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The Current Transcript for May 6, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

While younger people are less likely to experience serious cases of covid 19, having access to a safe and effective vaccine will help control the disease's spread to their families and friends.

MG: After more than a year of being cooped up with their parents, you could almost hear the sigh of relief from teenagers. Yesterday, Health Canada approved the use of Pfizer's covid-19 vaccine for kids aged 12 to 15. In an hour, what this means for bringing this pandemic to an end. Also this morning, a few weeks back, the CBC's Margaret Evans brought us the stories of women, including Canadians who once married ISIS fighters and now live in camps in Syria with their children. A new documentary showcases life inside those camps as pressure mounts on governments like Canada's to allow those women to come home. That story later. Plus.

SOUNDCLIP

I was looking to meet someone who is interesting and smart and creative, and I thought I found that person. At first. He ticked a lot of the boxes and then very quickly the boxes disintegrated.

MG: His name was Mordechai, except it wasn't. And as a new podcast explains, just about everything he told those women about himself turned out to be a lie. That wild story in 30 minutes. We begin, though, with a personal call to confront sexual misconduct in Canada's military. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

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I finally feel permitted to share my rage and demand change, says former army officer who was sexually abused

Guest: Leah West

Speaker 1: Canada's Department of National Defence launched Operation Honour in 2015. It was a move to address and prevent sexual misconduct within the military over the next five years. There were more than 580 reports of sexual assault in the armed forces before the operation was shut down. The government has now asked former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour to help it find some solutions to this issue. It is the second such review in just six years. And yesterday, the prime minister once again repeated this promise.

SOUNDCLIP

My focus, our focus as a government, our focus as a country needs to be on supporting survivors of sexual assault and harassment and recognising that the systems that have been in place for many years in the military and elsewhere have not given people comfort to come forward, share their stories and demand consequences.

MG: Leah West says she didn't get any of that kind of support. She is an assistant professor of international affairs at Carleton University. And before she entered academia, she served in Canada's military and is now speaking out about how her dream of a life as a soldier ended in despair. Leah, Good morning.

LEAH WEST: Good morning.

MG: Thank you for for speaking with us this morning. You graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada with honours. And I'm just wondering, I mean, briefly, what kind of career were you hoping for after your graduation from RMC?

LEAH WEST: I hoped to spend my entire career in the armed forces. I was an armoured officer who was in the combat arms. I hope to have many deployments overseas to lead soldiers and to, you know, be one of the first women to reach the senior ranks in the army of course,

MG: that is not what happened. And so I'm sorry for what you went through. And I know that that talking about this is not easy. So, again, thanks for being here and saying what you feel comfortable with. You were sexually assaulted while you were in the military. After you reported that assault. What happened?

LEAH WEST: So it would be wrong to say I reported it. The circumstances that I found myself in, you know, I was found unconscious on the floor of my unit after being very ill the next day after the assault and military police and and ambulance were called and I felt quite pressured to tell the military police what had happened. And they quite forcefully pressured me into having a rape kit done. And subsequently they informed my chain of command who was obviously aware something was going on. I passed out in [unintelliglbe]s as to what I had alleged. And so my commanding officer called me into his office, really, you know, which is, I suppose, commendable. And in his office, he he looked at me and, you know, said that he'd been informed of what had happened with the military police and said, you know, what do you want me to do about this? And in that moment, I you know, I. I don't remember the assault. Itself, I don't know what what state I woke up in, and I know what the rape kit showed, but I had no actual memory of anything that happened that night, so I just couldn't imagine. You know, asking my boss to pursue allegations against someone who was beloved in my unit, very well respected, you know, you know, someone everyone expected to go very, very far and was senior to me. I just couldn't imagine. What would happen to me if I asked him that, I asked him that. And I also, you know, I felt like it was my fault. And. I felt that I just didn't feel that I could ask him to do anything, and so I told him that I would modify my behaviour. As if I'd been raped at a house party where all of my peers were and they left me there and, you know, so obviously that means a significant modification in how I trusted the people around me, but that I didn't want him to do anything. And he was happy with that. And we never spoke of it again.

MG: He was happy with that.

LEAH WEST: He didn't push back.

MG: Why is it important for you to speak out about this now?

LEAH WEST: um. Because it really needs to change now and I and it's not- I don't I, I think the difference is not why now, it's why I feel I can now. And I feel like the letter of Eleanor Taylor, who was a senior officer, very well respected combat veteran. When she resigned in absolute disgust and acknowledged that she'd remained silent in the face of, you know, systemic sexual misconduct and abuse of authority. When she said that, it kind of gave me and I know a lot of my peers permission to finally be angry, to finally look around us and say. This can't happen anymore, and more than anything, I think that's ever happened in the past, her saying that gave us all permission to feel that same rage and demand change.

MG: What was it that ultimately caused you to leave the military?

LEAH WEST: Well, I myself engaged in sexual misconduct, I had a consensual relationship with someone of the same rank, but while in Afghanistan. And in Afghanistan, there was an order or directive saying that you were not to have to fraternise. So there was to be no sexual relationships at all while you were overseas. And I violated that rule. You know, it was found out through, you know, someone breaking into my email, but it was it was taken off the chain of command and nobody asked me, how do you want to handle this? I was investigated without my knowledge. I was charged. I accepted. I, you know, pled guilty. I said I admitted to what I had done. I was charged and convicted, given a fine, repatriated from theatre, posted out of my unit and given a very, very menial task. And all of that I accepted as punishment for what I had done, I had. Disobeyed an order in an operational theatre, which has more consequences, but it was everything else that came with it. What my commanding officers said to me, what they threatened me with the names they called me the the, you know, being forced to do, you know, a job that was far beneath me because I was not worthy of anything else. And ultimately, when I finally decided that I couldn't stay in the regular force anymore because I was clearly unwanted, I was even denied an opportunity to serve in the reserves because I was told I wasn't the kind of leader that they were looking for.

MG: And what does it tell you that I mean, that breaking the rules was enough to get you charged, but the assaults that you had gone through was not investigated.

