Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2021

The Current Transcript for September 20, 2021

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Between the fires and the heat, we stayed indoors. Many of us are just looking for to fall. It was a bummer of a summer.

MATT GALLOWAY: It is Election Day. And over the course of this campaign, all the parties have been talking about how they would tackle climate change. It's a pressing issue in BK's, Okanagan Valley, where the temperatures are scorching and water is running short. We had there in an hour to see the effects of a warming planet firsthand. Also this morning, whether you're talking about the mountains of British Columbia or the lakes of Quebec, the natural world is a big part of how Canadians see this country. But who feels most comfortable in those wild spaces.

SOUNDCLIP

As a visibly non-white person in my family, also non-white. We would always be the outsiders. There's never going to be a point in time where they will look at our family and say, Oh yeah, you've been here for such a long time. Like you are part of our community.

MG: In 30 minutes, Duncan McCue returns with his series Back to the Land, this time looking at race and nature. We begin, though, with the complicated relationship between the Taliban and the Pakistan. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. And this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Pakistan’s complicated relationship with the Taliban

Guests: Susan Ormiston, Obaidullah Baheer

It has been a month now since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, and while most of the world is still waiting and watching to see how they plan to govern, Pakistan has now officially recognised the new government but has expressed its support.

Speaker 3: They want an inclusive government. They want women from women's rights in their own context. They want human rights. They've given amnesty. So far, what they have said, clearly, they want international acceptability.

MG: That's Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan, speaking with CNN, his first televised interview with Western media since the Taliban took power. CBC senior correspondent Susan Ormiston was recently in Pakistan and she joins me now. Susan, hello.

SUSAN ORMISTON: Good morning.

MG: We heard from the Pakistan prime minister there. He has said that the Taliban deserves the benefit of the doubt from the international community. Why would the government in Pakistan want that?

SUSAN ORMISTON: Regional influence boils down to that, Matt. Islamabad proceed, the Ashraf Ghani government as really too close to both the U.S. and to India and not sympathetic, really, to Pakistan's interests. So the night of the Taliban, they named their all male cabinet. I met with a special assistant to the prime minister. His name is Rouf Hassan, and he described Pakistan's early relationship with this new Taliban government.

SOUNDCLIP

We feel more secure in the sense that we know that the government we have in Kabul today is much more sympathetic to the concerns of the neighbouring countries. We also feel secure in the sense that the government in Kabul is inclined to working with neighbouring countries and regional countries and of forging peace and creating other strategies. So that augurs well for the future. Definitely.

MG: So Pakistan sees this new Taliban government as some sort of regional partner for the first time and in decades.

SUSAN ORMISTON: Yes, but Matt, you know, and many do that for a long time. The U.S. and others have accused Pakistan's intelligence services of supporting the Taliban with training, money, with weaponry. Now, Pakistan's government denies this and has for years. So I asked Hassan about that history, the complaints that, you know, some of the leadership in the Taliban, lived in Pakistan, were educated in Madrass, that's religious schools there, and went back and forth across the border.

SOUNDCLIP

We looked after over four million refugees for the last so many so many years. And we had just a few families, Taliban families living in our country. So, you know, look at it. You know, you must make a comparison. You know, we have looked after millions of Afghans for a number of years now. But why is it that the world prefers to just talk about those few families, not about the four million refugees that we still house in Pakistan?

MG: So Pakistan feels as though it's looked after its fair share of Afghan refugees. How do Afghans feel about their neighbours?

SUSAN ORMISTON: Well, it is mixed, of course. But here, here's one perspective recently. So they're chanting death to Pakistan, this was a protest recently in Kabul and Pakistan says that this was staged by foreign actors. But amongst those who oppose the Taliban and still in the country, they see Pakistan as a player who really helped in the fall of the Ghani government. And they allege that it was trying to help put down the resistance even after that. Pakistan roundly denies this. But here's an important nuance now. Remember that in the first few news conferences by the Taliban, the spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the Taliban wouldn't allow any country, including Pakistan, to interfere in its affairs. And I asked Haroon Rashid, he's a longtime Pakistani journalist, about the Taliban's public strategy vis a vis Pakistan.

SOUNDCLIP

They want to show a bit of a distance between Pakistan and the Taliban now that they are in control because they don't want to be seen as Pakistan's stooges or something like that internally inside Afghanistan. It will be very difficult for them to counter this kind of narrative because these are all Pakistanis, men who have taken control.

MG: He says that Pakistan wants to show distance. But the reality is the first visitor the Taliban had even before the interim cabinet was announced was the chief of intelligence for Pakistan.

SUSAN ORMISTON: Yes, Lieutenant General Faiz Hamid, head of the ISI. He popped up at the Serena Hotel in Kabul on September 4th. So early on, Pakistan says he was invited to talk about border concerns and there are many. Haroon Rashid said it was very interesting optics.

SOUNDCLIP

So I think General Pervez Hamid was trying to bring different factions, some sort of an agreement as well. If you go by the Taliban statement, the visit was fruitful. I mean, I don't know the picture of General Fase Hamid with a cup of tea. Was it intentional or was it just to show off that ISI is in a quite comfortable position in Afghanistan or something like that? But my hunch is that that was the message behind that picture, was that things are under control.

MG: It would appear that that the Taliban in Pakistan are treading some sort of fine line in terms of how they represent their relationship to the international community and what that relationship actually means. And to Afghans in particular. It was interesting. You were speaking with the assistant to the prime minister earlier, and he mentioned the number of Afghan refugees that are already in Pakistan. You spoke with longtime Afghan refugees in Islamabad. What did they tell you about their situation?

SUSAN ORMISTON: You know, there have been waves of Afghan refugees in Pakistan over 40 years of war, really, you know, one point four million registered and probably a couple million undocumented as well. So Pakistan is saying, look, it can't afford another surge of refugees. It already has millions. So the borders are currently closed mat closed to Afghans except those with visas to enter Pakistan or with medical necessities. We went to Rawalpindi, which is actually really close to Islamabad. It's a sprawling city. And Afghan refugees here have kind of settled into the fabric over the decades. And we found a doctor at a tiny clinic clinic, really on a shopping street. And we asked him what he thought of the new government.

