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The Current Transcript for August 1, 2023

Host: Catherine Cullen

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

We want a liveable wage. Toronto is an extremely expensive city. So many of our members unfortunately have to use food banks.

CATHERINE CULLEN: They work in a grocery store but say they have to turn to food banks to get by. Now thousands are on the picket line as the labour movement heats up. We'll look at what could push more workers to strike.

SOUNDCLIP

Then I would say right now, the most dangerous thing in our society is this dichotomy, this disconnect and this rage that is out there, often with no real place to go.

CC: For half a century, journalist Roy MacGregor has written about what makes us Canadian. In 30 minutes, we'll talk about the state of our national psyche and where he finds hope for journalism and the country. Plus, in an hour, we'll bring you the latest episode of the CBC podcast. The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. But first, why strikes may be making a comeback. I'm Catherine Cullen, sitting in for Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

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The summer of strikes

Guests: Tammy Laporte, Barry Eidlin

CC: It's being called the Summer of Strikes. The latest example in the Greater Toronto area. But 3700 workers at Metro grocery stores are on strike. They're asking for better pay and improved working conditions. Metro joins a growing list of labour disputes seen across the country. We'll hear more in a moment about the rise of a more empowered labour movement and what that means. But first, Tammy Laporte is one of the Metro employees currently on strike. She has worked at the grocery chain for 25 years. Good morning, Tammy.

TAMMY LAPORTE: Good morning.

CC: How is it felt to be out on the picket lines right now these past few days?

TAMMY LAPORTE: Right now, the morale is really high. Um, yeah, we're all talking, and it's. It's nice to be able to talk to everybody, all our co-workers, and rally together and really be strong.

CC: I mentioned you've worked at Metro for 25 years. What do you do in the store?

TAMMY LAPORTE: Um, I'm a produce cut fruit clerk, so I'm. Prepare all the salads and, you know, those prepared cut through bowls that that you would buy.

CC: Do you like doing it?

TAMMY LAPORTE: Yeah, I do. I don't think I. I love my job. I don't think I'd still be there if I didn't like my job.

CC: When you started with Metro, did you think you might spend 25 years or more there?

TAMMY LAPORTE: No, no, not at all. Um, I was, uh, my early twenties when I started. And I started in the deli department, and it was just a temporary job to pay off an old student loan. And, uh, I was going to go back to school.

CC: And we know wages are a big part of this, but what. What's kept you at Metro all this time?

TAMMY LAPORTE: Oh, I think of my co-workers, for one. You know, you get to know people over the years. We watched our kids grow up together. And I I'm involved with the union now, so I like trying to improve people's lives as well. No, I stick around.

CC: So you've got that personal pole keeping you involved. But what about your pay? You know, obviously, I don't want to get too far in your personal business, but have you seen as you've developed seniority, have you seen your pay increase in a similar fashion?

TAMMY LAPORTE: Um, well, I went from I was part time for about ten years and I went full time and it, you know, it hasn't risen over the last 15 years significantly.

CC: When you say not significantly, what are we. What are we talking about?

TAMMY LAPORTE: And 15 years, maybe like $4.

CC: Wow. And you have a family to support, right? You have a son?

TAMMY LAPORTE: Yeah, I'm a single mom. So. 17 year old.

CC: So. So how is it trying to make ends meet right now? I mean, I know everybody's feeling the pinch. What is it like for you?

TAMMY LAPORTE: It's difficult. I really have to have a budget and stick to it. I live in tier two income housing, so that really helps. I don't think I would be able to afford anything and, just anywhere in the city on what I make.

CC: What about the other big part of people's budgets is obviously food. And how do you how do you make ends meet on that front? Can you, can you shop at Metro?

TAMMY LAPORTE: I used to I used to always be able to shop at Metro, at least, you know, for the sales and stock up on those. Now, it's it's not in my budget to shop at Metro and I like shopping after work. Makes it more convenient for me. And I just don't think I can continue to do that at all.

CC: So what do you do if you can't shop at your own store?

TAMMY LAPORTE: I have to find the sales and go to other grocery stores after being in a grocery store for 8 hours. Um, you know, there are, you know, the discount stores that I try to set up their sales.

CC: We we hear from some of your colleagues about people actually turning to food banks. Has anyone you worked with told you about that and why they needed to make that choice?

TAMMY LAPORTE: Oh, yeah, Yeah. Uh, I'm very fortunate that I, it hasn't come to that for me. Um, but yes, there are co-workers and, you know, you hear the stories, uh, full time and part time. Should never have to go to a food bank when you have a full time job. But you know, times are really tough.

CC: Mhm. You say times are tough. You and your fellow union members represented by Unifor, Local 414 rejected a tentative agreement. Why?

TAMMY LAPORTE: Well, I'll tell you, I was a member of the bargaining committee as well. So it was something that was, you know, brought to the everybody to vote on. And yeah, it it really it just isn't enough. The wages aren't enough. And, you know, there were some significant gains in the contract, but the wages, they just they just didn't hit on the wages.

CC: Okay. We did ask to speak to Metro to get their perspective on this. They declined. But Metro's vice president of human resources, Louisa Furtado, spoke to CBC's Metro Morning radio show yesterday. Here's what she said about the situation.

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TAMMY LAPORTE: We're extremely disappointed that our unionised employees at these locations in the GTA decided to go on strike. We had worked very constructively with the union and with our employees bargaining committee, and the outcome of that is that we did reach an agreement that was mutually satisfying and satisfactory, and it was an agreement that they unanimously recommended to employees. The agreement did provide for us significant increases for our employees over those four years of the collective agreement, and that was in addition to improvements in pension and benefits. And all of this was built on working conditions that are already amongst the highest in the industry as we negotiated with this union.

CC: So what do you say to the points that Louisa Furtado raises there? Significant wage increases, increases to pension and benefits?

TAMMY LAPORTE: Well, there were some wage increases. I wouldn't call them significant, not in these times. And obviously, it wasn't enough for for everybody to vote. To to recommend, to accept the collective agreement, the tentative deal.

CC: I am I know you don't want to get into the specifics. There's a negotiation going on. But like, how far apart are we talking here?

TAMMY LAPORTE: We need more money. I think that's the bottom line. The other gains. I did. But it's. The money. You know, benefits are fantastic. You can't pay your rent with benefits.

CC: Fair enough. How long do you feel that this strike situation could last, given that the that the union members rejected this tentative agreement?

TAMMY LAPORTE: Well, I mean, I just I hope talks resume and. You know, with some bring forth another tentative agreement for the membership to vote on and, you know, get back as soon as possible.

CC: We know so much of this is about being able to get by. Are you anxious about having to get by on strike paywall if this continues.

TAMMY LAPORTE: I think it says a lot that we all live paycheque to paycheque, but we're willing to do the. So many people were already in financial struggles. So it shows that. We just can't keep going on for the next four years. Um, and I think, you know, it says a lot that people are willing to, you know, put their paycheque aside to stand up for and fight for more.

