WEBVTT 00:00:00.430 --> 00:00:03.229 You know, when you picture mining, especially 00:00:03.229 --> 00:00:04.969 up in the Canadian North, I think you probably 00:00:04.969 --> 00:00:07.530 get a very specific image in your head. Right. 00:00:07.570 --> 00:00:11.949 Yeah. Like those those massive yellow dump trucks. 00:00:12.089 --> 00:00:14.730 Exactly. The ones where the tires are literally 00:00:14.730 --> 00:00:16.769 twice the size of a standard pickup truck. Oh, 00:00:16.769 --> 00:00:19.010 yeah. I mean, it's all industrial. It's totally 00:00:19.010 --> 00:00:21.750 mechanized and, you know, high tech. Right. It's 00:00:21.750 --> 00:00:25.570 this modern engineering marvel. But I've been 00:00:25.570 --> 00:00:28.329 reading through. This narrative account we're 00:00:28.329 --> 00:00:29.929 looking at today, it's a piece called Oh Canada. 00:00:30.969 --> 00:00:33.890 And it honestly completely shattered that image 00:00:33.890 --> 00:00:36.090 for me. Yeah, it really takes you back, doesn't 00:00:36.090 --> 00:00:38.030 it? It does. It takes you right back to the years 00:00:38.030 --> 00:00:40.969 immediately following World War II. The big machines, 00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:42.969 you know, they aren't there yet. Instead, you 00:00:42.969 --> 00:00:45.929 just have men. And not just any men, right? Exactly. 00:00:46.130 --> 00:00:47.570 Yeah. You have these incredibly desperate guys. 00:00:47.630 --> 00:00:49.850 They were imported from a Europe that was basically 00:00:49.850 --> 00:00:52.549 just a smoke and ruin at that point. And they're 00:00:52.549 --> 00:00:54.369 out there digging into the frozen ground with 00:00:54.369 --> 00:00:57.210 pickaxes. It's such a striking contrast, and 00:00:57.210 --> 00:00:59.409 I think what's really unsettling about this source 00:00:59.409 --> 00:01:01.829 material isn't just the physical labor part of 00:01:01.829 --> 00:01:04.349 it, it's the who. Yeah, the who is the wildest 00:01:04.349 --> 00:01:07.670 part. Because we usually have this very noble... 00:01:08.010 --> 00:01:11.049 almost romanticized idea of post -war immigrants. 00:01:11.349 --> 00:01:16.329 We think of refugees, victims, people fleeing 00:01:16.329 --> 00:01:18.769 tyranny. The huddled masses yearning to breathe 00:01:18.769 --> 00:01:20.849 free, right? Exactly. And many of them absolutely 00:01:20.849 --> 00:01:23.849 were. But this document, it forces us to look 00:01:23.849 --> 00:01:27.569 at this very uncomfortable reality mixed in with 00:01:27.569 --> 00:01:30.069 the victims. Or the perpetrators. Right. Men 00:01:30.069 --> 00:01:32.230 who didn't just need a new home, they needed 00:01:32.230 --> 00:01:34.549 to disappear entirely. They needed a place where 00:01:34.549 --> 00:01:36.810 literally no one knew their names or what they 00:01:36.810 --> 00:01:39.090 had done. during the war. And that is really 00:01:39.090 --> 00:01:40.909 the core of what we're doing a deep dive into 00:01:40.909 --> 00:01:43.230 today. For everyone listening, we are unpacking 00:01:43.230 --> 00:01:46.510 this idea of Canada as a sanctuary, but maybe 00:01:46.510 --> 00:01:48.290 not in the way we usually use that word. No, 00:01:48.370 --> 00:01:50.209 not at all. We're talking about a sanctuary for 00:01:50.209 --> 00:01:52.709 secrets. And our mission today is to figure out 00:01:52.709 --> 00:01:55.250 how these dark personal histories were effectively 00:01:55.250 --> 00:01:57.909 buried in the Canadian wilderness in exchange 00:01:57.909 --> 00:02:00.450 for citizenship. And how those pasts kind of 00:02:00.450 --> 00:02:03.719 quietly persist. In modern society today? Right. 00:02:03.859 --> 00:02:05.760 And the source material is just fascinating. 00:02:06.019 --> 00:02:08.120 It reads almost like a noir detective story. 00:02:08.259 --> 00:02:10.620 It follows this guy named Yazeed and his friend 00:02:10.620 --> 00:02:13.199 Norman. But the wild thing is, it's not fiction. 