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The Current Transcript for September 8, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

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Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

They have extremely different ideas than we do about women's rights, about media freedoms, about democracy itself. They're not huge fans of the Western democracy that we tried to install in Afghanistan at gunpoint. And so I think what we're about to see is something very, very different.

MATT GALLOWAY: Different is one word for it. The Taliban unveiled its caretaker government for Afghanistan yesterday, and amongst those paying close attention is Graham Smith. In 30 minutes, the former Globe and Mail correspondent is here to talk about what he calls the madness of war, his return to a country that came to consume him and what the future holds for his friends there. Also this morning, for pro-choice advocates in Texas and perhaps beyond in the United States, the future is bleak.

SOUNDCLIP

Millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion. In Texas, we work to save those lives.

MG: In an hour, the view from the ground and where the fight for women seeking an abortion in the United States goes from here. We begin, though, with the politics of the fourth wave in Canada. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

National affairs panel on vaccine passport protests across provinces

Guests: Tanya Fletcher, Robert Benzi, Kelly Cryderman

SOUNDCLIP

[Protesters cheering]

MG: More than a year and a half into this pandemic and more than halfway through the federal election campaign, angry protests against covid restrictions are ramping up across the country. Demonstrations against vaccine passports were held outside hospitals in British Columbia and Ontario last week. Premiers have been quick to condemn the protests, but they are walking a fine line of public health measures, popularity and politics. We have convened our national affairs panel to discuss. Kelly Cryderman is a reporter and columnist for the Globe and Mail in Alberta. Robert Benzi is the Queen's Park bureau chief for the Toronto Star. And Tanya Fletcher is the CBC's provincial affairs reporter for ABC. Good morning to you all.

KELLY CRYDERMAN: Hey, Matt.

TANYA FLETCHER: Good morning.

ROBERT BENZI: Good morning,.

MG: Kelly. Jason Kenney, the premier of Alberta, said that this is going to be the best summer ever. There are now 15000 plus active cases of covid in the province. What sort of criticism has Mr Kenny faced for his handling of the pandemic thus far?

KELLY CRYDERMAN: He's facing a lot of criticism heads and that shows up in his approval numbers right now. It is every announcement is followed by a lot of debate, especially as we see in Alberta. I see use in hospitals filling up again and health care workers talking about burnout. It is a very politicised debate in Alberta, also with, you know, Jason Kenney talking about just in late June restrictions being lifted and his plans never to return to them. He opened the province in a major way on July 1st. And I think even more worrying to a lot of people, there was an announcement in late July that there would be a dismantling of many of the covid-19 monitoring systems that have been set up during the pandemic, like a legal obligation to isolate if you have covid like wide scale testing. That was obviously that was a policy that was supposed to come into force and never did. B as cases road rose. And last week, of course, we had this offer of one hundred dollars if you get vaccinated, which also has been criticised as a means of rewarding those who haven't been vaccinated to. Now it's very fraught. There was a there was a melee from his party yesterday who who came out publicly. He represents a riding just outside Calgary. He says the government is, in a way targeting or blaming those who are unvaccinated, and that's just divisive. So there are there are views on many sides on this right now.

MG: Who is still supportive of Jason Kenney as premier?

KELLY CRYDERMAN: That's a good question.

MG: Friends and family aside,

KELLY CRYDERMAN: it is a very difficult one for the premier right now. Obviously, his polling numbers are, if not the lowest amongst the lowest, depending on who you listen to for the premiers in Canada. And he he's facing a really difficult situation that I think is different from, say, a progressive conservative premier like Doug Ford in a province like Ontario, where the pressure that Doug Ford faces or the political pressure that Doug Ford faces is from the left, from the NDP, from the Liberals in an election that he'll face next year. Whereas the political pressure for Jason Kenney very much comes from the right. It comes from dissent within his own caucus. And right now in Alberta, the NDP, led by Rachel Notley, is is polling better than Jason Kenney and is UCP. But the pressure to keep his base on the right is very intense for the premier right now.

MG: We'll get to Ontario in a moment. Tanya Fletcher, let's talk about British Columbia. There were these large anti vaccine protests outside hospitals last week. Take a listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

[Protesters chanting]

It was horrible, horrible to watch if I was, you know, not sick, I'm a very angry man usually most of the time at things like that and I would have gladly stepped in in the middle of the crowd and started yelling at people. But unfortunately, like a cold or flu could kill me.

MG: That's Ed Prentice. He's a cancer patient in Vancouver. Tanya, how is the premier of British Columbia, John Horgan, addressed those protests.

TANYA FLETCHER: And that he at first, when they happened, he put out a fairly mild or you could tell he was trying to be diplomatic statement before all of the before all of the information came in. He did come out and condemn what he called the harassment of health care workers. But yesterday was the first time he spoke publicly since since those protests, addressing addressing those protesters. And politically, I mean, I think he's really leaning on the fact that what they were attempting to do, whatever that was, really backfired, because in the end, it was the health care workers and the front line workers who bore the brunt of the anger. And so, I mean, he's losing no there's no political risk to condemn that. The location of where these protests were and who in the end was was targeted. He did say yesterday, he said we can continue to discuss how we feel, but we also need to continue focussing on what we do today to prepare for tomorrow. And he says for those who see this is a broader issue than not, I don't really have much to say. Quite frankly, this isn't about restricting people's rights, he says. This is about giving more rights to people who have taken steps to protect themselves. And so he's really expressing frustration, he says, for those of us who are working towards a common purpose. He says this really does not have an ideological foundation. And, yes, I think he's really leaning into that fact. And he knows that the bulk of British Columbians, the vast majority, even those who are against perhaps, you know, not just the quote unquote anti battlers, but those simply against vaccine passports or vaccine mandates or those calling this government overreach. You know, he knows that the vast majority of those are behind him, even in how these protests unfolded and how it just spectacularly backfired in so many ways.

MG: What about in Ontario, Rob? I mean, there were similar protests in that province. What do you make of the way that the premier, Doug Ford, has handled them?