LEAH WEST: It was such a double standard. All right, women in the military are held to such a different standard in every way. And that's ultimately the root of the problem. Is that women and men in the Canadian forces are not treated equally, they are not valued equally. Right. And they are not desired equally by, you know, sought after by as leaders, you know, ultimately they're just not treated the same. And it was such a clear example of that.

MG: Justice Mary Dechamps, who did the report six years ago on assaults within the military, talked about a sexualised culture within the military that left many people, women primarily, feeling uncomfortable in many ways. Does that square with with what you experience?

LEAH WEST: I believe that it's true from my experience, but I don't think that that's necessarily the entire root of the problem. Like, I think it goes deeper than that goes to what we expect men in the military to be and how we expect them to behave. And I mean, it's deeper than that. That's not the root of the problem. But I do agree that sexualised jokes and humour and the open watching of pornography, you know, all that stuff was true when I was in the military. And you get rather desensitised to it when you're around it all of the time, you find yourself laughing along with the jokes. I remember being on training and there were people who were outside of the Royal Military College who were training with us and one of the men kind of speaking out in disgust over what was happening. And it was the first time I realised that. I was laughing at jokes that were demeaning me and women, and it was just because I'd become so used to it and what you become used to accepting, and when you start to accept that behaviour kind of intrinsically as kind of a coping mechanism, it becomes really hard to change it.

MG: You talked about feeling as though you and many other women have had permission in some ways to speak out about this now, and I know that earlier this week you had a meeting with two of the top leaders in the armed forces, Lieutenant General Wayne Eyre, and the deputy minister, Jody Thomas. What did you take from that meeting?

LEAH WEST: That they're listening,

MG: that they're listening.

LEAH WEST: Yeah, I was really, really pleasantly surprised. I know general Eyre from my time in the military and I've always had enormous respect for him. He. Is not the type of man that himself perpetuates that kind of sexualised culture. And so but the thing that was really welcoming was they were really engaged. We had a dialogue rather than than simply being on receive mode.

MG: And how would you how is that how is that different from previous leadership within the military?

LEAH WEST: Nobody would have called me. That's the first step, but at the same time, I think one thing that I shared with General er because he apologised and he was ultimately the commander of the unit that I was in at the time, he wasn't my direct supervisor. He was the overall commander of the brigade. And He said he was very sorry that he had a unit under his command that perpetuated that culture, and he wish he'd ask more questions. And I told him, you know, 'Sir, if you'd asked the questions at the time, you wouldn't have gotten an answer — I would not have told you.' I don't believe the other two women in my unit because there was only three of us at the time would have given you a straight answer and the men certainly wouldn't have. But The difference now is if you ask, I believe people will tell you and they want to be heard and they want to be empowered to make change. And that's the difference between now and when I left the forces. And I think even from 2015, when people just weren't ready to acknowledge what Justice Dechamps had to say is interesting.

MG: I mean, we have asked to speak with Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Eyre and the deputy minister, Jody Thomas, and we're hoping that we'll speak with him in the days ahead. You mentioned 2015. There are a lot of people when the Louise Arbour review, when that was announced, a lot of people said, well, there was just a review in 2015. That was six years ago. This is kicking the can down the road. This is not addressing the issues that Dechamps released and recommended just six years back. Are you confident that this new review will meaningfully address the issues that you've been talking about?

LEAH WEST: Well, there's two things. One, I think the scope of this review and that the reasons behind it are different. This is much broader in scope. And I really think that Justice Dechamps did an excellent job of diagnosing the problem and providing some advice on how to address the symptoms of the problem. But now we need to go to the root. What is the basis, what is the core issue here? What's driving this? The symptoms and that's the culture. And and it's not just the sexualised culture of the military. It's about who we value, how we expect people to behave, what we expect of men and women and how and who we expect them to be and the forces. It's changing that culture that is necessary now. And Justice Arbour's mandate give her the breadth and the scope to actually dig in to issues of training, promotion, reward, posting all of these issues that go to that that, you know, not just addressing the symptoms, but actually the underlying root cause of all of that.

MG: Caan that culture be reformed? I mean, again, people would see this and see what has happened, not even since 2015, but going further back and would wonder whether that culture could be reformed. Do you think it can be?

LEAH WEST: I do. But it's going to take a lot of work and it's going to take a lot of work across. Every you know, again, the very subunits and people need to be empowered to not just implement orders, but to organically make change based on their own circumstances that they're seeing within their units. There also needs to be holistic trainings to how we do things like train officer cadets at arms and how we engage in training, how we segregate men and women in training environments, you know, how we promote what values we look for and promotions, what kind of leadership and like what are the characteristics that we tend to value when it comes to advancing men and women into combat roles. Right. All of this needs to change, but at the same time, it needs to happen within the soldiers who are actually down on the ground. They need to be empowered to actually change and believe that that. Their actions will be rewarded, and I do believe that general air and the current leadership, it's not just general air, there is now a leadership team in place, I think that actually generally supports that move. And I think. As soldiers come to believe that that's really true, that that the chain of command is deeply serious about this, that there'll be additional buy in, but it's not going to you know, it's not going to be easy. It's not going to happen overnight. And there will be people who resist. Absolutely. Who do not want things to change because it's been advantageous to them. And this is the organisation that they've grown up in. But it's absolutely necessary to change the culture of the Canadian Armed Forces so that the Canadian Armed Forces can be successful in the 21st century environment. It's just absolutely necessary.

MG: This was the organisation, as you mentioned, that you grew up in and you wanted to be there. You saw yourself with a career going forward in the armed forces. If you could get involved with the military again in some way, even given what you have gone through, would you?

LEAH WEST: Absolutely. Yes.

MG: Why?

LEAH WEST: Because what the military gave me, despite everything, is far more than what it took from me. And I know that might shock some, but that's the truth, that's the equation, and I believe in the organisation and I especially believe in the female leaders that are going to lead this change right now, I believe in them and if I can help them by being involved, I would do it 100 percent.

MG: And would that, just finally, would that to you show that that change is possible if you even having gone through what you did, if you were able to find a space for there, that that would that would show the changes happening.

