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The Current Transcript for March 13, 2023

Host: Mark Kelley

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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When people are defrauded or lose all their money even just because FTX shuts down, they have to tell their families or friends. They might need that money. These are tragic stories.

MARK KELLEY: Millions of people invested money in the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and millions lost that money when the exchange collapsed. The man who founded FTX, Sam Bankman-fried, was a star in the crypto world. Now he faces charges that could send him to jail for the rest of his life. I'll talk to the host of a new CBC podcast about this wild riches to rags story. That's in 30 minutes. Also.

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[audience applauding]

BRENDAN FRASER: I started in this business 30 years ago. And things didn't come easily to me, but there was a facility that I didn't appreciate at the time until it stopped.

MK: Were you watching last night? It was a big comeback for Canadian-American actor Brendan Fraser last night and a big Oscar night for many more Canadians as well, with big wins and even more nominations. But most of the films these Canadians got the nod for were actually American. We'll ask why it's so hard to make it as a filmmaker on this side of the border. That's coming up in an hour. But we start with paying for health care services in Canada. I'm Mark Kelley, sitting in for Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

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VIRTUAL CARE PAYMENT

Guests: Dr. Brett Belchetz, Andre Picard

MK: Canada's universal health care is supposed to mean that medically necessary services are covered no matter where you live in this country. But as getting access to doctors has become more difficult, some Canadians are turning to private companies for a fee.

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RANDY HARRIS: I had an illness that I'd had previously, and I knew that my best course of action was going to be getting a prescription for an antibiotic.

MK: Randy Harris lives in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia.

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RANDY HARRIS: I knew that I was going to somehow have to find a doctor, which in this part of the country is just not an easy thing to do. So I thought, you know what? I'm just going to try this Maple thing and see how it works. And oh my goodness! Like was I surprised? It was flawless. It was 15 minutes and it was done. And my prescription was faxed by the physician to my pharmacy. I mean, who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't pay for that type of care after what I've experienced and what others here experience? If you have the ability to use it, I would say skip everything else and use nothing but that if you're able to.

MK: Well, Randy Harris tried that Maple thing and he says he paid $69 to get that prescription. The doctor writing it was actually in Toronto. Now, Maple is one of several services offering online visits. Fees can range from $50 to $100, but the federal health minister has said this is unacceptable. Last week, he sent a letter to the provinces warning that if patients keep paying out of pocket, their funding could be clawed back. Dr. Brett Belchetz is the co-founder and CEO of Maple. Good morning, Doctor.

DR. BRETT BELCHETZ: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

MK: Well, it's an interesting discussion. And I'm curious to know how does it feel to be, you and Maple to be in the federal health minister's crosshairs?

DR. BRETT BELCHETZ: Well, to be honest, it's quite disappointing. If you take a big step back and you look at our health care system and the headlines that we've been seeing lately, it's pretty clear to everybody that our health care system is in a state of immense crisis. We have the worst access to health care of any country in the developed world. We have patients dying in hospital emergency waiting rooms. We have millions of patients across the country that can't get a family doctor. And it's really disappointing that this is where the federal government is choosing to focus. They’re choosing to focus on one of the few things that is actually helping desperate Canadians get access to care. And I think Canadians recognize that this isn't the direction that they want things to go. So there was an Ipsos poll done just one month ago in February where 85% of Canadians said that this health care system needed drastic change. 60% of Canadians said that for those who could afford it, they should have the right to pay privately for health care. So Canadians are asking for change. And it seems that instead of listening to what Canadians are asking for, the federal government is doubling down on something that is absolutely not meeting their needs and putting their health at risk.

MK: Well, I guess the key part of that your comment there is for those who can afford it. And this is the big issue ultimately that always happens when we're discussing universal health care in this country. And the quote from the health minister was “Canadians pay for their health care through their tax dollars and should not be asked to pay again by way of patient charges.” So with your system, when does a patient have to pay out of pocket for a virtual visit from a doctor?

DR. BRETT BELCHETZ: Yeah. To be clear, the way that what is medically necessary as defined in Canada is all based on what the provinces choose to insure. So for the most part, across the country, provinces are ensuring video or telephone visits with their physician. There is no province in Canada that is covering a visit with a nurse practitioner. There is almost no province in Canada that covers when you have a visit by secure messaging with a physician. So our platform charges patients when they're accessing services that the provinces have deemed not to be medically necessary. And they deem them not to be medically necessary by not covering them. So those are visits typically with a nurse practitioner or when somebody is seeing a physician by secure messaging, there are charges. Now, when somebody is seeing a physician for a video visit or a phone call, which is a covered service, patients are not charged for those services typically.

MK: So is there anything that a patient would pay for if they go online that they wouldn't pay for if they did it in person in a doctor's office?

DR. BRETT BELCHETZ: Absolutely. So, you know, a conversation that you have by secure messaging with a physician. I mean, that is obviously something that you can't do in-person. There is no such thing as secure messaging in a live in-person conversation. But it's very clear from every single provincial government that they have deemed the ability for a patient to send secure messages with a physician to be something that they don't believe to be medically necessary, and they don't believe it to have the same value as an in-person visit. And they do not insure it. There's no payment that is available to a physician if they send secure messages to a patient.

MK: How's business?

DR. BRETT BELCHETZ: Well, you know, it's certainly, you know, gotten busier and busier. And I think what's very clear is that if the government was doing its job, if Canadians could readily access health care, nobody would be paying for our service. You know, I think the perfect state of the world is that nobody needs us to exist. Nobody needs to dip into their pocket. So the fact that we are very busy, the fact that there are individuals such as the one that you just featured on your show who are so desperate for health care that they are willing to pay for health care says that the government is not doing their job. And I think the way that the government should respond to us is rather than making regulatory changes or legislative changes, they should outcompete us. They should figure out how to make the health care system so good that no Canadian needs to ever think about putting their hand in their wallet.

MK: So you're opening the door then to urging the government to put you out of business by providing better health care.

DR. BRETT BELCHETZ: Our goal when we started the company was to improve access to health care. My background, I'm an emergency room physician. And part of the reason why we started the company is I was so fed up watching patients wait eight hours in the emergency waiting room for four minutes of my time for routine things that I could have solved from my couch on a Sunday afternoon. And I recognized that only 50% of Canadian doctors are actually working full year fulltime. And that's a Stats Canada number. And I thought, wouldn't it be great if we could figure out a way to get that number closer to 100% and get more doctors and more nurse practitioners online to help Canadian patients? And the whole goal was to improve access. So yes, if the government could figure out a way to fix the problem, that would solve the reason why we started our company.

MK: But in the meantime, you are sort of like a form of competition for the government's health care system. So how do you respond to critics who are concerned that companies like yours are taking family doctors out of the health care system so that people looking for an in-person visit have even fewer options?

