what would be Donald Trump's political comeback, a presidential run in 2024. And so you saw committee members on Thursday basically making that argument that, look... I think it was Liz Cheney who at one point said, look, based upon what we have laid out here, if this guy were to run for president again and try to falsely claim he won an election, he's not going to surround himself with the kind of people who have offered testimony that didn't reflect well on him. He's going to surround himself with people who are more willing to go along with these kinds of crazy schemes. And so I think that's really more the committee's aim than necessarily influencing the midterm elections.

MG: Aaron, thank you for this.

AB: Thank you.

MG: Aaron Blake, a senior political reporter for The Washington Post.

[Music: Slow electronic beats]

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

[Crowd chanting]

MG: There have been hundreds of protests like this one in the streets of Iran over the past month, sparked by the death of 22 year old Mahsa Amini, she was arrested for allegedly breaking hijab rules and died in police custody. Security forces are responding to the demonstrations with bullets and tear gas. Human rights groups say that more than 200 people have been killed. And for those who are injured, going to the hospital isn't an option. It's become another place to be arrested. So now some doctors are trying to help remotely, even from thousands of kilometres away. That is what Dr. Kamair Alaei is doing. He's in California. Doctor, good morning.

KAMAIR ALAEI: Good morning.

MG: Tell us what you are seeing in terms of the injuries that people are receiving and then the information that you're getting from those individuals. What are you receiving?

KA: Unfortunately, most of the people who got injured are teenagers or some of them are under aged. And this is very unfortunate. And, you know, a lot of people just go for demonstration, peacefully, but they get attacked by the militia or armies. And this is very challenging. You know, a lot of them, they got gunshots and a lot of them, they got hit from the face, from the neck. And this is regardless of the gender, regardless of age. And this is significant. It means you can get thousands of people get injured because they just want to go and have a peaceful demonstration. Those armies, they are just shooting randomly, you know, even in their schools. Some of them, they got tear gas inside the elementary schools.

MG: And so how dangerous is it for people who are suffering those wounds to go to a hospital in Iran right now?

KA: Unfortunately, it is dangerous. And there are a lot of cases like there are people who are admitted to intensive care, ICUs. One of them was, you know, medical residency and got arrested inside the ICU. And they just brought them to the, you know, to the prisons. And they gave a lot of warnings to doctors, to hospitals not to admit them. And if they admit them, they have to report them. And a lot of doctors, they don't want to do that. But unfortunately, this is a very challenging time for people who need to get immediate medical care.

MG: As these protests began to unfold, when did you realise that you in the United States could have a role to play in helping treat those people?

KA: From day one because, you know, I have been very heavily involved with my brother since COVID started, you know, globally. And Iran undermined the situation. And we wrote an article in New York Times. And after that, people who mistrust the governments, they reach out to us what they need to do for COVID. You know, we had thousands, at least seven thousand. We provided telemedicine, you know, remotely during COVID. So those people who know us, they immediately reach out to us. Because the key point is trust. You know, and this is unfortunate that they couldn't trust local people, but they could trust people who are overseas.

MG: You have direct experience with the regime. When you were in Iran, you and your brother were both arrested by the regime and you spent years in the notorious Evin Prison. Do you mind telling us what happened? Why were you arrested?

KA: Sure, that's a good question. You know, we started the first centre to provide services for people with HIV/aids back in 2000s. Our work was, you know, documented by United Nations, World Health Organisation as a best practice and, you know, was replicated in several countries. But then the Government changed during the Conservative. They said we don't have a key population, including LGBTIQs. So that was... unfortunately they arrested us and put us in prison. I was in prison for two and a half years and my brother for three years.

MG: What was that experience like being in prison?

KA: Yeah, that was very difficult. You know, I was in solitary cell for several months with no clue. And this is what... imagine what's happening now for those, you know, young generations, teenagers going to solitary cell. And this is really torture and it's significant. And this is how when I see this happens, when I follow those news, I know what they are going through and what their family members, their parents are going through. This is really very, very, you know, sad situation.