SOUNDCLIP

The new government is a very well, I hope, because the last government ghazarian, Ashraf Ghani is not good. Now Taliban is very well.

SUSAN ORMISTON: That was Dr. Matola Nourizadeh. He got his medical degree at Kabul University, but he left Afghanistan out in 2000.

MG: So that's right before the Taliban was ousted.

SUSAN ORMISTON: Yes. And he said now, you know, he would consider going back to help his country. He said, convinced it will be better now. And he even tried to persuade us that this regime would be better for women now.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Yeah, now woman relax. Now woman feeling relaxation because woman was very difficult, a very difficult time.

SUSAN ORMISTON: During the last twenty years. It was difficult for women?

VOICE 1: Very difficult

SUSAN ORMISTON: and it will be better for women now.

VOICE 1: Yeah.

SUSAN ORMISTON: How can you say that. Many women say they can't get educated, they can't have jobs.

VOICE 1: Is the picture of the I want to explain. Picture of the Taliban. Twenty years. It's very black picture.

MG: Help me understand that. Did he tell you why he thought that conditions for women would be better now under the Taliban?

SUSAN ORMISTON: Yes, I mean, we did press him on that. And he explained more in in Urdu as it was getting a little lost in translation. He explained that, you know, these decades of war have been harsh for families. And I'd heard that myself in my years reporting in Afghanistan that women in particular felt caught between the Taliban and the NATO forces. You know, I. Ads and air attacks, it was not good and they were getting very frustrated by that, they felt that the coalition in some rural parts of Afghanistan had really failed them. So that's what he was meaning. And he insisted that the Taliban's rule now would bring more stability. Of course, this is a very unique perspective from an Afghan refugee living in Pakistan and, of course, strongly rejected by others, particularly women.

MG: What about that idea of stability? How does Pakistan see the issue of stability, particularly along the border with Afghanistan?

SUSAN ORMISTON: It's a very long border, you know, over 2500 kilometres, and it cuts right across a common ethnic group. Pashtuns Haroon Rashid we were speaking to told me that there's a real divide in Pakistan between those who believe the Taliban will bring more stability and security and others who are deeply worried.

SOUNDCLIP

HAROON RASHID: The Pakistani civil society, the liberals, the moderates, they fear this will give strength to the religious hardliners in Pakistan who come forward and try to work for a similar sort of a setup in Pakistan as well. So it could destabilise Pakistan. So get a divided opinion in Pakistan, divided opinions.

MG: Devided opinion for Pakistan is still playing a key role as a host country to those who do get across, despite the fact that, as you said, the borders are closed.

SUSAN ORMISTON: Yes, I mean, there are exceptions and it is allowing countries, including Canada, currently to help get Afghans out who have papers. But some even those who make it out feel still vulnerable. We've been a band called Soheil that's not his real name, but he still feels vulnerable. He'd work for 20 years with foreign media and he was very certain he would be punished if he were caught and even killed. And I asked him why he fled going overland to get out of Afghanistan.

SOUNDCLIP

HAROON RASHID: if you were against Taliban. We went against their law. We basically went against them. They were saying, do not work for foreigners, do not translate anything. I used to do everything for the Canadian press.

MG: We know that there are many others like him, interpreters, people who helped Canadians in Afghanistan. How does he feel now that he's out of the country and in Pakistan?

SUSAN ORMISTON: Well, he's afraid of being stranded in Pakistan and not getting on to another country, this case, Canada. And he said he was really relying on Canada to help him now.

SOUNDCLIP

HAROON RASHID: Know it's their time to pay me and attention and to take me there. I deserve to stay safe and sound. That's more than enough 20 years we have risked ourselves, not only myself, ourselves, my entire family members. Now it's their time to help us and to take out from here as soon as possible.

MG: He sounds desperate when you listen to what's at stake and the way that he describes the situation that he's in. This evacuation process is still ongoing. It's complicated, to put it politely. What are you going to be watching for in the weeks and months to come as it continues to unfold?

SUSAN ORMISTON: So many things, Matt. I mean, the evacuation still critical, but really some clarity on what the Taliban government actually decrees regarding people's freedoms or lack thereof. You know, over the last few days, not good signs for women. The mayor of Kabul saying women who work in the city administration should stay home. There are other over 3000 female employees there. They'll only be allowed to work if men can't replace them in those jobs. Early indications that girls in grades six to 12 will not be starting school as the boys have already. We don't know if that's long term. So these types of things really critical. But the immediate worry is the economy. You know, Afghans really feeling strapped for food and money. Before all this, 80 percent of the budget of this country was financed by international funds. And with those funds being frozen, you know, people's salaries have been frozen in some cases for months. And of that large evacuation that we all watched this summer, 125 thousand and more, you know, those were the educated Afghans who could get out while the majority really live on, you know, about two dollars a day match. So very difficult circumstance.

MG: The world will be watching. Susan, I really appreciate this. Thank you very much.

SUSAN ORMISTON: You're most welcome.

MG: Susan Ormiston, senior correspondent for CBC News. She is in Washington. The Taliban's new interim government has some familiar faces. In it, the interim cabinet is led by Mullah Mohammed Hassan Akhund. He's on a U.N. blacklist. The new interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is on the FBI's most wanted terror list. And those familiar faces have countries and some Afghans worried Obaidullah Baheer is a lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul and he joins me now. Obaidullah, hello to you.

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: Hi.

MG: It's been a couple of weeks since this interim government was announced. How are people in Afghanistan reacting?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: Well, we were hoping that the. Announcement of the government would be the start of dispelling all the apprehensions that we had with regards to the structure of the governments in placidity and why the intensity of the government has been important to us because it showed as to whether the Taliban were really willing to stand by their rhetoric. It would have been one of the first trust building measures from their part. It would have also shown that the Taliban were willing to work towards a newer vision of the country, all of which unfortunately did not happen. We are very slowly seeing policies being rolled out by departments and ministries, including the one that announced the ban on the girls education from six to 12. The Taliban are justifying it by saying this is a temporary measure and that they are trying to facilitate the segregation of schools. Reality is, 99.9 Percent of Afghanistan schools are already segregated. So it really doesn't make sense. But without a timeline of when that would be fixed, we're all worrying signs for the coming months.

