But for the once a podcast, this is your host Jack gains. When CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military diplomats development officers and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with a partner Nations.
People and Leadership our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations to contact the show email us. Sat see a podcasting at gmail.com or look us up on the Civil Affairs association website at www.flcfs.org. I'll have those in the show notes. One in this guy said, hey, I want to get some background, he kept asking background stuff and it's like, okay, they knew where I was raised and what my favorite food was, but we never talked about anything
substantive. Well, I would love to start with your conflict, negotiations background. And then move into your Work as a law enforcement officer and then go into anti-corruption and illicit networks and Canada. How about that? Okay, sounds great. Today, we welcome Calvin Christie, a retired member of the RCMP who've worked conflict negotiation, with the UN and Canadian Armed Forces during the Bosnian war.
After the conflict Calvin, used his skills to also conduct International hostage negotiations and then got into counter criminal and state-sponsored threat Networks. In this episode Calvin talks about his experience in conflict and hostage, negotiation, and shares tips and tricks to help people in the field with relationship building and
negotiations. So, please join me in welcoming Calvin to the show, we'll probably where I first professionally was engaged in Conflict negotiations, other than the average normal police function or with was was probably On my first tour with the UN in the former Yugoslavia at the height of the war in 1993, where I was employed as a
peacekeeper was the mission. But in reality quickly learned it was peacemaking because there was no peace to keep at that time, it started off with a Serbian military officer and his father being abducted and kidnapped by the Croatian military and then quickly evolve to a Counter Corrections, military officer, and others being kidnapped, and the warring parties were looking for people to assist and support.
I was approached by the families of the warring parties and the families of the hostages and quickly got immersed in the world of conflict. Negotiations. And my background on it other than human Source cultivation or in my other job that I held. I was a drug enforcement at that time in Vancouver focused at Target team looking at Mother Ship operations globally and working with the Us and other International agencies in the early 90s.
So you've learned Hewitt from working, basically, with leads in, on the ground, to track motherships. Now, that was part of it, but I have worked significant amount of human work in a number of criminal settings. It quickly transformed when I was in there, the former Yugoslavia to be very useful because of the similar skill
set. IE, Rapport building, trust building something that was virtually absent in these type of settings, and probably one of the top skilled probably required in that, and I did that time know how to spell the word negotiation. And I learned it from the School of Hard Knocks. Right. And you also had experienced some really traumatic moments. I remember in our last conversation, you're talking
about executions. Front of you and other events that were happening as you're trying to build trust with these groups. Yeah, I mean in this particular setting, there were significant exposure to traumatic situations because we were being used by the warring parties as a trust mechanism, in such things as missing persons which equate to mass Graves. So we were being used in shuttle
diplomacy at that time. I was the first un person allowed and detention centers in the A war, like the military Detention Center going into those settings. Obviously, there was a significant issues farting torture and other type of situations and then when I wasn't in the detention centers, we were doing body exchanges which wasn't the most Pleasant type of negotiations I've ever done. And that was basically truckloads of bodies being swapped for truckloads of bodies
on the other side. And I don't mean to drag you. Through all that, I apologize. No, that's okay. I'm fine with it. Well, the exposure, though. I know that's tough. But also, why were they dragging you into that type of negotiation? Was it to shock you or to see if you would break or to build trust what was going on the warring parties. In this particular case were genuinely interested in looking for people that could assist them to deal with this very
acute. Lying perpetuating intense intractable conflict which again I reference the u.s. experience in. Vietnam, probably the one of the most aggravating open wounds of a war. Is that poww issue and the guy we're dealing with. I think we're genuinely knowing that they needed a third party to do it. I was a really young guy at that
time. I was 29 years old and I came into that war of A year into it. There was a tens of thousands of un folks in it, but there weren't that many people that were stepping into this Arena full of atrocity and a lot of unpleasant experience. And so I think there was a genuine interest from the warring parties.
They realized me that they trusted mechanism for shuttle diplomacy between the two different sides where they could build some trust amongst each other by sharing some very dark secrets that were going to put them in jeopardy. In terms of an international court and what we're going to get them jammed up or into a situation politically. Yeah, that's a tough role to be in the middle of. Yeah, it was a really tough role in it to be quite honest.
It seems very surreal. I still reflect back on it and that's 30 years ago and it still seems not a little too, real completely surreal. Sure somebody growing up in Canada, the us or otherwise it's really hard to Fathom. Those type of Situations unless you have lived through them. And I I still even though I've lived through them I'm still kind of reflect on. Was that a dream? Yeah, I can. Imagine that it goes off into the back corners of your mind as this isn't really real.