ROBERT BENZI: I mean, yeah, the massive protests haven't been as large here yet, but there have been protests. There are outside the premier's house every week. There are protests and have been for many, many months now. In fact, in June, a a person who has expressed anti lockdown views, not necessarily anti views, was arrested with a knife, a butcher's knife at Mr. Ford's home. Luckily, the AFP were on hand and no one was harmed, including the man. But it was a scary reminder that there are a lot of folks who are a bit fraught right now with the pandemic. And I think Mr. Ford is mindful of that. He's he's urged people to do their protests at Queen's Park, the provincial legislature here in Toronto, rather than at hospitals. As we saw in Ottawa, there was one. And then we've seen at politicians homes and so on and outside restaurants here in downtown Toronto where the proprietors have been pro vaccination. So you've got a very it's a very, you know, fraught situation for Mr. Ford. He's actually interestingly to what Kelly was saying earlier about Jason Kenney, problems on the right. Mr. Ford is actually pushing back at the right wing of his own party. He kicked out Rick Nichols as an MP from the Chatham area last month for not being vaccinated. He's forcing all of his employees to be vaccinated. And all of the candidates in the Ontario election next year for the Tories will have to be vaccinated. So there really they've put that marker down. And it's you know, even last week, Ford said that that he would have a vaccine certificate, proof of vaccination system for people to go to gyms and restaurants and so on. That starts on September twenty second. That's something that the premier had said he wouldn't do well.

MG: And he keeps saying that he doesn't want to do it. I mean, why does he keep saying that despite the fact that he's now announced that there will be some sort of certificate?

ROBERT BENZI: I mean, he's saying it's temporary and he's and he's reluctantly doing this because the chief medical officer of health wants him to do it. I mean, I think the reason that they're doing it is that businesses have been calling for it. Doctors have been calling for it. The public is calling for Matt in Ontario. Eighty three, almost eighty four percent of people have had one shot and seventy seven percent are fully vaccinated this morning. So it's where the super majority is, is vaccination. So it's it's I mean, if Ford can say he's reluctant and that way he sort of it's appeasement of sorts to those on the right in his party who feel that this is something that they shouldn't do.

MG: Tanya, back to you. I mean, is there any political calculation that John Horgan has to make when it comes to the vaccine passport? I was in the interior of ABC last week, and you heard a lot of anger from people about this. They seem to, as you were suggesting, people were saying that it's an example of government overreach and what have you. What is he calculating when he introduces this vaccine passport?

TANYA FLETCHER: Well, I mean, if you look at purely the politics of it and where that opposition is coming from, a lot of it is in the more rural areas in the interior where you were and in the north. And so those aren't necessarily NDP strongholds anyway. So those would primarily be conservative ridings at a future election anyway. So it's not like he's losing in theory would be losing, you know, some of his own base anyway. And much like in Ontario, more than 85 percent of British Columbians, 12 plus have had one dose. And so looking at the political calculations, I think he's looking at those who, you know, there is still a say, one fifth of the population that will just refuse to get vaccinated. But no amount of perhaps asking nicely is going to change their minds. I think they view that as they're going to dig in their heels no matter what. So he's going to stand firm line. And, you know, you see the stubborn streak in Premier John Horgan, often with things like this. And I don't think he'll back down. I think he'll stick strong to that message. I think the key will be emphasising the sunset clause in B.C., too. You know, they did say this is time limited. They will have this in place, the passport system, until January and reassess then going forward. But I think, too, you have to look at at some some of the pushback from businesses who aren't anti vaccine aren't even necessarily anti vaccine passport, but they want more details. They want to feel more support from the provincial government in how this is rolled out. Instead of just dropping this on them and saying, you figure it out because they are going to bear the brunt of a lot of anger from customers who who are, you know, want to come in and demand to be served. And, you know, there is a groundswell of anger. There's a Facebook group. It's called B.C. Businesses Against VACC Passports, and it has more than one hundred twelve thousand members now. So there are there is a lot of push back. And I think that's where the fine line is. He has to play both sides of that coin if he's going to stand by and double down on on this on this protocol and these procedures, then he's going to have to find a way to also make sure businesses are comfortable with the protocols. And just yesterday was the first time we found out details of how the QR code will work. And this, you know, keep in mind, this takes effect September 13th. So until now, a lot of businesses have felt a little lost, a little in the dark. And that is what here are. The provincial opposition has been trying to take advantage of is is driving that confusion and uncertainty and wanting those answers.

MG: Kelly, in Alberta, It's not the businesses that feel lost and in the dark. Overwhelmingly, it's many of the municipalities. The premier has said that there will be no vaccine passport. And now there are mayors in Alberta that have decided to bring in their own covid measures. Take a listen to Chris Spearmon, who's the mayor of Lethbridge.

SOUNDCLIP

I think there's a lot of confusion and a lot of division within communities and cities. They're getting one message from the provincial government and we're trying to do the best we can as municipalities to preserve public health. We're struggling and we find that we're being asked to do things to try to preserve public health without the support from the provincial government.

MG: Kelly Cryderman, why is Premier Jason Kenney unloading some of this decision making on to the the backs of the municipalities?

KELLY CRYDERMAN: You know, I would say it's businesses, too. I was talking to a business owner yesterday who was very concerned about having to make all the decisions on the vaccine requirements for his own company, for businesses to hear. But yes, there is we have seen municipalities pick up the slack, so to speak, in recent days and recent weeks, as the province know for most of August, just left things as they were, even as cases increased. We saw, you know, the mayors of Calgary and Edmonton who are already not on the friendliest terms with the county government, talk about, ah, and bring in mass mandates. Yesterday, we had a number of northern mayors, including Edmonton, form a coalition and say they want to create their own vaccine passport system. We've heard Calgary's mayor, Knobhead Nenshi, say he's lost faith in the ability of the province to make rules to to deal with covid. So I think and of course, Calgary and Edmonton are two thirds of the population of the province. What they decide, even in an ad hoc manner, affects a huge portion of the population. And there's the question of whether the government is the provincial government is OK with this almost you would think it almost feels like they were happy to have this happen, to have the municipalities pick up the slack and maybe the political flak.

MG: And where some of that is where some of that is?

KELLY CRYDERMAN: And, yes, I and I think that's how, well, what is happening in Alberta is happening in a really ad hoc manner, you are seeing businesses and municipalities and school boards implement their own policies in the absence of a overarching provincial policy. But what you're also having happen in drips and drabs is a vaccine mandate for all Alberta Health Services workers, which is a huge number of health workers. They deliver the majority of the health services in the province. They were mandated. They got a vaccine mandate last week, which I did not expect the county government to sign off on or to allow, given that the premier has made many comments in the past against mandatory vaccines, yet that one of the the government's biggest arms have a vaccine mandate. Also, the premier very briefly on Friday spoke about Alberta getting a QR code attached to what already is in a development is which is a proof of vaccine system. So it feels like in an ad hoc way, a vaccine passport will develop. Just don't call it a vaccine passport.

MG: All of this is happening, of course, in the context of a federal election. Tanya, what's the relationship like between John Horgan and Justin Trudeau?