MG: You mentioned the apprehensions that people have. And I mean, this idea of an inclusive government is an aspirational goal. But there are no women. There are no other groups in the interim government. What are those apprehensions that people have about what this might lead to and what this might be telegraphing about what's coming up?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: It's pretty self-evident that a society that functions with the absence of women in leading roles is going to be a society that strips women of agency, and we would fail to understand the problems not women face in their life. And we've already seen problematic gestures, such as the announcement yesterday of specific ministries asking their female workers not to return to work. And at home. We need to remember that their brand of Islam has been at war for almost four decades. And as we know that men lead the charge in the war and end up being the ones that died in the war, meaning that with all the people that have died throughout the years, the women outnumber the men by a great extent. And it's always unfortunate that men take the leadership role because of the turmoil and the suffering that common people face. And then when a post-conflict society is that the same men come back home only to take back the little agency that the woman has developed while the men are away in battle. And it's just not this gender aspect of the society that is worrying about the economy that is at the brink of collapse. You've already heard reports about how within the middle of 2022 we will have more than 90 percent of the Afghan population below the poverty line. People do not have money to buy things. There is a cash flow problem, and I think the national reserves have dried out. And if the Taliban keeps on showing arrogance towards the international community and refuse to comply to international norms, we will see a further drying up of international aid, which was something the government heavily relied on the scene at one time. So this is just the tip of the iceberg of the worries that the Commonwealth holds right now.

MG: What about for you? You're a university lecturer. What does this change, this abrupt change meant for your life?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: I wish it mattered what we had done to my personal life. The issue is I was teaching 200 students and out of my 200 students, I think more than half of them have fled the country. I have students who are still in hiding. I have other students who keep telling me every class and every session that we have, that they cannot afford the education anymore. Remember that when you ask women to not go to work and not have employment opportunities, you are indirectly. Stopping their ability to seek higher education, most of the women in Afghanistan were either hired by the government, foreign embassies or international governmental organisations, all of those opportunities have been closed down on them. One doesn't understand how they would afford the education, but the Taliban very hesitant to have allowed university students to do that. So those who do show up to class are extremely motivated. They all hold the fear of the unknown that's to come. So it's it's one of those commonness, sad novels that everyone is giving right now.

MG: Do you see a future for yourself in the country? We know that the thousands of Afghans in similar situations who have seen, you know, the colour disappear from their lives have fled the country. Do you see a future for yourself there?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: I have sat down with other academics and we've had this discussion as to what the best course of action is. Look, call them the don't want the Taliban to fail, because then killing means Afghanistan, because then failing means another war breaking out, more lives being lost. And we do not want that vicious cycle of violence to return. So we never hear of the previous regime. We never will find the Taliban. We only served Afghanistan and we will do that for as long as we can. So the only thing that we feel that we can do right now is engage in discourse and that do not, even with the Taliban leadership, work with the Afghans.

MG: I wish you the very best in the work that you're doing, and I hope you stay safe. It's a really difficult situation to be in. So I appreciate you describing what life is like on the ground from your perspective. Obaidullah, thank you very much.

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: Thank you for having me. Baheer is a lecturer at the American University in Afghanistan. He was in Kabul. The CBC News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

I'm not an outdoorsy person, but I really, really felt connected with growing food. And so I thought maybe if I'm not going to do it, then who else is going to look like me in this space?

MG: Duncan McCue brings us outside to reconnect with nature in his series Back to the Land. And today he's looking at the intersection of nature and race. I'm Matt Galloway The Current is back in six minutes. Stay with us.

How a first-generation farmer hopes to make rural agriculture more diverse

Guests: Duncan McCue

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway, and you're listening to The Current. Still to come, we head to the Okanagan, where the effects of climate change are being felt in drastic ways. But first, into the great outdoors. Mondays at this time on The Current, we are bringing you back to the Land, a special series by my colleague, Duncan McCue. Duncan, good morning.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Morning, Matt. .

MG: In today's documentary, you're taking a look at race. Does the great outdoors have a race problem?

DUNCAN MCCUE: Good question. Try this. Do a quick Internet search at home for outdoors and recreation and advertising. And what's going to pop up is mostly white people in those images, whether it's canoeing or skiing or fishing or camping, there's not a lot of brown and black faces represented. And so we asked, why are green spaces so often seen by so many as white spaces? And that led us to a small farm with a pretty big mission. All right, let's take a listen.

SOUNDCLIP

DUNCAN MCCUE: When you turn off the highway a few hours drive from Toronto and follow the back roads of Prince Edward County past the rolling green fields and wineries and artisanal eateries, you start to feel like you have left the big city behind. It's where you'll find Meena, the farmer, as she calls herself, digging in the dirt.

AMEENA HAJIJI: I am Amena Hugi. I'm the head lettuce of my farm, Raining Gold Family Growers, and we're here at the farm on the quarter acre parcel.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Amena is wearing overalls and a big brimmed sun hat, and she's standing in rows and rows of lush green plants smiling.

AMEENA HAJIJI: So here we have three sisters. So we've got squash pool beans and corn cucumbers, a few different types of peppers. We have Chiquitos eco peppers, eggplants, tomatoes are all in here under this structure. And then those are the last of the peas. We've got potatoes, bush, beans, like three rows of tomatoes. We've got a lot of tomatoes, peppers, we have some amaranth and then some more lettuce and kale back there, too.

DUNCAN MCCUE: It's a veritable cornucopia of herbs and vegetables. And it's pretty remarkable because just last year, the place she's standing right now was nothing more than an empty field.

AMEENA HAJIJI: This was all, all grass. And then I looked at the grass and thought, this will make for a good farm without a soil test, without like without really knowing all the things that you're supposed to do before you get a farm. I was just like, that seems good.

DUNCAN MCCUE: In fact, Ameena has been farming for barely a year, and the county, as locals call it, is a somewhat unlikely place for a city girl of Iranian Filipino descent, like her.

AMEENA HAJIJI: Toronto was my home. It was a place where my kids were born. I met my partner. I as a kid, Toronto was like the place that you went to make things happen. And Toronto was the place that I went to school. It was the place that I felt like the most like me. And to leave the city where so many other people looked like me and looked like my kids and spoke like us and ate all of this amazing food, it was like, are you sure you're moving to a rural area? Like, is that what you want? So I think leaving an urban city was so was definitely a shock to everyone that knows me for sure.

