Shaun Newman Podcast - #306 - Heather Mason

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

Survived fentanyl addiction, former federal prisoner & a founding member of Canadian Women's Sex-Based Rights. We discuss her journey with addiction, the difference between the male/female prison structure & the danger of men changing their gender to gain access to the women's prison.  November 5th SNP Presents: QDM & 2's. Get your tickets here: snp.ticketleap.com/snp-presents-qdm--222-minutes/ Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500

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c a she's a survivor of fentanyl addiction a former federal prisoner and a founding member of canadian women's sex-based rights i'm talking about heather mason so buckle up here we go. This is Heather Mason. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today, I'm joined by Heather Mason. So first off, thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me. Now, I was just saying, yeah, before we started, I don't know how I stumble upon people anymore. Some get shuffled to me through my audience, others, you know, the way social media works, just feeding you in different things. And you go down a couple of rabbit holes and lo and beholds. and lo and behold, Heather Mason pops up and I start reading into a bit of your story and I reached out and here you are.

So for my audience, the chances they know who you are is I'm going to say slim, but you never know. So where I want to start is just your backstory. If you want to tell a little bit about yourself and then we'll get into whatever and everything. All right. So I'm originally from Sarnia, Ontario. I don't know if you know where that's from. It's a border city, lots of drugs, not much going on here except, chemical valley.

We have all the tradesmen. Is that actually what it is? Yeah, we're called Chemical Valley. We have all your, all your petro plants, and we have like everything there. So there's a lot of tradesmen. You're talking to a border city on this side.

In Lloydminster, we sit half on Saskatchewan, half on Alberta. What do you border? The United States. So port here on. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, so I was born and raised here. I ended up getting into drugs. I was addicted to fentanyl and I just couldn't kick it. Tried a few times. I ended up being arrested like five times for simple possession, been in a few raids. And then I ended up getting my last arrest was in 2017 and I was arrested for trafficking. And I got a three-year prison sentence.

and I'm now just over five years clean and I've been out of prison almost four years now. Can I ask, I'm going to ask really dumb, simple questions. So welcome to this set of things. How does one, you mentioned you're addicted to fentanyl or you've kicked the habit, sorry. I'm just curious, how does one get to fentanyl? Because I don't know a whole lot about the drug other than it's like not good, extremely powerful. and it kills a lot of people. So how do you work your way up to fentanyl? I assume that's what happened.

Yeah. So I always like party as a teenager. Like I left home early, had a really dysfunctional family life. A lot of crazy stuff happened. My dad was an alcoholic. My mom was a drug addict. So like I drank and I did Coke on the weekends or ecstasy,

but nothing too major. But then I started dating a guy that was, almost 10 years older than me and he'd already been in jail and like affiliated with the bikers and like just a bad boy right and he was taking oxies so oxies were like your 40s or your 80s they're the pills right but prior to that I actually got my wisdom teeth out so I had taken percissettes before and I kind of like the feeling of that and then when I was dating him he was taking oxies which kind of got me introduced to them. So I was snorting oxies.

And then the government was like, whoa, we have a problem here. We need to do something about it. And instead of actually helping addicts, what they did was they started making what they called the neos. So then they changed the ingredients so that you couldn't scrape the coating

off of the pill to snort it or abuse it. So then instead of getting help, because there wasn't really any help, addicts just turned to something strong. So then that was approximately 2012 when the government decided to do that. And we all turned to fentanyl patches. We would smoke those or suck on them. And then again, the government was like, whoa, even more people are dying now.

We better do something like we did last time because it helps so much. So again, they changed the ingredients and they made it so the patches would melt into themselves so that you couldn't take the plastic piece of it. off to smoke them. And they also started doing like the patch for patch program and making it harder to get the patches, which skyrocketed the price. It was like $600 for a 100 milligram patch, which created a lot more crime because people need so much money now to get one patch or else they're dope sick. So then people started going to what we call fentanyl powder or car fentanyl, which is extremely toxic, dangerous. You don't know how much you're getting. And people, They're just dropping like flies because a lot of it's cut with benzos, right?

So that's really why a lot of people are dying is because they're overdosing on benzos, which is a very powerful drug as well. Holy man, you just said a lot of things that I realize I don't know Jack Squat. What was his benz-o? Benzo is just a type of, a different type of drug again? Yeah, so like your Xanax, your chlamazepid. Larazepam, your Pan family. When you get in this world, are there different points where you're like, and I'm, I'm sure

there are, but like you talk about them, you know, making certain drugs harder to use. You mentioned neos and like the coding, and I'm butchering this a bit. They make it harder. As they make it harder, I assume that doesn't stop Jack Swat. I think that's what I'm getting for me is like, you can make it harder. That's great. You can make it more cost, like make it more. way more expensive, but you're not addressing the actual problem.

Well, exactly, because the actual root to the addiction is trauma. And we're not addressing that at all. We're ignoring it. Would you mind explaining that a bit more? I feel like I've heard Theo Flurry on the podcast say exactly those words. But I guess I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah. So most addicts, well, all addicts have trauma, right?

whether it's, you know, childhood trauma, adults, like there's a lot of trauma and addiction just in itself. But we don't have services set up to help people deal with like sexual assaults, to deal with, you know, parents separating or living in poverty, all the really shitty things that happen to people. So there are no supports in place, like in Sarnia where I'm from. We didn't even have a detox center or a sober living house until like within the last five years. They never took care of addicts. Never tried to get to why are they using? Why are they self-medicating?

Because that's what we're doing. We're self-medicating, right? We don't want to feel. We don't want to think about what has happened. We don't want to deal with those things. It's easier to just continue to get high than to bring up all those emotional. emotions or to talk about what has been done to us and it keeps us sick. So then the solution is, well, I don't know.