CC: What would you ask people to think about the next time they're in the grocery store? Whichever one it is doing their shopping, they see some of the employees.

TAMMY LAPORTE: Um, well, I mean, the customers make the experience for us. We make the experience for the customers. And I know over the pandemic, you know, it was very- everybody was so thankful and friendly. And, you know, it's kind of changed a little bit. I think everybody is under pressure. So it'd be nice to to get back to that, you know, for the good conversations with customers, the the friendliness and. Yeah, that's...

CC: Yeah, I think I think I think everybody can agree on that. Tammy, listen, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today.

TAMMY LAPORTE: Thank you so much.

CC: Tammy Laporte is a metro grocery store worker currently on strike. Well, Sylvain Charlebois is a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University. He warns that increased wages could mean job losses or price increases.

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All grocers in the country are paying close attention to what's happening in the Greater Toronto area because wages obviously are at stake. But I think a business model is also at stake. The grocery business is a lower margin, high volume enterprise. And so if you raise wages by, say, 10% or if you raise wages, you're you're forced to run a grocery store with fewer employees, essentially. You don't want to change prices. So. So I suspect that grocers are thinking differently about how to manage stores if something happens with this particular situation.

SOUNDCLIP

CC: Okay, so that's the grocery industry. But we are seeing job action elsewhere as well. The B.C. port strike, the Manitoba Liquor Mart strike action, Hollywood strikes in the U.S.. To talk about why it's happening and where we go from here, Barry Eidlin is an associate professor at McGill University and an expert in labour and social movements. Barry, good morning.

BARRY EIDLIN: Good morning. Happy to be here. Happy to have a longtime listener to the show. So it's great to be a guest.

CC: Right on. Well, listen, we're happy to be talking to you today and getting your perspective. Let's start with what Susan, Michelle Obama just said about how this could affect prices, maybe job losses. What do you think?

BARRY EIDLIN: Yeah, I go back to the, you know, blockbuster earnings reports that these grocery companies are making and the, you know, multimillion dollar salaries that they're paying their CEOs and wonder how that, you know, whether they might be able to find some money there to share with these workers who are not even able to shop in their own grocery stores. So I think that, you know, these companies have enjoyed record growth. Yes, it's true. As the other as my colleague said, that, you know, it is a low margin industry, but they seem to be using those low margins to rake in very large profits for for for their shareholders. And it would seem that they could be able to share some of that with their workers as well.

CC: But why should we believe that they would do that? I mean, there is pressure to deliver for shareholders if wage wages increase significantly, aren't they just going to either pass that along to shoppers or, as we were saying, like, let some folks go?

BARRY EIDLIN: You know, I mean, I think it's a question of power. And, you know, I think that, you know, we have- that's why, you know, you have collective bargaining, you know, so that because there's a structural imbalance between the power of management, the power of workers to negotiate. And so they negotiate together collectively. And, you know, so I think that that's what we've seen over the past several decades is an erosion of that bargaining power. And so we've seen as a consequence growing inequality and, skyrocketing wages for CEOs and wage stagnation for most Canadians. And so I think that what we're seeing now is an effort to sort of play catch up, if you will. So I think that we have to remember that, you know, that these companies have been operating with, you know, by keeping wages flat for several decades. And so there's a large portion where we can catch up to where we were in the past, essentially where they were able to somehow make the business was somehow able to work on that model.

CC: Do you think, as Sylvain Charlebois said, that this is something that is being watched by other grocery stores, that this could have an impact on potential strikes? We know there are other unions that are looking at this option.

BARRY EIDLIN: Yeah, I mean, I think obviously I mean, I think at a very basic level, this is an initial negotiation that is supposed to set a pattern for other grocery negotiations throughout the province. So there's that. But then more broadly, you know, certainly I think not just I mean, workers and employers alike are looking at this just growing incidents of strikes that we're seeing across North America, really. And I think that that might be giving some pause to employers. And I think that that might be giving some comments to workers.

CC: Talk about why we're seeing this moment of strikes across sectors.

BARRY EIDLIN: Yeah, I see it as a confluence of three different factors. So on a long term scale, there's been this these long term trends in the labour market regarding, you know, stagnating pay, regarding schedule and predictability, whether access to full time jobs or, you know, not enough work or too much work, forced overtime, harassment, technological change, surveillance and all these things have been sort of, you know, creating problems over slowly over the past several decades in the workplace. The pandemic, and then, number two, the pandemic really sort of crystallised a lot of these ongoing trends and sort of really pushed them to the forefront. And I think this contradiction between workers sort of, you know, like these grocery workers being seen as essential and held as these essential workers, on the one hand, while being treated as disposable, really sort of put put the problem into sharp relief. And then number three, this sort of structural fact that we're looking at a very tight labour market now that makes workers a bit harder to replace than they would be otherwise, sort of gives that extra push, sort of a little structural bargaining power for workers. So I think that the combination of those three things has created a mix that that has led to some of the unrest that we're seeing now.

CC: We know the governor of the Bank of Canada said, I believe it was last summer, sort of put out this warning and he was criticised for it. But saying, you know, employees basically don't ask for these massive wage increases because it's ultimately just going to keep this loop, right? If wages go up, prices go up and we're just stuck in this. I'm obviously not quoting Tiff Macklem here, but we're stuck in this inflationary cycle. Do you think that that is a real concern at this moment?

BARRY EIDLIN: Yeah, it's interesting that the main concern expressed is about, you know, workers demanding too much in wages, while the real problem is the cost of living crisis that workers face. And I think and all this is happening in the context, like I said, of record profits and and CEOs making, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. So I think that the focus on particularly these lower lower wage workers is is, you know, perhaps a bit misplaced, to put it mildly.

CC: What do we know about the public perception of labour action right now?

BARRY EIDLIN: Well, of labour action specifically, I haven't seen any recent polling data. I think a lot of it is strike specific. Right. And I think that what I can say is that we do see in the polling data that that approval of unions in general is is is much is at a high. And and then what I also would say is that, you know because these strikes are about issues that affect not just the workers but are broadly resonant with large swaths of the Canadian population, that that would lead me to think that there would be much more sympathy for them. It's hard to portray this as sort of these greedy workers out for themselves when we're dealing with a population that is literally going to food banks to try to feed their families.

CC: Is there a particular sector that you will be watching to see if there is more strike action?

BARRY EIDLIN: Not really, honestly, at this point, because you know that it I keep hearing about more strikes in other sectors on a day to day basis these days. So I'm really I've sort of given up on such a situation. There's really just it it really is. This are a widespread set of grievances that cut across industries. And so it's been I mean, I bit being surprised myself.

CC: And I mean, I think one of the surprising things, too, is that we've seen offers rejected, which is not something we're used to seeing.

