Uncover - S13: "White Hot Hate" E2: 'Best of Both Worlds'

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

A tipster reveals that Patrik — who talked about derailing trains and setting off explosives — was a member of the Army Reserve. Does the military have a problem with neo-Nazis in its ranks? For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/white-hot-hate-transcripts-listen-1.6226840

This is a perfect storm of conspiracy theories. On December 15th, 2017, Canadian billionaires Honey and Barry Sherman were found dead in their mansion. To this day, the case remains unsolved. Counterfeit and copied pharmaceuticals was much more lucrative than heroin, cocaine, and the rest of it. If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Listen to the no-good, terribly kind, wonderful lives and tragic deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman wherever you get your podcasts.

This is a CBC Podcast. The following episode contains coarse language and descriptions of violence. Please take care when listening. Ryan Thorpe of the Winnipeg Free Press is the journalist who exposed the ledger papers here at the Winnipeg Free Press is the journalist who exposed the news papers here at the Winnipeg Free Press.

One of their reporters went undercover to investigate. Earlier media reports say he was a member of a racist organization called The Base. That weekend was such a whirlwind because the story just kept developing. My hope was, given the amount of kind of breadcrumbs I'd thrown into that article, that someone was going to read it, that they were going to be able to put the pieces together and recognize this individual that I was describing and reach out to me. The response was immediate after Ryan Thorpe's investigation, Home, Grow and Hate, was splashed on the front page of the Winnipeg Free Press.

Canadian journalists scrambled to catch up on the story, and people took to social media to express their disbelief, fear, or skepticism. Some readers were contacting Ryan directly about the man he'd met while undercover. But there was one tip that stood out. I had one individual follow me on Twitter and then send me a direct message. Immediately, I'm excited because I think that maybe this is kind of the tip I've been waiting for.

The source sent Ryan a photo of someone he knew named Patrick. It looked a lot like the guy, but this photo was of an individual who was clean-shaven, and the guy I'd met in the park had this big, kind of large beard. So I wasn't 100% sure. Then Ryan remembered the truck he saw the man climb into at the end of their meeting. So he tried that. Did Patrick drive one? A red truck with a dinged-in door on the driver's side?

And he said yes. It was Saturday, August 17, 2019, not even 24 hours since the story was posted online. Ryan gave the man his number, and they set up a time to talk later in the day. He was very cagey. Clearly, he wanted to speak with a reporter, but it struck me as one of those individuals who doesn't have experience dealing with journalists, isn't particularly media savvy, was, you know, nervous and apprehensive about the, you know, the process or speaking to me. That's because the stakes were particularly high for the caller. Patrick, the man who had been talking about derailing trains and setting off explosives, well, it turns out he hadn't been lying about his military experience. And the caller knew this because he was also in the military. They had trained together and were still enlisted in the Army Reserves.

The thing that struck me, the thing that I remember most about that conversation was he said something along the lines of like, look, I don't want you to think that this was an open secret. I don't want you to think that we're all like this, you know, that there are people in the reserves of different races from different backgrounds. And if called to in a combat situation, I would lay my life on the line for those people

and we'd be all expected to do the same thing. And so if this guy has the views that you say he does, he needs to be drummed out of the military, and that's why I'm reaching out to you. Ryan promised the tipster anonymity. So after we agreed to kind of ground rules, I start confirming details about Patrick that I had learned in the meeting in the park.

Patrick did grow up in Lundendar, the caller told him. He had an ex-girlfriend who was Black. And he also told Ryan Patrick's last name. It was Matthews. Patrick Matthews. And eventually, we kind of get into Patrick's experience in the military because this guy served, you know, quite closely with him. Patrick's experience in the military, because this guy served, you know, quite closely with him. And he said that I've participated with explosives trainings with Patrick on countless occasions.

Ryan's next step was to push for a response from the Canadian Armed Forces. There were many calls and emails back and forth, but they wouldn't give him an answer. Even without their confirmation, though, Ryan and his editor were confident they had done enough to verify the tipster's account. So the follow-up was in Monday's edition of the Free Press, identifying Matthews as a member of the Canadian Army Reserves and a master corporal trained as a combat engineer. And then, you know, things start moving really quickly.