If a government came in and listened to you to talk, what would your solution be? We need supports in place to deal with the trauma and get rid of the drugs on the street? Well, I don't know if you're ever going to get rid of the drugs on the street, but we definitely need to start putting money into our communities because healthy communities make healthy people. Instead, what we're doing is incarcerating everyone. And I don't think people realize how much money we are paying to incarcerate people. So just to kind of give an estimate here, taxpayers paid about half a million dollars to incarcerate me for my addiction problem.

That is a lot of money for someone that is not a risk to society. I'm a risk to myself. I'm not a risk to anybody out there. You could have put me in a year treatment where I dealt with my grief, my loss, my trauma, but instead, you paid all this money to lock me up with, you know, people who are in for murder or who are bigger criminals than me. So instead, I made a whole bunch of new connections and I had to learn how to be hard. I had to learn how to be mean to be able to survive. So you turned me into a different person and created this environment.

where it was just crime, crime, crime. Instead of actually addressing the issue, spending less money, and so that I didn't have to be arrested and put in jail five, six, seven times, right? You mentioned healthy communities in that. When you say healthy community, do you mean... Actually, no, I'm curious what you mean. What do you mean by a healthy community from your eyes? So a healthy community to me is definitely like open.

So talking about these things so that we're not stigmatized. Also like education is key. But so we see especially in Sarnia we're not healthy. There are so many addicts everywhere and nobody wants to address any of the issues. So there will be like Facebook groups where they sit there and like take pictures and videos of addicts and they post them and like make fun of them and they're like we want them out of our city and it's like okay well what are you doing to make your city better so that we don't have all these addicts do you really think like posting videos and pictures and making fun and people on

Facebook is actually helping your community like it's just there's a lot of stigma attached to drug use or even criminalized people and I think also with healthy community communities, we need like a trauma informed approach, which is lacking. But we also need to start addressing things that are happening to children before the children end up in the system. So instead of helping children who are victims, we're putting them in like foster care. And normally when they're in foster care, they end up proceeding to like group homes, youth detention, and then adult detention as well.

And they end up never getting out of the system. So a lot of the, also a lot of the foster homes that we're putting these kids in and we think we're helping them were not. They're worse off. And I've had experience and I've had friends and stuff that have been in the system that are put in a home with a predator. I've heard these stories. I know some different people who ran foster homes that from all accounts have been lovely. but I've definitely heard different stories

about the foster care system and I go that's a big these are big issues to face fix like foster care to me is a the idea of it is brilliant right like you have a kid that

needs a healthy home you stick them in a healthy home and and you know things should get better instead that's not always the case because of, I don't know, is it, is it the requirements to be a foster home or, are, I don't know how to put it. I've heard different stories about predators, I'll use your word, where they're not dumb people. They see an opportunity.

They use the rules to get into those positions. And then they take full advantage of that. And here specifically around my area, day homes have been one where, uh, you know, unlicensed. People are looking for a safe spot for their kids. And certainly there's been, I think it's in the last year,

the one of Marshall was, you know, a predator, you know, TV cameras and everything set up all around the house and rooms. And it's uncomfortable to talk about. I had Paul Brandt on. And he does,

you know, all about trafficking and that type of thing. And, you know, the worst thing we can do is not talk about it. Because I'm uncomfortable talking about it. But if you don't talk about it, it gets to proceed to happen.

I guess where I'm going is, is like these are large issues or maybe not. I don't know. Am I making it up to be bigger than it is, Heather? No, I don't think so. And it's really hard to find these predators, especially when a majority of them have never been charged, right?

How do you find that predator if there's never been a report made or if he's never been charged? So that's the issue there because you can jump through hoops all you want, they're only going to catch the people that have been convicted. You mentioned a bunch of things right off the hop. You talked about being addicted to fentany, being in jail, and certainly I want to get to the

jail part. But right before jail, I think you mentioned trafficking. Did you say that as well? You got into trafficking or you got pulled into trafficking? Trafficking drugs. That's what I was charged with. So interesting story. I was a total addict, but I was like the middleman.

And I would have guys call me from like Toronto area. And they're like, hey, I have dope. I need help moving it. I'll give you a discounted price if you can let your friends know. So I had a guy come down from the Toronto area with drugs. And I like let all my other addict friends know, hey, you know, like if you need, if you need patches, I can get them for you. So it was his dope and I was making a piece, you know what I mean, so that I wasn't sick. And that's the issue when you skyrocket the price of drugs is, so what am I going to do?

Am I going to go out and rob people and rob banks and steal and commit all these other crimes to get the cash for the dope? Or am I going to do something easy, like make a free piece, right? And that's why there's a lot of women that are in prostitution who are drug addicts as well, because women go to, to selling their body to make money for dope. Whereas men, especially like all my guy friends, they have like armed robbery charges, right? So I was making free dope for myself. So I didn't have to like go out and commit other crimes against people. And somebody had ratted and they raided my place and he tossed the dope on the floor and was like,

it's not mine. It's hers. And then I like when I went to court and stuff, I was like, well, I'm not going to get on stand and testify against him, like I'd have to point my finger. And the crown offered me a plea deal and said, if you plead guilty to trafficking of fentanyl, then I'll offer you three years for the catch is your co-accus walks. And if you refuse the plea deal, then I'm asking for five to six years. So to me, I just wanted to like get out, get back to my kids. I didn't want to be a rat. So I just took the plea deal and he walked on all charges and I went down for trafficking.

even though it wasn't my dope. But karma's a bitch. Sorry, I don't know if I'm allowed to swear. You're allowed to swear as much as you like. He ended up getting arrested for accessory to murder after the fact or something. So he's in prison. But yeah. And you're a mother through this as well?