DR. BRETT BELCHETZ: I would say that anybody that make that claim doesn't really understand how staffing is working in our Canadian health care system. So as I mentioned, only 50% of Canadian doctors work full year fulltime. And before starting Maple, I was one of them. I was an emergency room physician. I worked 15 shifts a month. And that's about as many shifts as most fulltime emergency room physicians work per month. That means I had 15 to 16 days off every single month. And that was the case for almost all of my colleagues. So when we take physicians on to the Maple platform, we never ask that emergency physician who works 15 shifts a month to give up shifts to work on Maple. What we say is after your 15 shifts are done and you've got 15 days off, can you use some of those 15 days off to provide extra care that you wouldn't have otherwise provided? So our whole goal with Maple is not to take away from the health care system. It's to add extra capacity that didn't exist before. And that's what we've been doing. We've been opening up care for millions of Canadians that didn't exist before. And we actually have programs in partnership with provincial governments like the government of Nova Scotia and the governor of P.E.I. that with no charges to patients, have actually offered services for patients without family doctors, for hundreds of thousands of patients who never had access to care before, fully insured publicly covered services in partnership with those governments. So, you know, one of the things I would also say to the federal government is instead of going on the attack, we have really shown how in partnership with government, our technology and our innovation has been able to make a difference. Come speak to us. Come partner with us. Don't come try and put Canadian innovators out of business.

MK: And so if you have this deal with Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island as you're mentioning, why did Randi Harris in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, have to pay $69 to get a doctor to prescribe him an antibiotic?

DR. BRETT BELCHETZ: Well, there are probably a number of explanations. Maybe he wasn't aware of the program that we have. It maybe that he's not eligible. That program is only for patients without it who are on what's called the registry, waiting for a family doctor, or it just may have been the timing that he might have had his visit with us before that service became available. Absolutely I would urge him to look into the availability of that service because we certainly have a great service in Nova Scotia that is available to all patients in Nova Scotia without a family doctor free of charge.

MK: There's another concern out there I just want to run by you as well that by doing this virtually, people aren't getting a continuum of care by going through websites like yours, that the doctor doesn't know their history and may never see them again. So how do you deal with that?

DR. BRETT BELCHETZ: Well, I would argue that they get a better continuum of care on our platform than they do by going to walk-in clinics. So within our platform is full recordkeeping from visit to visit. So somebody that keeps getting care on our platform, you develop a full patient history where every health care provider that sees you on the platform can see all of your previous history, all of your previous visits, your allergies, the medications that were prescribed, etc. And so it works very much more like a big group family practice than a one-off walk-in clinic visit. And I can tell you that when I worked in the emergency room, when patients would come in to see me there, when they had gone to the walk-in clinic a week ago, I had absolutely no idea what happened at the walk-in clinic. And I had no way to get those records. So I would actually argue that in a technologically enabled environment like what we offer, continuity of care is far, far better than some of what we see even in the physical system today.

MK: So I wonder what happens next now. I mean, the warning has come from the federal health minister. You're saying to him, look, let's sit down and talk about it. Everyone agrees there's a problem with health care in Canada, but nobody can really agree on what the solution will be. So what do you want to see happen next as he's trying to, you know, essentially put you out of business?

DR. BRETT BELCHETZ: Well, I would love to have a discussion with him because as I mentioned, we've had phenomenal success working with government. We've created a platform that is very, very effective at creating extra capacity amongst physicians, very effective at providing 24/7 care that is extraordinarily quick, extraordinarily efficient, extraordinarily effective in solving the needs of patients. Let's talk to the government. I would love for them to work with us and figure out how do we expand this across the country to actually solve the drastic problems that exist right now rather than putting us out of business. You know, the analogy that I would love to say is, you know, I feel like our Canadian health care system is very much like the Titanic steaming towards the iceberg. And we're one of the few people that are trying to change the direction of the Titanic. And so my advice to government is instead of doubling down and accelerating the boat towards that iceberg and throwing overboard anybody trying to help, why don't you actually work with those people that are trying to help you steer the ship in a different direction?

MK: That's a vivid analogy and a good one too. Okay, Doctor, thanks for your time this morning. We appreciate it.

DR. BRETT BELCHETZ: My pleasure. Have a great day.

MK: You too. Dr. Brett Belchetz is the co-founder and CEO of Maple. We did request an interview with the federal health minister, Jean Yves Duclos, but we did not hear back. Andre Picard is a health columnist for the Globe and Mail and a familiar voice on this program. Good morning, Andre.

ANDRE PICARD: Good morning.

MK: Tell us, what do we know about how popular these services are like Maple and others that are springing up across this country?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think as you heard from Dr. Belchetz, business is doing well. So there is a lot of interesting needs and for the simple reason that many Canadians don't have a family doctor. 6.5 million don't have a family doctor. And many people who do have a family doctor can't access them readily. So these are services that you can access 24 seven for simple things. You don't have to wait the eight hours in the ER. People want this. This is convenience.

MK: And are they regulated it in a different way from province to province?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, that's a good question. They're not really regulated because the way they work is essentially a loophole. If I'm in Ontario and I want to use Maple, I'm going to call a doctor in Alberta. So technically, the way the law works is that Medicare, the law says it prevents you from charging an insured person for medically necessary services. So if I'm in Ontario, I'm not an insured person in Alberta. So that's the loophole. So they get around this and people don't know the difference. It's online.

MK: But as you mentioned, people are, you know, sort of voting for this service with the fact that they are using it and using it in droves. So why do you think the health minister is now threatening to crack down on the provinces allowing these services?

ANDRE PICARD: Yeah, you're right. People are definitely voting with their wallets.

MK: Yeah.

ANDRE PICARD: This said, why is the crack down now? I think there are a couple of things going on. We know that there was a claw back that happened. It was announced Friday. And that was about diagnostic services. So this goes back a decade. Same thing. Provinces allowing people to buy diagnostic services. They sent a letter in 2018 and now they're finally implementing it. So the government is using the law as it should for this. And then what the minister did is also say, well, we're going to do this with these private services, telehealth services as well. So it's kind of a warning, but it's unlikely that anything will happen quickly.

MK: Why do you say that?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, because government operates very, very slowly. You know, I just gave you that example. Since you took 10 years to address this issue of diagnostic services. So we'll see. We have to remember that under the Canada Health Act, the federal government can only claw back money from a province. So these services like Maple, TELUS MyCare, they're not breaking the law. The province is breaking the law and it's being punished for it.

MK: So would it then be up to the province? So the federal government has made the warning to the province and then the province has to deal with companies like Maple. So ultimately, would it be up to the province to crack down on Maple?

ANDRE PICARD: Exactly. And, you know, as you heard in the previous interview, these are kind of loopholes. This is a service that’s not covered on provincial formularies. Therefore, they are allowed to charge for it. So they can change this overnight with a very small change to the law. But do they want to is another question. And I am seeing a lot of pushback from provinces, especially we heard from Alberta and Quebec who said they're both going to challenge this.

MK: Yeah. And the NDP has suggested closing that loophole as a way to stop this service from happening. But again, I go back, and Andre, you covered this, you know, very closely. We all agree there's a problem with the health care in this country, access to health care in this country, the lack of family doctors in this country. And here comes a service that Canadians seem to be using and thriving with this service and the government wants to shut it down. What do we do at this point when we acknowledge that there is this problem but we can't seem to agree on a solution?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think the solution is a simple one. We're worried about equity. So that's the issue. The issue is can everyone afford this? Can everyone get this 24/7 access to telehealth? I think ideally we'd like that. So the way to make it affordable is make it a government service. That's been my view all along. If the government doesn't like Maple, then create your own Maple and get rid of them or hire them as we've seen in P.E.I. and we've seen in Nova Scotia. Hire this company to do something that you seem incapable of doing provincially.