TANYA FLETCHER: I mean, relatively speaking, I'd say it's one of the strongest, if not the strongest of any primaries or leaders in the country between, you know, Victoria and Ottawa. And I think, you know, it's interesting because John Horgan earned a ton of political capital because he he holds an election in a snap election during the pandemic here as well, just last fall. And he won a landslide majority. And so I think whatever capital he's built up because of that, he can he has that wiggle room and he has that confidence to be making these decisions. And I think, you know, that partnership with Ottawa because of that, you're going to see continue. He has not at least publicly, the B.C. government has not criticised the federal government. They've been very careful to keep those ties and his relationships strong. There was one instance that I can think of since the pandemic began where B.C. was quite vocal in urging Ottawa to clamp down. And that was when they brought in the initial measures, when they started closing the international borders and B.C. felt that the federal government was not moving quick enough, quickly enough to get to monitor those those checkpoints at Weipa. And so they it was interesting, I was chatting with the minister about something else and kind of casually mentioned it. And it turns out they quietly redeployed hundreds of their own staff, civil servants within the B.C. government, ministry, ministry workers in various areas to go work physically out at the airport and at the land border crossings to to become de facto quarantine enforcers or quarantine officers to check if people had a plan in place for self isolation when they arrived and how they would follow up and monitor that. And so it was a programme that Ottawa wound up mirroring eventually. But at the time, B.C. said, to heck with it, we're just going to we're going to do it on our own because Ottawa is taking too long. So there was some frustration on that front. But since then, I know, you know, John Horgan knows that he is one of the few allies that Justin Trudeau has on this front. And so he's they've done everything they can publicly to keep those ties strong.

MG: Robert Benzi, in the last minute and a half, what about Ontario? I mean, in twenty nineteen, Doug Ford became a bit of a punching bag for Justin Trudeau. Then they became friends, it seemed, over the course of the pandemic, where now Doug Ford hasn't really been seen a lot over the course of this campaign.

ROBERT BENZI: Yeah, and Mr Ford, who is a progressive conservative, has forbidden his cabinet members and staff from working on the federal conservative campaign. He said that they have to stay out of it. He was asked about the election last week. It's the first press conference he's given since the campaign was launched. And he he said he believes the election is unnecessary, but he's not going to get involved. He said we've got to work on covid-19. Remember, he's got his own election next June and there's no percentage in it for Mr Ford to get involved in this one. He I don't think he personally cares who wins. I think, frankly, some of his own. I think some of his own advisers would like to see Justin Trudeau liberals re-elected because in Ontario there's a principle called the Under Underhill Balance theory that shows when there's a federal liberal government, the progressive conservatives do very well at Queen's Park. And when there's a conservative government, the liberals are new Democrats do well at Queen's Park. So Ontario, Ontario voters like to keep two different parties in power at the same time. And Mr for its own writing of Tropical North, he wins fifty eight fifty nine percent of the vote. Kirsty Duncan, the Liberal MP, wins 63 percent of the vote and he won't campaign against her. So it's, it's just, it's an interesting dichotomy. You know, I think that if Mr. Trudeau started to beat up Mr. Ford, as he did in the twenty nineteen election successfully, I think that Mr. Ford would respond. But in twenty eighteen, Mr. Ford wasn't very popular. In 2021, his his polling is much is much better.

MG: We'll see whether he's dragged in and the remaining couple of weeks of this campaign. In the meantime, great to speak with you all this morning. Thank you.

KELLY CRYDERMAN: Thanks for having me.

ROBERT BENZI: Thank you.

MG: Tanya Fletcher CBC/s, provincial affairs reporter in BC. Kelly Cryderman, reporter and columnist for The Globe and Mail. In Alberta, Robert Benzi, Queen's Park bureau chief for the Toronto Star. Your CBC News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

The world is is waiting and the fates of millions of people hang in the balance. I mean, it's such a fraught time for the people of Afghanistan.

MG: A new government and a new era taking shape in Afghanistan. Former war correspondent for the Globe and Mail, Graham Smith is here in six minutes to talk about his return to that country and make sense of what is unfolding right now. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

Former Afghanistan correspondent reflects on what he once believed was a 'noble war'

Guest: Graeme Smith

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current. Still to come, Texans are coming to terms with what a new abortion law means for women. Abortion rights advocates are looking for loopholes and legal protections. Meanwhile, other red states are looking to Texas as an example. In 30 minutes, we'll talk about abortion access in the United States. But first, the new Afghan government starts to take shape.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

When the world give an opportunity to us to to prove ourselves to the world what we are and what we want, they will be surprised and they will they will find us very different.

MG: That's Amar Samarak. He works in the Taliban's political office and he's being interviewed by Graeme Smith, The Globe and Mail's former war correspondent and the author of The Dogs Are Eating Them Now, Our War in Afghanistan. That interview is taken from Graham's new documentary, Ghosts of Afghanistan. Afghanistan, of course, is now back under control of the Taliban. Yesterday, they announced an interim government led by Mullah Mohammed Hassan Akhund, one of the movement's founders. Ghosts of Afghanistan follows Graeme Smith as he returns to that country and tries to make sense of the war he covered and the years that followed. Graeme Smith joins me now. Graeme.

GRAEME SMITH: Good morning.

MG: Hello. That clip from 2019 has a real different meaning. I think in 2021, when you listen to him say that the world would find a very different Taliban if given a chance. What do you make of that?

GRAEME SMITH: I think we're still waiting to find out. At the time Amar Samarak was giving his first ever television interview, he had never sat down in front of the cameras before. He was a kind of senior official in their diplomatic office in Doha. And we're still waiting to see what it all means, and the fates of millions of people hang in the balance.

MG: Do you believe the Taliban now is different than the Taliban of years past?

GRAEME SMITH: I mean, obviously, it is. It contains different people. They have different ideas. They're much more technologically literate than they were in the past. But just because they are different definitely does not mean that they're going to be more palatable to Canadians or to, you know, other foreigners. They have extremely different ideas than we do about women's rights, about media freedoms, about democracy itself. They're not huge fans of the Western democracy that we tried to install in Afghanistan at gunpoint. And so I think what we're about to see is something very, very different.

MG: What do you make of what you've seen over the last couple of weeks since the Taliban took over? I mean, to a lot of people, they were surprised by the pace of change. As you watched the country fall in in August, what was going through your mind?

GRAEME SMITH: I was shocked. I don't think anyone had a full Taliban takeover of the country in their sort of top 10 list of likely scenarios. It was a stunning reversal and it happened incredibly abruptly.

MG: I want to talk more about where that leaves the country now, coming up in a little bit. But first, go back to to when you first arrived in Afghanistan, you're in your 20s. You go there to cover the war. When you stepped off the plane the first time, what do you remember about your first impressions of the country?

