Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2023

The Current Transcript for April 11, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

MALE SPEAKER: Our society ignores the hard truth of the normalcy of violence between intimate partners and within families, and the ways in which this violence spills out and escalates to affect other people too.

MATT GALLOWAY: When the Mass Casualty Commission released its report last month into the murders of 22 people in Nova Scotia, it was unequivocal in its language, treat intimate partner violence as an epidemic in Canada and tackle it with the resources you would use to address any other public health emergency. This morning, a look at the urgency behind those words. In just a moment, Katie Nicholson's documentary about a group of women, all survivors, who have found and are supporting each other. And we’ll hear from those pressing the federal government to take action now. Also this morning, in an era of texting, voice memos and email, spare a thought for handwriting.

SOUNDCLIP

ANDREA RAYMOND WONG: My cursive, my handwriting is terrible, so it's best used when I'm scrawling notes really quickly. I think it borders on illegible.

MG: Coming up, the drive to revive the handwritten word. Plus, what a series of leaks from U.S. intelligence reveals about the course of the Ukraine war. We begin, though, with a story of survivors. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

EX-WIVES CLUB DOCUMENTARY

MG: 44% of women in Canada will experience some form of intimate partner violence in their lives. The issue came up repeatedly in the Mass Casualty Commission's report in connection to broader institutional failings that led to tragedy in Nova Scotia three years ago. The effects of intimate partner violence are devastating, leaving survivors traumatized and often feeling isolated. But sometimes they discover they aren't the only ones. The CBC's Katie Nicholson has a story about sisterhood of survivors from across the country stepping in to support one another and warn others about the ex they all share. And a note of caution, some of the details and accounts in this story may be distressing. Katie's documentary is called Ex-Wives Club.

SOUNDCLIP

[music, running shower]

AMY GRAVES: I can remember the shower was still running. I had the towel in my hand. I went down the stairs. He’s sitting on the couch. I'm standing over him with the towel in my hand, yelling like it's over. It's done.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Statistically, the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship is when she decides to leave. Amy Graves says it was for her.

AMY GRAVES: He stood up and pinned me by my neck, started choking me against the wall at the bottom of my stairs. I don't even know if I was screaming because he was choking me so hard, hoping a neighbour would hear me or something. He would take turns between gouging my eyes, like sticking his fingers in around my eyeballs and choking me.

KATIE NICHOLSON: They were in the midst of a renovation and a screwdriver was lying on a ledge nearby.

AMY GRAVES: And he picked it up and he held it to my throat and said, you shut your mouth and be like f ing quiet or I’ll shove this in your neck and you'll never see your daughter again.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Amy Graves had been with Mike Poirier for a little over a year. The night she says he attacked her one last time, her daughter who was not Mike's child was at her father's house.

AMY GRAVES: At that moment, I was really scared. He put the screwdriver down. And I can remember when he did it, he slammed it in the ledge so it stood straight up.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Amy says Mike had been awake for several days, fuelled by alcohol and drugs. She waited for him to pass out as she packed a suitcase for the right moment to make a break for it.

AMY GRAVES: I can remember shoving my boots on without socks or anything. I had bare feet. My boots were tied and just running out the front door, grabbing the keys out of my bra. And as soon as he heard the car’s deet deet like to unlock…

KATIE NICHOLSON: He jumped up, rampaging through the house out towards her in the driveway.

AMY GRAVES: I opened the back door, threw my suitcase in the back, and as I was getting in the driver's seat, he grabbed my ankles. So I started kicking and he started yelling at me, you're not going anywhere. I'm going to find you. And I got it shut, locked the door. He hit the side of my car with something and dented the side, and I just backed up as fast as I could and rolled out of there.

[music up and fades to BG]

KATIE NICHOLSON: A few days later, Amy would formally take these allegations to police.

[knocking on door, door opening and shutting]

AMY GRAVES: Hi! Come on in. Do you want a coffee or anything before we start?

KATIE NICHOLSON: Love it.

AMY GRAVES: Okay.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Amy Graves has come a long way since that day. For one, she and her daughter left Alberta and they moved back home to Nova Scotia. She's in a good relationship with a loving and supportive partner. In her new home, she radiates happiness and relieved she's finally going to sit down and tell her story.

AMY GRAVES: It's kind of surreal.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Amy didn't know much about modern dating in 2018 when her ordeal with Mike Poirier began.

AMY GRAVES: I had never used online dating websites because I was with my previous spouse for about 13 years. So that was my first time kind of dipping my toe. So it wasn't long after I met Mike on Tinder. He talked about how he had two kids. And at that time, he said he had a relationship with them.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Amy said her new boyfriend just made her feel safe.

AMY GRAVES: I think it's like that alpha male personality. Like when I was around him, at the time, I felt I had somebody I could kind of count on.

KATIE NICHOLSON: But even then, in the midst of their honeymoon phase, some things about Mike seemed a little off.

AMY GRAVES: On his social media presence, there was like no history before me. Like there wasn't a lot of pictures of even his kids, his ex-wife. But he said it was too painful for him. He always had an excuse.

KATIE NICHOLSON: And then after Mike posted photos of them together at Christmas, she got a surprising DM.

AMY GRAVES: Hi, Amy. You don't know me and have no reason to, but I'm Mike's first ex-wife.

[transition to Linda reading the message]

LINDA O’DOHERTY: Ex-wife number two and soon-to-be number three and I have become good friends as I've helped them through the wrath of Mike. He's not what he says he is. I'm only sending this because I'm worried about your daughter.

[street sounds]

KATIE NICHOLSON: Linda O'Doherty is Mike's first ex-wife. Together they had two daughters, Kaylin and Ella. The last place Linda and the girls lived with Mike was this house in Newmarket, Ontario.

LINDA O’DOHERTY: This one right here is like homecoming. You know, we kind of came back to where it all started.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Linda first met Mike Poirier in the summer of 2001.

LINDA O’DOHERTY: He was sending money back home. I thought, wow, what a great person. And then he came down, moved in with me, struggled to find work, which was the whole case when we were married. I bought the house, cars, all of that.

[music up and fades to BG]

KATIE NICHOLSON: By 2002, they were married. But Linda says Mike wasn't quite the person he seemed to be when they were dating. He would disappear for days at a time. The bank would call asking Linda about suspicious transactions she knew nothing about. And Mike could be controlling, scary, dangerous. One night, Mike was in a dark mood, slamming doors and hurling insults. By then, Linda knew to steer clear of her husband when he was like this. She took their toddler into the bedroom, but he followed.

LINDA O’DOHERTY: That was when he lost it and he jumped on top of me and was choking me.

KATIE NICHOLSON: But in that moment, Linda wasn't thinking about her safety. She was terrified about her daughter’s. At that time, just a toddler.