BARRY EIDLIN: That is a big, big difference between that we've seen recently. And that suggests to me that there is this sort of grassroots energy in amongst workers that is sort of a necessary precondition to have a broader labour upsurge of the type that we saw, you know, in the 1930s and forties or the 1960s and seventies, for example. The fact that that these these strikes are really worker driven. Right. And that that the the unions are negotiating these agreements which they think are good enough. But now it turns out we're in a different period. And workers are saying. Actually, no, that's not good. That's not going to cut it anymore.

CC: Okay. We are going to leave the conversation there for today. An interesting one to watch. Thank you so much.

BARRY EIDLIN: Thanks. Great to be here.

CC: Barry Eidlin is an associate professor at McGill University and an expert in labour and social movements. The CBC news is next. Then.

SOUNDCLIP

They talk to the cameras as if they were presenting someone that they thought the camera wanted to see. They talk to somebody like me quietly, and they were themselves.

CC: Journalist Roy MacGregor has covered many of Canada's most significant moments the Oka crisis, the Meech Lake fallout, Prime Minister sporting events. Through it all, he's noticed the power of pen and paper have in disarming subjects. In six minutes, Roy McGregor joins me on a life in print and what the future holds for the medium. I'm Catherine Cullen and you're listening to The Current.

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Journalist Roy MacGregor on a career in print

Guest: Roy MacGregor

CC: I'm Catherine Cullen and you are listening to The Current. Now a message from former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

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Your Excellencies, Prime Minister, Chef de Partie, The Opposition, Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, Members of the Cabinet, Honorable the Deputy, sénateurs. Sénatrices, distinguished members of the press gallery, Madams. Monsieur, Good evening. Peter Newman, go [BEEP] yourself.

[Cheers and laughter]

Thank you very much and goodnight.

CC: That spicy backhander to the former editor of Maclean's came in 2005, a little joke that showed some very real tensions that can exist between journalists and the politically powerful. As a political reporter in Ottawa, Roy MacGregor knew Peter Neumann well, and he covered the former prime minister in his one era in Roy MacGregor's career, which he explores and reflects on in his new book, Paper Trails From the Backwoods to the Front Page. Roy MacGregor. Hello.

ROY MAGREGOR: Hello, Catherine.

CC: So listen, the Prime Minister there talking about your former boss, Peter C Neumann. What provoked such publicly spicy language? Remind us.

ROY MAGREGOR: Well, they were friendly. And Peter Newman had a deal with Brian Mulroney or agreed to it, that over the years they would talk at least once a week. Peter would tape the conversation usually by telephone, and at the end of it he would write the ultimate book on Brian Mulroney's time in office. Well, something went wrong somewhere down the road, and it ended up that Peter Neumann just put out a book basically of those interviews and they weren't cut or spared, just as your opening seemed to indicate, and caused quite a ruckus. And of course, infuriated the former prime minister. And they parted ways. And I do not believe that they've ever gotten back together. I was involved only because Maclean's magazine had a special deal to excerpt the book and they were planning to come out on a monday. It was a huge deal and they were going to ship magazines right across the country. At the time I was working for the Globe and Mail. And just before that weekend I got a surprise package in my office and I opened it up. And it's the book, and it's not supposed to be released until that Monday. And I also have a letter there giving me the right to accept anything from the except for the following chapters itself on stuff in there that I thought was even juicier than what Maclean's did. And then Monday morning, they're about to ship their magazine, and the Globe and Mail comes out with a vast array of just wild stories that weren't in the Maclean's magazine, which kind of won the day on that. And it was not a happy moment for the editor of the Claims. Ken White. I understand perfectly. He was angry. We got a letter from almost immediately about being sued, and then I produced the letter that showed that I had actually been given the rights to it. But I'm going to say where they came from. But I had the rights you covered.

CC: You know, so many fascinating eras in Canadian politics. And I wonder what you learned in that time about political journalists getting along with politicians.

ROY MAGREGOR: Well, I think you have to learn a lot different now. Also, I covered a lot of hockey and the same thing applies there that both in the sports world and in the political world, handlers came along and handlers with talking points came along and suddenly you're no longer able to have that nice conversation either sitting in a locker next to a Wayne Gretzky or something like that, or simply going for a walk with someone like Joe Clark and just talking about the day. You don't have that access anymore. And I think that's caused part of the rift and the anger and the suspicion that lies between both the politicians and the media that covers them and the media and the people who handle the politicians. It's not a very nice thing on social media has made it an ugly thing.

CC: Tell me what gets lost when we lose that ability to have these sort of more spontaneous or more genuine connections with our political leaders?

ROY MAGREGOR: Well, a sense of who the person is. You know, we only see a portfolio of kind of ranting all the time. We'd never got a sense of Stephen Harper. And I was kind of in a weird way, I was approached to see if I would help Prime Minister Harper with his book on hockey that he was doing. That's how he relaxed. And so I spent quite a bit of time with him. And that's a very funny incident. It was run on the Globe and Mail this past weekend, so I won't spoil it, but I got to know him on a on a different level and, you know, it never got out there. I guarantee that one time that his wife Laureen, seemed to sing the Beatles song, I got a little help from my friends. Do you remember that? Mm hmm. And that was quite, quite warm and fuzzy. But he had a good sense of humour. He told me once, he said, You asked me what I'd done before I started covering hockey. I said it was on Parliament Hill, which he didn't really realise. And he said, he said, Well, my plan was to be an accountant, but I didn't have enough personality, so I became an economist. We're little things like that.

CC: Yeah, well, I think he I mean, from what I understand, he sort of became a lot more buttoned up over the years. He decided, speaking like that wasn't in his interest. But I want to focus back in on you, because you did have I mean, you've seen this incredible arc in Canadian journalism. Tell me what print journalism, what the scene was like when Peter Newman hired you at McLean's.

ROY MAGREGOR: Well, it was we thought we were the most powerful publication in the country. And I guess an argument can be made for it. But we were the big players, the print people, whether it was the Toronto Star, the Open Mail or some of the other papers like the Ottawa Citizen in Parliament Hill was there was a swagger there, whether it was Charlie Lynch or or Alan Foderingham. Lots of people like that. And that has been severely diminished by what has happened in terms of the rise of television, the rise before without even of radio, but in particular television. And now the advent of social media, which has made everyone a print journalist and a very curious, odd and not very appropriate way.

CC: You acknowledge in the book, though, that even though, you know, you experienced these incredible eras, you talk about how powerful McLean's was. Your first article in McLean's Up didn't go quite like you wanted it too. Bit of a nightmare. What happened?