00:02:13.400 --> 00:02:16.039 It's a real account of unraveling a family history 00:02:16.039 --> 00:02:19.379 that starts in Latvia and ends up... deep underground 00:02:19.379 --> 00:02:22.020 in the northwest territories it really challenges 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:24.620 that whole clean slate mythology of immigration 00:02:24.620 --> 00:02:26.819 we tend to think you know you cross an ocean 00:02:26.819 --> 00:02:29.919 and you're born again but the story argues that 00:02:29.919 --> 00:02:32.419 you actually bring your ghosts with you you definitely 00:02:32.419 --> 00:02:36.969 do so what's um Let's set the scene here. The 00:02:36.969 --> 00:02:39.229 narrative starts in Montreal. It does. It opens 00:02:39.229 --> 00:02:41.009 on Rue Saint -Denis. It's just a regular evening. 00:02:41.129 --> 00:02:43.129 You've got Yazeed and Norman sitting in a bar 00:02:43.129 --> 00:02:45.289 just having a drink. Just two guys catching up. 00:02:45.389 --> 00:02:47.969 Exactly. It feels very casual, but then the vibe 00:02:47.969 --> 00:02:50.310 completely shifts. Norman has brought something 00:02:50.310 --> 00:02:53.169 with him. The envelope? Yes. He pulls out this 00:02:53.169 --> 00:02:55.830 yellowed, beat -up envelope from his bag, and 00:02:55.830 --> 00:02:57.689 you can tell immediately this isn't just standard 00:02:57.689 --> 00:03:00.229 paperwork. These are real artifacts. What exactly 00:03:00.229 --> 00:03:02.870 was in it? So inside, there's an old immigration 00:03:02.870 --> 00:03:05.669 card, a citizenship certificate, basically the 00:03:05.669 --> 00:03:08.449 bureaucratic proof of a life being rebuilt from 00:03:08.449 --> 00:03:11.050 scratch. But then he pulls out the photos, and 00:03:11.050 --> 00:03:12.770 this is where the story just takes a hard turn. 00:03:12.889 --> 00:03:15.150 I remember reading the description of this one 00:03:15.150 --> 00:03:19.030 specific photo. Norman's father is young, and 00:03:19.030 --> 00:03:21.610 he's standing there with his older brother. But 00:03:21.610 --> 00:03:23.669 it's what they're wearing that stops you cold. 00:03:24.159 --> 00:03:26.759 Yeah, they're in military uniforms. And specifically, 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:29.780 they're uniforms of the Waffen -SS auxiliary. 00:03:30.219 --> 00:03:32.340 Okay, let's pause right there. Because when I 00:03:32.340 --> 00:03:35.060 see SS, my brain immediately goes to German soldiers. 00:03:35.500 --> 00:03:38.400 But Norman's father wasn't German? No, he wasn't. 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:40.500 He was Latvian. He was from Riga. And this is 00:03:40.500 --> 00:03:42.840 where the historical context becomes really crucial 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:45.219 to understand. The source explains that for a 00:03:45.219 --> 00:03:46.979 lot of these young men in the Baltic states, 00:03:47.259 --> 00:03:50.020 the motivation to join wasn't necessarily that 00:03:50.020 --> 00:03:52.759 they were die -hard ideological Nazis. Well, 00:03:52.780 --> 00:03:55.330 was it then? It was actually fueled by a massive, 00:03:55.389 --> 00:03:58.370 deep -seated hatred of the Russians. Ah, because 00:03:58.370 --> 00:04:01.650 of the Soviet invasion. Precisely. The Soviets 00:04:01.650 --> 00:04:05.289 had invaded Latvia in 1939. So when the Germans 00:04:05.289 --> 00:04:07.550 came through a bit later, some of these local 00:04:07.550 --> 00:04:11.030 men saw the SS as essentially a vehicle to fight 00:04:11.030 --> 00:04:14.210 the Russians. They wanted the Soviets out. Enemy 00:04:14.210 --> 00:04:16.110 of my enemies, my friend kind of thing. Exactly. 00:04:16.110 --> 00:04:18.790 So Norman's father joined up, and so did his 00:04:18.790 --> 00:04:20.829 older brother. The brother ended up dying in 00:04:20.829 --> 00:04:23.680 combat. But the father survived. And he left 00:04:23.680 --> 00:04:26.040 behind a wife and kids in Latvia when he fled, 00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:28.339 right? He did. He left an entire life behind. 