People wanted to know, how was it possible that this man who spewed such hate was enlisted with the Canadian Armed Forces? How many more like him were out there? And did the military have a problem with neo-Nazis in its ranks? I'm Michelle Shepard, and this is White Hot Hate, Episode 2, Best of Both Worlds. Experience the honour and spirit of Canadian soldiers as you participate in carrying on the Defence of Canada and its global mission. This is a recruiting video for the Canadian Army Reserve. You can choose from many challenging and exciting part-time careers.

You can serve where you want and as much or as little as you like. Interspersed with personal testimonials and footage of men and women in uniform are the words, strong, proud, ready. Part-time commitment, full-time adventure. The Canadian Armed Forces Reserve. It's the best of both worlds. Reservists are a special branch within the military. You can be part-time, and most have civilian careers, or are students enrolled in college or other post-high school education. For all intents and purposes, though, you're a trained soldier, just like the regular force.

If deployed, you'd be shoulder-to-shoulder without distinction. I wondered if it was especially significant that Patrick Matthews was in the reserves. He wasn't the only Canadian in recent years whose connections to dangerous far-right ideologies were exposed. There was Brandon Cameron, who Vice reported as living a double life in Nova Scotia as a member of both the Canadian Reserves and a neo-Nazi accelerationist group. In British Columbia, it was revealed that Reservist Eric Migland was involved with two far-right extremist groups, the Three Presenters and Soldiers of Odin. We believe that former Reservist Eric Migland was more than an ordinary member of the Three Percent Movement, which has now been declared a terrorist organization by the federal government.

Miglin was, according to the documents, the president and commanding officer of the B.C. Yukon 3% chapter. Then there's Manitoba reservist Corey Hurin, who rammed through the gates of the governor general's residence with his truck and then made his way, on foot and heavily armed, to confront Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Huron was detained before he could reach him, and he later pled guilty to weapons charges and mischief and was sentenced to six years in prison. In researching this podcast, we talked to dozens of current and former reservists.

They wanted to emphasize that they were horrified by these cases and the stain it left on their reputation. The Reserves for Many is a noble, serious, full-time profession. But they did concede that for some, it was more of a testosterone-fueled adventure. A chance to get your war on, playing real-life Call of Duty. But what if that hobby had a sinister edge? Were accelerationists, those who wanted to spark a race war, using the reserves to get the training they needed? A CBC-exclusive investigation has revealed that a website popular with neo-Nazis

appears to have had a large number of Canadian participants. In November 2019, anti-fascist activists leaked a huge data dump from a known white supremacist message board called Iron March. Hundreds of thousands of posts and private messages. The CBC journalist saw there were a disturbing number of discussions about the military, whether to join up, how easy it was to enlist, and what skills you might learn. One of the most prolific posters went by the name Moon Lord. He said he was Canadian and a reservist. He encouraged others on the forum to enlist, once writing, the government will pay you to get you ready for the race war. Literally no reason not to do military service. Moon Lord was

outed almost simultaneously in December 2019 by a U.S. website and the CBC investigation. He was a Calgary-based naval reservist named Boris. My name is Boris Mihailovich. I'm probably known for being on a few CBC articles. I'm probably known for being on a few CBC articles. I was involved with some far-right groups in my past, and since then I've kind of left that behind. At the time Boris had his identity and personal details revealed to the world, doxed, as activists and extremists would describe it,

he said he'd already left behind the ideology and had been working with a de-radicalization support group. More than a year on, he agreed to talk to me, with certain conditions. He said he worried about his safety. What are you able to say about yourself currently, where you are location-wise, and what do you want to stay away from? Well, I'm in Canada. That's all I'll say about that. I won't answer any questions about, specific questions about groups or individuals. Boris is 26 today.

He claims that his ideological leanings have swung dramatically in the last decade. My politics coming out of high school was like radical left-wing. I was a member of a group that was what someone would call like an anti-fascist group. So you came out of high school kind of a lefty. Yeah, very, very far left, yeah. But once Boris went to university, he became more isolated and increasingly lived online, pulled in a different direction. I struggled a lot with my home life. Like with school, I was living on my own for the first time, which didn't go well.

I had no friends, no social support system since they all moved away from university to other provinces. And I just kind of became isolated and kind of drifted into these online spaces that were not great. For example, 4chan, I was on 4chan a lot. 4chan is an anonymous image board, an infamous hub for internet subculture.