Yeah, I have a son and a daughter. I was fortunate. My family took them because, like, I just couldn't stay at a jail. and then going to prison. So how long, how long did you go to prison for, Heather, or jail or prison? You can, you can, I don't know, tell your story. So I probably spent close to like three years altogether. I did like four months, six months, weekends, two weeks, 17 months.

Like, I just couldn't get my shit together. So I ended up getting like my three-year sentence. and I did about just over 17 months inside, and then I was granted day parole. So then I did three months at a treatment facility in North Bay. And then I did four months at a halfway house in Toronto. And then I was granted full parole. And I was able to live in the community on my own until my warrant came up,

which was January 23rd, 2020. And my warrant means like my charges have expired. I've completed my time. So I've been free. no charges, none of that since January 2020. And then, of course, COVID hit and back on lockdown. So, yeah. Do you think, I don't know if this is,

do you think prison helped you deal with lockdowns of COVID? Or was it like, or no? It definitely helped because like, so unpopular opinion, but I didn't get vaccinated, right? and none of their rules or anything really affected me because I'm like, I've already been to prison. Like you can't take anything away from me that I haven't already had taken away from me. Like go ahead and threaten whatever, but like I've been in solitary confinement for it. Like, this is a joke.

I'm going to do what I want. You don't have to worry about an unpopular opinion on here, Heather. I think majority of the crowd is unvaccinated. You got a guy who went to the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa who's interviewed just about everybody who's been canceled from it. So I don't think you got to worry about that on this side of things. It's not to make light of prison. And it wasn't to, it was just, you know, like, you're pretty much told what you can and cannot do every single day. You're locked up.

You're kept away from family, friends, et cetera. I'm like, not that they're all the same similarities, but, I mean, it would probably prepare you somewhat. Oh, yeah, for sure it did. And I went to Ottawa as well. Oh, there you go. Yeah. let's talk what was your first dan like you talk about um uh all being addicted and having all these different drugs that you you know you switch to and from and everything else but along the

way you're caught you're in and out of jail that type of thing was that a sobering experience or were you just waiting to get out so you could i i have no idea i guess i'm just to me i don't i don't know I all I can think of is is the the iron gate clanging and being like holy crap this just got real I think like you disassociate um also I was just waiting to get back out to get high again because it's like all right like I'm already in jail I've now lost everything my family won't talk to me I have a criminal record so really there is no perk to me getting clean because at that point like I had so much self-loathing and I didn't care if I lived. And I was just doing as many drugs as I possibly could hoping that I would never wake up, right?

Like I didn't have a will to live. So it didn't make me want to get clean just because I had so much trauma and grief and loss that I needed to deal with. And I needed to learn how to love myself again. So. I, I, um, background. Brown's hockey and I know the listeners get tired of me saying this, but on the walls everywhere, I got hockey and hockey jersey and that type of thing. And I'm absolutely spacing on his name right now. But his handle on Instagram and things is puck support. And he's a guy who got into

hard drugs and then a criminal record and ended up on Hastings Street. And now he's clean. And he goes around talking about different athletes who've lost their life to addiction. And that's is big thing. But he said something that you just said. And I find that line very fascinating in a very eerie way. And that is, I was chasing my next hide so I wouldn't wake up or something along that lines. Yeah. Do you look back and then go, does that seem like a dream? Like, ooh, I'm glad I'm not there anymore. Was that, I don't know what that time is. I've never, nor do I want to have that time. I just hear that line. I'm like, man, that's a, that's a crazy thought. It's just a, and I don't mean that crazy in a bad way.

I just mean like that is a wild thought to have and be okay with and just proceed every day that way. Because you don't think there's any fixing. Like you think you've like completely ruined your life and that no one will forgive you and that you just created all these barriers to be a successful member of society. Like, because once you have a criminal record, there are a lot of things that there are a lot of barriers, period. So like when you're going for, well, one, your credit gets so screwed when you go to jail because you can't pay your debts, right? So when you're going to get housing, most places ask for a credit check while you're screwed there, right? Some people even ask for a criminal record check for housing. There are programs you can't take in school because they require a criminal record check.

when you're going for different jobs, right? So, like, I was a personal support worker and I was in my first year of pre-health science to become a nurse. I wasted all of that money. I cannot go back into that career, right? So I owed OSAP all of this money. And of course, I couldn't pay it because you can't make payment arrangements with them when you're in prison because you have to, like, call them and they have to call you back,

but you can't call me because I'm in. jail and then they keep adding on interest and interest and interest when you get out a year and a half later and it's like they won't help you they want you to pay off the interest before they'll do a payment plan with you but it's like I just got out of prison I don't have five grand to pay off my interest so like it creates so many barriers and it's like you have so many things against you you just like you just want to give up you know um it's really hard to like crawl out of that hole and get your life fixed. And then especially when you're in addiction,

you're overtaken with such negative thoughts to begin with. And it's really hard to turn that around and start being like thinking positive. So here you sit though, Heather. So what was your moment of like things getting better? Was it a person? Was it an experience? Was it? So I remember turning 30 in prison.

And I was just like, what the fuck are you doing? You know what I mean? Like are you going to turn 40 and 50 in here too? And also like my son was really upset. And I remember I'm saying, Mommy, why'd you have to take the bad medicine?

Why couldn't you take the good medicine? And that broke my heart. And my daughter was with her paternal aunt, so her dad's sister. And she wouldn't let me talk to her, see her for 19 months. And I just kind of got fed up with it all. especially the fact that like being in there and like all your friends, like where are they?

You know what I mean? They're not writing you. They're not putting money in your canteen. They're not helping your kids. They're not doing anything. What they're doing is robbing your house while you're sitting in jail because the cops left the door freaking broken and they just took your, you know, all your electronics and everything. That's what your buddies are doing. They're robbing your house right now while you sit inside.

