Where the parties stand on affordable childcare

Guests: Chrystia Freeland, Lindsay Mathyssen, Eric Duncan

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But we are assuring the safety of all those who have worked with the United States as far as their talents and skills, we do not want them to leave the country. Women are a key part of society. We are guaranteeing all the rights within the limits of Islam.

NORA YOUNG: That is the vision for Afghanistan's future in the eyes of the Taliban. At least it's what was presented to the world in press conferences this week. We'll take a look at what might actually be in store for a country back under the rule of fundamentalists. And later this morning,

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This is the first generation that's going to live last long on average than its parents did. A lot of that is due to diet.

NORA YOUNG: What was on your plate this morning? Fresh? Frozen? The Tim Hortons drive through finest? More importantly, where did that food come from? Food writer Mark Bittman told Matt Galloway all about the mealtime habits that are making us sick. We'll revisit their conversation a little later in the show. But we begin with the latest election debate.

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NY: Affordable childcare. Affordable child care now, doesn't that sound nice, almost like starting the show by saying chocolate cake, it's a siren song to some parents in the country who have wondered if it's worth sending a kid to care when it can cost an entire salary. But for decades in this country, the issue has been a political pinata. This election campaign is no different. Both the Liberals and the Democratic Party are promising a ten dollar day plan, while the conservatives say they'd offer parents refundable tax credits for child care expenses instead.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU: This is real change you can count on in real terms, it means cutting fees in half by the end of next year. Ten dollar a day child care in five years or less.

ERIN O'TOOLE: We're going to help them immediately. Our plan comes into effect when we're government, not five or six years from now. We're going to help all families immediately. And some of the lower income levels will actually get 75 percent of costs covered. And it will also fit the needs of people that are on shift or non-traditional hours.

NY: That was Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and conservative leader Erin O'Toole. For his part, NDP leader Jadmeet Singh has said, quote, If Justin Trudeau really intended to reduce child care costs, he'd have done it in the six years he's been prime minister. For more on where the parties stand on this, we've invited three candidates to join us this morning. Chrystia Freeland is the liberal candidate for University Rossdale in Toronto. Eric Duncan is the conservative candidate for Stormont, Dundas South Glengarry in the Ottawa region. And Lindsay Mathyssen is the NDP candidate for London Fanshaw. Good morning to you all.

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Good morning.

ERIC DUNCAN: Good morning.

LINDSAY MATHYSSEN: Good morning.

NY: So, Christine, let's start with you. Why did it take the liberals this long to bring in this plan to promised Tendler a day child care?

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: You know, I think the important thing, Nora, is we have a plan. There's 30 billion in the budget that I tabled in April. And amazingly, 47 percent of Canadian kids are already covered with deals we have done with the provinces and territories. So we are very, very close to getting it done. This is not chocolate cake, nor it. This is real. This is a nourishing meal for Canadian children and families. And we're nearly there.

NY: As you point out, in the last federal budget, the Liberals pledged 30 billion dollars over five years to cost share with the provinces on child care. And after that, they say they'll spend eight point three billion a year on a universal ten dollar a day child care programme. How can the government afford this right now?

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: How can we not afford it, Nora, you know, the terrific thing about early learning and child care is that this is an investment that actually pays for itself. And that is not an abstract assertion I'm making. That is, he lived experience of the province of Quebec. Study after study has shown the investments Quebec has made in early learning and child care have delivered an economic boost to the province that more than covers the investment. So it is this is a feminist policy. It is great for families, it's great for kids, it's great for mothers. But speaking as someone who has been finance minister, it is also a fantastic economic policy to boost Canada's economic growth.

NY: Eric Duncan, your party wants to offer tax credits to parents instead. Can you just very briefly explain your plan and why you think it's a better approach?

ERIC DUNCAN: Sure. Well, it's great to be on this morning, Nora. And so our plan is actually going to convert the child care expense deduction into a refundable tax credit is going to cover up to 75 percent of child care costs for especially and for lower income families. That's going to be a huge benefit. So, for example, right now, a family with an income of around thirty thousand dollars a year can only claim a maximum of twelve hundred dollars a year. Under our plan, they're going to receive 6000. So it's going to be an immediate boost to families not years away or perceptional or subject to plans. It can come into effect right away. You can make a real, tangible difference for those that need it the most. So, again, that's not just for families with incomes of 30000. That's just an example. But those that need it the most, we're going to have that plan. And the other part of what we're going to do as well, Nora, we said, is we're going to pay that deduction over the course of the year so families don't have to pay that cost of child care and then get the money back later. So we talk about this. And if I could just say as well, we're going to be in the analogy of chocolate cake. Your delivers, with all due respect, had been talked about baking a chocolate cake for 30 years. They would talk to you about child care since I was in child care myself. And so our plan, like we've said in these, is for the opening clip from Aaron O'Toole. Our plan is going to come into effect immediately this fall. It's going to be part of our recovery plan. It's going to get to parents right away, not years from now, like the Liberals plan is doing. And again, I would all due respect, say it's been 30 years. Our plan will be done this fall and enacted right away.

NY: Lindsay Mathyssen, the NDP plan sounds similar to to what the Liberals are offering. Can you explain what makes your platform different things now?

LINDSAY MATHYSSEN: Yes, we obviously are very happy to see a lot of these investments finally happen. And Eric is certainly right that it's taken far too long. And if the Liberal government had been serious about this, they would have done it in the six years previous. I can only imagine how much better off women families would have been if this system of child care had been in place before. But our system really focuses on the the not for profit sector. The liberals have never committed to that. They talk about national child care. But we are specifically ensuring that when you're putting public money into a system that that goes into those public spaces, we also want to immediately take back the and the not for profit child care centres that have been at risk of closure or have have closed because of covid and ensure that those spaces are there immediately because a lot of parents have lost that ability.

NY: What about the argument, though, that a universal system doesn't necessarily help people who work, shift work or who work unusual hours?

LINDSAY MATHYSSEN: Absolutely. That has to be taken into account. And that accessibility, that choice, those national standards, they have to be there. I've certainly heard that from a lot of parents. But when the conservatives talk about choice, those tax benefits have never provided a single space. They've never created that system that's needed overall. And when you're actually talking about choice, it's a universal system that covers that can cover everybody that provides a real choice.