MK: Let's hear from another patient. Her name is Jennifer D'Aoust. She's from Calgary. And she got sick while she was visiting B.C. So she paid $55 to use telemedicine service Rocket Doctor.

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JENNIFER D'AOUST: I feel like this should be covered by our health care because I think it would serve a lot of people. And I think it would reduce wait times in the emergency substantially if you had access to this kind of care for stuff like I had. Like I had a bladder infection and like you need antibiotics to fix that. So but it's not like a life threatening thing or urgent. But if you can't get an appointment with your family doctor, you have to go to the urgent care emergency.

MK: So Andre, as we listen to, you know, these patients who say it's worked for them, we listened to the CEO of Maple Dr. Belchetz saying, look, I'm willing to sit down with the federal government and figure a way forward. Is there a way forward? I mean, is there that feeling on the political side that maybe we have to sit down and figure out how to make this work for Canadians?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, I think the solution again is a very simple one. It's what we've done in diagnostics. Provinces now hire these private companies to provide diagnostics for the public system. And that's not a violation of the law and that provides equity. So that's what you do. I think we have to strike deals with the Maples of the world, the Rocket Doctors, or else we have to create these services within the public system. There's no question. As you heard from that last patient, they want 24/seven telehealth four simple things that a modern health care system should be able to provide. Yeah. So I think, you know, a modern health care system should be able to provide that telehealth 24/seven. And because they're not, these private companies are filling a void.

MK: The idea as well is that this is taking doctors out of the health care system and failing to provide a continuum of care, which we did address with Dr. Belchetz. Do you think there's validity to those criticisms?

ANDRE PICARD: Well, there is some validity. But what continuity of care do the 6.5 million people without any medical service have? What continuity of care do people who are dependent on walk-in clinics have? That's a nice theoretical issue. But in reality, there's a real lack of continuity of care. We have terrible electronic health records. I think that's kind of a red herring that needs to be resolved on a much larger scale.

MK: And as you say, things do move slowly in this country. And maybe the government wants to kick the can down the road a little further. But with 6.5 million Canadians without a family doctor, can we afford to continue to talk about this and not act on this?

ANDRE PICARD: No. I don't think we can. The question is can we continue to allow primary care to degrade? We know that the solution to our fundamental problems in health care now is to build up that base, to have a sound basis of everybody has primary care. Whether it's in-person or virtual, everybody should have access to a doctor 24/seven in Canada. That should be our goal. And we should be figuring out ways to do that. And some of that involves telehealth. Some of it involves doctors, family doctors working as family doctors. Most don't. There's all kinds of solutions there. But I don't think the solution is cracking down on this little item in the health care system that’s solving a problem that people want solved.

MK: Andre, always good to talk to you. Thanks for your time.

ANDRE PICARD: Thank you. A pleasure.

MK: Andre Picard is a columnist with the Globe and Mail. The CBC News is next. And then.

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Before fall of 2022, I think anyone who said that there are red flags about FTX would have been right. But they were very rare voices.

MK: The FTX cryptocurrency platform made billions and then it crashed. A new CBC podcast delves into the story of its founder, Sam Bankman-fried, and what happened to his FTX exchange. That's in six minutes. I'm Mark Kelley. You're listening to The Current.

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THE NAKED EMPEROR

Guest: Jacob Silverman

MK: Hello. I'm Mark Kelley and you're listening to The Current.

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MK: Still to come, lots of Canadian names were read out at Hollywood's biggest award event last night, but most of them were nominated for American made films. We'll hear about the challenges of making money as a filmmaker on this side of the border. That's coming up in half an hour. Also, the disturbing surge in syphilis cases in Canada, many of them in infants. But first, the Canadian connection to a cryptocurrency collapse.

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MK: Well, I'm sure you heard about it last November. Cryptocurrency exchange giant FTX collapsed almost overnight. It was worth billions of dollars. It had millions of customers. And boom, just like that, the money was gone.

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DAMIAN WILLIAMS: It's so hard to compare these things. But I think it's fair to say that by anyone's likes, this is one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.

MK: That's Damian Williams, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. Sam Bankman-fried who founded FTX and hedge fund Alameda Research was in deep trouble. Not long after the company went bankrupt, he was arrested in the Bahamas and charged.

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MALE SPEAKER: This morning, we unsealed an eight count indictment charging Samuel Bankman-fried, FTX’s founder, with a series of interrelated fraud schemes that contributed to FTX’s collapse.

MK: The story of FTX’s downfall involves a well-known Canadian crypto player and many Canadian investors whose money is still missing. A new CBC podcast, The Naked Emperor, looks into how the collapse happened and what it means for the crypto industry. The series’ host is Jacob Silverman. He's a freelance journalist who writes about technology, cryptocurrency and politics. Jacob joins me from New York City. Good morning.

JACOB SILVERMAN: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MK: Well, you know, this is a story that has certainly made headlines around the world. What are you hoping that the listeners will get from your podcast on this?

JACOB SILVERMAN: Well, I hope that they get the full scope of what the FTX story is, because I think if you just hear it in bits and pieces, whether on the Internet or on the radio, it can be a little confusing. And it's one this sort of corporate caper of sorts and a huge alleged theft and fraud. And in some ways, it has very little to do with crypto. And so that's also another thing that I try to tell people is this is a story that you can learn something about and even be fascinated with and not really have any interest in crypto. In a lot of ways, it's just sort of an old fashioned corporate fraud or alleged one.

MK: Mm hmm. Well, let's start at the beginning. How did FTX actually work?

JACOB SILVERMAN: Sure. FTX was a trading platform for the trading of cryptocurrencies or tokens, which are basically digital, imaginary almost, currencies that are created on a piece of software called a blockchain by different companies. It's kind of like private money of the 19th century. And people bet on the movement of prices for these things. And they can also buy the currencies themselves and, you know, ride their price up and down. There's a lot of volatility in trading crypto. So FTX in particular was a platform where you could do all this. And the main FTX was based overseas, which allowed it to offer things like high margins, meaning that users could borrow a lot of money to make bigger bets. And ultimately, that turned out to be a big problem for FTX.

MK: And so much of FTX really was built around Sam Bankman-fried. I mean, he was the face of it. There was a fascination with him. In your podcast, you asked the question was the guy savvy or stupid? And you met him. You chatted with him. Give us your impression of him.

JACOB SILVERMAN: I think at times he was both. There was definitely a cunning to what he was doing. I think that Sam amassed a lot of power. And as we talk about on the podcast, a lot of political power. A third of Congress took donations from, the U.S. Congress took donations from FTX or Sam or one of his executives. We now know that there was a pretty coordinated program of political influence and alleged donations through straw donors. So there were things like that where you have to say that was pretty savvy of Sam. And then there were other things that he did that seemed rather reckless or that the company did that seemed rather reckless. The way they traded some of the investments they made, even Sam's habit of sending direct messages to journalists like me could arguably be reckless. On the other hand, you might say, well, he's keeping tabs on people. So there are ways in which, you know, he was very successful in building up this enormous company that was at one point valued at $32 billion with a lot of kind of associated portfolio companies, including Alameda. But then you can also say, hey, this only lasted a few years. So that kind of contrast I think exists a lot in the FTX story and that it's scaling to amazing heights, but it also is coming crashing down just as quickly.