LEAH WEST: I hope so, but that wouldn't be why I do it, just to be to be involved, because I, I want the military to be - I know this is going to sound trite to be all it can be, to be as strong as it possibly can, and that requires getting the best out of every single member, and that means treating every single member that as as if they're truly valued for who they are and and given every opportunity.

MG: I'm sorry for what you've been through, but I'm really glad to have had the opportunity to speak with you about this and I'm glad that you were willing to talk about it. It's important. Leah, thank you very much.

LEAH WEST: Thank you for having me. And can I just say that I was in a hole in northeast Syria. I know you're going to be talking about this later. We really need to repatriate the children and women who are and even the men who are still detained there indefinitely.

MG: That conversation coming up in just a few minutes. Thank you very much again. Take care of yourself.

LEAH WEST: Thank you. Bye.

MG: Leah West is an assistant professor of international affairs at Carleton University. She served in the Canadian military for 10 years until 2012. Your CBC News is next. And then

SOUNDCLIP

We had a really good connexion, despite the fact that in person he looked a little different than he claimed online.

MG: Seemed like a perfect match. Then the red flags started waving. In six minutes, we meet Mortdechai, sort of. Stay tuned. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

New podcast Do You Know Mordechai? explores friendship, lies and love

Guests: Kathleen Goldhar, Arya

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

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MG: Still to come, a new documentary on what drove some women to join ISIS and whether they should be allowed back home to countries like Canada. Also in 30 minutes, we'll hear about how Canadian youth are getting the chance to get covered vaccines. But first, do you know Mordechai?

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KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So tell me about this person that you met.

ARYA: We connected through OKCupid, his profile picture, he looked really cute and youthful, so we started chatting. And at the time he told me he told me his name was Mordechai Dovebear Horowitz or Goldstein-Horowitz, hyphenated Mordechai.

MG: It turns out, had more than an intriguing name, that was Kathleen Goldhar asking her friend how she met Mordechai because it's best to start at the beginning when telling a complicated and captivating story. Kathleen was a longtime producer here, The Current. She is now an executive producer at Antica Productions and host of a new podcast called Do You Know Mordechai? And she's joined by her friend, who is one of the women in the podcast. She's going by the name Arya to protect her privacy. Kathleen and Arya, good morning. Hi. Hello, Kathleen. How do you two know each other?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: We know each other because we were both married to the same person and we both divorced the same person. That's how we know each other. We became friends after Arya and my ex-husband split up.

MG: We're being really cautious with names here and I'm going to explain why in a little bit. But the story we should start with the story. Arya, tell us about Mordechai and the Mordechai. We heard in that little clip there that you met through OkCupid.

ARYA: Where should I begin? Well, looking for I was looking to meet someone who was interesting and smart and creative and attentive, and I thought I found that person. At first he ticked a lot of the boxes and then very quickly the boxes disintegrated.

MG: What were the boxes that he ticked?

ARYA: Like I said, he was interesting. He was creative. He could have a conversation. He could talk about emotions. He had children who he seemed to be very interested in. So he understood a bit of my reality, having a child. He was just emotionally and very physically available.

MG: What did he tell you, aside from from those characteristics? What did he tell you about himself? I mean, who did he say he was?

ARYA: Initially, he told me he was a rancher from outside of L.A., California, that he was also an artist who'd been brought up to Toronto by a wealthy patron to help run an art school to teach painting. He was going back and forth between L.A. and Toronto living this farmer/artist lifestyle. It was very intriguing.

MG: And when you say Rancher, I mean Rencher. Like he had a giant ranch outside of L.A.

ARYA: I don't know, size wise, but he had goats and bees and he was doing all kinds of really hippie granola stuff that was interesting, like making cheese and making kombucha and... Yeah, kind of an eccentric lifestyle.

MG: And so how did the relationship go at the beginning of it? What was it like?

ARYA: Like, I think it was a typical sort of online. Lots of connexions were being made through text and phone calls and finally agreed to meet. And we had a really good connexion, despite the fact that in person he looked a little different than he claimed online, which wasn't atypical in the online dating world. And but we just you know, we got we hung out a lot. We we had a really good connexion. And he was always available. Like whenever I wanted to hang out, he was always available as long as he was in Toronto, because sometimes he was planning to go back to L.A.

MG: and emotionally available as well, as you said.

ARYA: Yes.

MG: Like really open and willing to to invest in who you were and what you were interested in.

ARYA: That's right,

MG: Kathleen. In addition to sharing it, you and I became very close friends.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: We did. Yeah, we are. We still are.

MG: You still are. When did you realise that your friend was dating somebody, I mean, friends are like this where you have a little bit of a radar and you're like, well, this is great or, hmm. When did you realise that the radar was kind of pointing in the hmm direction

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: when little weird things started happening? Like she was always not sure where he lived and he seemed to sort of not be able to fully give her answers to questions. But then the like the big light bulb for me went off when this whole thing started happening, that he was weirdly locked out of his apartment because his rich patron was behind in rent on a place on the bridle path. And then his passport was there. And Arya was trying to get the passport because she wanted to double check his identity. And, you know, when you say these things like it, if that had sort of all happened at once, I think even Arya would have been like, this is crazy. It kind of happened really slowly. But there was a point when I turned around and I was and I said, is he a con man? Like, what is going on? I think I was listening to Dirty John at the time, the podcast The Dirty John. And I was thinking, these weird flags are happening. He's not giving you answers to things. And so I put that in her mind and she really was like, no, he is not a con man. He is just these things are happening. And I did say to her, you know, if somebody has stolen his passport, that is illegal. So you need to tell him to tell the police. And she did. And of course, he came back with an answer. He always had an answer. And the answer is even satisfied me initially at first, too. So it wasn't that I was fully, completely committed to this guy being a total con artist, but I was just getting a little bit concerned.

MG: Arya, I mean, again, there's all these little things that start popping up. Kathleen mentioned. I mean, he's he's locked out of this place. Apparently he you've never actually seen where he lives like he never he never invited you over to the house or anything like that.

ARYA: That's correct.

When did you start to realise that maybe there was more to his story than what he was sharing with you?