MG: Tell me more about that and why you're doing this work now. I mean, how did that experience in prison and in dealing with the regime shape your decision and your brother's decision to be involved in helping those involved in these demonstrations now?

KA: The reason was that when I was in prison I realized that a lot of people who are innocent and they need really, you know, a medical education or medical care. So when we got released, you know, we continue our work. You know, we had trainings in Central America for nine countries about, you know, health and human rights. Then we had the projects in Iraq when ISIS attacked them. We went there and provided trainings for medical providers. And then in Syria, you know, we were informed that medical students, the university in Aleppo was destroyed. We provided medical education online for 525. And we were planning to go again, you know, to provide this in other countries, including Tajikistan and Central Asia. Then when this happened, you know, a month ago, we said we have to do the same thing in our own country.

MG: You wrote when you were talking about the work that you did around the Coronavirus, you wrote in that op ed in The New York Times about the fears that you had of the politicisation of the medical system in Iran and the fact that that led to people not getting care. What worries you the most about that? Because the assumption, I think that people might have is no matter what side you're on in a fight, that if you get injured, you can go to the hospital and that you will be treated. What worries you the most about the politicisation of the medical system?

KA: I think this is a very important point because Iran has a robust health system, you know, and, you know, we have a wonderful, well-trained doctors and nurses. Before COVID, it was not politicised. But from the beginning of COVID, unfortunately, the regime politicised this non-political concern and now they extend it to demonstration. And as you said, it should be apolitical. This is medical care. Even when you are in a war, you know, you should make sure those medical services are not only available, but accessible to those who get injured. But unfortunately, this is not the case in Iran.

MG: And so now... Well, so now people are contacting you. Explain how this works. I mean, does somebody send you a photo and say, this is the injury that I have?

KA: Yeah. They send photos, they send, you know, messages. And definitely this is beyond our capacity. But what we wanted to do, we wanted to educate people to document those injuries. And we use International Istanbul Protocol, which was recently adopted. So by this way, we will have a mechanism to make the government of Iran accountable, because what they are doing this time, compared to the previous time, like three years ago, they killed over a thousand people in three days. But in this time, they wanted to reduce the number of people who get killed because they think if they get injured, it's hard to be tractable. But we want to make them tractable because there are thousands of people. They get shot every day. So we wanted to document them and make them accountable. And in front of international bodies.

MG: Are people asking you for remote treatment for telemedicine directly? Are they sending you photos of their injuries and saying, what do I do about this?

KA: Yes, they do that. But you know that we cannot do a lot of those. But we want to assure them, reassure them and see how they can manage. Because some of time, if it is bleeding, how you can manage bleeding, how you can make sure you don't get infection after the injury and also how to help them mentally, you know, prepare if this happened again to them because this is unfortunately happening on a daily basis.

MG: So what do you mean about that? What do you say to those people who are in a desperate situation and they're looking for help and the help that they can receive is several thousand kilometres away? What do you say to them?

KA: Sometimes, you know, they get, you know, gunshots, but they are not life threatening gunshots, but they don't know, you know, they just freak out and they think they may die, you know, in a short period of time, we assure them, no, this is not significant. Definitely, it hurts... How you can manage pain, how you can manage, you know, bleeding... Yourself or your family or friends, and also try to find some trust in the doctors inside Iran to link them with those local providers.

MG: You were doing this work as well in Syria. Can you tell us more about that and how you were able to help medical students in Syria during the war.

KA: When we, you know, were informed about, you know, medical students in Syria, you know, they lost a, you know, medical university. We try to provide, you know, medical education remotely. We did the first one. We realized 90% of them, they have no computer. How can we could deliver education when they don't have computers? But fortunately they had a smartphone. We work with the partner of computer science and we develop an applications and they use it and they were able, while they were internally displaced, they were able to continue their education. We try to educate them on a daily basis. And there was a graduation and a ceremony last year because then the university was open. They were able to complete the education.

MG: It's one thing to help people in another country like Syria. It's another thing to help people in your own country. What is that like for you personally?