MK: But you mentioned in the podcast how you were sceptical all along as a journalist. You were sceptical about this and that seemed to capture his attention. Why do you think that? Because he could have just ignored your scepticism and moved on with all the acolytes and all the people out there who were supporting him. But he reached out to you because of your scepticism. Why do you think he did that?

JACOB SILVERMAN: Yeah. That's one thing that I haven't quite figured out. I've tried to speak with Sam more recently, but he's kind of pulled away from talking to most journalists, I think, for understandable reasons. I think one thing is that a lot of the crypto media or sort of the mainstream media when it would cover crypto was very laudatory. And people did see a lot of potential here. The numbers were going up. People were making money. It seemed exciting. This technological story was convincing for a lot of folks even if they didn't understand it. And I and some other journalists and critics were pretty openly sceptical. I think Sam did like talking to people. In his own sort of awkward way, he was quite social. And I think he wanted to convince people. And he probably had a little bit of the arrogance of being at the top of the field. So when someone like me or some other journalists were openly questioning some of his moves, like his political donations or the viability of crypto itself, that provoked a response.

MK: He also surrounded himself with celebrity endorsements as you mentioned. Steph Curry, Tom Brady, Kevin O'Leary who a lot of CBC viewers will remember very well. What difference did that make? And, you know, O'Leary himself who had said first he considered crypto to be garbage, and then he comes around and then seen Sam Bankman-fried as, you know, the second coming. What difference did that make for the everyday investors for their own confidence, you know, about getting in on this?

JACOB SILVERMAN: I think it made a big difference. And we've talked to people through the show and through my own reporting who are convinced by the sales pitch. And I think ultimately, there are a lot of good reasons why everyday consumers or retail traders as they're often called, were convinced because all the hype was going in Crypto's direction. Then you have famous people trying to entice you on board, whether it's Steph Curry, beloved basketball star or Tom Brady or Giselle or Kevin O'Leary who's famous for being a businessman for his judgements on Shark Tank. We talked to someone on the show, a Canadian who was convinced by Kevin O'Leary's pitch. I think one nice thing about this show is that we do go through a lot of archival audio of recent years. And it is remarkable to hear someone like O'Leary say, I'm paraphrasing, but basically calling it all nonsense. And then just a year or two later, he's endorsing Sam Bankman-fried because, I mean, frankly, he was paid $18 Million in cash in crypto.

MK: That'll buy a lot of support.

JACOB SILVERMAN: It will. And as Kevin O'Leary will now tell you and told us, a lot of that was stuck on the FTX platform and he wants his money back. He's angry at Sam. But we try to talk about the people who are at the top of this industry, including all the famous endorsers. I think they do have some responsibility towards the public because while people can do their own due diligence, they still trust some of these figures. And as we talked to Kevin O'Leary, it seemed he didn't quite do the due diligence that he should have. I mean, he claims he did, but then he also acknowledged, hey, I trusted the other big firms and big investors who were jumping on board basically the hottest ticket in town.

MK: You mentioned the political donations that Sam Bankman-fried had made in the U.S. He made about $40 million in political donations in the 2022 election cycle. Did those political donations insulate him from scrutiny?

JACOB SILVERMAN: I think so. I think they certainly did not hurt, but I think they did help because he was quite open about sort of the influence campaign, if you want to call it that. He was meeting with politicians all the time. When I met him briefly over the summer, he told us that he had just gotten back from Washington, D.C. He was taking pictures with people. A lot of the donations were publicly recorded. Now, according to the federal government, some of them were sent through straw donors or other means perhaps. But, you know, there were American regulators who were posting selfies with Sam Bankman-fried. That says a lot about the American government too. So, you know, this was a concerted effort by Sam and colleagues to influence policy in Washington. There are other forces in the crypto industry, PACs and interest groups that were trying to do this, but Sam was really at the head of it. Some people resented him for that. Some people thought he was good for crypto for doing that, but it certainly wasn't hidden. And that's something that I've tweeted about in the past. And, you know, I had a couple sort of little tiffs or debates with Sam about it on Twitter before, but we knew this was going on. And you could see connected to that, agencies like the SEC or most especially the CFTC as it's called here, were very slow in coming to address some of these issues. And I think part of that is that the political environment really favoured crypto in general. Some of these agencies, I think, or specific regulators wanted to do something. They saw danger on the horizon. They saw people already being scammed or losing their money, but there wasn't any sort of political will or pressure to do something about this, I think, until rather recently.

MK: I mean, obviously, there is risk involved in any investment. And there’s certainly one with crypto. And I guess a lot of people just overlooked the possibility or overlooked those risks. But what were the first red flags that FTX was in trouble and what happened when those cracks started to appear?

JACOB SILVERMAN: Well, I think there are a couple of ways to look at this. One thing that makes this a really interesting story, in my opinion, is that before early November, most people thought FTX was doing fine and was somehow even as many other companies crumbled in spring and summer of 2022, FTX was actually the one choosing survivors there, bailing out other companies, acquiring other companies. And so I think a lot of people thought that Sam had things under control. But what happened was on November 2nd, a balance sheet of Alameda’s holdings, the hedge fund that's closely tied to FTX was published by Coindesk, an industry publication. And that showed that Alameda didn't have that much cash, real dollars, and was really dependent on a lot of cryptocurrencies that themselves weren't very desirable. So if it tried to sell them, it would not be able to get much real money for them. And that precipitated essentially the equivalent of a bank run. There are other forces involved, but I think what's really remarkable for a lot of people is that this all kind of played out within a week almost. And then Sam was arrested about three weeks later. And that speed is sort of typical to crypto because it's such a volatile world. But before fall of 2022, I think anyone who said that there were red flags about FTX would have been right. But they were very rare voices.

MK: In that bank run in the end, how much money was lost?

JACOB SILVERMAN: Well, that's an interesting question also because it's still being figured out. Basically, there are 12 charges that SBF is facing. A number of his colleagues have already pled guilty. So, you know, we can fill in some of the pieces while still saying these are alleged crimes on his part. But at least $8 billion was funneled from FTX That's consumer deposits, which are never supposed to move. The people basically gambling on the FTX exchange were moved to Alameda to do whatever they wanted with and including investments, Alameda making its own trades, and Sam and his friends apparently buying real estate and doing all kinds of other things. So at least $8 billion was moved. That is the apparent hole a lot of that money was lost. The new leadership of FTX has found about $6 billion worth of assets that they've recovered. But, you know, this is going to take a long time to figure out. And it will take a long time for the average everyday customer of FTX to get some of their money back, which unfortunately will probably be maybe 20% of what they originally put in. So it's billions, but we're still figuring out where all the money went and how much is missing.

MK: And I guess what fascinates me with this as well is there are the retail investors that you mentioned, but you also had the Ontario teachers’ pension plan. I mean, these are, you know, as you call them, the blue chip of the blue chip. How did they get caught up in this?