ARYA: The turning point for me, which was kind of a slow downward spiral, but the real tipping point, I guess, was that I was able to find out from him, apparently the address of his ranch in L.A. or outside L.A. and after he had left my home one day, I Googled it. And on top of finding out that it wasn't registered to his name, which he did have an answer to why that was, I then found a very recent Twitter feed from the LAPD showing that that house was on fire. And when I asked him about that, like a strangely, this is a strange thing to ask you, but was your house on fire a few months ago? That's when he shut down. He said, I don't want to talk about it. And that for me was just too much because up until that point as ridiculous as his stories were, he always had a way of spinning it out and pulling it along and making it seem reasonable enough for me, and when he wouldn't answer the question about his house being on fire, I said, OK, we're done.

MG: And you and your gut, I mean, you had these these, not doubts, but you had something that was there that wanted to be answered. And that's why you started asking these questions about who he was and what really was going on in his story.

ARYA: Yeah, that's right. I mean, part of this comes also connects to my own relationship history. As you know, many people have relationship histories and things that trigger them. And so for me, part of it was wanting to have full transparency about a person. And so, you know, asking to get answers, to feel good. But also the flip side of that was wanting to trust, wanting it to be OK. So, well, my gut was saying this doesn't feel right. Part of me was saying, but let's see if we can trust him. Let's try to trust him. Let's get past that history.

MG: What was it like having those doubts?

ARYA: Well, it was it was horrible, I guess is the short answer. It was. Basically breaking apart as like every step that went forward also was going backwards, if that makes sense, like it just it couldn't progress. And for me and so for me, when it got to the point with the house being on fire and no answers, it was whatever the answer is for him, whatever that means for him, whether it's an outright lie or not, I don't have the capacity to go any further. Like it was just I was emotionally done. But I, because of the way things had ended on my terms, but still with a lot of questions around who he was and where he was from and where he lived, like all these kinds of questions that aren't typical of a dating scenario at all, which were both emotionally intriguing to me, but also just curious. So after about six months on a really cold day, I it was like November, it was snowing. And I reached out to him again because I had this feeling like I don't know where he lives and maybe he lives on the street, which was a very strange feeling. And I thought I just kind of want to know if he's OK. And so we did get back in touch, and for whatever reason, he decided to start telling me more of the truth of who he was. And so that's when I found out his real name. More of who like the fact that he wasn't from L.A., wasn't a rancher and really wasn't an artist. So but somehow for me, hearing more about, like, his truths and hearing him talking about mental illness and the struggles he was having made me more interested in wanting to know him more as who he actually was. So we did start dating again, but with his new name and or his real name, I should say, and his identity, I guess.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And can I interrupt? I can tell you that at this point, Matt, I was not super excited about them getting back together.

MG: But that's the thing. I mean, you kind of ask yourself why a good friend, a smart person like Arya would would in some ways give him a second chance

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: because he had, has, and this is what I discovered through the podcast by talking to many more women. And that was what happened when that knock on the door came, Arya. Her whole world fell out from underneath her because she discovered that Mordechai, who was really Mark, was a total liar about everything and a big cheater and had been dating a bunch of women. And this had been going on for years where he was cycling through women and telling stories. But one of the things that I discovered was that he is incredibly good at tapping into what you want to hear and how you want to feel supported. And I feel like he went after very specific women, women, women who are of a certain age, who most of them had been divorced, a lot of them had kids and were feeling like finding a connexion was maybe not going to be possible in the world that we live in today. And he listens and he understands and he goes after women that he knows are going to say, OK. You lied to me, but now you're telling me the truth and you have issues and I see mental illness in the same way that I see any other physical illness. And so I'm going to allow this to come back into my life because the connexion you give me, the sense that I'm being heard and listened to is so real that it sucks you in. And I think it's really something that everybody understands. We're all looking for that connexion. And at a certain point, if you lose it in your life and you feel sort of a bit at loose ends and you meet someone who gives that to you, it's a very hard thing to turn away from. And so, yes, Arya is super smart and so are all of the women, but they're also empathetic and good and he knows how to take advantage of that part of them.

MG: And so when we say all of the women again, I mean, you give him a second chance, Arya. And then there's this knock on the door. What happens? Who is on the other side of the door?

ARYA: Another of his victims, a woman who thought she was his girlfriend, who he'd been living with for many months.

MG: What was it like for you to answer the door on a Sunday night and for her to say, do you know Mordechai, and unveil, you know, that that there are more women like yourself who have been lured into this situation by this guy.

ARYA: It was both completely overwhelming and also validating in the same moment. Because. All of a sudden, all of those weird doubts and questions that I was still carrying around and made a lot more sense, but there is also that sense that, oh my gosh! I mean, I never I mean, not that I don't know who would, but I never it's not part of my identity to imagine that I was ever anyone's other- the other woman, you know. So having this person show up and say he was my boyfriend, he was living with me, and you're having a relationship with him like, no, that's not who I want to be. I don't want to hurt anyone like that.

MG: Kathleen, how many more women were there who who who knew of this person who was going by the name of Mordechai?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, we know of 10 now. I'm sure there are more. There are more. I'm 100 percent sure there are more. But we know of 10. I mean, as a little bit of an aside, we're keeping his two partners that he has children with out of this, because I never they've got a lot of other crap that they have to deal with that. So we're sort of they exist in the sort of outer edges of all of this. But I'm not really talking to them or or including them in this. So we're just talking about ten women that had no connexion to him in terms of producing other people.

MG: Let's take a listen. I mean, this is from the podcast where we hear a few of the women talking about the Mortdecai. He says in quotation marks, the Mortdecai that they each knew.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: he had a house in L.A. and he had a ranch.

VOICE 2: He said the ranch was nestled into the foothills and he gave really specific kind of geographical descriptions of the area.

VOICE 3: He told me that he was in Toronto as an artist. But going back to L.A. fairly frequently.

VOICE 4: He said he was a writer.

VOICE 5: He describes himself as a screenwriter from New York City.

VOICE 6: He was a special ops agent and he was on secret covert missions.

VOICE 3: At one point, he actually texted me a screenshot of his banking app that showed investments of six and a half billion.

VOICE 2: They did blood tests and everything, and he's like, it's cancer.