This is more of a Dreamscape than actually facing that reality. So and I apologize again for dragging you through it. I I just wanted to get some context about it. They Jackie, it's something. I think that really important for people to talk about, I talk
about it all the time. Universities when it keeps negotiations and everybody goes hey how do you do all those real interesting cool things and that's but I did them through the School of Hard Knocks and there's no shortcuts doing it and although probably I would safe to say that probably some of the darkest moments of my life. They were probably some of the most rewarding cherished moments of my life including lifelong friendships that came out of it.
So more positive than good okay. And Do you have any recommendations for folks that are working in the field on negotiations? I hope most of the people on this podcast are not dealing with that level of violence, or extreme Behavior, but I'm sure you had some takeaways, it's
actually a great question. Probably one that you didn't think about, but a very good intuitive question, because, as I mentioned, I didn't know how to spell the negotiation, and I've spent 30 years trying to figure out what made it so successful when I didn't know. Know, anything about negotiation strategies tactics or processes? What made me? So successful in those moments and during that context, if I was to go, hey, what's the top three things? And I'm quick writing a panic in my head.
Go, what are the top three things? One comes to mind is genuine part driven empathy. I care for people, I respect people. I think I learnt that my childhood from two great parents that instilled Right virtues principle values and belief systems upon myself. And that drove me through the adversity of those difficult negotiations. The second thing I would probably suggest was just being
really humbled in the process. And again, I learnt this from my family background and I was looking at these people, unlike other people were looking at them and probably kind of was Tied into my humans background and that was really looking at the people as people and not thinking I was smarter than they were because I realized that, although they were perhaps Farmers from a war-torn country or they weren't Western
Democratic country. I always was cautious in terms of thinking They may always be smarter than myself and I kept that at the back of mine that allowed me to analyze and anticipate problems and issues and impediments and challenges and risks within the negotiation process. And I think the last one would probably be again more about a principle and value in terms of the negotiation process and I took that when I was dealing with these people as well.
So those should probably be the creepy thing empathy the humbleness Us and the respect. And the empathy was my motivator. The humility was my analyzer and my respect I think was my report Builder. Interesting. I've ever heard of dissected that way. I've never heard it that way. Till you ask the question and it's really simple is similar to Chris Voss who was the FBI's hostage negotiator for a long time until he retired and started his own. Phone book called Never split the difference.
Yes, I mean Chris and I work together, I met Chris. After 9/11, coincidentally, the FBI had asked Chris as one of their negotiators to travel to Phoenix for a meeting after 9/11 to develop best practices, Lessons Learned, better social, psychological theories to deal with terrorism. And at the same time, they ask Christy asked. Myself to attend the meetings, with Chris and we attended and met with dr. Roberts aldini.
And that really gave us like unbelievable insight to the social psychology Laboratories and the research that I've done over several decades in the field of persuasion and influence, in negotiations with her tangentially, the names of his books, persuasion and influence. Yeah. Which I've read but they're terrific and insightful. The funny thing about it here, The books to document the practices of influence and
persuasion. But when people read them, they flipped it to where they became the guidebook for creating influence and persuasion. Yes. And I think something that's not talked about those books for those that are interested in the field of negotiations and conflict, almost like a curse. Because I had the benefit of studying it so much, you know, with the interaction with dr. Gel Deanie, and then subsequently.
You know, traveling down there, taking courses through his research, more importantly, something that's not talked about it that much about them, which I think readers and many others would benefit is the ability to use his research for defensive purposes. Not only offensive purposes, so he talks about how to use them to accelerate relationship,
building and Trust building. But when you understand them, intimately, You can quickly identify and mitigate when others are using these methods against you in a non-genuine manipulative way, and try to very good defensive method. And sometimes it's a bit of a curse because you're having an interaction with somebody and they start doing it. And all the sudden you start feeling as you're inside. Exact person starts going off your like, this guy's trying to work me. Yeah.
Have you had that moment where you're in negotiations? And you're like, wait a minute. This guy's this guy's trying to push a button daily. I've got it. I've got a 16 year old stepson that tries to use them all the time. I read robbers books and he said, I'm going to try that one next. Yeah. Yeah. Where has the Walk of it? If you read some of the posts, you know, in the field of negotiations, there's built-in tackle. Generations. And some of the language is, sometimes I find.