ROY MAGREGOR: Well, I was lucky enough to get a break and I got introduced to Peter Newman and I was trying to get a job in Toronto at the time, and Newman said, Well, I didn't have any jobs, but maybe I'd like to try a piece. And what did I write about while at university? Even though I'm tone deaf, I had been a record reviewer and that was a way to get free records, a lot of that. I said, Well, I maybe write a column on the current state of music, in particular Canadian music. And so I filed the piece and just before the publication was issued, I got a call from Peter Newman's office to get my butt in there, got in there. He was livid. He's sitting there behind his desk. He had his earphones on and listening to Stan Kenton, as per usual. They took the earphones off and he tapped on the on the magazine and there was a big red circle. And there was a line there that said, Not since the guess who produced the great rock opera Tommy has got it added. I don't know. And by God, every minute everybody knows who a British band know. And I said, I don't like what kind of a mental lapse that I have. So there's my job gone down the drain for sure. I went back down to where I was working there in the business press at McLean Hunter, and we used to work on on carbon paper. So I got my carbon paper copies of naval race through it, and I thought, No, no, I didn't make a mistake. I went back up to Newman's office. I asked to see him, I showed him the carbon copies. Go ahead and talk to the handling editor. Don Opie said that he would have caught it had he seen that. Now we went down to the the final person to touch the the copy was wonderful. Joan Weather saved, but she was not from Canada. She did with a charming UK accent, a man. She said, Oh dear, yes. I thought that Roy had just made a mistake because he mentioned the suit down low and up high. He had just the who. So I just word put the word guess who guess in there to make it right for him. But of course, I'm so sorry. Anyway. Saved my boss.

CC: Well, these days you'd have a Twitter mob breathing down your neck. Before you knew it, you wouldn't find out from your boss. You say that you practised experiential journalism. How did that work? What does that mean?

ROY MAGREGOR: Well, in my definition, it's the ability to disappear. If I could arrange, especially if I was doing a profile of someone, I would try to arrange to do something with them, just something every day where they go into some place to give a speech where they're going to be doing something that I could kind of cover, but not cover. And since I wasn't carrying a camera and I wasn't card carrying a tape recorder, very often I would just have my notes, but my my notepad would be in my pocket and a pen beside it and that. And I would just kind of try to fit in. And eventually, as time went by, we would often forget that I was there, just part of the entourage or whatever. And of course I'd be watching things and taking notes and then I would experience what they were experiencing and then I could step back and write about that experience, hopefully from their point of view or how it applied to how they went about their job and what kind of a person they were.

CC: Can you give us an example of maybe one of the wildest experiences you had?

ROY MAGREGOR: I saw many of them, but I was thinking they wanted me to do a profile of Timothy Findley, and he had written a book called The Wars. And so I went out to visit him at his place at his farm and not too far from Toronto, around Peterborough area. And I talked to him about writing the wars and he got his father's letters and things like that. And I said, But how did how did you experience what it was like to work in them in the mud and the filth and that. And he said, I'll show you. And so we went out on the farm and we went out to a back park and there was furrows there and had become quite muddy. And he actually showed me how he fell into the mud and crawled and creaked and had trouble even breathing. He said, I felt and I felt like I was suffocating in that. And so by just asking him, either by phone or to his face what it was like, and he told me that is entirely different from me getting to see it. And it changed the whole way I did the profile.

CC: And I have always thought that's one of the big privileges of our chosen profession, right? Is when people just let you in like that, right? You just ask and and you get access to these incredible moments.

ROY MAGREGOR: Well, there's a part in there where I got because I'd written a lot about indigenous in the country and I'd written a book about Billy Diamond, the chief of the James Bay Cruise. I phoned Billy and I said, Do you have any connections to this guy, Elijah Harper out in Winnipeg? This is during the Mitchell debates, of course. He said, Oh yeah, He said, Just wait. It gets back to me and suddenly I'm on an aeroplane. And I go out there and I met by Maude, by Bill Fontaine, and over Mercredi, and they take me to a secret place and a hotel where they fold up the light while they're with Elijah. I stayed up all night with Elijah Harper. Well, he sat there with his father and his Bible, and we talked and talked through the night. And then in the morning, of course, he got up and went to the legislature. And just as Clyde Wells just a bit earlier in Newfoundland, Elijah Harper said no, and that was the end of the accord. What access is that?

CC: Yeah, I mean, what a privilege, right, to have that front row seat. You make a really interesting comparison or draw something of a parallel in the book. When you talk about the atmosphere in Canada after March, the discontent, the angst and what we've seen in the past few years, the convoy movement here in Ottawa. And I wonder if you could just reflect a bit on is this not so new then this this divide that we have experienced in the past few years? Or do you see.

ROY MAGREGOR: You know, it's not new and what's new is us noticing it. David Walmsley, the editor of The Globe and Mail, said to me not too long ago, he said, you know, you were writing about this divide years and years ago. And I reflected back and I said, I came across it in Oka and I found out that I watched what was happening at Oka, and I found that the indigenous and writers of the military, but the indigenous contingent were speaking differently. There's someone like me who was holding a notepad and they went to the cameras and I started to notice this again when I covered the Keith Spicer commission as it went across the country, talking to people who are profoundly different. People talk to the cameras, especially Canadians, than they talk to somebody who might be just listening or holding a notepad. They talk to the cameras as if they were presenting someone that they thought the camera wanted to see. They talked to somebody like me quietly and they were themselves. And there was this anger, deep, deep anger. And after 911, I went down. I spent a long time travelling to the States on the anniversary of the 911 bombing, and I ran into Americans who are furious that one Ku Klux Klan guy told me. He said, the Twin Towers, I wish they'd taken out four or five of the towers. I wished that happened ten times more people killed. And I didn't realise so much then that there was this rise in anger that suddenly attached itself to things like social media. And so I may say so Donald Trump and became a rage. And to me, it's I would say right now the most dangerous thing in our society is this dichotomy, this disconnect and this rage that is out there, often with no real place to go. They're just angry. And of course, they're life. You know, it starts out in Bellville in particular when Prime Minister Trudeau was there. I don't know what it means, so I don't know where it's going, but I don't like it.

CC: Well, I like the urges to ask you. It would be wonderful if you got all the answers here. Roy MacGregor. But. But how? We make it better. Like I certainly hope that in our profession, helping people talk to each other, really understand each other, can be can be part of that. But, you know, given the parallel you drew with Mitch, other times where you've seen that anger, what do you think can help ease it can help reconnect us?

ROY MAGREGOR: Well, I think politics can be done differently. I remember during the Tory leadership race, Scott Aitchison from Muskoka Parry Sound and actually in his write in right now. He talked about how politicians should talk differently to each other, that they should work together to get things done for the greater part of society. And he didn't do very well in the race, but I thought his message was good. We're not getting that at the moment from those at the very highest ends. I think also in social media and you cannot correct this now as far as I can determine, there should never have been anonymity allowed and so that you should be who you are and you should be. Don't want to see force, but you should be obligated to stand up for what you're saying as you, not as some avatar or something like that, and kind of get better. Yeah, it can get better and it can get better, I think, because essentially at the core we are Canadians. So I spent an awful lot of time in the book trying to understand what what that old phrase, the ordinary Canadian really is the ordinary Canadian, even though we have these Bellville moments and they're still decent, still wants to be polite, wants the discourse not to get angry in that it wants the country to be better. So, yeah, you can say that I see the world through rose coloured glasses. But I love this country, I love the people, and I have a deep hope that we can get away from some of this ridiculous petty anger that's going on in politics right now.