VOICE 3: And then when he made up that story about his son being sick, it was like he gets it. He and he's so good at acting it.

VOICE 7: And then he said, OK, you know, I've been waiting to tell you this, but my cancer is back.

VOICE 2: He presented himself as this kind of Jewish artists, men of the world.

VOICE 3: His mom and dad were Holocaust survivors. They both died.

VOICE 6: He's very Jewish, you know, everything that he does. So he goes by Mordechai.

MG: Kathleen, without giving too much of this away. I've only heard the first couple of episodes and I'm like, who is this guy? But what did you learn about who who this guy really was?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, his name is Mark Ramsden. He is from Toronto. Out of all of those things, there's a few tiny little pieces of truth in there. His dad does live in Spain. And I think that's the only truthful thing in that whole montage that you just heard.

MG: He wasn't a special ops guy. He doesn't have seven million dollars in the bank, et cetera, and so on.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: None of that is true. None of it.

MG: Why do you think he made that up? Why do you think he told the lies in the ways that he did, Kathleen?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Well, that's one of the things that I look into in the podcast, is they actually talk to a psychiatrist who's an expert in liars. And so we sort of it's as the podcast goes on, tried to explore a little bit about who he might be. And I think it just comes down to somebody who, sadly, is so unhappy with who he is that he has to completely make up a completely different identity. So you can wake up in the morning and put one foot in front of the other, to tell you the honest truth.

MG: Was it about money?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It was not about money. It was not about money or anything. I mean, that really was one of the places I tried to go down to find out. He borrowed little bits of money from everyone. He did have one instance with one of the women where he did take more money, but weirdly, he came clean about it and is still trying to pay her back. So there it doesn't seem to be about money. It really is about connexion, which is so sad in a way, too, because that's exactly what he offered the women that I talked to. But they were honest and truthful about who they were. He just couldn't find that connexion based on who he was.

MG: Arya, as being part of this, I mean, do you have any better sense now as to why he did what he did?

ARYA: I think so. I mean, definitely having Kathleen on my team and the work that she does is phenomenal. And I mean, the other thing is that I've been able to connect with these other victims and we did a lot and still do a lot of story sharing and swapping and trying to understand. And I mean, at the end of the day, what he did and hopefully it's in the past tense. That's part of the reason we're talking, right, is that we should stop and that he is just a broken person. And it's unfortunate because if he could get himself together, he could probably be you know, he could probably be a contributing member of society, contributing member to a relationship. But he it's almost like he has no consciousness of his behaviour. But he's not the only person that does this kind of thing. People just need to be aware that, you know, it's not their fault. You know, it's a game for them. And one of the reasons we're also doing this is to bring to light the notion of rape by fraud and that currently in Ontario, it's not on the books as a crime. But there are other jurisdictions where this kind of lying and manipulation that's used to obtain consent for sexual activity is is a kind of rape. So, you know, victims need to know that there's a place to talk to other people and to get support and know that they're not alone.

MG: Can I just go back to something that you just said, which is the idea that it's not their fault? I mean, we aren't using your real name, but what comes up early on in this podcast is the idea of of the concern that, you know, you could be judged that there could be shame and stigma attached to something like this. How concerning is that to you, the idea that people could say, well, she got, you know, was taken in by by this guy and that there could be blame attached to something like that?

ARYA: OK, I mean, there's a lot of a lot of things I can say about that, and the first thing to say is that, you know, I'm fine, right? I'm OK. I've had Kathleen support. I've had lots of friends support. I've had professional support, let's say. A lot of people don't get the support that they need. And this kind of thing can be very damaging. Right. Like you think about, it's almost the industry of romance, the industry of relationships, the sort of social awareness of singleness versus unsingable, you know, being partnered or couples or triple or whatever people are doing. And so people who get pulled in, becoming victims of this kind of situation are very alone and there's definitely a lot of shame and a lot of victim blaming around particularly how women are treated by men.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah, I think that's, I mean, I worry. I wish they didn't have to use pseudonyms. I think they should because they have the right to and they want to protect. And a lot of these women are in mid-level careers and are, you know, don't want their name Googled in this to come up, which I understand. But it it's sad to me that we're still in a place where that's a worry. I would much prefer for you to know Arya's real name because Arya is an amazing woman and doesn't shouldn't be hiding behind a name. I give her all the right to do that, but it upsets me. So it's too bad. And it sucks that we're still in that place, but we are definitely still in that place. And I am worried that people are going to listen to this and think, oh, they're just idiots. I'm hoping that I do a good enough job in the explanation of it that that doesn't happen. And so far, that doesn't seem to have been the response. But I'm sure that people are going to think that way. And it's upsetting. It shouldn't be that way. And I'd like it to change.

MG: I think that's a really important point, though. Again, that that that they shouldn't feel that stigma. They shouldn't feel any sense of blame.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: No, there is no blame for them to be had at all. Zero.

MG: Do you know where he is now? Arya, do you care where he is now?

ARYA: I have no idea. The only thing I heard recently through one of the other victims was that he has, quote unquote, left the shelter system. Do I want to know? No. I mean, what I don't want is for him to be living with another woman under false pretences. That's the main thing. But otherwise, like...

MG: would you want any accountability for what he did?

ARYA: Personally, no, I'm just I'm done with him.

MG: It is an incredible story. I really appreciate speaking with you both about Kathleen. Well done on this podcast. Thank you.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: It's nice to be back in The Current fold.

MG: And Arya, thank you for I mean, again, I know it's not easy and I'm sure it's not easy in retelling it again, but it's really a really powerful story. And I really appreciate speaking with you about it. Thank you.

ARYA: Thank you so much. And nice to talk to you, too.

MG: Take care.

ARYA: You too. Bye.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Bye.

MG: Kathleen Goldhar is an executive producer with Antioco Productions and host of the new podcast. Do you know, I was also speaking with a woman who goes by the name Arya in the podcast. New episodes of Do You Know Mordechai Drop Weekly and are available wherever you download your podcasts. Well, coming up after your regional update, getting vaccines into the arms of Canadian kids. Plus a powerful documentary on the women of ISIS. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in 90 seconds.