JACOB SILVERMAN: Well, a couple of things. One thing that we even heard from Kevin O'Leary was that if you are sort of a prominent venture capitalist or institutional investor and you got a meeting with them, you probably weren't given that much information or that much time to make your decision. And I think that was intentional on FTX’s part. So people were kind of trusting their peers. And, you know, there was FOMO at the investor level, much less at the consumer level.

MK: People really feared they were missing out.

JACOB SILVERMAN: Exactly. And I do think if you time out red flags, though, let's go back and look. If you have these institutional investors that are really supposed to play it safe investing in a cryptocurrency company, I think is itself a red flag or a sign that things are a little out of whack because, you know, even a year or two ago when some of these investments were happening, people knew that this was a volatile and unproven industry. People knew that Sam Bankman-fried’s company was largely offshore and unregulated. So there were a lot of reasons why, you know, the smart money should have been sceptical.

MK: How did Changpeng Zhao, the Canadian businessman, CEO of Binance, another crypto exchange, how did he help contribute to FTX's collapse?

JACOB SILVERMAN: This is an interesting part of the story, I think, because it tells you a lot about crypto and how the industry functions and how the industry is actually rather small. So Binance is the largest exchange in the world by far. FTX was arguably second, though you could say that SBF was probably the most visible face of crypto certainly in North America. CZ as he’s widely known, the CEO of Binance is a Canadian citizen but lives mostly in Dubai. The company is sort of global with no real headquarters, and we have to say is being investigated all over the world, including in the United States. But Binance was an early investor, an important one in FTX. And so there was a certain point when FTX was seeking a license in Gibraltar. And Gibraltar wanted information about FTX’s investors. And eventually, that created problems for Binance who doesn't really like to release information about its companies. So Sam said to CZ, let me buy out your investment in our company. Sam didn't have dollars to do that or euros or whatever else. He had tokens. He had cryptocurrencies. So he used Binance’s own token and the token that his company made, which was called FTT, and basically gave CZ $1.6 billion or so worth of those tokens and said, okay, we've bought out your investment. The problem with that is now your rival owns a bunch of your token. And so what happened was when things looked bad, there had already been a growing rivalry between these companies. Actually, a lot of public sort of trash talking. And CZ said, okay, I'm going to sell all of my FTT tokens. Those are the FTX's cryptocurrency. And when you do that, that's like dumping a stock on the market. And that means the price will plummet. CZ knew that almost very likely. But he was willing to do it because it hurt his rival. And that basically precipitated a bank run. The token plummeted in price and everything really unraveled from there. And that exposed the underlying fraud and disorder. But CZ really kind of helped push over FTX. I wouldn't say he took them down, but he certainly played a role. And then briefly after he announced, okay, I'm selling all these tokens, I don't really like what I see, a couple days later, he had a preliminary agreement to actually buy FTX for probably very cheap. And then it was a non-binding agreement. It was publicly announced. He then looked at his books and he said, I'm sorry, this is too much of a mess. We can't help here. That was sort of the killing blow, to be honest. That assured that no one else was going to come and swoop in and rescue FTX.

MK: You have one voice in the podcast that describes this whole thing as plain old embezzlement. How does Sam Bankman-fried describe what happened?

JACOB SILVERMAN: Sam has spoken in his own defence a lot since the company went down and even since his own arrests, which I think is surprising to a lot of people. And now he has some restrictions imposed on him by the court and I think by his own lawyers. But he explains it that Alameda, which he owned 90% of Alameda, but he claims he wasn't paying attention to what they were doing. He was just managing FTX. Meanwhile, they were trading on FTX. So this other company he owns was trading on FTX which he also owns. Alameda had special trading privileges. And they were allowed to borrow a lot of money on margin, which is the term that they use. And he claims that basically Alameda had developed these huge positions on margin, all this borrowed money, the market had a general downturn, Alameda’s positions went basically sideways and that's how he lost all this money. But, you know, that's a very narrow view of things. And that doesn't even address all the charges or all the accusations that SBF is facing. That sort of narrow interpretation of a couple of trades by Alameda may be true, but, you know, there are accusations about embezzlement of money or theft of money in order to fund politicians, in order to buy real estate, in order to invest in other companies and other places. So it can't just be about a couple of trades gone wrong. It's a more complicated and vaster story and vaster alleged fraud than just, oops, we made some mistakes.

MK: Right. But the impact, you know, the death blow on FTX is one thing, but what has this done to the crypto market in general?

JACOB SILVERMAN: The crypto market as usual is all over the place. It's definitely in more than a year long decline. But you know, just in the last month or so, Bitcoin had a little run at least by industry standards that excited some folks. But I think you can't deny that consumer crypto at least as we know it is if not dead then on life support. A lot of companies have failed. And as we say in the podcast, SBF was going to make crypto safe for the masses. This was the guy. Even though he was operating from the Bahamas, outside of real scrutiny, still, he was going to make it safe for North Americans and Americans especially. And he was the one in the media and on Capitol Hill pitching this. So that changes things enormously. And then you have other major companies facing problems. There are a lot of banking issues for crypto now. A major bank called Silvergate, which serviced the crypto industry has utterly failed and is being liquidated. So it's going to take a while for this to shake out. People in the industry will tell you, hey, we've gone through boom and bust before. Wait a couple of years, we'll be back again. I think it is a bit different this time. The consumer interest is less. A lot of real everyday people lost their money and frankly lost their trust in the industry. So if crypto is going to continue on or come back in some major way, I think it has to change both in terms of how it protects users and what it's offering them.

MK: And I wonder too, just as you were describing, how much money he had been throwing around. And he bought the naming rights to a basketball arena. He had the FTX on Major League Baseball umpires’ sleeves. I mean, there were a lot of people who bought into this. And where's the accountability? I mean, what point for them as well that they helped build this illusion that FTX was safe and trustworthy? Who stands up at some point and says we were wrong?

JACOB SILVERMAN: Yeah. I don't know, honestly, if that many people will, because frankly, they face legal liability. I mean, there are already some class action lawsuits against FTX's endorsers and investors. We mentioned that Kevin O'Leary was named in one. You know, these lawsuits often get dismissed or refiled Again. You know, there's going to be litigation for many years to come. But in terms of people actually taking personal responsibility and saying, you know, if you're an NBA player and you endorse FTX, it's different than just endorsing, say, a film or a video game or something like that.

MK: Or a sports drink or something that you think is a little closer to home.

JACOB SILVERMAN: Yeah, because these are financial products that are really unproven, where people can lose all their money. You know, it's not a known discrete cost like you're endorsing a sports drink or a $30 video game. It's a different kind of thing. You're endorsing also a financial plan and lifestyle for people. I mean, these companies, especially FTX, are really speaking to people's insecurities, I think, and sort of that instinct that sure, who doesn't want to strike it rich or kind of get money for nothing, which was one of the promises of crypto. And so I would hope that one day people realize at least what they were selling and the impact and influence they can have, and that this isn't just a normal business like any other to endorse.

MK: Yeah. And as you said at the outset, this really is about more than cryptocurrency. There is a lot of the human condition that's been wrapped up into this story. And I think that's the fascinating element of it.