CC: Some of the topics that you loved the most really tied into the hallmarks of Canadian identity, right? I mean, great lover of hockey, great lover of canoes, all these classic moments in Canadian identity as you, you know, cover various prime ministers. What would you say about how Canadian identity has evolved the moment we find ourselves out now?

ROY MAGREGOR: Well, a Canadian won a major golf tournament a couple of months ago or a month and a half ago, and when he sunk his final putt. His best friend, also a Canadian professional golfer and runner up with the champagne and sprayed him. Security guards tackled the [cross talking]

CC: [Cross talking]

ROY MAGREGOR: Took him to the ground. What do you think that golfer did that he yell or anything? He apologised to the security people. So I think that sorry, sorry, sorry cliche about Canadians are still there. It's always going to be there. I think that we are because of how this country was settled. And let's not pretend there were not difficulties there. But basically it had to be done by cooperation. And I think that's why ultimately we ended up with things like our health care system in that especially working over the prairies. And of course, Tommy Douglas, that's where he came from, isn't it? So you needed help to survive, whether you were in Montreal and the first early years of colonisation, or you were trying to homestead on the prairies. And I think that's still part of the Canadian culture to help out. We have to tap into that more. I think it can happen with the proper leadership. And let's try to get there, please.

CC: I'm going to we're going to tackle another tough topic now, Roy MacGregor, which is I do want to speak about the state of print media right now. Like it's so striking again, reading your book, you know, some of your tales of expense accounts. I got to tell you, like I think it would be I can't even imagine if a journalism student now picks up something like that or someone early on in their career. The money is not flowing like it used to. And in fact, you know, the jobs just seem fewer and fewer. What would you say about how well print journalism is doing as it tries to serve Canadians right now?

ROY MAGREGOR: Oh, not very well. Social media. The thing is that journalism is clearly going digital and we can't fight it. Some might not like it, but that's the way it is. And instead of hated it. I would encourage young journalists started out to embrace it and to see what can be done on digital media, social media, not what you can do with podcasts, what you can do with with, you know, if you can have a very responsible informational source on the web. It's no reason in the world why you can't, because New York Times, The Globe and Mail, they're also on the Web. The CBC is on the Web. You can have that good journalism. And that's where I think it will be found. And there may even be something beyond what you and I even understand. Catherine, there may be something beyond the web, beyond digital journalism. But the fact that we're having all these problems with papers struggling with money, not being there to do the kind of informational research that needs to be done often instead of crying wolf about it all the time. Let's get at it and see what we can do with this, because I think that the need for proper, honest information, the need for the truth is actually growing. And I think that the people who will provide that truth are could be today's young journalists. So it's not hopeless at all. It's actually quite hopeful.

CC: That you see hope in the profession. But I wonder if one of your brood of grandchildren said to you that this is the profession they were considering, would you hesitate to to endorse choosing that path, knowing that it can be a tough road?

ROY MAGREGOR: Well, I already have one daughter who's done a lot of work for the CBC and for the Ottawa Citizen and is writing books, and now the grandchildren are all quite young. I would be deeply, deeply proud and honoured if one of them decided that they were going to go into I don't even know what to call it anymore. I guess we'll call it journalism, but I would if they were going into spreading the truth.

CC: I like that in spreading the truth. What would you say that a career in journalism is ultimately giving you, Roy MacGregor?

ROY MAGREGOR: Oh, it's been a gift that keeps on giving. And it's I'm just startled that I got into it. I mean, I, I got into journalism because I failed Grade 12 so badly that they were trying to kick me out of high school. And the English teacher intercept that really intervened and said, Look, Principal Goldstone, would you please let Roy come back to school in the fall because I'm going to start up a magazine. I think he should be the editor at 53%. In English. But then I started on something, so I fell in love with journalist and journalism. Allow me to travel. The world gave me the greatest friends in the world. One thing I should add is that we did start up that magazine at Huntsville High School, and they hired a business editor, or they named a business editor, a young woman who had just moved into town, and her name was Ellen Griffiths. And we ended up married.

CC: Yeah. You write, you write beautifully about Ellen in the book as well. Who. Yeah, who passed away about a year and a half ago. Nelson. Yes. Deepest condolences. Thanks, Roy. It you know, there are so many incredible adventures in this book of yours and somebody at a different point in her career. It's really lovely to read about all the incredible moments and, you know, some of it heartfelt and some of it a bit more dramatic. You talk about getting strip searched in the book as well, but maybe we'll save that for folks who decide to pick up a copy.

ROY MAGREGOR: Okay, Carter.

CC: Lovely. Lovely to meet you over the radio like this. Thank you, MacGregor.

ROY MAGREGOR: I enjoyed it. Thank you.

CC: Roy MacGregor is the author of Paper Trails From the Backwoods to the Front Page. In the spirit of Roy's early days on the job and an innocent mix up. Here's the Guess Who with Laughing.

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CC: Coming up after your regional update will continue the CBC podcast. The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. I'm Catherine Cullen and you're listening to The Current. Please stay with us.

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The deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman

CC: I'm Catherine Cullen and you're listening to The Current. Throughout the summer, we're bringing you some of CBC's best podcasts. Today, we're continuing the series hosted by Kathleen Goldhar. This is episode seven of The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman.

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KERRY WINTER: Okay, so the pictures are all in here. They're just pictures. But here's the National Enquirer thing right there on the cover. You didn't know I made the National Enquirer?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: No, I had no idea that Kerry Winter had made the cover of The National Enquirer. With a blaring headline. The cousin did it. Okay. I'm in Kerry's Toronto apartment on a sunny fall day. He's rifling through a drawer in his living room where he has news clippings and magazines about the murder of his cousin, Barry Sherman.

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KERRY WINTER: And so. Oops. And you saw all the photos? I got lots of photos that you wanted to see them.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: All this media attention. The sensational headlines and gossip magazines and the long write ups in more reputable ones all came after Kerry went on national TV and told Canadians that not only did he have fantasies about killing his billionaire cousin Barry, but that Barry had once asked him to hire someone to kill Honey.

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KERRY WINTER: Oh, I come across as a cuckoo, and I think somebody else out there with maybe less fortitude or strengths would have jumped off a frigging bridge.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: After his interview on CBC television's The Fifth Estate, Kerry became a well-recognized figure in Toronto, especially the Jewish community. And what he said on TV just fueled the intense speculation around the Shermans death. Adding Kerry to the ever-growing list of suspects.

