'This isn't over': MMIWG inquiry wraps, but much work remains, says sister of missing woman

Guests: Chantelle Bellrichard, Lorelei Williams, Bernadette Smith

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I come from a community where there is 11 women and girls missing in our community and that many women and girls is horrendous.

VOICE 2: I first experienced murder when I was 7 years old. My great aunt was murdered on my reservation.

VOICE 3: I lost my mom and my sister in 2017. My sister was only 15 years old and my mom was looking for love in all the wrong places and still missing. Two parts of my heart.

VOICE 4: We know what the issues are. We know what the fixes can be. Right. So we have to take these recommendations and we have to own them. They're ours. Give us the resources because we know how to implement these.

AMT: Voices that are gathering in the nation's capital to mark a painful issue as old as or older than this country itself and a much anticipated report into the problem almost three years in the making. Today's final report from the inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls is forceful in its language and its recommendations. It describes the issue as "a Canadian genocide" and it calls for changes to the Criminal Code, changes to Canadian policing and government institutions and in public attitudes as well. In a few moments we will hear from two family members of missing and murdered women about what this day and these recommendations mean to them. But first I'm joined by Chantelle Bellrichard. She is a reporter with CBC's Indigenous unit. She's been in touch with many family members as they've gathered for today's official ceremony at the Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec and Chantelle in our Ottawa studio. Hi.

CHANTELLE BELLRICHARD: Good morning.

AMT: What have you been hearing from family members at the gathering yesterday and in the days leading up to this ceremony?

CB: I think as you heard in those voices there that were just played from the vigil last night, there is a whole range of emotions. There's really a tension here right now and I think some of that as this final report gets released to the federal government will dissipate a little bit, but you know this is, doesn't matter if it's been months, years, decades since families experienced this loss or survived some type of horrific violence, that grief and that trauma is still very palpable. I'm spending time with families and and there's something really beautiful when people come together because they understand each other in a way that they really feel like other Canadians or just other people who haven't lived through these experiences have. So I think there's going to be some really beautiful ceremonial coming together and then as you heard there are people who are now really turning their attention on OK we've organized, we pushed to make this inquiry happen and now we're going to group together once again and push for change.

AMT: What's the reaction to the use of the phrase "Canadian genocide" to describe what has been happening?

CB: That's, it's mixed. It definitely is a mixed response, but for so many of the people who've been part of this inquiry and just Indigenous peoples in general, I would say, I mean I don't have a poll, but overwhelmingly it seems that people are saying yeah this this happened. Yes this has been a genocide that we've been experiencing and you know it's not that the inquiry is saying the missing and murdered like in isolation amounts to genocide. What they're saying is they looked at the totality in their mandate of what are the root causes of this disproportionate violence against Indigenous women and girls and the two spirited people in the queer community and really found that it's the sum of the history of this country and the ongoing policies that amount to genocide against Indigenous peoples overall in this country, but Indigenous women, girls and people in the queer community are especially impacted. So a lot of validation there for some people and then other people who are really kind of scratching their head because they think for lots of Canadians and lots of people they think of genocide and they think of something like the Holocaust or they think of the Rwandan genocide and people are sort of grappling and making comments about whether or not they support this view in this particular subject area.

AMT: Chantelle we knew policing would be a big issue for this commission. What are the most significant recommendations when it comes to how police handle these cases?

CB: Yeah there's a lot levelled at the police and in terms of the recommendations as well or what the inquiry is calling calls for justice. Among them you know they're asking for a lot more Indigenous oversight of policing across the board in this country. They're wanting to change the short term posts in rural communities so that people can maintain and build these these long term relationships with officers especially in remote and rural parts of Canada and they do want to have a national taskforce that will review and if necessary reinvestigate each case of an unresolved file on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls so there's a lot that's that's being said towards the police and I think we'll be waiting to hear what type of commitments we hear from the RCMP and other services.

AMT: And what about changes to the criminal code?

CB: Yeah that's going to be interesting to watch to see what happens. In my view, looking at the recommendations specific to the criminal code, the one that really jumped out at me immediately, was this call for if there's been a pattern of intimate partner violence. So somebody who's been in on a domestic violence relationship or this person has a history of violence against other partners that if if that attack leads to the death of of a person that it should really be charged as first degree murder under Section 222 of the Criminal Code nad I think that's not going to, if that were to go ahead it wouldn't just impact indigenous communities it would impact Canada on a whole. And I think there's a lot of people who are really supportive of that who've lost family members from people who've had a history of escalating violence.

AMT: And these recommendations are non-binding, am I correct?

CB: Yeah, so they're they're non-binding although the inquiry team has has said in their report that you know they do think there is a legal imperative that these are attached to international legal commitments that Canada has made. So they are definitely making an argument pushing for that. But but on one hand that's what they're pushing for but I don't think that it is entirely binding although maybe that's a suggestion that this could end up in some form of courts if action isn't taken.

AMT: So there will be the onus will be on the federal and provincial governments to implement these changes to actually make changes in in structures and in law.

CB: Yeah absolutely and I think as you heard Maggie off the top there say as well is in addition to that you know communities know what it takes to keep their women and girls safe in their communities safe, so institutions and legal changes that need to be made sure those go to the provincial territorial federal government but they also want a commitment to proper resources to the communities who you know families and communities will say they know best how to implement these things so they think they're going to be looking for support in that way too.

AMT: How does this report acknowledge the contributions of the families who have come forward?

CB: I think well you see their stories and their testimonies sprinkled throughout of the 1200 pages of documentation that the inquiry has put together in its final report. They did afford space to members of the National Family Advisory circle, so those were longtime advocates and grassroots folks who'd been participating in this process and supporting the inquiry, they wrote forwards. This morning I think this piece around having this start with ceremony that where family members and survivors will be prominent I think will also exemplify sort of like who's at the root of all this work.

AMT: Chantelle thank you for your time today. Thank you for your reporting.

CB: Yeah. Thanks so much.