I just got sick of that slimy life. And I also, so like I was just like, so my whole plan was that I was going to go for bail because I knew the cops missed dope in my house and I was going to get out and I was going to get high. And then I got bail denied. And of course, because I always do. I mean, while they let out like crazy people, but, you know, I always get bail denied. And I ended up transferring to.

Windsor jail because it was a new super jail and they had like more programs and volunteers and they just had so much more to offer than Sarnia bucket. So I went there and I just started taking like every program I possibly could. I started going to church and doing Bible studies and I just wanted to try and do everything I couldn't see if I could change because what did I have to lose? So then I when I got to prison. I got some volunteers to bring in like narcotics anonymous literature and I did the entire 12 steps. So it's like 474 questions while I was inside. I had a sponsor and I wrote all my answers down on the paper and I emailed them and I had a call on the phone. I went to meetings and then I started like a 12 step study group inside for the women and just honestly took advantage of everything I

possibly could. I didn't think that I was going to stay clean, but I was just like one day at a time, one day at a time. And one day of time got me to almost five and a half years. So, well, good for you. That one day at a time thing when you don't put the forever word on there or never or anything like that where you can almost defeat yourself in the first second of it, the one day at a time, they add up. And I mean, geez, five plus years, that's, my hat's off to you. because that's not an easy thing to break out. Because I think we all know somebody who's been affected by addiction and seeing how it's really taken over their life.

And I think for the average person, you kind of throw your, not throw your hands up in the air, but I don't know how better to say you kind of do. He's kind of like, I don't know. What can I do? Like how can I break through to this person or whoever it may be to get them out of the cycle of,

thoughts they're on. Yeah, it's tough. I've lost so many friends. Like I had to stop counting. It was just depressing, but like we're well over 30 people since COVID hit. And like I have a lot of people close to me that struggle with addiction. Like my daughter's father, he is in and out, in and out, in and out. Like I'm waiting for the phone call to say he's dead. My son's father, he was arrested with um so when we were together he got arrested and he ended up going to prison for like six years and he got out and um i was in prison when he got out and he was good for about a year or so and then covid hit and he just like definitely went downhill he got caught with $126,000 worth of dope and during COVID what they were doing was they weren't even testing them

they were automatically putting them in what they call isolation cells, but realistically, they're solitary confinement cells. So he was put in solitary withdrawing. And it's two weeks that they put you in there. And after the ninth day, he killed himself. So, yeah, it's been a crazy ride. It's, um, you live, you've lived in a different world than I ever knew existed. If that makes sense. I don't, I don't, they just, it's just a different world. I don't know how better to say. I sit and I listen and I go, holy crap, I just have zero clue about what you're talking about. Which I don't know if I'm lucky or what.

But I find it just, it's good to hear things like this. To broaden an audience, including myself, like just perspective of what is going on. What's maybe one of the biggest misconceptions, a guy like me is going to, have about prison, specifically maybe women's prison, because you've been through it. I've, you know, the reason I reached out is because you, you know, we'll get into some of the stuff that's going on right now. But what's one of the biggest misconceptions that we have about prison? There are so many, but like most people seem to think that our prisons are just full of

violent people or monsters or, but they're not. So women's prisons and men's prisons are completely different because women and men have different crimes and pathways to crimes. So like in regards to women's prisons, like 80% of the women that are in there are in there for navigating like poverty and abuse. Like so you have like 80% of women that are like me, just like drug addicts or prostitutes or, you know, fraud. like they're not violent and they're low risk to public safety. But men's prisons are way more violent. There's like tons of violence there. And like even I hear stories from my buddies all the time about how like the guards do a Friday night fight night where they take bets on prisoners and they make prisoners fight each other.

Like we don't have that stuff in women's prisons. Men's prisons are just crazy. but I assume it isn't all rosy on the women's side of things though although different yeah it's not rosy like there's a lot of like cattyness and drama in that regard um there's a lot of guards that like to take advantage of the women so they'll trade contraband for sexual favors um so yeah we have a lot of male guards that are our predators um but like Is that something you witnessed personally is like in in their mail guards being I don't know, the only word I can think of is inappropriate. Well, yeah. So there is one. There is a max guard who is exchanging nail polish and cigarettes for sexual favors.

There's a because I'm an advocate for criminalized women like I have a not for profit. So I take a lot of reports and help write grievances and help the women navigate the correctional system. and I was just helping a woman and a guard finally got caught. He was bringing in like pizza and stuff like that for her and like having sex with her. Yeah. And his like wife worked at the same prison too. You can't make this stuff up. No, you can't.

You know, I here's the line that I was reading. and I was like, I don't know if I want to talk. Honestly, Heather, I was like, I don't know if I want to talk about this. But then I'm like, you know what? If you don't talk about things, then they get swept under the rug and then they're allowed to persist and everything else. So here's what you wrote. Male rapists and pedophiles just got permission from the Canadian government to gain access to their victims. For context, only 2% of women prisoners are convicted of sexual crimes.

You've just written earlier in the article about 20% of males, I believe. in many cases for facilitating men's access to victims. Sorry. So for context, only 2% of women prisoners are convicted of sexual crimes in many cases for facilitating men's access to victims. And then you wrote kind of like the Canadian government. And so I read that and I went, well, I think it's it's high time we sat down. And I just like to hear what you're hearing, seeing, what the laws of what Canada is doing. that are allowing access to vulnerable women,

even if society thinks women sitting in a prison are all dangerous and everything else. Yes. So it's this gender identity ideology that's going on, where a man is a woman because he feels like it, therefore he is really female. And by saying otherwise, you're discriminating. So it all kind of started back in 2012 when Ontario passed the gender identity in their Human Rights Act. People at the time coined it the bathroom bill.