NY: Eric Duncan, helping to pay for day-care fees is one thing, but there's also a shortage of regulated child care spaces. So how will your party address that issue?

ERIC DUNCAN: Well, absolutely. One of the things that I had done before being a member of parliament, running for re-election, was serving as a mayor. So we worked locally with provincial partners and federal partners have been involved for years as well about expanding child care spaces. So one of the things I think right now is that there are women that are not entering the workforce that would be interested in doing so because child care is not an affordable option for them. So, again, our plan would come into effect right away, make a tangible benefit, and I believe it'll be part of the economic recovery we need now, not a couple of years from now. So, absolutely, Nora, our plan does include part. With municipalities and provinces as well as we've been doing for years and others have been doing for years across the country about trying to increase child care spaces, I think part of the thing is, is encouraging by offering a very compassionate and smart child care plan like we've got, it would encourage more women to enter the workforce and be able to do so. That's going to increase demand increase. So I agree to provincial municipal partners. We'll work with them as well to make sure child care spaces are created. And to the point as well, the flexibility of it is the important part. And I think of whether you're in downtown Ottawa or Toronto or whether you're in a more rural community like mine, having that flexibility where parents have the choice, they have the ability to decide if it is shift work, if it's non-traditional work, they can go and work. And again, quality spaces can be a child care centre at a local public school through an addition that's built on. But it could also be a mother, a young mother down the road that can safely and offer an excellent quality. My nephew Kane benefited from not from a large child care centre directly. They are great, but there's a flexibility in the diversity of options as well. And I think our plan would encourage more spaces to be created as well. And of course, we're always, you know, and we've been very clear we're going to be good partners with the province and with municipalities to increase spaces as well. That's a natural part of it, of course, Kristie.

NY: Quebec has a low cost child care system, but waiting lists remain long. And it seems that often people who are more well connected and more economically advantaged managed to land those spots. Why do you think the outcome will be different in other provinces?

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Well, Quebec does have a great system, but they need to make it even better, and that's why I'm so pleased that we've done a deal with Quebec, whereas Quebec will receive a federal transfer of six billion dollars to build 37000 more spaces. And all of that will be up in a puff of smoke if we do not have the opportunity to move forward with something which isn't actually a plan we are executing on early learning and child care. And I just want to be really clear with Canadians, this is happening already. We have nearly half of the country covered. Nearly half of the country already is going to have a 50 percent reduction in child care spaces by the end of next year and ten dollars a day within five years. And I really just want to say to Canadians, you know, when it comes to this notion of tax credits, the lived experience is that just doesn't work. You need to actually build a system if you want to do this, if you want to allow parents, particularly mothers, to work, if you want to get the economic benefit. And that is what Quebec learnt when they were building their own system. And I would just say, you know, for Ontario parents, think about creating a universal full day. Jake, did the Ontario provincial government give parents a tax credit and say, you guys go figure it out? No, they created places for our kids. My son went around the block to the local public school and had great Jaquet. That's the kind of systemic approach we need to have to make early learning and child care a reality. And that's what we're actually doing. So I'm actually going to do this.

NY: So just to be clear, under your plan, will you be prioritising non-profit daycares? Absolutely. And where does that leave provinces that don't already have an expansive network of non-profit centres?

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: They're going to invest in it. And that has been a key in the agreements that we've done already. And that does not at all exclude the kind of home care that Eric was talking about. That's part of a diverse system as well, particularly appropriate, for example, in rural communities. So the child care agreements we've done are really detailed. They definitely lean very heavily into buildings and not for profit networks because that's what works best.

NY: Eric and Lindsay can get you to respond to that issue around profit and non-profit? Eric, perhaps you could start.

ERIC DUNCAN: Absolutely. I can see on that. Yeah, well, I mean, we support flexibility and options. Every community is going to know. And again, for me or for the conservatives to say in Ottawa knows best approach of this. I agree and not for profits are great. We have many and I think go back to my local community as well. For reference, we have a good mix of both. But I would think that would be natural to to encourage that. Of course, to me, I go back at the end of the day, I just go back to the flexibility for each community is going to know what options work between rural, suburban and urban partnering with schools, not for profit, that home care, whatever the options may be where we know we want to make sure there is better options for people faster. And the options are they are the community that people want and what they need to have. So, again, you have not only a part of the whole process is making sure that when there's more women entering the workforce, there's more children needing childcare, there's more spaces there as well. And I'll just say, I have to I want to pick up a little bit there, too, about how, Kristie, with all due respect to thing, it's happening now and then in the next sentence as well. Yeah. And ten dollars a day is happening in five years. That's not happening now. That's happening five years from now. That's years away from people seeing that. And I think if there is a young mum or dad listening to the programme wanting to think about childcare right now, they think it's happening now. I do not think many parents are thinking I'm only paying ten dollars a day right now for day-care. It's not happening. I'd like to take 30 years away.

NY: I just like to bring Lindsay in here to to talk a bit more about the non-profit issue.

LINDSAY MATHYSSEN: Yeah. So that not for profit aspect, of course, when you're putting public funds, huge amounts of public funds into that system, you have to ensure that it is an entirely universal, entirely accessible. And it doesn't mean that other options are not available for parents. If that's what they choose, it never has. It doesn't do it in the education system in general. It doesn't do it for it for other social programmes. But ultimately, you need to ensure that there's that accountability as well. And one of the things that we are also committing to is ensuring that legislation is brought forward so that these things are enacted into law, something that the liberals have been promising but haven't done. And unfortunately, now that we're a nation, we have to wait for that key legislation to come forward. In addition, what that public system, that not for profit system can ensure is that workers within the system are are valued, are paid fairly. We can ensure through legislation that national standards are provided. So, again, we talk about those workers. We talk about ratios of children to two care givers. We can talk about the differences for and provide the differences for First Nations and indigenous child care and what that means. And I introduced a bill just before in the spring at the end of the spring session that that was talking about all of those things that tying federal dollars in those transfer payments to those requirements, to those national standards, to the specifics enacted in law would do. But unfortunately, that bill has died now on the order paper because the liberals called an early election.

NY: I want to get back at something that came up a little bit earlier. In the past, day-care was framed as a social issue. But economists say investing in this area yields wider benefits by encouraging women's workforce participation. Here's Armine Yalnizyan economist and Atkinson fellow on the future of workers.

