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The CIA Snuck Nazis into Canada: How Washington Cheated Our Border Vetting · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Right now, though, it is time for another episode of
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Litkey's Got a Take with John Litkey. Good morning, John.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Gene.
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  Speaker 1: I've mentioned on the show before that my dad is
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  Speaker 1: a Holocaust survivor. The Nazis put him in a concentration camp,
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  Speaker 1: but he was one of the lucky ones. Now, the
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  Speaker 1: CIA snuck Nazis into Canada, and I don't care if
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  Speaker 1: they're 97 or 102 people. They should be prosecuted. And
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  Speaker 1: the U.S. Army, acting on behalf of the CIA, bypassed
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  Speaker 1: Canadian vetting, using things like fake biographies to resettle Nazis, collaborators,
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  Speaker 1: and war criminals in Canada. Now, John, last month we
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  Speaker 1: talked about the federal judge ordering Ottawa to unseal these
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  Speaker 1: secret post-World War II Nazi files. Ottawa gave up on
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  Speaker 1: its appeal, and the documents were finally released. What I
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  Speaker 1: want to know is your opinion on... why was Ottawa
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  Speaker 1: fighting for 40 years to keep this hidden?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Gene, reading these new unredacted pages, honestly, it makes
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  Speaker 2: me queasy. We're not talking about low-level clerks here. We're
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  Speaker 2: talking about Nazis and Nazi collaborators and war criminals, as
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  Speaker 2: you said, the most vile scum in human history. Now,
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  Speaker 2: we know Crown lawyers spent four decades claiming in court
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  Speaker 2: that keeping this blacked out was necessary to protect people.
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  Speaker 2: operational methods and preserve trust with our five eyes intelligence
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  Speaker 2: partners but the unredacted text proves that it wasn't national
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  Speaker 2: security it was institutional self-preservation the documents reveal undeniable proof
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  Speaker 2: that the u.s. army and the cia using the uh...
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  Speaker 2: u s a r e u r which is the
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  Speaker 2: u s army europe and africa resettlement uh... and research
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  Speaker 2: division i believe that the name for it regardless uh...
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  Speaker 2: They ran a covert pipeline that created fake biographies to
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  Speaker 2: slip former Axis personnel past Canadian screeners at immigration. Ottawa
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  Speaker 2: didn't protect Five Eyes secrets. They were protecting government agencies
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  Speaker 2: from total public embarrassment.
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  Speaker 1: Now, the report mentions that the U.S. military admitted these
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  Speaker 1: people who had criminal records. So how did American intelligence
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  Speaker 1: get them past Canadian border checks back in the late 1950s?
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  Speaker 2: Well, Gene, there's this great thing that you can use
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  Speaker 2: to get people to believe things that aren't true, and
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  Speaker 2: it's called lying. They lied and they cheated the vetting process. Now, listen,
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  Speaker 2: historians will say the Cold War, which is when this
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  Speaker 2: was all happening under, was chaotic post-World War II. Anti-Soviet
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  Speaker 2: intelligence was the top priority, and early CIA officers... you know,
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  Speaker 2: subordinated border vetting to recruit informants against Moscow. Fine, and
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  Speaker 2: we understand Cold War real politic, but look at how
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  Speaker 2: they did it. U.S. officers directly admitted to Canadian officials
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  Speaker 2: that their pipeline included assets with records of, quote, moral turpitude,
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  Speaker 2: the legal term for Nazi collaborators. American handlers walked these
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  Speaker 2: guys past Canadian visa officers, handed over fake paper records,
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  Speaker 2: and assured the screeners that there were no security concerns.
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  Speaker 2: and new records from RCMP that come from 1954 showed
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  Speaker 2: that our police caught 35 of them living here, rejected
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  Speaker 2: 52 more, and warned that Ottawa had far larger numbers
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  Speaker 2: that had most likely used successful fake papers to slip
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  Speaker 2: through undetected.