DUNCAN MCCUE: To understand why Ameena fled the city for a farm means going back to the before times February 2020 Amena had just turned 30 years old and given birth to her second child when the pandemic hit and what she calls her quarter life crisis.

AMEENA HAJIJI: I was living in Toronto in a small house, and my partner was working from home, I had two babies that were constantly crying. I couldn't do anything, I couldn't go to physio. I couldn't, like, do all of the things that I would have to to recuperate it after birth. And we didn't know what the world was going to look like, like it was kind of like the world was ending. And I had these two people I was responsible for. We were afraid to stand in line at the grocery store, being afraid of how precarious our food system was and how long are food chains in Canada when we're importing things from faraway countries. We didn't know if we would be able to get things. And we didn't we couldn't stand in line for for two hours to get into a grocery store with a newborn baby on our back. So I wanted to sort of take matters into my own hands. And I started gardening.

DUNCAN MCCUE: She ordered lights and shelves and potting mix and began growing seedlings in the baby's nursery.

AMEENA HAJIJI: I felt compelled to do this in sort of a a state of not knowing what was coming.

DUNCAN MCCUE: How much of a green thumb did you have before you started doing this?

AMEENA HAJIJI: Zero. Zero. I am a house plant killer. I had never planted anything before. I would always buy those like living lettuces or living herbs from the grocery store that are like in a pot that you would keep on your windowsill and and water. It would never work out, though. I had no idea what I was doing. Zero, zero idea. I watched a lot of YouTube and read a lot of books to figure it out.

DUNCAN MCCUE: She asked her landlord if she could dig up the tiny patch of grass in their backyard and got the thumbs up.

AMEENA HAJIJI: So I took a spade and I'm like, I think maybe six weeks postpartum at this point, and I cut up the sword and like rolled it up and got a really massive shipment of cow manure delivered to my Toronto alleyway and started shovelling that up onto the grass. And it took a long time. And I have a few pictures of, like, my daughter being on my back while I'm doing it. But it was like my mindfulness when I had a newborn that was screaming at me all day, like being in the in the grass, in the dirt, in the soil was really was really meditative for me.

DUNCAN MCCUE: And what did you plant?

AMEENA HAJIJI: Oh, I planted so much. It was basically like a jungle and at the end of the summer there were so many animals living in it that I was so afraid to get in there. I grew tomatoes, tomatoes, ground cherries, peppers, eggplants, a whole slew of herbs. I had crazy cucumber plants that would have overtaken my house for sure. I think I grew about 25 different things in my very small backyard with growing things, especially from seed. There's this thing of of delayed gratification. And in growing up, I was never taught that skill. Like it was very much like, you know, if you want something, you go get it and you get it now and you accomplish something very quickly. Like this taught me that I am totally out of control. And there are very little things that I can control, like what soil medium I use. But I was very out of control and I had to wait. I started tomato seeds in March and I didn't have tomatoes until like August. So that was the the most impactful part for me was I was watching it grow and just being like a proud plant mom, was wild.

DUNCAN MCCUE: When some family friends moved to Prince Edward County, Ameena and her husband Brice were intrigued. The county's natural beauty and sprawling farmland appealed to them. They dug deep, scraped together their savings and had just enough for a down payment on some land price.

AMEENA HAJIJI: And I would walk around Toronto and would laugh about how we will literally never be able to own a home. Creating generational wealth for our children is of utmost importance to us because we don't come from any financial privilege at all and we don't want our kids to have that's the same issues that we did. So coming out to the county for the first time, we had never been here before and seeing a house on three acres of land that was under five hundred thousand dollars where I could dream about starting a farm was what sort of did it for us. And when we came out here, we thought, what's the worst that can happen?

DUNCAN MCCUE: Were you outdoorsy at all?

AMEENA HAJIJI: No, no, I still don't like animals like I am, if I will see a mouse in the field and I will scream and people in Toronto will probably hear me scream from here, no, I'm not an outdoorsy person, but I really, really felt connected with growing food. And I saw that there weren't a lot of people that looked like me in this. And so I thought maybe if I'm not going to do it, then who else is going to look like me in the space, I guess?

JAQUELINE SCOTT: Nature is coded as a white space. The city is coded as a multicultural space. So when black people, people of colour show up in nature, whether in the rural areas, on the farms or in the wilderness, and outdoor recreation you're seeing is out of place. It's always like, oh, what are you doing here?

DUNCAN MCCUE: That's Jacqueline Scott, who's doing her PhD at the University of Toronto on how to make the Canadian wilderness more accessible to black folks. Jacqueline herself is an avid hiker and camper, but she's long felt treated like an outsider when she's outdoors. She says farming is much the same.

JAQUELINE SCOTT: I love farmer's market. I love the sense of the organic foods, the freshness, all of that stuff that they're selling. It's wonderful. But when I turn on my critical eye, it has a very different perspective. It's sold as this wholesome, healthy, alternative way of producing food. But it is white people who are doing the selling. It's mainly white people who are buying. And in the background is the black and brown people who are actually doing the work. And they very rarely get the public face, the public image. When I think of the advertising for the farmers market, the outdoor sector in general, the environmental sector, you very rarely see black people or other people of colour. So it kind of sends the message that it's a white thing because white people are the ones that you see consistently.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Think back on that children's classic, Old MacDonald had a farm, says Jacklin, and the message it sends about what farmers looked like

JAQUELINE SCOTT: in the social imagination of farmers. Always a white guy, right? And it's reinforced by the ads that you see in farming. It's reinforced that when you go to the farmer's market, that's what you see. And so when you see people of colour, it's like, oh, you're into farming, too. And so they have an extra hurdle where it's almost like they have to prove their credibility, their competence as farmers, because they are not what we are expecting to see.

AMEENA HAJIJI: The song that my kids sang about, like old Mr. McDonald, he has a farm and he has a tractor and I'm surrounded by those farms, like literally on my street, there's like four of them. That, to me, is what I thought a farmer looked like. I didn't even acknowledge that my my family now in the Philippines are all rice farmers. Like, I didn't even picture my own identity in that. My own family. I didn't even picture as farmers who are literally doing it. I think it's a picture that everybody sort of has if they're not really looking hard enough.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Ameena I was determined to paint a different picture when she picked up and moved to the county. But she now admits she had no idea what she was getting into.