There's a board for different subjects and the one I was on was called Politically Incorrect and that's where you would find predominantly far-right views. They put out a lot of, I guess, propaganda, maybe you would call it. After a crackdown on the forum, many of its more extreme users migrated to 8chan. You may know 8chan as the home of the QAnon conspiracy theory. It's also where three mass shooters in less than six months posted their white supremacist manifestos before they went out to kill dozens of people.

These so-called chans were often gateways to other, more extreme message boards. And there, talk online could lead to in-person meetings with other far-right racist users. I met one person in the beginning. It was one person. Over time, it became quite a number of people. What was the purpose of these meetings? To kind of keep everyone together. I guess they were trying to build an organization. I mean, I'm sure you didn't have an agenda in minutes, but in terms of the organization, were you looking to influence media? Any plots that were hatched in any way? No. Nothing like that, no. Not at all.

Not to my knowledge, no. In his final years of university, Boris came across Iron March. Iron March was a forum that was kind of like a social media platform for people that were on the extreme far right. And what was it about Iron March that drew you to it? That it was extremely radical. In what sense? Like radical how?

Well, in their views about, you know, racial issues and their views about the role of what electoral politics should play. I'm still struggling with how your ideology shifted so much from what it sounded like it was in high school. There's no one incident that happened. It's like a combination of like struggling in school and struggling at home and perhaps mental illness and those things coming together kind of made me vulnerable to consume this media that these like far-right people were putting out. I consume like racist propaganda basically and I'm like 17 year old, 18 year old so I think that's like the time in someone's life when they're kind of forming their ideology, and if someone influences that with convincing material,

then it can be good and bad, I guess, in this situation. It's terrible. And in terms of, you mentioned mental illness, what were you struggling with, or what do you struggle with? Like, anxiety and depression is probably the main ones, especially at that point in time. But Boris, aka Moonlord, wasn't just a consumer of propaganda. He posted nearly 2,500 times in two years, and not just to suggest other users join the reserves. years, and not just to suggest other users join the reserves.

Boris's racist rhetoric became increasingly violent, and he eventually rose in status to the point he was made an Iron March admin. Would you have considered yourself an accelerationist when you were back posting? Sure. I think that's accurate. And how would you define that then? Someone that takes actions to accelerate what they view as a collapse. Sure. I think that's accurate. And how would you define that then? Someone that takes actions to accelerate what they view as a collapse of society. And why is that a goal? Or was that a goal of yours?

Well, their goal is a total collapse of our society so they can kind of establish their own power, I suppose. And what was it that drew you to the reserves? Well, they offered the tuition money that I was kind of short on. I think it was $8,000 in tuition. It was decent pay for what we were doing and paid better than my minimum wage job in retail. So that was the main factors. But posting online as Moonlord at the time, this is what he wrote. No one hates Canada and the Canadian military more than me, yet here I am.

They are an enemy of fascism. You're still not getting it. They pay you to teach you the methods you need to destroy them. Should no fascists join the military? Should we have a bunch of monkeys who don't know how to use guns attempting violent revolution? I don't recall writing that. I mean, I probably had thousands of posts over a number of years. And kind of recalling what my mindset was at that time is pretty difficult.

Like, I can't go back in time and think about what I was thinking. When I allegedly wrote that, my mindset has changed so much that it's hard to kind of put myself back into where I was like four or five years ago. Like you feel like a different person now. Yeah, exactly. When you say allegedly wrote that, though, do you not admit that those were your posts? I just don't recall writing that. I'm just saying, like, I understand the records of every post on Iron March.

I don't recall writing that. That's all I'm saying. In private messages sent as Moon Lord, Boris also wrote that he was part of Blood and Honor, a neo-Nazi group whose roots go back to the UK skinhead movement. According to the CBC investigation, in 2015, Boris registered a website for the Calgary chapter of Blood and Honor using his real name and home address.

And yet, a year after that, he was able to join the Canadian Forces Naval Reserves. In those private messages, Boris wrote that one of his superiors was made aware of his group affiliation shortly after he enlisted, saying, quote, I was talked to by an officer at the base about not divulging sensitive military information and not being part of any racist groups. I wasn't accused or threatened, but I got the message. They could have just discharged me immediately. But when I asked him about this, Boris told me he had never been flagged by a supervisor, never confronted by an officer. Yeah, I just lied about it. Why would you lie about that?