00:04:28.759 --> 00:04:30.540 But here's the thing that really gets me about 00:04:30.540 --> 00:04:33.360 this scene in the bar. Norman is sitting there, 00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:36.920 showing this picture to his friend Yazeed, and 00:04:36.920 --> 00:04:39.879 he admits something pretty terrifying. He has 00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:42.300 absolutely no idea what his father actually did 00:04:42.300 --> 00:04:44.399 during the war. That's the black box of this 00:04:44.399 --> 00:04:46.579 whole narrative. Yeah. I mean, he sees the uniform, 00:04:46.759 --> 00:04:50.079 he knows the timeline, but the specific actions 00:04:50.079 --> 00:04:53.180 his dad took. It's just blank. And that ambiguity 00:04:53.180 --> 00:04:55.819 is what drives the real horror of this story, 00:04:55.959 --> 00:04:57.860 because the source lays out the possibilities 00:04:57.860 --> 00:05:00.220 of what his father could have been doing, and 00:05:00.220 --> 00:05:03.540 they are stark. Possibility A is that he was 00:05:03.540 --> 00:05:05.860 out on the Eastern Front fighting a conventional 00:05:05.860 --> 00:05:08.660 war against the Red Army, just a soldier caught 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:11.519 up in a terrible, brutal conflict. And possibility 00:05:11.519 --> 00:05:14.180 B? Possibility B is that he never actually left 00:05:14.180 --> 00:05:17.300 Riga. Which implies what, exactly? What was happening 00:05:17.300 --> 00:05:18.959 in Riga? Well, the source gets very specific 00:05:18.959 --> 00:05:21.699 here. It describes the Riga ghetto. And the description 00:05:21.699 --> 00:05:24.839 is just chilling. It says the ghetto was no bigger 00:05:24.839 --> 00:05:27.439 than a large American hotel. Wait, hold on. A 00:05:27.439 --> 00:05:30.579 large hotel? Yeah. For an entire ghetto? Essentially 00:05:30.579 --> 00:05:33.560 a single city block. That's tiny. It is. And 00:05:33.560 --> 00:05:37.040 into that tiny, confined space, the Nazis packed... 00:05:37.319 --> 00:05:40.939 30 ,000 Jews. 30 ,000 people in one city block. 00:05:41.160 --> 00:05:43.540 I can't even picture that kind of density. It's 00:05:43.540 --> 00:05:46.100 completely suffocating. And the source is very 00:05:46.100 --> 00:05:47.839 explicit about the role of the guards there. 00:05:47.980 --> 00:05:50.420 Their primary job was to shoot anyone trying 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:53.120 to enter or leave. Wow. And we know how that 00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:55.759 historical story ends. All 30 ,000 inhabitants 00:05:55.759 --> 00:05:58.339 of that ghetto were subsequently murdered. So 00:05:58.339 --> 00:06:00.819 the question haunting Normans and the question 00:06:00.819 --> 00:06:02.839 the source really forces you to ask yourself 00:06:02.839 --> 00:06:06.220 as a reader, was his father one of the men on 00:06:06.220 --> 00:06:08.180 that perimeter? Was he the one pulling the trigger? 00:06:08.459 --> 00:06:10.740 There's a term the document uses here that I 00:06:10.740 --> 00:06:13.279 definitely wanted to ask you about. It talks 00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:16.639 about the subcontracting of atrocities. That 00:06:16.639 --> 00:06:19.300 sounds incredibly corporate and sterile for something 00:06:19.300 --> 00:06:23.560 so gruesome. It is a very cold term, but it perfectly 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:26.860 describes a dark historical reality. The source 00:06:26.860 --> 00:06:29.439 notes that German leadership often delegated 00:06:29.439 --> 00:06:32.939 the actual dirty work, the massacres of Jews 00:06:32.939 --> 00:06:36.560 and Romanes, to local populations. Like the Latvians, 00:06:36.660 --> 00:06:39.459 Lithuanians, and Estonians. Yes. They formed 00:06:39.459 --> 00:06:42.180 these local groups which were called Einsatzgruppen. 00:06:42.439 --> 00:06:44.279 Einsatzgruppen. Those are the mobile death squads, 00:06:44.279 --> 00:06:46.360 right? Yes, they were. And the source includes 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:49.129 this. devastating little detail that really grounds 00:06:49.129 --> 00:06:51.910 the horror of it all. It says these local squads 00:06:51.910 --> 00:06:54.009 often carried out these exterminations in exchange 00:06:54.009 --> 00:06:56.709 for a bottle of vodka or schnapps. A bottle of 00:06:56.709 --> 00:06:59.589 vodka? Literally just alcohol. It reduces the 00:06:59.589 --> 00:07:02.069 Holocaust and that specific localized moment 00:07:02.069 --> 00:07:05.589 to a transaction for liquor. It's banal and it 00:07:05.589 --> 00:07:07.709 is absolutely terrifying. So Norman is sitting 00:07:07.709 --> 00:07:09.829 there looking at this photo of his dad, who later 00:07:09.829 --> 00:07:12.670 just became this quiet suburban guy in Montreal, 00:07:12.769 --> 00:07:16.420 and he has to wonder. Did you fight a conventional 00:07:16.420 --> 00:07:19.199 war or did you wipe out entire families for a 00:07:19.199 --> 00:07:21.959 drink? And the tragedy is he never got an answer. 