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The Current Transcript for March 5, 2025

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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SOUNDCLIP

SPEAKER: Everything's going to be more expensive.

SPEAKER: This is wrong. This is reckless. And this is not the way that you govern.

SPEAKER: This is like the last thing that we need.

SPEAKER: I feel betrayed, angry, disgusted.

SPEAKER: This is going to hurt everybody. It really is.

SPEAKER: I'm not buying anything American, period. I will look on the label before I buy it. If it's American, I put it back.

SPEAKER: I just hope that it doesn't last long.

SPEAKER: We have a massive wake up call that ourselves and many other countries in the world are too dependent on the United States.

MATT GALLOWAY: 25% tariffs, angry words back and forth, a stock market meltdown, the phrase elbows up trending on social media and appearing emblazoned on t-shirts above the maple leaf. In a moment, the finance minister and the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador on Canada's response to what some have called a declaration of economic war from the United States and what happens now. Also this morning, amidst everything else going on, there are questions arising about the critical role of the United States in global intelligence. In 30 minutes, whether one of the key partners in the Five Eyes intelligence network can still be relied on. Plus, if you spend any time on social media, you're likely to see posts talking about the signs and symptoms of ADHD. More and more Canadian adults are going to the doctor asking about whether they have the disorder and being prescribed medication to treat it. In an hour, two adults share what the diagnosis meant to them, and a doctor weighs in on the role of social media and private clinics in this surge of cases. But we begin 24 hours in a trade war. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current.

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TARIFFS

Guests: Dominic LeBlanc, Andrew Furey

MG: It is day two of our new economic relationship with the United States. US President Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on nearly all Canadian goods were met with counter tariffs on $30 billion worth of US goods. The president talked up his tariffs in a speech to Congress last night, but negotiations between leaders are apparently ongoing. Here is US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaking yesterday.

SOUNDCLIP

HOWARD LUTNICK: Both the Mexicans and the Canadians were on the phone with me all day today trying to show that they'll do better. And the president's listening because you know he's very, very fair and very reasonable. So I think he's going to work something out with them. It's not going to be a pause. None of that pause stuff. But I think he's going to figure out, you do more, and I'll meet you in the middle some way. And we're going to probably be announcing that tomorrow.

MG: Joining me now is Canada's finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc. He's in our Montreal studio. Minister LeBlanc, good morning.

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Good to have you back on the program.

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Thanks for inviting me.

MG: Well, you've been communicating with the US Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick. What did you tell him?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: I have been. I've been in touch with him since the original, the first time I met him at that Mar-A-Lago dinner after President Trump's election, before the inauguration. I saw him again between Christmas and New Year's at Mar-A-Lago. And when he moved to Washington, we have continued to see one another. I saw him in Washington a couple of weeks ago and obviously spoke to him over the weekend. When I spoke to him this week, obviously expressed surprise that the president had made this decision to go ahead with these punitive tariffs at a time and at a moment where we believed, based on discussions that my colleague, for example, David McGuinty and senior RCMP leaders had last week, that the border and fentanyl issues were largely on a trajectory that met the expectations of the United States and are certainly in Canada's interest to strengthen our border and to fight against illegal fentanyl. So we finished last week quite confident that the border measures were effective and working, and that we had been able to demonstrate that to the Americans. And then President Trump made on Monday the decision to proceed with implementing these tariffs. So my conversations with Howard Lutnick yesterday, I spoke with him a couple of times, were, okay, Howard, now that we're into this very sort of corrosive economic circumstance between the two countries that won't benefit the economy of the United States and certainly isn't going to be pleasant or easy for Canadians, what are the next steps? Like how can we see a circumstance where we return to respecting the free trade agreement that President Trump had signed seven, eight years ago? And so our objective, Matt, is to ensure that the provisions of the free trade agreement, which clearly aren't respected since the president's decision on Tuesday, returned to being the state of play between the two economies.

MG: So what are those next steps? There are conflicting reports this morning. The Wall Street Journal is suggesting that there could be a deal to roll back some of these tariffs. The New York Times says the tariffs are still going to be in place. You heard Howard Lutnick say that maybe we'll meet in the middle. What does meeting in the middle look like?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: So again, that's not… my conversations with Howard, that wasn't a phrase that he was using. I saw what he said on Fox News too. We're not interested in meeting in the middle and having some reduced tariff. We Canada wants the tariffs removed.

MG: And do you think there's the possibility for that?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Eventually, Matt, of course, because this is hurting the American economy and American consumers. And as you noted, the stock markets have reacted that way. The cost of living in the United States is going to go up. It's an untenable circumstance for them. And while we're in this circumstance, it's certainly not helpful for the Canadian economy. So eventually, we will of course, we believe, get to a position where common sense and joint economic prosperity returns to being the priority. How long we're in this circumstance, honest to God, I don't know. Speculating with this American administration or trying to imagine the reasons why X, Y or Z is happening, in my view, is just sort of negative energy. My focus is on, the immediate focus for our government is protecting the Canadian economy and protecting Canadian businesses and workers. So now that the tariffs came on, our response has to be firm and significant. It's going to ratchet up in three weeks again as was the plan. But at the same time, if the Americans want to talk to us in a constructive way about how we could lift the tariffs, remove them and get back to building an economy that works for both countries, we can do both at the same time. But our hope is this lasts for the shortest period of time possible. But if I could figure out what that was, I probably wouldn't be in your studio in Montreal. I'd be putting all the chips on something in Vegas and spinning the wheel. So.

MG: Can I ask you about that response? Yesterday, it was forceful and significant and angry not just from the Prime Minister, but others. Do you think the Americans expected that? Do you think the Americans thought we would just roll over?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: No. I think the Americans, and I've asked myself that question too in my conversations with Secretary Lutnick. But I also spoke on Monday with Secretary Bessent, Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary for about an hour on China and other issues. They knew that we would because we were very clear we would respond forcefully with retaliatory tariffs that would escalate quickly. $125 billion of imports into Canada. We were considering non-tariff measures that could also cause some considerable distress economically in the United States. So they knew that. I think what surprised them, Matt, was the emotional reaction, the clips that you played just before our conversation began. But they're representative of what people say to me at the Dieppe Farmers Market in Moncton on a Saturday morning a few days ago, people at the airport, in our families. Like the level of emotional reaction, the frustration, the insult, and frankly, the anger that people feel that this is being done to their most reliable partner and economic and security partner. Like why? One doesn't do this to somebody who has been friendly and constructive and supportive over decades.

MG: And in the face of this, Canadians are going to go into the corner with their elbows up.

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Exactly. And I think that part, I mean, I think it started the first time when people booed the American national anthem at a hockey game that first weekend. I know that that surprised a lot of leaders in this administration. Obviously, booing a national anthem is a complicated thing to do. But it's the raw emotion, as you say. Elbows up. Why are you doing this to us? Why are you doing this to your own population? That's not our problem. That's their problem to explain. It’s the American government that can explain that. But I think we have to be realistic with Canadians as we plough through this. It's not going to be easy for Canadian businesses, for workers, for… You know, when you're going through severe turbulence, you don't take your seatbelt off and run up and down the door of the aisle, run up and down the aisle and kick down the cockpit door. But it's still unpleasant. We've all been sitting in planes where it gets really nasty, and you see the thing bouncing around, and you look at the wings and they seem to be like flapping out. Like it's not pleasant. And you have a pit in your stomach, you're nervous about this. And that's what businesspeople and Canadians are feeling now. So our job is to protect them and reassure them, but at the same time, make sure this unacceptable circumstance lasts for the absolute minimum possible amount of time.