GRAEME SMITH: You know, you shouldn't believe what you read in newspapers all the time because I say this as someone used to write for newspapers. But I you know, I arrived in the country with a sheaf of printouts from, you know, newspapers and think tanks. And I remember the first paragraph of the Washington Post's front page story about, you know, the new Afghanistan said that it was going through an exercise in post-war democracy, that the fighting was over, the Taliban were gone. And I was stepping onto the tarmac in Kabul to cover the 2005 parliamentary elections. And, you know, I just I took seriously that Western narrative and I said, OK, this is a democracy is our elected leaders. And I didn't think I'd be in Afghanistan for very long. I thought it was a boring story. Everything was finished, but of course, it was not finished. And Canadians started dying there in big numbers. And so it sort of took over my life. I ended up spending most of my professional career there.

MG: You talk in the film about how there was the sense that what was going on in Afghanistan at that time. And you speak about the Canadians who were dying there, that this was a noble war. What do you mean by that, a noble war?

GRAEME SMITH: I remember in those early days down in Kandahar, as a young newspaper correspondent said the Canadian military public affairs officers were extremely eager to have us go and take photographs of Canadian soldiers handing out medical supplies or handing out, you know, school supplies to children. There was a real, I think, effort to portray this as something noble as a as a kind of civilising enterprise, and I say that, with scare quotes around it because it is scary, anyone tries to turn up with a whole lot of guns and quote unquote, civilise a place. It turned into a very, very ugly thing. And they became the deadliest war on the planet Earth that the violence kept rising. The number of foreign troops kept growing. It became something where tens of thousands of Afghans are being killed every single year and hundreds of thousands were being displaced every single year. So this the fact the Taliban have now taken over, a lot of my friends in Kabul are upset, but some of my friends in the villages are not upset because it means that this meat grinder of a conflict is finally reaching some kind of denouement.

MG: You got swept up in that idea of, you know, the nobility, which you call in the film, pushing back the forces of darkness and barbarism. You got swept up in that as well.

GRAEME SMITH: I think all of the foreigners who had anything to do with Afghanistan, yeah, they were somehow invested in the project writ large. And yeah, so I drank the Kool-Aid at first. And it took a couple of years before I really started to see the war as something that, you know, had real dark side to it. I think it was probably in Sarposa Prison when I started to meet the people who are being tortured on a regular basis, that I started to understand that when bad things happened, you know, if a bomb fell on a village and children died, that could be described as an accident. But if, day in, day out, Canadian troops were taking detainees and handing them over into torture chambers, you know that it wasn't accidental. It was part of the design of the war. And I started to get really disturbed by what was going on,

MG: how much of that. And we'll talk more about what happened in the prison in a moment. But you're part of the media that's there covering that. And you talk about the story of media cheerleaders for that that war. How much? Did you see when it came to that cheerleading?

GRAEME SMITH: There was a lot of pressure on Canadian journalists to be on the side of the troops, and that's not really the job of a journalist. The job of a journalist is to try to talk to as many people as you can and figure out what's going on and to write it down. The work of journalism, in my view, is much more humble and much simpler. And I think in the middle of a war, especially when when Canadian troops are dying, it's easy to lose sight of that and get wrapped up in a kind of jingoistic sensibility.

MG: Much of your reporting from that prison where Taliban prisoners who who were being tortured by Afghan security forces broke that that jingoism, broke that that cheerleading. What was the response when you reported on what was happening in that prison?

GRAEME SMITH: Yes, I spent about a month in early 2007 sitting in [unintelligible] Prison and actually tracking down prisoners who are outside the prison and talking to them about their experiences in detention. And a large number of them told me that they had been beaten, whipped, choked, electrocuted, frozen. All kinds of terrible things happen to these prisoners. One of them had been beaten so badly that it didn't seem to know where he was anymore. And the other prisoners complained that he was forgetting that he had to pull his pants down when you use the toilet. And so they were always having to clean him up. So, you know, it was it was it was an awful, awful system. And when we wrote about it in the Globe and Mail, Canadian officials denied it. It was the lead question in the House of Commons for a couple of weeks. And then Canada abruptly tried to fix the mess by signing a new bilateral agreement with the government in Kabul. But of course, that didn't solve the problem. And it went on for many years, this sort of cat and mouse game of trying to to patch up the detainee system really until Canadian troops left. And I have to say, you know, the system of detention in Afghanistan just got worse over the years, really. I mean, the bleached bones of prisoners are still washing up in the western deserts. And there's going to be an accounting, I think, someday for all the terrible things that happened down there in the south.

MG: You do some accounting as well for yourself. I mean, the man who helped you break that story and report on those abuses was later captured by the Taliban and he was beheaded. And you go and visit with with his family, in part because you say that you felt responsible. Tell me more about that.

GRAEME SMITH: I was actually genuinely curious. You know, when you make a documentary, you're supposed to know what people are going to say before you meet them. But I did sort of broke those rules a little bit. I didn't know what the relatives of I'm sorry Baluch would think of me. I knew that we had put his name on the front page of the Globe and now he had been a big part of the detainee story. And then I knew that some months later he had been kidnapped and beheaded. And I never really got to the bottom of why. So I went to see his family in Kabul and his relatives wept as he described seeing and saw his body. And and he told me, look, it was it was a kidnapping by the Taliban. It didn't have to do with with your stories. I don't know. She was just being nice or but anyways, that's what he said. And we thought we would include Inside Story in the documentary. And I'm pleased to say that the young man who told me that story has just landed in Italy. He's now seeking asylum. So like a lot of people in the film, he has now escaped the country.

MG: You go back to Afghanistan and you meet a number of people there in the country who are trying to figure out what their life looks like in the Afghanistan war. One of the people is a woman named Aisha. She was born in Norway and she joins the Norwegian army and then returns to Afghanistan. Let's take a listen to how she describes the hours after the Taliban was first ousted.

Speaker 4: [sc]

And I remember playing music, playing Afghans love music. As soon as the regime was toppled, I felt that, OK, now the world has access to Afghanistan and Afghanistan has access to the world, to all the impulses that help a country move in the right direction, practically that meant, you know, development projects coming in, girls going to school as something as basic as that.

MG: You were talking earlier about that idea of a noble war. When did that initial feeling of jubilation amongst Afghan people start to disappear?