And shortly there after this dangerous offender was going around to women's shelters and sexually assaulting like women who were like death or vulnerable women. So there's been an issue with this from the get-go. BC followed afterwards. And then in 2017, the federal government added gender identity or expression into the Canadian Human Rights Act, which made it, like, solified it with institutions, et cetera. Prior to this, in jails, so Ontario, for example, they didn't allow transfers to happen until 2015.

So three years after it was added to the Ontario Human Rights Act, but they kept them separated from us. So there was a rape hound that used to be across the hall from us, and he identified as a woman, but they kept them separate from us. Each jail is different. Some of them put them on range. Some of them try to keep them away, but that opens the door for them to be sued. And then when I was in prison, I was in prison when this bill was passed.

and they started transferring them in and they're on compound with us. So women's prisons are different. We used to be locked up like men, but they found out that women don't fare well in environments built for men. Seven women committed suicide within a three-year period. All but one were indigenous. So they started a task force and they developed women's corrections. So we have six federal prisons in Canada,

and most of them are multi-year. security levels. So we have areas for minimum, medium, and maximum. So ours are like, so I was on medium compound, even though I was minimum security. I just stayed on medium compound because it has more programs, et cetera. We have like cottages. So they're like nine bedroom houses with two bathrooms, laundry room, dining room, kitchen. There are no cameras in the houses and the guards only come through once every two hours. We also have like a mother child. program. So if we have a child that is under the age of four, they can live with us full time in the prison. So women's prisons are very, very different than men's prisons. There are easier time, obviously, right? And these men now are like, oh, so all I have to do is identify as a woman and apply for a transfer. Therefore, I'll be incarcerated with my victim pool because remember, we have children too, right? So it's not just women. That's what's been happening. So, We've had pedophiles, woman beaters, rapists, like, you name it.

And 50% of the transfer requests were from sex offenders. That's not surprising. And that overrepresents the actual numbers, like you mentioned earlier, only 20% of the male population are in for sex crimes. Yet 50% of the transfer request coming are from sex offenders. Why would we do that? because of this ideology of, you know, and this culture that you can't just call a spade a spade and just be done with it and just say, we're not going to allow this. It's like it's blown my mind. That's why I'm like speaking out about it because I don't think people realize what's going on.

It's offensive to say that biological sex is binary. You know what I mean? that they're a male and female with sexual reproductive disorders, therefore still male or female, now it's all gender diverse and gender identity and we're bigots and transphobes and, you know, for believing in biological reality. Like everything has just changed so much and it's in our institutions, it's in our education. It is in all forms of public. policy, practices, everything for government. And it's getting progressively worse. So for example, they're still not even happy with what they have.

So correctional service to Canada, and it's interesting how this went out. So corrections put out a policy and they made an amendment that said, because prior to the passing of this bill, you had to be living outside. prison for 12 months in order to qualify for gender reassignment surgery. CSC would pay for it. So they amended their act and said you could be in prison for one year and you could qualify for the surgery. They put that policy out. There's a bunch of CBC articles, et cetera.

And then there was a town hall meeting in Kingston, Ontario and Justin Trudeau was there and someone, a trans woman, I'm pretty sure, so a male, got up and said, well, what about trans women in prison? And Justin Trudeau was like, oh, I never thought about that. Don't worry, we'll fix that. Next thing you know, CSC, so Correctional Service Canada, has revoked their policy and they're going to look it over. They look it over and then change it based on transfers can happen based on gender identity.

But there was an exception. So there's a clause written in that says, unless overriding health or safety concerns, which has prevented several of these transfers. Well, they finally put out the policy to make it permanent because it's been a temporary policy. But then advocates like Morgan Oge from BC and like Leaf Legal Advocacy and the Canadian Bar Association of Canada was like this policy is discriminatory. The exemption clause should be removed. transfers should happen, like they should just happen.

Like you shouldn't be able to prevent someone from transferring. If they are a woman, they are a woman because they say so, meaning that there is no interior motive behind their identifying as a woman. We're just going to trust all these criminalized men that they're, you know, it blows my mind. It really does. Did I catch, well, hey, I think it blows everybody's mind because I just sit here, I mean, what is the last couple of years taught us, folks?

Nothing seems, you know, we shouldn't say that because nothing blows my mind anymore. It's like we've just become so complacent or they're just very nefarious people in some high up places that want to see some very terrible things happen. All right. Like, I mean, I don't know where I sit on everything, but what I hear you talking about, I'm like, well, to put a real dangerous person, no matter how they see themselves in a place. with a bunch of vulnerable people, including children, because you're saying if the child's under four, they can be,

like, come on, we've got to be smarter than this. It's like putting the fox in the henhouse. Like it doesn't even, well, he identifies as a, as a hen,

he's good to go, right? You wake up in the morning, all the hens are dead. Like, it's like, come on. No farmer is that dumb.

The government, I like to think, isn't that dumb, but geez, they certainly love to prove me wrong time and time. Again, did I hear in there, You said, if a person is out of prison for a year and identifies as the opposite sex,

because obviously it isn't just men, it's probably women too and whatever, that the government will pay for it. And did I hear then they change that so that if you're in prison for a year, you can do it as well. So it doesn't matter where you are. The government's going to pay for your sex change. Well, corrections, yeah, which is federal, yep. Which we fund, right? Yes. So you're paying further implants. Yes, and all that other stuff. Yeah. That literally makes zero sense.

You want to know what really doesn't make sense? It's the fact when you're granted parole and you're at a halfway house, CSC will not fund birth control. They say it's not a necessity. So they won't give us birth control to prevent pregnancy, but they'll fork out thousands and thousands of dollars for some dude sex change. I got to think about this funding thing,

just for the birth controls thing. All this is like, what? Anyways, I've never been to prison. If I wanted to get a sex change, can I call them up and say, I want to get a sex change? I've been in a prison for a year, or you have to be in the corrections database.