KA: I think that's very important, as you said, because this is a very, you know, touching my heart, that people that I know that they are innocents and they are young and they just ask for basic rights, it's right to life, right to freedom and right to women's and why they should get killed for no reason. And this is significant, you know, regardless of which, you know, ethnicity, religions or political parties they belong to. And this is, you know, every day when I open the news, make me cry, because this is really beyond you know.

MG: When you take a look at the protests that are happening on the streets right now, does this seem different from protests that have happened in Iran in the past?

KA: Definitely, yes. You know, there are a lot of protests over the past 43 years, but this is different because this is, you know, in the past, traditionally, there were more leaders or senior people who belong to political parties led the, you know, demonstration and, you know, encourage younger population to join them. But this is completely opposite. Now we have teenagers who are taking the lead and motivate and mobilize. All political parties, regardless of what political party they belong to. And this is beyond any race or ethnicity, regardless of gender. And the first time they got united inside Iran and Iranian outside Iran, they got united for the first time and first time, Iranian and non Iranians. They got enough solidarity for this cause. I think this is completely different and I am very optimistic about the future of this demonstration.

MG: What we have seen in past, though, is that similar demonstrations have eventually been met with extreme force and that there has been a crackdown that would lead to more injuries like the ones that we're talking about, more deaths like the ones that we're talking about. How concerned are you about what might happen next?

KA: So I completely get your point. But I think when I see some of the proxies that the regime recognized, this is different than previous demonstrations and they now it started coming to TV say, oh, you know, we wanted to have a dialogue, we wanted to, you know, to come up with some solutions. Even we wanted to get rid of, you know, whatever, you know, regulations for hijab. So that shows now they realize this is different and you know, in short run they may make it harsh, but in the long run I think either they have to change or they will be changed. And there is no other final solution.

MG: You said you're optimistic about the future of your country if you think of those young people on the streets. What kind of country do you want them to grow up in?

KA: So I want them to grow up in a country that they have freedom and they have a choice because we have a very mature and well-educated people. And when you see these teenagers, they are all future leaders. And that's the reason I'm happy, because these are those who make the future of the country. And if they give them this freedom, I think they can make a huge difference.

MG: Just finally, you're working on this with your brother, this project in helping people back in Iran, a country that you can't go to. Right. That you've had to leave. What does it mean to be doing this work with your brother?

KA: Yeah. I think this is the, you know, minimum thing we can do. As you said, we cannot go to our own country. But, you know, since we left the country like over 12 years ago, we continue to provide different trainings for different, you know, professions. And when we do this, it's kind of, you know, comforting that we can do something minimal for our own people and they really appreciate that, you know. And I think that's the message. There are lot of great doctors inside and outside of Iran. They reach out to us, they see how can we help because, you know, sometimes you want to do something, but you don't know how to do it.

MG: Do you dream about going back?

KA: Yeah. Yes, very much looking forward in a peaceful country, you know. And you know and that's... The point for me is, you know, these people, even if I cannot go back, when I see people are happy, I am happy.

MG: I'm delighted to talk to you about the work that you're doing. It's incredibly important and inspiring. Dr. Alaei, thank you very much.

KA: I want to thank you and everybody who are the voice of the voiceless and the face of the faceless. Thank you very much.

MG: Please take good care and thank you again. Bye bye.

KA: Thank you and bye, bye.

MG: Dr. Kamair Alaei is originally from Iran. He now lives in California. He's co-president of the Institute for International Health and Education. Well, coming up after your regional update, how one of Canada's top executives is honouring his grandmother by sharing his life story.

WES HALL: She had at one point 10/11 kids on a plantation worker's salary that she had to raise and she was in her sixties. I can't talk about my story now without talking about the sacrifices my grandmother made to get me here.

MG: Wes Hall will tell us how his desperate childhood in Jamaica prepared him for the boardrooms of Bay Street. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. And we're back in 90 seconds.