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When they work for, they pay more taxes for every hundred dollars Quebec has sunk into subsidised child care. They have received one hundred and eight dollars back in new personal income taxes.

NY: Eric Duncan. We know Canadian women's participation in the workforce has declined as a result of the pandemic. We hear the phrase she cession. Will offering tax credits to parents be enough to spur recovery?

ERIC DUNCAN: Absolutely, I believe that our plan is going to increase the number of women who choose to work outside the home and access child care. I think it's going to be real. And Nora, you're right about productivity. We lag behind our G20 counterparts. And, you know, one of the things that we see is that increasing women's labour participation rate in the workforce did increase our productivity by four percent in the medium term. Women are going to play a massive role in our economic recovery that we need. We have a very detailed plan, not just on childcare, but an overall Carnaby's recovery plan that addresses this. When I go back north of where again, I will say to people, this programme is not going to be years down the road, the waiting lists and how that works. This programme comes into effect right away. Families will get that benefit right away. And as I mentioned before, families don't have to pay the cost of child care and then get the money back later. We've talked about paying off the deduction over the course of the year. This is going to be the immediate impact in a conservative government this fall that families are going to feel they're going to get thousands and thousands of dollars back in their pocket to help them with their childcare expenses. It's going to be a tangible thing and ignore my argument is right now, as we're coming out of the pandemic and we're looking at economic recovery, I agree. We need more women in the workforce. We have there women from the labour participation rate. We need to increase. That is a key part of our economic recovery. And again, the liberal's plan is years down the road. Ten dollars a day. All these different programmes are years down the road. Our programme comes into effect this fall and that's going to help us play a role in our economic recovery coming out of the pandemic.

NY: Chrystia and Lindsay, what do you make of that? Chrystia, you first.

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Because, you know, I 100 percent agree that driving women's participation in the labour force and creating a system with well-paid early learning and childcare educators is a huge, huge driver of economic growth. But what the conservatives are offering will do none of that. For one thing, what the conservatives are proposing will not create a single additional child care space. So if you were out there looking for child care, this system of tax credits is not going to help you. For another thing, they are not putting enough money on the table. You know, Eric, at the beginning of this conversation, talked about how you could get up to 6000 dollars in a tax rebate. We'll talk to a family in Toronto that has a kid in day-care. People are paying as much as 2000 dollars a month. Six thousand dollars is not going to do the job. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives looked at our plan and they said it will save a family in Toronto by the end of next year, up to eleven thousand dollars. And it will save a family in Toronto in five years, 20000 dollars. So, you know, Eric is talking a good game and I really hope he sincerely believes having women participating in the workforce is a good thing. But the fact is, there's not enough money in this conservative plan. We'll have to see how the CBO scores their policy overall. But I suspect that we're going to find that they are taking money out of early learning and child care. Lindsay promised other things to other people.

NY: I just would like to get Lindsay. And last word to you. I've got 30 seconds left.

LINDSAY MATHYSSEN: Thank you. I sat on the Status of Women Committee and we studied the impacts of covid on on women. And of course, childcare was a huge part of that. Ninety nine percent of the witnesses, including our women who sat on that committee, didn't talk about a tax break. They talked about a child care system that they needed. And it's quite right to create those spaces. The conservative plan is just more of the same. And again, we come back to the fact that, no, it's not right away. But the long term solutions require long term thinking. And it's a shame that it's being dangled as a carrot instead of a government who who could have done this years and years ago. But this is the system that we're in now. And so we have to look to the future. We have to have those long term plans and we have to build through something better.

NY: OK, we'll have to leave it there. Thanks so much to all.

LINDSAY MATHYSSEN: Thank you.

NY: Lindsay Mathyssen is the NDP candidate for London Fanshaw. Chrystia Freeland is the Liberal candidate for University Rossdale in Toronto, and Eric Duncan is the conservative candidate for Stormont, Dundas South Glengarry in the Ottawa region. And for the record, the Green Party has yet to reveal its policy proposal for child care. But in the end of twenty nineteen federal election, the party promoted policies that would provide all Canadians affordable child care access. I'm Nora Young. You're listening to The Current. Back soon.

What to expect from the Taliban’s new regime, and how neighbouring powers might react

Guests: Madiha Afzal, Bessma Momani

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NY: Hello, I'm Nora Young and you're listening to The Current.

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NY: Still to come, according to food writer Mark Bittman, you can split your dinner plate into three categories animal, vegetable and junk. None of those categories are innocent when it comes to our health and the health of our planet. His conversation with Matt Galloway in 30 minutes. But first, sorting out the Taliban's plans for Afghanistan.

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NY: that's Afghan reporter Behesht Argand, a woman interviewing a male spokesperson for the Taliban earlier this week. 20 years ago, the last time the Taliban ruled the country, that interview would have been impossible. Women in Afghan society lived under strict Islamic law that kept them out of the public eye. Now the rules the Taliban will impose on the country going forward are still unclear. For the past two decades, women and girls have enjoyed freedoms, the country, new democracy and was part of the world stage. Now all of that rests on a knife's edge. Obaidullah Baheer is a lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. Hello.

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: Hey, thank you for having me.

NY: So what's happening on the streets of Kabul today?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: A life of masrani at a standstill with regards to individuals. Most of the people that were in the city were working either for the government or international government organisations. And since both of them have stalled or halted operations within the country, people mostly don't have a job to go to. But normal life is slowly resuming with people opening shop. A number of people on the roads isn't that large. People are still worried about what is to come. There were, I think, protests today as well in Kabul City with regards to not changing the national flag. And it would be quite testing times for the Taliban to see how much they're willing to tolerate conflicting opinions right now.

NY: You're in Kabul, what about elsewhere in the country? What are you hearing about that?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: Well, the difference is that the Taliban in Kabul seem to be much calmer and much more patient than what we've heard of them in the provinces. I would recommend that it's the closer eye of the international community here, or maybe the Taliban themselves had planned on sending fighters here that were a bit more tolerant. We are hearing about specific actions that contradict the general policies of the Taliban. So we'll have to see whether that is insubordination or that is a policy from the Taliban once they set up government here.