JACOB SILVERMAN: Yeah. We say briefly at the show that fraud is a social crime, that when people are defrauded or lose all their money even just because FTX shuts down, they have to tell their families or friends. They might need that money. Certainly, if you read some of the stories written to bankruptcy courts for FTX or especially for Celsius, another company that FTX had dealings with that went down, these are tragic stories. I mean, people thought that they could keep their money on a platform and get it the next day if they needed it, and now they can't. And, you know, the effects radiate beyond the initial person who just thought it'd be fun to gamble on the platform. They have to tell their families or they may have to borrow money or maybe they can move on. But you know, it affects one’s sense of trust. It can come with substance abuse issues. It's not just, hey, someone thought it’ll be fun to buy crypto and now they lost out. There are social issues that derive from this.

MK: Yeah. It's a tragic tale and a cautionary tale at the same time. Jacob, good to talk to you about it today.

JACOB SILVERMAN: I appreciate it. Thank you.

MK: Jacob Silverman hosts the new CBC podcast The Naked Emperor. Find it on the CBC Listen app or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Coming up after your regional update.

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DANIEL ROHER: I would like to dedicate this award to Navalny, to all political prisoners around the world. Alexei, the world has not forgotten your vital message to us all. We cannot, we must not be afraid to oppose dictators.

MK: That's Canadian filmmaker Daniel Roher delivering a strong message after his Oscar win for his documentary about Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny. Roher was one of many Canadians taking home statues at the Academy Awards last night. But for the most part, the films they were recognized were American. We'll talk about the challenges of filmmaking in this country in about 15 minutes. And also, it was the sexually transmitted infection that was close to being eradicated. So why is syphilis spreading so quickly now? The numbers of cases in Canada are growing, and we'll find out why doctors are alarmed. That's coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Mark Kelley. You're listening to The Current.

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SYPHILIS

Guests: Dr. Darrell Tan, Caroline Cameron

MK: I'm Mark Kelley and you're listening to The Current. Doctors in many parts of the country are seeing a resurgence in syphilis. In British Columbia, for example, there were 150 cases of the sexually transmitted infection reported back in 2010. Last year, that number rose to 2000. That's a 13 fold increase. Dr. Troy Grennan is the lead physician at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control's Sexual Health Programs.

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DR. TROY GRENNAN: One of the more alarming finding is that we're seeing a shift in the people who are impacted. So, you know, historically in B.C., in Canada and in many parts of the world, syphilis has primarily occurred in men who have sex with other men. So MSM for short. In 2022, in B.C. for the first time, the majority. So more than 50% of the new cases we're seeing in non MSM populations. And one of the key challenges around that is that we're seeing increasing cases in folks who are capable of getting pregnant. So, you know, women of childbearing age.

MK: Dr. Darrell Tan is an infectious disease physician at St Michael's Hospital, a site of Unity Health Toronto. He's also the Canada Research chair in HIV Prevention and STI Research. Good morning, Doctor.

DR. DARRELL TAN: Good morning.

MK: The numbers, and I was just catching up on this, that the numbers are staggering in this country where we're seeing the highest rates in Canada in three decades. Alberta's rates the highest since 1948. Tell us what trend you're seeing with syphilis where you are.

DR. DARRELL TAN: Yeah. Here in Toronto, we're absolutely seeing the same thing. We've seen rates of syphilis like that of other sexually transmitted infections, gonorrhoea, chlamydia, go up and up and up year after year. And as was mentioned earlier by that quotation from Dr. Grennan, we see a preponderance of cases in this part of the country, in many other urban parts of the country, in gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men. But we're starting to see it increasingly in other groups as well. And particularly the folks who are capable of getting pregnant is of particular concern because this infection can be particularly devastating in pregnancy.

MK: Yeah. So why that shift? Why is it moving now towards women of childbearing age?

DR. DARRELL TAN: It's a really great question. And I think in some senses, of course, we can only speculate. We can't know for certain, but one part of it may simply be a numbers game. You know, when you have cases, case rates that are going up to this degree, you start to see it spread beyond just the core sexual networks that had traditionally been involved. And those sexual networks themselves are diverse. So you can have folks who, for example, would traditionally only have sex with men, but maybe include a few folks who have sex with both men and women. And in that regard, you can see a little bit more transmission into other groups that hadn't been as affected in the past. And that might be one of many reasons that we see it in in women. I think another whole set of really important reasons that we need to not overlook is that infectious diseases in general, STIs are no exception. And sometimes even a good example of this can often spread into populations as a function of structural forces, of discrimination, of racism, of colonization that differentially impact people's willingness or perhaps ability to access care at earlier stages where we can maybe nip things in the bud.

MK: Well, let's focus now on this concern about women of childbearing age. Tell us why this is alarming for the medical community.

DR. DARRELL TAN: Yeah. Well, syphilis like many other infectious diseases, if it occurs in the setting of pregnancy, can have really devastating impact on the developing foetus and potentially on the child in addition to the person who contracts the infection in the first place, the pregnant person. And it can lead to outcomes such as, you know, foetal demise as we call it. In other words, the pregnancy can end or stillbirth. And then in a child, there can be many, many manifestations as well, some of which are pretty devastating, but interestingly, some of which may not actually be that obvious initially. And it can affect organ systems like the brain, the bones and joints. Virtually any organ system in the body can be affected by this infection. And so it's particularly devastating in that regard.

MK: And have you begun to see that with infants?

DR. DARRELL TAN: I mean, I myself am not a pediatrician. I don't see those cases myself typically. But we have seen the numbers show that rates in Canada have gone up something like five-fold in what we call congenital syphilis over the last decade or so. And that's of really great concern.

MK: The bottom line, though, Doctor, and explain this to me, that syphilis is a treatable condition. So why has there been this failure to treat it?

DR. DARRELL TAN: It's an excellent question. And I think if we take a really long view, you know, rates have been going up for this and other sexually transmitted infections really for decades. You know, we saw rises start in, you know, the sixties and seventies with the era of sexual liberation. There was a dramatic change in sexual behavior. And public health interventions had a lot of impact, of course, during the earlier decades of the HIV pandemic, which continues. But although that's the case, we've had a lot of successes with the HIV treatment and prevention interventions. So as a result, we're starting, I think, to see in the last decade or two, a continuation of trends that had really been going on for decades before. So, you know, we do have very effective treatments. Syphilis, for example, is treated with simply two or more injections of plain old penicillin, which is an antibiotic that we've had around, again, for decades. And it's remained universally susceptible to that. But if folks are not accessing care earlier in the course of infection or if they're simply not aware of it, if clinicians are not aware of this or are confused about how to interpret diagnostic tests, which can certainly happen with syphilis, then we can see cases continue to spiral as we've seen and have a hard time getting control of the epidemic.

MK: Yeah, because from my understanding, I mean, some people may not even know that they have syphilis. It has been called the great imitator because it can present as other diseases. So what are the symptoms of syphilis?