Health Canada approves Pfizer vaccine for adolescents; and the stories of women who married ISIS fighters

Guests: Dr. Tahseen Ladha, Alba Sotorra Clua

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current. Call it a dose of hope. Yesterday, Canada became one of the first countries to approve Pfizer's covid vaccine for kids aged 12 and older. This third wave has brought higher infections amongst young people, and it's forced schools in Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia to close. But this vaccine news, many people believe, could help. Dr. Tahseen Ladha is a paediatrician in Edmonton and an assistant professor of paediatrics at the University of Alberta. Doctor, good morning.

DR. TAHSEEN LADHA: Good morning.

MG: That the teenagers in my house reacted to this news with visible excitement. How big of a deal is this vaccine?

DR. TAHSEEN LADHA: I'm so glad they reacted that way. I think it's a light at the end of the tunnel. I certainly think it's great news. You know, there's been so many school interruptions this year, outbreaks in schools, school closures, as you noticed, with high transmission reflecting the transmission in the community. And this has really impacted children's social intellectual development, their ability to have some sense of normalcy like we've all been craving this past year. And it's also impacted the ability of parents to be in the workforce, of course, when schools closed or when their children have to be on isolation. So I think this is really great news. And the other positive is that there's new studies coming out of the United Kingdom indicating that about 15 percent of children in that 12 to 16 age group are still experiencing symptoms five weeks out after getting covid 19 infections. So there's evidence that they're having long covid, just like we've heard of long covid in adults. And so really, this is this is a move towards protecting the health of children, also their families, and then really getting back close to that point of normalcy, hopefully come September when they when they restart school. But I do think it's really important to note that this is not our one way ticket out of this. And, you know, some of the provinces have taken a strategy of seeing vaccines as our way out of the pandemic. But really, it has to be a combination of measures. I mean, we need to get community transmission low as well as implement the vaccine rollout in order to keep our community safe. So vaccines have started to be rolled out to this age group, for example, in Alberta starting Monday. But it'll still be weeks to months before we have a good amount of the population immunised.

MG: Well, what have you been seeing? I mean, I know that because you've been speaking out about the case, concerned. I mentioned earlier on the idea of the fact that this third wave has brought more infections amongst young people, aside from the long covid. What do you seeing when it comes to young people and the experiences with covid that they're having here in Canada?

DR. TAHSEEN LADHA: Mm hmm. You know, the sad fact is that any time community transmission is very high, we're going to see an increased proportion of children that are affected just by sheer numbers. And with that increase in children getting covid-19, we are seeing children, as I mentioned, who have symptoms of long covid even after asymptomatic covid-19 infection. And symptoms of long covid can include things like fatigue, nausea, vomiting, heart palpitations that can even include seizures. So it's quite a debilitating thing that can affect children from getting back to their normal life for weeks or months. We're also seeing an increase in hospitalisations in children and and this includes children who are having severe covid-19 pneumonia, especially in the teenage age group, as well as children who are having MIS C, which is a severe inflammatory disorder where a children's heart, lungs, brain, all their vital organs can get inflamed. And this requires hospitalisation. And so this third wave has been particularly bad simply because community transmission has been so high and children have been in school until fairly recently and they have been getting covid. And some of them, unfortunately, have been ending up in hospital and even in the ICU.

MG: The science is moving very, very quickly. And we know that, I mean, for adults, information and guidance around vaccinations has been changing. It seems like in some ways day by day. What would you say to parents who might have reservations about whether it's safe to get their kids the shot?

DR. TAHSEEN LADHA: You know, and that's I think that's something that we will be facing in our daily practises as paediatricians and as physicians. And I've already had some questions about this. And, you know, I do think that the Pfizer study, it was very reassuring. I mean, there were very minimal side effects in the children that were studied in this age group with very, very good efficacy. And and so that to me is a very reassuring in terms of giving the vaccine to children in this age group. I also think that children in this age group are fairly old compared to most children. And so they're not as different from adults versus, let's say, children under five who are still rapidly, rapidly developing their brain, their their immune systems. And so some of the data we have on teenagers over 16 on adults would be applicable to this age group. And until now, really, we haven't seen huge safety concerns with Pfizer. And so I feel relatively relatively confident recommending that children in this age group get the vaccine. And I would certainly encourage parents to get the vaccine for kids in this age group because of the numerous effects I mentioned of them potentially gaining covid-19 and also transmitting covid-19 to their families.

MG: Just in the last couple of minutes. I mean, you mentioned as well, you know, the emotional well-being of kids and I mean anybody who's a parent, we just we've been talking about this on the programme as well. The kids this has been hard on them is something like this, do you think, offering real hope that, not just schools, but you could see summer camps and as the weather warms up, more regular activity the kids can participate in if this vaccine does get widespread use?

DR. TAHSEEN LADHA: Yeah, and that's the key. And I think it's great that you said that. And I think the key is there has to be good uptake for sure. And and if there is good uptake, I certainly think that by fall there could be some semblance of normalcy. And and you're right that there has been an emotional, social, intellectual, developmental impact on children. But children are so resilient.

MG: Dr. Tahseen Ladha is a paediatrician in Edmonton and an assistant professor as well of paediatrics at the University of Alberta. She was speaking about the approval of the Pfizer vaccine in Canada for kids aged 12 and older, and she mentioned some of the provinces that are already moving on this. Alberta says that appointments are going to begin on Monday, Manitoba following shortly. The Northwest Territories will be offering the vaccine starting today and other provinces following suit. You can find out more, of course, at cbcnews.ca.

[Music]

MG: You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio one. My name is Matt Galloway. The battle against ISIS as tens of thousands of people dead, many more widowed and orphaned today, hundreds of women and children once living under ISIS are surviving in difficult conditions in Kurdish run detention camps. And amongst them are women who grew up in the West and children who have known no other life. The Return: Life After ISIS is an intimate portrait of some of those women who married ISIS fighters and now hope to go back to their home countries, countries including Canada. The documentary is screening as part of the Hot Docs Film Festival. The film's director is Alba Sotorra CLua, a warning. We will be talking about some of the violence these women witnessed under ISIS. Alba Sotorra Clua joins me now. Good morning.

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: Good morning to you.