NY: Mm hmm. Were you surprised by how quickly the Taliban has taken over?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: I think we all were. When Kandahar fell, we all knew it was inevitable. We knew it was happening, but no one thought it would happen at the pace that it did. Even those who are planning to leave the country were still waiting on a clear picture with regards to when to do it. But then as the president fled the country, when the Taliban fighters were at the doors of Kabul, that meant that the armed forces lost all morale. They didn't have any leadership. So the security forces and the armed forces abandoned ship and they all went into hiding. The city for almost 12 hours was completely lawless. We had criminals looting houses, government infrastructure, stealing cars and weapons of common civilians. And that's what pushed the Taliban by the end of the day to announce that they would move their fighters into the city to fill the security vacuum that existed. But yet no one saw it coming. But this quick, it was just at lightning speed.

NY: Who's leading the Taliban right now? Do we know?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: The Taliban are being led by Business Insider, who we haven't seen so far, but we've heard more from Yaqoob, who is the son of Mullah Omar. There's also the faction of subjects in Haqqani who has been in charge of military operations. It is said that he is now in Kandahar, where the Taliban leadership are all convening. They have reached out to political opponents and other political elites within the country. And there are discussions under way with regards to the structure or the formation of a new government.

NY: What impact do government leaders fleeing have on the morale of Afghans and the possibility of more negotiations?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: Well, there are no negotiations and the negotiations would have happened had the Afghan government spent the past year trying to come up with a conclusive plan for peace and transition of power and the government till two days before the fall of Kabul. Had the president go on air and say that he was working on the integration of the armed forces and he was looking to resist, and these were the Afghans to believe anymore, it would have helped. It would have helped if there was a government here who had discussed the transition and the handover of power, but they said they saved their own skin. I was telling someone that we should declare this week as a week of disappointment and presidents because President Biden act completely aloof towards Afghanistan, blaming it on the Afghans. The situation they were in and then on the other end, we had a plan to go on air yesterday from the UAE telling Afghans that he had fled in a slipper, really giving us nothing to work with. In fact, the Afghan people have been abandoned and now it's up to whoever remains with regards to the political elites. And it was a plan basically everyone who opposed the Taliban have left. Now, the only elites that have remained are people who have worked with the Taliban before. And we'll have to see, which means that the vision of the coming world is going to be very much influenced by what the Taliban wants.

NY: What can you tell us anymore about how the Taliban is setting up a government?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: Well, a good thing and good change with regards to the Taliban is that they are not in a rush to declare a monopoly structure of government. They're reaching out to other political elites. They had a delegation yesterday in Kabul that met different political leaders. It means that conversation is under way. It's just that we still don't know what form that government is going to take, how much of it is it going to truly be inclusive? All of those are still in the air. And so people are just holding their breath. It's just that the Taliban have to rush through this because we saw protests in Jalalabad as well yesterday. And we are hoping that this doesn't spread to the whole country and this vacuum of power is filled as soon as possible, but in the right way as well.

NY: You've decided to stay in Kabul. Why is this important to you?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: I grew up in exile. I grew up far away from my land. And I remember five years ago or seven years ago visiting my country for the first time after my initial visit as a child. And I kissed the soil then and I knew that I wasn't going to leave my country outside of my postgraduate degree. I came back here. I came to serve my country, my people. And it's unfortunate the reality that we have right now. But that's life. You don't get to choose the cards you're dealt. You get to play them when they're given to you. And that's what fate has dealt us. And that means that some of us have to stay behind and use our voices to make sure that an echo chamber doesn't form in Afghanistan. We cannot let the Taliban just hear and say whatever their vision is and work with it, because then that would mean that whatever future the Afghanistan society sees is not going to be sustainable. For so far, in order to have this change be transformative, we have to sit down and we have to negotiate in the margins to make sure that the world that is created in this country is one that is a liveable for all sides.

NY: What would you like to see from Western governments like Canada right now?

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: I'm personally really impressed with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stance on Afghanistan. He did stand up and say that his doors were open. The Canadian government, the Canadian people have been very welcoming towards the Afghans. It's just that there has to be a direct engagement. I know Justin Trudeau said he would not recognise the Taliban led government, but time that they start engaging with the Taliban, they really, really need to handle the crisis right now at the airport. It's a human obligation.

NY: Obaidullah, thanks so much for your insights on this today. And please stay safe.

OBAIDULLAH BAHEER: Thank you for having me. Have a good day.

NY: Obaidullah Baheer is a lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. It's not just Afghans worried about the future. The rest of the world is looking on with concerns about human rights and beyond. I'm joined now by two guests. Madiha Afszal is a David M. Rubenstein, fellow for foreign policy and the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution based in Washington. And Bessma Momani is a professor of political science at the University of Waterloo. Hello to you both.

BESSMA MOMANI: Hello.

MADIHA AFZAL: Good morning.

NY: So, Madiha, can I start with you? How surprised were you by the speed at which the Taliban took control?

MADIHA AFZAL: I you know, I was frankly shocked by the speed. You know, we feel that this process would be a complicated one. We knew that the government, in order to hold on to power, would have to fight. The security forces would have to fight. But I think what was stunning was that in 11 days, essentially, it was a surrender from the Afghan security forces. And, you know, in retrospect, we can go back and explain away what has happened. And I'm happy to go into that. You know, they they lost their support. They lost the intelligence support that they were so used to with the U.S. they were demoralised. They didn't believe that the government, you know, the corrupt government of Ashraf Ghani was worth fighting for when there was a winning side on the other side. And so on the losing side, I think, you know, they the Afghan security forces thought that it might just be better to fold. But that is all in retrospect, going into this one could not have predicted that this was this would happen so, so quickly.

NY: Bessma, we're hearing of the Taliban not letting people through to the airport and the harassment of journalists. But at the same time, the Taliban has said that it won't carry out revenge killings and that they would, quote, respect women's rights within the framework of Sharia or Islamic law. So what do you make of that?