AMT: Chantelle Bellrichard is a reporter with the CBC's Indigenous unit and she joined us from our Ottawa studio. Over the course of its work, the inquiry heard from more than 2000 people. Many were family members of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Lorelei Williams testified twice in Richmond, BC and Whitehorse, Yukon. Her aunt Belinda Williams went missing 41 years ago. Her cousin Tanya Holyk disappeared in 1996. Tanya's DNA was later found on serial killer Robert Pickton's farm. Lorelei Williams is in our Vancouver studio. And I'm also joined by Bernadette Smith. Her sister Claudette Osborne-Tyo went missing more than a decade ago. Bernadette Smith is an NDP MLA in Winnipeg. She's the founder of Drag The Red, a volunteer organization that searches the Red River for clues relating to missing people. And she is in our Winnipeg studio. Hello to you both. Thank you for joining me today.

BERNADETTE SMITH: Good morning.

LORELEI WILLIAMS: Hi. Thank you for having me.

AMT: Bernadette Smith, I want to start with you What are you feeling, what are you thinking today as this report is being officially released?

BS: Well it's surreal. You know we know that genocide has been going on in Canada for years upon years. You know this is just a validation of that. We've recently seen the Canadian Human Rights Museum here in Manitoba in Winnipeg acknowledged that as well. So it's nice to get that acknowledgement, but we also need some actions behind that. How are we going to address that? What are some of the things that we're going to do around unpacking that and unpacking all of that history? Because Indigenous women and girls in Canada have been targeted for a long, long time and we know this through the numbers that we see. We've heard 1181, but we know that number is not accurate. We know that it's upwards of 4000-5000 Indigenous women in this country that have gone missing or been murdered.

AMT: Lorelei Williams, how do you respond to the phrase Canadian genocide?

LW: Well I'm just grateful that yeah it's being acknowledged because it's been happening. It has happened to our people since contact and yeah just you know Canada needs to know this, needs to understand it and they need to stop being in denial about it. So I'm grateful for that part. Grateful that they're naming it what it is.

AMT: Bernadette, your sister disappeared in 2008. When your family went to police, how did they respond?

BS: Well my sister was 21. She was raped at the age of 11. So she was on the street. She was using drugs and we often know that trauma is a result of people being addicted to drugs. So when our family went to the police, they didn't investigate for 10 days and we thought that there were five things that played a role: she was a woman, she was Indigenous, she worked the streets, she had a criminal record and she was a known drug user. We were there almost every single day asking them to put out a media release to let the public know that she was missing. We kept hearing from them, she's 21, she's probably just out there partying, she'll be back. And it was very frustrating for us. And this isn't just our story, this is a common story across all of my MMIWG.

AMT: Lorelei, remind us how police handled your aunt's and cousin's cases.

LW: Oh they didn't handle them well at all. You know my aunt has been missing since 1978, but she was technically not even listed as missing until 2004. And my family tried so many times to report her missing, but they didn't take it seriously. Even when my cousin went missing in 1996, when this whole Pickton thing was happening, my family came forward again, but because she wasn't deemed a sex worker or drug addict, they didn't take her case.

AMT: And the stories you both tell, as you say Bernadette, are there's a common thread there with so many people who reported their loved one missing.

BS: Yeah absolutely and many times families have to get political will behind them. Like our family had to get chief and counsel from Norway House Cremation where my sisters from to get the police to actually act. They called them, the next day there was a press release and my sister's case was released or her picture was released to the public. And even that, her picture was her mug shot that was released and the headlines in the media were Aboriginal sex trade drug-addicted woman missing and you had to really read into the second paragraph to even know who Claudette was. So just that really dehumanising and really giving people permission in society to say you know things like she deserved what she got. She put herself in that position, just another dead Indian. And you know this needs to change in Canada. This narrative needs to change. Our society needs to shift in how we treat one another when we look at this issue. It's not an Aboriginal issue. It's not a women's issue. It's a human issue.

AMT: Bernadette, your family decided not to testify at the inquiry. Can you tell me how you came to that decision?

BS: Well since 2010, our family and many others in Manitoba have been pushing for a national action plan. We collected about 50,000 signatures. We sent them off to Ottawa. They were read in the House of Commons and of course at that time it was a Harper government and we know his reaction on that was it's not high on our radar. So there was no traction on it. We felt that the $92 million that they used for the national inquiry could have been spent on you know addressing the violence that women are facing, helping support the families who are grieving, helping the families who are out there searching. You know our families never stopped searching. We have another family, they've excavated dumps. They dove into lakes. They've dragged lakes. Like families need support and help and you know I didn't at first support the inquiry, but when Trudeau, you know was one of his election promises and I'll do it within 30 days, it happened and I had great hope. I did. But then when I started to see things unfold, I went to one of the hearings that were held here in Manitoba and I saw firsthand how people were being rushed through their testimony. And at one point there was like four or five families who were grouped together and given I think around an hour, maybe hour and a half to tell their stories. Families should never be rushed. Families have been the backbone, have been pushing for this and have been saying all along that more needs to be done and you know I just want to uplift and send love to all of our families today as this comes out and know that you're not alone that there's lots of people that care about this issue that aren't directly connected that are with you. That want to see change.

AMT: Lorelei, there are 231 recommendations. Do you believe that they will address the kinds of mistakes that we have now learned about in terms of how these investigations have happened and how the treatment has been?

LW: I hope so. However, there's a common theme of you know reports coming out and recommendations not being implemented. So I am hoping that the government actually makes sure that these recommendations are implemented and I hope that Justin Trudeau will make sure that happens. I mean if he's really supporting us, I hope he makes sure that happens.

AMT: And one of the recommendations calls on governments to give Indigenous languages official status on par with English and French. How important is that to you, Lorelei?

LW: That's very important. You know that's one of the things that they took away from us, you know when they threw these kids, our kids, into the residential school system. That's what they took away from us to kill us. You know one of the things was to take away our languages, to take away our culture and that has had a huge effect on us. I mean I don't know my language and I feel lost without it only because it was taken away from my mom because she was in residential school. So you know to kill our people, that's one of the ways that they tried to do that.