MG: Thank you for being here. You're there with your camera as this large group of women and children first arrive at this detention camp, the Al Roj detention camp, it's in northeastern Syria and they are arriving after the defeat of ISIS. Tell me what you saw when those women and children arrived.

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: It was overwhelming. There were much more people than anything we knew because during the last weeks of the war that were underground shelters where people were hiding, but no one knew how many people was there. And it was really shocking to see thousands and thousands of women and kids. And they were in a really bad condition because they have been the ones without water, without food, without toilet, it was sad.

MG: describe the camp. I mean, what does it look like? Because it's enormous.

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: It actually looks like a refugee camp, but it has a lot of security because it's a prison and the conditions are not so good. With time now, the dames have more commodities, like, for instance, a TV that allows the mothers to do their own things while the kids are watching TV. And and that is a little heater there. So it's not so rough in the winter, but still, it's tough.

MG: Let's talk about some of the women that you meet. One of them is a Canadian, Kimberly Polman. Tell me about her and what her life was like before she joined ISIS.

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: Yeah, Kimberly, she she's grown up as a [unintelligible], and Kimberly converted into Islam many years before. She lived in Saudi Arabia, a few years with her children, with another husband that she had before. In Canada, she had the normal life. She was writing a book before she left. She got even an award as a writer. And I mean, it's really difficult to understand from a traditional point of view why a person takes this decision and even themselves when they look back. Why did I do that? It's difficult, but it's many factors that influence in the case of Kimberly. For me, the main reason I reached that conclusion after not only meeting her, but also talking with her family, that she was not stable mentally, that she was feeling lonely, she was feeling depressed. She had been through a really tough situation in which she had been abused a few months earlier. So she was trapped. She was convinced

SOUNDCLIP

Back in Canada, my children had grown and they were now moving on with their own direction. So I found myself alone with an empty nest and I wasn't ready for that. I was really in a terrible space. And he found me. He was a very vibrant personality, not what you would ever have expected for the persona of a terrorist. And I got married from a distance online. He said, come where you're actually loved, where actually needed because he knew that I felt like I was really not needed at the time at all.

MG: Tell me about the power of that propaganda on women like Kimberly.

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: There was different propaganda, depending on who was the character of it. In some countries, the propaganda was that I would come here because here we have free doctors and people were all there because they needed to have an operation or a treatment or something like this, or for the young boys that it was everything. It was about the power of the army and and the violence. And in the west, in Europe, for instance, there was a lot about being able to live Islam in the way, like in a context where everybody is Muslim and you are free to to wear the clothes that you want and to practise Islam in the way you want, because in some countries in Europe, there are restrictions on that. And in Canada and for Kimberly, I think it had to do with the fact of there were a lot of suffering from the Syrian population and especially the kids, like there was a call to woman to go there and help in the hospitals, in the places where they will do something.

MG: How did what they ended up with and the reality of life, how did that compare to what those women were expecting?

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: I think most of the women who travelled there, they realised the mistake they did the first moment they crossed the border. They realised that there they will have absolutely no freedom to choose anything, to do anything. And I think the most difficult thing for the woman was the fact that they were forced to get married and because they were married to fighters and fighters will die in the front lines. After they will die, they were forced to be married again and within a very short time. And that I think that was very difficult for most of them. But I think there was this kind of fear that, you know, you don't feel good there, but you don't know about the others. You don't dare to tell anybody what you think. And there was a constant paranoia. So everyone just followed with what they were said to do.

MG: One of the other women that you speak with is a woman named Hoda Muthana, who grew up in Alabama and joined ISIS in 2014. Let's take a listen to how she is describing life under ISIS.

SOUNDCLIP

There's nothing as a woman to really do their. Cook and clean all day. There's no schools for women. There was just nothing to do for the past five years. And it's just really made you so like braindead. Music in public was not allowed. Free mixing was not allowed. No Internet. There was no TV, you know, like you were living in the Middle Ages or something. One time I had my Nike shoes on and had a pink strip on the Nike, just a little tiny pink strip. And I remember being stopped and yelled out for that pink strip. They would scream in the intercom of their car, you can't wear that shoe because it's too attractive. And I remember wearing my glasses, showing my eyes 'put your niqab back down. We could see your eyes'. Want to take your glove off just to take your money out of your bag. Someone screams at you from far away, 'put your gloves back on'. I was expecting a happy place with Muslims, helping in hospitals, helping in schools, helping a community out and just being like good decent muslims to each other. I don't know. It was it was hell on earth.

MG: It's not as though ISIS was was something that was hidden away. I mean, the atrocities that ISIS were involved in were very public even at that time in 2014. Do you believe those women when they say that they had no idea what they were getting into, that they didn't know what life under the caliphate was going to be like?

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: OK, I'm going to tell you the way they explained that is this belief that the media in the West is propaganda from the West, it's an exaggeration or it's that they are lies. And in the other hand, I don't think that they got the information of what will happen to them when they were there. No one knew what what was really like for a woman. That's something that we slowly knew much later.

MG: When you talk about what things were happening to them, I mean, Hoda Muthana talks a little bit about what it's like to be a woman living under the caliphate. Kimberly Polman also describes seeing the aftermath of this awful incident in her work as a nurse. I want to play a little bit of that, but a warning that this is a graphic description. This is Kimberly Polman once again from the documentary.

SOUNDCLIP

One night, a woman was brought in and she was carried in and she was, she was unconscious. I don't think- her and her eyes were closed and she miscarried her baby that night and she was bleeding heavily internally. I couldn't find an inch, I think, on her entire body that wasn't marked some way she had been beaten with some kind of a pipe, I think, judging by the markings. And she was in terrible condition. And. Many women didn't survive those kinds of injuries, it's too severe, especially head injuries like this.

MG: That's from the documentary The Return: Life After ISIS. I'm speaking with the director, Oliver Satara Kluwer. It's an incredibly disturbing scene. You spent a lot of time with these women. And what did you learn about about the impact that living under ISIS had on them?