[Music: Theme]

Wes Hall on helping other Black entrepreneurs emulate his success

Guest: Wes Hall

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. When Wes Hall was a baby, his mother abandoned him in a tin roof shack in rural Jamaica. Today, he is one of the biggest names on Bay Street. Wes Hall is founder and executive chairman of Kingsdale Advisors and one of the stars of Dragons' Den on CBC Television. He's written a memoir about his remarkable life story. It's called No Bootstraps When You're Barefoot. Wes Hall, good morning.

WES HALL: Matt, thanks for having me.

MG: It's great to have you here. You'll know that there are a lot of business leaders who will talk about their humble roots. And I came from this and now look at me here. Your story is a remarkable one, in part because of those deepest roots. Paint me a picture of Saint Thomas in Jamaica.

WH: First of all, it's the most beautiful place. The most beautiful place. And put the poverty aside. It's green. It's lush. People are friendly, but they're extremely poor. So growing up in Golden Grove, which is where my grandmother raised us, it was just... It wasn't paradise because when you think about paradise, you think about beaches and fun stuff. My grandmother would wake up very, very early in the morning, as soon as 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, it gets dark. And we had no electricity, no streetlights. You can't even see your palm in front of you. And we had no running water inside the house and we used an outhouse as a child. There are two bedrooms in a tin shack that we had, and it was built on stilts, five foot stilts, because they would get flooding in that area constantly. And I remember being a child sitting on the veranda with my feet dangling in the water because the water would be all the way up to the veranda. My grandmother inside freaking out because you had all these grandkids in there and she was by herself. She would get up at 4:00 in the morning, look after our clothing for school. And because we didn't have any electricity, we didn't have stoves. So she would have to get wood and put a fire together, get water and make food for us. Porridge, you name it. And then by 6:30, she would be at the plantation working on a sugarcane plantation or banana or coconut, depending on the season. And that's our life. And on Sundays, my grandmother was very, very religious. On Sundays we all went to church. And that's the only time I wear shoes, was when I was going to church or wedding or funeral.

MG: And so because of that, you say in the book, what I have accomplished should not have been possible.

WH: It should not have been because of where I started and how I started. Think about being abandoned when you were 12 months old. And then my grandmother came and got myself, my sister was four and my brother was six months old, we were all abandoned together in a house, in a shack. And she was sixty years old and she had like seven grandkids that she was raising at the time. And now she has four more. She had at one point 10/11 kids on a plantation worker's salary that she had to raise. She had to send them to school and she was in her sixties. So I shouldn't have been where I'm at today. But because she worked so incredibly hard, I had to honour her by telling that story. I can't talk about my story now without talking about the sacrifices my grandmother made to get me here. And so some business leaders, yeah, they may be ashamed of that early beginning, that living in that tin shack. And going...I want to hide that part of my life. If I hide that part of my life, I'd be dishonouring my grandmother.

MG: She raised you, and then you ended up going back to live with your mother.

WH: Yeah.

MG: Describe what life was like in your mother's house.

WH: So my mom left us in that tin shack, as I mentioned. Then, when I was 11 years old, she showed up and didn't know why, but she said she had identified me... Of all the kids she left at my grandmother, she identified me as the one to go to live with her in a city. I felt I won the lottery because I'm like, I get to live with my mother and nobody else does, just me. And immediately as I get into her house, she started to physically abuse me. Beating me to the point where I had to go to the doctors, hospital, had to go to the... You know, my stepfather said, you got to go to the police station and report it. She did everything she possibly could. But it's not just the physical beatings, it's actually the mental beatings that she gave me. You know how she referred to me and you know the names she called me. And at one point, as she's going through this, I felt absolutely useless. I just felt like she tells me I'm a nobody. That's what she said to me all the time, you know, I grew up really fast. And a 13. She was beating me one day and I just wouldn't respond to the beating. And I didn't cry. I didn't retaliate. I didn't do anything. I just stood there while she was punching me in the face and hitting me. And then she stopped almost in mid-air with her fist. And she goes, Oh, you're a man now. And she went inside the house. She packed my bag, a straw bag. She threw it outside and said, Now that you're a man, you can be on your own. And she threw me out of the house. And between 13 and 16, I lived on my own in Jamaica.