GRAEME SMITH: It really depends on who you work for some Afghans, they never stopped believing in the war. I think if you open up Twitter, you can see today Afghans calling on their fellow countrymen to stand with the resistance of the last remaining militiamen in the north in a place called the Panjshir Valley who are still fighting the Taliban. So, yes, some people remain extremely enthusiastic about the war. I think if you were an ordinary person living in rural Afghanistan, you probably just don't like war in general. You know, there was a story going around. I don't know if it was apocryphal or not, that the villagers in a remote part of Oruzgan province, when the NATO troops showed up, they just said, oh, the Russians have new tanks because they sort of equated the foreign invaders with one another. They didn't see any difference between us and the Russians. So, you know, it's an incredibly divided country. I'm surprised every time I had a conversation with with any Afghan and when we tried to do with this documentary was to speak to a really broad range of people. And I think we've really just scratched the surface. You know, there's so many competing visions of the country, and it's a very polarised place.

MG: There are billions of dollars that were poured into the country as part of the reconstruction effort. And one of the people that you meet in the documentary is a man named Hamdullah, Mohib. He is the now former national security adviser of the former Afghan president. He talks to you about some of the alliances that the previous government had made. Take a listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

To get quick fixes, we empowered some of the very warlords that people were fed up with, we put them in positions of ministries and governors as businesses, they were given lucrative contracts.

MG: What did that corruption do, Graeme, to the way the people on the ground saw what was unfolding?

GRAEME SMITH: You know, it's funny. Corruption is sometimes treated like a side issue. You know, it's sort of like, oh, well, it's Afghanistan that's corrupt. But corruption was such a profound part of what went wrong here. You know, the government was a series of overlapping criminal enterprises backed up by thunderous foreign air support. And they, the government preyed on its own people and the people rose up and overthrew it. I mean, that's a huge part. It's not the only thing that happened here, but that that is a that is a huge part of of why we, the West, lost the war.

MG: Do you see a direct line between that and the return of the Taliban?

GRAEME SMITH: Yes, definitely. I mean, because the birth of the Taliban was as a rebellion against what was known as the Mujahideen, these sort of multiple squabbling Islamist factions that had been backed by the West against the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. The Taliban were revolting against what they saw as financial and moral corruption by the Mujahideen. I mean, the people were kids were getting raped at checkpoints. And you couldn't drive a truck along the road. So being extorted multiple times and the Taliban rose up against them. And then when the West invaded Afghanistan, we you know, as you heard in the clip, we aligned ourselves with those same mujahideen factions and the Taliban reconstituted and rose up against those same people one more time.

MG: I mentioned, Aisha, that you spoke with who was Norwegian, joins the army. She eventually quits the army and becomes an Afghan civilian. And there's this really interesting moment in the film in which she talks about this moment that she had once she took her uniform off. Take a listen.

Speaker 4: [sc]

When I was in a uniform, my entire understanding of the situation was a very kind of security based understanding. But it was only when I actually came back to Afghanistan as a civilian, you know, as Aisha that I got a reality check. Suddenly I felt that I witnessed the occupation in action. It was seeing people that don't look like them to control their cities, control their checkpoints, to control their movement.

MG: She calls this an occupation that's a really powerful word. Tell me more about that. And is that how you were hinting at this before, how Afghans saw the presence of the United States and other countries over the sweep of history there?

GRAEME SMITH: I mean, as I say, Afghans have so many different points of view in this, you know, there are there are urban Afghans who have more modern, shall we say, dreams for their own country, who definitely did not feel like it was an occupation. They felt like, in fact, the presence of foreign troops protected them from Taliban occupation. But I think the reality is that easily 70 percent of the country is rural. Most Afghans live in villages, not in the cities. And Aisha has worked really bravely and quite extensively in the south of the country. And so she's seen for herself what people think in those villages. And so when she when she uses the word occupation, that's not just her point of view. She's reflecting back hundreds of conversations that she's had with with villagers who who want one of the foreign troops out. And, you know, in the last month, they finally they finally got what they wanted.

MG: We've spoken with a number of Afghans over the past few weeks and they talk about the last 20 years and what was accomplished in the last 20 years. They worry that that that was for nothing. But they also say that perhaps what happened in those last 20 years would not have happened without the presence of those foreign countries in Afghanistan. So how do you square that?

GRAEME SMITH: You know, it's interesting. I've had conversations along these lines with Taliban and some of them, you know, the more kind of open minded amongst the Taliban will say, yeah, it is good that some things were built and we got some roads that telecommunications towers are now dotted across the landscape. But then we look at me and they'll say, just imagine what might have happened if you hadn't turned our country into an inferno of violence. You know, like, yes, the country has developed over the last 20 years, but so have many countries. And there is an alternative history that you can imagine in which there was no invasion in 2001.

MG: And that's I mean, you start the film essentially there by talking about how the last two decades have essentially been a disaster for the country. Where does that leave those promises that were made by countries like Canada to Afghan women, for example, around issues of education, around human rights?

GRAEME SMITH: Well, I mean, it hasn't been an unmitigated disaster, there are today twice as many Afghans living in Afghanistan as there were under Taliban rule. So, you know, you're talking about a population that has flourished in some ways. There has been greater access to education, better access to health care. There has been some difficulties with getting people out of poverty. By some accounts, poverty has actually worsened in recent years. But just in terms of the sheer number of people in the country, there has been a flourishing in some ways. And now what's left behind? I don't know. One of the the girls school in Kandahar that we profiled in the film, the director of that school, I just saw a photograph of him landing in America seeking asylum. The the school itself is no longer accepting female students, but it is a thorny thicket of policy issues now confronting Canada and its allies about how to clean up this mess in Afghanistan that we leave behind.

MG: I think of that young girl that you spoke with who wants to wear orange socks, and she talks about how she doesn't know whether she would be able to wear them any more. But the last shot we see is of her sitting there with those socks on. What happens to someone like her who wants to be herself.

GRAEME SMITH: Well, in the last few days, my co-writer Julian Sher has been in touch with Marium and Adiba, those two girls, they're still in Kabul. I suspect that they're not flaunting orange socks at the moment because everyone's being pretty cautious. You know, no one really knows how the Taliban are going to enforce their rules.

MG: You seem genuinely heartbroken in some ways by where the country has gone. But the way that you're describing that also suggests that. There is a bit of hope in there as well.

GRAEME SMITH: The deadliest war on the planet just ended. I think there is a chance that foreign donors like Canada will still commit some money to keeping the lights on, quite literally, actually keeping the lights on, making sure the electricity utility is still working. And why would they do that? Because there are so many poor countries around the world. Well, hopefully because we should feel a sense of responsibility after all the damage was done to Afghanistan. So, yeah, I think there is still some hope, despite everything grim.

MG: It's a great film and I'm glad to talk to you about it. Thank you very much.

GRAEME SMITH: Thank you.