Yeah. I see all kinds of trigger words in posts as well as where they're trying to use emotive language in order to get you to sway one way or another, on an issue. Yeah. Okay. So this is where you were and now, you've been also working throughout Canada on spotting foreign malign influence. Yes. And Corruption, right? Yes, I did some back after several tours in the war. Or there and got involved with
Community complex. You know what I'm talking about, the violent kind of blockade, standoffs not as violent as Waco, but, you know, similar group dynamics, and then overseas dealing with a lot of terrorist incidents in terms of kidnappings, which you referred to earlier, in terms of the negotiations, where people were actually executed during the course of the negotiations. And then my work back here was
in the investigative world. Essentially the majority of my career and then from about 2007 onward, involved transnational, organized crime activities, particularly with a focus on Chinese networks, Iranian networks, and cartel operations that continued until working intimately with the u.s. entities, including Special Operations, Division of the DEA, but also working with the FBI Homeland Security. And then In the broader context of the five eyes.
And then in 2018, after working, in that space, I went into the private sector where I decided I had enough of the public sector. And I was about to try to Pivot into a new area that I quickly realized. I wasn't going to get social support from which was, I wanted to go be a bartender. And that lasted for about a day you got vetoed on being a Bartender, I got beat up for being a bartender.
I didn't plan on retiring at all and you know, I thought I'd do another couple of years and then one day I just walked back to the office after the week of training with some young guys and I thought that was pretty enjoyable and then the next thought that went through my head was that that was fun. Working with the young guys, I never work with young guys, always work with these executive then I thought to myself, what the hell? I joined to have fun.
What I'm doing is not fun anymore, dealing with freakin drama, and all this. Other stuff, I've done everything I've wanted to do right then there, I looked at my computer screen, turned it off. Back to my briefcase, never went back to work, just like that. I said to my wife, I am quitting RCMP and she goes, well, when taking a look at your weather, no, no. I'm sending the email tonight and it's so she says, well, what are you going to do? I says I got no fucking idea bartender.
She Goes Over My Dead Body, you're not coming home at 4:00 5:00 at night. You're you're an old bad you're not going to do that. That's you. Your boss is sitting at his desk right now. Looking at his watch going. I'll give him another 10 minutes on that break, and then I'm really going to call. Yeah, I wanted something completely different. I enjoy talking to people. Enjoy meeting new people and I enjoy Mixology. And Of Mescal and Tequila than
that. But anyway, so I quickly then got dragged back into National Security, foreign State activity, transnational networks threats, risk and all of a sudden, I got out of it and it was back into on the private side with people being missed or disappearing in Syria. To then foreign operators, possibly targeting Canadian businessmen to illicit Finance issues, Etc.
So I got involved in that in the private sector and it continued to be with the critical risk team, which is a collective group managed by three of us inclusive of my American business partner. I Mark far, he's former FBI out of Miami and the three of us are in this space. Working in the private sector with c-suite Executives law firms investing companies ngos. But a lot of our work is in that space of the Contemporary risks and threats posed for an
actor's, not all. But a fair amount of our work is in that space and we're very Boutique and we've got people from our intelligence backgrounds, from military, backgrounds, and ourselves, and police backgrounds, obviously, working in that space with our clients. And from that, you started to see criminality in Canada,
right? I started seeing those State actors in that high level stuff back in 2007 and continued to see it. Till the time I left the federal police force, then I went into the private sector and I thought, you know, I'm going to miss that Intrigue and insight relative to what's going on in the after dark, so to speak. And then I got involved in the private side and I realized
quite quickly. My visibility on the private side was equal to to what I was seeing on the government side because so much of as to what was going on in the cities and the communities in the corporate board rooms in the law, offices was concerning in terms of foreign State actors and the illicit activities that were taking place, but nobody was talking to the government or the police about it because of the reputational risk issue. So it was this almost
underground track environment. This invisible wall between government. The private sector in this space. Yeah, there's definitely a wall between private practice and the government. Do you want to talk a little bit about global competition from your perspective in Canada? Yeah, the lens here is very clear. We are the fourth largest port in North America, Long Beach, La New York, then Vancouver.
The reality is in terms of illicit activities, and Cornbread, actives are equal to Any of those large cities and maybe even greater than New York greater than LA and greater than Long Beach. Why? Because in Long Beach LA and New York, you have the FBI, you've got the homeland security, you've got DEA, you have all the other federal agencies you have a very robust legal system and authorities compared to what We have here and our legal system,
constrains us significantly. So what we see here particularly in Toronto and Vancouver is the convergence of the threat activities, and the threat actor was from the Iranian networks, and from the Chinese that are collaborating with the cartel and when I watch Netflix, when I push, Just came out the show. Narcos, yes. Okay. When I came home to watch it it was like the continuation of my working day, the same names, the same family. The people were flying in the people were flying out.