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  Speaker 1: You know, for decades, federal lawyers claimed in court that
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  Speaker 1: releasing this information, and I don't know where they even
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  Speaker 1: got this theory from, releasing this information would destroy modern Canadian-U.S.
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  Speaker 1: diplomatic relations. You know, does Washington even care? I don't
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  Speaker 1: buy that for a second.
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  Speaker 2: Well, these records have been out for a couple weeks.
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  Speaker 2: This file has been one that you and I have
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  Speaker 2: been tracking now for a number of months. And has
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  Speaker 2: Washington even said a word about it since these papers
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  Speaker 2: came out? No, of course not. They've got actual things
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  Speaker 2: to deal with rather than the issues of the past. And,
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  Speaker 2: you know, their reputation right now, quite frankly, is not
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  Speaker 2: going to be sullied because of things that happened a
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  Speaker 2: couple decades ago, well, more than a couple decades ago, regarding,
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  Speaker 2: you know, past Nazis. Unfortunately, I think it should be sullied,
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  Speaker 2: but there's a lot going on in the world. And look,
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  Speaker 2: government legal teams always defend executive privilege, and they're always
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  Speaker 2: going to claim that releasing the files would set a
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  Speaker 2: dangerous precedent under the law. But in reality, the diplomatic
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  Speaker 2: harm argument was pure PR shielding for domestic audiences. Ottawa
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  Speaker 2: was managing communications, protecting its own reputation, and over the
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  Speaker 2: last few decades, they've basically evolved into a national crisis
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  Speaker 2: management PR firm whose only client is itself. Functioning government
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  Speaker 2: is just a happy byproduct. The real purpose is taxation
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  Speaker 2: to make sure the comms department stays open.
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  Speaker 1: When you look at how Canada treated Jewish refugees during
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  Speaker 1: the Holocaust compared to how we treated these former Nazis
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  Speaker 1: and collaborators... I mean, how do you even make sense
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  Speaker 1: of that moral contrast?
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  Speaker 2: I can't make sense of it, Gene. I mean, it's
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  Speaker 2: a massive moral shame the way that Canada treated Jewish
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  Speaker 2: refugees during the Holocaust and how we treated former Nazis
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  Speaker 2: and collaborators after World War II. Some will argue Canada
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  Speaker 2: was facing massive industrial labor shortages and our screening officers
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  Speaker 2: were overwhelmed by millions of displaced persons coming from But
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  Speaker 2: you can't explain away the hypocrisy. Canada was home to
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  Speaker 2: none is too many when it came to saving Jewish
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  Speaker 2: victims fleeing the Holocaust under Prime Minister King. Then, almost
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  Speaker 2: immediately after the war, we turned around and, either willingly
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  Speaker 2: or looking the other way, allowed actual Waffen-SS members, executioners,
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  Speaker 2: and collaborators in through the front door under bulk labor schemes.
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  Speaker 2: This is the biggest scandal in Canadian history, and I
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  Speaker 2: don't think anything else comes close. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And, you know, it's all about awareness. And I don't
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  Speaker 1: hear a lot of this being reported in the mainstream media.
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  Speaker 1: It's another reason why I know that you're an advocate
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  Speaker 1: for the Jewish community and have been for a long,
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  Speaker 1: long time. But it's not just Jews. It's people like
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  Speaker 1: my dad, who was a Catholic, for example. And I
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  Speaker 1: realize it was a different time. It was back in
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  Speaker 1: the mid-50s. And Americans and Canadians have been friends ever
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  Speaker 1: since Trump. But looking at how American intelligence operated on
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  Speaker 1: Canadian soil during the Cold War, what does this tell
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  Speaker 1: you about Canada's standing at the time? Pretty weak.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it says that Canada's standing
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  Speaker 2: at the time, how we were treated by the United
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  Speaker 2: States and U.S. intelligence, was that we were viewed and
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  Speaker 2: we acted as a compliant satellite state. Now, look, defenders
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  Speaker 2: of past post-war foreign policy, they can say that Canada
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  Speaker 2: was a willing, sovereign co-architect of Western security like NATO
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  Speaker 2: and NORAD, for sure, and we made strategic tradeoffs to
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  Speaker 2: fight Soviet aggression. But when foreign intelligence agencies can fabricate documents,
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  Speaker 2: lie to our immigration officers, and resettle war criminals in
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  Speaker 2: our cities, that's not an equal partner. That's a vassal
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  Speaker 2: state being used how Washington chooses. So whether Canadian officials
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  Speaker 2: were completely duped or gave a wink-wink, nudge-nudge behind closed doors,
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  Speaker 2: we weren't the ones driving the bus. We were along
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  Speaker 2: for the ride. And then we spent 70 years helping
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  Speaker 2: hide the ride from our own citizens.