AMT: Bernadette, I wanted to ask from your perspective as an MLA how confident you are that the government in your province of Manitoba and the federal government will follow through on recommendations.

BS: Well I'm not very confident. Since this government's taken government the last three years, they've taken away the special adviser to women's issues, which actually supported families and created space for families to come together. That's no longer there. That's a huge void for families. I think all three levels of government really need to look at creating an action plan within their cities, their provinces and all of Canada that addresses the violence, where things high and high numbers of violence here in Manitoba. We have a math crisis happening and a government who is doing nothing. So I'm not very confident. I'm going to continue to push this government to do something because these are Manitobans. These are Canadians and you know we should all care about this issue. We should all care about people that live in our community and we have to continue to push. Like this isn't over just because this report comes out. There's lots of work that's going to need to be done and a lot of people will need to stand up to ensure it happens.

AMT: Thank you both for talking to me today.

BS: Thank you.

LW: Thank you for having me.

AMT: That is Lorelei Williams who testified twice at the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, testifying on behalf of her aunt and again, her cousin. She was in our Vancouver studio. Bernadette Smith is an NDP MLA in Manitoba. Her sister disappeared in 2008. Bernadette was in our Winnipeg studio. If the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls hits close to home, we want to hear what you think about what you're hearing. Tweet us. We're @TheCurrentCBC. You can also visit us on our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. Stay with us. The news is next. And then what does the man who helped launch the BlackBerry 20 years ago have to say about today's data driven economy and its threat to our democracy? Jim Balsillie joins me when we return. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

RIM co-founder warns of dire consequences if big data, tech are left unchecked

Guests: Jim Balsillie

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, the Turkish novelist Edged Tamal Curran has witnessed her country descend from democracy into what she describes as a sort of fascism. She has a message for people in Western democracies including Canada. She says it's not just that we're in danger of it happening in our countries, but that it already is going there. Hear her in half an hour. But first the technological threat to our democratic institutions.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Data is not the new oil, it's the new plutonium. Amazingly powerful, dangerous when it spreads, difficult to clean up and with serious consequences when improperly used.

AMT: That is Jim Balsillie testifying before the International Grand Committee on Big Data Privacy and democracy in Ottawa last week. As co CEO of the Canadian tech company Research In Motion, he helped put the Blackberry smartphone in the hands of millions of users. Today he's one of the tech industry's biggest critics and he's not shying away from warning us all about creeping surveillance and the threat the data economy poses to our democracy. Jim Balsillie is with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

JIM BALSILLIE: A pleasure to be with you, Anna Maria.

AMT: Nice to have you back with us. What are you seeing that worries you so much that you're comparing data to plutonium?

JB: I'm not a critic of tech. In fact I believe in technology and I believe in innovation. I'm a critic of the business model of the data driven economy where it's about undermanned mining human will and sovereignty to sell that to the highest bidder.

AMT: So talk to me a little bit more about why it is such a threat to democracy for social media platforms to gather information about the users.

JB: Well it's pretty simple. Democracy is predicated on the sovereign autonomous self who exercises the free will and the data driven economy is about undermining free will and selling that to the highest bidder. So these are fundamentally incompatible structures and as an example In Canada we have a number of rules of things you can't do during the six weeks of an election. And you know just think of these technologies as robo calls on steroids. And and if you'd looked at the five prohibitions you can't do during elections I could make a very simple case that not regulating political parties under using these tools is a greater threat than all five others put together. So there's undermining democracy right then and there.

AMT: How would you like to see governments rein in companies like Facebook and Google then?

JB: Vis-a-vis elections. Just put our political parties under privacy legislation there's a recent survey that between 85 and 90 percent of Canadians don't know they've exempted themselves. And when they find out 95 percent of them want them regulated so I would say just put them under privacy regulation like the Privacy Commissioner has been imploring. But currently we've got the foxes in charge of the rules for the henhouse. And this has to be urgently addressed so that we maintain Election Integrity this fall which under the current regime we have no chance of election integrity this year in Canada.

AMT: So what are you hearing from the politicians? Is anyone receptive to what you're saying?

JB: Well we've seen exceptional leadership at the Ethics Committee with Mr. Zimmer, Erskine Smith and Angus. I think they represent the best in Canadian political leadership and I'm inspired by them and they've issued three reports bipartisan that have been ignored in their implementation. So I think we have global concern on this. We've had an international grand committee wanting to pay attention addressing this and deep deep concern. We've had our committee address it. It would literally take an hour for political party to say we will subject ourselves voluntarily to our privacy commissioner nerve for this election and then pending legislation let's make it legal. They literally just have to say we will.

AMT: But they say they have legitimate reasons for contacting constituents with messages.

JB: That's fine, but are you allowed to collect information that no one else is allowed to and are you allowed to use it in a manner that undermines personal autonomy? But of course there's legitimate reasons and ways they can communicate with people and collect information on them, but those have to be subject to rules. You're allowed to communicate to constituents via the phone but you're allowed to do robocalls to suppress voter vote and people went to jail for that. These kinds of tools are far more powerful and we will not have a proper integrity the election if these kinds of tools aren't being regulated it's impossible to have a proper election this year in Canada.

AMT: A couple of weeks ago the Canadian government unveiled a new digital charter that lays out principles for online governance and promises, meaningful penalties for companies that break the rules. Is that a step in the right direction?

JB: Nobody asked for a digital charter. Nobody needed it. It doesn't come forward with any new rules or standards or regulation or legislation or penalties. So it's really not worth the paper it's printed on. What we needed and what everybody has asked for is a national data strategy and there are many things we can do with this, including updating our privacy legislation, putting political parties under this, which I've mentioned updating competition rules, having specific investments to protect our industries. For this we need a smart city strategy for data and all that and I could go on so.

AMT: Well we'll get to some of the points.

JB: There's many things that can be done, but we're well past moralizing and virtue. We need action.

AMT: Do you think the government is too cozy with the tech industry?

JB: Well I think everybody knows that they're too cozy with the tech industry. Yes. They're extraordinarily cozy with them. Yes.

AMT: Did you benefit from that kind of relationship when you were at RIM?