BESSMA MOMANI: Well, I don't think we can trust, nor should we the words of the Taliban. I mean, it's just a reality, frankly, the history of their terror activities and their entire ideology is so perverse. And frankly, the whole reference to Islamic law or Sharia, I mean, the issue here is that, frankly, it's their perverse interpretation of those laws. That's the issue. So stating that, you know, women's rights will be protected as long as it's within accordance of Islamic law doesn't mean much because the vast, vast majority of Muslims would not even recognise the so-called Islamic law that they pretend to propose. So I think it's really an issue of interpretation. And that's where, frankly, we need to measure all things the Taliban says, based on the facts on the ground. And so far, there are already plenty of reports of everything from door to door searches for those who, quote unquote, collaborated with the West. And we don't know if that means, you know, just the interpreters or employees. Is it civil societies, NGOs, journalists? I mean, you know, it could be a very, very wide net in terms of what's interpreted as, you know, collaborating with the West. We also heard of women being denied an education. So all of that, I think, does cause concern. And we should be very vigilant about this and not just let the Taliban say what they want at a press conference and take it as a given area.

NY: Madiha, Western governments have begun to announce that they won't recognise the Taliban if the West does decide to isolate Afghanistan. Where does that leave issues like the rights of women and girls or democracy as a whole?

MADIHA AFZAL: I think, you know, there has to be some so this is this is not an easy problem. I think there has to be some sort of engagement with Afghanistan in order to protect rights, women's rights. On the other hand, you know, it has to be a very conditional engagement. I think the West has certain levers at its disposal. It's sanctions versus aid, but these are limited. And the reality of the matter is that the Taliban, unfortunately, really has the upper hand right now. And it may be that the West has to engage with the government that it finds extremely distasteful in order to protect some semblance of rights. But I think there are also NGOs and on the ground organisations that could play a role here, because it will be hard for the West, frankly, to justify engaging with a government that engages that engages in sort of a blatant, just blatantly violating rights, as you know, many of us expect the Taliban to do. I think there are regional countries that may actually have more of a role here, but whether they're willing to hold the Taliban to account, it's something to be seen. You know, and I'm talking about China, Russia, Iran, maybe Pakistan.

NY: Yeah, well, let's talk about that, Bessma, the West's exit appears to give other powers like China and Russia an opportunity to develop relations with the Taliban. So let's start with Russia. What would motivate them to engage with the Taliban in Afghanistan as a whole?

BESSMA MOMANI: Well, generally, Russia's foreign policy posture has been to be a spoiler globally. I think there's a lot of gloating going on in Russia obviously today, partly because of the history. You know, certainly Russia's Vietnam back then it was the Soviet Union had always been Afghanistan. It was a very difficult country to fight and particularly against the mujahedeen, who were far more, I think, committed to seeing the end of back than the Marxist party. So I think there is I think a history there. Certainly, I don't see a lot of potential for Russia to have a warming of relations necessarily. They will have a presence. They've already said they're going to keep their embassy there. I think the real actor to watch is China. And China, there are certainly I don't think it's really about, you know, establishing a political presence for the sake of love loss for the for the Taliban. It's more about preserving borders. They do have a very small border with Afghanistan. You know, the Uighurs are an ethnic minority that are being oppressed by the Chinese government, and they fear that there might be help to the Uighurs coming through that border. They also want to stop the Uighurs perhaps escaping into Afghanistan. So there's a geostrategic, sort of goal here, far more so than a political one. Some suggest there might be an economic one. You know, China's building this belt and road initiative, a very elaborate infrastructure type project that connects China right through to Europe. You know, there might be some money and investment there, but I don't think that's the real goal, if you will. Afghanistan's not a rich country. It's certainly infrastructure poor, but it's not rich. And so there are plenty other, I think, more profitable types of investment globally for China to to search out. It's really there to keep their eyes and ears on the ground.

NY: What about Pakistan, Marea? Pakistan's always had a vested interest in Afghanistan. How are they watching all this unfold?

MADIHA AFZAL: Well, Pakistan's official stance leading up to this Taliban takeover was that it would not support the restoration of an Islamic emirate. You know, it had been saying that it had no favourites in Afghanistan. Of course, you know, many just saw that as an official line, given Pakistan's long relationship with the Taliban and its really troubled relationship and something that had really just sort of fallen through entirely in recent weeks with the Chinese government. So now, many in Pakistan have privately been including politicians cheering on the Taliban. But what Pakistanis don't realise is that the Pakistani Taliban, which has killed tens of thousands of Pakistanis, is really the ideological twin, if you will, of the Afghan Taliban. And the ascendance of the Afghan Taliban next door really means that this will have terrible security implications for Pakistan, including, you know, sort of an embodiment of jihadists that will attack Pakistan as well as just sort of giving them more logistical space. So so this is not a simple outcome for Pakistan. And there are elements in the Pakistani state that recognise that, but it's something that's escaping the wider majority of the population. I'll just also add a quick note on China. You know, China's China Pakistan economic corridor, which is sort of the flagship of its belt and road project, is based in Pakistan and China really worries about security interests there. And so it's in its security interest to sort of maintain a relationship with the Taliban so that it can preserve sort of stability in the region and really prevent attacks against Chinese targets, both sort of investment targets as well as Chinese workers in Pakistan.

NY: And what about Iran's interest in Afghanistan?

BESSMA MOMANI: I'll jump in. I mean, the Iranians are watching this very carefully. You know, it's not to their benefit to have the Taliban in power, partly because they're they're quite different interpretations of Islamic law. Certainly, I think also the the history of Iran, you know, they've they've had actually quite serious, you know, skirmishes with the Taliban in the past. So they're not necessarily happy. And they're watching this very carefully. But they have made an effort to try to reach out to the Taliban, in essence, to try and ensure that there's some sort of diplomatic relationship now. There's also, I think, the broader issue that Iran has always felt threatened by the reality that the Americans are on both sides of its border. Right? They exist both in Afghanistan and in Iraq. So they're very pleased, of course, that the Americans and the West have left now because they've always seen that occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan as really a threat to them in particular. In fact, they often see it through their own lens as making a presence, a Western presence to surround them. So they're very pleased, of course, that the Americans are gone. But I don't I wouldn't argue so far that they're happy to see the Taliban come in, but they're certainly, I think, making overtures to reach out to the Taliban today. Mm hmm.

NY: Madiha, how worried should we be about terror groups like al-Qaeda regaining a foothold in Afghanistan?