AMEENA HAJIJI: I thought the biggest challenges were going to be how do I grow tomatoes in at this scale and like how do I grow things and then sell them, but that was like the furthest thing from what was difficult.

DUNCAN MCCUE: She sold her first big hurdle, raising enough money to start buying farm equipment by pre-selling a weekly delivery of fresh greens. What she wasn't expecting was pushback from locals on how she advertised herself on social media, tagging herself as a BIPOC farmer or the small comments that she'd get when she went into town.

AMEENA HAJIJI: So the county is an interesting place because it is a booming tourist area and there is this divide between the people that come here, tourists and the people that have been here for generations of their family. And there are signs all over that say proud loyalists. And as a visibly non-white person in my family, also non-white, we would always be the outsiders. There is never going to be a point in time where they will look at our family and say, oh, like you've been here for such a long time, like you are part of our community. And that was one of the things that was very difficult, was that people would look at us and would assume that we weren't from here or assume that we don't live down the street and therefore we don't get to receive the same treatment that the other white folks would be getting. It was shocking to me, to be quite honest, like our family had packed up our stuff in a truck and moved here because we saw a beautiful place with great opportunity for our family and for us to be a part of a community and to have somebody say to us that we're not going to ever be from here or that we need to go back to our country, so to have to people say that to me is one thing. And then to have children that will that could grow up in the space like this makes me a little bit nervous because I don't want them to have to be told to go back to their to their countries because they were born here also.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Fitting in in the county wasn't the only struggle, as Ameena pushes through the tangle of plants of vines in her garden she's quick to point out all the farming mistakes she's made.

AMEENA HAJIJI: It looks like a weed for us right now.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Actually, setting up a farm from scratch has been a process of lurching from one gardening mishap to another, whether it was the time she found mould on her indoor lettuces.

AMEENA HAJIJI: Or having to put in dehumidifiers because our room was like at 87 percent humidity and having to have a lot of wastage, that was really difficult to throwing out trays of micro greens because they weren't on understocked.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Or the time she forgot to turn off the irrigation, which drained their water table.

AMEENA HAJIJI: And then we didn't have water in our house. So we had to wait for the water like the water table to like refill and for our pump to recover. But we couldn't, like, flush the toilet and take a shower. And we have two very messy kids who are just covered in like yoghurt and popsicles and everything. And we almost had to throw them in the lake because we had no water.

DUNCAN MCCUE: I mean, as learning curve has been steep.

AMEENA HAJIJI: Honestly, I think, like, almost every day there's like 12 things that will go wrong. I have a trellis up right now that is was put up so poorly because I didn't realise how heavy they would be. Like once they were so tall, the peas, they were just leaning over and basically on the ground. And I'm just and I'm just trying to pick the peas and I'm like on the ground trying to pick them. And then a rabbit darts by and scares the crap out of me. And then I hear, like, little biting, which I think is like a mouse nearby. And so I whip out my phone and I put on a Spotify playlist as loud as possible. Some of the animals think that there's like a big party happening and they won't bother me. But I think honestly, almost every day I'm like, why am I doing this? Like, what the heck have I done? But when you pick that thing that's ready to be picked and when it's ripe, like that's when all of that just magically you forget it. It's almost like when you have a kid and then you forget what like that newborn stage is like, and then you're like, okay, maybe I'll have another kid. That's sort of what farming is like. You forget all of the crappy things.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Jacqueline Scott maintains that what's been forgotten in Canada is the long history of BIPOC perseverance in the outdoors. She uses as an example Harriet Tubman, the famous abolitionist who led hundreds of black slaves to freedom in Canada.

JAQUELINE SCOTT: I was totally enthralled with Harriet Tubman as an outdoor expert. And when we think of her, we think of her more as a social justice warrior, the freedom fighter, our modern equivalent of that. But we don't think of her as somebody who was an expert in backwoods skills, in nature survival. She used 19 different routes because there was a price tag on her head and the bounty hunters were always looking for her. But what amazed me about her, because I also lead hikes and bike rides for two different outdoor clubs, so I was thinking as a hike leader, how do you find your way? Your navigation skills have to be superb. And then because the runaway slaves hiked at night, how do you navigate by the stars?

DUNCAN MCCUE: When it comes to farming, she brings up John Whare one of the first black ranchers to settle in Alberta in the 19th century.

JAQUELINE SCOTT: He was one of hundreds of black people who came from the U.S. in the late 80s, I think up to about 1911, and they were cowboys and they came up to the prairies to start a new life here. And one of their legacies is actually the Calgary Stampede and the ranching industry in the prairies. So if whenever we go to the Calgary Stampede and a couple of hundred black cowboys show up, we should not be surprised. Black people are part of that cowboy culture, part of that cowboy history.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Scott maintains that perceived lack of diversity in the Canadian outdoors has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, making nature and wilderness an awfully white space and less hospitable for BIPOC folks today. The pandemic, however, has changed that.

JAQUELINE SCOTT: two years ago, whatever was in the ravis, most of the black people that I saw there were the ones that I took there. Now you go into the ravines, you're seeing the Toronto subway crowd there. Now covid has forced us to go and explore nature and people of colour. It's like, wow, all of this is on my doorstep in Toronto, nearby nature. I don't have to trek all the way up to Algonquin Park or Bear to enjoy nature. You can do it via the subway people meaning specifically people of colour. We also recognise that to be in nature, it's coming, it's healing, it's rejuvenating all the good stuff and we want more of it. It also means that if you're black or a person of colour and you actually want to go and explore farming or living in rural areas, when you see other black people doing that, you can feel more confident that, OK, I will be fine. Now, as the black farmer in the woods, I don't have to be constantly looking over my shoulder because I know that there are other black farmers who are out there who are also doing the same thing. So, yeah, things are changing. It's been the only positive thing out of covid is that it has forced all of us to be reconnected to nature. And that's a good thing. There is no planet B.

AMEENA HAJIJI: Cucumber's need to be. Pickets like every two days.

DUNCAN MCCUE: When Amena realised she needed help starting up her farm, she posted an online ad to hire to BIPOC farm crew, and she was floored by the response.