JB: Not at all. I mean I did public policy globally extensively and I deeply understand the issue. You know I was on the Digital Advisory Committee in Brussels and I was on the U.S. Business Council and of course in Canada. But the job of businessmen is to operate within the rules that they that the government gives you and the job the government has put guardrails on it and you're supposed to generate benefit. And then there's an appropriate, there's a portion in that to the private gain and the public good. What's happened with the data driven economy. It's appropriating public good for private gain. So we've had this many other times in our history where you had adverse labour conditions and you put worker rights where you had extreme monopolistic behaviour and you addressed that where you had extreme pollution and they addressed that. And you know as an example and you know in California when they put the car legislation they said oh my God, we're going go bankrupt. Well what did we get? We got better cars, better environment and record profits. So business adapts and it moves on. I believe in capitalists and I believe in innovation, but you have to put guardrails or it doesn't become a generation game for public good, it becomes an appropriation game for private gain at the expense of public good. And that's what we're experiencing now with this data driven business model.

AMT: You've made the point that companies like Amazon have like on the record along number of visits to the PMO for example.

JB: 99 in one year into the government.

AMT: What concerns you about that?

JB: Well it's regulatory capture and that their friends are working for these companies. And so we've seen that if you don't regulate these companies properly it's creating private gain and foreign private gain at the Canadian economic good. So I simply say I want the government to regulate for the public good in Canada because they're supposed to be captains of our team.

AMT: And maybe they should be better gatekeepers about who gets in that door?

100 percent.

AMT: I spoke with Kevin Chan, Facebook Canada's head of public policy and he pointed to the work the company has done tightening up the rules for political advertising and getting hate figures off the platform. Is that effective in your view?

JB: Did they take down the Nancy Pelosi video this week?

AMT: No, they did not.

JB: Right. And so they're just patronizing and obfuscating and delaying and he's just a junior person at Google in a Canadian branch plant that gets his talking points and gives them in Canada.

AMT: Facebook.

JB: Sorry fake Facebook, yeah.

AMT: What more should social media companies be doing?

JB: Well it's not up for social media companies to do it, it's up for the governments to regulate. And that's my point is that the oil barons didn't want to be broken up. The early industrialists didn't want worker rights the chemicals companies in the 50s didn't want. They used to pour Mercury and all kinds of spent oil right into the water table and they were they making huge profits, massive profits, but they didn't have to be responsible for the costs of their waste product. And then we regulate it and said no you're responsible for the package and you cannot mess up the natural and public good for your private gain and guess what? They're thriving 67 years later and profitable and all that. So we just simply have to regulate them but they'll fight it all the way. What concerns me is how much regulatory capture we're seeing by these data firms of these political parties and the truth of it is you know as it was testified really these social media companies can can create win loss conditions for political parties and you know they can simply change their algorithms. They can avail certain information to one political party or another they can change the pricing so that they're too powerful by themselves in our electoral process and they're too powerful with the political parties who need that tool and it's not only unhealthy for society it's very unhealthy for democracy. So it's a toxic situation right now. You know voters have to step up and say you know what. We're gonna we're gonna make electoral decisions based on who's giving us confidence that they're gonna deal with this.

AMT: Talk to me a little bit more about the concept of that phrase, regulatory capture.

JB: Well it means, I mean it's it's when corporate interests trump the regulatory decision and regulators who are supposed to regulate for the public good stop doing that job and they speak about that regulatory capture in the banking industry before the financial crisis as an example and then all of a sudden we get bad events because you know in hindsight things weren't being properly looked after. It's unambiguous what's happening in the data driven economy in many dimensions and we've seen what's happened in you know in the Brexit vote and the Trump elections and Eastern European and how they push extreme views because they want to capture your eyeballs and then and then they sell that to the highest bidder and then they can they have other tools to change your behaviour and influence your behaviour. And so they sell that influence to whoever will pay the most and you know there's certain things we don't sell in this country and I would say you know personal autonomy, certainly in a non-transparent fashion, certainly during election should not be for sale.

AMT: You know Kevin Chan at Facebook told me the other day that you know people should be able to connect and people want to connect, but I'm wondering, we look at that exchange of information as connecting, but really information and data and our personal data has become a commodity. And we actually regulate the trade and movement of commodities all around the world.

JB: Yeah, but let's not confuse the technology from the business model. It's somebody like creating a maybe some kind of chemical that's very good for our world. So you're making your car run, well and they're saying well we think we should have this oil to run your car though and I will say I agree, but I don't think you should pour your waste product of Mercury into the water table. So I'm fine for this being to connection. I love the technology I use it all the time, but that doesn't mean I want you to have a business model that you know you can create enormous societal harm as part of the bargain of getting that technology.

AMT: Which brings us to the smart city. You have been raising the alarm about the smart city development in Toronto. It's called Keyside. It's being developed by Sidewalk Labs, part of Google. What worries you about that project?

JB: Well it's the dumbest and most dangerous initiative that Canada has ever done. Basically you're dealing with forces that undermine, that commoditize and privatize the public sphere, as well as hijack the private sphere concurrently and it's done by decision makers who do not understand what they're doing. I met with them four days after they announced it and I said you don't have expertise in what you're doing. I know these people. You're making huge mistakes. Don't rushm do it right, involve experts. And I was meeting with board heads, the management heads, their legal advisers, none of which had expertise in what they were dealing with. They were all dazzled and what we've seen in the year and a half since that's happened is they know they've made a mistake. Everybody's trying to run away from it and disown it. I was in Ottawa last week with a number of Smart City CEOs and a condition of the meeting is you're not allowed to bring up talking about the Sidewalk Toronto project because they say we just won't talk about. We want nothing to do with. We do want to talk about it. Nobody wants to own it. So everybody realizes they made a mistake, bbut then we have to address our mistake and make sure that we we do proper smart city and smart cities have to be first framed between citizens and their government. And then you know, but instead we made it, it was a private deal between government and a vendor, government decision makers who didn't know what they're doing without any democratic input that has enormous determinative consequences in the future of our country, let alone our city and that's what I mean by dumb and dangerous.