MG: Graeme Smith is a former Canadian correspondent for the Globe and Mail and the author of The Dogs Are Eating Them Now Our War in Afghanistan. The world premiere of his documentary Ghosts of Afghanistan is tonight on TVO. CBC Radio's ideas will also run a radio version of the documentary tomorrow night at 8pm. And we'll continue our series, Afghanistan and the Shadow of the Taliban. This Friday, I'll speak with former Afghan politician and women's rights activist Fawzia Koofi. And on Monday, I'll sit down with Washington Post reporter Craig Whitlock, who's the author of The Afghanistan Papers A Secret History of the War. Well, coming up after your regional update, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the United States. That's in Texas. And it now has other red states thinking about how they can challenge Roe v. Wade. What happens next in 90 seconds? I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

New Texas abortion law creating devastating situation for young people

Guests: Rosann Mariappuram, Priscilla Smith

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

That were created in Dallas with the right to life, and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion law. In Texas, we work to save those lives.

MG: In May, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law one of the most restrictive pieces of abortion legislation the United States has ever seen. And that law was given the green light by the U.S. Supreme Court last week. Almost no abortion passt six weeks' gestation is legal in the state of Texas. The pro-choice movement in the state and the country is furious.

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When abortion is under attack, what do we do?

[Protestors chanting and cheering]

MG: Some protesters say the law is a violation of the landmark Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade, and they want it revoked. Unless that happens, options for women in Texas are limited. They can travel out of state if they have the means, or they could try to find a provider willing to risk being sued. For anyone under the age of 18, the situation is even more difficult. Rosann Mariappuram is executive director of Jane's Due Process. It's a non-profit that ensures legal representation for pregnant minors in Texas. Suzanne, good morning.

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MG: Thank you for being here. Just briefly, tell me a little bit about the clients that your organisation serves. I mean, who are they and in what circumstances do they come to you when they're looking for help?

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: So Texas, along with 30 plus states in the US, require anyone under 18 to have their parents written permission if they'd like to access abortion care. And so we work with teens for whom that's not an option because their families would not support their decision. They might get kicked out of their homes for being pregnant or they don't have parents or guardians in their life can help them. So we're hoping a population that really is going through this process of seeking abortion care alone.

MG: And so what does this law mean for the young women who would be your clients?

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: You know, I think people keep talking about it as a six week ban, as if people should be able to access care before six weeks, but over 85 percent of the abortions that currently happened in Texas are no longer possible under the ban. And for our clients, many of them do not discover they're pregnant until six weeks. So it's a full abortion ban for our clients.

MG: I had read that that you were getting fewer calls since this law went into effect just in the days following. If those calls aren't coming in, what's happening to the people?

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: Our concern is that teens have seen that the law has taken effect and they estimate that their past six weeks and then they just don't try to seek help at all. I mean, one hope is that maybe they're trying to go out of the state. But for a 17 or 16 year old who's keeping a pregnancy secret, it's very unlikely that they can safely leave the state.

MG: What sort of conversations have you had with the teens who have called?

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: A lot of them assume abortion is completely illegal, so we try to explain the law, explain that there is a narrow window in which we can try to help and then a lot of others just, you know, they call us just as they find out they're pregnant, so they're also just processing what's happened. And so there is an extra layer of trauma now knowing that they can't get the care they need.

MG: Emotionally what are those conversations like?

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: I think a lot of them this is also new for them. Texas doesn't allow sex education or does not require it. So a lot of our youth are just learning about contraception as they become sexually active. And Texas requires parental consent for birth control, too. So a lot of youth explained that they weren't allowed to get birth control and now they're pregnant. So it's very emotional. But a lot of our youth are also just incredibly strong because they're navigating this by themselves. And so they have a lot of care and consideration that goes into their decision.

MG: As you say, they're navigating it by themselves and they're looking for they're calling you looking for assistance and guidance and support in some ways. What do you tell them in the moment when when they're calling looking for that?

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: We're very much still committed to doing everything we can for youth, so we tell them, know they did the right thing by calling us. We will work with them wherever they're at in their pregnancy, and we'll support whatever decision and outcome they have to pursue. So we just try to reaffirm that they've done an incredible job by finding our resource and that we're here for them no matter what happens.

MG: What are the options that they have in place now with with this ban now in effect?

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: So all of the abortion clinics in Texas are abiding by the law. So you can only get abortion care up to six weeks. So we start by helping them find out how pregnant they are. And that involves usually going to get a sonogram or ultrasound. And so if they're under six weeks, they can try to pursue getting care in state. If they're over six weeks, we do explain that you could go out of the state and try to go to a place like New Mexico, which doesn't have parental consent laws and doing abortion care passed six weeks. But for a lot of our youth, that's not an option. So then we discuss what they like to try and wait and hope that the ban lifts. Do they accept that they are going to have to stay pregnant against their will and become parents and what are the resources we can provide, whatever their outcome?

MG: That's a lot to try to understand at 16 or 17 years old.

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: I agree, and it's a real failure by our state government that they're putting teens and any pregnant person in this position.

MG: One of the things about this law is that we're going to speak about this in just a moment with legal professor, but it empowers private citizens in some ways to enforce the law. How open are you and how open is your organisation to prosecution for helping these girls? Do you worry about that?

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: We do. We started this fighting, fighting the law when it was introduced. And the private lawsuit piece is really unheard of in terms of an abortion restriction and really any attack on civil rights. Our organisation has been targeted multiple times by Texas right to life. And so we know that their goal is to close clinics, but also to close charities like ours, which are just designed to help people seeking abortion care.

MG: So what would it mean if if those private citizens were to come after you?

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: On the way the law's written, we could get sued anywhere in Texas by any one minimum if they win on their claim is an award of ten thousand dollars. And the law has so many legal postures that are unheard of, including denying us a lot of our normal defences that goes in the face of a lot of general tort law. I think we're a small organisation with a handful of people working statewide with hundreds of teens. We don't have the capacity to survive multiple lawsuits, so I am concerned it would shut us down.

MG: How do you try to understand what's happening in Texas right now? This isn't the first time that Texas has done this and certainly not the first time in the last several months or years that Texas has tried to make a move like this. How do you can you at all understand why this is happening?

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: I think that a lot of people don't think about abortion care until they need it. And so politically, our issue is often not centred as something that we need to protect and fight for. We've relied for, you know, 40 plus years on the Roe v. Wade decision. And that's why it's been attacked time after time in Texas. But everyone keeps saying, we have Roe v Wade, we have Roe v Wade. But Roe v. Wade was never enough. And the Supreme Court proved that last week by quietly ending abortion here in Texas simply by denying to hear our case. So I think many advocates have seen this coming. But now our whole country and really the whole world have seen what a relentless attack it's been on abortion.