DR. DARRELL TAN: It can have really diverse symptoms. And again, as you highlight, that's one of the big challenges with syphilis. However, just a few of the classic patterns, you know, when someone first comes in contact with this infection through sexual activity, typically, then it can cause an ulcer at the part of the body that was exposed. But that ulcer is painless. And it can also be in a part of the body where the person may not see it or be aware of it. You know, for example, the vagina, the rectum, the mouth. And so that stage can obviously easily be dismissed entirely. Secondly, it can cause maybe more classic symptoms like a fever and a rash. And like so many other infectious diseases, it can cause those common symptoms. So those are ones that often prompt people to seek medical attention, we hope, if they feel comfortable and where they have access to care. So those cases can be picked up maybe a little bit more easily. But other times, it can cause all kinds of other complications, as you were mentioning. It's called the Great Imitator because it can affect the brain and cause neurological problems. It can affect the eye and cause people to lose their vision, the ear, and cause people to lose their hearing. We've seen kidney involvement, liver involvement, bone and joint involvement. So many, many different systems can be involved. And then last of all, of course, the most confusing and frustrating thing is that it can cause no symptoms at all and people can contract it without even realizing it, allowing the progression of the disease.

MK: But given all that, and with the stakes so high and not only to an adult population, but also as you're mentioning, to an infant population, how should we be screening for the disease to try to eradicate it?

DR. DARRELL TAN: Yeah. Well, the screening test that we have available is a simple blood test. And that can be ordered by any clinician relatively easily. I think the challenge comes in realizing that it's what we call clinically indicated. In other words, realizing that, you know, here's a situation in which I should order this test on this person or this person should seek it out. Certainly, settings where we know that folks have high rates of partner change or have frequent more casual partners or short term relationships with partners would be a great setting to test folks frequently, as frequently as every three months. For example, according to Canadian STI treatment guidelines, an example of that situation is folks who are accessing other sexual health interventions like HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis. And that's an area that we're definitely trying to ramp up because we have ongoing struggles with that other epidemic, of course, HIV in this country. Another important setting for screening is in pregnancy. And indeed, it's been standard to test folks when they become pregnant. But there are, first of all, folks who unfortunately don't access prenatal care or may just simply present when they're actively in labour. And that removes the opportunity to test earlier for infections like syphilis. And also, of course, during the course of a single pregnancy, someone might still be at risk for this and other infectious diseases. And so we can't assume that just testing once is always going to be adequate in that setting.

MK: Well, consider the message delivered. Doctor, thank you for your time this morning.

DR. DARRELL TAN: Thank you very much.

MK: Dr. Darrell Tan is an infectious disease specialist at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. And while rates of syphilis continue to rise, there are very few scientists devoted to understanding the bacteria that causes the infection and how to fight it. Caroline Cameron leads the only lab in Canada doing this kind of research. She's a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at the University of Victoria. Good morning.

CAROLINE CAMERON: Good morning.

MK: Seems to be a paradox that we're seeing these exploding rates of syphilis in this country. And yet there are so few people studying syphilis in this country. How do you explain that?

CAROLINE CAMERON: It is definitely a problem. And part of the reason why there are so few people is that this bacterium is very difficult to work with. So it tends to have fewer people join the field because of those difficulties.

MK: So why then? What got you interested in this work?

CAROLINE CAMERON: So it's definitely a challenge. And you have to think outside the box and be creative when you're thinking about ways to work with this bacterium and try to develop things like new diagnostic tests and a vaccine, which is what we really need. And so that really drew me to this field, that challenge.

MK: And what do you think about what you've seen, the numbers across the country, the explosion in the rates of syphilis?

CAROLINE CAMERON: Well, as Dr. Tan your last guests said that we've been seeing these increases for decades. And so it's not surprising that the numbers have now increased. We're also seeing a reduced use of condoms, and that has led to the increasing rates as well. So it's not surprising, but it's very unfortunate. And we really need to get some better biomedical interventions for this disease.

MK: Well, tell us more about the bacterium that's responsible for syphilis infections. How much do we actually know about it?

CAROLINE CAMERON: We actually know very little about this bacterium. There are not many of us who are studying it, as I mentioned. And so we really don't understand how it works, how it infects a person or ways to appropriately combat it or prevent that infection.

MK: But have you seen a willingness to invest more into the research given the growing problem in this country?

CAROLINE CAMERON: Yes. So the interest has definitely increased. We are starting to get more philanthropic organizations who are providing funding for research. And we're starting to see more people join the field, which is what is really needed in order to get those innovative research programs going to figure out how to combat this infection.

MK: You mentioned at the outset, you know, the complexity of studying this. But is there just also some sort of stigma related that people don't want to get involved in this?

CAROLINE CAMERON: There's certainly a lot of stigma associated with this disease. Historically, it's been one of the great diseases that has revolved around stigma. And for many people who are studying this disease, that does kind of translate over into research. But we're now seeing this influx of many, which is really helping with research programs.

MK: Okay. Well, bring us up to speed. You mentioned earlier the key word vaccines, and that's what we're all focussed on with things like this. Where are we now with the development of a vaccine?

CAROLINE CAMERON: We're still at the early stages because we don't know as a field very much about this bacterium and how to prevent infection and even how it causes infection. We're not very far along. And we have only recently been able to grow this bacterium as well. So we are just starting to be able to move to the place where a lot of other researchers are who are studying other pathogens. So yeah, we're early on, but we're very hopeful that we'll make those discoveries and advance quickly.

MK: Well, it's early on. So how far are we away from the vaccine against this?

CAROLINE CAMERON: Yeah. That's the million dollar question, of course, that everybody wants to know, because we definitely need to augment these public health measures with a vaccine, an effective vaccine. I guess conservative estimates are five to 10 years away. But we really need more people to join the field to expand the research population.

MK: Yeah. I hear that almost pleading in your voice like I need help. Are you feeling some of the pressure right now as you see those numbers grow and shouting from the rooftops saying we've got to take this seriously?

CAROLINE CAMERON: Definitely. I mean, everybody is now starting to be aware of this disease and wanting a solution. And we need to catch up to that need and develop those vaccines and a better diagnostic test.

MK: Have you seen any other jurisdiction that has been steps ahead of Canada on this?

CAROLINE CAMERON: You know, everybody else is pretty much in the same boat. There's not many people around the world who are studying this bacterium. So everybody's in the same situation, unfortunately.

MK: Well, I wish you good luck. There's a lot at stake here. And clearly, you need some more support.

CAROLINE CAMERON: Perfect. Thanks so much for having me on.

MK: Thanks for your time. Caroline Cameron is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at the University of Victoria.

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CANADIAN FILMS

Guest: Sami Khan

MK: I'm Mark Kelley and you're listening to The Current.

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[audience applauding]

SARAH POLLEY: Miriam Toews wrote an essential novel about a radical act of democracy in which people who don't agree on every single issue managed to sit together in a room and carve out a way forward together free of violence. They do so not just by talking, but also by listening. The last line of our film is delivered by a young woman to a new baby and she says, your story will be different from ours. It's a promise, a commitment and an anchor. And it's what I would like to say with all of my might to my three incredible kids, Eve, Isla and Amy as they make their way through this complicated, beautiful world.

MK: Well, that was just one of the big Canadian winners at the Academy Awards, Sarah Polley's acceptance speech for Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking, based on the novel by Canadian Miriam Toews. Canadian-American actor Brendan Fraser took home the best Actor statue for The Whale. Montreal designer Adrien Morot won for his work on the prosthetics Fraser used in the film. And Toronto filmmaker Daniel Roher won best documentary for his timely look at Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. And Niagara Falls’s own James Cameron's film Avatar: The Way of the Water won for best visual effects. Between winners and nominees, Canadians had their best Oscars showing in a long time. But most of their films are not home-grown. They are American productions. It's an issue Toronto filmmaker Sami Khan is very familiar with. In 2020, his film St. Louis Superman was nominated for best documentary short at the Oscars. Sami joins me in studio this morning. Morning, Sami.