00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:24.579 His father never spoke a word about it. That 00:07:24.579 --> 00:07:27.040 silence seems to be a huge running theme here. 00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:29.199 But let's transition a bit and talk about how 00:07:29.199 --> 00:07:32.319 he actually got out of Europe. Because the war 00:07:32.319 --> 00:07:34.639 ends, the Germans lose, and the Soviets are coming 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:37.160 back in. He obviously can't stay in Latvia. Right. 00:07:37.199 --> 00:07:39.839 If he stays there, he's either dead or he's going 00:07:39.839 --> 00:07:42.019 straight to the gulag. So he retreats alongside 00:07:42.019 --> 00:07:44.839 the German army. He ends up spending about three 00:07:44.839 --> 00:07:47.180 years in Germany, but he's basically in limbo. 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:49.980 Is he can't get papers? Exactly. They refuse 00:07:49.980 --> 00:07:52.339 him resident status. He's just another displaced 00:07:52.339 --> 00:07:55.420 person floating around a ruined continent. But 00:07:55.420 --> 00:07:57.360 eventually, he manages to get a laissez -passer. 00:07:57.800 --> 00:08:00.279 It's a travel document, and it's simply marked 00:08:00.279 --> 00:08:03.279 stateless. With that, he gets on a boat to Halifax. 00:08:03.500 --> 00:08:06.240 Okay, so he arrives at the port in Canada. And 00:08:06.240 --> 00:08:08.000 this is where I want to really dig into the deal 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:10.399 that the source talks about. Yeah. Because it 00:08:10.399 --> 00:08:13.339 describes these guys arriving at the port. as 00:08:13.339 --> 00:08:18.339 young, blonde, vigorous Slavs. To the Canadian 00:08:18.339 --> 00:08:20.279 authorities looking at them... They didn't look 00:08:20.279 --> 00:08:22.319 like war criminals. They looked like a workforce. 00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:24.959 Precisely. You have to put yourself in the economic 00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:27.879 context of Canada in the late 40s and early 50s. 00:08:27.899 --> 00:08:31.220 The post -war boom is just starting to rev up. 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:34.100 Canadian capitalists desperately needed manpower, 00:08:34.340 --> 00:08:36.519 specifically for the mines up in the Northwest 00:08:36.519 --> 00:08:39.100 Territories. It was brutal work. Incredibly brutal. 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:41.919 It was dangerous, back -breaking labor that local 00:08:41.919 --> 00:08:44.450 Canadians didn't necessarily want to do. So the 00:08:44.450 --> 00:08:46.210 government basically looked at these men and 00:08:46.210 --> 00:08:48.850 said, we don't care where you came from or what 00:08:48.850 --> 00:08:51.509 uniform you wore, as long as you can hold a shovel 00:08:51.509 --> 00:08:54.049 and dig. Essentially, yes. The vetting process 00:08:54.049 --> 00:08:56.710 was porous, to put it mildly. The absolute priority 00:08:56.710 --> 00:08:59.710 was raw labor. The arrangement was simple and 00:08:59.710 --> 00:09:01.669 highly transactional. You give us three years 00:09:01.669 --> 00:09:04.250 of your life, you go up north, you dig for gold 00:09:04.250 --> 00:09:06.409 and copper in what the source literally calls 00:09:06.409 --> 00:09:09.169 the hell of the mines. And if you survive. If 00:09:09.169 --> 00:09:11.570 you survive that for three years, we give you 00:09:11.570 --> 00:09:13.730 the right to stay. We give you full citizenship. 