AMEENA HAJIJI: I had over 300 people apply. So it's funny when other, you know, old white men, farmers say, well, nobody wants to work on my farm. I think that people really resonated with the job posting and with me as a potential employer, people do want to do this like this is a thing that people want to do. There's just no opportunity for it.

DUNCAN MCCUE: With her to hired hands, one indigenous, the other a black trans woman, Ameena did indeed build a farming business. It has not been easy, and she's not sure yet if she and her family will stay in Prince Edward County. She worries about her children. But when it comes to being a farmer,

AMEENA HAJIJI: I'm super proud. I made T-shirts that say farmer on the back that I sell at the farmer's market. Why? Because people told me that just because I wore overalls, it didn't make me a farmer and that I would never be a farmer and that people like me try to do this all the time and they fail. And I'll just go back to the city like everybody else and. No, like I am a farmer, I'm doing it, I'm growing things, and I'm selling them and people buy them. When I put together my first box and I was putting in a thing of lettuce, had lettuce, Chido peppers, I these are all these are all things that I grew from a tiny little sea that are full on vegetables. And I literally almost cried when I put together the first delivery because it was like thirteen bags just full of produce that we had grown from the space that I didn't know how to do like a year and a half ago. So just an immense sense of of pride and accomplishment and. Gratification really like it's the it's the best feeling in the world. I highly recommend it. [/sc]

MG: That's Duncan McCue. He's back next Monday with his final documentary in the series Back to the Land, this time about the fear of nature. Well, coming up after your regional update, we head to the Okanagan. Climate change has brought droughts and forest fires to this part of British Columbia. We'll hear from people there who are trying to hold on to a way of life that is feeling increasingly out of reach. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

How scorching temperatures and water shortages are affecting the Okanaga

Guests: Sukhpal Bal, Corinne Jackson

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current today is voting day, and tonight CBC Radio One will bring you the results as they come in and all the stories behind the numbers. Tune in for our special with Susan Bonner, Piya Chattopadhyay and Chris Hall. It begins at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. And, of course, join us here tomorrow on The Current. We will sift through those results and bring you insight on what they all mean. That is tomorrow morning on CBC Radio One. A few weeks ago, I was in the British Columbia interior looking at the effects of a summer of heat and fire in that region. And along with all that heat has come drought.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: Footsteps]

MG: Walking through Sukhpal Bal's Cherry Orchard, it does not take long to see what this hot, dry summer did to his crop.

SUKHPAL BAL: Those are those are heat to heat damage to. So you can see inside where there would have been some shade. But then when when the heat heat hit and then this would have had some indirect heat on it. No, no leaf coverage. So then this this here just gets all shrivelled up because of the heat. And we've never seen that before.

MG: Sukhpal Bal is a fourth generation of his family running hillside farms, they focus on cherries harvesting about 40 hectares. That's in a good year. I met Sukhpal in his orchard, very busy spot, high on a slope overlooking Kelowna Highway just below us. And up above us was a neighbour spraying his trees. How would you describe what this summer was like?

SUKHPAL BAL: Well, if we if we look at just before we got into the very hot temperatures, the cherry crop was actually looking like one of the best cherry crops we've ever seen. It was going to be record numbers. There was a a nice size crop as in volume, and there was some cautious excitement. Cherries are always risky to grow. So we're always aware that it's a susceptible fruit. But what we saw at the tail end of June, early July, the unprecedented heat, we just were in shock type of thing. We didn't know if we were going to be losing our entire crop or what was going to happen. But luckily, we were able to still harvest a good portion of our crop. However, it was it was different throughout the valley. Some some growers experienced heavier damage depending on where they were located. I would say this is our third actually a tough season in a row. Twenty nineteen was excessive rains during our harvest time. 2020, we experienced a big Arctic pressure, low pressure that came through in January of 2020, which kind of destroyed the good majority of the crop before even, you know, bloom. So there wasn't much blossom then this year we saw the you know, the trees bounce back after pretty much resting the year before with very little crop. And that's where we were a bit excited that, OK, we've got a nice crop. And then we were just hit again with extreme heat, which which wasn't on anybody's radar. We were all worried about possible rainstorms that may come during harvest because cherries do split and can be unmarketable if they if there's so much rain that the cherries can't absorb any more water, the skin tears open. So that's kind of what it comes down to, is we're seeing these extreme changes in weather, which are very difficult tofight against.

MG: How have you seen the climate change in the time that you have been farming? You mentioned the last three years. But I mean,what's different now than that? In years

SUKHPAL BAL: past? The main difference, I would say is, is the large extreme shifts. So if you if we look at the the cold that we experienced in January of 2020, you know, for five to six days, the low was around minus 22, 23, but then in the daytime it only got up to minus 18. And so it kind of just really stayed cold. And there was no relief for for the for the trees. And in a normal situation, we would get down to minus 20 the odd time. But then during the day it'd be maybe minus ten, minus eight. It would warm up. So there would be, you know, that little relief for the trees. But but when we saw that, you know, it was just constantly staying cold. And then again, with this, heatwave, what really shocked us was that it was in June the extreme heat. We haven't quite developed a strategy. And that's where I think we'll we will be in discussion, talking to some of the researchers and et cetera, to say, hey, we've now come across a new new problem. What are the solutions we can come up with?

MG: So if the temperatures continue to climb coming out of climate change, what does that look like for you?

SUKHPAL BAL: Yeah, there'd be definitely some some thought put into, is this the right crop to be in? Interestingly enough, peaches and nectarines did fine in the heat, which I was surprised to hear. I don't have much experience with with those two crops, but they're definitely not as lucrative as cherries. So so that's the balancing thing, is that what can I grow and what can I make a living from apples in this region? We grow some of the most beautiful apples in the world. But we've had some troubles with on the on the getting the prices and getting into the right markets and getting the right returns to the growers. So that has to really materialise that whatever your farming, there needs to be the returns in the market to make it sustainable. And with the situation in the Okanagan, it's a very attractive place for people to come to. So competing for the land base where you need to farm, we have some of the most expensive farmland in the world because of that competition. And so there's many challenges beyond Mother Nature that that are making it very difficult for farming to be a viable business. We will definitely have to be thinking outside the box and how do we vercome this challenge. But as you know, worldwide, there's all this discussion of, you know, something's happening and if we don't get a handle on it early enough, you know, is it too late? And that'skind of what's on people's mind, is has it gone too far? And I. Hope not, but we we definitely do need to pay more attention to it,

MG: so when you have three bad years, how long is that sustainable? I mean, do you worry about sustainability when it comes to your own farm?