LINDA O’DOHERTY: I was screaming, Kaylin is in the bed. He was so out of it he didn't even see Kaylin lying right there. To me, there was just nothing behind his eyes. He wasn't the person I knew.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Linda says Mike dragged her off the bed and onto the bedroom floor, his hand around her neck.

LINDA O’DOHERTY: He busted my lip open. There was a water bottle on the side table. He was throwing that all over me. There was even a little bit of thing of salsa. He was throwing that on me.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Linda called police. Officers arrived and arrested Mike. He was convicted of assault.

[music up and fades to BG]

KATIE NICHOLSON: Despite the brush with the courts, their marriage continued. And Linda said so did the manipulations and abuse: Emotional, verbal, financial. Until after eight years, Linda reached a breaking point. With her family's help, she kicked him out and sent him packing to his father in Newfoundland. Linda filed for divorce and was awarded sole custody.

[music up and fades to BG]

KATIE NICHOLSON: Mike moved on to a new woman in Newfoundland who would become his second wife in 2010. She didn't want to be identified to protect her young children with her new husband. She says her relationship with Mike also escalated into violence, but she never went to police until the very end. She filed a complaint when Mike bombarded her with calls, threats and texts as she sought a divorce. Mike was convicted of criminal harassment in 2013 and received a suspended sentence with 12 months of probation. The divorce was finalized the same year.

[music up and fades to BG]

KATIE NICHOLSON: As Mike’s second wife was trying to process the relationship, she sent an email to Linda. After several back and forths, he agreed to a phone call, a chat that lasted hours. From their shared trauma, a supportive friendship bloomed.

LINDA O’DOHERTY: I just helped her through her divorce process, and that's how this whole thing started.

[music up and fades to BG]

KATIE NICHOLSON: An ex-wives club of sorts to support each other and warn other women about what they believed Mike Poirier was capable of.

LINDA O’DOHERTY: We kind of started this group chat and then it kind of went from there.

KATIE NICHOLSON: The Ex-Wives Club became a lifeline and its membership kept growing.

MIREILLE SIMON: It admittedly happened very fast.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Mireille Simon knew Mike Poirier from their high school days in Labrador City. She built a life for herself in Yukon, one she very nearly had to rebuild after Mike re-entered her life in 2015.

MIREILLE SIMON: We started talking on a daily basis and that's when he was grooming me. You know, we were on the same page about everything, about finances, kids, the future, and I was just falling for him.

KATIE NICHOLSON: The following year, they were married and a familiar pattern began to repeat.

MIREILLE SIMON: We were at home. I don't remember exactly what the issue was, but I ended up walking away from him and he followed me and he grabbed me and he held me down on the ground and I was like, Mike, you're not supposed to do this to me.

KATIE NICHOLSON: She says Mike's abusive behaviour increased. He started disappearing for days at a time. At her wit's end, Mireille told him their marriage was over. When she locked him out of the house, he called the RCMP.

MIREILLE SIMON: And so they're like, well, somebody has to leave. And I'm like, well, this is my house. It's in my name. I guess he was telling the other cops that he had nowhere to go. And I was like, he's a grown ass man. He can figure it out.

KATIE NICHOLSON: But Mike had other ideas.

MIREILLE SIMON: Mike told them that I scratched his face and I was like, what are you talking about? I told the cops, take a sample from my fingernails. And then they're like, we’re charging you with an assault. And I'm like, what? Like I couldn't believe it.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Mireille was barred from her own home for a month because Mike got an injunction claiming abuse. Once it finally got to court, the judge allowed her back into her home and ordered Mike to stay away from her. The charge against Mireille was eventually dropped after she agreed to keep the peace.

MIREILLE SIMON: Mike was wailing in court after the judge rendered his decision. And the sheriff looked at me and said, I need to escort you out. You're not going to be safe. I was like, wow, isn't that ironic? I'm the one up on an assault charge, but I need to be escorted out for my own safety.

KATIE NICHOLSON: As she tried to disentangle herself from her husband, she had support from his past.

MIREILLE SIMON: Someone from our hometown reached out to me and said, I'm good friends with his previous wife, you know, let me know if there's anything I can do for you. And I was like, well, if you think she might be willing to connect with me and tell me about what she went through, that would be helpful.

KATIE NICHOLSON: The friend connected Mireille with Mike's second ex-wife in Newfoundland.

MIREILLE SIMON: There was just a sense of like the support, the understanding. You know, it's a shared experience. Like nobody else knows what it's like to deal with him but those who've been with him. Like they just truly know the evil that this man is. And we know there's more.

[music up and fades to BG]

KATIE NICHOLSON: The Ex-Wives Club was now three members strong. They spotted a post on Mike's social media about a new woman in his life.

LINDA READING: He's not what he says he is. And his ex-three is still trying to get divorced.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Linda sent her a note on Instagram to warn her about her new boyfriend. That new woman was Amy Graves.

LINDA READING: He's still married, by the way.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Amy wasn't sure what to make of the strange message. She asked Mike about Linda. He dismissed her as a vindictive ex. At first, Amy took him at his word. But a year later, with the relationship over, she responded.

AMY GRAVES: She called me and we spoke for hours.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Amy says her conversation with Linda was validating. She had started to doubt herself after more than a year of what she describes as abuse and gaslighting. Was she the problem? No, Mike was the problem and she wasn't alone. Mike was charged with forcible confinement, choking and assault with a weapon, after that night when Amy says he attacked her. Amy says it was a harrowing time for her, but she now had emotional support from his three ex-wives.

AMY GRAVES: And when I realized that this had happened to other strong women who they have great careers and they have their head on their shoulders, it made me feel not so alone and not as crazy and not as defective.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Amy got a protection order, but Mike kept breaching it. She felt the RCMP wasn't taking her case seriously. So Amy filed an official complaint. An internal RCMP investigation ruled she was right. It found that an officer neglected his duty in two instances and showed an improper attitude during the investigation.

AMY GRAVES: I feel like I was a privileged victim. I had knowledge of the legal system, I had good family support, good friends support, financially independent, and I still encountered all of these problems and hurdles, and it was extremely hard for me to break away from him. So I cannot imagine how hard it would be if someone didn't have the things that I had as a privileged person, how hard it would be to get out.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Court dates for Mike's trial were pushed back initially at his request. Meanwhile, Amy's health deteriorated. In December of 2021, she had an aneurysm and ended up in a coma. It's been a long, difficult road to recovery ever since. Through it all, the Ex-Wives Club has been in her corner, waiting for Amy to finally have her day in court.

[music up and fades to BG]

LINDA O’DOHERTY: I just felt anger. Why isn't something being done? And when does it get to the point where you actually kill somebody? I just don't want him to hurt anybody else. And I see what this has done to Amy and, you know, I really want the healing process for her to start.