MG: You write in the book you thought you were going to be beaten to death in your mother's house.

WH: I really didn't think I would survive it because the beatings wasn't to correct you. The beatings were for two reasons to insult you, to demean you, and to show you that you're nothing. And so to me, when you're, you know, shoved by the face in a brick wall and there's blood all over and you're on the floor as a kid and you look at this person's face and they had no natural reaction to the anxiety that they caused you. How could you not be worried about your life?

MG: You also worried about what your destiny was going to be in that moment. And you... She throws you out of the house, but you also walked away from that destiny. You talk about walking away from what that situation was setting you up to be.

WH: I remember picking up that straw bag when she threw it out and I was walking up the street and it was a white road with gravel and so on in that subdivision. I felt liberated for the very first time, because of the trauma that she put me through before that, all the threats that she's made over the years of I'm going to throw you out. So when she finally threw me out, I go, okay, now I could figure out how can I make something work of this? Because I no longer have that part of my life anymore to deal with. And I start to just think and plan, you know, and that helped me later on in life because as I go through life and I hit hardship, I never really think about hardship anymore. Even to this day, I think about how I'm going to solve this hardship that I'm going through and what the other end of that is going to look like. Anything that I go through is like, okay, life is hard... whether it be systemic racism, whether it be somebody withholding an opportunity from me because of my colour, whatever the case may be, I go, okay, I'm going to find a way to make it work and to get what I'm looking for. And that's what I've done from that moment on.

MG: You came to Canada when you were 16?

WH: September 27th, 1985.

MG: What do you... There's a scene in which you talk about what you knew of this country, and it's only for those of us of a certain vintage, you would understand. You knew of Canada through the View-Master, [cross talk]. You see the pictures of the faraway places.

WH: Yeah. So my dad sent a View-Master to me when I was a kid. It was like snow. And I think it was like a scene of Alberta in the winter. And it was just a click through. And you see all these images of Canada. I didn't know what cold was, but had I known it I would be saying this place looks cold. But then I start to appreciate what cold is and that Canada is that the extreme level of cold, in my definition of cold, because Jamaica was so beautiful and sunny.

MG: Aside from the weather, what was the hardest thing about settling in here?

WH: I came on a Friday and on Monday I was in school, Lester B. Pearson High School in Scarborough. When I went to the classes, none of the kids spoke English. And I went home and I said to my dad, Oh wow, school is easy in Canada. And then, what do you mean? I said, nobody is speaking English in class. And he said, Oh, why not? They went in... I was in the ESL program... Now, I... I grew up in rural Jamaica where even Jamaicans can't really understand the way we speak in rural Jamaica. And I was putting on what I thought was my best English, because Jamaica is an English speaking country. But yet my accent was very heavy. So when I put my hand up and answer a question, the kids would start laughing at me. So ended up going into the regular program and then they put me into the lower stream, which is a basic stream. And then my dad came back in and go, No, no, this kid is smarter than that. And then I start to get a mix of advanced and general. But schools here were a little bit different than Jamaica. First of all, to get to high school in Jamaica, it's almost like you have to win a lottery. It really is because there are not enough spots for the number of kids that, you know, write this exam. I was one of those kids who didn't win a lottery. So my education essentially stopped at 16 years old in Jamaica. And when I came to Canada, it started at 16 because I started high school. And that's the moment when I landed at Pearson Airport and I get off that plane and I walked in, I saw my dad and I saw my step siblings, my half siblings that I've never met before. I saw my stepmother. We went into this big car called Betsy and we drove on the 401 to Malvern. And it was a subdivision that was still being built and it was mud, you know, and dust when it's hot. And I saw, wow, my dad is a successful man. I want to be like him. He was working at a factory. My stepmom was working at a factory. But to me, that man is successful. He has nice kids. He's got a great wife, he's got a home, he's got a nice car and he's got a nice job. And I wanted to be like him when I grew up until I got an opportunity to work in the mailroom. Of a law firm on Bay Street. Then that changed my view of what I wanted to be.