00:09:14.110 --> 00:09:15.909 It's almost biblical, isn't it? It sounds like 00:09:15.909 --> 00:09:18.789 purgatory. It really does. And the source uses 00:09:18.789 --> 00:09:22.210 this incredible metaphor of the minds to describe 00:09:22.210 --> 00:09:24.870 what was happening psychologically. Think about 00:09:24.870 --> 00:09:27.129 the physical act of what he's doing. He goes... 00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:30.139 deep into the belly of the earth. He is literally 00:09:30.139 --> 00:09:33.039 digging holes in the dark. Right. The author 00:09:33.039 --> 00:09:35.840 argues that he was burying himself and burying 00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:38.580 his past life in those mines. That is such a 00:09:38.580 --> 00:09:41.139 powerful image. Every single shovel of dirt is 00:09:41.139 --> 00:09:43.279 just covering up Regal a little bit more. Exactly. 00:09:43.399 --> 00:09:46.659 It operates as a ritual cleansing through physical 00:09:46.659 --> 00:09:49.860 labor. He goes in as a stateless refugee with 00:09:49.860 --> 00:09:52.139 a potential war crime hanging over his conscience. 00:09:52.460 --> 00:09:55.279 He works in the dark, in the freezing cold, barely 00:09:55.279 --> 00:09:58.009 speaking any English. for three solid years. 00:09:58.110 --> 00:10:00.549 And when he comes out. The source says he emerged 00:10:00.549 --> 00:10:02.950 purified of his sins and absolved of his crimes. 00:10:03.350 --> 00:10:05.950 Through that labor, he earned his ticket to paradise. 00:10:06.269 --> 00:10:08.629 And paradise in this case was Montreal. Right. 00:10:08.710 --> 00:10:11.769 He moves to Montreal to just melt into the crowd. 00:10:11.929 --> 00:10:14.110 And it was the perfect place for it at the time. 00:10:14.190 --> 00:10:16.389 The city was transforming. It was becoming this 00:10:16.389 --> 00:10:18.950 bustling metropolis. You could be anyone. He 00:10:18.950 --> 00:10:21.210 didn't speak French, did he? No, not a word. 00:10:21.289 --> 00:10:23.710 And his English was just the rough, broken stuff 00:10:23.710 --> 00:10:25.629 he picked up from the other guys in the mines. 00:10:25.909 --> 00:10:28.210 So he was quiet. He kept his head down. He was 00:10:28.210 --> 00:10:30.690 completely anonymous. He eventually meets Norman's 00:10:30.690 --> 00:10:33.909 mother, who was a Kivikwa woman. And he just 00:10:33.909 --> 00:10:37.110 starts this whole second life. And here's where 00:10:37.110 --> 00:10:38.850 the source material gets really psychological. 00:10:39.350 --> 00:10:41.850 There was one thing he actually did tell Normas. 00:10:41.889 --> 00:10:44.529 Yeah. Just one specific detail about his mindset 00:10:44.529 --> 00:10:47.360 during the war. This part is disturbing, but 00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:50.360 it offers a very raw, unfiltered insight into 00:10:50.360 --> 00:10:53.279 the human animal in wartime. He told his son 00:10:53.279 --> 00:10:55.539 that during the horror of the war, the proximity 00:10:55.539 --> 00:10:58.179 of death was just constant. He never knew if 00:10:58.179 --> 00:11:01.100 he'd still be alive in an hour. So the only reality 00:11:01.100 --> 00:11:03.759 that, as he put it, hooked him to life was sex. 00:11:04.019 --> 00:11:05.960 The urgent need to make love whenever he met 00:11:05.960 --> 00:11:08.480 a woman. Yes. It was a desperate, urgent need 00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:10.399 to prove to himself that he was still a living, 00:11:10.500 --> 00:11:13.509 breathing creature. That is so raw. It is. And 00:11:13.509 --> 00:11:16.029 interestingly, Yazeed, the friend who is sitting 00:11:16.029 --> 00:11:18.490 across the table listening to all this, he connects 00:11:18.490 --> 00:11:21.269 this feeling to his own knowledge of a totally 00:11:21.269 --> 00:11:23.710 different historical conflict. He brings up the 00:11:23.710 --> 00:11:26.629 Algerian Civil War. Okay, this part of the source 00:11:26.629 --> 00:11:28.330 was a bit complex for me when I was reading it. 00:11:28.710 --> 00:11:30.950 Yazeed starts comparing the Latvian experience 00:11:30.950 --> 00:11:34.009 of World War II to things that happened in Algeria. 