KATIE NICHOLSON: And while Amy waited for the trial, she did what she could to pay it forward, monitoring social media to warn other women just like she was.

AMY GRAVES: I couldn't live with myself by saying nothing. And one thing I noticed too is it's almost like there's a type. All of these women have jobs that are stable, financially secure. Most of them have children and I know he will ruin that for them. And I don't want to see that happen because that's what he did to me.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Between them, the women of the Ex-Wives Club say they’ve warned dozens of others about Mike. Mireille says they had little choice.

MIREILLE SIMON: Because the justice system and the systems that are in place do a really shitty job of helping women going through that. And why not use the power of social media to let other women know what's going on? Albeit we shouldn't have to do that. There should be a way for people to have access to that information so that us survivors can just focus on our healing and move on with our lives.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Healing wouldn't come from the courts. On January 30th of this year, Amy couldn't testify at Mike's one day trial because of a complication from her aneurysm. Faced with another delay, an Alberta judge dropped all the charges.

AMY GRAVES: Oh, I cried. Like you think there are systems in place to protect you from bad people. And every step of the way, it didn't work in my favour. I mean, kicked when I'm down, for this greater good, help save somebody in the future. I just thought it was all for nothing. The past three years have been hell for me for nothing.

KATIE NICHOLSON: We reached out to Mike Poirier directly through his lawyer to respond to the arrests, convictions and allegations stemming from his relationships with women. Through his lawyer, he declined to comment. In the three year period Amy waited for a trial to face Mike in court, he pleaded guilty to more charges in Alberta, breaking into one woman's home and to criminally harassing another woman. A warrant is also outstanding in B.C. for two more criminal harassment charges involving yet another woman. Amy says the criminal justice system let her down, but the Ex-Wives Club didn't.

[music up and fades to BG]

AMY GRAVES: Oh, it's scary. Like I think about that. If there wasn't social media, like they wouldn't have been able to contact me and I would have never known and we probably would have never found each other.

LINDA O’DOHERTY: There's a lot of people that don't know how to help and support. And maybe that's why our little group across Canada was really important just to be able to help. It doesn't bring me any anger anymore. I don't feel scared. I feel very empowered.

KATIE NICHOLSON: Amy, Linda and Mireille have all gotten to know each other well over the years, although they haven't all met in person yet.

MIREILLE SIMON: We have a bond and nothing's going to change that. So I'm just incredibly thankful and grateful that they opened that door again to me. I hope to meet them in person one day.

AMY GRAVES: I guess it's kind of bittersweet because we were all drawn together by this horrible experience we had, but we all made it out on the other end and have beautiful lives. So I think we can celebrate that, that we all have happy, healthy, happy children and families and are doing well now.

[music up and out]

MG: The Ex-Wives Club was produced by Katie Nicholson with assistance from CBC's audio documentary unit. If you or someone close to you are a victim of intimate partner violence, resources are available. Visit endingviolencecanada.org to find resources in your area. And if you are in danger, please contact emergency services in your area. The CBC news is next. And then

SOUNDCLIP

PAMELA CROSS: The government should establish by statute an independent and impartial gender based violence commissioner who has adequate funding, stable funding and effective powers, including the responsibility to report annually to Parliament.

MG: That's one of many calls for governments in Canada to treat intimate partner violence as an epidemic. I'll speak with the lawyer, Pamela Cross, and we'll hear from Canada's Minister for Women and Gender Equality. That's coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE

Guests: Pamela Cross, Marci Ien

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

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, how texting and typing are changing our ability to put pen to paper, as well as what leaked Pentagon documents reveal about Canada's national security and the war in Ukraine. Those stories coming up in just under 30 minutes. But first, growing calls for intimate partner violence to be declared an epidemic.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Before the news, we were listening to Katie Nicholson's documentary, The Ex-Wives Club. If you didn't get a chance to hear it, you can find it on the CBC Listen app or on our website at cbc.ca/thecurrent. The story is not an easy one to hear. It is about a group of women who survived abuse. Pamela Cross was listening. She is a lawyer and advocate for women's issues. Pam, good morning.

PAMELA CROSS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: The women in Katie's documentary joined forces because they felt there was no other way to warn women about what they went through with this man. What does that tell you?

PAMELA CROSS: It tells me a few things, some of them good and some of them not good. First of all, talk about a real life example of the power of women talking. I think we heard that very clearly in the documentary. And I think that's important not to lose sight of even as we critique why systems let these women down so seriously. Women talking makes change. Women talking ensures that the needs and the realities of women who have survived gender based violence are paid attention to. And that doesn't always happen when we rely on systems to respond to those women. Here we have four women. Some of them reached out to systems for assistance, others did not. Even those who did not, no doubt some of the reason for that was because they had no expectation that those systems would be helpful to them. And they were right to be doubtful about the ability of legal systems in particular to respond appropriately. So we see a complete failure of systems and we see the power of women.

MG: Why is it so difficult to get action through the legal system?

PAMELA CROSS: I think to understand that question, Matt, we have to look at a bigger question, which is why does society fail to understand the seriousness, the nuance, the endemic nature of violence against women, of gender based violence in Canadian culture? Until as a society, we are able to really, really understand in our bones that 44% of women in this country will be subjected to intimate partner violence at some point in their lives, that when women leave abusive relationships is when they are at the highest risk of being killed by that partner, only when we understand that family law does not yet properly support women with children in particular who leave men who have been abusive to them, only then will the systems even be able to begin to respond appropriately.

MG: One of the things we learned is that some of the incidents they recount were never reported to police. Why is it still so difficult for women to come forward, do you think?

PAMELA CROSS: There's so many reasons why women don't come forward. Sometimes it's because they've engaged with the criminal system in the past and it hasn't gone well. They haven't been believed or they've been judged. Women who are, let's say, new to Canada may not even understand that there is a criminal law that they could be turning to. If they're in the middle of a family immigration process, they may be afraid that turning to the police will result in their family or even their partner being forced to leave the country. Racialized women, indigenous women, we know why those women don't turn to the police. It's because they're often responded to in a racist manner. There are so, so many reasons. And at the heart of it, it's not just about the failures of the criminal system to respond well. It's also about how those who are being subjected to intimate partner violence understand that violence. There's shame, there's a sense of self-blame, you know, maybe I could have been a better wife, what if I had only done this? And there's still love. Many, many women, all women want the violence to end. Many of those women continue to love their partner, and they're afraid that bringing in any kind of outside system will make that impossible.

MG: And so what needs to change for people like the women who are featured in this documentary so that they don't have to use social media to warn other women?