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KERRY WINTER: I used to go to restaurants. I'd go places. People would stare at me. I was being laughed at. I was reading comments when it went on YouTube. I was seeing what people were saying about me. It was crippling. I remember when it aired on the CBC, I'm sitting with my two young children and it starts off pretty good and how it ends. And my daughter and son are sitting there and they're making me out to look like a kook.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The Fifth Estate episode aired in 2018, more than four years before this interview.

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KERRY WINTER: Oh, we're running this already.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The lawsuit that Kerry and his brothers launched against their cousin Barry, also years in the past. But Kerry's humiliation, anger and deep sadness feels like it's still right on the surface.

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KERRY WINTER: You got to remember, we're talking about 17 years. I'm looking up to this man, loving him like a father. He's treating me like his adopted son. He's my surrogate dad. And it was the first time I ever raised my voice to him. And I told him he's a fucking liar. He says, I know you're upset with me, but I can explain. I said, No, you can't. You lied to me. And it was then that I swore that I would get even with him.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Before he lost the lawsuit against Barry, Kerry had tried to court the media to tell his side of the story, but he had very little luck. That was until Barry and Honey showed up dead and the media began hounding Kerry for an interview.

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KERRY WINTER: So you got to remember, it was only a couple of weeks after the bodies were found. The theory was still murder suicide.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It's pretty important to keep the timing in mind. When Kerry sat down for his first big interview with the Fifth Estate. The police still saw this case as a husband, killing his wife and then killing himself.

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KERRY WINTER: So I turn and I see, look it. The only regret I'm looking at is that I didn't kill this piece of shit. What do you mean? And I started to talk about my anger and my fantasies.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: That's what Kerry told the CBC five years ago. And talking to him now, I can tell you that he still sounds just as angry, just as volatile as he did back then. Kerry fluctuates between his intense anger and deep grief. His trauma goes beyond railing against his dead cousin. This is a man who lost his parents at four years old and never seemed to have found his footing. Often struggling with drug addictions and an overwhelming need to be loved and wrapped up in all of this is Kerry's complicated relationship with Barry, a man who supported him almost like a father would financially, emotionally and on his road to sobriety. And when Kerry did get sober, Barry was at his side to celebrate.

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KERRY WINTER: I got my one year. And who was there? Barry? My cousin Barry came, and it's strange. I get emotional even after all this time talking about things. It's strange, but I remember it because I was so proud of myself and I was so happy that my cousin came. And Barry asked him if he could say a few words. After my friend gave me my one year medallion. and Barry stood up. He said He said such beautiful things about me and that he was so proud of me. At that moment. I really loved him. That's something the listeners need to know. That I loved my cousin. He broke my heart later. I was born into, I would have to say, a wealthy family. We lived in a mansion on the Kingsway overlooking the Humber River. My mother was ten years younger. She was 31 and she was dying of leukemia. And in three years she had three children. My older brother, just me and my younger brother, Dana. And within a year and a half, two years after Dana was born, that's when she got the cancer, the leukemia, and died. She was at St Joseph's Hospital on her deathbed when 17 days before she passed on November 22nd. On November 5th, my father died and he was 41.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The fourth brother, the eldest, Tim, had been adopted by the winters before the younger three came along.

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KERRY WINTER: I often looked at my four children, wondered if I'd passed away suddenly when my children were around four and a half, five. Would they remember things? But I think the sudden loss of both my parents, I just kind of blacked it out. They have very, very, very few memories of my natural parents. A few days before she passed at St Joseph's, she called in the lawyers and she added cortisol to her will. Now, you'll remember she just lost her husband. Now she's got four kids. She never expected my father to go. She's panicked. She's stressed. Oh, my God. I'm going to pass away. Who's going to care for my kids? But the one thing she didn't want were family members coming close to us or the money. So she added a codicil to her will say no family members could adopt me or my brothers and she would have preferred. I think it states there in the codicil in her will that she she wanted it to be a Jewish family, but it didn't have to be. And if in time they couldn't place support children, one family adoptable out to four different families that so adamant she was about not having family members come close to us or the money.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Without a family member to take the kids, Toronto's Jewish community rallied together to find the four young boys a home.

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KERRY WINTER: Some of the prominent schools in the Toronto area, the rabbis, announced that there was these four children that needed a home and it caught the Barkin's attention.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Martin and Carol Barkin were two prominent members of Toronto's Jewish community who had already adopted two children, a boy and a girl.

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KERRY WINTER: I remember always getting dressed up for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and we'd all go down to the best Sholom Synagogue. And I remember always eyes on us. No matter where we walked as a family, everybody would stare. And I never understood that. Well, it's because it was unusual for a father and mother who were unable to have children adopt six.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: On paper, the bargains were what the winters had wanted for their kids. But when Kerry talks about his adopted family, he doesn't have any happy memories.

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KERRY WINTER: I had a speech problem. I was stuttering. I was really not social. I was really not okay. And I remember the first year or two with the Barkins was a very difficult time for me. I just remember looking at these two people and knowing something's wrong because where did these two people come from and who are these other two that we're living with?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Kerry says Barry and his mother, Sarah, would visit the boys early on from time to time.

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KERRY WINTER: Sarah asked Martin and Carol if she could come by and visit the children and graciously Martin and Carol allowed that. And I think the first time that Sarah came, she came with Barry and she came with Barry's younger sister, Sandra.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Barry was a 23 year old student at MIT in Boston when the children became orphans.

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SAUL RUBINEK AS BARRY SHERMAN: When they were adopted. I used to go over to the Barkin's house. They're my cousins and I was glad to help them any way I could.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The boys would of course not have been aware, but it was during this time that Barry bought Empire Labs with the help of his mother, Sarah, and business partner Joel Olster. And this would have been when the infamous clause was included in the agreement. Kerry thinks that the option was Sarah's idea as a way to placate the trust. And in Kerry's mind, this is when the life long conspiracy to keep the company out of the hands of Lou Winter's children began.

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KERRY WINTER: But all her visits to visit Martin in Carol Barkin, and there's no mention of this option. So, you know, this is the treachery. This is the deception. This is the manipulation. This is the apple not falling too far from the tree that is cunning is Barry Sherman was his mother was probably twice. So, you know, all these things I find out much later on.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The deal closed in 1967. Not long after that, Barry's mother died.

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KERRY WINTER: And I also know that when Sarah suddenly passes away, I don't see Barry again.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: With Barry and the rest of his family gone, all Kerry and his brothers have are the bargains.

