0:13  
Hi, everyone, welcome to Into The Unknown, a show on three stories of people facing isolating situations in their lives. I'm your host Subi Anandarajah.

0:23  
And I'm your other host, Nicole Edwards. These people you're about to meet are all starting some pretty unpredictable life journeys. Some end well, some don't.

0:33  
Without further ado, let's dive in.

0:38  
A popular narrative about Canada is one that says we're a welcoming and multicultural mosaic. But a 2018 Statistics Canada report shows roughly one in seven people who immigrate to Canada decide to leave within five years. In fact, journalist Doug Saunders says keeping immigrants has been a problem for Canada since Confederation. Our first story on leaping into the unknown tries to find out why. This story contains strong language and might offend some listeners. 

1:06  
I'm Margaret Miller,

1:07  
and I'm Ron Miller.

1:08  
We moved from Glasgow, Scotland to Toronto, Canada,

1:13  
We moved to here when we got married, six months after we married and landed here on April 14, 1969.

1:19  
I was the same age as what my granddaughter is now 20 and 21. Driving down Eglinton Avenue and you had all these lights, like neon lights like and it just look absolutely humongous. And when we arrived, it was hot 75 degrees. 

1:37  
Something like that, yeah. 

1:39  
And he'd had on a wool suit and I had on a wool suit and shirt and tie and the whole bit. And it was like we were dying.

1:47  
Going through the emigration when we landed here at that time they asked you know how much money you have got that you're coming to Canada with. We had the equivalent of $350 it was a lot of money then. And they basically are putting us down almost as destitute. And they gave us the address of this hotel downtown Toronto because we didn't have any family or anything here. And there was a it's gone now, but it was the Ford hotel, which was near the bus station and the old Bay Street bus station. I think it's still there and little did we know when we got there but there was a hotel where guys used to pick up women, prostitutes and take them there as well. So we were in the elevator going up and there were guys in the elevator looking at looking at me and looking at Margaret. 

2:28  
Way our suitcases.

2:30  
And they're looking at us as if to say, you know.

2:36  
I guess we fitted in in the sense that a lot of the friends we had came from Britain, whether they were English or Scottish or Irish or whatever, but Canadians no so much.

2:49  
So used they used to say to us, you're over here just a few years to take the money, and you're gonna go back. That's exactly what they said, you're gonna go back to Scotland and stuff like that and we were stunned. 

3:00  
And some of the people I worked way, especially in the Bank of Nova Scotia, they weren't very nice. 

3:06  
I went to the unemployment office to sign on right as I got here. They would say me, do you have any Canadian experience? I go, what do you mean Canadian experience? Well, I have any, how much Canadian experience have you got?  I said well I've been working for two months or, you know, a month in this machine shop. No, no we're looking for people who has at least a year or two years, Canadian experience. Everywhere, everywhere I went, IBM, General Electric, all the big jobs the big employers in Scarborough. Who hired like people like me and that was the thing you always have to have Canadian experience. You can't say, well, why you no higher me, I've got all this experience, you know. I had engineering degrees as well. Right? So it's just, it's just a way of being nicely saying, well, you're now getting the job and instead of saying, well, why? It's just you don't have the Canadian experience.

3:55  
That of course, becomes becomes a major, major issue in terms of why people might encounter encounter economic disappointment. You know, it certainly goes against that branding of you know, Canada as a welcoming country to the world through through immigration. I'm Myer Siemiatycki. I'm a professor in the Department of politics and public administration. I am the past founding director of Ryerson's graduate program, MA program in immigration and settlement studies. One of my areas of teaching and research interest is migration, so we're trying to explain why does a one in seven minority not find this a happy land, a happy landing pad. And I think in addition to the economic conditions, which I think are the major factor, I think another one that that that plays in is can they cope with a change in their own social status and place in a society? I think it's a subjective response to lived experience. I would put in a second category, this is a terrible thing for anyone to be subjected to a significant self perceived decline in their place in the social hierarchy or positioning of where they are in their society. So, a lot of it then comes down to if you okay, so if you're going to be confronted with that, can you handle that?