PAMELA CROSS: A lot of things have to change. I'm going to go back to what I said a few minutes ago. We need to increase societal understanding and awareness, and that has to happen through a variety of tools. Public education, certainly. We need systems to be accountable. There's been a lot of really great work done over the last 40 years to educate people like police officers, lawyers, child protection workers, judges and so on. But now we need to say you have to be accountable for what we have taught you. It's not enough to just go to a course. You have to demonstrate in how you do your job every day that you're applying what you've learned in that program or in that course. We need to have better programming for those who cause the harm. We can equip women as well as possible. But until the people who are harming them have access to proper programming to learn new ways of behaving, to unlearn what has led them to where they are now, those people will simply move from one victim, survivor to the next. That's just a sort of tip of the iceberg of the kinds of things we need to do. Something I think would be really helpful is we need governments to implement reports like the recommendations coming out of Ontario's CKW inquest which took place last year, and examine the triple femicide that took place in a rural community in Ontario. We need the Federal government to implement the recommendations coming out of the Mass Casualty Commission because both of those reports, they're a roadmap. They tell us exactly what we need to do and we need to listen to that roadmap and follow it.

MG: Let me ask you more about the roadmap. The Mass Casualty Commission released its report two weeks ago in Nova Scotia. This was about the murders of 22 people. And the language was incredibly clear in that report. It said that intimate partner violence is an epidemic in this country. When you hear the language as specific as that, how important is that to you?

PAMELA CROSS: It's so important. I haven't read that whole report. It's 3000 pages long, but I've read quite a bit of it and I was in tears through much of it, I have to tell you. To hear intimate partner violence named an epidemic, to see the straight, solid line drawn between intimate partner violence and mass casualty events, to read a recommendation that epidemic level funding be provided for gender based violence prevention and intervention, this is a powerful report. It must be paid attention to.

MG: What would change when it comes to policy if intimate partner violence was treated as an epidemic, was treated as a public health crisis?

PAMELA CROSS: Well, first of all, let's look at what this government did federally, but I would also say provincial governments and around the world, what governments did to address the public health epidemic of COVID-19. Huge amounts of money were invested in controlling the spread and in treating people who became infected. Public policy was changed. Workplace policies were changed. If we could call this by government not just in a report, but if government said yes, violence against women, gender based violence, intimate partner violence is an epidemic, all of that can flow from it. And we might actually be starting then to move from simply responding to these very high levels of gender based violence, which of course we have to do, but move as well to reducing the rate.

MG: Tell me more about that. And I mean, people have made the comparison directly with the response to COVID-19. Do you see a similar comparison? Do you see in terms of the investment in COVID, the attention that COVID got, that that is in some ways a road map to how, if intimate partner violence were to be declared an epidemic, how that could be treated, how that could be addressed?

PAMELA CROSS: Absolutely. It was sort of not just an all of government approach, but as the Mass Casualty Commission report says we need for intimate partner violence, an all of society response. That's what we need. It all comes back to who are we as people who live in this Canadian society? Who do we want to be? What do we aspire to? And surely, part of that has to be a society that says all people are equally free from being afraid that they will be abused by someone who says they love them.

MG: That all of society approach is interesting language as well. I spoke with the chief commissioner for the Mass Casualty Commission in Nova Scotia, and he directly addressed men in calling this issue, intimate partner violence an epidemic. What does that say to you?

PAMELA CROSS: It says a lot to me. I heard the commissioner speak about that when the report was released. And I thought, yes, finally we're seeing this in a formal setting. Obviously, women and men, gender diverse people, all of us have to be engaged in this work together. And obviously, those who cause the harm, most of whom are men, have to have access to the services and supports and perhaps in some circumstances, the consequences of what they've done. But it's all men. It's all men being willing to challenge a sexist joke. It's changing the kind of banter, if I can call it that, that still takes place in athletic changing rooms. It's changing the culture. That's not work that women should be doing. That's work that men need to do with one another.

MG: So what should the government do now? We're going to speak in just a moment with the federal minister, Marci Ien. But from the federal government's perspective, with these recommendations and that recommendation in particular, treating intimate partner violence as an epidemic, what should the government do now?

PAMELA CROSS: I'd like to suggest two things. The first is the government should tomorrow declare that intimate partner violence in Canada is an epidemic. It's not a whole lot of words, but it would mean a whole lot. And out of all of those 130 recommendations coming from the Mass Casualty Commission report, there's another one that I think the government should move on very quickly, and it's consistent with its stated commitment to implementing a national action plan to end violence against women and gender based violence in Canada. The government should establish by statute an independent and impartial gender based violence commissioner who has adequate funding, stable funding and effective powers, including the responsibility to report annually to Parliament that would house this work in a place where it would be sure that it was being paid attention to.

MG: The funding part of that is key. You said that a couple of times that it needs adequate and stable funding.

PAMELA CROSS: Yes. And that's why I like the recommendation suggesting that this commissioner be established by statute, because then it's not as vulnerable to changes in government, to changes in the whims of government. It becomes an ongoing embedded part of the government structure, but operates at arm's length.

MG: You said earlier that the government today or tomorrow should declare intimate partner violence an epidemic, that it's not a huge change. It is a big change, though, isn't it? Because it comes with an expectation of that funding and other steps that would be taken.

PAMELA CROSS: Sure, it's a big step, but it's time to take that step. It's 2023. The rate of intimate partner violence went through the roof during the pandemic. That's the reality. Those rates have not gone down. One dead woman is one too many. Women who are killed by men who purport to love them, the rate is in excess of one a week. That's too many.

MG: And so if nothing is done, what's at stake?

PAMELA CROSS: What's at stake? The lives of women are at stake. It is as simple as that. I think that's one of the things that I find frustrating and that my colleagues who've been doing this work as long as I have feel frustrating is it's not a complicated problem. And the solution isn't that complicated either. We have these two roadmaps right now. What we need is both the societal will, which will then drive the second thing we need, which is the political will. We can find the money, we can find the people to do the work, but we need the will as a Canadian society to say enough, we are taking this seriously, we are taking action to end it.

MG: Pam, it's good to talk to you as always. Thank you very much.

PAMELA CROSS: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Pamela Cross is a lawyer and advocate for women's issues. She was in Kingston, Ontario. Marci Ien is the federal minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth. Minister, good morning to you.

MARCI IEN: Good morning, Matt. It's good to be with you.

MG: It's good to have you on the program. The Mass Casualty Commission says that intimate partner violence needs to be declared an epidemic in this country. You just heard Pamela Cross call on your government to do this. Will the federal government declare today that intimate partner violence is an epidemic in Canada?