I don't mean that just the same part tells I'm not talking about just the Sinaloa, not just the Guadalajara, not just the Zetas, or whatever. I'm talking about. The real people and characters and leaders of the cartel, or their brother, or their wife, or their daughter, or whatever else, right they can. Urgency of for transshipment. So the world's largest New Market. So what are you gonna do? Throw it on a whole bunch of
trucks. 2,000 trucks, a day coming across the border and three or four them, or five of them. Are going to have something on it. That was the whole strategy rather than doing a large shipments. Guzman took the answer mentality and sent 2010. If we pick off, you know, one answer to answer every couple of weeks or a month, it really wasn't going to have any negative impact in terms of risk considerations. Options for himself and his operations in the both. The load is a lot more but it's
very similar to smurfing. Yeah, cool. Very, very wise intelligence risk management strategy, on behalf of the cartels and then it had the two networks that were desperately interested in collaborating, and that was the Chinese networks and the Iranian networks. So the illicit criminal networks, the Chinese mobs, your rainy ins and probably the North Answer sounds like have some
connection with the cartels. Yeah, we saw in Vancouver and Toronto, significant Iranian networks, and Chinese networks with the cartels. And we saw that in the narcos, fear the money laundering domain and now, the interconnectivity, between these Narco issues and illicit Finance issues and I reference a book that squinted at least being in front of me called willful blindness written by Sam Cooper.
A documented this and then it got into the political foreign interference, the corruption, the Espionage, the fentanyl issues on and on and on and a lot of people don't realize the fentanyl to actually took place on the streets of Vancouver before anywhere else. When we first started seeing it, there was hardly anything in the US. And when you look at the main players globally in the world,
you'll see that a lot. Them have ties to Vancouver in terms of the top Triads. And coincidentally, we were seeing a lot of family members of the top cartel folks hanging out here regularly, the approach is incongruent with the needs to deal with the threats, right? So do you see it as a risk to them? Being in the five eyes? Yeah, the conversations I've had inside and now, I can safely say I'm sorry. There has been in a growing increasing concern with Canada within the five eyes.
And I think we saw, you know, the response to that with the security pact. Because this. Yeah, and, you know, there was a lot of suggesting that it was just a, some packed when most other people already anticipated in suspected. It was much more and then as its evolved in a very short time in the last whatever it is year or less, you know, Quantum came into being another technology.
These are going to have huge huge impact on National Security. I think Canada sadly got pendant on China, not only financially but politically right it becomes undeniable to the infrastructure. I really don't think that there's a real good public dialogue in Canada from anyone everybody I look at that's engaged in this seems to be influence and compromise.
We based on where their funding sources are, you know, and that's that that includes even the ngos and there's an increasing concern with, in some Circles of Academia and think tanks that. Even some of the ngos have been influenced to take a term out there. I don't think there is such a term, but I'll make it up today to vanilla lie. The Narrative on the degree of concerns and thread activities in Canada.
Sure. This is one of the challenges we promote interdependency because we're trying to keep a global economic system afloat, but we do it in a way to where we try to leverage Partners in order to gain foreign policy goals. But it's a double-edged sword because countries like China and Russia. They also know the skill of diplomacy and inner tangling of economics and politics and it can be just as impactful to us. And it's a challenge to try to
keep that balance. It is a particularly, with our political systems, you know where we're on these 4-year cycles and these other people are on these 10, 15 years Cycles. They just let themselves in the power for as long as they want. Yeah. And they're in the game of chess and we're in the game of 52 Pickup. Everything that we're doing is reactionary. Extremely concerned about it. Yeah, I can see why. Good strategy, you can't compete
with another person strategy. I was explaining to a friend of mine about Taiwan and that is, if their narrative only focuses on their relationship to China, then China has already won until Taiwan builds. Its own Narrative of how it positions itself in the world and its relationship to the International Community. It will never overcome the conditions that it's in right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we are almost up to an hour. Is there any last thoughts?
Well, I don't know if it fits. I can make it fit, but I guess I'm the editor. Throw it out and probably because it ties back to the original part of the conversation. You know, if that we all take the time to reflect and ensure that we're doing our due diligence and making efforts to do the right thing to protect the interest of the Next Generation like others before us did. I said, that's an excellent close. I appreciate that.
Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like And subscribe, and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at see a podcasting at gmail.com? I'll have the email and see association website in the show notes. And now most importantly to those currently out in the field, working with a partner Nations, people or leadership to forward us relations. Thank you all for what you're
doing. This is Jack your host, stay tuned for more great episodes. 1, c a podcast. Jack your host, stay tuned for more great episodes. 1, c a podcast.