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: I think that it has been very traumatising for all of them. I think that somehow many of those women block their feelings. When we were filming in Roj camp was a writing workshop to help them reflect on what they have been through and and also help them to reflect on the choices that they made and why. And in the beginning, they were really reluctant to write about what happened because they were telling, we cannot look back. It's so heavy. We need to look for where. We need to keep running because we have our children. And if we look back what it is going to feel like, but slowly and I think that has been healing because like going back and sharing, sharing what happened amongst all of them and realising that they were not alone in the things they lived and the other woman had the same experiences and to have a space in which they were able to share them together. It helped them to, I mean, I don't think you can overcome things like what Shamima went through, like losing three children in the war. You can never overcome this. No, but that is a moment in the film when they each one of them explains what she learnt. And it's beautiful because it's like, well, it took you a long journey to learn this, that for some other people, maybe you already know it.

MG: Yeah. Tell me about Shamima. Shamima Begum is a British schoolgirl and people may know her name because she was the subject of international attention when she and a couple of friends left the UK to join ISIS. Who was she?

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: She was 15. She was from from London. She left to Syria with two other school friends and she was married as soon as she arrived. She was 15. And and then while she was there, she had two children that she lost during the war. And then when the war finished, she was pregnant. The kid was born in the camp and then he died shortly after he he was born. Shamima has been in the UK. She's been like the like the hip that everybody hates, because when she was found in March 2013, she was found by a journalist and she was in shock. She didn't- when she was interviewed. It felt, for the way she talked, that she didn't feel any remorse for having joined ISIS.

MG: That's that interview that she did with the Times of London. Let me play just a little bit of that and then I'll get you to pick up on it. And a warning that this is pretty graphic.

SOUNDCLIP

INTERVIEWER: What about the executions and the cruelties

SHAMIMA: Seeing them and hearing about them?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

SHAMIMA: It was like [unintelligible]. He would come home and he would say that you saw an execution today, like on the street.

MG: Did you ever see executions?

SHAMIMA: No. But I beheaded heads in the bin.

INTERVIEWER: in the bins?

SHAMIMA: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: What was that like when you first saw that? These are the heads of captives?

SHAMIMA: Yeah, it was. I was [unintelliglbe].

MG: She said it was like normal. The British people were scandalised in many ways by that.

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: Yeah. Yeah. And still today, like probably 70 percent of the UK population doesn't want her back and many, many people hates her. But I think we need to think that Shamina was 16 when she was trafficked. She was taken by a very strong network and taken to Syria that they marry her. And she was a child. I think that especially her, she she needs a second chance. And I think she was immature of when she left and there was pressure to do it. And I think that after all what she has been through, she also lost the two friends that went with her, are dead now. And I think she learnt the the the consequences of the decision. I mean, I think that she should be taken back and that the people in the UK should ask what was happening in their society, that a young girl like these, that they let this happen.

MG: I mean, you asked her why she should be given, I'll use your words, a second chance and why she should perhaps be able to go back to the UK. Here she is making her case for returning to the United Kingdom.

SOUNDCLIP

SHAMIMA: When I was a teenager, I was so ungrateful. I was young and naive and I felt like I knew everything and I felt like I was right and everyone else wrong. You know, I said, I hate my mom, but now I realise, you know, I love her and I feel most safe with her, most loved with her. I would say to the people in the UK, give me a second chance, because I was still young when I left. I just want them to put aside everything they've heard about me on the media and just have an open mind about why I left and who I am now as a person.

MG: Do you think that women like Shamima should be allowed to return to the West? People who left to join ISIS and who openly supported ISIS? Should they be allowed to return to the countries that they came from?

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: Yes, I think they should be allowed to return and face trial. And then I think that we as a society, we need to do heavy work to try and reintegrate these women and they can help us understand what happened. And also ,especially because of the kids, I think that it's [unintelliglbe], the repatriation. It's not fair for all these kids that are now in these camps without schooling, without a normal life. They don't deserve that. And they should be also being brought back home.

MG: What would you say? I mean, it's not just people in Britain. It's all around the world, in Germany, in the Philippines, in Canada, where people might say these are women who made the choice to go and that they went willingly. Why should they be brought back? What would you say back to those people? But because you know, that that's a popular sentiment, right?

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: Yes. I mean, but why they should stay in a country that is not their own country. They are not the responsibility of all of the Kurdish women who really face the violence of ISIS. They are our nationals, so they are our responsibility. Why the Kurdish have to do it and not us.

MG: Aside from Kimberly, the Canadian who's there. There are other Canadians who are in that camp. And we asked Global Affairs Canada what plans they had to repatriate these women and children. And they said they're aware of Canadian citizens being detained. But and these are their words, given the security situation on the ground to the government of Canada's ability to provide consular assistance in Syria is extremely limited. Canadian consular officials are actively engaged with Syrian Kurdish authorities for information on Canadians in their custody. What do you make of that?

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: I think it's an excuse. I think is an excuse to wash their hands out of this situation because the situation in northeastern Syria is stable. Any government has the journalists. They have the ways to go there safely.

MG: I mean, the other issue is that Canada did manage to repatriate a four year old child who'd been living in one of those camps, but her mother is still there. Are you worried that there's going to be - and this comes up in the film - the idea that the children could be taken back but the mothers would stay?

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: I think this would be terrible. It's inhuman for the mothers but also inhuman children given for the children. And it doesn't make sense because, again, how you leave thousands of women in a detention camp, which is the same as a prison, without the trial. This is not mean. This is not even, this is not legal. As a citizens they have the right to have the citizenship of the countries. And I mean, they have the right to go back and they have the right to a fair trial.

MG: It's a very powerful film. I'm glad to have had the chance to talk to you about it. Thank you very much.

ALBA SOTORRA CLUA: Thank you so much.

MG: Alba Sottora Clua. She's the director of the Return: Life After ISIS. That film is screening as part of the Hot Docs Film Festival, which is online for the second year in a row, of course, because of the pandemic that is The Current for this Thursday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q Tom Power speaking with Eric Heisserer, who is the creator, head writer, showrunner and executive producer of a new Netflix series called The Shadow and Bone. You'll hear all about it when he speaks with Tom coming up in just a few moments and CBC Radio one. In the meantime, I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. Take care. And we'll talk to you again tomorrow.

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