MARCI IEN: I listened to Pam and I've been listening to the interview and she raised some excellent, excellent points, Matt. But the thing that I've learned, and I have to tell you, the thing that I lose sleep about is the fact that this has to be across government because of the epidemic that it is, solution. And that's what we're doing. And Pamela mentioned the action plan to end gender based violence. That action plan works with provinces, it works with territories and it works with us to address that. Because what I found in talking to women across this country, organizations across this country, doing so at a grassroots level is that provinces and territories are all different and they know what they need. And that's what this action plan does. And Pam mentioned it very, very well. What's happening in Nunavut, for example, where men and boys are front and centre in a lot of the work that's being done there and with regards to Indigenous people as well, is very different from what Ontario might need where human trafficking, for instance, is front and centre. So this is work that we have to do throughout all jurisdictions of government.

MG: Right. But let's go back. Let's go back to her specific request and the question that I asked, which is will the federal government declare that intimate partner violence is an epidemic?

MARCI IEN: It is an epidemic.

MG: You believe that. Has the government declared such a thing?

MARCI IEN: The government has not declared such a thing to come out and make a statement. But having an action plan to end gender based violence, and I say it almost every day and I certainly hear it in the field, it absolutely is. We saw it happen during the pandemic. Pamela is right. And those numbers haven't decreased. We told people to stay at home and home wasn't safe. But when I look at people like, for instance, Paulette Senior and the Canadian Women's Foundation and the moneys, $300 million that helped to support organizations on the ground, that the Canadian Women's Foundation were responsible for, hundreds of organizations had their doors open through the pandemic. Shelter organizations were able to help in the transitional houses because we knew that they were safe. And Pam's absolutely right. Those numbers haven't decreased. But she also mentioned something very important, and that's cultural change.

MG: And I want to get to that, but I don't want to lose sight of what she said specifically because this is not the first time that this request has been made. The Mass Casualty Commission made this request. The inquest into the murders of three women in eastern Ontario in 2015 made a similar request, saying Call this what it is, which is an epidemic in Canada. And if you do that, then follow with the funding and the approach that would be applied to any other public health epidemic. The city of Ottawa has declared this an epidemic. Renfrew County has declared this an epidemic. Eleanor County has declared this an epidemic. But if the federal government were to say that, if the Prime Minister were to say this, if this were declared by the government itself, that that would trigger larger action. I guess I just wonder what the delay is for the government in doing that. I'm not suggesting that you aren't doing it, but what the delay is in the government doing this.

MARCI IEN: Listen, there's no delay. But, you know, I used to sit in a chair like yours, and I think we both know very, very well that you can declare all sorts of things. And not to diminish this at all, but it's the actions that matter. You really can. I mean, this could be declared tomorrow. And as Pam mentioned, you know, one woman loss is too many. Is that going to stop? The money is there. And half a billion dollars is a significant amount of money. The work is being done with my department officials right now talking to provinces and territories on the ground. This is a grassroots revolution that is happening. You know, really, I just feel declaring it is surface level. I don't mean to diminish it at all, but a declaration is one thing, action is another. And action is exactly what we're taking. And when we say that this plan is going to end gender based violence, we use the word end because that's the goal. But I don't want to get involved in, you know, and no disrespect at all, but a lot of these things are surface level. You can say something, but is it going to really make a difference in what's happening at the grassroots level, what's happening as Pam mentioned with racialized women, black women, indigenous women and intersectionality and all of that? We can say everything that we want, but if we're not doing it, if we don't have set goals, if we're not listening to survivors and those that help them, what are we doing?

MG: And again, I don't know that Pam Cross or the commissioners or the Mass Casualty Commission would say that the request is surface level. But if you're talking about action, the other thing that Pam mentioned was, and this again came out of the MCC report, is that the federal government established an office specifically dedicated to fighting intimate partner violence, and that that office be funded commensurate to its goals. Is the government going to create that position and that office and fund it?

MARCI IEN: This government in 2017 created this ministry, the ministry that I now head. And it was the status of women before. It was not a ministry unto itself. And that alone is huge. I'm responsible for everything in my team that Pamela was talking about and take it very, very seriously.

MG: But it is different than that specific office that she called for, that the MCC called for.

MARCI IEN: You know, it is different, but the work isn't. The work isn’t. And I am most interested and spend every working day making sure that we address the violence. The gender based violence is happening across this country and yes, in epidemic proportions. We have a whole department doing this. There's a whole ministry doing this work and negotiations happening right now as we speak with provinces and territories across this country so that I can meet with my provincial and territorial partners over the summer and get this plan done. And this time, I've been across this country with my team talking to women, signing crisis line agreements with provinces and territories so that when women or those who identify need to leave bad situations, they can pick up the phone 24 hours a day, every day of the year and someone will be on the other line speaking whatever language they speak.

MG: And yet you will have heard the frustration. And she used that word, in Pam's voice, as she talked. She said this isn't a difficult problem to solve, that we know what to do, that people are there to do it, we just need the will and the resources. So how do you square that frustration with what you're saying the government is doing now?

MARCI IEN: I think it's making sure that people know what the government is doing. And that's why I appreciate this telephone call. So I'd love to give you an example. There is a house in Winnipeg, in downtown Winnipeg. It's called the Women's Health. And when I first started as minister, I went to visit this house because it's low barrier. And indigenous women come. It doesn't matter what's happening with them, whether they're victims, who they're leaving, honestly, they're welcome there. The problem with the House is that it was falling apart. And when I went, there were women literally sleeping under the porch. They just wanted to be on the property because there's no room inside. And so after doing this, I thought, something needs to be done. Like what is easier? There was a place that was a Ronald McDonald House that was up for sale and available. But of course, there was a deficit. There was a shortfall of money. To make the long story very, very short, minister Hajdu, the Indigenous Services minister and I came together and we came up. I've got capacity funding, she's got more funding. And those women and even more are now in the Ronald McDonald House with the services they need, the therapists they need, a kitchen and bedrooms that serve a lot. And that might be a small thing, but it's indicative of what can happen when an NDP MP and leader in Winnipeg Centre comes together with a couple of ministers and says this is what we're going to do.

MG: We'll leave it there. There is certainly more to talk about as the report makes its way through those various levels of government and the communities as you say that the government serves. In the meantime, Marci, I'm glad to have you on the program. Thank you very much.

MARCI IEN: Such an honour to be with you, Matt. Really appreciate your work. Take good care.

MG: Thank you. Marci Ien is the federal Minister for Women, Gender Equality and Youth. If you or someone close to you is a victim of intimate partner violence, resources are available. Information about local resources can be found at endingviolencecanada. That's all one word, endingviolencecanada.org. Well, coming up after your regional update, when was the last time you put pen to paper and wrote a letter or even a grocery list? Can you read your handwriting? We will talk about bringing back penmanship in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

PENMANSHIP

Guest: Hetty Roessingh

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Chicken scratch, scribbles, scrawls, many ways to describe messy handwriting. These days we spend so much of our time texting and typing on our smartphones and computers that you might not actually be writing very much. And if you find yourself having trouble deciphering your own handwriting or perhaps someone else's, there's a pretty good chance you're not alone.