AMT: So if you've got concerns or thought I want to move to hearing what you think on the debate going on over the next generation 5G networks and whether the Chinese tech company Huawei should be allowed to be part of building them in Western countries. Should it?

JB: Well we should listen to our experts. My issue is that we take very technical subject matters in this country and they're made decisions are made by people who are not expert in the subject matter. We have lots of experts, but one thing I know about them is we have an aversion to experts in our policy community where they don't we don't have an aversion to experts when we have medical decisions in the surgery room in these realms for what they are equally technical. But we don't have. Imagine an amateur coming in and making decisions for important surgery and so on the 5G our experts have spoken, they've said their concerns. We should listen to them. And that the tricky thing about these digital matters is they cross cut. They cross cut economy. They cross cut security. They cross cut international geopolitical issues and they cross cut a sovereign individual social realms. So you have to attend to them at the same time and you have to tend to them in a timely basis. And we're we're bearing the consequences of inattention to these things for a period of time both individually and collectively. And they're they're closing in on us. So what do we have to do. We have to involve our experts we have to listen to them. We have to have integrated discussions we have to start making smart decisions on dealing with these things and everything we're talking about on this today both individually and collectively and that's what I'm pushing here.

AMT: There would be some who say it's too late, that we're in this game now and we like 5G, that Huawei is already our 3G, 4G networks that Telus has said that the 5G network if it's delayed, it'll be more expensive if they don't work with Huawei. Like there's this hum of urgency around some of these things that we're on this path and we can't say no.

JB: Well first of all there's nothing that can't be fixed and there's nothing that we can't regulate and manage. So it's all before us and we have the ability to do it. You know it's one sentence in a Treasury Board contract on university grants that you can't give away taxpayer funded technology to foreign firms without a review of the public good.

AMT: When you were running Research in Motion, what kind of information about your users did you have access to?

JB: We didn't have any information on users. We operate on a subscription model. You know RIM didn't do exploit your personal data, we recreate an innovation for communication and we sold a subscription and this data driven economy is kind of a phenomenon over the last 15 years. You know pioneered by Google, adopted by Facebook and now you have to understand it's running through the whole economy. Like Ford's saying we're a data company. We can sell the data on our users in 100 million cars and I'm not blaming Ford, I'm saying the surveillance capitalism structure, business model is polluting capitalism and I'm all for innovation, I'm all for capitalism, free enterprise, but this aspect of it is very toxic.

AMT: When Google went public in 2004, we learned how much money there was in mining user data. The company's revenues went up by 3590 percent, I've got the number right here in front of me, in three years after it switched its advertising model. Can a technology company even succeed today without monetizing that way?

AMT: If you, it's kind of like saying if you don't regulate pollution, can a good non-polluter in the chemical industry be okay? Well probably not, but if you say nobody can pollute then technologies and businesses adopt and they'll very quickly adopt. And by the way, these firms are going to be very profitable around for a very long time as they should be and they'll be creating services. But you cannot be forced into a toxic bargain for these services you simply enter into a proper transparent commercial bargain that creates public good and private gain concurrently which is the way capitalism is supposed to work when it's properly regulated by our political leaders.

AMT: I'm wondering about you know we talk about the role of these companies and the role of government, what should the rest of us be thinking about in terms of the responsibility we have for allowing the surveillance business model to continue?

JB: Well if there is a role of the government to protect us on this because it's a very powerful force and it permeates you too much right now. I think the one thing I would say to you know that the political parties are in a difficult position because they can't cut the relationship because it loses political advantage. So if we want to be okay as citizens we have to release the capture of the political parties by these firms and then at that point then they're free to regulate for the public good. There's lots people can do for their personal hygiene but I think the big job is to exercise political will in a nonpartisan fashion to just say we want you to be autonomous so that we know you're looking after us and we don't want these forces undermining our election integrity and we're gonna make it a factor a major factor in our in our in our voting decision because goes to the core. Do I trust are you for me or you for some other interest. And that's why I'm trying to put it forward as a public good trust issue right front row centre and then let them all say you know we'll will commit if the other person commit the other party commits to they all go by the same rules we get this toxicity out of the electoral political regulatory capture structure and then we can proceed from there. But I I I feel it's too much of an uphill battle because of the coziness and the the power they have to sway the game. It's an unusual and unprecedented form of influence in our sovereign democratic country.

AMT: And you're really worried about this coming election in October then?

JB: Oh, I'm 100 percent certain it's going to dramatically undermine the integrity of our election. There's no chance in this current system we'll have a proper election this fall. No chance.

AMT: We have a Canadian public, which mirrors world public right now that doesn't trust the political process anymore. This could be like what you're suggesting is really could be damaging on many levels.

JB: Well look what happened in Brexit and look what happened in the US. How in the world do we think we're immune to this force whatsoever when we're actually ,pre lightly regulated than Britain is. So how do we possibly think we're not excluded? Not because our people are bad or our politicians are bad, but our current system's not safe.

AMT: Well we have a finite number of legislative days before the next federal election. Is it too late for our government to work with its opposition critics to do something to protect the election in the ways that you suggest?

JB: Not at all. Our commissioner, our Privacy Commissioner Therrien who's who's a really thoughtful and courageous leader who has been imploring for the political parties to be under privacy legislation, just have them all voluntarily commit to it collectively. I mean I've had deep interplay with them and many of them said they will if they'll all do it and you've had the Ethics Committee bipartisan implore this through many years of study in three different reports. So just say OK, we'll do it and then we go a long way towards ensuring a free and fair election because there will not be this undercurrent that undermines personal autonomy for free and fairness. Then at that point I think we're on our way and that's a very simple thing that can be done. Can be done today.

AMT: Jim Balsillie, thank you for coming in.

JB: It's a pleasure to be with you.

AMT: Jim Balsillie is a former chair and co-CEO of Research In Motion, the creator of the BlackBerry. He joined me in our Toronto studio. Let us know what you think of what he's had to say. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Go to our web site cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. In our next half hour, lessons from Turkey. Journalist and novelist, Ece Temelkuran joins me with what she describes as a wakeup call for the West. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, online on cbc/ca/thecurrent, on podcast and on your radio app.