00:11:34.090 --> 00:11:36.269 Can you break down that connection for us? I 00:11:36.269 --> 00:11:40.149 can. Yazeed is drawing a parallel to the Islamist 00:11:40.149 --> 00:11:43.190 guerrillas in Algeria. He talks about women who 00:11:43.190 --> 00:11:45.769 were taken captive by these groups. These women, 00:11:45.870 --> 00:11:48.269 realizing that help just wasn't coming, that 00:11:48.269 --> 00:11:50.090 their husbands or the state couldn't save them, 00:11:50.250 --> 00:11:52.870 they sometimes became what he calls consenting 00:11:52.870 --> 00:11:54.850 captives. Consenting captives. That sounds like 00:11:54.850 --> 00:11:57.370 a very loaded, complicated term. It is incredibly 00:11:57.370 --> 00:11:59.850 complicated. He's describing a profound psychological 00:11:59.850 --> 00:12:03.029 survival mechanism. You align yourself with the 00:12:03.029 --> 00:12:04.929 person holding the gun because it is literally 00:12:04.929 --> 00:12:08.220 the only way to survive the situation. Yazeed 00:12:08.220 --> 00:12:11.000 is suggesting that, in a bizarre way, Norman's 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:13.679 father and men like him were consenting captives 00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:16.580 of the Nazi war machine. So they bet on the Germans 00:12:16.580 --> 00:12:19.539 just to survive the Soviets. Exactly. They bet 00:12:19.539 --> 00:12:22.639 on the strong horse. The source also mentions 00:12:22.639 --> 00:12:25.740 the Harkis in this exact context. I've heard 00:12:25.740 --> 00:12:27.720 the term Harkis before, but refresh my memory. 00:12:27.860 --> 00:12:30.340 Who were they exactly? The Harkis were Muslim 00:12:30.340 --> 00:12:32.879 Algerians who chose to serve as auxiliaries in 00:12:32.879 --> 00:12:34.980 the French army during the Algerian War of Independence. 00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:38.000 So they were fighting for the European colonial 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:40.960 power against their own countrymen. I see. So 00:12:40.960 --> 00:12:43.120 when France ended up losing that war. Exactly. 00:12:43.120 --> 00:12:45.820 When France withdrew, the Harkis were left in 00:12:45.820 --> 00:12:48.919 a terrible, vulnerable position. They were viewed 00:12:48.919 --> 00:12:52.179 as traitors by the victorious Algerians, and 00:12:52.179 --> 00:12:54.360 they were often completely abandoned by the French 00:12:54.360 --> 00:12:56.460 who they fought for. So the comparison Yazid 00:12:56.460 --> 00:12:58.850 is making is about betting on the wrong. horse. 00:12:58.909 --> 00:13:00.950 That's it. You choose a side thinking you're 00:13:00.950 --> 00:13:03.110 fighting for your survival or even the right 00:13:03.110 --> 00:13:05.710 cause at the time and then history turns against 00:13:05.710 --> 00:13:08.370 you. You lose and the multi -generational price 00:13:08.370 --> 00:13:11.710 you pay for that choice is exile. So Norman's 00:13:11.710 --> 00:13:13.889 father bet on the Nazis beating the Russians. 00:13:14.070 --> 00:13:18.049 He lost and the ultimate price was lifelong silence 00:13:18.049 --> 00:13:21.649 in Canada. Yes. And that brings us to a really 00:13:21.649 --> 00:13:24.169 provocative accusation that the source makes 00:13:24.169 --> 00:13:27.549 about Canada itself as a nation. We usually love 00:13:27.549 --> 00:13:30.029 to pat ourselves on the back for being this great, 00:13:30.070 --> 00:13:32.950 peacekeeping, polite society. But the source 00:13:32.950 --> 00:13:36.269 describes Canada as, and I'm quoting the French 00:13:36.269 --> 00:13:39.580 term used here, poubelle de l 'histoire. The 00:13:39.580 --> 00:13:42.759 trash can of history. Ouch. It's a brutal phrase. 00:13:43.100 --> 00:13:45.360 But the argument the author is making is that 00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:49.279 Canada effectively became a refuge for torturers 00:13:49.279 --> 00:13:52.120 and criminals. Because if you needed to disappear, 00:13:52.320 --> 00:13:54.340 if you needed a vast place where people wouldn't 00:13:54.340 --> 00:13:56.299 ask too many questions about your weird accent 00:13:56.299 --> 00:13:59.539 or your missing past, Canada was wide open for 00:13:59.539 --> 00:14:02.159 business. And the document gives a specific example 00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:05.259 of this that honestly just shocked me. It mentions 00:14:05.259 --> 00:14:08.179 a Hungarian Nazi criminal. Yes. This guy apparently 00:14:08.179 --> 00:14:10.659 organized the deportation of half a million Jews 00:14:10.659 --> 00:14:13.340 to the death camps. Half a million people. That's 00:14:13.340 --> 00:14:15.740 a staggering, incomprehensible