MG: Tell me about the mailroom and what you learnt about yourself and working in the mailroom.

WH: Coming from Malvern to downtown Toronto, the financial district is almost like you're going to a different country. You see these tall buildings that I've never, ever seen up close before. I saw them on television, but I've never seen them up close before. And I went into Commerce Court West the 13th floor, went upstairs, got off the elevator, and it was like I stepped off and into the scene of L.A. Law back in the day. I saw art on the wall and it was so beautiful, beautiful, expansive views. And I saw people wearing nice business suits and they go, okay, fine, we're going to give you a job in the mailroom. I started my first day in the mailroom wearing a suit and tie, and I saw the life that I wanted to live. At the time, I didn't really know that racism was a problem for me, and I didn't know it until way into my career. That it was a problem for me. I wanted to be one of those guys in a corner office making conference calls and be important. But what I didn't realize and it was fortunate for me that I, you know, had those early days in Jamaica was that there were no Black people in those corner offices or in any of the offices for that matter, and that the only Black person in the firm was either me pushing that mail cart or maybe an administrative person in the company. I didn't even notice that. And the reason why I'm glad for my early days in Jamaica was because when I went to school there were Black school teachers, the principal was Black. When my brothers get into trouble and they go to the police station. The police officers were all Black and the sergeant of the station was Black. And if they go to court, the judge was Black, and the lawyers defending them and the business people that we buy stuff from, they're all Black people. So to me, being Black was never an obstacle to being successful. Being poor was an obstacle, but being Black wasn't. And so when I came to Canada in my mind, one of those obstacles were removed, poverty. I'm no longer poor but I can be whatever I wanted to be. So I had that attitude even when I went to the law firm in the mail room that I am going to be like one of those guys on Bay Street.

MG: What were you doing wearing a suit? And when I ask this... People who have seen Dragons' Den, I mean, they know you come in looking crisp... you look great right.

WH: I'm fly now, man.

MG: What was it back then that you thought you could achieve by.... In a mailroom... Again, not a lot of folks in the mailroom are wearing a suit.

WH: None of them were. So my first day, the guys in the mailroom start laughing at me, saying, Hey, people are going to think you're a lawyer. And I go, What's wrong with that? When I was walking around the hallway, it turned out that articling students were talking to me about their M&A deals that they're working on and stuff like that. They would use legal expressions because they thought there was an articling student like them because I was wearing a suit. Nobody knew that I was the help.

MG: You could fit in.

WH: I could fit in. So when they were talking to me about M&A and all these jargons that they were using, I got to understand those terms. So I went up to the library because at the time, all the law firms had this expansive library. And I went to the librarian, Richard Debay, and I said, What is an M&A and what is this? What is all the terms that these kids were using to me? I started to learn about them and read about them, and then I started to use them when I talk to them. And all of a sudden my vocabulary and my knowledge just expanded in terms of what they did. Securities lawyers, litigation lawyers, corporate lawyers, all the different areas of law that they doing. I started to understand those things and I go, I want to be a lawyer, but I have to start by being a law clerk. And in those hallway conversations, one of the young person said, Oh, they will pay for you to go to get your law clerks degree or certificate. And I go, great. The company did. They paid for it. And then I go, now I'm ready to be a law clerk. Now I'm ready to move up the ladder. And I applied for the job in the law clerks department and the person running it saying, you'll never be a law clerk here. And I just looked at it, okay, I get it because everyone in that department were women and I figured they didn't want a guy in the department. So I decided I'm going to apply elsewhere. Now, how do I use my race as a reason? I wouldn't have applied at those other law firms because I would assume that they all have the same practice that they didn't want a guy like me in their company. But I applied because of that knowledge of I'm not going to use that as an obstacle to get in my way.

MG: You talk in the book about the polite racism that we might display here in Canada. What is that? And how did you see that in the fields that you were trying to move through?