[Music: Theme]

Populist leaders offer 'mesmerizing promise' to lure voters into a dictatorship, warns author

Guest: Ece Temelkuran

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Translation]

VOICE: It became clear that certain people with dirty hands had become involved starting before the elections and they brought the matter to this point step by step. We sincerely believe that there was organized corruption, full illegality and irregularity in the Istanbul mayoral elections.

AMT: That is what the president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan had to say last month after his party, the AKP, lost an election for the mayor of Istanbul. Turkey's high election board subsequently scrapped the results. President Erdogan described the move as a strengthening of democracy, but the opposition called it just the opposite, dictatorship. And it's not an isolated case. Last week a report from the European Union criticized Turkey for backsliding on the rule of law. The president responded by unveiling a series of judicial reforms, but those too have been criticized for failing to address the government's jailing of journalists and other critics. Turkish political commentator and novelist Ece Temelkuran has been tracking what she sees as a long series of moves toward authoritarianism in her home country. She is warning other countries under the thrall of right wing populism that they are not immune to similar erosions of democracy. Ece Temelkuran is the author of How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship. And she's with us from New York City. Hello.

ECE TEMELKURAN: Hello Anna Maria. Thank you for having me.

AMT: Well it's good to have you with us. We heard President Erdogan say that corruption, illegality and irregularities marred the mayoral election in Istanbul. What do you think of that?

ET: Well he cannot say that I didn't like the results, so let's just renew the election. So of course he has to come up with a more legitimate reason, bo that's why he's saying that they have to refer to democracy or better democracy and so on. And this is something not only the Turkish, but also the other right wing populist movements leaders do. They always refer to better democracy and the democracy is corrupt so they are you know improving democracy.

AMT: This is a local election, a mayoral election. What's the significance of that?

ET: It is both emotional and political significance. First of all, the big cities are won by opposition, which is incredible because they have always been run by AKP mayors. And emotionally, it is showing us that for the first time Mr. Erdogan can be removed from his place. That's why it's very important for the opposition. It's the biggest win since Mr. Erdogan came to power in fact.

AMT: So you're saying he wants to shut it down?

ET: Exactly. And Istanbul is a place where he gets a lot of money, where the government earns a lot of money through taxes and so on. I think he doesn't want to lose that as well. And I think his pride is broken because Istanbul is his city, you know as he called it and he loves it. So to lose that city is personally hurting his pride I think.

AMT: Now the president and his party have won elections in Turkey since 2002 and yet you say that democracy has been eroded in the country and then it's moving to a dictatorship. How so?

ET: Well it was so difficult to explain this 10 years ago, but now since you know European countries, United States, they're all going through the same thing, so I can explain it easier. They came to power calling themselves real people and they call themselves a movement, rather than a party. And then they started disrupting the rational and terrorizing the political debate, political sphere. And then when they seized the power they completely changed with their shamelessness, with their ruthlessness. They invaded the entire political mechanism and they dismantled the judicial political mechanism and so on and so forth. And while we were having this treatment from right wing populism , one of the most painful things was that we were hearing all these lectures from Western countries, intellectuals or politicians that we are having real democracy, real people are finally conquering Turkish democracy. That there was a oppressive elite in Turkey, a corrupt oppressive elite. They were oppressing the real people, so finally real people are rising up to have their say. Now the same things are happening with exactly the same terms in Europe and the United States.

AMT: So can you give me some specific examples of what the AKP under Erdogan has done that concern you?

ET: It's a very long list to start with. Judiciary system was completely paralyzed. It is completely paralyzed at the moment. And then Mr. Erdogan changed the constitution through a referendum, which was a quite interesting referendum. And he changed a higher commission of prosecutors and judges and now the higher commission of prosecutors and judges who appoint judges and prosecutors is de facto under the control of Mr. Erdogan. They vanished the independence of judiciary in Turkey. And when you do that it's so easy to invade rest of the state institutions.

AMT: Like what?

ET: Like education, like all the state institutions in fact. So it was like a invasion of partisans. When meritocracy is not there anymore, the ultimate parameter of being the good guy is becoming obedienr to the leader. So imagine the entire state institutions, all of the state's institutions are run by those guys who are completely obedient to the leader. So it is actually you know we are trying not to call it fascism, but actually it's sort of a fascism.

AMT: He's also jailing journalists, is he not?

ET: Oh that's old news already. Most of our friends either are in jail or they had to leave the country. So yeah I mean the entire media is now run by them. Erdogan supporters, the big capital, have bought the media most of them and the other ones are terrorized anyway. And right now there is no mainstream media, neither newspaper nor TV channel that can say a word against Mr. Erdogan.

AMT: You were a prominent political columnist in Turkey. Why do you no longer live there?

ET: Well it is intimidating and the unpredictability of the situation is quite intimidating. I might not be imprisoned, but I might be imprisoned and not knowing that is incredibly exhausting. I published another book, Turkey: the Insane and the Melancholy, in London. And at the time there was the military coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. And the media attention was on me. And then when I was going back to Turkey I was in this passport line and a lady took the passport. The officer looked at me, looked at the passport, looked at me, looked at the passport and it was a time they confiscated passports. They were saying that you know your passport is lost, recorded lost. So they were taking the passports and then good luck to you, you cannot get the passport back. So as time goes by the officer is looking at me and looking at the passport, I thought OK, now they're either prosecuting me or confiscating the passport and then this lady screamed, oh "Ece Temelkuran, can we take a selfie? And then all of a sudden I'm having a selfie with a passport officer and half of my face is crying. Half of my face is laughing and this is very exhausting.

AMT: You thought she was a fan, but you thought she could do real damage to you.

ET: Exactly.

AMT: And she could have, it just depended on her mood?