MG: As you said, this is going to be difficult. The belief is that if these continue, the Canadian economy will be pushed into a recession. There are concerns that auto plants could cease production within a week or 10 days. People are worried about what's going on. Pierre Poilievre held a news conference yesterday. He pointed to the doors of the House of Commons behind him, saying that Parliament needs to be recalled to deal with this threat, that this is an existential threat not just to the Canadian economy, but perhaps even beyond that. Is that going to happen? Will parliamentarians be able to come together to debate this moment and debate Canada's response?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: I took note of what Mr. Poilievre said. I've been an opposition MP for nine years too. You point to that door for every minute that people aren't sitting there, and you tell Canadians that it's just shocking that Parliament isn’t meeting.

MG: But the reality is Parliament isn't meeting. It’s prorogued.

DOMINIC LEBLANC: It is. And the reality is the government has all of the authorities it needs to defend the Canadian economy, to support Canadian workers, to retaliate against this unfair tariff threat from the United States. So the government continues to have all of the tools necessary to do what a responsible government would do to defend the Canadian economy and respond to this American economic action. I think people also know that within a few days, we'll have a new prime minister designate. On Sunday, we’ll know who's going to be the next prime minister when the Liberal leadership is announced. And that person will on Monday have the option of deciding how he or she wants to proceed over the next few weeks. So I understand what Mr. Poilievre said. I think that that's a decision that he could discuss with, he could discuss with the next Prime minister, and we'll know who he or she is in a few days.

MG: Even if these tariffs are rolled back, if there is some sort of agreement that is reached on whatever this is about over the next couple of days, it feels like something has changed. And we heard that from Canadians at the beginning of our conversation. Is the United States still a partner that we can rely on?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: I hope so.

MG: Do you believe so, though?

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Look, I'm not a psychiatrist. And it’s not helpful with this administration in the US to predict what six months or six weeks will look like. But I do think that the confidence of Canadians is shaken in terms of the reliability on that partnership. So you're right. If you go through sort of a traumatic moment like this where your partner does something that's so counterproductive, it doesn't go away because, okay, good news. We've reached an agreement. The tariffs are rolled back. I think people will understandably wonder, okay, is some version of this going to come back? And it's also corrosive for investment decisions, Matt, Canadian businesses looking at investing, expanding. This kind of uncertainty that they've created now, I think we have to be honest, isn't particularly constructive for the economic confidence that people need to have in Canada's economy. So I worry about that as the finance minister. But at the end of the day, the relationship economically and in terms of security, national security. Heard your introductory comments about the Five Eyes partnership, for example. I was public safety minister. I saw how effective that is. These relationships go through more than one person or half a dozen people, and they exist for literally decades.

MG: And yet there is an audience of one, it feels like, in this conversation. The Prime Minister spoke directly to him, called him Donald, didn't call him the president. It feels like everything is focussed on the whims or the interests of that one individual.

DOMINIC LEBLANC: It does. And certainly, if you look at the amount of public attention and media attention that President Trump occupies not only in his own country, but in ours and in other media, think about the impact. Look at European television. You're right. There's a relentless focus on what he said today and what he's going to say tomorrow and what does this mean. At one point, it can become negative energy. Our job is to… if we spend our day looking at every news conference or scrum media availability he does in the Oval Office, we won't be doing the work that we need to do to figure out the best way for these tariffs to come off as quickly as possible. But for as long as they're on, what can we do to support businesses and workers in Canada? I was very reassured by the two-hour call we had with all of the premiers yesterday. The Prime Minister had every, all 13 territorial and provincial premiers. There also is a unity there and a sense of common purpose from Premier Smith of Alberta to Andrew Furey, my buddy from Newfoundland and Labrador, who's going to be on your program in a few minutes. Like literally, everybody has a sense that we're in this together. We have to use every instrument that governments, plural, all orders of government have. And in so doing, maybe we’ll limit the scarring on the Canadian economy.

MG: We're going to go to your buddy Andrew Furey right now. Dominic LeBlanc, it's good to have you back on the program. Thank you.

DOMINIC LEBLANC: Thanks, Matt. Say hi to Premier Furey. Have a great day.

MG: Dominic LeBlanc is Canada's minister of finance. He was in our Montréal studio. Andrew Furey is the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. Premier, good morning to you.

ANDREW FUREY: Morning, Matt. How are you?

MG: I'm well, thanks. What do you make of what Minister LeBlanc said about the negotiations such as they are with Washington and the possibility, I mean, again, it depends on who you believe, but the possibility that these tariffs could be rolled back, perhaps meet the United States in the middle, that this isn't the finished article?

ANDREW FUREY: Yeah. I think what we saw yesterday just confirms the uncertain nature of these negotiations. I mean, you had Secretary Lutnick moments after the president addressed the nation confirming his belief in tariffs and the importance of tariffs to right the wrongs of ills from Mexico and Canada. And minutes later, you had Secretary Lutnick say, you know, we're not sure. So, you know, it confirms that it is an uncertain situation. It confirms that it is a chaotic situation. And it demands that Canadians be calm, cool, collective and strategic in the response. And I believe Minister LeBlanc, my buddy from New Brunswick, has done a great job in trying to negotiate in a very unstable environment. I mean, it was only days ago Secretary Lutnick was saying maybe it won't be the full 25% yet. It was 10%. And to pick up on something that you said, Matt, in the previous interview, the problem is that we're dealing with an erratic, irrational actor who has ill conceived theories of economics and is a constituency of one. So one of the lessons I learned as a premier in DC was we can do all the advocacy we want, we can do all the education we want, but the reality is the decision making Occurs in what has to be a very unusual space of the president said.

MG: In the meantime, there will be an effect. And you can feel the wake already from this decision. How much of an impact is this going to have in the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador? People are worried across this country.

ANDREW FUREY: People are certainly worried across the country. And it's no different in Newfoundland and Labrador. We will see an immediate impact on our fishery. It's a sensitive time of the year as fish harvesters, plant workers, processors all get ready to start the season. This is the negotiating time for prices. So there is that level of uncertainty and an acute and often tense environment, which is not helpful. But people in Newfoundland and Labrador are ready to stand strong and proud, united with every Canadian from coast to coast to coast, because we recognize that this is not just an economic attack. This is an attack on Canada, the country of Canada, the people of Canada, not just the economy of Canada.

MG: But the Federation of Labour in Newfoundland and Labrador has called for income support and job protection in light of these tariffs, to your point, that people are worried that they're going to lose their jobs, they're not going to be able to keep the lights on at home. So how will you plan to support workers who might be affected by this? Can you already start to think about that to assuage the concerns that people have?

ANDREW FUREY: Yeah, we've been thinking about that for some time. And I was happy to hear some of the instruments that Minister LeBlanc has been proposing at the national level, because this is a national crisis, and there are levers and mechanisms that exist at the national level that aren't available to subnational economies or subnational decision makers.