number. It's an 00:14:15.740 --> 00:14:18.480 entire genocide all on its own. Right. And where 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:20.500 did this guy end up settling down? The west of 00:14:20.500 --> 00:14:22.460 Montreal. In a Jewish neighborhood. That's the 00:14:22.460 --> 00:14:24.940 specific detail that just floors you. He settled 00:14:24.940 --> 00:14:28.340 in a heavily Jewish neighborhood. Wait. How was 00:14:28.340 --> 00:14:30.759 that even remotely possible? You organize the 00:14:30.759 --> 00:14:33.159 death of 500 ,000 people, and then you pack up 00:14:33.159 --> 00:14:35.080 and move in next door to the survivors. Did he 00:14:35.080 --> 00:14:37.580 live there for a long time? 50 years. 50 years. 00:14:37.700 --> 00:14:41.000 Half a century. And nobody knew. Or nobody said 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:44.100 anything. The source notes he lived in perfect 00:14:44.100 --> 00:14:47.200 harmony with his neighbors for all those decades. 00:14:47.259 --> 00:14:49.620 I genuinely cannot wrap my head around that. 00:14:49.720 --> 00:14:52.340 How do you borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor 00:14:52.340 --> 00:14:54.659 whose extended family you might have personally 00:14:54.659 --> 00:14:57.480 helped exterminate? That is sociopathic. It's 00:14:57.480 --> 00:14:59.750 the ultimate camouflage, isn't it? hiding in 00:14:59.750 --> 00:15:02.649 plain sight. But the deeper, more unsettling 00:15:02.649 --> 00:15:05.070 point the source is making here is about the 00:15:05.070 --> 00:15:08.950 actual nature of social peace. It suggests that 00:15:08.950 --> 00:15:11.529 Canada's renowned social peace is built on a 00:15:11.529 --> 00:15:14.610 tacit, unspoken agreement, don't ask, don't tell. 00:15:14.950 --> 00:15:17.490 These immigrants have no interest in making noise 00:15:17.490 --> 00:15:19.570 or causing trouble because they have terrible 00:15:19.570 --> 00:15:22.320 secrets to protect. And the society around them 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:24.360 has no interest in digging up the dirt because 00:15:24.360 --> 00:15:26.820 society just wants cheap labor and economic growth. 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:29.600 So the piece we see isn't actual resolution or 00:15:29.600 --> 00:15:32.679 harmony. It's just silence. It's everyone collectively 00:15:32.679 --> 00:15:35.159 looking the other way. Precisely. It's a piece 00:15:35.159 --> 00:15:37.740 that is fundamentally built on amnesia. Wow. 00:15:38.580 --> 00:15:41.059 Okay, this brings us to the end of the narrative 00:15:41.059 --> 00:15:43.899 account where the story jumps from the bar to 00:15:43.899 --> 00:15:46.799 the present day. Yazeed is sitting in the back 00:15:46.799 --> 00:15:50.059 of a taxi in Montreal. And he has this moment 00:15:50.059 --> 00:15:53.399 of, I guess you'd call it paranoia. But reading 00:15:53.399 --> 00:15:56.080 it, it feels more like a profound realization. 00:15:56.620 --> 00:15:59.919 It's a very cinematic, powerful scene. He's looking 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:01.679 at the back of the taxi driver's head. The driver 00:16:01.679 --> 00:16:04.159 is completely silent, just doing his job, navigating 00:16:04.159 --> 00:16:06.879 the streets. And Yazeed starts profiling that 00:16:06.879 --> 00:16:09.100 silence. He starts wondering who is actually 00:16:09.100 --> 00:16:11.179 hiding behind the wheel of this car. He starts 00:16:11.179 --> 00:16:12.759 running through all these modern conflicts in 00:16:12.759 --> 00:16:14.519 his head. He looks at the driver and thinks, 00:16:14.580 --> 00:16:17.120 is this guy a Rwandan Hutu who participated in 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:19.200 the genocide? Is he a Christian soldier from 00:16:19.200 --> 00:16:21.360 the South Lebanon Army? Could he be a killer 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:23.980 from the FIS, the Islamic Salvation Front in 00:16:23.980 --> 00:16:26.500 Algeria? That really changes how you look at 00:16:26.500 --> 00:16:28.440 living in a diverse city. You're sitting there 00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:30.379 in the backseat checking your phone, and the 00:16:30.379 --> 00:16:32.700 guy