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  Speaker 1: You know, my position on this has been clear whenever
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  Speaker 1: we talk about this. I don't care if you're 89
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  Speaker 1: now or if you're 102. If you were responsible for
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  Speaker 1: the death of one person, In the Second World War,
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  Speaker 1: you should be tried and sent to jail. And whenever
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  Speaker 1: I say that, some people say, well, he's an old man,
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  Speaker 1: he's in a wheelchair, we should just forget. No, we
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  Speaker 1: can never forget. So the policy report is out, but
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  Speaker 1: part two of the report, the master list containing the
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  Speaker 1: names of over 800 suspected Nazis, collaborators, and war criminals
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  Speaker 1: who may still be alive in Canada, is still hidden
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  Speaker 1: by Ottawa. I mean, what should we be telling the
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  Speaker 1: Mark Carney government today?
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  Speaker 2: Gene, I'd be saying today to the Mark Carney government,
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  Speaker 2: release the list of the 80 suspected Nazis, collaborators, and
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  Speaker 2: war criminals that have been hidden by our government in
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  Speaker 2: Canada that were let into the country. Declassify the list today.
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  Speaker 2: Today is the earliest that you can do it at
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  Speaker 2: this point. And Gene, I'd say... Do it for people
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  Speaker 2: like you and for your father and, of course, you know,
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  Speaker 2: for the Jewish community and for everyone who was wronged
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  Speaker 2: by the Nazis. We all have the right to know
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  Speaker 2: who these people were in our country. And the government's
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  Speaker 2: go-to excuse on not releasing it has always been privacy
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  Speaker 2: laws and due process, arguing that releasing unvetted lists of
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  Speaker 2: raw intelligence could unfairly stain the reputation of families or
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  Speaker 2: descendants of deceased individuals. But, you know, so much time
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  Speaker 2: has passed. I mean, we are talking about, quite frankly,
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  Speaker 2: things that happened 80 years ago, and we should know
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  Speaker 2: what the actual truth of all of this actually is.
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  Speaker 2: So sunlight is the best disinfectant. We don't need to
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  Speaker 2: have protection from our own history. Canadians deserve the full,
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  Speaker 2: unvarnished truth about what happened in our country. And if
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  Speaker 2: we're not willing to release what we've done before and
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  Speaker 2: covered up before... How can we actually have faith that
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  Speaker 2: the same isn't occurring today?
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  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. How do we get the list released?
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  Speaker 2: I think that we just keep up the public pressure
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  Speaker 2: on it. You know, there's going to be continual court
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  Speaker 2: challenges of it right now. But I think the biggest
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  Speaker 2: thing is that we know that the United States, the CIA,
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  Speaker 2: had direct involvement in this. So I think that the
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  Speaker 2: challenge will be moving across the border into the United
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  Speaker 2: States court systems, trying to get more information out. declassified
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  Speaker 2: on their side of the border because undoubtedly they've got
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  Speaker 2: files too, Gene. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Great take today. Appreciate it. Talk to you tomorrow.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Gene. Looking forward to it.
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  Speaker 1: There he goes. John Litke with Litke's Got a Take.