MG: What is most significant in what you heard yesterday in that First Minister's conversation?

ANDREW FUREY: Well, I heard that there was… for me, the most significant thing was that there was contemplation for uncertainty moving forward. And what I heard was, well, they are using existing instruments like unemployment insurance, EDC, BDC, to allow access to capital and liquidity. I also heard that there was significant real contemplation for potential future programs, meaning that, you know, the provinces may have more of an acute ability to respond, but the federal government would be there to help in the medium term should it be required.

MG: What do you think this is about? This goes back to your comments earlier about trying to figure out what's going on in the mind of Donald Trump. You've been very pointed in some of your comments. You’ve said, I mean, you call him a maniac. You say that he's cracked in some ways. You said that he makes decisions one day that are not accurate the next day. What is this really about, do you think?

ANDREW FUREY: It's been my belief from day one that he was never joking about the 51st state. Right now, you have a president of the United States who has no checks and balances. He's already shown a contempt for the courts. He is the executive and he has the power of the legislature. So there's no check and balance that exists within the United States for this, the president's power. He has absolute power right now. And I believe, given the fact that he's not even accountable to the electorate, that he has an imperialistic, a territorial-based, expansive agenda. And he looks to Canada, or as you heard last night, to Greenland with a significant hunger and appetite. And so he's using the economic instrument to cause chaos and uncertainty in the economic climate in Canada to create an uncertainty that he thinks perhaps could allow for expansion and annexing of the country of Canada. And now, that sounds crazy to say out loud. But if you look at his pattern of behaviour, whether it's in business or in the political sphere, this is how he acts. And I know that Canadians will meet this moment and have the resolve and the courage to resist any economic force.

MG: There’s going to be carnage from that, though, right?

ANDREW FUREY: There is going to be carnage. But we can't in the pursuit of resolving this acute economic situation allow for the erosion of the sharp edges of the maple leaf, because our values, our Canadian values, who we are is under direct attack and assault. And make no mistake about it, that is what the president is interested in. And I think for many of your listeners and for many people around the world, when they hear of things like annexation and loss of sovereignty, they think about tanks and aircraft carriers and aircraft. Usually, how that works and historically is its economic circumstances that dictate dilution or relinquishing sovereignty. And Newfoundland and Labrador is a great example. And, you know, we gave up our own sovereignty 75 years ago to join Canada. There was no tanks on Duckworth Street. There was no aircraft carrier at St. John's Harbour. That's what I'm afraid of.

MG: Premier, we'll have to leave it there. It's good to speak with you as ever. Thank you very much.

ANDREW FUREY: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Andrew Furey, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. Your thoughts on this, welcome. We’ll be back in six minutes with more on this world coming up on The Current.

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FIVE EYES

Guests: Richard Kerbaj, Jessica Davis, Martin Green

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current. We've been talking a lot about the impact of the tariffs imposed on the United States, on Canada, and what that's going to mean for the broader economy. Frances Donald from RBC said something interesting yesterday in that we are all essentially going to become economists, that we are going to have to figure out how this is going to impact our own lives. And tomorrow on the program, we're going to talk about just that, about the impact that these tariffs will have on your expenses and personal finances. There is, as we heard, the possibility that the Canadian economy could be pushed into recession if those tariffs stay in place. What are you thinking about? What does this mean for your grocery bill? What about for your mortgage? There are a lot of mortgages that are coming up for renewal this year. What about for your savings, perhaps for travel and money that you might be thinking about spending? What are you thinking about now when it comes to your personal finances as we talk broadly about these tariffs? We would love to hear your questions that we will put to experts, and you can send them to us. The email address is thecurrent@cbc.ca. thecurrent@cbc.ca. And we will talk further about that tomorrow on this program.

SOUNDCLIP

PETER NAVARRO: That was just crazy stuff. We would never, ever jeopardize our national security, ever, with allies like Canada.

MG: That's Peter Navarro. He's a key adviser to Donald Trump and a key architect of the tariffs that the administration imposed yesterday. What he's talking about there is a report in the Financial Times last week that said that the Trump administration was also considering expelling Canada from the Five Eyes. This is a group of intelligence agencies in Canada, the United States, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. And while Canada's position in the exclusive Spy Club sounds safe for now, there may be other reasons to be uneasy. Joining me now are Martyn Green, former head of intelligence assessments for Canada's federal cabinet, Jessica Davis, a former CSIS analyst and now president and principal consultant at Insight Threat Intelligence and co-host of the podcast Secure Line, and Richard Kerbaj, a London-based author of a book, “The Secret History of the Five Eyes: The Untold Story of the International Spy Network.” Thank you all for being here this morning.

ALL GUESTS: Thank you. Thank you, Matt.

MG: Richard, what are the Five Eyes and what kind of information do those eyes share?

RICHARD KERBAJ: Well, essentially, the Five Eyes was created very much in response to the Soviet threat back in the, back in 1956. And essentially, what they wanted to do is bring these five countries together that you just named to combat the Soviet threat. And they did that through sharing information, pooling information, integrating personnel. And it was essentially created to, as I said, combat Soviet threat, but also to kind of clarify thinking, generate a bit of dissent, because within intelligence, you require some dissent. You don't need agreements all the time. You need to challenge ideas to better, to create better information.

MG: What about now? What's the role that it plays now?

RICHARD KERBAJ: Well, I think it plays a far greater role now than it did then, because of course, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it had to kind of reintegrate and repurpose itself. And so now, it fights everything from counter espionage, counterterrorism, misinformation, disinformation. So it's a huge part of the intelligence machinery.

MG: Martin, how important has the relationship with the Five Eyes been for Canada's national security?

MARTIN GREEN: I think it's of fundamental importance, particularly our relationship with the United States. But there are benefits of the five. I worked on the analytical side, and part of my job was to coordinate our own community, the analytical part of it, with the analytical parts of our partners in the Five Eyes. So at the end of the day, it's essential in terms of having a consensus on different issues. And of course, the information sharing is, you know, gobsmacking in terms of its volume. But at the pinnacle of that, of course, is the United States, given their mammoth of an intelligence community.

MG: Jessica, can you just pick up on that? Martin talked about, you know, the gobsmacking scale of the information sharing. How does that work on a practical basis?

MARTIN GREEN: Well, it's done through, you know, mostly classified channels. So, you know, there are daily inputs from all the partners to one another. I think it's important to note that it's not, you know, it's not everything. Every country has, of course, its own intelligence. And then there's stuff that's earmarked to share with the Five Eyes. And there are conversations that develop around that, like the Russia-Ukraine war.

MG: Jessica, do you want to pick up on that and tell us a bit more about how that works?

JESSICA DAVIS: Yeah, it's really driven in a lot of cases by interests and operational exchanges. So on a file, something like counterterrorism, there's going to be really broad sharing, particularly with the US and Canada because we share such a large border, we share a lot of common threats and common interests. So that's really one of the places where we share a ton of intelligence. Other files like Russia will have similar volumes of sharing, and they're going to be really important. So this whole idea of, you know, the United States kicking us out of the Five Eyes I think is, you know, first of all, detrimental to everyone's security. But the second, the second piece of that is that the United States can't really kick us out of the Five Eyes. The Five Eyes isn't a formal agreement where one country can kick somebody out. It's really bilateral relationships that we've all kind of agreed to govern under similar architecture, similar frameworks. So even if the United States decided that it wanted to stop sharing intelligence on, say, the Russia threat with Canada, Canada would continue to share and receive intelligence from probably the rest of the Five Eyes. So it's a really interesting threat that the United States has brought forward here.