5:32  
I went to a job site north of Frankford, north of Trenton and there was a there's a non union job getting done somewhere. So I gets out the car and I walks up and this guy standing, you know. I say excuse me I says ah you know, who say who's doing the mechanical part of this job here on this gate? And they guy turns around as says what's it to you? I went, I says, I'm the union rep, I says and we represent the contractors that do this work. I'm very interested in who's doing it. Well, then it started. You tell me that some foreign born cocksucker is going to come on my job site and tell me who's going to be installing work on my job. You've got fucking problem. He says, I went fucking fire away then, let's do it. This in 1990...I'd say five, four or five, right? So 25 years ago and I was still foreign born cocksucker. And I'm no, I don't look Asian. I don't look brown. Until I open my mouth he didn't know what I was, right? It was just because I opened my mouth and I said that, I was a foreign born cocksucker. I'd say a lot of the attitudes changed later on maybe later in the 70s. But then there was a different kind of almost if you want to call it a different kind of racism. Because now they weren't worried now about us. They were worried about immigrants that were coming from other places that they doesn't particularly like and then the right changes. You know, you're okay. When we were the same people that came here in 1969.

7:07  
How far then have we really come in the 50 years since Ron and Margaret arrived. The good news is services are improving and local advocates are now saying Canadian experience isn't a requirement employers can demand. That story was produced by Tiffany Lamb.

7:35  
Our second story is about a mother who navigates the unknown as she searches for her missing son. Putting aside her fears as a racialized woman. Maureen Henry went to the police, but didn't find much support. This story is produced by Nicole Edwards, and a quick heads up to listeners, our next story talks about sexual assault and suicide.

7:56  
But he was really like a good kid. Like I can show you pictures of him playing soccer and he's got artwork here, his writing.  

8:08  
Did he always want to go to U of T?

8:09  
Well he said he did it was his dream. 

8:11  
Yeah?

8:08  
Because I remember sitting down with him at the computer and choosing the selections. Yeah, sociology, and philosophy. I remember the weekend he came home. And he said, Oh, Mom, I met these brothers thinking, what brothers? Some fraternity brothers and I'm going to move into their house. What exactly was going on in the house? What did they do to him? What did he do? He talked about experimenting with drugs with those guys. Like, like, I don't know. So there's a there's an air of something really traumatic had happened to Dovi in, in between the time that I saw him in August, and the time that he ended up back home at Christmas time. So he was drunk in one of the parties at that house, and some guy came on to him. And what else did the guy do to you when you were stoned out your mind and drunk? Okay, so he was talking about it like, like, traumatize talk, like he was talking about if somebody had would been sexually assaulted. That's how that's how Dovi seem to me. We're at like an impasse. So we're stuck at with people at Beta Theta Pi. Okay and those people at Beta Theta Pi will not talk. And I don't know if you know Ralph Nader. Okay, he was a psychologist in Toronto. And then I called Ralph and said, Ralph, like, have you heard from Dovi? I think at one point he said he had heard from Dovi. And he said Dovi was supposed to come in and see him. We both communicated with him and saw him, let's say March right then. And I think I might have been emailing him and calling him to find out where he was no response. And then we were contacting friends, no response. And then from there, I kept calling my mother and sister and asked me Have you heard from Dovi? Have you heard from Dovi? Friends...have you heard from Dovi then we contacted the Salvation Army. And the Salvation Army did a family find? And they couldn't locate him either. And then I call my mother and sister and say, we need to report dovie missing and they say no, you can't call the Toronto Police. Because if the Toronto Police phone, find him, they're gonna kill him or they're gonna hurt him. Because she said that was at that point, that was when the Toronto Police were killing all those black boys and people with mental health issues. I call the Toronto Police to record it. We don't know where Dovi lives. And then this is the they said that they were gone contact Facebook to see if they could get the IP address. nothing was ever done. So we hired the private investigator.

11:33  
May I please speak with Gary Foxwell? Well, can I please ask who's calling? Yeah, it's Nicole Edwards, we had a call scheduled for 1030. 

11:41  
We're kind of a boutique investigative firm. We're a one stop shop pretty much for almost anything you can think of it has  to be investigated. A lot of people do come to us, because they want they have the resources which vis a vis money and they want things done like yesterday.

12:01  
He told us it would cost us $15,000, so far, we spent over six. They're kind of at a standstill and so we thought these guys would be efficient. And we would find out more than what we did, but so far, we haven't really found anything.

12:19  
Because we're all retired police officers here we fall back on our police training. Primarily, it's kind of almost mirrors, what would you expect from a police department when they're taking a missing persons complaint. So you know, we try and get as much evidence and the most identifying factors as possible from whoever's making the request. And the more information that they can provide a higher success rate we have.

12:45  
All he did was contact the people that I directed him to. So So throughout the two years until I found him, I call the Toronto Police, then I phoned jails and then I phoned the big mental institution in Toronto. Yep, couldn't find him. Then I phoned, who was it I phoned? Then I phoned the morgue. He wasn't speaking to me because he was dead.