SUKHPAL BAL: For sure. Yeah, it's my grandfather had this saying that in farming, you know, there's there's always next season. And then he would say, but I haven't seen that season yet. So we're just, we're kind of always optimistic. But but yeah, we have to also face the reality, you know, many, many of these growers, they've got the mortgages. They're borrowed money and they're trying to make a go of it. And this year, what people were looking to make up for the other couple of bad years, I know when we were down so much in crop last year, we really needed a good season. And we I would say we maybe just kind of scrape by type of thing. So, you know, it wasn't a total loss. But but things are things are getting very tough for sure.

MG: In addition to hot temperatures, one of the things that climate change affects is water supply. What would it mean for your farm if you were told that you had to reduce your water usage?

SUKHPAL BAL: We did go on a kind of a 10 percent reduction, which was manageable. But if, you know, we had a situation where, you have to go use half the water that we have allotted to you, then that gets into a bit of a scary situation. What a scary situation mean. Well, it means that, yeah, the trees will suffer so much that the fruit quality would go towards that none of the fruit on the tree would be viable. You're looking in the moulting, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to crops if they can't be irrigated because this irrigation is all brought from the hills.

MG: Has how you use water changed at all?

SUKHPAL BAL: For sure. We used to be a lot of the sprinklers that would put out a large amount of volume of water. And what we've shifted to more is drip irrigation or micro sprinklers. They just put out a small spray just in the tree's root so that they're not putting out those large volumes of water. But what we're also seeing is, you know, in the specific Black Mountain irrigation area, a lot of land that hasn't been farmed in the past, you know, was going into cherries or going into grapes. So when you add that, then that need for having that secure water, who gets to use it is also the big question that's going to be coming forward.

MG: How soon do you think that would happen? That there could be a more pronounced. Fight over who's going to have access to that water.

SUKHPAL BAL: I think it's happening kind of right now. There'll be a few news stories that will pop up here and there that, I believe somewhere in Kamloops, there's some works that need to be done for to supply water to a certain agriculture area. And the response from the governing body is that, well, you farmers that are on the system, you're going have to pay for it. And it's out of the scope of what those farmers can afford to do. So, yeah, that discussion is kind of already happening. And when you talk about when the heat comes and reductions and save water, well, there's only so much an orchard or farm can cut back on their water before you're hurting, you know, the plants and the trees. What we need to ask now is what are the municipalities and governments doing to avoid that from happening? There are various levels of government that have to sit down. And then also we want to look at the concerns of First Nations as well to make sure that perhaps they're looking for water in certain areas as well, that we can work together and achieve that goal. So there's lots of discussions that need to take place. But we we do need to sit down and start that now and come up with a plan knowing that people that are studying this more than myself are saying this could happen again and it could be worse. Right. So that really scares me. So I want to make sure that we were more prepared for the next time something like this happens.

MG: Is there a sense that governments understand the urgency of that? I mean, we're in an election climate changing. There's been these huge fires. The heat wave that you mentioned is your sense that the governments understand how urgent the situation is for for farmers like yourself?

SUKHPAL BAL: I'm not too sure, actually. You know, there's less people involved in agriculture where we're less of an overall voice, like we're not shifting changing elections and that type of thing. So, you know, that's the troubling part is I don't see why our provincial or even federal ag budgets, why they're just so tiny. We've got some of the best farmland in the world. And I think agriculture can be can be a huge economic driver if we put it put our thought behind it and some funds behind it and pay attention and make it a focus. I think it has huge potential. Sso that's where I think government could definitely pay more attention to it.

MG: For people who are on the other end of it, they consume your product. What's at stake, do you think, for them? I mean, when it when it comes to climate change, what should they be thinking about in terms of people often say that farmers are the canary in the coal mine when it comes to climate change. So what's what should they be thinking about and what's at stake for them?

SUKHPAL BAL: Well, they should start thinking about is that food can you may start to get very expensive and they might not get the selection that they're used to, you know, showing up to a grocery store and seeing full of all the various vegetables and fruits. You know, we've kind of been spoilt with very, very reasonable food prices for for a long, long time. And that's because, well, food can come in from other areas that it's very cheap to grow. But then when we run into some crop failures in various parts, then you start to notice, well, why isn't that in the store? And somebody may get upset at the person that's managing the produce department and they're going to say, well, we don't grow that in the back here behind these doors, that flap open type of thing where you seem to go back, that comes from there. And they didn't have a crop or it didn't happen. So so that's that's where where the public will, you know, start to pay attention is when it starts hitting them in the pocketbook.

MG: Good luck. Thank you.

SUKHPAL BAL: Thank you. Thanks.

MG: I really appreciate it. Superball is a cherry grower in Kelowna and president of the B.C. Cherry Association. You heard him there talking about water along with the heat in B.C. has come drought. Most parts of the Okanagan are still in a level four drought. That means adverse impacts are likely a stream in the south. Okanagan has reached level five, the highest level where adverse impacts are almost certain. And you don't have to look far to see the evidence.

SOUNDCLIP

CORINNE JACKSON: This is Okanogan Lake, or at least part of it, because it stretches from Vernon in the north and goes all the way down south to Penticton. And of course there are other lakes, of course, that are connected as well.

MG: So when you look at the lake, can you see the effects of the drought that this region is going through now?

CORINNE JACKSON: Well, you can see that the lake level is down. You can see that docks are not as that the water's not as high. The real concern is if we also have a multi-year drought. So if we have another situation where this does not fill over winter with like with the snowpack and then spring fresh out, if this does not reach full pool and we end up in another drought, it could cause some serious issues.

MG: Corinne Jackson is with the Okanagan Basin Water Board, and she took me to a nearby creek not far from the heart of Kelowna.