MG: What does Canada contribute to the Five Eyes? There has been criticism from some that Canada can be a bit of a free rider. And the professor, Thomas Juneau, has said that actually, it would be more accurate to call us, what, an easy rider, not a free rider in the intelligence world.

JESSICA DAVIS: That’s right.

MG: What does that mean?

JESSICA DAVIS: Yeah. So I'm really glad you brought that up because Tom really characterizes that perfectly that Canada does have a significant contribution in the Five Eyes, but we cannot compete with the scope and scale of US intelligence. So what Canada does is we contribute what I would describe as more bespoke intelligence on areas where we have specific access, specific areas of interest. And on the human intelligence side of things, that's going to be particular investigations. But on the signals intelligence side of things, that's going to be particular capabilities, particular access points. So I think it's also useful when we think about the Five Eyes to think about it in terms of the different types of intelligence that we're sharing and the unique perspective that Canada can bring on that. For instance, on financial intelligence, Canada has a broad access, obviously, to the Canadian market that the US does not have access to. So that's going to be another piece of the puzzle that we can contribute to the Five Eyes.

MG: Martin, this new Trump administration in Washington has, how do you put it, a different approach to relationships with allies than we have seen in the past. When you take a look at the early days of this administration and its approach to intelligence, what has concerned you?

MARTIN GREEN: It's unsettling and it's not something that's felt directly, I think, by our intelligence community yet. I think there are things to be seen there. But, you know, clearly, the way President Trump uses and says things, the Zelenskyy, you know, meeting and what Trump has said around that is very unsettling.

MG: Well, and there's fallout from that this morning. The Ft is reporting that the United States has cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine. What do you make of that?

MARTIN GREEN: I saw that they have cut off military aid. And if that includes intelligence, that's huge. You know, the situational awareness for the Ukrainians is imperative for going on, but there are a lot of other players in there. The US as usual would be, you know, preponderant in that. But that would be very destabilizing for the Ukrainians because, you know, a lot of their targeting, etc. So I don't know how far that Cut-Off goes, but it would have a major impact depending on how long they do it for.

MG: Richard, what does that tell you? Again, this report from the Financial Times suggesting that the United States has cut off…

RICHARD KERBAJ: I haven’t seen that report. But I mean, in regards to the report by the Financial Times last week, that was quickly discredited in regards to Canada being kicked out of the Five Eyes. And I agree with Jessica. It's not going to be kicked out of the Five Eyes. I can't see a way for that to happen because the system is so well integrated.

MG: That it's in many ways the sum of its parts.

RICHARD KERBAJ: Sure. Exactly. Also, there are three key concerns that I keep hearing. And I've been talking to a lot of people about the Five Eyes over the last few weeks in particular. But there's the fact that the administration is quite transactional. So in that sense, they may start to look at exactly what other partners within the Five Eyes are contributing sort of financially. Operational standards is another issue. So for decades now, there's been a very stringent and agreed upon standard where you protect information, where information is impartial, where it is not slanted in a political way. And then the third key concern is the fact that there's a worry naturally about intelligence being weaponized for political reasons. I think that they’re a real threat because far from just sort of thinking about Canada being kicked out or anyone else, and in fact, any country can opt out of the Five Eyes. It is a non-legally binding agreement. That's all it is, but it's been functioning quite well. And then back to the point about contributions that you make that you discussed earlier with Jessica and Martin, the US has about a 100 billion plus a year intelligence budget. That's about 10 times greater than all the other four partners combined. But that's only one metric, because money can buy you submarines and satellites and surveillance capabilities. What it doesn't get you and it doesn't guarantee you all the time is access. What it doesn't guarantee you is great judgement. And if the US had listened to better judgement, for instance, in relation to the invasion of Iraq, it probably could have saved $2 trillion. It saved about 4500 lives of soldiers and, you know, hundreds of thousands of lives of innocent Iraqis. The point about access is important because access is fairly singular. So you can have very talented HUMINT operatives, so human intelligence officers and agent runners, regardless of which country they come from, they just happen to just operate better. So it's this singular thing. So individuality does play a part as well.

MG: Jessica, whether it's cutting off intelligence to Ukraine. And again, this is just one report. We'll see how that plays out. But there have been multiple reports over the weekend that the US Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth, ordered a halt to the cyber operations and information operations against Russia. How significant is that in the context of what we're talking about?

JESSICA DAVIS: I think we need to look at all of the actions that the US has taken with regards to Russia and Ukraine to understand the real context there. Certainly, the Cyber command change of orders is significant. Now, I will caveat that by saying that it looks like the NSA, the National Security Agency, continues to conduct collection against the Russia target. So it's not like they've closed down all Sigint capabilities against Russia. So there are some good signs there. But when you look at everything that's gone on between Russia and Ukraine and the United States, I think this is where we start to get some serious concerns, particularly on the intelligence sharing front. And when you add that, the US’s adversarial stance towards Canada, you start to wonder what Canada can and should be sharing with the United States on intelligence broadly and certainly on the United States, on Russia, on the Russia threat. So I think all of those things taken together really raises concerns that the United States is no longer really acting like an ally of Canada and has taken on a much more adversarial role. And in an intelligence world, we can't be sharing sensitive intelligence with one of our adversaries.

MG: I mean, this has been raised beyond the relations between Canada and the United States just in the context of who is going to be in charge of national intelligence, particularly when it comes to the cabinet appointments. Have a listen to the Democrat Senator, Adam Schiff, speaking at the confirmation hearing for Tulsi Gabbard as director of National Intelligence.

SOUNDCLIP

ADAM SCHIFF: This nomination is not just unwise. It is dangerous. Make no mistake, Ms. Gabbard is entitled to her own personal opinions. She can apologize for Assad or Putin or any other murderous dictator to her heart's content. But we're not considering Ms. Gabbard for some position in which her bizarre fondness for foreign despots is beside the point. She is not the nominee for Postmaster General.

MG: Tulsi Gabbard has been sympathetic to the Russian government. She visited the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad while under US sanctions, has criticized the intelligence community, defended Edward Snowden, who leaked NSA secrets. Martin, what message do you think this appointment as Director of National Intelligence sends to members of the Five Eyes, to other people who, to Jessica's point, are sharing intelligence with but also relying on the intelligence of the United States?

MARTIN GREEN: Well, I think it's very problematic. And she already with respect to the Zelenskyy meeting and Russia Ukraine war, you know, has adopted what I think are, you know, the Russian speaking points.

MG: And the Russian state agencies are celebrating her nomination.