13:22  
There should be a national database for DNA on missing people. I know that there's been talk about it for years. And I think a lot has to do with a lot of people out there that are really maybe over concerned about people's privacy. And I get that I totally understand people's privacy rights and all that, but just be specific about Dovi's case. You know, if Dovi's mom had been, you know, said okay, he's missing. So here's here's a sample of my DNA, which should match up to my son's DNA. Well, maybe she got a sample of DNA on a hair brush, or whatever it may take. So any kind of missing persons remainder, okay, that's the first thing that goes the database and run the DNA.

14:09  
The coroner's report says his death was undetermined. The Toronto Police say suicide. Like they really pissed me off every single time I call. They're telling me that Dovi committed suicide and they just keep parroting and mocking. He committed suicide. He committed suicide. He committed suicide over and over and over like a broken record.

14:31  
He was wonderful.

14:34  
He didn't he didn't give trouble. He read books. We would have amazing conversation. He would cook He was really for me. Right. I had decided I was going to give him the best life that I could have and I and I tried my best.

15:07  
In the wake of Bruce MacArthur, the police force in Toronto is overhauling their procedure for investigating missing people. Old cases are even being reopened to make sure they were conducted properly. Dovi Henry's case isn't on their list.

15:37  
Our very last story will take you through a day that changed a girl's life forever. 28 year old Florence RuBharani shares her story about being diagnosed with an incurable disease. After months of unexplained symptoms, multiple tests proved Florence's worst fears true. Listen to Florence express her struggle to accept her unknown, the future of her life.

16:01  
My name is Florence RuBharani and I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

16:14  
I was diagnosed on May 23, 2013. I was 23 years old. A couple months prior to getting diagnosed, I remember I remember I was experiencing certain symptoms and it was very out of the ordinary. And I don't know, I was just very confused, very worried. I started researching it online and seeing the different diagnosis that would pop up. So I decided to contact my doctor to get some testing done and I remember a couple weeks later, I got a call from the doctor's office.

17:09  
When I went to the doctor's office, I didn't tell my family members about why I was going because I didn't want them to freak out on something that potentially could be nothing. But inside I did feel like there was something wrong and I knew that the news would not be good. And I ended up going to the doctor's with a friend. I remember going there and the doctor said it's unfortunate, but you are diagnosed with MS and we'll have to just refer you to the MS clinic nearby. So it was not like I didn't expect it. But I just didn't want to hear it. I wanted it to be, I just didn't want it to be what it was. After being diagnosed I left the doctor's office and I remember my friend was waiting outside in the waiting area. And he just saw me crying and he came up to me and said what's wrong? And I told him I guess my worst fears came true. I told them that that the diagnosis and he kept on saying are you sure maybe you should get a second opinion? But inside I knew that what the doctors were telling me were right. I didn't know what it was. And to be honest, I was quite healthy, you know, I would work out I would go for jogs. I would eat healthy, never liked sweet things and so I never thought that something like this would happened to me. It was quite scary like to know that just out of blue you get a very horrible disease. When I went home from the doctor's office, I literally was in bed all day and I was basically sobbing. I didn't want to talk to anyone I turned off my phone. Luckily my cats were nearby and they always made me feel better so and I had I did have family, but I just didn't want to tell them what was happening at that time.

19:23  
 Hi my name is Shenaz.  I'm Florence's mom. I think she she's disappointed. She feels end of the world. I don't blame her, she's educated person. She had a has an had a lot of dreams that it's dying inside her, so I wish I could change that but I know it's hard.

19:57  
I went through a stage like everyone. They go through a stage of denial and I was in denial for at least maybe three years. I knew I felt like I could, you know, do something about it. It could not happen to me. I was too young to be going through it. I didn't know what to expect. You know, it was something new. I never heard about this disease before, so it was very new to me and I was more scared of the future. I just felt like maybe I did something wrong in life, and I was being punished. It wasn't a good feeling because I kind of lost faith in everything. I was hopeless. I was very lost. I just knew that there was no cure for this disease. If I could go back and tell myself something, I would definitely tell myself to just continue living life. And don't be scared of the future because fear really does paralyze a person. I would just say, don't let the fear eat you up and don't let it affect how you live your life.

21:40  
Being diagnosed with MS or any illness is a scary process. The road to acceptance is not always easy and is often lonely. Florence shows us exactly how one day can unexpectedly change your life forever, and how to navigate through the dark. That story was produced by Sogand Jalali.

22:07  
Today you heard stories from Tiffany Lam, Nicole Edwards and Sogand Jalali-Adargani. 
Thanks to my co-host Subi Anandarajah, and our tech Angela Glover. 
 

22:17  
And thanks to my co-host Nicole Edwards. Head over to the RSJ Radio Website to see photos of all the characters you met in today’s stories about venturing into the unknown. Thanks for listening