MADIHA AFZAL: I mean, I think the short answer to that is we probably should not be too worried in the short to maybe even the medium term. But but but but in the longer term, this is certainly a worry for us. And I think it has to do not just with the fact that they may have space, to sort of regroup in a Taliban controlled Afghanistan, but also sort of the ideological boost this gives all terrorist groups, all jihadist groups in the region. And this is not just al-Qaida. This goes beyond al-Qaida. You know, their claim there, they're sort of proclaiming the takeover by the Afghan Taliban as a victory for themselves. So so I think that is really important. I think to make, to reassure Western audiences, though, it's important to remember that counterterrorism is something that has really sort of improved over the last 20 years. It's something that obviously the U.S. has invested a great deal in perhaps since 9/11. And and so that should reassure the west of sort of the capability to deter attacks, but certainly the region or the region. This is going to be a very complicated time as well as a time which will, you know, in which security will deteriorate.

NY: Lots more to follow along here as we continue. I want to thank you both very much this morning.

BESSMA MOMANI: Thank you.

NY: Madiha Afzal is the David M. Rubenstein Fellow for Foreign Policy and the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. And Bessma Momani is a professor of political science at the University of Waterloo. Well, we'll end with Afghan Canadian singer and author Majda Jamal Zahraa and her song Afghan Girl. This is from her performance at the White House for International Women's Day in 2010.

SOUNDCLIP

Speaker 6: I came here from Kabul, Afghanistan, and I'm trying to do everything that I can for the women of Afghanistan. My father and I wrote the song for the acid victims of Kandahar City, a few young girls. We're trying to make their way home from school when they got attacked by acid. And I thought I had to do something for them.

[Song]

NY: A bit of Afghan girl. Coming up after your regional update:

SOUNDCLIP

If you want to address climate change, you have to address the food system. If you want to address labour issues, you have to address the food system. If you want to address racism, you have to address the food system. Food contributes to all of them and is important in all of them.

NY: The world's problems all filter through food. Mark Bittman will help you sort out the junk on your plate and what it means for the planet in 90 seconds. I'm Nora Young and you're listening to The Current.

Food writer Mark Bittman on building a more sustainable food system

Guest: Mark Bittman

NY: The Oxford economist and philosopher Max Roeser has an interesting way of summing up the state of the world. He says three things are true. At the same time, the world is much better, the world is awful and the world can be much better. And that, according to food writer Mark Bittman, also applies to the food we eat. Mark Bittman's latest book is A History of Global Agriculture. It puts the system for making and eating food under the microscope and deals with why, in fact, the world can do much better and why it's urgent that we do that. The book is called Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food from Sustainable to Suicidal.Matt Galloway spoke with Mark Bittman earlier this year.

MG: Mark Bittman, good morning.

MARK BITTMAN: Great to be here, Matt. Thanks for having me.

MG: How did the food we eat go from sustainable to suicidal?

MARK BITTMAN: Well, food was sustainable when there were fewer people and we were really living off the land. That was when we were foraging, when we discovered when our kind discovered agriculture, a kind of spiral effect occurred whereby agriculture made it possible to feed more people. But we then needed to have more people in order to meet our food needs. And so populations grew and agricultural land grew. So that was all sort of OK. But then land became unfairly distributed and agriculture became just another way to make money. And that after the industrial revolution, that was compounded and even further compounded in the 20th century. And then we're at this place where you are today, where probably a third of the world is really suffering nutritionally. A third of the world is really doing just fine. And another third is. Somewhere in the middle and we also have agricultural, sort, environmental and other problems resulting from agriculture that affect everyone, regardless of of their food situation.

MG: Which is the entire book which will unpack, of course, the conversation. But go back to the word suicidal. I mean, sustainable people understand how is the food we eat and the food culture that we have right now, suicidal.

MARK BITTMAN: You know, the sustainable part is kind of funny, too, because we don't want to sustain the current situation. We want to improve it. But it's suicidal in that agriculture is either the first or second largest contributor to climate change. So there is that. And then we have this public health crisis where, in the states at least, last year and this year, covid will have killed around 300,000 people. And chronic disease resulting pretty much from bad diet, will have killed something like 800,000 people. So the covid thing is going to get better. But the chronic diet thing, I mean, the chronic disease thing is not going to get better unless we do something about it. But it's hard to label something a crisis when it's, you know, they used to call high blood pressure the silent killer. And that's kind of how the standard American diet can be looked at. It doesn't kill people dramatically, but it makes people sick and they die quietly in hospitals, but they die prematurely. And this is the first generation that's going to live less long on average than its parents did, and again, a lot of that is due to diet.

MG: You look at agriculture through a very specific lens in this book. And I mean, you look at it like an extractive industry, like mining or fossil fuels. Why that approach to agriculture?

MARK BITTMAN: Well, it is an extractive industry. And I think the word industry is really important here. There's there's a terrific book called Every Farm A Factory that basically describes how how farms became factories and meet all the requirements, all the definitions of the of the word factory. And one thing factories are known for is mining and using what we used to call natural resources, finite resources. And not only does agriculture use fossil fuel, a variety of chemicals and so on, it is using up soil at an replenishable rate. It's using water at an on replenishable rate, and it's also destroying rainforests and much of whatever virgin land remains on this Earth. Anything that that can grow crops is currently being used for growing crops and then some. That's the definition of extractive. We're taking things out of the earth and and we're not replenishing them.

MG: When we think of it like that. I mean, you say that society chooses what kind of farmers to support and is always chosen, what sort of farmers to support, who gets left out in those decisions?

MARK BITTMAN: Well, farmers, for one thing, or would be farmers. It's important to recognize that what gets grown in our countries, at least in North America, is very much determined by policy. And we can only eat what's grown. So if it's determined that corn and soybeans, wheat and rice, secondarily corn and soybeans primarily are the best crops to grow from a marketing profit, big ag, big food perspective, then that's what we're going to eat. And the problem is that the foods made from those crops are not good for us. There's nothing wrong with corn and soy persay, but those are the fundamental building blocks of what are now formerly called ultra processed foods. I'd rather just call them junk foods. And those are the foods that are making us sick. And it's also the style of agriculture that's robbing the land of nutrients and polluting the atmosphere and contributing to climate change and and so on. So, you know, the one word answer to who gets left out is eaters, and that's everybody.