Yeah, I just lied about it. Why would you lie about that? I have an idea. I have an idea. And Boris's far-right activity wasn't limited to just registering websites. In other private messages on Iron March, Moonlord appeared to organize international illegal arms deals for weapons such as pistols, AK-47s, and RPGs, or rocket-propelled grenades. There were various things. I won't read them all out, because there are so many, but there was someone known as French Soldier,

and there were plans about going to France and I think Croatia. Did you ever leave Canada or meet with others outside of Canada? Yeah, I can't answer that. Like I said in the beginning, like the super sensitive questions that kind of compromise my safety are off limits. Are you able to say if law enforcement ever? No, I'm not able to say that.

The Navy said it was not aware of any of this activity until Boris was outed in the media. And while his online record as moon lord suggests he joined the military as a strategy, Boris believes for most who end up in violent far-right movements, it works the other way around, that these groups look to the reserves to recruit. People who are in the military that get drawn to the far-right ideology are already in the military before that kind of presents itself. Most people you'll encounter in the military are like right-wing. Did you find that in your experience when you were there? Oh, certainly. These kind of pseudo-all-right misogynist views or just like casual racism.

I don't think it's a big step to go from that to, like, more extreme ideology. Boris is no longer a sailor first class with the Canadian Naval Reserves. He was suspended after the CBC reports on his Iron March posts, but an administrative review paved the way for him to return to duty. The officer in charge said he believed in rehabilitation over retribution. But there was an outcry from the public and from within the force over his reinstatement. And a second review concluded he could no longer serve. And how do you deal with it now?

Do people let you move on or is it still hanging over you? I think it's still kind of hanging over me, but mostly people kind of let me move on. But like I'm still being like conducted by you guys. So it's not really done, is it? No. And I mean, it's you Google your name and it's the first thing that comes up. I mean, I guess the question is, how do you prove that you've changed your views? Well, people are free to believe what they want, I suppose. I think my actions speak for themselves. I was kind of involved in deradicalization before I ever had any idea I would have my name published in the news articles.

I've been like a volunteer at a non-profit that helps immigrants. If you don't believe that I've changed, that's up to whoever's kind of making that assessment. Like there's nothing else to say in that regard. Boris was never criminally charged for his online activity. And the whole episode raises an ethical question. When do you out someone for expressing hateful views? You could ruin this person's life or roadblock their rehabilitation

or potentially radicalize them even further and make them more dangerous. It's something Ryan had to consider when it came to his reporting on Patrick Matthews. Obviously, you know, he had been exposed in the pages of a daily newspaper. At that point in time, you know, I thought he was a serious potential threat to the community. But I can't think of any laws he may have even broken

that they could have necessarily arrested him on. Perhaps it's naive of me to think that this would have been some sort of warning sign that maybe he needs to take a step back from the ledge and like reorient his life in a better direction i certainly exposed him if you want to call that doxing then you know i guess you can call it doxing i consider reporting what i did but he's responsible for his actions after that point on. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs.

We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. The day Ryan's story ran, citing sources to confirm Patrick Matthews was in the Canadian Armed Forces, the newspaper sent a team to Matthews' home in Beausaigier, Manitoba. They took some photos of Matthews' home and he was there and he had shaved his face. So he was clean shaven now, which I assumed was in response to the article and me describing him physically and him panicking.

And then later that night. All of a sudden I get a message that's like, oh, Matthew's home in Beaujouer is being raided by the RCMP. I just begin working sources that I have in Winnipeg, people who might know, and begin digging through stuff on social media to try and find someone who maybe witnessed things. And probably within half an hour, I come across an individual who's posted a video of the raid to social media.

Now, I know it's a media cliche, but Matthews really did live on a quiet, tree-lined street in a small town. And the neighbours, they didn't know what to think. SWAT team was all around our property. They were all busy working, doing their, had their tactical gear. Went in with a robot and checked out the house. We'd like to keep to ourselves kind of thing and to have that kind of thing that happened in a small town, Bougeshire, it's quite frightening.