MARTIN GREEN: Yeah. I mean, yeah, you know, the happy people in all of this are, you know, she and Putin, because one of their main objectives is to drive a cleavage between Five Eyes countries and NATO countries. And it would look like, you know, we're going down that path a bit, because if the intelligence gets politicized, it's going to have impacts on our foreign defence and national security policies across the board. So the politicization thing is very interesting. And when she was asked about Russia, she comes, she basically adopted those speaking points. And, you know, I know that it's not the assessments that her own community is giving her with respect to Russia and, you know, who was the aggressor and how this is coming out. So Jessica's quite right. It means we're going to have to have a real, you know, good talking to ourselves or look in the mirror with respect to what we're sharing with the Americans.

MG: Jessica, do you want to pick back up on that? I mean, there are observers who have suggested that she might not be, Tulsi Gabbard might not be trusted by members of the intelligence community, and they might hesitate to pass along things that perhaps could become vulnerable because of who is in that position. What do you think of that?

JESSICA DAVIS: Yeah, Martin's right. And I'm going to pick up and try to make this a little bit more concrete for people, because I think it's important for listeners to understand sort of the decision making that goes into the intelligence sharing. So for someone who in the human agencies, in human intelligence, so perhaps you have a sensitive source maybe in Russia or outside of Russia who's reporting on, you know, important issues happening in Russia. But if you share that intelligence with any allies, there's always a risk that that source will be discovered, that they'll be even when we take precautions to hide the identities and hide the access points, sharing intelligence has some risks associated with it. Normally, those risks are very managed in the Five Eyes because we're not all that concerned about it. But when you have someone like Tulsi Gabbard, and I would even go so far as to say someone like Trump in these positions of power, the idea that they could either directly or indirectly identify the source of that intelligence puts your sources at risk in a way that, you know, we cannot overstate. And the same thing is very similar for the signals intelligence world. Perhaps we have a very sensitive access point that we haven't necessarily shared the specific source with our allies, but just by dint of sharing that information, how unique it is, it can expose where it is. And again, in the normal context at the Five Eyes, this is not something that we're all that concerned about. But in the context of Gabbard and Trump, who very well could turn around and tell Russians what they know about those sources, I think this is a very real issue.

MG: Because they're not trusted.

JESSICA DAVIS: Because they're not trusted because in some cases, they might have, owe a political debt to Putin. So even at the very operational level, intelligence analysts, intelligence handlers are going to be making decisions about what is releasable to the US and what is not.

MG: Richard, I mean, in some ways, they're spying on the spy agencies. But what do you think those conversations are within the members of the Five Eyes about the cabinet appointments of Donald Trump?

RICHARD KERBAJ: I think… so within the Five Eyes, there is a categorization where you can withhold information from one another. And so that generally, that does happen from time to time. I think that's going to probably happen a lot more now. That's kind of the indication that I'm getting.

MG: That doesn't sound helpful broadly if the point of the agency is to protect us all.

RICHARD KERBAJ: Sure. Yeah. Sure. I think on, probably on counterterrorism matters, I think they will continue to share as per usual. On matters relating to Russia, though, I think that's where there’s potentially going to be a change. I mean, there's been a change in tone and rhetoric just in the past week, let alone the past few weeks. And I think it's kind of a developing picture. So. But despite that, I know that Jessica said that this will start affecting sort of operational, you know, operations. I think, yes, to a point. But I think there will be a pushback from within. I mean, that's the sort of the pushback that they call the so-called deep state. And we have to kind of, you know, be clear-headed about this. I know that there's a lot of rhetoric around Trump at the moment, and there's tons of headlines being generated. But this alliance has really survived endless, you know, administrations and governments. And I think for that reason, it is likely to very much continue because people from within. And that happened during the first term under Trump. And Martin will tell you this because he shared that with me for the book. People got together within the agencies across the Five Eyes and said, right, let's kind of sort of, you know, keep ourselves away from some of that political rhetoric and continue sharing, not withhold sharing.

MG: Martin?

MARTIN GREEN: Yeah, I think, you know, it's fundamental, particularly during these times. It's not easy to do, but you need to keep those channels of communication open. A lot of this is built on personality and trust. In my experience, you know, the sort of longer I was involved with different folks in the Five Eyes, doors would suddenly open. You know, at the beginning, it's a little bit reticent, but it really is, you know, in many cases driven by those trust and personality factors. On another point, which I think is really important, is, you know, talking about being kicked out of the Five Eyes. I don't think there would ever be a press release in that regard. Like, you know, the United States has decided you're kicked out. It's a lot more nuanced and subtle than that. You will just suddenly see or you'll notice that, gee, we're not getting the stream of reporting or that the reporting is, you know, much more generic and less exquisite, as people say in the business. And that's problematic. And we also, like Jessica said, are going to have to have a hard look at that, because the last thing, you know, you want is something that you've shared being politicized or, you know, trumpeted in some way to adversaries because it will uncover your tradecraft. So those things have to be treated with great sensitivity.

MG: Jessica, we're just about out of time. Let me ask you briefly. In again the context of what we've been talking about, what would it take for this country, for Canada to become more self-sufficient in terms of intelligence gathering? If there are questions hanging around, at least temporarily, over the goals and the motives of one of the partners of the Five Eyes or members of that team, what do we do to be more self-sufficient?

JESSICA DAVIS: The short answer to your question is money and resources. But that does not happen overnight. There's very little we can do in the short term to fill the gap if any gap exists in US reporting. But what we can do over the longer term is invest in our security and intelligence agencies, which means, you know, obviously more resources. In some cases, it might even mean considering a foreign intelligence agency. CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, has a limited mandate to collect foreign intelligence. In a world where the United States isn't sharing as much intelligence with us, it becomes much more important for Canada to be able to develop foreign intelligence sources to enable our trade relationships, to understand our geopolitical interests better, and to basically position Canada as a leader economically and politically in the world. And that is not the kind of thing that's going to happen overnight. That's, you know, at least a 10-year project, if not longer. But I think this moment gives us a real opportunity as Canadians to have a rethink on this. So yes, we've got Trump for three more years plus, however many days we’re into the administration at this point. But I don't think the Trump moment is something that we should consider in isolation. There are broader trends at play, a broader push away from multilateralism. And I think Canada is to resist that. We also need to learn to stand on our own two feet from an intelligence perspective.

MG: Richard, just last minute to you. What's at stake if this relationship between these key allies, everybody working together, as we said, it's the sum of its parts in some ways, if that relationship becomes further strained?

RICHARD KERBAJ: I think one thing that's being excluded here is the influence that the other allies have on the US. So Canada doesn't exist in isolation within the Five Eyes. And I've spoken to people from Britain and Australia and New Zealand who are doing a lot behind the scenes and will continue to do so. And we know that historically, that's happened. For instance, when Australia was, you know, frozen out of the intelligence circle in the 40s, the Brits came to the rescue. When the New Zealanders were partially frozen out in the 80s, the others came to the rescue. So I know this sounds a bit crazy at this time to say that I'm pretty hopeful, but I'm hopeful because I know that the values that are shared, that the language that’s shared, that the history that’s shared within the Alliance will help preserve it regardless of the sort of the political rhetoric at the top.

MG: We'll take that hope. There's not a lot of it around these days, it feels like. I appreciate you. This has all been fascinating. I appreciate you all being here this morning. Thank you.

JESSICA DAVIS: Thanks, Matt.

RICHARD KERBAJ: Thank you.

MARTIN GREEN: Cheers, Matt.