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KERRY WINTER: You know, I saw a therapist very early on in my life. I must have been 15 or 16 when I first started in therapy. And I remember the psychiatrist, and I'll never forget what he said. It stayed with me all these years that he said you went from the fire to the frying pan. In other words, you know, your life had a terrible event where you lost your parents at four and a half. But not only did that tragedy happened, you fell into this snake pit with a very abusive father. Martin Barkin was a very abusive father. He was a rage aholic, although he didn't drink and do drugs. He was a workaholic. And he really excelled in the world of neurology and he became a very successful surgeon. Big house on Old Forest Hill road, but behind closed doors. With all his success and the look of this wonderful, blissful family, you know, loving parents, his six beautiful children in a lovely home. It was hell. There was nothing but abuse and yelling and shaming and hitting and just my whole childhood from five to fifteen, I lived in terror. I lived in fear. I was probably about 24 and a half, 25. I started doing coke and I started hanging out with different people and partying became more of my life. And I loved traveling. I went on school trips to Hong Kong, went on a school trip to India. Amsterdam. I'd been to Paris and Spain. I liked hopping on planes and I love taking trains. I literally went around the world. I remember while we were in India, I was rooming in the hotel with a guy named Joe. Joe and I were really good friends. And one night I wake up and he's always. I see him with some tinfoil and this brown powder. I said, What the hell are you doing, Joe? He goes, Oh, it's chasing the dragon tail. That's heroin. I said well give me that. So I, of course, did a blast or two. Well, that was it. I sat back in that couch and I'm going to tell you so, don't try a heroin.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: All of this was paid for by a trust fund left behind by his parents when they died. Kerry eventually made his way back to Toronto. He was addicted to drugs, out of control and had no idea what his next move would be. His brother Dana was also struggling. It's at this vulnerable time that Barry reemerges and walks back into the brothers lives.

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KERRY WINTER: He knows I'm wired on drugs and he's on this mission to help us.

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SAUL RUBINEK AS BARRY SHERMAN: When my cousins came along, they were in trouble when they were in their twenties. I think I did everything I could for them.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: This is Barry talking about that time during a deposition.

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SAUL RUBINEK AS BARRY SHERMAN: I spoke to them, talked to them, tried to get them, got them into treatment programs, talked to them about what it is that they want to do for a career and how I could help them, encourage them to get the training they needed if they wanted to start businesses, to start those businesses. I financed them. I didn't take any piece of the business. I lent him the money.

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KERRY WINTER: I sincerely believe that Barry's heart was in the right place. He definitely felt bad that he had watched over us. I remember him saying that he thought everything was okay. I thought you guys were loved and you were cared for. So he felt bad that he was there checking up on us. And I remember him saying to me, You know, I want to help you. I want to help build your life. You're Lou's son. You're a Winter. My blood is yours, and I'm here to help you.

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SAUL RUBINEK AS BARRY SHERMAN: I did everything I could to help them, even to start their own businesses. With Kerry here, I said to him and asked him, What did you want to do? Kerry, you have to make something of yourself. He said he wanted to do renovations. I said, Fine. I'll finance a renovation business for you. Get some training, buy a property, work on it.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So with Barry's money, Kerry bought his first fixer upper.

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KERRY WINTER: I remember getting this little house, and I remember going in and take it off the ladies in plaster and really not knowing much, you know, but doing it. And after it was done, he said, Why don't you move in? I like what? He said, move in. Move in with your wife and your kid.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: They do. And the two cousins got very close.

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KERRY WINTER: I remember going in his office and I was one of the few people that could go through the security doors that Apotex, Saluda, Joanne, his secretary, and walk straight in. He could be on the phone. It didn't matter. I could walk away. I think the only other person who could do that was probably Honey. What happens is, for years, I'm admiring and respecting and treasuring this wonderful relationship.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It was Barry who suggested that Kerry change his adopted name Barkin back to Winter.

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KERRY WINTER: Barry was the one that convinced me. You haven't got an ounce of Barkin blood in you. I'm family. You're a Winter.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Not only did Barry lend Kerry money to buy properties, but he set up a line of credit.

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KERRY WINTER: And, you know, I didn't think anything odd. His explanation was why I'm giving you all this money. I'm cosigning all these lines of credit and helping you build all these houses, and you've got nothing to worry about.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Kerry wasn't the only Winter brother that Barry was trying to help. Barry was also sending Dana, Kerry's older brother to treatment programs. Dana was the brother who got caught up in a murder investigation. Remember, it was Barry who bailed him out. But in the end, Barry's help couldn't save Dana.

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KERRY WINTER: He puts a dart in his arm and overdoses on heroin. And it was Barry that called me one night. The phone rings. It's about two or three in the morning. And I remember getting on the phone and Barry's that terrible news. Your brother overdosed and died tonight.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Listening to Kerry tell his story. It feels like this moment when Dana dies is when things start to shift between the cousins. Up to this point, Kerry believed that Barry just wanted the best for him to make his dreams come true, and Barry had asked for nothing in return. That was about to change.

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KERRY WINTER: I knew the right people. That's how we started it. You should. You must know the right people. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, I said, right, people? You know, you're druggies, he says. So guys you hang out with on the street. You could find somebody. Find somebody. I said Barry to do what? He says. I want you to knock off my wife. You kill her. I said your joking and I laughed. I swear to God, I started giggling. Maybe it was a nervous giggle. I can't remember. But I know one thing. He was dead serious. And I said, Barry, you're actually sitting here asking me. To kill your wife. He goes, Yeah, I am. And what do you say to that? I don't know what to say. Well, I want you to look into it. You understand me? And I see you're serious. He goes, I am 100% serious. I want you to kill her. I want you to get rid of her.

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PETER WENINGER: So we were at the cottage in Bobcaygeon years ago and Kerry on the weekend with my kids and he came up to me and he said, You can't believe Barry asked me to get his wife murdered.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: This is Peter Weninger.

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PETER WENINGER: We met through a mutual friend and it was just starting off in the construction business. So I helped him on his first house.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: He and Kerry have been friends for 30 years.

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PETER WENINGER: I was shocked. I thought he was joking. But, you know, I said, wow, wow. And he was you know, he's shaken up. He didn't really say what he was going to do about it. But I mean, I was a witness to it, so I believed it was true. But just the way he spoke and said it was you know, he said he felt obligated to bury and stuff. And I said, you can't you know, it's crazy story, even if you've got to call the police to tell them.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I do tend to believe, Kerry, when investigating any incident that only two people were present for. You go looking for other people, they told someone who can back up their claims. Peter does that here and he also told the police. But if the police took any action, Peter never heard about it. What I'm not sure about is whether or not Barry might have been joking, even if he was mad at Honey. Isn't it possible that he was making a joke, albeit a bad one?

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KERRY WINTER: Was it a possibility that Barry was sort of tongue in cheek, you know, kind of joking? You know, I'd like to kill that cow. I want you to do it, you know, this sort of thing. Except the way he spoke to me that day, the way he closed that door. It was his demeanor. It was the way he spoke to me. He had never, ever talked to me the way he talked to me that day in his office. It was stone cold. It was direct. There was no bullshit. There was no laughing, tongue in cheek, giggle. It was serious. I want her fucking killed, he said.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: If it was a serious request. It does make you wonder why Barry would ask Kerry rather than someone else.