There was seven guys all dressed up in garb and guns and well first of all they had that big armoured vehicle, drove right up to the door on the front here with a loudspeaker and told him to come out, which he did. He came out and he laid on the ground. Matthews was detained by Canada's federal police, the RCMP. They took him into custody to seize his firearms. They weren't criminally charging him. I'm not sure exactly how long he was in custody for, but my understanding is by the next day he had been released and was back at home.

And none of those firearms were held illegally. He had a permit for all of them. Yes, and that there's some sort of adjudication process that he was then able to go through to get his firearms back. After the raid and media storm, the Canadian Armed Forces couldn't remain silent anymore. And so, the next day... We're going to jump in because we're just taking our viewers to a military update on those allegations

against a member of the Canadian Forces. Colonel Gwen Bork is speaking on the phone from Saskatoon. We'll listen in. Colonel Bork is the commander of the 38th Canadian Brigade Group, where Patrick Matthews served as a master corporal. As an organization, we do promote the value in diversity. Colonel Bork told reporters that news of Matthews' involvement in the base came as a great shock and officially confirmed for the first time that he was a member of the Canadian Army Reserve.

I wanted to also ensure everyone that Master Corporal Matthews has no ability to obtain explosives through the military and he does not have the authorization and he doesn't hold any of the requisite qualifications in order to draw any type of explosives. While she reassured the public that Matthews didn't possess any military-issued weapons, that didn't mean he couldn't acquire

guns elsewhere. He had a firearm license. Colonel Bork also told journalists that essentially the army had not been aware of what Matthews had been doing with this neo-Nazi accelerationist group. of what Matthews had been doing with this neo-Nazi accelerationist group. So the investigation is ongoing. We do really appreciate the Winnipeg Free Press for bringing some new information to light because we do understand the importance of the information that was provided. But Bork had actually been left in the dark. Because two days later, the military did an about-face. The Defence Chief, General Jonathan Vance, told the press that Matthews had been flagged four months before Ryan's story.

On the current situation with regard to Mascot Matthews, I want you to know that this was a signal we did not miss. The Canadian Forces National Counterintelligence Unit had already begun to deal with him by the time that story broke. We are not a place for sick hobbyists to practice their vile ideology. And we won't stand for it. We will react. But whether Patrick Matthews and his racist activity were previously known to the military or not, his case did serve as a wake-up call.

And it shouldn't have. It's not the first time there have been incidents, and it's certainly an issue looking at militaries abroad. In the U.S., there is now a task force to try to root out violent extremism within the military's ranks. root out violent extremism within the military's ranks. In Germany, an elite special forces unit known as the KSK was partially disbanded after growing criticism over right-wing extremism in its ranks. So after the recent high-profile incidents involving Matthews and others in the military, the Canadian Armed Forces finally

had to take action. The CAF as a whole, and then each of the branches, now have policies around hateful conduct. Very explicit, very concrete policies in terms of defining what hateful conduct is. Barbara Perry is the director of the Center on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University. She helps the Canadian Armed Forces craft these new policies.

So it's an act or conduct, including the display or communication of words, symbols or images by a CAF member that they knew or reasonably to have known would constitute, encourage, justify, or promote violence or hatred against a person or persons of an identifiable group. There wasn't a policy like that beforehand? Apparently not. It's pretty shocking that the Canadian military

lacked this clear definition, considering what happened three decades ago. The Somali affair is right up there with the world's worst military scandals. Central to the matter, the Canadian Airborne Regiment. Several of the paratroops were charged with a number of offenses relating to the murder of the young Somalian boy. And then, to make matters worse, videotapes from the troops themselves appear, showing the Canadian paratroopers in Somalia before the murder

with Nazi tattoos, drinking beer, and making racial slurs. In April 2020, the Canadian Armed Forces awarded Barbara and her colleagues a research grant worth three- quarters of a million dollars. The idea is that their report's recommendations will help the military weed out hateful ideologies and extremism. This is really the first comprehensive study looking at the far right in the context of the Canadian Armed Services. Those very celebrated cases that have drawn attention, and I think that have motivated the funding that we have. No doubt that's the tip of the iceberg, but how big that iceberg is, we really don't know. What were some of the reasons that this was, you know,

flying under the radar? Well, I think it was a combination of factors. I mean, we were not that far on the heels or long after the 9-11 attacks in New York. And because they were associated with Muslims, that remained a concern, this preoccupation with only Islamist-inspired extremism. But I think it was also to do with, because this is one of the things we heard from law enforcement, was sort of a denial or minimization of the presence as well as the risks associated with the far right. They just weren't watching. They weren't looking for them. Barbara believes the military was among the institutions underplaying this risk. When she first started working with them, she was surprised by how little attention the higher-ups paid to the online activity of its members.