Yeah, so you would have to be a federal prisoner. So if you've been a federal prisoner, you can apply to have them fund everything. If your warrant hasn't expired. So you have to, because you were, okay. So how crazy of a thought that is? Yes. I know.

So what happens is when you become a federal prisoner, you no longer get OHIP. OHIP is our Ontario healthcare. So they revoke your OHIP. So you no longer have that and you are now owned by the Canadian government, right? So you're on Corrections Canada's healthcare thing. Oh. Okay. So underneath that, that's how they allow to fund to have whatever done to you that you want.

Yeah. So actually there's, I just got a phone call last week from a woman in prison who said, hey, there's another trans prisoner here. they're apparently going to get surgery in two weeks. So they're being transferred to Joliet, which is in Quebec, because they tend to send them to Quebec to have the surgery. And then they're going back to the prison that they're at. This dude has been in for like 25 years, okay, in the men's prison.

He's been in for 25 years. He went for parole last year, but was denied parole because he hasn't worked on what he needs to work on. he is in for murdering a woman that he was interested in so I can only assume she like denied his advances and he killed her and he he said he wanted to go to the woman's prison so that he could watch the women how they dressed talked walked and acted so that he could be more like a woman I'm sorry but if a man were any other man were to say he wants to watch women, we would be like, he's a fucking creep, but this is okay.

Like, it's crazy. I feel like, as you're talking, I just go, A, I know Jack's squad about the prison system. I want to make that abundantly clear. It just feels like it might be high time, well, I don't know.

Maybe high times, it just feels broken. Like, it just, but like, I feel like the longer I do this podcast, the more things I'm like, oh, that needs a little bit of TLC. This at this point is like, I don't know, what is the right answer, Heather? We deny, you know, like, as you've told your story, women don't get birth control that's funded by, you don't have health benefits anymore.

So they won't, but they won't fund that, right? I'm catching that right. Yeah. And yet people that you owe money to are still treachery while in prison. And as a person who sits outside, I'm like, okay, well, that might make sense. Maybe they're not supposed to. But then again, I'm like, when you do get out of prison, now you owe so much money, I actually get that. So I'm like, okay, I can kind of see all the different angles here.

The one that makes zero sense is the sex change. I'm like, I don't know if much of the world's making sense, I guess, is where I get to. That's where I am. I just, I don't know. This is a lot. I didn't know what bringing you on here was going to be. but this is a lot. It is.

Like the government are like they're crooks. Realistically, like they're just crooks all the way around. And even more to go with the absurd not making any sense. Like we can't collect GST or Trillium or any sort of government funding when we're inside. Yet we pay room and board. Most people don't know that. They think we live in there for free. We don't.

30% of our wages goes to paying for like cable. and inmate committee and all of those other things. Yet, we only make $5.80 a day, unless you're like a life for a long time, then you get like $6.90. Big whoop. That's an entire day of work. So, and on top of that,

they even charge us tax on the stuff that we buy. So we're paying GST, but they won't give us GST. Like, it's so insane. Like, they're just, the whole thing is, just they make a fortune and they do whatever they want. And I feel like they get away with everything. But,

well, I was just going to say, one side of my brain goes, well, we want to make prison difficult. Like, I don't want it to be, so you want to go there.

But I also want to make it so you, when you're in there, you never want to go back. Like, not like, man, there's the worst experience in my life, but more like,

I don't know, you talk about trauma. And I'm like, Okay. Well, can we assume that a lot of people that are sitting in prison then obviously have trauma? Could we assume that a healthy majority do? Oh, yeah, especially women. Yep. So you go, okay, how do we get to the root of that problem so that they don't enjoy their time here, but they enjoy it just enough so that they never want to come back? Does that make sense?

Yeah, but it's not going to happen unless you fix the problem. Why did they come there in the first place? Did they come there in the first place because they're trying to escape poverty? they're going to, when they get out, they're going to continue to try to escape poverty, right? Tell me some stories of poverty. What do you mean by poverty in Canada? What are you talking about specifically? So a lot of thefts and frauds. So like not being able to pay for like your anything, you know, like housing, not being able to pay for your children or childcare or your dog. Like there is a woman in there who frauded her employment because she needed to pay for cancer treatment for her dog. Like there's a lot of like stuff like that that's inside women's prison specifically. A healthy economy with tons of jobs, doesn't that get rid of poverty?

Yeah, but we, the cost of living and everything. You're talking Toronto specific. Well, not even just Toronto. Like it's just, but Toronto is absurd. But what's happening is that everyone who lives in Toronto is now buying up all the properties outside of Toronto and they're jacking the price of rent. So Sarnia used to be like very reasonable to live. And I've been looking into moving back to Sarnia and they're charging the same prices as

Toronto. Yet we don't have any of the things that Toronto has. So it's not affordable. Like I can't even move back here and live on my own. Like I literally have to work like 60 to 70 hours if I want to, you know, one bedrooms are like 1,500 to 1,700 to 1,000 a month. And you're going to be living in a basement. Like it's just, and it's also going to be in like the ghetto.

And it's not going to, you're going to have a lot of issues too. But that's what's happening. Everyone from Toronto is buying up all. the properties and then they're just jacking the price of rent. So don't go back to Trump. Don't go back to move with your feet and or is that just a poor thought in my brain? No, I mean they're buying the properties here and jacking the price of them here. Sorry, and what I mean is I like, uh, people get to vote with their feet, I guess is where I'm at. And what Canada has done over the, the course of a two year period.

has opened up a lot of people going, I just don't want to be here. Now, for prisoners, federal people who've been through the prison system, that's not an option they'd have because I assume you can't just trial it under the best of circumstances having a criminal record will knock off a bunch of countries to say, yeah, we just don't want you over here. I think I'm right in saying that, Heather. Well, that was my whole issue.