ET: Exactly. I mean like many of my friends have suffered through you know those passport confiscations. So this kind of unpredictability is unbearable and also when right wing populism, when authoritarianism takes over, not only the political sphere, but also the social sphere, the hatred, the anger and banality and also vulgarity takeover and the daily life becomes incredibly exhausting as well. There is no single thing that is not politicized at the moment in Turkey. Every word you use, every word, everything you do refers to which side you are and everything is, everybody is scrutinizing you. People are becoming the police of each other, so to speak.

AMT: I should say that we did request an interview with Turkey's ambassador to Canada. He declined. We also requested an interview with the AKP. It declined to make anyone available to us. We did ask a freelance reporter in Ankara to talk to supporters of President Erdogan and the AKP about why they back them and I'd like you to listen to what they had to say. This is of course in translation.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: The main reason is that he supports us in living a lifestyle appropriate for Islam. We can go everywhere with our headscarves. I don't know much about economic conditions. I think we ought to support him because we don't know if a newcomer will be any better and I love him as well.

VOICE 2: There have been changes in health and education. Previously, we were not able to enjoy free health service. They also gave support to headscarf wearers. Women with headscarves are now more comfortable in government offices.

VOICE 3: Tayyip Erdogan is not a dictator. This is all a lie. If he were a dictator, his opponent could not speak. One can say anything to Tayyip Erdogan.

AMT: So Ece Temelkuran, are those legitimate reasons to support the AKP?

ET: Well one of the right wing populist you know patterns all over the world, as well as in Turkey, is that they create this narrative, they manufacture a narrative and all of a sudden you hear all these minions of the leader repeat the narrative exactly the same way. I don't know how they do it, but they do it incredibly successfully. So you know they have three things to say and the people you interviewed have said them. It's the head scarf, it's the health issue and it is I love him, which is the most common thing in fact, this personal you know love towards the leader, which is not very healthy actually. So every country has its soft spots. Every country has its own fragile consensus. And Turkey had a fragile consensus about Islam and secularism. So Mr. Erdogan, like any other right wing populist leader, exploited this fragile consensus and polarized people. And he created an Us and Them and he divided people into us and them. So first them, you know the evil them, were those people who do not want Muslim people to exercise their faith and then them, this evil them, became something else oppressive secular elite. And then this evil them became completely different after years, which is those people who are not obedient to the leader. So one of the men said if Mr. Erdoğan was a dictator nobody could speak, well nobody can speak in fact. Only those who are praising him can speak at the moment in public spaces.

AMT: It's interesting though because like what we also hear are people who feel they were ignored. People who feel they were the little guy. They use that argument that you have been ignored, we will give you, we will pay attention to you. We will make you feel more welcome, more included.

ET: Yes. There is a real victimhood in fact when we're talking about rising right wing populism or authoritarianism. We should recognize the fact that there is a real victimhood. Yes there are people dismissed. Yes there are people who feel disregarded and you know underprivileged and so on so forth, but then there is the manufactured victimhood in Turkey. It was like you know we cannot exercise our faith, Islam and so on, which has never been true because it's funny you know, except for 1970s for a few years, Turkey has never been run by a social democrat government. They were all right wing conservatives. So everybody had the chance to exercise their faith. So it is, it was a manufactured victimhood.

AMT: Wiell you draw another parallel. You look at President Erdogan and U.S. President Trump and how people who are not wealthy look at their wealth and they like that, even though they feel they're downtrodden and you make a point about the ability of these leaders to recognize what those voters need from them.

ET: You know all the right wing populist leaders have commonalities, but one of them is making the great masses feel like he's one of them, even though he has all the wealth, he has all the privilege and so on.

AMT: Well you'd say this is Mr. Trump's great skill. You talk about how he's like a shepherd leading them to greatness.

ET: Mr. Erdogan, Mr. Trump, they all do the same thing. I mean like they're exploiting one weakness of humankind in fact. Humans they still do want to be part of greatness. They feel small in this world and a man comes along and he says that you can be part of this greatness that we can create together and it's an incredibly mesmerising promise. So all of a sudden, all these ordinary men, they become part of this greatness that this guy promises.

AMT: You make the point that the argument is it's if you're not great, it's not because we're not helping you, it's because the opposition isn't letting you be great.

ET: It's always easy to spot an enemy and then tell people whom to hate. They make it easier for people because this is a very, very complicated world and people want to believe in somebody. So these guys make it so easy for the peoples to believe in them. They simplify things, which everybody needs. People are craving for simplicity in fact. Somebody is simplifying all these numbers, all these figures, statistics and all this changing world to them. So these guys come up, you know right wing populist and say that OK hold on me, I'm going to carry to a greater future, which was actually there or in the first place when this corrupt elite didn't steal it from us.

AMT: You know you're not the first person to say they simplify things. Well why can't the other side simplify things? Why is that such a hurdle for the other side?

ET: Well in United States and in Europe as well, the other side of the spectrum, political spectrum which is socialism, the you know most serious criticism of capitalism is cut out. It has been mocked all these years. I think we're going to see some interesting times in United States and Canada or in Europe because finally I think people will have to reinvent that there is another side of the political spectrum. My main argument is that right wing populism or authoritarianism is actually the monstrous child of neoliberalism. All these years we have been living on a lie that the wealth would trickle down and everybody will be happy. That promise is never fulfilled. So people are angry, but in order to say it in the simple way, you have to be criticizing capitalism and neoliberalism as well.

AMT: So what do you want people living in democratic countries to be thinking about and watching out for?

ET: Every country has its own mess at the moment. You know in England, it's Brexit. In Paris, in France, it is Marine Le Pen. In Italy it's Salvini and his things. In United States or in Canada, every country has its own confusions and its own mass. So let's get our act together now and we have to get in solidarity as well as the people who still are capable of critical thinking. So we have to come together, bring our experiences together. We have to start a global conversation and that global conversation automatically will induce a global solidarity and global opposition against rising right wing populism.

AMT: You know there will be others who say the U.K., the U.S. and Canada have a history of long and stable democracy, whereas Turkey has had a history of coups and coup attempts.