I mean, aside from obvious privacy concerns, what do you think the reluctance is to look into that? Maybe fear of what they'll find. We actually asked that question at one point, and what kinds of mechanisms can you use at screening to get at these folks? And we said, how deep a dive do you take in social media? Oh, well, we don't look at it at all. And we were just stunned. I asked Barbara if she felt it was significant that the spate of recent high-profile Canadian cases had all been reservists. Yeah, such good questions. And again,

part of what we really want to unpack, they're not that committed that they want to, you know, serve active duty. They don't want to devote their whole life to the military. It's a very strategic respects, easier for them to fly under the radar. And I think what's happening is people are already radicalized and they enlist, especially in the reservists, to get what they think is the training, the appropriate training. But then you also get the impact of the likes of Patrick Matthews, for example, who was a recruiter and trying to bring others into the movement as well. and trying to bring others into the movement as well. From his perspective, Boris Mihailovic says increased security may have stopped him from joining the naval reserves, or flagged him earlier. The culture in the CAF is changing, I guess, quite a bit. But it's still like, I don't know if it's been like as successful as they maybe want to portray it as. Why do you think that is?

Well, like when did they begin trying to kind of root out racism? Like, well, it was in the 90s. I was enrolled in 2016. And like I said, you know, casual racism isn't like uncommon. Like misogyny is not uncommon. I've only been out for a few years. It's not, like, going to happen overnight, I suppose. When Boris read about Patrick Matthews, he says he could identify with him. I don't want to say I empathize with him, because I don't. Like, our situation was similar,

and I kind of feel like, you know, I could have been in that situation myself if I had stayed involved. From what I read about him, he kind of moved pretty fast in the direction of becoming, like being involved in this like, you know, terrorist group, just like I did. It's like kind of crazy. Like I did. It's like kind of crazy. On August 28th, 2019, about a week after Patrick Matthews had been exposed and the RCMP had raided his home, Ryan was in the newsroom. I'm just working on this story, you know, working the phones.

And I think an editor comes down to my desk and says CBC's reporting that he's missing. New details to bring you now on a story we told you about last week. The army reservists alleged to have links to a neo-Nazi group is now missing. I can remember feeling kind of sick to my stomach, actually. I was worried that he was going to harm himself. And I just, that would have been a terrible end to the whole situation.

And I know I would have felt terrible. But I can also remember folks in the newsroom coming up to me being like, are you okay? Are you worried? Like their mind seemed to go, oh, he's missing. Maybe he's going to come after you.

Whereas my first thought was he's missing. Is he going to, you know, disappear somewhere and do something dumb? Coming up on White Hot Hate. One of the reasons why I think this area was the spot where people came to train was just because you would be isolated. There'd be a large enough area where you could shoot and camp out and discuss your plans. It's a jihadist or it's an anti-government militia. It's all really the exact same thing.

It's ideology and grievances, right? Needs, narratives, and networks. I think it was a Nazi flag. I think it was a swastika, I think. So when you saw it, you didn't recognize it as that necessarily? Or you thought, okay, he's going through a Nazi phase? Well, yeah. Yeah, I just figured he was going through a little

phase. White Hot Hate was written and produced by Ashley Mack and me, Michelle Shepard. Our associate producer is Kim Kasher with production support from Sarah Melton. Additional reporting by Ryan Thorpe. Mixing and sound design by Danelle Cloutier and Julia Whitman, with technical assistance from Laura Intanelli.

Emily Cannell is our digital producer. Fact-checking by Emily Mathieu and legal advice from Sean Moorman. Original music by Quiet Type. Special thanks to the Winnipeg Free Press, David Hoffman, Murray Brewster, Roberto Rasha, and Caroline Bargut. For CBC Podcasts, our senior producer is Chris Oak, and our executive producer is Arif Noorani. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.