MG: Martin Green is a former assistant secretary to Cabinet for Intelligence Assessment. Jessica Davis is a former CSIS analyst, now the president and principal consultant at Insight Threat Intelligence and co-host of a podcast called Secure Line. And Richard Kerbaj is the author of “The Secret History of the Five Eyes: The Untold Story of the International Spy Network.” Well, coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

KEITH GELHORNS: We develop that inner dialogue. I call it my inner Gremlin. That thing is going 24 seven telling me how crappy I am. How do you help silence that voice and figure out how do we fit into a world that wasn't built for us?

MG: Keith Gelhorn’s inner gremlin plagued him for years, then he was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 34. He's part of a wave of adults getting diagnosed with that disorder. We'll talk about what's behind the rise, what it means for those with ADHD, but also why some doctors are concerned about the increase in those diagnoses. That's coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current. Stay with us.

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ADHD

Guests: Kiri Vanderwel, Keith Gelhorn, Nik Grujich

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

SPEAKER: Top 10 signs of ADHD. Number 10 is they’re easy to anger. Don't set one of them off.

SPEAKER: I have ADHD, and here's my three emotional stages of an impulsive decision.

SPEAKER: When they diagnosed me with ADHD, they were like, okay, perfect, you have really bad ADHD. Don't know how you've actually gone this far in life without a diagnosis.

SPEAKER: Here's a test to see if you have ADHD. Start by focusing on the flashing blue and green dot in the middle of the screen. And as you stare at it…

MG: Does that sound familiar? If you have found yourself watching a TikTok video thinking, huh, maybe I have ADHD, well, you are not alone. If you scroll through social media, you will see video after video listing the top signs that you have ADHD. And that has led more Canadian adults to doctor's offices asking whether they have the disorder and to more of those adults being prescribed medication associated with treating ADHD. In a moment, we will hear from a psychiatrist about what might be behind this. But first, I'm joined by two people. Kiri Vanderwel was diagnosed with ADHD just over two years ago after giving birth to her second child. She's in Delta, British Columbia. And Keith Gelhorn was diagnosed at 34 years old, runs a life coaching business focusing on people with ADHD. He's in our Halifax studio. Good morning to you both.

KEITH GELHORN: Morning.

KIRI VANDERWEL: Good morning.

MG: Kiri, tell me about why you thought you might have ADHD. What was going through your mind? What were you thinking?

KIRI VANDERWEL: I mean, at the exact moment like in time that I was diagnosed, I was a mom of two littles. Like very little people. And my experience was such that some elements of motherhood came quite easily, like my natural instincts and those types of things. But a lot of things associated with executive function that I didn't know that's what it was at the time was a lot harder. My experience of motherhood in certain aspects, relative to other friends of mine, was a lot harder.

MG: What about before you were a mom? I mean, this go back years before that when you were thinking, I wonder what's going on.

KIRI VANDERWEL: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it was less, I mean, I would love it if it was in your lovely voice in my head saying, I wonder what's going on. But instead, it sounded a lot more like, why can't I do this? What's wrong with me? I wish I could just do X, Y or Z.

MG: What were X, Y or Z? I mean, what was happening there?

KIRI VANDERWEL: I mean, for me, it's like why can't I do this faster? Why? Why do I procrastinate until the absolute last minute? Why am I pulling an all nighter again? You know, why have I started this load of laundry and not finished it, you know, days later? Why can't I get my taxes in on time? Various different things that, you know, in isolation, a great many of us might experience, you know, one or two things where it's like, darn, like I wish I got that done on time. But in my world, it was a lot of those things in conjunction. And it started to form a narrative that felt quite confronting. I so often was questioning myself and my own functioning, but didn't really realize that that's what was happening.

MG: So you become a mom, and then how did that kind of urge you or push you in some ways to seek out an official diagnosis? As you said, these things are kind of swirling around in the background, but that's obviously a clarifying moment in your life.

KIRI VANDERWEL: Yes, absolutely. A girlfriend of mine in a sort of a similar circumstance, similar age children, was having a similar struggle. She and I were both being seen at BC Women's for postpartum depression and anxiety. And while both of those things were in fact true, and I believe in those diagnoses, neither of us felt like it was the crux of it. And so she and I were chatting and she said, yeah, I'm looking into an ADHD diagnosis. And I remember thinking, oh, wow, that's so nice for you. Like I didn't try it on. I didn't see those characteristics inside of myself. And then I looked into something specific that she had been looking at, like an article, or it might have been TikTok, as you say. And it all kind of hit me like a ton of bricks, like, oh my goodness, me too. And that was sort of the beginning of pursuing a diagnosis for myself. And honestly, Matt, my photo could be beside the definition of a, you know, a textbook ADHD case. So.

MG: Keith, what was happening in your life?

KEITH GELHORN: Basically, what happened with me is I was working as a plumber, and I got caught up in the economic downturn in 2008 working up in Kelowna. And my company went from 77 of us to four in six months, and I was the last to get cut. Following getting cut, I had like a massive mental health breakdown. And my wife to be saw me curled up, bawling my eyes out because there was nowhere to go at that point. And so I called up mental health, ended up getting a diagnosis of anxiety and depression. And in my situation, I'm like, well, obviously, I'm anxious and depressed. And then I was describing a symptom, which is the first thing in your little clip there. So I had flash anger. So I go from zero to 100 in two seconds. I yell, scream, road rage. And I'm a big dude. I'm six seven, 350, right? So being like that was getting me in a lot of trouble. And then this clinical social worker says, I think you have ADHD. And I'm like, no, that's the kids that are bouncing off the walls. It's not me. And she gave me this book. It's called “You Mean I'm Not Stupid, Lazy or Crazy?” It showed this flash anger, which is now called intermittent explosive disorder. And then I read the next paragraph, the next paragraph. And it's one book that I've actually read front to back multiple times, compared to the other 100 books on ADHD that I buy that haven't even been opened yet. So.

MG: What did it mean when you read through that book and you saw yourself in those pages? What did that mean to you?

KEITH GELHORN: For me, it kind of culminated when I was young, right? I was basically struggling in reading, writing and math. I spent every summer in summer school. In grade 12, I skipped 133 classes. And my principal told me that based on my performance at school, it didn't matter what I did in life, I would always be a failure. Went off to college, failed out, and finally had enough credits to go into social work, which is what I always wanted to do. And when I went in there, they looked at my transcript. I had like a 70, right? And they said, well, there's no way you’ll ever get a C in academia. Like go get a trade. Plumbers make good money. And defaulted into it and worked in the trades. You know, I did all this therapy and I was like, okay, I can tell you 50 ways why I think and act and feel the way I do, but I wanted somebody like me who could help me get through like the day to day stuff, and there was no way to do it. So I'm like, screw it, I'll just start it myself. And that's why I started advocacy and went from there.

MG: Kiri, how did… you talked about your friend getting that diagnosis and that you twigged that maybe this would be something that you would follow up on. How difficult was it for you to get a formal diagnosis of ADHD?

KIRI VANDERWEL: Fortunately, in my case, it wasn't too difficult over here. The clinic, although virtual, the clinic is called The Adult ADHD Centre.

MG: And that's a private clinic.