MG: When we take a look at the standardization of the American diet, you look at the role of corporations in helping to standardize what people ate, and that goes well beyond the United States. Give me an example of how that worked. I mean, one company or one corporate interest that changed in many ways, the diets of average people in the United States.

MARK BITTMAN: McDonald's is obviously the easiest, the easiest target here, although you could talk about John Deere and other equipment companies, you could talk about Dow and Monsanto and other chemical companies. You could talk about Challenger and Pioneer and other seed companies. But the fast food thing is the easiest because McDonald's was a great idea and it grew very quickly, but a lot of its growth was aided by, it was the right time for it. So shopping centres were subsidised by federal governments, highways, which obviously McDonald's began and continues as a largely drive through enterprise. Highways were subsidised by the federal government. Later on, the Small Business Administration helped McDonald's settle in inner cities, ostensibly to bring equal opportunity to African-Americans. And now it's subsidised by not only the subsidies for many of its ingredients, by the fact that it's able to hire people at incredibly low wages on a part time basis without benefits.

MG: And is that why you believe I mean, again, it's an easy target, but when you connect all of those dots that that it is the leading symbol of everything that's gone wrong with food.

MARK BITTMAN: They are an easy target and they're quite representative. But as I said, you could take on any of those companies I named before. You could take on Wal-Mart, which is North America's biggest grocer - if the word grocer is even appropriate for a store that size - and also benefits from part time employees who are underpaid but who get effectively free health care by going to emergency rooms and being unable to pay for their health care or get subsidised by food stamps. And those are direct. You know, one of the real ironies is that something like seven or eight percent of Wal-Mart's grocery income is in the form of food stamps. So it benefits two ways. It gets to underpay workers. And then those workers and people like them who are getting food stamps come to Wal-Mart to spend that essentially federal money.

MG: So what do you mean when you say that the system is broken, but it works perfectly for big food?

MARK BITTMAN: It works perfectly for the people who run it because it's profitable. So if you are if you are the people who determine what gets grown, if you are the people who determine how it gets grown, for the people who sell the seeds, sell the chemicals, do the distribution, do the processing, sell the food and so on, it's working great. It also works pretty well for, let's say, half of the people who are dependent on it. And for many of us, we're able to buy healthy food, the food we want. And it is undeniably incredibly convenient. It's perfectly convenient. But that doesn't reduce the harm that it's doing and it doesn't negate the fact that for the other half of the population good food is very hard to come by, and the food that those people are eating is damaging to their health as well as damaging to the general environment.

MG: How much choice do people have when it comes to the foods that they have? I mean, society has changed. There are households that have two working parents or single parents. People have become accustomed and used to convenience food. So how much choice do people have when it comes to the choices they make in the food they eat?

MARK BITTMAN: You know, it obviously varies from person to person. But if you're if you're busy and you don't have time to shop and you don't have time to cook and you're going to grab food on the run, you don't have a lot of choice. I think the single most interesting statistic that that came to light in my research on Animal Vegetable Junk is that 60 percent of the calories available, the available calories in retail food outlets today in North America are ultra processed foods. That's what's available. It's ultra processed food that is the majority of what's available. So it makes it hard to say, well, everybody has choice because the reality is if everybody wanted to eat a largely unprocessed plant forward diet starting tomorrow, there isn't, there aren't the calories available in that kind of diet for everyone to do that.

MG: Part of it is also about what people are sold. And you talk about the marketing of food, particularly towards kids. Are there examples of changing that marketing or, you know, defanging the marketing towards kids that have actually worked?

MARK BITTMAN: Well, there are there are many but three that I'll single out in the States. There was a partial ban on advertising junk food to kids, advertising junk food on television during cartoon hours, child children's programming hours that was kind of kneecapped by the Reagan administration. Things are moving in the right direction until the Reagan administration. The two particularly interesting things are happening right now. One is that Chile has the strictest and most strident food labelling laws and anti junk food marketing laws in the world right now. And we're waiting, frankly, to see what the results of those are. But I think they'll be encouraging. The second is that the U.K. just passed an advertising ban on junk food online and before nine o'clock at night on television, it hasn't been put into effect, but it has been passed. So there's reason to think it will be put into effect. Now, given, you know, the UK's kind of special relationship with both of our countries, I think that that's a really good sign. I think that we'll be keeping an eye on that and hopefully we'll learn something. And this is in the Borris Johnsen's government. So it's an interesting development.

MG: What about in the production of food? I mean, you talk about agroecology. What is that?

MARK BITTMAN: Well, agroecology is a mash up word of mouth that says let's do agriculture in tune with ecological principles. An ecological doesn't just mean environmentally sound. That means an understanding that humans are one family and that humans are very closely related to other, all other living species, especially animals. And agriculture, is academically described as a kind of five step plan to move from an industrial agricultural system to a system of regional control, of fairness, of food sovereignty, if you will. And in between, there are steps of reducing and then getting rid of chemical fertilisers and chemical pesticides, treating labourers more fairly, generating less carbon and promoting biodiversity and and Polli cropping, protecting the soil and so on.

MG: What did they do in Brazil and Belo Horizonte?

MARK BITTMAN: Well, what they did was they organised around a very strong workers movement that was demanding fair food for everybody, affordable, nutritious food for everybody. And that that did happen in Belo Horizonte, which is that I think the sixth largest city in Brazil. But it grew to a national movement, to the point where nationally there was land reform that gave more land to peasants, former peasants, than had been given away in the entire history of Brazil up until that point that that supported restaurants that were feeding people on a sliding scale. Hundreds of thousands of people a day that subsidised organic agriculture that was then being sold locally at farm stands and provided locally to food systems and more.

MG: And then it was reversed by the boss in our government.

MARK BITTMAN: Right, and it'll probably be reinstituted if it becomes president again.

MG: I just wonder, I mean, when that gets reversed, I mean, how what it tells you about how fickle something like this is, because people might say that you can have those ideas, but you need to there's big business. There's a lot of money in this that you have to reform something even larger than food. Like you have to reform capitalism to try and change a system.