SOUNDCLIP

CORINNE JACKSON: So this is mission creep, lovely mission creep. It's a very popular area for folks to cycle on and walk along with their dogs, et cetera. And but this is actually a very significant creek in the Okanagan. It provides 25 percent of all water to Okanagan Lake. And it is a source of fish and has been for millennia for Okanagan Nation, for the people. But it's struggling this year.

MG: So this has been a very hot summer across this country, but certainly in the interior of B.C. What has it been like for you

CORINNE JACKSON: earlier this summer? It was it was really hot. It was. Yeah. I you know, I have a young family. We normally would have been spending time at the beach. And between the fires and the heat, we we stayed indoors. It wasn't much of a summer. We're actually all kind of many of us are just looking forward to fall. It was a bummer of a summer.

MG: Yeah. What does that mean in terms of water in this province? I mean, we have seen and in this part of the province in particular, stories coming out of the United States of record levels of droughts. What are you seeing here?

CORINNE JACKSON: So this year we had warmer than normal temperatures. We had the heat dome, of course, at the beginning of the summer, and we had record low precipitation. So between those two things, we ended up with problems with our water supply. One of the other things, though, and very important in the Okanagan is that it is a very it's a regulated system. We put in dams and different, you know, structures to address flooding for farmers and the growing population here and that sort of thing. And so it is it's highly regulated and it is managed to only Okanagan Lakes are only are managed to hold one and a half metres of water. That's what we have to play with in a year to ensure that we have enough for farms and that we have enough for for domestic use and for the fish coming back to our streams. And so because of flooding in the last few years, the water manager let water out of the lake in early spring, recognising that we had to be careful because we had the snowpack and we had potential our spring rains and the freshet. And we didn't want a repeat of flooding like we had in 2017 and even in 2018. So we let some of the water out and then the spring rains didn't come. And so we ended up where we were less than full pool. We did not hit full pool in our lake and the drought deepened. We didn't get the precipitation. We didn't we had the extreme heat. With the extreme heat, people were drawing water sooner than they normally would, the farmers, the residents, because all of a sudden it's hot out and they want to water our yards and need to water our farms. But without the precipitation, it really put us behind at the very beginning of the summer. And that has just continued. We've had very little precipitation this summer and and the drought is just continuing to worsen. And yet here we are in September now, and there's still farmers that need water for their apples and and other late harvest crops. And the fish are coming back to spawn and the water is is too warm and is too low. And so a that's a continuing problem. North Okanagan and [unintelligible], they've actually the province has stepped in because they having similar problems and have cut off water for farmers have said you can water your lives, you can have water for your livestock, you can use it for domestic use. But you now need to stop watering your crops because there is not enough for fish, for Chinook and and other salmon. It's a terrible hardship for the farmers, but it's devastating for the fish and for the local First Nations. And, you know, we're not far off here in the Okanagan. This it's really a warning to to us here. And, you know, at a time when there is more and more concern about food security, it's not just food security, it's people's livelihoods here in the Okanagan, those are potentially in trouble. We have a growing population. We're one of the fastest growing regions in Canada, and we're dealing with climate change. And we are. Canada's most water stressed region, we have less water available per person in the Okanagan than anywhere in Canada, and we use almost two times more than the average Canadian. And between population growth and climate change, that just can't continue.

MG: Do you think people's relationship with water and the way that they use water is going to change in future because of climate change?

CORINNE JACKSON: It has to change. It has to change. And we, you know, are working with water utilities. We have a campaign that we run every summer because summer use is our highest use. Outdoor watering on our landscapes is the second largest use of water. So watering like agricultural watering is number one, which makes sense. We're in an agricultural region, but the second largest use of all of our water is on our residential landscapes. And so we have been working with utilities and other partners, garden centres and trying to really encourage residents to think about what they are planting on their landscapes and being more water efficient, putting in more native material that is, you know, will do well in in our climate. And things need to change. And, you know, I do see people removing lawn in in our in my neighbourhood and elsewhere. I do see it happening. Is it happening fast enough is another question.

MG: What are you most worried about when it comes to climate change and how it's going to affect this part of the province?

CORINNE JACKSON: I worry for what we're leaving for. You know, we used to talk about future generations, but the future is here. I've got kids that are teenagers and and I wonder what it's going to be like for them. I feel sorry for all the work that's been done by First Nations in the area to bring back the salmon. We're going to see differences in terms of fruit crops, what can grow, where it can grow.

MG: Is there a point at which it's not sustainable here that that if the modelling continues and the climate continues to change and the temperature continues to increase, that that being here is not going to be an option for for some people?

CORINNE JACKSON: I mean, if we continue to have these crazy hot temperatures that like the heat dome that we had and we're seeing that on a repeated basis, then, yeah, it might be a situation where some people decide that they can't live here anymore. The thing is that we know there are solutions, there are solutions, and we just need to act on them more quickly. And at every level, you know, at the provincial level, there's got to be work done to look at how how that's managed. At the municipal level, we need to work on wetland restoration, for example, and that sort of thing. There's a lot of work to to be done. But we do have the solutions and there are a lot of people working on this. But we need buy in from everyone and we need everyone to recognise. And this this summer, I think is really time for us to sit up, take notice and and get moving on on what needs to be done.

MG: There is a climate emergency that's underway right now. What do you think the message to the rest of the country should be based on what's happening here in the Okanagan right now?

CORINNE JACKSON: We get folks coming from everywhere across Canada, from Ontario, have a lot of folks coming from Alberta to the Okanogan, and if you love what we have here, it is a national issue. And bigger than that, obviously, it's a global issue. We all have to be working. We all have to be rowing in the same direction and ensuring that we are doing what we can to kerb carbon emissions and restoring areas and protecting what we have and not exacerbating the problem that we already are seeing.

MG: Corinne Jackson is with the Okanogan Basin Water Board, she's in Kelowna, British Columbia. That is The Current for this Monday, Election Day. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's q, before we hand the controls over to Tom Power. Earlier in the programme, we heard the CBC's Duncan McCue with his series Back to the Land. He's exploring the importance of reconnecting with nature. And that idea of connecting with the earth is something the group Snotty Nose Rez Kids have been using in their creative process. We will leave you today with their song, The Water. It's all about our planet and what the planet has given us and what we've taken in return. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current and we'll see you tomorrow.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song]

Monday September 20, 2021 Full Transcript

Social Sharing

More from this episode