WH: It sneaks up on you a lot. Like even to this day, it sneaks up. But I remember when I got a vice president job in Bay Street and I was killing it. I was just... I was doing... I thought I was doing really well. The company thought I was doing really well. And they had a head office in New York and the two most senior finance guys in both Canada and the U.S. speaking and the guy in the U.S. said, you know, to the Canadian guy, in spite of the fact that Wes is Black he is doing well.

MG: In spite of the fact.

WH: In spite of. Right. In spite of my disability, my handicap, in spite of the challenges that are put in front of me, I'm doing well. That was my first time of going. Hmm. But that happened before that. Because when I went to that, that job, to my first job interview and I was wearing a suit and tie and I had a briefcase in my hand. I was applying to be the right hand guy to the general counsel of the company. And his assistant came down and walked by me with a suit and tie on with a briefcase and went to a white dude with jeans and t-shirt on and say, Mr. Hall. And I go, No, no, he's over here. Now, that could have affected my psyche again had I been using race as saying, Oh, man, she just profiled me. But it didn't.

MG: How does that not affect your psyche? How does what you go through and the what you describe in this book, you say in the book, you're regularly underestimated by people who assume they'd be able to roll over this dumb Black guy who grew up in a shack and never went to Harvard. How does that not build in you?

WH: Because human nature goes... If you are raised there, you can't be as good as me. That's just how we think. Or if we have a bias, whether it be a racial bias against someone. The reason why we have that bias is because we think they're inferior to us. They're not as good as us. So if you know that going into a situation, why don't you take that, use that to your advantage?

MG: I guess I just wonder what the personal toll of that is.

WH: It is tough if you go into a situation and everybody feel that they're better than you, they're more equipped than you, they're going to be more successful than you. That could play on your psyche. But keep in mind that I had somebody that's supposed to have loved me, like my mother telling me that you're not good enough, you're good for nothing, you're going to be a nobody. So when some stranger is telling me that, like it doesn't hurt as much, it still hurts. But it certainly didn't hurt as much as when I was hearing it from my mother. So she's certainly hardened me for the life that I would live here in Canada in those circumstances.

MG: What is your responsibility now to ensure that people don't have to go through that slog that you did? Now that you're successful, now that you're the guy, you might be still the only one in the room. But you're in the big room. You're in the corner office. You're the one who's in charge of that room.

WH: Yeah.

MG: So what is your responsibility now?

WH: My responsibility is to make sure that there's as many people that are as underserved as I was are in those places, because at the end of the day, that's where you find the gems. I have a responsibility to not just say to people, because I've gone through it, that you can too, because that's not fair. Those are not things that anyone should go through. And if I have the opportunity to change that, why wouldn't I take that opportunity?

MG: You've done that through the Black North Initiative, which I mean, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, there was a lot of work done or a lot of calls for work to be done to try to address systemic barriers for Black people in business. You got a lot of attention at the time. Yeah, there was a Globe and Mail report that suggested not so long ago that the majority of the people who had signed on to this hadn't really made a lot of change in the world. What do you make of that?

WH: I would say this, that systemic racism has been around for generations. 400 years of slavery on this continent. And when we think about what the civil rights movement has done, it moved us forward big time. But how long did it take us to get to the point where we're now in the '60s and going, we need to do this? It's almost 100 years or more of that... of dealing with that. And then we got to the '60s and a lot of things happened. Then we got to the '90s and we had that Rodney King situation, realize that it's still going on. And then we have 2000. 2000 was a reckoning for all of us and we decided that we're going to do something about it and we're going to make some changes and companies decide they're going to do something about. And everybody decided and everybody feels that within two years of that everything should change, within two years. And that's the problem when people in their own mind determine what change should look like. In my view, we have come a long way since the '60s, and we certainly have come a long way since 2020, but we still have a long ways to go.

MG: Do you worry about what people call performative allyship, where people sign their name to something... They'll say, Yes, we're going to try and address this and nothing happens because it's a systemic barrier and changing a system is hard.

WH: So I'll say this. I would say about 40% of the people who've signed a pledge are intentional.

MG: 40%...

WH: Yes.

MG: So the 60... The other 60%, what happens with them?