ET: Every country has its own material to feel superior. We had our ups for several years. We thought that all those crazy things would happen to Arab countries, I mean it wouldn't happen to Turkey. And it is so natural now that you know western countries see Turkey as this crazy country that anything can happen, but I am assuring you that it wasn't like that. We weren't as crazy and you know, United States has lived under Trump for three years and they're crazy as bad at the moment. We suffered that for 17 years. Like we are so thankful to our strength of our sanity in fact. It's not easy to go through that kind of 17 years. So we weren't crazy, but we became crazy just like as you are becoming crazy at the moment, I want to say to the Western peoples.

AMT: How do you see the need to bridge the political divide?

ET: It's a political problem and it has to be responded politically. Many people, many intellectuals, journalists and public opinion makers, they do think that they can overcome this polarization by you know couple therapy techniques. No, it cannot be. This is a political problem. It requires a political solution. So we have to be politicized. I don't mean that you have to fuel the anger and so on. I mean real politics. I mean trying to understand what's happening and I mean providing political answers to political questions. So that divide won't be breached with this sweet holds for reunion or anything. It should only be dealt with by solving the problems that lay beneath the problem.

AMT: How can other parties present an alternative to this right wing populism that rivals its popularity?

ET: There is this obsession of balance, especially in media, biving space to the right wing populists, to the spin doctors of right wing populist movements. I think as long as we recognize them as legitimate political actors, they are becoming bigger and bigger. So we have to create an understanding among people that they're playing a game and we are not equal. They are being insidious and we are being truthful.

AMT: But let me take you up on that because one of the arguments is that the people who you heard in that clip felt that they were ignored and those views are not welcome and and they're not seen as legitimate political actors and yet then they run the country. So is there a way you know don't you actually have to have that dialogue to bring things forward as opposed to whether you call it giving both sides, but if you just ignore and say we're only going to put on this view because that view is illegitimate, doesn't that create the very problem you're trying to fix?

ET: Dialogue with spin doctors of right wing populists is impossible and I'm talking about spin doctors here, not the supporters. Supporters is another thing. It's normal people who have been energized and mobilized. But the spin doctors who are creating the narrative, who are creating the game, dialogue with them is not necessary and it's almost impossible. And for supporters, I think if they were given the chance to hear the truth, as much as they hear from right wing populists, I think they would have been acting differently.

AMT: If we come back to the mayoral election in Istanbul, the opposition did initially win that vote in March. It remains to be seen what happens after the new vote. Is the opposition gaining ground in Turkey right now?

ET: Big time. We have been exhausted of being hopeful and then being disappointed over and over again, but this time it is something very strong. I think many people feel that and I think the elected Istanbul mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, will become the main rival of Mr. Erdogan, not only in Istanbul, but for the entire country.

AMT: You say you feel you've lost your country. How hopeful are you you'll get it back?

ET: We are all losing our countries in fact. I always remember the you know British people who are trying to leave Britain because of Brexit or French people who are thinking France is no more France, it's something else. Or Italy or Hungary or United States. So we are all in a way, on a certain degree, losing our countries. That is why I named the book, How to Lose a Country, so that maybe we find a way together not to lose them.

AMT: Ece Temelkuran, thank you for speaking with me today.

ET: Thank you, Anna Maria.

AMT: Ece Temelkuran is a Turkish novelist and political commentator. She's the author of How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship. She joined us from New York City. Let us know what you think of what she had to say. You can write to us through our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link or find us on Twitter. We are @TheCurrentCBC. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. The Oscar winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay joins Tom to talk about her new Netflix series about the 1989 Central Park jogger case. Remember, you can take The Current with you to go on the CBC Radio app, free from the App Store or Google Play. We began today with a look at the newly released report of the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. We're going to leave you with this story of Tina Fontaine, the young Manitoba girl whose death in 2014 galvanized the country and renewed calls for this inquiry. Tina Fontaine's body was pulled from the Red River in August of 2014, wrapped and weighted down with rocks. Last year, a 56-year-old man charged with her death was found not guilty. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We would like to focus on in the homicide unit, this is a 15-year-old little girl. She's barely in the city for maybe a little over a month and you know she's definitely been exploited and taken advantage of and murdered and put in the river in this condition. Somebody may have seen her between the 9th.

VOICE 2: What Tina had in her life was a significant protective force, her family, especially her grandma and grandpa who loved her and raised her from the time she was five-years-old until a month before she died. In their home Tina found the stability, nurturing.

VOICE 3: Tina was a smart, very caring little girl. It's just that this past year she just started having problems like trouble because she never really dealt with her dad's death because he was murdered three years ago.

VOICE 2: Tina was 12-years-old when he died, which is a critical time of discovery and development for all children and the impact of his death was profound. What followed was significant sadness that grew and expanded until it began to manifest in difficulty at school.

VOICE 3: I seek help running away and I was just turned away. There was only so much I can do for Tina and she was.

VOICE 2: Throughout her life, Tina needed an array of services from child and family services, education, victim support, law enforcement and mental health systems. At times, particularly in her final months, some of these services were unavailable, not easily accessed and ill-coordinated.

VOICE 3: They had her in the foster home and it took them three weeks to tell me that she was awol. And I didn't even know she was missing from the foster home. And that was her in that body bag. She was a little girl with a big heart. She was very, very tiny, she was very petite, but big, big heart.

VOICE 4: I have teenage kids and Tina was a teenage girl. And the fact that she's Aboriginal or the fact that she was in foster care, that shouldn't make a difference and it disgusts me to think that it might and it's time to tell our government leaders that we, the people, won't accept this anymore in our city. So that's why I'm here.

VOICE 5: She finally opened a lot of people's eyes, you know to all the bad things that happened to us Aboriginal women. You know. We're people too you know, we're not just pieces of trash you can throw away. We need to be honoured and loved just like regular people too, you know.

[Music: Theme]

The Current Transcript for June 3, 2019

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

'This isn't over': MMIWG inquiry wraps, but much work remains, says sister of missing woman

RIM co-founder warns of dire consequences if big data, tech are left unchecked

Populist leaders offer 'mesmerizing promise' to lure voters into a dictatorship, warns author

June 3, 2019 episode transcript

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