driving you to the airport might have been 00:16:32.700 --> 00:16:35.419 a warlord or a torturer in a past life. And now 00:16:35.419 --> 00:16:37.600 he's just a guy trying to pay rent and buy groceries 00:16:37.600 --> 00:16:40.860 in Montreal. The source is reminding us that 00:16:40.860 --> 00:16:43.120 people carry their ghosts with them no matter 00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:46.860 how far they travel. Norman's father might have 00:16:46.860 --> 00:16:49.580 been a totally new man to his Canadian wife. 00:16:49.840 --> 00:16:52.080 He might have been a good dad, a hard worker 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:54.860 who mowed the lawn, but inside. He was still 00:16:54.860 --> 00:16:57.419 the young Latvian guy in the SS uniform. Exactly. 00:16:57.480 --> 00:16:59.480 He was still the man who stood guard at the ghetto. 00:16:59.659 --> 00:17:02.820 Or, you know, just... A terrified kid who made 00:17:02.820 --> 00:17:05.619 a terrible, unforgivable choice to survive. Right. 00:17:05.720 --> 00:17:08.559 It's all of that all at once. And the silence 00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:11.059 is the absolute only thing holding that fragile 00:17:11.059 --> 00:17:13.519 new reality together. Because if that taxi driver 00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:15.960 turns around and tells you his true story, his 00:17:15.960 --> 00:17:18.599 life in Canada is over. So he drives, he stays 00:17:18.599 --> 00:17:21.240 silent. And you, sitting in the passenger seat, 00:17:21.440 --> 00:17:25.099 you stay silent too. That is the new social contract. 00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:27.539 It's really chilling. You know, we started this 00:17:27.539 --> 00:17:30.210 deep dive talking about mining. about digging 00:17:30.210 --> 00:17:32.690 massive holes into the earth. Norman's father 00:17:32.690 --> 00:17:35.089 dug in the dark for three years just to earn 00:17:35.089 --> 00:17:37.869 his citizenship. He buried his past deep in that 00:17:37.869 --> 00:17:40.589 rock. But the thing about burying history is 00:17:40.589 --> 00:17:43.230 that it doesn't actually go away. It's just waiting. 00:17:43.680 --> 00:17:45.839 It's always just under the surface. And every 00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:48.039 once in a while, like on a random Tuesday in 00:17:48.039 --> 00:17:51.019 a bar on Rue Saint -Denis, someone pulls out 00:17:51.019 --> 00:17:53.000 a yellowed envelope and the ghost comes spilling 00:17:53.000 --> 00:17:55.299 right back out into the light. It forces us to 00:17:55.299 --> 00:17:57.819 ask a really difficult, almost philosophical 00:17:57.819 --> 00:18:01.220 question. Is redemption real? Can you actually 00:18:01.220 --> 00:18:03.420 wash away the horrors of the past with three 00:18:03.420 --> 00:18:06.420 years of hard labor in a mine? Or is starting 00:18:06.420 --> 00:18:08.839 over really just a matter of changing your geography? 00:18:09.299 --> 00:18:10.960 That's the question we want to leave you with 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:14.279 today as you go about your week. We all value 00:18:14.279 --> 00:18:17.460 our social peace. We love the idea that people 00:18:17.460 --> 00:18:20.420 can cross a border and completely reinvent themselves 00:18:20.420 --> 00:18:23.039 for the better. But if that peace is built on 00:18:23.039 --> 00:18:25.839 a collective agreement not to look at the monsters 00:18:25.839 --> 00:18:28.599 sitting in the room with us, is it genuine peace? 00:18:29.079 --> 00:18:32.380 Or are we just unknowingly living next door to 00:18:32.380 --> 00:18:34.640 history's darkest secrets, totally protected 00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:37.299 by our own polite silence? It's a very heavy 00:18:37.299 --> 00:18:39.079 thought, but sometimes you have to be willing 00:18:39.079 --> 00:18:41.230 to look inside the envelope. Definitely something 00:18:41.230 --> 00:18:43.069 to think about the next time you're sitting in 00:18:43.069 --> 00:18:45.970 the back of a quiet cab ride home. Thanks for 00:18:45.970 --> 00:18:47.930 listening to this deep dive into the shadows 00:18:47.930 --> 00:18:50.109 of the past. We'll see you next time. Goodbye.