SAMI KHAN: Morning, Mark. How are you doing?

MK: I'm doing well. So what did you think of last night? I know we're going to dissect this, but at the outset, it seems to be a great day for Canadian film.

SAMI KHAN: Yeah. I mean, I think it's a great day for cinema in general. I think the films just have a verve to them that were nominated this year. And of course, it's always a little weird, you know, giving golden statues to a work of art. But it was fun. And I told your producers I would dance to Naatu Naatu, but they reminded me that this is the radio. So.

MK: [laughing] So there'll be no dancing on The Current.

SAMI KHAN: It's like Footloose.

MK: Sarah Polley’s speech was a big moment. And I mean, as Canadians, should we be taking pride in the accomplishments of our Canadians on this stage?

SAMI KHAN: Sure. I mean, Sarah Polley is a singular artist. She's, you know, one of the most profound filmmakers out there anywhere. And, you know, I kind of reframe the question. It's like, you know, why should Canadians care about Canadian cinema? And given all that's going on in the world, you know, war, inflation, health care struggles, why should they care? You know, oh, I can watch Sarah Polley's film and it's kind of Canadian. You know, technically, legally not, but it's kind of Canadian. Why should they care about a home-grown industry here? Well, we're going through a big existential crisis, you know, across humanity. It's not just Canada, but across the world. And we're losing people. We're losing people to opioids, we are losing people to conspiracy theories. We're just losing young people in general to mental health crisis. And a nation that can't talk to itself through one of the most dominant popular art forms is facing a huge existential crisis. And it can help ameliorate the pain that people are going through. You know, if it's for two hours, then it's for two hours. But again, a nation that can't talk to itself through its culture is a cause for worry.

MK: Well, as you mentioned, with Women Talking, it's kind of Canadian. I mean, you've got Sarah Polley, a Canadian, directing and adapting a screenplay from a book written by a Canadian, and yet it's an American made movie. Why wasn't this movie made in Canada?

SAMI KHAN: I mean, the simplest answer is that Canada can't compete with the U.S., right? I think there's a statistic in one of the articles I was reading to the lead up, I think it was in the Toronto Star by the president of the Writers Guild of Canada, where just on the TV side, there's 20 times more money there. There's just not the capital to invest in artists. So it's the lure. If you get to a certain point in your career, you have to look to the U.S. for creative options. And the other issue, I think, is that capital in Canada in the entertainment industry, especially in film, feature film is not deployed across the board. You know, there's the belief that if we just invest in films, we produce films, then that's it. Great. We're funding Canadian content. But, you know, when Disney movies have marketing budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars, how can you compete with that? For example, there's a great Canadian film, an excellent Canadian film coming out in a week called Riceboy Sleeps. It's opening I think March 17th. And, you know, it's one of the most acclaimed Canadian films of the last 12 months. But you'd be hard pressed to find information on it anywhere because it's up against these huge behemoths. So I think if capital was sort of deployed across the board, if the funding agencies could think about marketing and exhibition, not just the production of it, but recognize the predicament they're in.

MK: Your film St. Louis Superman is considered an American film despite your involvement as a director and producer. Do you think it would have found the same kind of success had it been funded and owned by a Canadian company?

SAMI KHAN: No. No. I don't think so. And a big part of the success of the film was the distributors, both the commissioning producer and then the executive producer, Sheila Nevins, who’s sort of the maven of documentary film, the godmother of documentary film in the United States. And we wouldn't have gone on the journey that we went on because very early on, before we had even finished the film, they were thinking about how they were going to release the film with the biggest impact.

MK: I understand that we can't compete with Hollywood, we can't compete with America, but good ideas are good ideas. And why can't they find that funding and that support in this country? I know we're not going to be able to compete with the U.S. That's accepted. But I go back to Sarah Polley, a Canadian actor or a Canadian director with a Canadian story. That seemed to be a no brainer that should have been made in Canada.

SAMI KHAN: Yeah. I mean, there's a lack of political will. You know, I think there are institutions like, you know, the Writers Guild of Canada, like the Canadian Media Producers Alliance. They've tried for many years and things are getting better. I think things are getting better. You know, when I started in the industry a decade or more ago, it was pretty dire. But things are getting better. But there are concrete things that I think would help. Bill C-11 would help. You know, I think they need to account for the fact that there are Canadian writers and directors involved in making Canadian content. But I put it back to the exhibition and distribution. There should be requirements four Canadian screens that, you know, the monopoly, the monopolistic power that controls Canadian cinemas should be required to have whatever it is, 5%, 10% of screens, some X amount of…

MK: Sort of a Cancon type.

SAMI KHAN: Exactly. And, you know, you can look at Canadian television as a very vibrant era for Canadian television across the board, whether it's here at the CBC or across the street at Bell. You know, it's a very vibrant time for television. So, you know, I think if there were those requirements on theatrical screens, you could look in 20, 30 years, Canadian cinema could be what South Korean cinema is today. And that's why South Korean cinema has this hold over the globe right now. It’s because of that protection, because of that government support.

MK: Yeah. I was curious about that. You mentioned South Korea. There's France, there's Ireland, there's these countries that have a very, very vibrant cinema industry. So what can we learn from them?

SAMI KHAN: Yeah. I mean, I think it's that. I think there are just specific pieces of legislation in order to protect, you know, those screens. And I think it's also on the political leaders because the unions, the producers, the film institutions, they've tried and they've made progress. But there needs to be a political leader, honestly, at this point who will, you know, put it on the line and be like okay, Canadian culture, Canadian English, Canadian feature films are important to me. I'm going to be the one that's going to navigate this bill through because you understand why given inflation, given health care, given war.

MK: Yeah. I was going to say, given all those things right now that are crying out as political priorities, where does cinema rank?

SAMI KHAN: But again, I pointed to like it's connected, right? The opioid crisis, the skyrocketing rates of opioid addiction, mental health crisis for teenagers, especially for teenage girls. A nation that can't communicate with itself, that has lost an everyday connection to the transcendent is losing its way. And Canada, the next 50 years are going to see profound demographic change, profound technological change. We need a cultural town square where we can gather. And not everybody's going to go to the movies, but you can look at say even a movie, you know, as popcorny as Top Gun Maverick, you know, it just speaks to American culture in a very specific way. Or Elvis, you know, those movies were in some ways surprise successes. But, you know, Americans, people around the world are sort of craving that, you know, that communal experience. And my bias is towards the movies. So the theatrical movie-going experience, maybe I sound like a geriatric millennial that I am, but like I think that's an important part of it, is that theatrical experience.

MK: I think you make a compelling case. Sami, Thank you.

SAMI KHAN: Thanks, Mark.

MK: Sami Khan's documentary short St. Louis Superman was nominated for an Oscar back in 2020. Well, that's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. I'm Mark Kelley. I'm sitting in for a few days for a resting Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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Monday March 13, 2023 Episode Transcript

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