MARK BITTMAN: Well, this is why food is is an interesting lens with which to look at society, because as we discussed many aspects of this in the last 15, 20 minutes, there are, there's almost nothing you can talk about that isn't food related, so if you want to address climate change, you have to address the food system. If you want to address labour issues, you have to address the food system. If you want to address racism, you have to address at least land reform and the food system. You want to address public health. That's a food system issue. It's not that only food is contributing to these things. It's that food contributes to all of them and is important in all of them. But at the end of the day, yes, the system needs reform. You know, there's a science fiction writer named Kim Stanley Robinson who says something like, we all know that in a thousand years we're not going to be living under capitalism. So why don't we start dismantling it tomorrow? That's an interesting approach. But, you know, again, it implies or it says we don't know exactly what the future holds. We just know that things need to be better than they are right now and we need to move in the direction of making them better.

MG: How is your own thinking on this changed over the years?

MARK BITTMAN: Well, you I mean, you and I go back a bit and and you know that I started writing recipes and I wrote for and I still do and I wrote for many, many years about the joys of food, the wonders of cooking, travel, restaurants. Fabulous ingredients and so on, but after doing that, and I'm a slow learner after doing that for 20 years or so, it just became clear to me that there was more to it. There's a back story and the back story is where does all this fabulous food come from? And when you look at. The other ends of this where it comes from and what it does, as opposed to what fun it is to eat it, you see a much bigger a much bigger story. And that was a sort of gradual realisation for me that that started 20 years ago or so, maybe a little longer, but five or six or seven years into that process, the links between overproduction and overconsumption of meat contribution, agriculture's contribution to climate change and the food system's contribution to public health all became pretty clear to me. And I started writing about that. And as happens when you start writing about something, you learn more about it. And if it's a good subject, you stay with it. And that's what I've done.

MG: Does that change your your enjoyment because you love food, I mean, you love and you still are creating recipes. You're still publishing things on your website, in the blog that will inspire people. Just thinking about all of the dots, change your enjoyment of what you're eating.

MARK BITTMAN: I mean, I've always had some guilt about being a relatively privileged person. But, you know, there's a human condition and a social condition and you can't exactly give up on trying to enjoy your life because you might feel bad about some of the things that. That make it enjoyable or you might feel about bad, about the way other people are forced to live their lives. There's a balancing act and I'm a neurotic. So it's a hard question. It's a whole other show to discuss my feelings about these things. But the short answer is, I do love to cook and I do love to eat. And that hasn't changed much.

MG: You live on a farm?

MARK BITTMAN: I do. My partner runs a non-profit that's on a farm and does organises regional agriculture in the Hudson Valley. So I'm really lucky in that regard. I get to live on a farm. I learn a lot from that. I get great ingredients that are grown within 100 yards of where I live and I don't have to do much work for that. So it's really great. Super.

MG: What have you learnt in that? I mean, again, knowing what you know.

MARK BITTMAN: Well, I've learnt a lot about animals. Not that I can raise them, but I sort of understand more about their patterns and what it takes to raise them in a in a loving and kind and and beneficial way. So there's that you know, I pick the brains of the vegetable farmers all the time, but really I'm still a terrible gardener. So I guess I haven't learnt all that much. I don't know. I've learnt that, you know, agriculture is really hard work. I guess I knew that. But now I see it on a daily basis. Here's the thing. Do I have have a minute? Yeah, let's assume that let's assume that agriculture is difficult and that we have to subsidise it. We being the federal government, our tax dollars, we have to subsidise it because it's just too hard for us to feed hundreds of millions of people or for hundreds of millions of people to be fed without some kind of government intervention. Right now, we have government intervention on the side of two things, primarily: making money, and that is the government intervention enables big food to make money and producing commodity crops without particularly caring about their impact. If we had as the goals of government intervention, sustaining the land, treating the land with respect and producing affordable, nutritious food for everybody and chose to subsidise those things, I know the word subsidy is a bad word now, but but this the right way to look at things. I think if we chose to subsidise a form of agriculture that protected the land and put eaters needs first. We could make that happen.

MG: Is your sense that we have enough time to do that? I mean, there's real urgency to this book and it feels like you were talking about how you've changed, but it feels like much of what you've done is built to this book.

MARK BITTMAN: Well, much of what I've done has built to this book. But, you know, I remember saying this to my kids when they were when they were young. Every generation believes they're witnessing the end of the world. That doesn't mean that we're wrong in believing that we're witnessing the end of the world. But everybody so far has been wrong. There have been terrible things. And the 20th century saw more mass death incidents than any other century before that. Are we going to see hundreds of millions of people die as a as a result of climate change as a result of of ineffective antibiotics, which is part of the part of the upshot of industrial agriculture as a result of any number of things? It's possible. Nothing is guaranteed. I think there's a sense of urgency. I don't I'm not in the camp that feels panicked.

MG: What's one thing, aside from reading the book that individuals can do, like tomorrow to try to create that better system that you've been talking about?

MARK BITTMAN: You know, I have to say two things, because one is that many people can change their diets. And that's an important step not only for their own health, but but for that of others. But but the second is to get involved. And that primarily means on a local level, to look at how your city or your municipality or your town, whatever, is procuring food, to look at how your children are being fed and school, what they're being taught in school. I mean, if I had to stop there, I could those. But it is that we need it's it's not just taking care of yourself. It's getting involved in the community, in politics, socially, because collectively collective action is the really the only way to fix this.

MG: Mark Bittman, it's great to talk to you, as always. Thank you very much.

MARK BITTMAN: As always, for me, too. Thanks, Mark.

NY: Matt Galloway spoke with Mark Bittman in May -- and in that conversation, Mark Bittman mentioned the death toll from COVID-19 in the United States was just over 300-thousand. It now stands at over 600 thousand. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. Simon Helberg's breakout role was in the hit sitcom Big Bang Theory. He will be joining guest-host Ali Hassan to talk about how he has now turned to his roots as a jazz pianist in the critically acclaimed rock opera Annette. And we just heard the conversation Matt Galloway had with food writer Mark Bittman. Mark isn't the only one who's spent a lot of time thinking about what we eat. The kings of nineties hip hop have, too. I'm going to leave you a Tribe Called Quest's Ham N Eggs. I'm Nora Young. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song]

The Current Transcript for August 19, 2021

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

Where the parties stand on affordable childcare

What to expect from the Taliban’s new regime, and how neighbouring powers might react

Food writer Mark Bittman on building a more sustainable food system

Thursday August 19, 2021 Full Transcript

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