WH: So, I would say 40% are intentional. 30% want to do something, but they have no idea what to do. But they want help. And that's why we design a playbook to help those people that's 70% of people are going we are intentional or want to do something. And it's up to us to work with all those people. And then there is 30% is just performative. We just want to get the pressure off. I'm not going to focus on those 30. I'm going to focus on the 70% that can make meaningful changes within their organization to affect me as a Black Canadian. And once they start doing things that affect me in a positive way, guess what it's going to do as well is going to change it for the indigenous people and people of colour. And so I think that we have done quite a bit in just two years. I think we're going to see a lot more as we proceed because we have 40% that are saying, I am going to do something about this and they're still doing it.

MG: What will be the proof that it's been successful?

WH: The proof is when I walk into a room and you walk into a room and we're not the only ones there and that people are not saying, I'm going to hire a Black director or I'm going to hire a Black executive when they're saying I'm going to hire an executive. I can tell you in my organizations in total my group hires over a thousand people and we never, ever say we're going to hire a whatever, a woman, a person of colour, an LGBTQ+, a disability. We look... We're going to hire a person to fill such and such a position and everyone will say, well, we've always done that. That's what we've done. But there's biases in your own hiring practises that you're not seeing, and that's why they call it unconscious bias. So as a result of that, somebody walk in a room and all of a sudden there's something about them because they may have an accent, because they look a certain way that goes, I don't know if this is going to be the person who is going to fit that job. So all of a sudden you just exclude those people. There's something wrong with your hiring practices. Our hiring practices… that at all my firms is that we're always going to choose the best candidate. And guess what? My firm is naturally diverse because we've done that because we have no preconceived bias about who we're talking to, who we're interviewing. And I think that's what we need to think about when we bring these people in. We want them to be their true selves and we don't want to put barriers in place for them not to be successful and say, Hey, I tried and it didn't work. And that's what we do in Black North. So when you hear the report, it says, well, they haven't done that. We're teaching people how to rethink the way they deal with people like me and you in the workforce. We're teaching them that. And as a result of that, it's going to take time before that starts to filter into the culture of the business because it didn't exist before. And so that's why I'm saying what we're building here at Black North is not really to change my life right now. I'm too old for that, is to change my kids lives so that when they graduate from university and they get into the workforce, they don't have the struggles that I had.

MG: What would you say to the young man who's on the cover of this book with the fly pants and the button down shirt? Given where you are now? What would you say to that young man?

WH: You know, I remember this was like yesterday, you know, my mom was put in a really good beating on me. And there was a guy with a.... a one legged guy walking by on the road. And he said to my mother... And I would have been probably about 12. And he said to my mom, You should stop beating that boy, one day that boy could be the one that you rely on to look after you. And my mom stopped beating me and gave a verbal lashing to that man. And that man he prophesied that... I remember saying, Is he right? Am I going to be a somebody? Am I going to be special in the future? And so what I would say to that young Wes Hall back then, I would say, hang in there, man. You have no idea the ride that you're going to be on and it's going to be fun. And that's what I would say to him, that it's going to be rough right now and it's going to be rough for a while. But the ride is not going to always be that rough. And that's what I want to tell young people going through it now, because there are kids and young people going through exactly that right now. And if they're listening to this, I want them to... I want to tell them that. Hang in there. It's going to get better.

MG: Wes Hall, it's good to have you here. Thank you very much.

WH: Matt, thanks for having me.

MG: Wes Hall is the executive chairman of Kingsdale Advisors. His new memoir is called No Bootstraps When You're Barefoot. That's The Current for this Friday. Q's up next on CBC Radio One. Jack McBrayer, an actor you may know from 30 Rock, will be on the program in just a moment. We just heard Wes Hall talking about his humble beginnings in Jamaica before he became a disrupter of sorts on Bay Street. We're going to leave you with another Jamaican disruptor. Bob Marley and the Wailers and "Small Axe". I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you on Monday.

[Music: Small Axe by Bob Marley and The Wailers]

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Friday October 14, 2022 Full Transcript

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