Like I was thinking about leaving, but I can't enter the states and I couldn't fly. right so I literally couldn't leave the country so as things change here in the west uh if you you know people vote with their feet move to a place that that affordability is better where you can get good paying jobs that they're begging for workers you come out and prove your your worth here in the west i speak specifically to alberta and Saskatchewan you move out here and and put your head down within no time time flat, you're making great money. I'm not saying that the housing prices is not high, but it's certainly a heck of a lot better than Toronto, Vancouver. Those two centers are in a

world of their own, and I think everybody stares at that. But why not vote with your feet to escape poverty to, you know, I guess that's just at least, I always feel like I have options on this side. And maybe that's not something that prisoners think about. I don't know. I just, that's the way my brain looks at the, at the problem at least. Yeah. And it is easier for somebody who doesn't have children to just be able to up and get a job and move, right?

Once you have a few kids, it's definitely harder, right? You have to pay for child care. You might not be able to move because of, um, the father won't let you move, right? So it's definitely easier if you're a single man.

For sure. Well, I got three young kids. I got, moving right now certainly would not be easy. I just look at it and I always, you always have options, I guess. Even when things are, it's absolute worst, you always have options. Now you can have good and bad options, certainly. I mean, they don't all have to be brilliant ideas. They can be some, you know, poor ideas too.

I just to escape poverty, my brain always, and this is because I probably don't know that side of the world, Heather. I go, why not work the 70 hour job and build things up that way so that eventually you're out of the 70 hour job and you can take your kids and move them to somewhere else? I don't know. But once again, if you're listening to me going, yeah, you sound like an idiot. That's fine. That's totally fine. you're laughing. I get what you're saying too, but like without going into everything, there's a lot going on.

Because one, we're talking about people who are like either like addicts or people who are in like domestics that are trying to escape. Like they're not allowed to work. So they end up doing things on the illegal side that's under. However, like I'm talking about people that basically aren't really living your, like, the type of life that you, you live to begin with, right? Like, a lot of these people are, they start really young. Like, I was into the scene at really young as a teen. I wasn't even at a high school yet, right? It really depends on.

You were into drugs and that type of thing. Yeah. And crime. Yeah, because, like, when you run away from home, it's, not good people that I usually find you and teach you and show you the world the proper way, right? Do I infer then you ran away from home? Yeah.

Yeah. I did. What drove you, I don't know if I'm prying too much and you can tell me that that's totally fine too, but what drove you? Once again, I got young kids. I'm genuinely curious. What would drive you to run away from home? And what did you find out there?

My mom was an addict. I got fed up with her using and being a parent. I had to become a parent at a really young age and take care of my siblings. And there was a lot of predatory men around. And I just got sick of that. So I wasn't raised with, I was raised different. I wasn't raised like, oh, you know, get a job. go to school, do this, do that.

It was very crime-centered life. And that's the problem when we're not educating people or helping people when they're young, like having those healthy communities, right? I didn't know that your world really existed. I only knew what I was subjected to. And I would say all of us don't realize the other worlds there because you only know what you're subjected to, what you're around. right?

Yeah. If you, if you, so in a healthy community, you bring it back to there, you know, kids are so impressionable at a young age, right? If you can give them a healthy landing spot somewhere where you can't just say one thing and be something else as a, as an adult, I mean, specifically, right? Because you certainly don't want the bad people showing up there. Schools were, I mean, and then they got shut down for two years, right? And we all know, I think, what that would have done to a lot of kids. They talk at awful lot about the safe place or the happy place they go to was removed from them for two years and what they were put through and different things like that. But you bring it back to this healthy community idea.

For a kid like yourself that ran away from home at a young age, if there had been, I don't know, a community center or something like that where it gave you opportunity to go out and be a part of is that. something you would have been looking for that? Yeah, and I also would have done better if the adults in my life that knew what was going on spoke up and said something. Everyone knew. Everyone knows what's going on. Even the teachers in school, they knew, but nobody said anything. And I never ended up being removed and put like putting care at that point. Like, everyone knew. Like I was smoking cigarettes in grade six. Like I was being suspended at school for smoking cigarettes. Like,

you can't tell me you didn't know what was going on. Well, and I've, hmm, I've married to a teacher, so I certainly know some stories that they go through a lot of, dealing with young kids and knowing there's awful things going on. And at times, I don't want to speak for teachers here,

so I'll just, my own account and the way I perceive it and we'll leave it. Well, you can certainly have your say on it, Heather. But from what I've seen is they've called the services in to take them out of the homes, right, that are real bad. And those services will say they're better off being there. And I've thought about that a lot. Like our system is in a spot where that's where you're allowing kids to stay in an unhealthy environment, maybe dangerous, maybe worse than dangerous, whichever that is.

because they're better off being there than in the system. And it's true half the time. What we need is we need like, I really enjoyed the big sisters, little sisters program when I was younger, that we need more like supports or like advocates, people that can be trusted to help guide and teach. Um, because a lot, like, I even see this in when I was in prison, like a lot of these women that are coming in, like, they've ran away from home at a very young age or they've been living on the streets for years and years and like, they don't know how to cook.

They don't know how to work the washing machine. They're like, they're not taught any of these skills. And interestingly enough, home act was taken out before I even reached grade seven where they actually taught these life skills. So a lot of our kids and stuff aren't being taught. And I do worry about like the next generation especially because they're all electronics. It's electronics, electronics, electronics. Like there's no skills being taught at all. That is an interesting point.

I took home economics as a Mrs. Rogers class, as I recall. Jeez, that's a long time ago now. But home economics was something we all did. You know, I'm not sitting here saying it taught me how to cook, but it did put you in a kitchen. And it did, you know, show you a few different things. And you do raise a very, very good point where a lot of skill sets have been removed that are life sustaining, you know. Being able to cook food is pretty essential, as we both know, as you get older. I'm not a great cook, but I can still cook and not poison myself.