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KERRY WINTER: Well, there's no doubt he had me in a pickle. I mean, the predicament I found myself in is you have this billionaire cousin. Who's basically giving me everything. I mean, people need to hear the everything isn't just paying bills. It's buying me cars, buying me cottages, nannies, houses, trips. We're talking millions of dollars. We're talking giving me this lifestyle you could only dream of. And he's never asked me for anything.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Not only did Barry fully fund Kerry's life, but Barry stood in as a father figure. Kerry was a man who spent his life chasing the unconditional love he lost when his parents died. Barry would have known that. And Kerry did travel in circles where it's possible he knew a hit man or two.

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KERRY WINTER: Clearly, Barry saw him needle marks on my arms. He knew I was wired. He knew I was smoking crack and he knew I wasn't clean. And he knew my marriage wasn't good. He knew I was messed up. And did he prey upon me? Did he know I was an easy mark? Did he know that I'd find it extremely difficult to say. Go fuck yourself. I ain't even going to entertain the notion. Absolutely.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: If Barry was, in fact, serious. I'm wondering if Kerry might have understood why he wanted Honey dead. According to Kerry and others that we've talked to, there wasn't a lot of love lost between Honey and Barry. The Sherman kids told the police that their parents had had an antagonistic relationship, sometimes punctuated by screaming matches.

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KERRY WINTER: He turned to me one day and he was going on and on about honey, and I know that he was miserable. I used to often say to Barry why don't you divorce her? And it was during one of these little powwows in his office he called. Their mean spirited was the first and only time that he ever said that to me. He said, You know, Kerry, she's mean spirited. I said, What do you mean? And he called her mean spirited in the context of the children. He didn't say she was mean to me. He said she's mean spirited with the kids.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Whether Barry was serious or not. Kerry took it to heart and he did know someone.

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KERRY WINTER: So I set it up. I remember getting a phone call that he had arranged her demise and he said that she was going to go missing. And thank God it never happened. And it didn't happen because Barry changed his mind. That's the truth.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Kerry says he and Barry never talked about it again. And soon the two men would not be talking at all.

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KERRY WINTER: I'll never forget that night because I sat on the couch in the front living room and I start flipping through this purchase agreement. And it's an agreement between Barry and Joel Olster in the world trust.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It was Kerry's brother, Jeffrey, who began looking into the deal that Barry made when he bought Empire Labs. And in depositions, Barry said that he wanted to help the boys get the information they were after. Even though his lawyers advised him otherwise.

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SAUL RUBINEK AS BARRY SHERMAN: He told me that I shouldn't provide the documents. And I said, No, no, I want to. They're my cousins. And if I can help them, I'll help them get the documents. It took some time.

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KERRY WINTER: I'm not a lawyer, but sure enough, I get to a page where it talks about adoption to the orphan children. And I am just floored. I cannot put into words even this moment speaking to you, that there's shock. I can't even I can't describe what I felt it. I just remember the wind being knocked out of me.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: This discovery, it changed everything. Kerry began to reevaluate his relationship with Barry. He started to believe that Barry had been hiding this option from him and his brothers, and that all the money that Barry had given them over the years, it was a tactic. Barry wanted to keep this option out of their hands and Apotex to himself.

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KERRY WINTER: I think a lot of people would say, Well, that's a pretty nice gravy train. The guy is worth billions. Just milk them this take. Take whatever you want from me. I'll buy your houses and cottages. You know, you don't need to worry for nothing. But it wasn't me. That wasn't me. And that's what I want some of the listeners to hear that I'm not some extortionist shakedown artist. You know, some people see me as this ungrateful cousin who had this benevolent Barry, who was giving me everything. And why did you sue him and you didn't really have a case and, you know. No, I didn't want anything to do with Barry after the lies and deception and the hurt.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I've already told you about the ten year court battle, the one that Kerry lost. But today, sitting with Kerry in his two bedroom apartment, a far cry from the kind of place that he lived in when Barry funded his life. Kerry says he doesn't feel like he lost the fight at all.

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KERRY WINTER: It was during this one of our last - I call it one of our last heart to hearts. I said, I know, Barry, that I'm going to lose because I know who you are. I'm not underestimating you. But I'll tell you one thing. I may lose in the courts, but you'll lose in the court of public opinion. I told you I'll be your nemesis. I'll do everything I can to ruin you. Because what you did was you ripped off little orphans. You ripped off the orphans of the uncle who raised you since you were nine.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Just as we were finalizing our last episodes, Kerry Winter reached out again. He told me that he felt he had held back during our first interview, that he had more to tell me.

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KERRY WINTER: I've reached out to almost every family member.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Kerry wanted me to know that after the Shermans died, he reached out to their four kids. He says he did it in an attempt to make peace, to right wrongs.

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KERRY WINTER: I've written several emails too, I think their position has been very clear. You said some terrible things about my father. You insinuate or suggested my father asked you to arrange my mother's demise and, you know, Go to hell, Kerry. We're not settling. We're not giving you anything.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It's at this point that Kerry's demeanor changes. He becomes incredibly focused and his voice gets louder. It sounds strange, but his eyes actually darken like become scary black. I've never seen anything like it.

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KERRY WINTER: And why I want the people to know this is if it ever comes down to it.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: That's when Kerry says that there's going to be a reckoning. And he goes on to threaten the lives of the four Sherman children.

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KERRY WINTER: I've given them all a chance to come to the table. I've extended the olive branch. I want to sit down with them and make peace. My brother Jeffrey is eating out of dumpsters at a fucking shelter. It's not about money. It's about Jonathan sitting with me, man to man, and he says he's sorry to me for what his father did. It's not about money.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: After five years, the Toronto police still haven't made an arrest, although they say they have persons of interest. But we all know that the colder a case gets, the chances of it being solved get further and further away. And it's not like you can say that this case hasn't garnered attention or resources. So why has it been so hard to solve? Sure, a hitman could have snuck in and pulled off an unsolvable murder. But Kerry's interviews have me thinking right back to where we started, right back to the day that Honey and Barry Sherman's bodies were found. On December 15th, 2017, Toronto police indicated that they had a plausible theory that Barry Sherman killed his wife and then killed himself. Six weeks later, they changed their minds. Now I'm starting to wonder. Why are so many people so sure that the police detectives first instincts were wrong?

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UNNAMED SPEAKER: In looking at the autopsy? Just for me. If if they a hands were bound, for instance. Right. He would have to hang her, then bind his hands and get them behind his back. So you'd have to do that before he had the belt, Right. How does that work? I mean, it's very complicated to be able to accomplish that. Is it impossible? No, it's not impossible.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: That's next time on, The no good, terribly kind, wonderful lives and tragic deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman.

CC: We'll hear the podcast's final episode tomorrow. It is also available in full on the CBC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. I'm Catherine Cullen. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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Thursday August 1, 2023 Episode Transcript

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