KIRI VANDERWEL: It is a private clinic. The doctor, however, does also do that sort of public health route as well. The difference was that, you know, the wait to meet with a nurse practitioner virtually, which is sort of the first step before then meeting with the doctor for the formal diagnosis, was a two-week wait, where the public health wait was over two years.

MG: Oh wow.

KIRI VANDERWEL: And certainly, there was a, you know, there's an economic difference in that. I believe it was a $300 fee to do it. And I was fortunately in the position to be able to do that. So I don't want to suggest that everyone is, but that allowed me to get, really, confirmation of what at that point was more than an educated hunch. Like I knew in my gut.

MG: What changed in your life when you got that confirmation?

KIRI VANDERWEL: Gosh, everything.

MG: Everything.

KIRI VANDERWEL: Validation for the thoughts that had been, that I sort of described before that had been pouring through my head for my whole life. I wasn't alone, you know, because these things that I considered to be kind of Kiri quirks were actually to, you know, defined quirks or defined characteristics of an entire subset of our population. I understood myself for or started to understand myself for the first time in my life.

MG: Did it make a difference in life with your family too?

KIRI VANDERWEL: Absolutely. What it did, obviously, it allowed an opportunity for different strategies, different things like medication, etc., that helped to support some of the things that I was experiencing. And what it has done as well is it has allowed me to parent from a place inside of some of those characteristics I now see in at least one of my children. And I can take that extra half bit to take a breath before I respond.

MG: Do you think about what you lived through before you got that diagnosis and how you managed up to that point?

KIRI VANDERWEL: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I, that I would be remiss not to speak about is especially in adult diagnoses, you know, a lot of those of us who have been diagnosed late talk about kind of the grief of not knowing sooner, of what life might have been like had I had the diagnosis sooner. I mean, that's a slippery slope and a long road to go down if you let it. So I give myself a half beat, but then I kind of move on. I absolutely think that I would have benefited from knowing that sooner. I might have been able to support myself with strategies as a younger person. I might have been able to take care of some of that negative self-talk, that self-deprecation, that kind of bully in my brain, if you will. And so absolutely, I think back on younger years and just wish I could tell her that it's okay. Like it's going to be okay. And, you know, you're not lazy. You're not different insofar as there's nothing wrong with you.

MG: Keith, one of the things we know is that there has been an increase in the number of adults who are being prescribed ADHD medicine since the pandemic as well. I mentioned those videos that are on social media as well. And there are people who, and we're going to talk more about this in a moment, but there are people who are concerned that ADHD is perhaps being overdiagnosed and that people are being overmedicated as well. What do you say to people who raise those concerns based on what you know now?

KEITH GELHORN: Well, the thing with the medication, so back in the day, and I'm sure the doctor will speak to this, but back in the day when it was people were getting prescribed like Adderall and Ritalin, that was an abusable medication. Current status of the medications like Vyvanse, I think 80% of my clients I track whether they'll take it, 80% are on Vyvanse. It's only in your system while it's in your system. So it's there from, you know, it's on a 10 to 12 hour bell curve, and it's in your system and out of your system, right? And those of us who have it, what it does, it doesn't cure anything. That's the thing that bugged me with medication when I got diagnosed, is that I said, you know, from during work, I was fine. I get home and I was turning back into a bit of a demon, right? For those of us who do take it, what it does is basically quiet the hyperactivity of the noise in our brains, right? So.

MG: What do you think people need to understand? I mean, you now work with other adults with ADHD as a life coach. The plumbing thing is long gone and this is your focus now. What do you think people need to understand about adults who are living with ADHD?

KEITH GELHORN: That it's a lifetime challenge. We work with youth and adults 18 and up. School system takes care of the rest. Well, they say they do, but they don't. So we go 18 up. So we work with like post-secondary students, people who are struggling with careers and entrepreneurs and parents. And even if you come work with me, I said, I'm not going to cure it. There is no magic system that you can buy off me. Like a lot of other coaches will say that, you know, come work with me and for $20,000 and we’ll cure it. It's not a matter of curing it. It's figuring out a way of how to live with it. Like we're told like, what is it, 300,000 times by the time we’re 18, don't do this. Don't touch that. Why are you doing things this way? Why are you doing things that way? So we develop that inner dialogue. I call it my inner gremlin. And that thing is going 24 seven telling me how crappy I am. And also, the clients are. And so what we do is like how to, how do you help silence that voice and figure out how us neurodivergent individuals, how do we fit into a world that wasn't built for us, right? We're like, you know, the world is designed for people that sit in their desk and go to school and go to work and do the 9 to 5 and control their lives that way. And we're just not those people, right?

MG: That's important work that you're doing.

KEITH GELHORN: Yeah.

MG: I mean, it is really important.

KEITH GELHORN: Yeah.

MG: Kiri, I'm going to let you both go, but you said something just a moment ago that one of the things that you wish you could have said back to the younger you is that it's going to be okay.

KIRI VANDERWEL: Yeah.

MG: If you had heard that back then, what difference would that have made for you, do you think?

KIRI VANDERWEL: I think it might have made a world of difference in listening to that inner dialogue and not giving it power, like really taking away the power from that inner dialogue. I definitely still hear a lot of those things. I simply just know where they're coming from now. And so I think for me, a lot of self-confidence comes from understanding, understanding those differences perhaps. I'm not different from those of us who also have ADHD, like Keith, who I also have a very busy brain, and I'm grateful to know that. And I would have been very grateful to know that as a younger person. And that's why I speak up about it. I would love for more people to hear from other voices that might sound like theirs, that might sound like the voice in their head that it's going to be okay.

MG: That's an important message to hear. You're always welcome to come back on the program. It's good to talk to you. Thank you very much, Kiri.

KIRI VANDERWEL: Wonderful. Thanks, Keith. Thanks, Matt.

MG: And Keith, belated happy birthday. 50 is a big number, so congratulations to you, and it's good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

KEITH GELHORN: Really appreciate you having me on. Thank you.

MG: Kiri Vanderwel and Keith Gelhorn were both diagnosed with ADHD as adults. Doctor Nik Grujich is a psychiatrist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. He's also an assistant professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine, and he's been listening in. Doctor, good morning to you.

NIK GRUJICH: Good morning, Matt. Glad to be here.

MG: Good to have you here today. What you heard from Keith and Kiri in terms of their stories, does that sound familiar when it comes to adults who are seeking an ADHD diagnosis?

NIK GRUJICH: It does, Matt. Yeah, thank you. Both guests were quite eloquent in describing the symptoms of ADHD and the importance of recognizing that the symptoms started in childhood and progressed into adulthood.

MG: What sort of increase have we actually seen in adult ADHD diagnoses? I said anecdotally, it seems like there are a lot more people who are talking about this. What do we know about what the facts say?

NIK GRUJICH: Well, I think the data would suggest that the numbers have been relatively consistent over time, but there's certainly been an explosion of interest in ADHD and a lot of people who've now self-identified as adults who struggle with ADHD. If you look at Google Trends, the searching of ADHD was relatively consistent over the last decade. But over COVID period, during the pandemic, it's spiked up significantly. And I think that there's been a real light shined on this concept of adult ADHD, which in medicine is still somewhat unclear how to understand it.