SOUNDCLIP

FEMALE SPEAKER: Some kind of mediation, I think. Always insurmountable trying to help decipher this handwriting in a letter that one of our members has received. And they've been corresponding for many years. And often these letters end up here and we try to figure out what the contents of the letter actually are. But we think we've got most of it, But we don't know what this person is teaching.

[people laughing]

MG: Those are members of the Toronto Letter Writing Society. They get together once a month for a social and to write by hand.

SOUNDCLIP

ANDREA RAYMOND WONG: I'm Andrea Raymond Wong, and I'm one of the co-founders of the Toronto Letter Writers Society. Well, my cursive, my handwriting is terrible, so it's best used when I'm scrawling notes really quickly. I think it borders on illegible. So I used it like, you know, when I'm at work or, you know, back when I was in school. But now I actually tend to print all the time, kind of a mix of capital and lowercase letters. So if I want my writing to be something somebody can read, that's how I would write. I do think people are kind of spending more time on their handwriting. I mean, at least the letter writing kind of folks, because I think it's a piece of personal connection and it's tangible and nothing really replaces kind of seeing a written word on paper and this sort of associated time that it takes to do that. So I think there is a real connection there. And I think I've certainly seen a lot of people, you know, trying to learn calligraphy or different scripts and because they're letter writers, sort of trying to improve and improve so that they have really beautiful writing that somebody would open a letter and just sort of say, wow, look at that.

MG: People in this group clearly appreciate the beauty of good penmanship. And they are going out of their way in their busy lives to make the effort to handwrite cards and letters.

SOUNDCLIP

FIRST FEMALE SPEAKER: There's a letter here from January that I still haven't sent yet. I used to write letters like much more frequently, but now I kind of only write it when I'm here. And I do have to take breaks like probably every five minutes or so because my hand cramps up. And my doctor said that like it’s because you're not using it as much anymore. So like you need to like practice and stretch out your hand more.

JESSICA LEWIS: My name is Jessica Lewis. I am one of the co-founders of the Toronto Letter Writers Society. I used to have a paper planner that I used to love writing everything in. But even with the pandemic, like life wasn't as busy anymore so I didn't have much to write in there and then it just got easy to put everything in my phone calendar.

SECOND FEMALE SPEAKER: I'm actually writing a new zine like tips to be a great pen pal. And one of my tips is like make sure your handwriting is legible because it's very hard to read a letter where your handwriting is pretty all over the place. Take your time. Like there's no rush for writing this letter. Like you're not like in the Victorian area, like sending danger by horse post. Like it's take your time. Like slow, steady. It's going to get there.

ANDREW SALTER JARED: So I've got a postcard. We've got a quill and ink inkwell with I think this is sand for drying afterwards so that the ink doesn't smear. It's making me feel a little old timey, but I like it. I've never actually written with a quill before, so it's a bit of a novelty, you know. It's a bit trickier than I first imagined, but I'm getting the hang of it. My name is Andrew Salter Jared. I don't do like a lot of handwriting in terms of like writing significant blocks of paragraphs and things like that. I find like the process is a bit, like the handwriting process is like a little bit trickier too because I'm so used to being able to just like type and delete and edit and things like that. Whereas like if I'm handwriting, I kind of feel like it's probably gotten a bit sloppier. You know, I really do need to like if I'm writing anything significant, write it out and then start over on a new piece of paper because there's always corrections. And I don't want to be like crossing out because I'm often writing in pen, not pencil. And even if I'm writing in pencil, erasers are not so great.

FIRST FEMALE SPEAKER: It says Our spring semester is in full swing, this time teaching something, international commerce.

SECOND FEMALE SPEAKER: Oh, yeah. Could be commerce and not communication. That word is very mysterious, though.

[all laughing]

THIRD FEMALE SPEAKER: It’s really funny to watch your faces as you're trying.

FIRST FEMALE SPEAKER: Like you think you get one letter, But it's so long.

SECOND FEMALE SPEAKER: There's only so many words that are this long.

THIRD FEMALE SPEAKER: It's true.

FIRST FEMALE SPEAKER: Like what? This is the worst scrabble game ever.

CHICHI LAM: My name is Chichi lam. In grade five, I had a very tough teacher, you know, And this is a different generation. She would not have been able to get away with it today. She used to yell at us for bad penmanship. And as a result, we were all terrified into like making sure that everything that we wrote was in good form. Now that I'm a teacher, my writing is very distinctive. Students can read it. Occasionally, they make comments like, oh my gosh, Ms., you're a machine. I'm always amazed at students who have wonderful penmanship or if they write in cursive because I teach high school and a lot of times, it's either students are struggling with fine motor skills because they're always using their devices. And so when they're writing, oftentimes it's not natural. But I also tell them, if you want to remember something, you'll remember it if you write it down. You're not going to remember it if you’re just typing it or if you're just putting it into your phone. But I do wonder in another 10 or 20 years what's going to happen.

MG: Hetty Roessingh shares that concern about what's going to happen to good penmanship. She is a professor emerita at the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. Hetty, good morning.

HETTY ROESSINGH: Good morning.

MG: What do you make of the fact that there's a group of people who are getting together on a regular basis to write things by hand?

HETTY ROESSINGH: I love it. I really enjoyed the intro clip period and just listening. It's great.

MG: Why is this something that you think needs to be a consistent practice? I mean, why is it a skill that we need to be focussed on as kind of a daily thing, not just something that occasionally we will use when we write a grocery list or what have you?

HETTY ROESSINGH: Well, some of your participants have already noted that if you keep something up and make it a habit, practice makes perfect. You need to make it a habit. Use it or lose it. Brain based research. I would say starting young, we need to instil this habit and pry kids away from those digital devices just a little bit. They're much too involved. And one of your participants, a teacher who I just listened to, noted that children's fine motor skills have taken a bit of a hit, especially over COVID. So we need to work on more tinkering, more loose parts, play and really work on those fine motor literacy skills that includes a good pincer grip. So go and play with some clothes pegs and things like that. But secondly, there's an evolving body of research in the cognitive gap, and there are neurosciences that underscores the importance of engaging the hand-brain complex and the neural circuitry that's laid down to the brain for meaning, making, for remembering, for retrieval if you have written information down like your grocery list or something like that, your notes.

MG: We’re going to come back to that, the hand-brain complex. And I've written that down on the piece of paper in front of me.

HETTY ROESSINGH: There you go.

MG: The question is whether I'll actually be able to understand what I have written down because, as you said, use it or lose it. I have all sorts of notes in front of me that I write by hand. And I will admit that often, I look at it after, a couple of hours later and I'm like, what does that actually say? Does that say what I think it says? Does it say something else? Is it, to your experience, true that if we aren't doing this on a regular basis, we will end up with illegible handwriting, a chicken scratch or worse?