And that's saying something. as the world moves forward faster and electronics such as, you know, like it allows us to do what we're doing right now and have this interview. But I had Robert Oswald, he's a CEO of a company on a while back. And he just talked about we have to find a way to make the blue collar jobs cool again because, you know,

your computer is built away. And the materials to build a computer are mined a certain way. And oh, you got plumbing in your house. well, you need a plumber when the, you know, shit hits the fan quite literally and things like that. And we're losing them all every single day because nobody wants to do those jobs anymore. They want to be on the iPhone or, you know, I'm being a little tongue in cheek. They want to be a programmer or they want to do, you know, sit behind a computer and do this.

And there is something to be said about, I call it blue collar. That's what we grew up doing, you know, all the different things that make our lives run and give us every wonderful product under the sun. comes from somebody putting in some work. Yep. Yeah, it does. Well, I appreciate you giving me some of your time, Heather. I hope I've done a decent job in allowing you to speak on some of the things that you've seen and gone through.

And, you know, just the prison system in itself is probably something at some point here. I'm going to have to continue to dive into the subject, so to speak, a little bit more. so I can start to understand different parts of it because as you talk, I go, who this is more complex than just, I don't know, not right versus wrong, but you kind of get the point. It isn't just black and white. There's a lot of gray areas in what is going on. And certainly then you top off a male versus female prison system. They're completely different.

And I honestly didn't know that. Yeah. And something I didn't mention earlier is that this whole gender identity thing, like the prison policy, it's completely one-sided. So they have not transferred any women that identify as men to the men's prison because they'll be raped in the men's prisons. So they identify the fact that these self-identified men are actually female, right? But the same thing isn't applied the other way around. So the females, you're saying, and I didn't mean to laugh. I mean, it's, I think it's laughable because it's like you stick a woman in a male prison.

You can assume, I don't think you have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what's going to happen. And when you frame it that way, and then they're not allowing that. So they're not allowing that. No. But they'll allow the other thing to happen. Yeah, because they're women. Don't you know? Our society is upside down right now.

It is. We can't seem to figure anything out. So they'll allow a male to transfer into a, you know, And once again, oh my goodness, this is just. It's male privilege is what it is, right? Like they're allowed to do whatever they want to do. And they're believed over all of us. Like even when I talk about like the sexual assaults, the pregnancies, everything that has

happened in the women's prisons, like I just get told I'm lying. Like it's just the whole thing is just crazy. And like the one of the biggest things that people try to use is that well, women rape women too. And all the time I've done, I've never witnessed a woman rape another woman in there. Sure, it does happen. But like I said, only 2% of our prison population are in there for sex crimes and most

them because they're providing access to men. We don't have a bunch of women running around raping women. Like, so like they try to like justify it. It's just, it blows my mind or like I'm lying. It's not happening. Meanwhile, like there was a male who was charged with sexual assault and criminal harassment and just had court over it. And like they don't even get removed. So like if there is an incident at the women's prison, all as they do is transfer them to another woman's prison where they continue with the behavior.

So they just leave a wake of victims at every single. prison that they go to. They don't get transferred back to the men's prison. Coming from a farmer's background, I just, I just think it's putting the fox in the henhouse. Like, it's just the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

It's, I can't put it any more, like, just bluntly than that. It's just dumb. It just makes zero sense. Just like you said, if you put a woman who is becoming a man

in an all-male prison, what's going to happen? Well, not good things. I think we can all, agree with that. Not good things. Well, the opposite is very true. Not good things are going to come from the other, especially when we know who's going to be trans, like you mentioning who's transferring in there, you go, I just, once again, this is the world we live in right now. And I,

I don't know. Have you had any success in your talks when it comes to the government and with any of that? I saw Julie Panassi talking about an upcoming chat you guys are having here later in August and things like that is that is it helping are you seeing any change or nothing at all not from the government but definitely like from people like they're finally waking up and realizing what's going on so it's definitely like raised a lot of awareness in that way um but yeah the government just ignores you or they just recite the same bullshit like um it's just like the form they're like well Bill C-16, da-da-da-da-da. Like, I don't know the reason why it's happening,

but I'm telling you these are the risks, the consequences, and the impacts. Like, we need to do something about it. They just, like, they, like, ignore it. Like, so no, nothing in regards to them, but definitely a lot of people are waking up to realizing what's going on. Well, I appreciate you giving me some of your time.

Before I let you out of here, is there anything I didn't ask? You know, that's how we got the extra 10 minutes. Is there anything I haven't asked Heather? Because by all means, if I haven't brought something up, please feel free to share. I got plenty of time. If there's something you need to make sure the audience hears, here's your opportunity. Definitely check out my Twitter.

So it's Heather Mason because I've put on 18 protests across Canada in the last two years. I just actually did one in Alberta last September. So check out my page, keep up to date with like what's happening. Because like I said, it's all about raising awareness and having those small conversations. And hopefully that person goes on to have a conversation and more people find out. Well, then here's your final question for the afternoon. It's brought to you by Crudemaster, their sponsor of the podcast. And it's in Heath's words, he says, if you're going to stand behind a cause that you think is right,

then stand behind it absolutely. What's one thing Heather stands behind? Women and girls, sex-based rights and protections. That rate there, I assume, has caused you a lot of flack, even though it shouldn't. Yes, it has. Like, of all the things you've said today, nothing makes clear sense in what you just said there. And yet, I feel like that has been probably as interesting in an endeavor you have. as any other one you've brought up this far.

Yep. Well, I appreciate you giving me some of your time, Heather, and while we'll see what the future holds either way. Thanks for hopping on. Thank you for having me.