MG: Tell me more about that and what's going on. I'd read that one in four people in the United States think they have an undiagnosed ADHD. I mean, we talked about social media and the eruption of those sorts of videos on social media. What do you think is going on there? Why would more adults be seeking an ADHD diagnosis?

NIK GRUJICH: So I think it's important to recognize that ADHD is still seen as a neurodevelopmental syndrome, which means that in order to make a diagnosis of ADHD, the symptoms had to have been present before the age of 12. And so statistics from Canada suggest that about 9% of children meet the criteria for ADHD. And then it's good to break it into the rule of thirds. So about a third of children with ADHD will grow out of ADHD when they get into adulthood. A third will find a vocation where ADHD is no longer problematic. So, for example, if they become a hockey player, it might not be an issue that requires treatment. And then a third of children will continue to struggle and require treatment into adulthood. And that corresponds with about 3% of adults having problematic ADHD that requires attention. And so we hear about ADHD disproportionately more than this 3% would suggest. And I think a lot of that has to do with media. I think that media both propagates this notion that any inattention or any hyperactivity directly equates to ADHD. I also think that post-COVID, a lot of people are juggling a lot more tasks and multitasking. And I think technology has become also more taxing on the brain. And I think it's led us to feel like we're inattentive. And not all inattention is ADHD.

MG: One of the things is you could look at the symptoms, and the symptoms might sound very familiar. Impulsiveness, disorganization problems, multitasking, poor planning, a hot temper. People could read those and think, I have all of those things, and that could lead me to believe that I have ADHD. Do we know whether more people have ADHD now?

NIK GRUJICH: So again, I want to circle back to this idea that ADHD, as we understand it now in the DSM, which is our diagnostic manual, you have to have had the symptoms in childhood. So this idea that one develops ADHD in adulthood is not consistent with the medical diagnosis.

MG: So what happens then with the diagnoses then? Are we overdiagnosing ADHD in adults?

NIK GRUJICH: Well, I think it's complicated. There's probably some overdiagnosis, some underdiagnosis and some misdiagnosis. I think that when people look at social media, there's probably a lot of misdiagnosis happening. There may be some underdiagnosis happening because we know that practitioners, a lot of practitioners in primary care and in psychiatry are not quite comfortable or versed in doing the ADHD assessments. And then on the flip side, there are private ADHD clinics. And I'm not familiar specifically, but one could understand where there may be the potential for overdiagnosis.

MG: What does that mean? I mean, one of the things that we've heard is that because, and Kiri talked about this. You know, the wait times for a public clinic could be a couple of years. There are private options that would spring up. When you suggest that perhaps that could lead to mis or overdiagnosis, what are you talking about there?

NIK GRUJICH: I mean, there's always the potential for bias in private clinics. And so there are potential benefits of having an ADHD diagnosis in terms of accommodation at work and school. And so those factors could contribute to overdiagnosis.

MG: There's also been a rise in the adult prescriptions of medication that's associated with the treatment of ADHD in this country. What's going on there? What are the risks of overprescribing?

NIK GRUJICH: So the ADHD medications can be abused. They are stimulant medications. And there is also the potential for diversion or misusing the drugs. So for children, the stimulants are probably the most effective medications we have in treatment of ADHD. In adults, they are effective as well, but not necessarily as effective as they are in children. And so when working with adults with ADHD, I think it's important to focus on behavioural strategies to help support them and improve their function.

MG: Should we be worried about overprescription?

NIK GRUJICH: I mean, I think in medicine, there's always the potential for overprescription, overpathologizing, overdiagnosing. And so I think that again, the concept of adult ADHD is relatively new. So ADHD became a popular diagnosis in children. But now, all those children are growing up and becoming adults. And so we're not entirely sure what to do with this adult ADHD population. And so I think that to give everyone a prescription of medication is probably not the right way to go. And these medications do have side effects. They can impact anxiety levels. They can cause difficulty with sleep. Sometimes, they can have taxing a negative effect on the cardiovascular system. So there is a physical costs to people taking these medications in terms of side effects.

MG: What are the alternatives to medication?

NIK GRUJICH: I think ADHD coaching or psychotherapy, or even reading books around ADHD and learning individual strategies on how to manage the symptoms. In our current state of the world, technology has caused us to really demand multitasking of ourselves, and that can challenge our ability to stay focussed and attentive to complete tasks. I know that if I'm sitting crafting an email, my phone's right there buzzing on one hand, and another screen may be buzzing on the other side. And so it's really challenging to stay focussed. And so I think if we're mindful to incorporate strategies to help keep us focussed and on track, that will help us function.

MG: There was a report that came out recently, a study in the UK that found that men with ADHD faced a reduced life expectancy of around seven years. Women faced a reduction in life expectancy of around nine years time. That is obviously alarming to people who have or believe they have an ADHD diagnosis. What's going on there?

NIK GRUJICH: So the belief is that it's not an inherent biological issue. It's not that people with ADHD are unhealthier, but it's more of the by-product of ADHD behaviour that can lead to worsening health outcomes. So imagine if someone has ADHD and they're struggling to remember to take their medications, they're struggling to remember to take their, to attend to their health care appointments, you could understand how they'd have a global reduction in their health. In addition, people with ADHD may struggle with impulsivity, may have higher issues with substance use, maybe make poor health decisions. And then also, there's higher rates of accidental death. For example, motor vehicle accidents or even death by suicide is higher in this population. So when you look at all those things combined, you can understand that if ADHD is severe and it's untreated, there could be a risk of shorter life.

MG: Just finally, what do you want, given what we've been talking about here, what do you want adults to be thinking about? If they feel like those symptoms are familiar and recognizable, and they wonder perhaps what's happening and they might be choosing to pursue an ADHD diagnosis, what do you want them to be thinking about?

NIK GRUJICH: Well, I think the most important thing is to remember that ADHD does not develop in adulthood. And so if someone is struggling with inattention or hyperactivity, there's dozens and dozens of different reasons why that could be the case. If they did have ADHD diagnosis or struggled with focus, inattention or hyperactivity in childhood, then perhaps they could have the adult form of ADHD, which is continuous over time. If the person did not have inattention or hyperactivity or ADHD diagnosis in childhood, then what they're experiencing is not, by definition, ADHD. That's not to say that it's not something that can be addressed either through a medical exam to see if there's any other causes for their symptoms like a mental health disorder, like anxiety or depression or some physical medical disorder. But I think that if they are struggling with inattention or ADHD-like symptoms, they should probably still read around behavioural strategies to improve focus and attention.

MG: Doctor Grujich, we'll leave it there. It's good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

NIK GRUJICH: Thank you.

MG: Doctor Nik Grujich is a psychiatrist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, also an assistant professor in the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine. Have you been diagnosed with ADHD as an adult? Has somebody that you know been diagnosed with that disorder as an adult? And what has that diagnosis meant for you or for them? We'd love to hear from you. You can email us, thecurrent@cbc.ca. That is The Current for this Wednesday, the 5th of March. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. There's a lot of talk in light of the tariffs about Buy Canadian, read Canadian, do Canadian things. We're going to leave you with a song made right here in Canada. It's The Parachute Club, “Rise Up.” I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

[Song: “Rise Up” by The Parachute Club]

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Wednesday, March 5, 2025 Episode Transcript

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