MG: Well, from your perspective, I mean, how do you think the world is viewing Texas and the United States right now?

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: You know, I think. They probably are shocked, and I know yesterday we got the news that Mexico's Supreme Court actually decriminalised abortion care. So it's hard to see our neighbours take these giant steps towards human rights and then to see the United States, you know, really abandon those who can get pregnant, which is half our population.

MG: Just before I let you go, what are you most worried about? It's only been a week.

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: I'm worried about the teens who aren't calling us. I'm worried about the pregnant people who can't leave the state because financially it's not an option. Maybe they don't have child care. Maybe it's not safe because they're you know, they have folks who are watching them. Maybe they're experiencing intimate partner violence. I'm worried about the means they might take to try to end a pregnancy. We really are in a position where. It's not safe to seek abortion care. People don't think it is, and I'm afraid for folks who might try dangerous methods to end the pregnancy.

MG: Rosann, I'm glad to speak with you this morning. Thank you very much.

ROSANN MARIAPPURAM: Thanks so much for having me.

MG: Rosann Mariappuram is executive director of Jane's Due Process. It's a non-profit that ensures legal representation for pregnant minors in the state of Texas. The path to getting this law passed ran through the Supreme Court and any moves to roll it back will likely be fought in the courts as well. Priscilla Smith is senior fellow at the Programme for the Study of Reproductive Justice at Yale Law School. Priscilla Smith. Good morning to you.

PRISCILLA SMITH: Good morning.

MG: Rosann kind of sketched out a little bit of this, but from your perspective, legally, what makes this abortion law unique?

PRISCILLA SMITH: Well, the law both prohibits abortion, as you heard, and it also prohibits anyone from helping someone to obtain an abortion in Texas. So your mom, your sister, your friend who provides the phone number or driving anyone to the clinic, all of those things violate the law. It also, as you heard, it allows any person to sue someone who violates the law in state court for damages of at least 10,000 dollars. So it means that you can you can get sued any time. And the state is not enforcing the law. Only the private citizens are enforcing the law. You may hear this referred to as the private enforcement mechanism. And by delegating the enforcement to private citizens, the state never has to defend its actions in federal court.

MG: Does that does that mean it can't be challenged in federal court because the state isn't enforcing it? This is a private matter that this actually couldn't be challenged in court?

PRISCILLA SMITH: Well, it has been challenged, but so far the challenge is going nowhere. The courts have granted a motion to dismiss that's on appeal. And they've also stopped any proceedings in the lower courts. So they cannot go forward with review of the law, which means that you have no protection in federal court of Roe versus Wade. Roe is basically dead in Texas for the time being.

MG: Dead in Texas, you believe?

PRISCILLA SMITH: Yeah.

PRISCILLA SMITH: Tell me more about that, because states have tried to ban abortion after six weeks before calling this so-called heartbeat right laws. They've been blocked in part because in past that violates the precedent of Roe v. Wade. So what happens with the precedent now?

PRISCILLA SMITH: Well, the difference between this this case and those cases is that the state itself can't be sued because the state's not enforcing the law. Right. So you can only stop somebody from enforcing a law who is enforcing the law. And if you delegate that enforcement to private citizens who you don't know who they are yet, until they sue, you don't have anybody to sue in federal court. So it's a trick. They're actually using a legal precedent and a legal doctrine that was designed to protect constitutional rights and to ensure that people had access to the federal courts to do that. And they're using it. Instead, they're turning it on its head to deny women of their right to abortion under Roe. So there's no review under Roe. Just review in federal court where the court applies Roe and says this law is unconstitutional, which it clearly is under Roe. So they're using this this trick. And the terrible thing also that happened was the Supreme Court's response to the trick was completely lawless and cowardly because they allowed it to go forward, despite the fact that they're using these legal doctrines that are designed to do the opposite.

MG: Why was it lawless? I mean, the dissent led by Sonia Sotomayor was very explicit in saying why she believed it was lawless. But from your perspective, why was it lawless?

PRISCILLA SMITH: It's lawless because what they did was, as they said, they hide behind this doctrine. So the doctrine was designed and its intent is to ensure people have access to vindicate their rights in federal court, that they don't have to rely on state courts. And the reason for that is we think of the post civil war period. We think of the civil rights era when state courts don't protect people's rights. Right. And you need to get in federal court to ensure that protection. So the court is taking that doctrine and just ignoring it, ignoring what it was really designed to do and preventing people from getting into federal court and having federal court review. It's also cowardly of them because they did it in this really quiet way without full briefing or oral argument or a lot of public notice about what was happening there.

MG: There is another case coming in front of the Supreme Court that will test abortion rights. What what is that case?

PRISCILLA SMITH: Yeah, that case is about a ban on abortions that starting at 15 weeks out of Mississippi. And in that case, the court will have to grapple with the actual application of Roe to that law. So it's a little strange that the court used this mechanism for banning abortions in Texas and kind of allows other states to pass similar laws to ban abortions in their states one by one instead of just waiting. If they want to overrule Roe, let them do it in public and let everyone know exactly what they're doing and have the arguments. You know, the debate occur on the public stage.

MG: There's been a lot of speculation about what the court may do, given the makeup, the current makeup of the Supreme Court would participate.

PRISCILLA SMITH: Well, certainly what they just did doesn't give me any comfort. It you know, there were five justices who are willing to ignore this federal doctrine. And so I think, you know, if you were going to put your money on it, you would say they'll be five justices to ignore 50 years of precedent and overturn the right to abortion. Now, that's always possible that that won't happen. And I really hope that won't happen, that somebody there will be, you know, will care about the 50 years of precedent, will care about women's health. But I have no confidence that that's going to happen.

MG: In the meantime, do you expect other states to take a look at what's happening in Texas and sign up to try and replicate what happened there?

PRISCILLA SMITH: Absolutely. So I think if we don't put an end to what's going on now, the laws will just, as you say, replicate throughout the south and other red states, other states that have tried to ban abortion in the past. And women will have to fight to exercise their right to abortion in each of those states and they'll get caught in the same kind of quagmire. So it's essentially making it so that some states, you know, can ban abortion, women can have the right to abortion in some states and not have the right to abortion in another state.

MG: Which some legal observers have said in some ways was the tactic that you don't need to chop down Roe v. Wade. You can chip away at it enough that eventually the tree falls over.

PRISCILLA SMITH: Yeah, exactly. They've chipped. They've chipped enough in. The tree has fallen over in Texas and that will most likely happen in a number of other states. And as I said, the purpose of doing that is to be quieter about it, to get people less worked up about it. They don't really understand what's going on. Maybe in their state they still have the right to abortion. By the time they figure it out, it'll be too late and the court will have overturned the right.