HETTY ROESSINGH: Well, let's look at your handwriting to begin with. So I don't know how old you are, but I'm old and I was taught a very loopy, embellished kind of a cursive hand as a little kid.

MG: Yes.

HETTY ROESSINGH: That kind of handwriting is very hard on your musculature. It's hard on the visual motor memory integration of little children. So one of your speakers just earlier said we need kind of a print right kind of style, something that's clean and simple and nice like they have in Finland or in Australia or in Germany. It's easy to teach, easy to transition from the manuscript to the cursive hand with the connectors that are almost natural to make, that'll give you the fluency you need to pick up the speed.

MG: There's nothing beautiful or fluid about my handwriting. I will say that. Back to the hand-brain complex. What do we know about what happens? Do we, as one of the speakers said, learn and remember differently If we actually write things down as opposed to typing things on a screen, On a laptop, on a phone?

HETTY ROESSINGH: Yes, absolutely. So if you look at some of the research from Mueller and Oppenheimer, for example, and this is an evolving field maybe of the last, not so, so long, although a few of the more seminal pieces were earlier, just looking at students who took notes by hand versus those who transcribed them by just typing and then wrote an exam. So those who had handwritten their notes scored better on questions that had to do with meaning making and remembering and so on. So you can type faster. So that was a pitch somebody made. But the trade-off you're making is that you don't remember. So it's generative. Handwriting is generative. You summarize, you synthesize, you register that information. If you're just typing, you're just touching the key. So if I touch I hate you or I love you, your hand or your brain doesn't know any different other than you've just made four movements with your fingers.

MG: Is that true that that's actually different, that if I were to write those words with a pen, that it would mean something more than me typing it out in 2023?

HETTY ROESSINGH: Absolutely. So if I write you a love letter or a Valentine's card, you are releasing all kinds of endorphins in the brain. It is releasing Feel good, almost drugs. It's good for you and it's good for the receiver as well. Both of you will receive benefit. When somebody opens the mailbox and sees a lovely note, they will react to that very differently than an email message that comes across saying, I'm so sorry about the loss of your father or something like that. When you actually take the time to write those words on the page and put that in the mail, both ends of the communication benefit from that.

MG: I guess I would ask that in part because you could imagine some people who are listening might be sceptical because people do just fine writing on the keyboard or on their phone. I mean, that's how we communicate now. And it's not even email, it's text. It's not even words. Now you'll get an emoji that is sent to you and that's where we are in the time that we're in. And so you could say that we have to accept the fact that handwriting is less important and less prominent than it was in times past. What would you say about that?

HETTY ROESSINGH: I would say it's less prominent. And I'm not saying there's no place for digital literacy. Our kids and our people have to become bilingual, let's say. So digitally literate and we need to be handwritten, keep our hands active and busy for all the reasons I'm mentioning that has to do with handwriting as a cognitive tool, handwriting as a social and emotional connection to people who matter to us. All those kinds of reasons. I've posted easy to access research of mine on The Conversation Canada. You can access those articles with links to further research. So those are easy reads that you can look at. Why cursive needs to make a school comeback and note taking by hand. Another one on Valentine's Day cards and why love letters matter.

MG: I’m going to ask you just two final things. For people who are adults who want to improve their handwriting, aside from going to, you know, the letter writing group that we heard from earlier, what would you recommend?

HETTY ROESSINGH: A couple of things. I think look at your handwriting to begin with. And if it's very loopy and hard on your hands, choose a simplified script. Like I tell, like there are some good resources out there that come free of charge. There's resources from New Zealand, Australia, New South Wales that are lovely. They group and sequence the letters in order of the top downers and so on. So stroke direction and so on. No, we don't want to see a bottom up push. And when we see an O, we want to see the direction properly and so on. Look at your handwriting and see. And if you are a do it yourselfer, look for some of those resources that are free online. If you really feel you need some coaching, I benefited a lot from calligraphy lessons 50 years ago. It's a long time ago, but my handwriting completely changed into what you might call a print right. It's an italic connected that gives me the speed and legibility I need to be functional, but good looking at the same time. I can slow it down and be much more mindful. I can speed it up a bit if I'm just making a quick grocery list or something like that.

MG: I feel like I have a lot of work to do.

HETTY ROESSINGH: I don't know about that. Then there are people who will charge you $100 an hour like Kate Gladstone. If you really feel you need remedial help, you can pay out of pocket or she'll meet you online.

MG: And you write letters on a daily basis or write things on a daily basis?

HETTY ROESSINGH: Oh, I write an awful lot. I'm not fully retired. Well, I'm retired, but I'm emerita so I still do an awful lot. I find it very helpful to write and jut notes, my outline for a forthcoming article or publication by hand. Then if I want to fill it in and start doing so, I do an awful lot of work on a computer, there's no doubt. And I'm fast on a computer, but it's not the same process. So there is a processing advantage to using your hands. The hand-brain complex, as I mentioned. Much more mindful, much more cognitively engaged, you'll remember that, you'll organize it better. But then when it comes to fleshing it out and picking up the speed and so on, oh yes, I'll do that on my computer. And it is true you can delete, you can copy, you can move things around. That's easy.

MG: Hetty, there's a lot to think about here. And as I say, I write things by hand all the time. It's just a matter of whether I can actually read them at the end of the day. Thank you for talking to us about this.

HETTY ROESSINGH: Yeah. Have a great day. Thank you for the opportunity, Matt.

MG: Hetty Roessingh is a professor emerita at the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. What is the state of your handwriting? Do you miss the days of writing things by hand? Maybe you still write things by hand. Maybe you sent somebody a love letter or a valentines or a card by hand. So you can do two things. You can email us, and this sounds strange when we're talking about handwriting, email us, thecurrent@cbc.ca. Or send us a letter, like a postcard or something like that To The Current, CBC Radio box 500, Station A, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5W1E6.

[music]

US LEAKS

Guest: Stephanie Carvin

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. My name is Matt Galloway. As you've been hearing in the news, the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating a major leak of U.S. intelligence. More than 100 documents, some marked top secret, have been circulating online for weeks. The leak reveals a number of things, including information about the war in Ukraine, Russian intelligence and information about Canada. Stephanie Carvin is an associate professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, former national security analyst. Stephanie, good morning.

STEPHANIE CARVIN: Good morning.

MG: How significant from your perspective is this leak?