MG: How do you understand what's happening right now, 40 plus years after Roe v. Wade? Why? Why is this still such an obsession for certain parts of the population in the United States?

PRISCILLA SMITH: Right. Well, you know, the the anti-abortion movement has grown. They've been very effective in their tactics and their public messaging in turning a number of people against abortion. But they have never succeeded in getting a majority of Americans to be against abortion. And so but they're strong. They're well-funded, they're ideologues. Those are the people who are going to be the most active. And pushing their own views on other people, and that's what we're seeing here.

MG: do you start to think then about what a post Roe v. Wade world looks like?

PRISCILLA SMITH: Absolutely, because that's happening in Texas right now. So, you know, I think what you have to think about is and you heard this from your previous guest is how to get people out of state. How to get women who don't have the means to travel, to get out of state, to get an abortion. So are we going to set up bus lines? Will they try to make setting up bus lines illegal? That should be unconstitutional as well, but so should this. So, you know, I worry a lot about those things.

MG: President Biden said this law unleashes in his this is his words, unleashes unconstitutional chaos. He wants federal agencies to protect women's right to abortion. What power does he have?

PRISCILLA SMITH: Well, you know, I think he has power to send federal troops down to Texas to prevent anyone from enforcing this law. And there's some precedent for that.

MG: Right, Sarah? Could you imagine something like that? Now, you saw that in the civil rights era when there was the desegregation of schools and the way that black kids could go to whatever school was in their district. But that's that's 50 years ago.

PRISCILLA SMITH: That's 50 years plus. We're at the same point. Yeah, we're at the same point now than we were then in terms of women's rights and the right to abortion. So things have just, you know, devolved to that state. We're very much in the battle that we've been having for, you know, since the civil war, not just the civil rights era, about states rights and states and certain places being able to eliminate constitutional rights for a group of people. And that's exactly where we are again. That's history repeats itself.

MG: What's it personally been like for you to watch this? I mean, you have dedicated a career to fighting for women's reproductive rights.

PRISCILLA SMITH: Yeah, it's it's really emotionally devastating in some ways. I it, you know, gets me riled up again. But it was very sad when the law went into effect. I was actually on the train riding to New Haven to teach a class in this issue. And I heard that the court had denied the plaintiffs motion to stay the law to put the law on hold while it was being challenged and they kicked them out of federal court. And it it was you know, I had a moment on the train. I had it and I tried to be an optimistic person, but I was very sad.

MG: Where do you find the optimism?

PRISCILLA SMITH: Oh, I don't know. I don't know if I have optimism, but I try, I try very hard to stay optimistic and to stay as cheerful as I can to to continue to fight this fight.

MG: Priscilla Smith, good to speak with you about this. Thank you.

PRISCILLA SMITH: Thank you so much.

MG: Priscilla Smith is a senior fellow at the Programme for the Study of Reproductive Justice at Yale Law School. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One, my name is Matt Galloway. If you have been listening to the programme this week, you might know that I spent last week in British Columbia hearing stories about fire and resilience, met some amazing people who were very generous in sharing their stories. And we brought you the story yesterday of Lytton B.C. and the people who lived in that town. Next week will take you about an hour and a half north of LITTEN, driving on Highway one to a first nation called Skeetch. I spent the day there. Not a single structure in that community burned, but a lot of the territory in the first nation did. Take a little listen to a bit of the story. We'll have the full story for you next week. This is Chief Darrel Draney and the fire keeper Daryl Peters.

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VOICE 1: It goes back to twenty seventeen, I believe it is the Elephant Hill Fire, we haven't even healed from that that that was the biggest fire in B.C. at the time and it laid right on her lap. We were just healing from that. And the community had that fresh memory. The night Sparks Lake reared its ugly head over those mountains to the east of us. This time only our community only had minutes to get out. What was it like? It was just like we're in a dream again. Second dream in a row, the next biggest fire in B.C. lands in our lap one more time. Everybody just watched Lytton, the city of Litten burned to the ground and they seen that monster coming over the hill. We didn't know what to expect, but we stayed organised and we stayed stayed the fight where we scared every piece of my bone in my body was telling me to run. And our warrior stood there and they marched towards the fire when everybody else was running. And believe me, I wanted to as well. But they marched forward to the fire and held it back.

VOICE 2: I would say the fire came, I wouldn't say pretty close to winning, but it came pretty close to the valley, bottom to the floor. But I wouldn't let it fire made its move and then I had to make my move. It's like reading a person. You got to read how they work, what they do, what they can accomplish in such amount of time. That's what I had to watch for. Just to be on top of the game of watching fire, just knowing how the fire grows and how much time and how much wind that goes into it to build bigger, faster or smaller. I knew it would be devastating once it got into the valley, but that was my main mission. I didn't want it to get to the reserve and come down and take out the valley. It just got to the top part. And our southeast winds that day. And just the way our valleys run is what helped us out all the way through. It goes back to having the responsibility of the elders, the generations that it was handed down to me. I have never really thought much of it. I didn't know I was going to be such an important person growing up into what I what I do today. My grandmother used to look after the fires. My great grandmother used to. And I goes back to the nineteen for my great grandmother. So I'm kind of like the fourth, fourth generation, fifth generation that's carrying this on fire will always be here. And you just have to respect that.

VOICE 1: You have to understand that we understand fire. We we understand energy. We've understand energy for thousands and thousands of years and how energy works and how fire works on the ground and how it can be used. If you don't use fire to protect the land, the fuel stacks up and then you end up with huge, bad, bad sparks like fire. You end up with elephant hill fires, huge fires that do more damage than good. You have to understand in those ceremonies we asked fire to go away, but we also asked to come back. We need fire. We want it back.

PRISCILLA SMITH: It's the Skeetchan chief, Darrel Draney, and the community's fire keeper, Daryl Peters, felt lucky to be welcomed into that community and spend the day there. You'll hear more from the sketches and First Nation coming up next week on The Current. That is The Current for this Wednesday. Coming up next on CBC Radio one, it's q. Have you seen the film Sound of Metal? It's great. Riz Ahmed nominated for an Oscar and that film he plays a drummer who's losing his hearing. It's got a new movie out. It's called Mogul Mogwli Plays a rapper who develops an auto immune disease. Riz Ahmed, speaking of Tom Power about both films and taking up the cause of accurate and widespread representation of Muslims in Hollywood. That discussion as the Toronto International Film Festival is set to kick off, coming up in just a few moments on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll see you tomorrow.

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