STEPHANIE CARVIN: Oh, that's a good question. I think it raises more questions than answers in the sense that yeah, I mean, if you look at the piece of information that's been floating around on the Internet, it's effectively a conversation between these members of this hacking group and a FSB officer, which, of course, is the successor to the KGB, and where they're basically talking about the fact they've infiltrated the system. And they have the potential to cause a life threatening attack, like some kind of explosion that could actually kill people or cause grave economic damage. So in that sense, it's very, very concerning. But at the same time, you know, I did a quick Google search yesterday and today, there really doesn't seem to be any indication that such an attack actually occurred, even though they claim to have been successful in creating such an attack. So, you know, like was it stopped? Was this not stopped? So this is where the confusion comes in. But the bottom line here is that if this information is accurate, it's confirmation of the fact that, you know, the Russian government is looking at Canadian critical infrastructure as a target potentially, in retaliation for its support, Canada's support of the war in Ukraine.

MG: Again, the documents specifically, you're talking about pro-Russian hackers having targeted operations at Canadian National Gas Pipeline Network. Two companies have said that their infrastructure wasn’t compromised. So we don't know whether that has actually happened or not. There's a lot of other things that are in the documents as well that relate specifically to the war in Ukraine, particularly around Russian intelligence and the fact that the United States seems to have a pretty good idea what is going on within Russian intelligence. What do we know about that?

STEPHANIE CARVIN: Right. And this is why there's some concern that these leaks are very damaging. The fact that, you know, the intelligence leaks as reported in the media basically suggest that the United States has thoroughly compromised the Russian government at pretty much every level. Even some of the kind of more notorious contracting groups like Wagner, they have been compromised as well. So I guess the good news is, if you can call it that, is that we do know that the U.S. has some excellent capabilities and is probably passing intelligence on to the Ukrainians as we speak. The bad news is that now the Russians know that, right? And they can probably sit down and if they're careful about it, can reverse engineer this intelligence and figure out where these leaks are, identify the human sources that may be providing information to the U.S. government, right? Putting their lives at risk, and then also potentially blocking the electronic surveillance that the United States has been using to inform its decision making in the war on Ukraine. So that would probably be a bad thing, at least for Western governments.

MG: I mean, intellectually and certainly materially, we know of the role of the United States in helping the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian government. What do we learn more broadly about the role of the United States in this war?

STEPHANIE CARVIN: Well, it's interesting, right? I mean, it does seem to be the fact that, you know, if you do read the reporting on this, it does seem that the United States has kind of a gloomy assessment of how the war is going, much more gloomy than they have been in public. And I think that that's important. And so I think a lot of this has been trying to set realistic expectations of the Ukrainians. You know, there's documents which are now suggesting that rather than attacking in the east of the country, you know, we've heard a lot about the attacks in places like Bakhmut in Donetsk region, but also now in the south as well. You know, the idea that they're going to be able to cut off the Russians in the south and then block their ability to transport goods and services through to Crimea. The U.S. is saying you're going to be stretching your resources pretty thin. We also know, for example, that the U.S. is advising Ukraine on its armament and how it's using its armaments, right? You know, both countries, Russia and Ukraine are suffering from a missile shortage. So that's pretty clear in these documents as well. So we are learning that the United States is definitely listening in on what Russia is doing. It's probably passing a lot of this information, not all of it. But, you know, if you actually look at the classification markings on the documents that are available, they say no foreign in a lot of them, which means they're not necessarily passing them on to any other country, including Canada or the Five Eyes Partners and possibly not even Ukraine, because that's what no foreign effectively means on a document. But there is a lot of information that is probably being passed on, which is helping the Ukrainians not only in their potential of offensive operations this spring, but also in terms of defending themselves from imminent Russian attacks as they come in.

MG: It's not just listening in to Russia. The documents also suggest the United States has been spying on allies like Ukraine and South Korea and Israel. Washington Post was reporting this morning that the documents show that Egypt actually planned to send rockets to Russia in the midst of this. Egypt, a close ally of the United States. What does that mean in terms of rebuilding relations in future?

STEPHANIE CARVIN: Well, there's always going to be criticisms when these kinds of documents come out. I mean, I think we learned a lot when the Snowden leaks originally came out in 2013, 2014 about U.S. spying on allies. I think that's kind of a given. Most countries do that in some way, right? You know, they collect information. They call that blue force analysis when you're kind of analyzing the intentions of your friends. So I don't think it's shocking.

MG: Still awkward, presumably.

STEPHANIE CARVIN: Super awkward. You don't want to be the ambassador of those countries as it's going on. So yeah, that always just makes life difficult. But I think the real concern is, you know, if Russia is able to reverse engineer some of these intelligence reports and cut off the information that the U.S. has been gathering, that's billions of dollars in damage down the line, right? If these systems no longer work, if sources are killed or injured or have to flee, I mean, those are huge investments that are now gone. So I mean, nothing here is good for the United States, right? And as you said, you pointed out, you know, the awkward situation with Egypt. There's another report about the United Arab Emirates today that was coming out in some of the papers in these documents. And I think that, you know, if I'm in the U.S. right now, if I'm the Joint Chiefs of Staff where a lot of this information seems to have come from, I'm probably pulling out my hair wondering, when are these leaks going to stop? How much of this stuff actually made it to the Internet and who did it? I mean, this is going to be a very pressing issue or probably the most pertinent because if this stuff keeps dripping out over the next couple of weeks, it is going to be very, very disruptive to the intelligence community in the states and also with Five Eyes partners.

MG: Well, and just very briefly, finally, I mean, who benefits from something like this?

STEPHANIE CARVIN: In some ways Russia because I mean, look, not the most flattering information has come out from Russia. Definitely not the United States. But you know what's odd here are some of the reports that have come out that, you know, these intelligence reports were printed out, folded up and then photographed and then put on gaming forums.

MG: Mm hmm.

STEPHANIE CARVIN: I mean, when you think of like prior leaks that have happened, they've either been accidents or they have been ideologically motivated. I mean, you know, I don't necessarily agree with Snowden, but he was someone who saw himself as a whistleblower, right?

MG: Right.

STEPHANIE CARVIN: Or Reality Winner, Same thing. You know, she leaked documents about Trump and, you know, she saw herself as a whistleblower. It's going to be something if these documents were leaked to win an argument on the Internet, you know. It would make a really, really big, big difference, a big change in what we've seen before. So the motivations behind what this person was thinking or doing when they did this is really of interest to me. And this seems to make it very, very different from prior leaks that we've seen before.

MG: We'll be watching. It seems as though there is more to come. Stephanie, thank you for this.

STEPHANIE CARVIN: Hey, thanks so much for having me on.

MG: Stephanie Carvin, an associate professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, and she is a former national security analyst. That will do it for The Current for this Tuesday. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. A reminder, we were just talking about handwriting. Send us a letter. You can email us, thecurrent@cbc.ca. Or send us a postcard in your own scrawl that we will try to decipher. What do you love about handwriting? Shoot us a postcard. You can find the address on the CBC website. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

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

Tuesday April 11, 2023 Episode Transcript

More Stories Like This